There was a terrible murder in Chapel Hill last night: three members of a family, Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, were gunned down by a bloody-minded fanatic. Part of the motive was obvious from their names. These were Muslims. We all know how much hatred Muslims get in this country.
I never watched Oprah, because she was a gullible woo-artist; I don’t watch Dr Oz, because he’s quack; and now all I can say is fuck Bill Maher, because he’s a crank on so many things. On his latest show, he surrounded himself with Marianne Williamson, a “spiritual teacher” and proponent of prayer, Amy Holmes, a news announcer for The Blaze (Glenn Beck’s spinoff), and some guy who didn’t say much, and he went off on a grand tour of kook talk, confident that his panelists wouldn’t disagree with him. Watch. Be embarrased for him.
I can’t really recommend this long article about MRAs. It’s not awful, but it seems determined to demonstrate something no one had questioned: “golly, not all MRAs are neckbearded trolls. They’re humans too!” OK, I know and agree; there are circumstances in which anyone could have a civilized conversation with them…which the author proceeds to do, talking to a random MRA named Max in Chicago, and also calling up Paul Elam and Roosh, and in every case doing his very best to put them in a good light, while not easing up on their awful opinions.
This is a cartoon from a fundie book written by Tim LaHaye in 1982. It is clearly a work of prophecy.
But do people still have such a bizarre and hateful opinion of humanism today? They sure do.
Anita Sarkeesian has been designated Harvard Humanist of the Year 2014. Congratulations to her, and good on the Harvard Humanists!
Uh-oh. For a moment there, I thought I was going to have to agree with David Brooks, and then I’d have to retire from the internet and live in a cave and flagellate myself until the stupidity was purged. He has written a column in which he says secularism has to be more than simple rationalism, and the opening had me worried that it was going to sound like my schtick:
As secularism becomes more prominent and self-confident, its spokesmen have more insistently argued that secularism should not be seen as an absence — as a lack of faith — but rather as a positive moral creed. Phil Zuckerman, a Pitzer College sociologist, makes this case as fluidly and pleasurably as anybody in his book, “Living the Secular Life.”
The previous discussion on the varieties of New Atheism had me thinking. We’ve already tried contriving a new label for those of us who think atheism should be broad and dedicated to more than just rejecting deities and intersectional — that was Atheism+. And it just created a focus for the haters. So I have a different idea.
Jeet Heer has been saying really smart things: read his evaluation of The New Republic‘s legacy, for example (which follows on Ta-Nehisi Coates’ evaluation). He’s an interesting and thoughtful writer.
Here’s a dialog between a gamergater and Leigh Alexander. She speaks truth.
Stephen Fry gives a fairly standard atheist answer to the question, “What would you do if you died and found yourself in front of God?” — exceptionally well-stated, of course, but unsurprising. The best part is to watch the expression on the face of the interviewer in the various reaction shots.
