On 15 September, you could attend the Feminine Faces of Freethought Conference in Dallas for only $20. Check it out!
Women of Reason–Dallas presents Feminine Faces of Freethought, a conference featuring women speaking about topics that affect the freethought community as a whole.
Join us for a day of talks by
- Noelle George, coordinator of Volunteers Beyond Belief and founder and past president of SECULAR Center;
- Dr. Jean Kazez, author of Animalkind, The Weight of Things, and the blog In Living Color;
- Elyse Anders, blogger at Skepchick, founder of Women Thinking, Inc, and leader of Hug Me! I’m Vaccinated;
- Bridget Gaudette, Co-Founder and Vice President of Outreach of Secular Woman;
- Dorian Mooneyham, blogger at http://transandgodless.blogspot.com and youtube.com/transandgodless;
- Anne Crumpacker, author of the blog Socratic Mama;
- and other members of the freethought community.
Panels include
- Secular Parenting,
- Diversity in the Freethought Movement,
- and What Atheist Women Really Want.
We welcome people of all genders.
Childcare will be provided. Please reserve childcare while purchasing your tickets.
Oh goody, more drama.
Pass the popcorn.
I only go to conferences with a health diversity in speakers.
way to prove the point, jackasses.
—
And this conference will take place at the Resource Center Dallas – one of the largest LGBT community centers in the country. It’s even within a mile or less of light rail (not that that counts for much in Dallas heat, but still.)
http://www.resourcecenterdallas.org/
Last I heard, Dallas is dangerous territory for skeptics and freethinkers….
Dallas, as a major city, is (from what I can tell) less conservative than Texas as a whole (Bush won by small margins both times). So, don’t be so quick to write off the city.
Having a skeptics conference in NYC doesn’t do much; having one in an area of marginal support can reach people who otherwise might not have a place to congregate, as well as establish community and resources to help drive the skeptical movement in the area.
Drama?
Fair enough; just be on the lookout for black pickup tricks with gun racks.
Random threats – that’s lovely.
Wonderful. I really hope PZ reports your information to the police.
But how cans be freethought when femalez?
/MRA
This does remind me of the “diversity” story on Clients from hell today. I can’t help but think that that one is made up.
@proudmra, #7
wow, do you have to man up every day when you wake up, or does it come naturally?
My suggestion would be (and many here will probably [unfortunately] disagree): Kill yourself. Do the world a favor.
Feminist greetings,
Manu
Manu of Deche, you got the disagreement thing right. Don’t make light of suicide.
Dammit, I’m in an airport ready to fly away, and an asshole like proudmra shows up. He’s now on automod. Stronger action may be taken when I get back from this trip — one thing I thoroughly detest are threats of intimidation and suggestions of physical violence.
I will definitely be forwarding that email address to the organizers.
It’s Friday, and I’m fresh out of wit.
Fuck you, proudmra. If you need to fantasize and make empty threats to counter your feelings of insecurity when someone tries to be “inclusive”, you’re a sad, small specimen of humanity. And if the threats aren’t empty, then you’re a brutish, thuggish example of everything that makes human nature incompatible with modern life and the sooner you and your kind autodarwinate through your own idiocy the sooner the rest of us can get on with living in a society worth the name.
In short, fuck you proudmra.
Looks like Mabus is back.
I was so excited to see that there’s a conference like this in Dallas. Bought tickets immediately and me and my lady will definitely be there (assuming she can get the night off from work. I will DEFINITELY be there).
Anyone know if the organizers are YouTubing the panels? I would really like to hear the Secular Parenting presentation. I realized how much a minefield religion and kidz are when my nephew asked if there was such a thing as Hell in front of my little girl. I need as much NinjaFu in this area as possible.
Re 15: do the Montreal fuzz know Mabus has left the playground? I was given to understand he was prohibited from the Internets.
Mandrellian: As I understand it, mabus or someone imitating him (apparently one message or email ended “NOT Mabus, But a FAN” or something) has been posting here and there for a few weeks now.
Have the users, and dare I write the head cheese of this site, so divorced themselves from either comedy or reality that they are incapable of noting that the commenter “proudmra” doesn’t appear to making threats but could actually be editorializing on the pathetic condition if the denizens of such Red State strongholds as the State of Texas? I live here now and the people are gun crazy and sequestered in a Republican-bubble. I expect it in my neighborhood where a certain economic status is necessary for admission, but the paranoia and verbal attacks against imaginary enemies while they continually vote for the real enemies cross all economic strata.
Seriously, it really didn’t seem to me that “proudmra” was making a specific threat but more likely advising caution among the loonies. After all, I witnessed these clowns during a rare snow storm that became muddied after repeated races between UTVs build a snowman, call it Barack Obama, and then tow it behind a Polaris Ranger. Yes, these same “patriots” that would threaten anyone who even commented on the Smirker’s smirk as anti-American we’re suddenly no longer concerned about the patriotic standing of the POTUS. There is always concern when entering such a den of iniquity with ideas that can burst their bubble. Nothing prepared me for a conversation with a sweet, gorgeous woman who, with sufficient rancor, declared her tacit agreement with eternal torture for finite thought crimes. The juxtaposition was most alarming. (If my description of her as sweet and gorgeous provokes your ire, you are being silly. It was an apt descritption.)
Now, “proudmra” may have a history here of which I am not cognizant. If so, then perhaps it was not a clarion call for caution and but a veiled threat, but, taken in just the context of the two posts above, I just don’t see it. Enjoy your weekend.
Riiiiight… because REAL threateners not only have “I am an actual dangerous person threatening you!” tattooed in blinking lights across their foreheads, but the same statement automatically appends itself to every veiled threatening email or comment they write.
fredsanford:
A chosen ‘nym of ‘proudmra’ coupled with a vehicle description and a veiled reference to rifles. That combination tells me that, warning or threat, it is of concern and must be taken seriously. So thank you for telling those who plan to attend not to be concerned. I’m sure that means a lot.
Pteryxx, your reply has nothing at all to do with what I wrote. This is supposed to be Free Thought Blogs, not make up shit that the other poster didnt say to argue against. Nowhere did I wrote that this commenter couldn’t be potentially dangerous.
OTOPPS, what is a nym? Why the mismatched single quotes? Did you mean sobriquet, mom de plume, alias, or posting name? Are you asserting that the commenter meant ‘proudnra’ but registered incorrectly? That would certainly change my opinion, but, I have no idea what ‘proudmra’ means. Unless, of course, it means Men’s Rights Advocate which I don’t understand how that would automatically point to a velied threat versus a clarion call warning. And no, I am not MRA or NRA. I am a humanist. Period.
And, why go strawman? I never claimed that attendees should not be concerned. In fact, the opposite. It is Texas. My question was as to whether it was a veiled threat from an individual or a general warning of the ignorant Texas zeitgeist. This is supposed to be Free Thought Blogs. If I wanted people to make up things I didn’t say and then argue against them, I would go to Topix.com and post on Why I Am No Longer a Christian and watch some crazy fundamentalists have religigasms.
The shout downs against any dissenting views on Pharyngula have become legendary. I still love PZ’s writing, but so many commenters are just throat jumpers it’s become ridiculous.
Except where you said:
(bolds mine)
thus implying that anyone here who *doesn’t* presume harmlessness is deluded or incompetent. Of course no threat is 100% certain (or even 95% certain) either way. If you wait until the threat materializes to take it seriously, it’s too late. That’s why the proper response is warning those threatened to take precautions, instead of arresting the jerk for conspiring to murder. Duh. (Punishment for making a threat, which can be a violation in and of itself, is another matter.)
Again, this is Freethought Blogs, not ignore-all-context-while-impugning-your-opponents-reasoning-skills blogs.
Pteryxx, no, that does not imply that. You have ignored the context and the admission that he could potentially be a threat in my comment which renders your argument moot. Just writing ‘watch out for black pickups with gun racks’ is actually sage advice in Texas. I live here. I could have writtent the same thing. Perhaps you are hanging your assertion on specificity of color. Could be.
Taking my words from the entire context of my post and then holding some of them for emphasis is the definition of taking things out of context. When it is done to Darwin, we explode. When you do it to me, somehow I am the bad guy. Got it.
Not my fault you won’t impugn for comprehension.
A ‘nym is short hand (a contraction) of pseudonym. The single quote is not mismatched — the one attached to ‘nym shows that the word has been contracted. No, I did not mean sobriquet, nom de plume or alias. I meant pseudonym which is the same as a posting name. I do not post anonymously. I do not post with my real name. I post consistently as Ogvorbis (often with something humourous or apropos following it) which is my semi-anonymous (pseudonymous) posting name. People here know me by that name.
No. Why would I assert that? Obviously, this person wants the world to know through his or her ‘nym that they do not believe that women are deserving of full human rights.
I think he or she meant it to mean Men’s Rights Activist. That, in and of itself, is of some concern as MRAs are people who are willing to deny full human rights to more than half the human population of the world.
Please quote back to me where I made that suggestion.
You are correct. I am a hopeless idiot who should not be allowed out on the web without adult supervision. I obviously totally and completely misread your writings when you claimed that all here are
Obviously I am far to stupid to understand that references to rifles and black pickup trucks could not possible be anything but humour.
It is. That does not mean that if someone either disagrees with you, or misunderstands you (which it has to be because you are obviously brilliant and I am just a Pharyngula idiot, right?), others have the same freedom to challenge you and your ideas.
Please show me where I jumped for your throat. I was sarcastic (which I based on my reading of what you wrote) and I disagreed with you. How did I shout you down?
You are either impossibly naive or a troll. Sure, feminists get all kinds of threats all the time, both veiled and explicit, but this guy is just being helpful! Even though his ‘nym announces that he is a proud member of a group renowned for it’s hatred of women, it’s obviously a nuanced comment on the state of atheistic discrimination. Right?
Nobody is fooled by your fake outrage.
…heck, it’s kind of nice to see an old-fashioned religious troll instead of just more harassment deniers.
You know that’s exactly what I was thinking?
Wouldn’t I pretty much HAVE to be right about that?
Shit, this one appears to arrived already broken.
To sc_keyboardsplatter:
I’m pretty sure that these:
Are question marks. Not words.
As far as where the question mark came from: The Question Mark (AKA the Surprise Noodle or Query Hook) is sometimes thought to originate from the Latin quaestiō (that is, qvaestio), meaning “question”, which was abbreviated during the Middle Ages to qo. The lowercase q was written above the lowercase o, and this mark was transformed into the modern symbol. There are several competing theories with more evidence, but I admit my own personal bias for this explanation.
Next time kids, join us for a discussion on why the Exclamation Point isn’t actually a point at all, and why it should be called the Shout Pole from now on by everybody. Or else!
Which one? Please be specific. It really matters!
When are you guys coming to new yawk
Do I LOOK like a Mormon?
Oh man you’ve gotten crumbs EVERYwhere.
One more than what?
You said you believe in a god. Which one, and why?
Well, Dan. (May I call you Dan?) What makes you so certain that your experience was legitimate? What makes you so certain that the billions of, say, Muslims, who say THEY have touched and felt the ‘power’ of Allah, are wrong?
Oh, and you still haven’t told me which god you believe in. What an important detail!
#47
Oh, I’ve bought it in a bottle and on little pieces of paper.
Kinda wondering why you’re so gullible.
Okay, Daniel.
So there’s more than one god?
Sure you can. A bottle of Ketamine will set you back about two grand (FYI – it’s probably illegal), but will block certain receptors in the brain to induce an out-of-body experience complete with the old ‘tunnel with light at the end’, the flashing of your life before your eyes, feelings of peace and oneness with the universe, and the impression of contact with a higher power.
Of course, it’s all just your brain playing tricks with you. The conditions in your brain caused by ketamine are almost identical to the lack of oxygen caused by a brain in a near-death state.
So my question to you is, if a condition can be triggered through a drug to create the experience you describe, why should we assume that anyone is experiencing actual magical beings and powers and stuff? Your brain is fully capable of making it all up on it’s own, and its possible to force your brain to make it all up.
Mmmm… magic paper….
Daniel #47
Not true. You said that we’re wrong in how we reason:
Daniel #30:
Daniel #47
Then why are you talking about it? Why are you here if it can’t be understood by anyone but you?
Daniel #47
Then why don’t you show us that respect? Again Daniel #30:
That little “so-called” dig is not respectful. It implies that we are not in fact atheists despite choosing to designate ourselves as such.
#54
Oh this is good.
Do you believe what you are telling us or do you feel it?
I accept what I know due to the evidence.
Belief comes after that.
Feeling it has nothing to do with reality.
What evidence do you have?
Feelings, not evidence by the way.
Danial doesn’t like answering questions Rev. In fact, I suspect that he’s incapable of doing so.
Okay Daniel, I asked a whole bunch of questions up thread. Here’s the one that interests me the most:
Then why are you talking about it? Why are you here if it can’t be understood by anyone but you?
Here goes!
Love and hate are emotions. Emotions are experiences that human beings have. Emotions are strongly correlated with certain forms of brain activity (observable via EEG, MRI or various other technological scanning devices). By manipulating the brain via drugs, magnetic fields and/or physical trauma, it is possible to cause human beings to experience (or be unable to experience) certain emotions including the aforesaid love and hate. This tells us that emotions originate in the brain.
Unless you’re referring to the Big Bang Babies (and no, I am not, nor have I ever been, part of the glam metal genre), I have no idea what that means. Would you care to explain what you mean by it?
How do you know that the experience you went through is the same as anyone else’s when they can’t be understood by anyone but the person who had them?
So there’s more than one god?
That’s a very poor analogy Daniel. A soccer team playing together experiences the same things at the same time.
You claimed that “…the experience a person goes through can only be understood during that experience.” Unless everyone with whom you think you share this nebulous religious experience was there while you were experiencing yours and experienced it exactly as you did, by your own logic* you can’t understand their experience.
So I ask again: how do you know that they went through the same thing as you did?
*Such as it is.
A book that includes both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 and claims that both are literal historic accounts is not clearly defined.
Are we going to have another rajkumar-style fapfest about subjective experience here?
Yawn.
You are a very confused thinker.
I find your ability to string so many words together without actually saying anything to be quite impressive.
Oh, wait, no I don’t. It’s boring. Off to bed.
From what you’ve posted here, I’m going to guess that the personal experience was a head trauma of some sort.
Ah, I see Daniel.
The problem with this is that you’re trying to justify your belief in a god using subjective experiences. Experiences that you admit cannot be duplicated by anyone else.
You are trying to prove to someone who did not attend the soccer match that it really did happen because you scored a goal and that made you feel really good.
Feelings are not evidence for truth claims.
No, Cupcake. What you’re doing is called projecting. You feel a need to have a god, so you assume everyone else has the same need. Simply enjoying some of the niceties of life, such as money or sex doesn’t imply people treating those niceties like a god.
Keep your silliness confined to yourself. There are plenty of people on the planet who have no need of gods and no, there’s no “gods shaped hole” in them, either.
Go on then. Produce them. Produce one person who thinks that the sex act is actually an invisible magic person.
You’re deliberately attempting to muddy the waters, Daniel, by conflating “the most important thing in someone’s life” with the aforesaid “invisible magic person”. These are not necessarily the same thing. It is possible to have values without automatically assuming they’re embodied in an invisible magic person.
sc_numbers (is there something I can call you)
Caine did not say that at 78. She said that not everyone who enjoys the niceties of life treats them as gods. She also said that not all godless people have a god shaped hole in their heart. This was a claim based on some godless people, which I’m sure she could demonstrate by asking some regulars, and I’m sure she would get agreement that we don’t treat money as a god nor do we have god shaped holes. I definitely don’t have such a hole or worship money, so I second Caine’s statement.
Also, you posted yesterday on the Lounge claiming to be an atheist, have you had an overnight conversion or do you just think that screwing around here is fun, even if you disagree with us you could at least be honest and consistent.
I missed where you said to call you Daniel so please ignore the first line of my post, I shall in future address you as Daniel.
You do seem to understand the nature of subjective experience, bully for you.
You admit you can’t prove in any meaningful way that your beliefs are true and you’re now claiming my opinion that a god does not exist is fine. So that leaves me wondering, once again, just what you hope to achieve here?
Daniel #84. I’m sorry you are correct it was not you, it was someone with a very similar nym (sc_then a bunch of seemingly random numbers and letters but having double checked they are different numbers and letters to yours). So I am sorry for mistaking you and accusing you unjustly of not being honest or consistent.
I do still standby my comment though that you misrepresented Caine #78 she was talking about some people not all atheists. Even though you evidently disagree with us I think that you should acknowledge that your response to her was not actually a response to what she was saying. If having re-read her actual statement you still disagree, kindly tell me why you know that I worship money or have a god shaped hole in my heart.
However, I do have a question your hyperlinked nym leads to a fb page headed Daniel Haven, I recall a Daniel Haven previously posting here, who was endungeoned, if it is you then you are not actually allowed here.
An invisible magic person is a person who is invisible and does magic. A person is an entity who has things like desires and emotions and experiences and memories. Invisible means they’re not generally able to be perceived, except under certain circumstances and to specific people. Magic includes things like creating the world, reading minds, making floods, destroying cities and various other things.
A great many invisible magic people have been worshipped throughout human history. They’ve had names like Brahma, Zeus, Amaterasu and Odin. The King James Bible you mentioned earlier describes an invisible magic person who is referred to as “God”, although other translations of the same texts use “Yahweh” and “Elohim”.
Daniel Haven is indeed in the dungeon. Or should be. Monitors?
Daniel #89, By wondering why we are here do you mean why we visit Pharyngula? If this is the case, we aren’t wondering why we are here, I assume that the regulars here are here for a variety of different reasons but we do know why we are here. If you don’t know why we are here ask us? I am slightly confused why you think we wonder why we are here?
If you mean why we exist then I shan’t speak for anyone else but I’m not wondering about that either.
She was using everyone in a sentence which claimed that you thought that everyone had a need to worship which we disagree with and she went on to try to refute ] that we all have some sort of need to worship. The hole reference comes from the same idea sometimes people can feel incomplete if they are lacking something they see as important e.g. some people who are not in a relationship but want to be might feel that something is incomplete in their lives because they don’t have someone to share it with (I am not saying that single people should feel this way or that it is a good/bad thing I just am using this example as it is something I know some people in my life have felt). Religious people often see something similar with god, e.g. that if you do not believe in god then your life is somehow lacking something that you must feel like a bit of you is missing This is often idea is often refuted by atheists saying that we don’t feel that we have a god-shaped hole in our hearts. We say this because many of us believe we are complete people and do not feel any sorrow due to our lack believe and do not feel like part of us is missing (I do not claim to speak for all atheists in this statement but some atheists do feel like this).
Fuck it. I tried polite and look where it got me.
Oh fuck off you smug little hypocrite. Barring one aside to RBDC, intended to provoke you into engaging me*, I’ve been talking to no one but you.
The most pathetic thing about you is that you’ve repeatedly admitted that your experience is of value to no one but yourself, and yet you somehow think it possible that your comments here are going to influence someone to your way of thinking. If every theist was as dumb as you there would be no need for this site.
*Oh lucky me, it worked!
You have some seriously stupid analogies
I’m going! I hope to see others go, as well.
I’m one of the organizers of the Feminine Faces of Freethought conference. Many thanks to those who are coming!
@McC2lhu #17: We do hope to have the video up on YouTube soon after the conference. The Fellowship of Freethought Dallas gathering this month was on secular parenting, and the video of that will be up on our YouTube channel soon.
And the Early Bird ticket price of $20 runs out tonight. Tomorrow, tickets are $35.