Her distortions begin with her second paragraph, when she states that “Lindsay spends a good deal of time arguing against the idea that feminism as a movement has no significant internal disagreements.”  I expended about 200 words out of a 2,420 word text posing the question about whether there are significant divisions within feminism.  In other words, I spent 90% of the time talking about other topics.  The next time Watson asks me for a “good deal” of my drink, I will leave her an ice cube.

Second, she says she has never heard anyone take the position that there are currently no significant divisions within feminism, which I assume is fairly translated as no divisions worth debating.  Yet Watson is aware that just a short time ago, the organization Secular Woman rejected the Open Letter that was endorsed by most leaders of secular organizations, in part because it implied that there was a legitimate ongoing debate about the meaning of feminism.  The Secular Woman response to the Open Letter states, in pertinent part:

“It is confusing, therefore, that this same letter suggests that a significant problem with online communication is centered on the ‘debate’ about the ‘appropriate way to interpret feminism.’ At Secular Woman, the principle that ‘feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression’ (Hooks, 2000, p. viii) is taken as a given, and not a topic for debate.”

Next, Watson claims the “crux” of my talk was the problem I have with feminists using the concept of privilege as a justification for telling men to “shut up and listen.”  This claim is false.  No reasonable person could possibly describe the crux of my talk as dealing with this issue.  Instead, the crux of my talk dealt with the millennia-long history of the subordination of women and how CFI was committed to working toward a society in which women would have “complete social and civil equality and equal economic and political opportunity.”

But in her defense, perhaps Watson was too busy tweeting about how “strange” it was to have a “white man” open the conference to pay attention to what I was actually saying.  (I’m just glad Watson didn’t notify security: “white man loose on stage, white man loose on stage!”)

But let’s leave Watson’s distortions behind and move to the central issue presented by her criticism, and that is what model of communication we should adopt when we are conversing with someone who has had different life experiences, e.g., a conversation between a woman and a man.  As I stated quite clearly in my talk, we should listen respectively and attentively to someone with different life experiences, especially if that person is from a group that historically has had its voice suppressed.  However, although we should listen attentively, we should not fail to engage and, where appropriate, question. This is exactly what I said:

“By the way, with respect to the ‘Shut up and listen’ meme, I hope it’s clear that it’s the ‘shut up’ part that troubles me, not the ‘listen’ part. Listening is good. People do have different life experiences, and many women have had experiences and perspectives from which men can and should learn.  But having had certain experiences does not automatically turn one into an authority to whom others must defer. Listen, listen carefully, but where appropriate, question and engage.”

By contrast, the position against which I was arguing, as articulated by PZ Myers, is as follows:

“When a member of a marginalized group tells a member of a privileged group that their efforts, no matter how well-meaning, are wrong, there is one reasonable response: Shut up and listen. You might learn something.

There is also a terrible response: arguing back. It always makes it worse.

It’s not that they are infallible and we are totally stupid. It’s that THEY are the experts and the subject of the discussion.”

Myers-Watson assume you should never question, you should never argue back, because the person from the marginalized group must have the expertise.

I do not share that assumption, and I doubt its wisdom.  Indeed, I think it is a horribly misguided, logically infirm understanding of communication.   This model of communication asks us to put our critical thinking on hold merely because the person speaking comes from a marginalized group.

No extended argument or analysis of this issue is needed, and I do not think the choice could be starker.  Either you believe reason and evidence should ultimately guide our discussions, or you think they should be held hostage to identity politics. 

But that is not what people wanted to discuss; instead, a number of people took strong exception when I expressed concern during my talk that the concept of privilege sometimes was being invoked to tell people to “shut up and listen.”  Tweets during and after my talk complained I offered no specific examples. 

Two quick responses.  First, my talk was over its allotted time limit as it was, and my concern about the misuse of privilege was not the primary focus of my talk, as already indicated.

Second, there are examples you can find on the internet through a few minutes search.  For myself, when I drafted this portion of the talk, the two examples I had in mind were a presentation on privilege that was given at the Heads meeting in January and a statement by PZ Myers.  I am not going to identify the speakers at the Heads meeting, as the meetings are supposed to be confidential, but if you ask around, other people will confirm that there was a lengthy discussion of privilege, and within that discussion there were examples of how members of  “privileged” groups should be quiet and just listen to those in the non-privileged group when the latter were discussing their experiences. 

The Myers quote is below:

“When a member of a marginalized group tells a member of a privileged group that their efforts, no matter how well-meaning, are wrong, there is one reasonable response: Shut up and listen. You might learn something.
There is also a terrible response: arguing back. It always makes it worse.
It’s not that they are infallible and we are totally stupid. It’s that THEY are the experts and the subject of the discussion.”

It can be found here.

Other examples of the “shut up and listen” trope are here and here. 

By the way, I am well aware that our communications director in his personal capacity quoted Myers approvingly.  Obviously, I disagree with him on this point.  The fact of that disagreement does not affect our working relationship.  Paul is a great communications director.  Are there limits to what CFI employees can say?  Sure, but the restrictions are fairly loose.  At CFI, we do not follow the rule “shut up and listen.”  Generally, employees can express their opinions.  There is one requirement, however.  They need to supply reasons and evidence. Invoking their racial/sexual/ethnic/class identity, whatever it might be, is not considered a substitute for argument. 

Let me begin with a reading, a reading that should be familiar to many of you, it’s from 1st Timothy chapter 2:

“Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. 12: I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. 13: For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14: and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15: Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty”

If you take out the references to Adam and Eve and salvation, similar pronouncements could have been made, almost surely were made, across the globe, from one to two to three thousand years before Paul write those words. And similar pronouncements were common at least up through about 1800 in the Christian west, and analogous pronouncements are still being made today in much of the Islamic world.

The suppression of women, their treatment as inferior, subordinate beings has a long history, encompassing virtually all human cultures. When precisely did the subordination of women begin? We can’t know with any certainty; some anthropologists speculate it began with the development of agriculture, and that a similar hierarchy did not exist in hunter-gatherer culture. Whether that’s true or not, the fact remains that the subordination of women has been a critical and common feature of human civilization for thousands of years. By contrast the slow, and very much incomplete, process of achieving equality for women has been a phenomenon of just the last couple of centuries.

The reading I just completed from the New Testament reminds us of a second point, that is, the connection between religion and the subordination of women. It is obvious that religions doctrines have often provided the rationale for treating women as inferior beings, beings who should not be allowed to speak, which of course is one reason many secular organizations regard advocacy for women’s rights as an integral part of their mission.  In working for a secular society, we are also working for a society free of oppressive doctrines. But the relationship between religion and the subordination of women is not an uncomplicated, straightforward cause-effect relationship.  It’s not as though we could say with confidence if there had been no religion there would have been no subordination of women. Seems to me the roots of the suppression of women are much deeper, and that they have affected and may continue to affect the attitudes and conduct even of nonreligious individuals. I’ll return to these points later.

One thing you may have noticed already is that I did not give you a formal welcome to Women in Secularism 2. Of course you are welcome here. We’re very happy to have you with us, but this is something you know already, and, although I don’t want to appear ungracious, why take up time to state the obvious, because the reality is we have much work to do, and presumably you came here for substance not rhetoric.

The first Women in Secularism conference was a ground breaking event, but that’s just it. It broke ground, it helped lay a foundation, but it’s not clear yet what’s going to be erected on top of that foundation. That’s in part what we need to find out over the next few days and that’s one reason CFI decided it was important to have a second conference.

The first conference raised a number of questions in my mind, and if the vigorous online debate that has occurred over the last twelve months is any indication, in the minds of many others as well.

What is the relationship between feminism and secularism? What sort of priority should secular groups give to advocacy for women’s rights? As many of you may recall, shortly after the first Women in Secularism conference, there was a call by some individuals to launch the Atheism+ movement, that is, atheism plus activism on social justice issues. This was not necessarily a bad suggestion, other than the fact that humanist groups like CFI or the AHA think that’s what they’re doing already, that is, they’re combining atheism with activism on selected social justice issues. Because CFI was already involved in social justice issues, including women’s rights issues, I was frankly lukewarm toward the Atheism+ proposal. Also, based on the rhetoric of some of its proponents, and I underscore some not all, it seemed to me to have the potential to be divisive. In fact, according to at least one proponent it was intended to be divisive. Upon further reflection, I’ve become more sanguine about the proposal. To begin, although nomenclature is not irrelevant, it’s not supremely important; at the end of the day, you cannot force someone to call themselves a humanist, so if people prefer to call themselves an Atheist-plusser, or whatever the term is, that’s fine. Moreover, it’s not intrinsically divisive to have another group or organization within the secular movement, provided the group collaborates on key matters with other secular organizations. Goodness knows, we have plenty of groups as it is and we still have found a way to collaborate on many issues.

 Still, some questions remain, for example, how should secular organizations, including any organization that styles itself as an Atheist+ group, set their priorities? You can’t do everything at once. Only the religious believe in miracles, and think that time will stand still for them. For those of us who believe in the natural world, there are three limiting dimensions to public policy advocacy, namely time, space and money. So what should atheists or humanists who are interested in social justice focus on? Women’s issues only? Presumably not. But which other social justice issues are considered critical? And who decides what’s included within the scope of social justice anyway? What is the definition of social justice?  I read a blog post by Louise Pennington the other day; she stated that although patriarchy may predate capitalism, we cannot destroy patriarchy w/o destroying capitalism. Is the destruction of capitalism considered part of a social justice program? If so, that position certainly has very significant implications.

This leads me to another set of questions. What is feminism and what are the aims of the feminist movement? There’s a definition that I’m sure many of you are familiar with, a definition supplied by bell hooks,  and that is the feminist movement is a movement that seeks to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. In the abstract, that seems about right. But the problem with this definition is it just pushes our questions back further. What is sexism? What actions constitute sexist exploitation? I don’t think you’re going to find unanimity of opinion on the answers to those questions even within the feminist movement.

Or would you? I know that I’ve had some conversations in which the claim has been made there is no significant division among true feminists. There may be people who call themselves feminists who sharply disagree with the correct understanding of feminism, but they’re just fake feminists. Worse, some of them are sister-punishers.

Well, I’ll grant that merely calling yourself a feminist does not make you one. And it is true that some women seem to think that if you work outside the home that by itself makes you a feminist. Obviously not the case, But are there truly no significant divisions currently within the feminist movement? It would be surprising if that were the case b/c the feminist movement has had sharp divisions in the past. I just referenced a blog post from Louise Pennington in which she said capitalism had to be destroyed to eliminate patriarchy. Does everyone in this room who considers herself a feminist agree with Pennington?  If not, then you already have one very significant difference among feminists.

Also if there were no divisions among feminists, that would arguably make feminism unique among social movements; the secularist movement has significant divisions. For example, there are some secularists who think it’s a waste of effort to complain about/litigate so-called symbol cases. You know the type of case I’m talking about, there’s a cross somewhere on a piece of public property, so some of us think we need protest, maybe file a lawsuit to remove it. Others think not; why bother. People who take this position, assuming they believe strongly in a secular government and follow other secularist positions—are they not true secularists? I would think they are; I might disagree with them, but I don’t think I can mask that disagreement by the simple expedient of saying “you’re not a secularist, so I don’t have to talk to you.”
 
This brings me to the concept of privilege, a concept much in use these days. Let me emphasize at the outset that I think it’s a concept that has some validity and utility; it’s also a concept that can be misused, misused as a way to try to silence critics. In what way does it have validity? I think there is sufficient evidence to indicate that there are socially embedded advantages that men have over women, in a very general sense. These advantages manifest in various ways, such as the persistent pay gap between men and women. Also, I’m not a believer in a priori arguments, but I will say that given the thousands of years that women were subordinated to men, it would be absolutely amazing if in the space of several decades all the social advantages that men had were promptly and completely eradicated. Legislation can be very effective for securing rights, but changing deeply engrained patterns of behavior can take some time.
 
That said, I am concerned the concept of privilege may be misapplied in some instances. First, some people think it has dispositive explanatory power in all situations, so, if for example, in a particular situation there are fewer women than men in a given managerial position, and intentional discrimination is ruled out, well, then privilege must be at work. But that’s not true; there may be other explanations. The concept of privilege can do some explanatory work at a general level, but in particular, individualized situations, other factors may be more significant. To bring this point home let’s consider an example of another broad generalization which is unquestionably true, namely that people with college degrees earn more over their lifetime than those who have only high school diplomas. As I said, as a general matter, this is unquestionably true as statistics have shown this to be the case. Nonetheless in any particular case, when comparing two individuals, one with a high school degree and one with a college degree, the generalization may not hold.

But it’s the second misapplication of the concept of privilege that troubles me most. I’m talking about the situation where the concept of privilege is used to try to silence others, as a justification for saying, “shut up and listen.” Shut up, because you’re a man and you cannot possibly know what it’s like to experience x, y, and z, and anything you say is bound to be mistaken in some way, but, of course, you’re too blinded by your privilege even to realize that.

This approach doesn’t work.  It certainly doesn’t work for me. It’s the approach that the dogmatist who wants to silence critics has always taken because it beats having to engage someone in a reasoned argument. It’s the approach that’s been taken by many religions. It’s the approach taken by ideologies such as Marxism. You pull your dogma off the shelf, take out the relevant category or classification, fit it snugly over the person you want to categorize, dismiss, and silence and ... poof, you’re done. End of discussion. You’re a heretic spreading the lies of Satan, and anything you say is wrong. You’re a member of the bourgeoisie, defending your ownership of the means of production, and everything you say is just a lie to justify your power. You’re a man; you have nothing to contribute to a discussion of how to achieve equality for women.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think the concept of privilege is useful; in fact it is too useful to have it ossified and turned into a dogma.

By the way, with respect to the “Shut up and listen” meme, I hope it’s clear that it’s the “shut up” part that troubles me, not the “listen” part. Listening is good. People do have different life experiences, and many women have had experiences and perspectives from which men can and should learn. But having had certain experiences does not automatically turn one into an authority to whom others must defer. Listen, listen carefully, but where appropriate, question and engage.

I started my talk with that reading from the New Testament which unmistakably assigned women a subordinate role.  Both the symbol of that oppression and the vehicle for enforcing that oppression was silence.  Enforced silence is always and everywhere the enemy of truth and progress.  If someone is forbidden from speaking, you are obviously not going to hear what they have to say. 

But enforced silence is also a way of robbing someone of their humanity.  Part of what allows us to give meaning to our lives is the ability to exercise certain core freedoms, such as freedom of conscience, freedom of association, freedom of expression, and reproductive freedom.  We need these freedoms to take control of our own lives, to give shape and direction our own lives; otherwise, we are just going to be forced into a role that has been assigned to us.

And this is where we see a fundamental connection between advocacy for women’s rights and humanism.  Humanists are committed to the autonomy of the individual, the right of the individual to make decisions for herself, to decide which occupations, which relationships to pursue or forego.  Women will not be able to secure that autonomy until they achieve complete social and civil equality and equal economic and political opportunity, and that is why CFI is committed to working toward those objectives.  The notion that people are assigned, condemned to a certain predetermined role in life, whether by the church, the state, or society, is antithetical to the humanist point of view.  Freedom, real freedom, authentic freedom, that is what we want for everyone.  Of course, how to get there —  that is not yet determined.  But that is what we are here to figure out. 

I look forward to the conversation. 

It is therefore through that lens that I watched 42—the story of Jackie Robinson becoming the first to integrate major league baseball. On April 15, 1947, he took the field as no. 42 with the Brooklyn Dodgers (against the Philadelphia Phillies) and changed American history. So the film’s harrowing scenes of racial hatred did not come to me as re-creations of a different time, as they necessarily must for young viewers, but instead recalled my own later experiences in situations not so far removed.

I attribute much of the film’s success to the direction of Brian Helgeland who effectively mixed historical background material (such as scenes involving “white” and “colored” restrooms), marvelous baseball action, sidelights on Robinson’s personal life, various behind-the-scenes business considerations (including racist personnel), and much more, shaping it into an artistic whole—if even with a dollop of what some critics have labeled outright sentimentality. The result is a convincing American biography and a genuinely inspiring film.

Robinson, as one of civil rights’ noblest heroes, is brought to life with some skill by Chadwick Boseman. He is joined by other effective actors, notably Harrison Ford, who plays the Dodgers’ boss—a visionary and homespun American character named Branch Rickey. Rickey, too, is something of a hero, and at times, not surprisingly, manages to upstage Robinson.

At one point in 42, there is a brief vignette of Rickey idly holding a baseball with the thumb-and-two-fingered grip that bespeaks his own nostalgia for playing the game. It sets up for me a metaphor for the story: Rickey tosses the ball to Robinson, and Robinson knocks it out of the park.

Rating: Three and a half wooden nickels (out of four)

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.  

Women in Secularism 2 kicks off today! To judge by the tweets of attendees, there is an enthusiasm for this conference that I’ve not seen for an event at least since the Reason Rally. And not for nothin’, but the WiFi in the hotel lobby is great, and the hotel Starbucks employees are really nice, so things are already looking up. For live updates, images, and bad jokes, watch the Twitter hashtag #wiscfi (knowing that it will also have its share of detractors in the stream) and the official CFI Twitter account @center4inquiry...which is me!

Matthew Brown at Deseret News (who does a lot of great church-state coverage) looks at the “softening” of the White House faith-based initiative, as emphasis moves from money to the sharing of information and being generally helpful.

Lawrence Krauss joined CFI’s Office of Public Policy in sending a letter to Rep. Lamar Smith, chair of the House Science Committee, asking him to scrap his ill-advised proposal to hamper NSF funding:

These requirements represent a serious misunderstanding of the nature of scientific inquiry and discovery and, if approved, would not facilitate, but instead obstruct productive scientific research. 

Just posted, particularly for those who are conference-starved, but unable to get to WiS, we have the video of Brian Leiter from his talk at CFI’s “Why Tolerate Religion?” symposium last month. 

At Discovery News, Ben Radford on the phenomenon of folks witnessing people getting up from their graves, because:

. . . especially in Third World countries where modern medical treatment is rare, and confirming death may sometimes be little more than guesswork.  

And at Yahoo News, Ben looks at the claim that a British girl in India was killed for her organs. Fun stuff, Ben! 

Ideas Roadshow has video of a conversation with CSI fellow Jill Tarter on her work with SETI.  

WiS speaker Vyckie Garrison is in a BBC report on the Quiverfull phenomenon.

World Council of Churches expresses concern about the situation in Bangladesh:

It is very disheartening to hear about this development of communal hatred in Bangladesh, once known for its tolerance and now grappling with religious intolerance and politicization of religion. The systematic violation of human rights is most unfortunate and needs to end. As you know, the WCC is committed to supporting all persecuted minorities, irrespective of their religions, as the human rights and dignity of every person should be upheld. 

You won’t BELIEVE how this Bigfoot shooting in Pennsylvania turned out! Oh wait, yes you will.  

When Harry Potter gets to that ripe old age when thoughts of his mortality come into view, he may want to join the Order of the Good Death:

. . . a collective of death professionals, artists, and academics who promote real talk about death and dying. While its name has an occult quality, the Order’s mission is actually quite public: to encourage people to be “death positive,” or open to exploring their thoughts, feelings, and fears about mortality. 

New study confirms what we can see: Exposure to Christian concepts and images predisposes one to seeing things in black-or-white terms. According to Pacific Standard:

As the researchers write, this attitude no doubt gives people structure in their lives and contributes to their well-being. But it’s also a plausible route to prejudice and general close-mindedness. 

Skepto-atheists are kickstarting all over! Aubrey Adrianson is looking for funders for her next book, A Secular Parent’s Guide to Teaching Religion.

Okay, so we have a new social media intern for Point of Inquiry, and he’s doing a bang-up job. Check out his handy work in the latest “weekly wrap-up” at the POI blog. 

Ed Buckner finds Bibles in a Georgia state park cabin, and the governor gets them sent back. Huh.  

Georgia atheist activist Mike Smith will run for mayor of LaGrange after a not-so-successful run for the state House. Keep at it, Mike, say I. This is how we do it, one election at a time. 

Anti-Shariah law in Oklahoma gets fuzzier to not accidentally trample on Christianity or business.  

According to the Saudi religious police, if a man uses Twitter or other social network, he “has lost this world and his afterlife.” 

At Vice, Adnan Khan posits that atheist prime minister of Australia Julia Gillard still opposes gay marriage because of straight-up electoral math. 

A new organization looks to do for a broad range of folks what the Clergy Project does for clergy: The Apostasy Project. 

Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph settles a lawsuit over its employment of Rev. Shawn Ratigan, who took pornographic photos of a 2-year-old.

“I look back on it now and think, ‘How could I have been so stupid?” says the beleaguered victim of a fraud psychic, bilked of over $73,000.

In honor of Women in Secularism, I present the reason many of us are here today, in an attitude voiced by the not-really-all-that-relevant Pat Robertson:

Here’s the secret. Stop talking (about) the cheating. He cheated on you, well, he’s a man. . . . What you want to do is make a home so wonderful that he doesn’t want to wander. 

Quote of the Day 

William MacAskill at Quartz calls Homeopaths Without Borders “one of the worst charities in the world”:

Besides minor ailments, HWB also treats malaria, typhoid, cholera, dengue fever, advanced diabetes, and educates about the “beneficial effects” of these treatments. Laugh or cry? I can’t decide. There’s something really wrong with a company that deludes the barely educated global poor with the false hope of a malaria treatment–when they could have been seeking assistance that might actually save their life. It’s even more wrong that it can get the tax exemption status known as 501(c)3 in the US. 

Linking to a story or webpage does not imply endorsement by Paul or CFI. Not every use of quotation marks is ironic or sarcastic, but it often is. 

Follow CFI on Twitter: @center4inquiry 

Got a tip for the Heresy? Send it to press(at)centerforinquiry.net! 

The Morning Heresy: “I actually read it.” - Hemant Mehta

With yet another study released this week confirming the vast acceptance of human-caused climate change by the scientific community, it’s important to remember that acknowledgement is only the beginning. More important is the means by which to convince governments and their citizens to take the steps necessary to combat climate change. With that in mind…

On this week’s episode, Chris Mooney interviewed energy expert Michael Levi, author of a new book that is looking to strike the middle ground in the ongoing climate wars, The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity and the Battle for America’s Future.

Levi is currently the David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment and Director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change for the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank focused on generating discussions and solutions for international issues across the globe. Here are some highlights from the interview.

 —- 

Levi on what it means to be an energy moderate:

“...I talk about a most-of-the-above strategy. You want a broad portfolio. You want options. You want to be able to produce more oil when oil is expensive. You want natural gas to be able to push aside coal, strengthen the economy, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. You want zero-carbon technologies, whether that’s renewable energies or nuclear power or carbon capture and sequestration, to give you ways to decarbonize the power sector. And you want tools that you can use to transform our cars and trucks so that we use less oil. Now that’s not everything, and while we broaden our set of options, we also need to make sure we get rid of the really bad ones.”

On what we should be worried about when it comes to fracking:

“The biggest environmental issue in some ways around fracking though is how it transforms communities and towns. It’s tough to sit in a town around natural gas development without seeing a time of day where massive numbers of trucks are coming though, when there is an influx of people really shaking things up. Good for some people, some people getting jobs, tough for other folks. And it’s all pervasive. And you need to manage that impact.”

And lastly, on what to avoid about being too moderate on energy:

“And as I see it, the biggest risk here is actually political. Is that we get complacent. That we tell ourselves that climate change is too hard, we can’t pass legislation. Natural gas will save us. Let’s focus on something else with our lives. It turns out if you do that, if you don’t put the policies in place, you are not going to get close to a zero-carbon energy system.”

—- 

And now for our comment of the week, this one coming right from our Facebook page, courtesy of Pam Maples. Pam takes issue with some of Levi’s conclusions:

“He dismisses the grouting of fracking wells as if they are easy to make last for ever; because that is how long the cement grout has to last. The oil drilling industry itself admits that 6 to 7 percent of oil wells grout fails the day the well is completed and the failure rate goes up steadily with age. He also doesn’t know about or doesn’t understand that old oil wells and other wells drilled in the 1800’s and early 1900’s are also culprits for allowing methane to migrate up into groundwater. About the pipeline, he completely did not address the obscene environmental destruction and contamination of rivers and lakes that results from mining the tar sands. Not only does this wanton destruction of the arboreal forest result in the addition of carbon into the atmosphere when the trees are cut down it also removes great vast sections of trees that used carbon from the atmosphere.”

Far be it for our fans to leave any stone unturned.

If you’d like to put in your own two cents, you can always do so both on our Facebook and the POI site itself. And don’t forget that with every weekly wrap up, there’s a chance your feedback might get featured so feel free to chip in your own thoughts on the latest episode.

As always you can check out Levi’s full interview, as well as buy his new book, through Point of Inquiry.

Keep in touch with us here at POI through our Facebook and Twitter and with our co-host Chris Mooney though his Mother Jones column and Twitter.

Thanks for tuning in.

Photo credit: CFR.org

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.  

Must-read: Ken Chitwood at the Houston Chronicle reports on the state of women’s equality in the skepto-atheosphere, providing background for the Women in Secularism conference (starting tomorrow!), and talking to CFI’s Melody Hensley. 

(Speaking of the conference, yes, there will still be a Morning Heresy tomorrow, hopefully going up around its usual time.) 

Amanda Marcotte, one of the WiS speakers, relates a heartening geek culture anecdote to the situation within skepto-atheism.

Two-thirds of Canadians are Christian in some way, but that about a quarter are “nones.” 

Psychiatrist diagnoses a young girl with a spiritual malady, becomes her “spiritual mentor,” loses his license. 

Charges against Kiera Wilmot, the high school student who did an explosive science experiment, have been dropped.

John Quiggen runs the numbers on how much we’d have to pony up for a space colony to one of the recently-discovered Earth-like planets, and estimates:

. . . a cost of around $100 trillion per light-second for 10,000 people. 1200 light-years is around 30 billion light-seconds, so the total cost comes out roughly equal to the value of current world GDP accumulated over the life of the universe. 

Apparently atheists can’t lose in the Massachusetts special election for U.S. Senate, as both candidates get an “A” from the SCA. I am skeptical, guys.

New Kickstarter project looks to fund the making of a documentary about pastor-turned-atheist Jerry DeWitt, called The Outcast of Beauregard Parish. 

YOU get a Forkosch! And YOU get a Forkosch! And that’s it. Susan Jacoby and the team behind the Free Inquiry expose on religious tax exemptions will be presented the Forkosch Award at the CFI Summit in October.

High school student Katelyn Campbell makes noise about being forced to be proselytized to in public school, and gets her speaking slot pulled at graduation.

Embryonic stem cells are being cloned. I’m sure this will satisfy everyone. 

After a North Carolina local school board refuses to give up prayer at meetings, member Leonard Pryor resigns in protest, and then the board reverses itself. 

Reuters described “apartheid tactics” separating Myanmar’s minority Muslims from Buddhists. 

NYT on how rough Christians have it in post-revolution Egypt:

. . . Mr. Mubarak made a point of protecting minority groups to nurture loyal constituencies and patronage systems that he could leverage against his Islamist rivals. Though secular tension sometimes turned violent during his 30 years in power, it was generally contained by the state security apparatus. Since the election a year ago of a government dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, however, attacks on Copts and their institutions have multiplied. 

Leaders of Christian groups that don’t agree on anything besides the idea that Jesus was way cool get together in DC to consider a “national day of civil discourse.” Hmm. 

Mayoral candidate “endorsed by Jesus Christ” comes in last place. THANKS, JESUS. 

Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Scotland, who resigned for unspecified sexual no-no’s, reportedly with other priests, will leave the country to engage in “prayer, penance and spiritual renewal.”  

France worries over the ingredients of jihad fermenting in its jails. 

The Economist on the Web as a kind of oasis of the mind for Muslim kids:

. . . the web seems to offer an escape of a healthier kind. As a counterpoint to a real-world existence where they are obliged to think, pray and behave by hard-and-fast rules, the net can bring them into a modern or post-modern realm where many different ideas and cultural styles can be questioned, discussed, discarded or combined. 

Nature profiles the great work of the NCSE. 

At Skeptical Inquirer, Terrence Hines reviews Medusa’s Gaze and Vampire’s Bite: The Science of Monsters. 

Oh, who cares about the humanities anymore? Olivia James at the CFI On Campus Blog, that’s who.  

Also at the Campus blog, Seth Kurtenbach takes on Penn Jillette with “belief, add truth, justification, and some special sauce.” 

Aliens also seem to find Canadians pleasant, as UFO sightings are way up.  

Quote of the Day 

Moroccan atheist in hiding, Imad Iddine Habib:

Dear friends, we have a long way to go to break down those Middle Aged myths and ways of thinking, those oppressive and repressive rites in the name of religion or culture, those violations of human rights in the name of cultural relativism… We have to fight for this long awaited world, where people will live equally regardless of their gender, religious beliefs, or sexual orientations, where we will live in harmony with our environment, a world where wars and un-civilisation will only exist in history books.

Linking to a story or webpage does not imply endorsement by Paul or CFI. Not every use of quotation marks is ironic or sarcastic, but it often is. 

Follow CFI on Twitter: @center4inquiry 

Got a tip for the Heresy? Send it to press(at)centerforinquiry.net! 

The Morning Heresy: “I actually read it.” - Hemant Mehta

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.  

Persecuted Bangladeshi atheist bloggers Subrata Adhikari Shuvo and Russel Parvez are released on bail.

From our Office of Public Policy, we’re on board with 70 other groups pushing to keep abortion restrictions out of the congressional appropriations process.

A lot of Point of Inquiry action:

• A brand new episode with environmental writer and fracking non-hater Michael Levi is up 
• The POI blog looks at some highlights from the Jared Diamond video episode
• Indre and Chris will be podcasting in front of a live audience at the upcoming CFI Summit

Women in Secularism 2 is, like, just about here! I feel like I just got back from the last one! Secular Woman announces grant recipients for the conference.

Mayoral candidate in North Miami claims an endorsement from Jesus Christ. You’d think you wouldn’t waste news like that on a mailer, but you’d have a big press event with JC himself and the old arm-rasing hand-holding thing. Anyway, let’s say that I’ve just been endorsed by Optimus Prime.

This August, get your hands dirty with some real-world skepticism at The Skeptic’s Toolbox. 

Lutheran pastor Dan Delzell tells it like it is in the Christian Post:

Your response to the Christian Gospel will reveal whether you are listening to Jesus, or to Satan. There is no getting around it. Whether you take a public position on the matter or not, you are in one camp or the other. That is because there are only two camps to which souls can belong.

Oh, and also, “Satan hates everybody.” FYI.  

Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., Sherry Rehman, charged with blasphemy, resigns. 

Jakarta Globe covers the U.S. State Department’s criticism of Indonesia’s human rights record, specifically citing its blasphemy laws. Meanwhile, police in Indonesia kill a man suspected of being an Islamic militant attempting a bomb attack.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan (yes that’s his name) declares a state of emergency as Islamist “insurgents and terrorists” cause widespread violence and death. 

Our own John Shook will teach the CFI Institute online course “Secularism and Atheology: The Agendas” starting June 1. 

Islamic group in Sudan criticizes the government for not doing enough to curb atheism and apostasy. 

Following Islamist riots in Bangladesh, anger is boiling anew among the populace over “blasphemous” desecration of Qurans, collateral damage in the violence. 

Ben Radford at Discovery News looks at the truth behind the panic of children and “stranger danger”:

In fact, children are in far more danger of being abused, kidnapped or killed by their parents than any stranger on the street. 

Orac rages against the quacks dissing Angelina Jolie. 

Zachary Heiden of the Maine ACLU tells the Bangor Daily News why prayer in school is different than prayer in the statehouse:

Nobody has to be in the Legislature. No one is forced to be in the Legislature the same way they are forced to be in school. The courts have said it’s OK for there to be prayer in the Legislature or other government meetings as long as the prayer is not overtly sectarian. 

HuffPost Live does a panel on whether religion makes you healthier. (It has a clever title: “The God Placebo”)

Humanist weddings in the UK will of course lead to Jedi weddings. 

Even Shape magazine is getting skeptical of Dr. Oz. 

Quote of the Day 

RNS’s Lauren Markoe interviews Candida Moss, author of The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented A Story of Martyrdom:

When people talk about being persecuted in modern America, I think it’s dangerous. I’m talking about everyone from Rick Santorum to Mitt Romney to Catholic bishops, and Bill O’Reilly talking about a war on Easter. The problem with this is that it destroys dialogue. Persecutors don’t have legitimate complaints so you can’t really have productive discussions. But you can disagree with someone sharply on the basis of your religious beliefs without accusing them of persecution. When you say they’re persecuting you, you’re basically accusing them of acting with Satan. 

Linking to a story or webpage does not imply endorsement by Paul or CFI. Not every use of quotation marks is ironic or sarcastic, but it often is. 

Follow CFI on Twitter: @center4inquiry 

Got a tip for the Heresy? Send it to press(at)centerforinquiry.net! 

The Morning Heresy: “I actually read it.” - Hemant Mehta

The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.  

Minnesota will soon be the 12th state to allow gay marriage. 

CSICOP.org starts a new column by Kyle Hill on what the real-world implications would be if some paranormal claims were true. To kick off: Magnet people—how do they work? 

Guys! It’s cool. The Catholic League says there is no sex abuse crisis. Whew! 

Also: Stop worrying, Texas, it’s now totally legal to say “Merry Christmas.” Double-whew! 

James Dobson emerges from his crypt to declare the coming death of feminism, so he can hold the door for women again or something.

Construction company extracting rock for a road “accidentally” destroys a Mayan pyramid. 

Shelley Segal did a little gig for the folks in Amherst, and we have video of her live performance of “Saved.”  

Author Jeff Sharlet went on a tweetathon yesterday attacking the concept of “dialogue” as a panacea to deep rifts:

[A] Fetish for “dialogue” assumes those you disagree w/ lack only your insight; assumes they want to “compromise.” . . . Well-intentioned liberals always ask how we can “educate” haters. Elite haters don’t need “education”; they need to be challenged.

Rep. Steve King of Iowa totally nails Obama for being nice and calling up Jason Collins after he came out as gay: Why not call Tim Tebow, huh? Why “Mister President”?!?! 

Filmmaker Vikram Gandhi aims t make a documentary about the pull of gurus, and decides the best way to do that is to pretend to be one himself. 

Real Time had a neat debate, clipped by Andrew Sullivan, on fundamentalism, imperfect revolutions, and radical Islam.  

I had never heard of “Slender Man” until last year’s CSICon, and now I wish I hadn’t because it creeps me out. 

Swaziland takes steps to control the problem of witches flying too high on broomsticks with some sensible regulation. 

Daniel Loxton on what he believes the skeptic movement does best:

When skepticism serves up opinion, it is just more noisy punditry. When skepticism can be counted on to deliver the demonstrable facts, it becomes, like Consumer Reports [or like Snopes.com], a useful public service. 

Jonathan Merritt at RNS looks at the rise and “cult-like” stature of pastor Mark Driscoll. 

Ali A. Rizvi explains how he can consider himself an “atheist Muslim” in a world in which “everyone cherrypicks”: 

For me, the answer is that Islam is a religion, but the experience of being Muslim, practicing or not, is much more nuanced and complex. 

A majority of Americans still think there was a deeper conspiracy behind the JFK assassination, but fewer than used to. 

I know you’ve seen this already, but here’s that deeply moving music video from astronaut Chris Hadfield. 

SciAm: Our little rituals before job interviews, or after someone dies, actualy have beneficial effects. 

Brainy website Big Think launches a “mentoring” video series with familiar figures to skepto-atheists like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Julia Galef. 

Tennessee public school may have opened a can of worms by allowing the Gideons to give out Bibles. 

In Saudi Arabia, help someone convert from Islam, go directly to jail. 

Thanks to Americans United, a public school in Maine will no longer be blessing boats. 

Louisiana may repeal a 1981 law (struck down by the Supreme Court but still on the books) giving equal treatment to creationism in schools. Wait, what? 

Our own Joe Nickell meets pioneering Bigfoot legend-spinner Bob Gimlin, who offers Joe three little words on a signed photo.

Joe also rounds up 10 faked miracles from history for HuffPo. 

There’s video of Rep. Jerrold Nadler’s address at the SCA lobby day, and he’d like “religious chauvinists” to “leave us Jews out.” 

Are folks prepping for Doomsday, or just spending money on a swanky bunker? Amanda Shapiro at The New Inquiry explores:

[N]ot all survivalists are interested in roughing it now or in the post-apocalyptic world. For those with means, survivalism can look a lot like planning for a very comfortable retirement.  

The Southern Hemisphere is gaining more Catholics, and there’s been a huge uptick in deacons.  

“Erasmus” column at The Economist looks at the secularity (and non-secularity) of nations’ constitutions. 

Bigfoot researcher donates a big, honking sasquatch statue to a middle school classroom. Erm, thanks? 

Many Muslims in Virginia are “furious” that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was buried in a local Islamic cemetery.

Man do we get some weird mail at CFI. 

Quote of the Day 

HuffPo’s Paul Raushenbush has an interesting take on why Ten Commandments displays in public schools are a bad idea for the religious:

Every religious person should object to having the Ten Commandments in schools because you are allowing other people—people over whom you have no control—the responsibility of interpreting said commandments. If you take the Ten Commandments seriously, you certainly don’t want someone who doesn’t share your beliefs explaining to the classroom what they mean. 

Linking to a story or webpage does not imply endorsement by Paul or CFI. Not every use of quotation marks is ironic or sarcastic, but it often is. 

Follow CFI on Twitter: @center4inquiry 

Got a tip for the Heresy? Send it to press(at)centerforinquiry.net! 

The Morning Heresy: “I actually read it.” - Hemant Mehta

On last week’s very special Point of Inquiry, co-hosts Chris Mooney and Indre Viskontas teamed up to interview Pulitzer prize-winning author and UCLA professor of geography Jared Diamond. Dr. Diamond is perhaps best known for his 1997 popular science book, ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’, an expansive look at the influence of environment and technology in shaping the rise of civilizations.

Now with the release of his new work, ‘The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?’, Diamond sat down with the POI team to delve into some of the finer points and controversies of his book, a look back at the variety of past hunter-gatherer societies and the implications they hold for our world today.

From crib-bilingualism to the role of religion in nearly every society, here are some highlights.

- On being asked by Chris why some researchers look to downplay the prevalence of violence in hunter-gatherer societies of the past, as well as their present-day counterparts:

“Their concern is that if it comes out that traditional people are violent, then that will be used as an excuse by some governments to dispossess the traditional people, take them off the land because they’re violent. Well, the real reason for not mistreating traditional people is an ethical reason. That you shouldn’t mistreat any people. The reason is not that they’re supposedly peaceful.”

- Why some traditional practices like on-demand breastfeeding don’t need to be co-opted by our modern world:

“My wife is a clinical psychologist. It’s inappropriate for my wife to breastfeed on demand in front of her patients, while she was breastfeeding. So one has to make compromises and adopt those things that fit into our society.”

- And last but certainly not least, the stupidest question to ask a religious believer:

“Let’s be clear here, if we’re being listened to by a religious person, who believes in a religion. To say to a religious person, ‘Why does religion exist?’ is the stupidest question imaginable. Because the person will answer, ‘Religion exists because it’s true!’ Why do we believe in God? Because there really is God, so of course we’re gonna believe in God.’”

Of course, there’s plenty more juicy tidbits to catch during the full episode, available both as a mp3 and on YouTube.

For more Jared Diamond, check out the 2005 PBS documentary on Diamond’s bestselling ‘Guns, Germs and Steel.’ You can also check out and buy his new book through the POI website.

If you want to keep up-to date on the latest POI has to offer, make sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Not to mention Indre’s and Chris’s own Twitter feed. And keep an eye out on our co-host Chris Mooney’s weekly column at Mother Jones.

Lastly, if you want to get in on the action, be sure to leave feedback on any and all of our platforms, because starting next week, POI’s weekly wrap-up will highlight the best, most insightful comments on the latest episode.

Thanks for tuning in.

Photo: Jareddiamond.org