Reason Rally report

I attended a portion of the Reason Rally yesterday in Washington DC. It drizzled or rained gently most of the time, which cast a bit of a damper on the proceedings but people were in good spirits. The crowd that attended should dispel the notion that the nonbelievers movement consist of old, white guys. It was gratifyingly diverse in all categories (gender, age, and ethnicity) with the large majority being young people. I felt like an old fogey and that was great, just as it should be. [Read more…]

Religious people are not that different from nonbelievers

Jason Rosenhouse makes a point that I too have noticed in my discussions about religion with both sophisticated and fundamentalist believers. The former will pooh-pooh the whole idea of evidence for the existence of god and say that religion is based on faith and is a different way of knowing and thus is exempt from the normal demands of evidence and reason that we apply to every other aspect of our lives. They will argue that as a result these are two non-overlapping worldviews and that applying the standards of science to religious beliefs makes no sense. [Read more…]

Bible-based religion is anti-woman at its core

One of the bizarre turns that this election campaign has taken is the assault on women’s rights by the Republican party. It seems crazy for politicians to advocate steps that could alienate potentially 50% of the electorate. Valerie Tarico argues that this is merely the flip side of their desire to appeal to their fundamentalist religious base. [Read more…]

How the Archbishop of Canterbury is chosen

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williamson, the head of the Anglican church, is stepping down at the end of the year. I could not quite figure the man out. He seemed a nice enough sort but wishy-washy. He epitomized the dilemma of the liberal Christian, trying to make nice with science and modern liberal sensibilities on issues of women and gays, while at the same time constrained by the absurdities of the Bible and his own institutional traditions that set limits on how far he could go. [Read more…]

A Torquemada for our times

The Republican-led legislature in Arizona is nearing passage of a bill in which “Women in Arizona trying to get reimbursed for birth control drugs through their employer-provided health plan could be required to prove that they are taking it for a medical reason such as acne, rather than to prevent pregnancy”, because we all know that there is nothing that any woman likes more than discussing the most intimate details of her life with her employer. [Read more…]

Joseph Kony and the Invisible Children video

I have not been able to make much sense out of the Invisible Children video about Joseph Kony, except that it seems to have become a huge sensation. I had known before about Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army and their appalling treatment of whoever happens to cross their paths but was not quite sure what to make of this viral video, which I have not seen.

So I pass along without comment this commentary on the phenomenon by Charlie Brooker.

Boing Boing has more.

Double standard on anti-religion ads?

Jonathan Turley points to an interesting case. The New York Times ran an ad from the Freedom From Religion Foundation that called upon liberal Catholics to leave their church, but refused to run another ad that made the same appeal to Muslims, apparently because “The fallout from running this ad now could put U.S. troops and/or civilians in the [Afghan] region in danger.”

I agree with Turley (who has not yet seen the anti-Islam ad) when he says:

I am not sure that we should start to restrict speech on the basis of content in fear of a response of extremists in other countries. That would appear to reward the violence and anti-speech conduct of such extremists. It is precisely what occurred after 2005 when a Danish newspaper published cartoons mocking the prophet Muhammad. The result were worldwide protests in which Muslims reportedly killed more than 100 people — a curious way to demonstrate religious tolerance. However, while newspapers swore allegiance to free press values, there was an obvious level of self-censorship to avoid pictures and cartoons of Muhammad and Islam in general. Even academic institutions like Yale University Press exhibited the same response.

The editors in this case promised that they would consider publishing the ad in a few months because “we publish this type of advertising, even those we disagree with, because we believe in the First Amendment.” However, that does not explain why they will yield to extremists in the interim.

For too long, some Muslims have been allowed to use the threat of violence to impose censorship on others. This has to end and major media institutions should be taking the lead on this and not leaving it to small and vulnerable media institutions.

Should Christians have the right to wear crucifixes to work?

There is an interesting case working its way through the European Court of Human Rights. It concerns whether Christians have the right to wear crucifixes to work. Two British women, one who worked for British Airways and the other a nurse, were told by their employers that their crosses did not conform to the uniforms that their professions required. The British government supports their employers, saying that wearing crosses is not a ‘requirement’ of the Christian faith, unlike the Sikh turban or the Muslim hijab, which have apparently been granted exemptions on those grounds. [Read more…]