I just found out today that I was targeted by the Church of Scientology. Maybe. It’s so over the top that I can’t tell.

As you may notice, though, that comment was made two years ago, after I posted on L. Ron Hubbard’s History of Man. I’ve survived so far.

You may have heard that there have been more murders in Bangladesh — once again, fanatics are butchering atheists, and people who publish atheist works, with machetes. You may think this is unconscionable, that these are barbaric acts, but don’t you worry. Representatives of the government of Bangladesh have made a statement.

Yesterday’s attacks are isolated incidents and such attacks also occur in other countries of the world.

Really? I’m an atheist blogger. Should I be worried that someone will break into my house and chop me to death? I don’t think so.

As for the isolated incidents claim…that’s a very strange thing to say about a series of murders, for which there is a published hit list. It’s also very strange to say when the latest killing of Faisal Arefin Dipan, and attempted murders of Ahmedur Rashid Tutul, Tareque Rahim, and Ranadipam Basu were synchronized and coordinated. It’s also strange when religiously motivated terrorists are claiming credit and threatening to kill again.

These secular and atheist publishers waged war against religion of Islam in every possible ways, it said, threatening to annihilate anyone who would dare stand against Islam.

Planned, coordinated, openly intended to intimidate critics of religion…but the government has decided that these are just isolated incidents? I don’t think you need to be Sherlock Holmes to be able to connect the dots on these cases. Maybe we should loan Bangladesh a couple of 9 year old kids who’ve played the game Clue to help them figure it out. As a special bonus, they could probably help Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal find his own ass.

Maybe I should run down to the store and pick up a laxative. Maybe I’ll get a bottle of this homeopathic stuff…can’t hurt. Hey, maybe I’ll pick up a case. Yvette d’Entremont recommends CVS’s homeopathic constipation relief.

The bottle, which listed 20 percent alcohol as an inactive ingredient, is sold over the counter with no age requirements. One of the NBC4 I-Team producers recorded her teen daughter buying the product without any questions asked.

“It’s really just alcohol and water,” d’Entremont said.

Yay homeopathy!

[Read more…]

Don’t you just hate it when the answers aren’t clear-cut? And I’m not going to give you any.

Two recent cases bring up conflicts.

• Germaine Greer is a transphobic ass who demeans a whole group of people. Students at Cardiff University petition to have her banned from speaking there.

• Gamergaters are some of the most awful people on the internet — they represent a distillation of the lowest scumming trolls. SXSW responded to threats from gamergaters by shutting down a panel on online harassment.

My personal feeling is that Greer really is saying hateful crap, and my sentiment favors booting her antiquated butt off the campus. But the women speaking out against harassment are in the right, and SXSW shouldn’t boot their SJW butts out of the conference. Universities should take responsibility for what views are presented in official events, but also, SXSW is a commercial event and they should also have control over what they offer, and they have every right to be craven dipshits. The real arbiter of who should speak on a campus are the students, but students are often naive — they’re there to learn, and I wouldn’t stand for them dictating to me what I should teach. A commercial event like SXSW should follow the demands of the market if it expects to remain economically viable, but popularity for the masses is often a recipe for mediocrity, and also, market forces are biased against the underprivileged, so that would reinforce a discriminatory status quo.

Universities should encourage open discussion of a wide range of views, but maybe we should recognize that some views have fallen completely off the map of reasonable positions, despite the fact that some people continue to hold them, sometimes fiercely. Does the university have an obligation to let students hear advocates for the idea that the earth was created in a week, 6000 years ago? Should we bring in representatives of the KKK to explain how our black students are subhuman? I don’t think so. But universities, as public institutions, do allow groups to rent an auditorium for an evening, and the kooks do take advantage…so they should allow, but not endorse, lunacy and nastiness, as long as they aren’t expected to pay for it (and actually, if the loons have to pay for the privilege).

We should be open to good ideas, but not to wrong ones. The hard part is deciding which ideas are wrong enough that they should be excluded.

Universities have ideals and goals, and we should be able to say that some things are not at all conducive to learning or social progress. SxSW is a different beast: it’s a music festival which has branched out to cover all kinds of completely unrelated phenomena. Is there even a coherent mission that could be used to guide what kinds of events are appropriate to their program? How does anyone justify a statement that SxSW ought to have a panel on online harassment? Shouldn’t the ultimate argument be that they will do whatever appeases the sponsors?

So no, I don’t have a pat answer. I might give different answers to different situations, too. I think what I’d want is a clear statement of the long term goals of the institution, so that we could judge whether a specific action is likely to serve that goal or not. In the case of SxSW, I think they’ve betrayed the attendees vision of what the conference is all about, but they could be wrong — maybe the conference organizers’ vision is one where Monster Energy Drinks and McDonald’s continues to give them lots of money.

Similarly, I have rather idealistic views on the purpose of the university, but I suspect it would often be at odds with the views of the regents, who, as recent cases in Iowa and North Carolina show, might be more business-oriented and regressive than I’d like.

Sweden had a mass murder attempt and school killing! The killer, Anton Lundin-Pettersson, walked into a school with a sword and managed to kill two people and wound another two. If only he’d been armed with rifles and handguns, he might have gotten a better score.

Horrible as this person was (he was shot by the Swedish police), he has another distinction: he’s another godless heathen. In fact, his favorite youtuber seems to have been that lovely fellow, The Amazing Atheist.

Indeed, it’s telling that the Trollhattan killer’s favorite YouTuber (if the account attributed to him is really his) was the noxious rager who calls himself TheAmazingAtheist. Lundin-Pettersson subscribed not only to TAA’s main channel but to his personal channel as well, and he favorited dozens if not hundreds of TAA’s videos (I stopped counting). Unlike some atheist activists, TAA doesn’t devote much time to trashing Islam; he’s far more interested in bashing Anita Sarkeesian and other supposed SJWs.

But TAA affects a hyperbolic “mad as hell” persona that, despite its obvious theatricality, seems to be rooted in a good deal of real anger. I can barely make it through a single video of his, and can only imagine the corrosive effect that watching dozens of his rage-filled videos would have on someone’s soul.

Remember when we used to tell ourselves that atheists were such mild, harmless people, unlike those religious fanatics? It was quite a long time ago — maybe a whole year or two — so it might be understandable if you’d forgotten.

Don’t worry! I’m sure someone will be along soon to explain that he couldn’t have been a True Atheist™ because he once babbled something about spirituality or linked to an Asatru web page, or because he was ideologically fascist or whatever excuse someone can come up with — odds on favorite is that he might have been an atheist, but he was “mentally ill”. One thing I’ve learned is that atheists are getting really good at padding the statistics, but somehow the tally always manages to exclude the bad people.

Since you’ve all already made your travel arrangements (or wished longingly that you could make those arrangements), you all know that Skepticon is less than a month away. I’ll be there, taking it easy and just enjoying other people’s efforts…although Lauren made some noises about drafting me to do a workshop. But no! I shall be lazy!

One thing I wanted to mention, though, because it’s important, is that Skepticon is totally transparent about their financials. When you donate to Skepticon, you can see where every dollar goes — and it’s all plowed right back into the conference. It’s not a profitable fundraiser for an organization or an individual who’s up to something else, it’s entirely for the purpose of educating the public at a yearly event.

It’s a good cause, and if you can’t go this year, you should drop them a few dollars (only if you can afford it!) and try to go next year. It’s always worth it.