I wonder what the fans of pope Francis will make of his claim that the church has been the best ever at rooting out sexual abuse of children. I know what I make of it, but then I’m not a fan.

Pope Francis has defended the Catholic Church’s record on tackling the sexual abuse of children by priests, saying “no-one else has done more” to root out paedophilia.

“The Catholic Church is perhaps the only public institution to have acted with transparency and responsibility. No-one else has done more. Yet the Church is the only one to have been attacked,” he said in an interview with Il Corriere della Sera daily published Wednesday.

Transparency! All that sending abuser priests to a different parish to predate on other children, all that never reporting abuser priests to the police, all that insistence that it was a matter for the church to deal with – that’s transparency?

Isn’t not bearing false witness one of the ten? One of the three that actually make any sense?

Last month, the United Nations denounced the Vatican for failing to stamp out child abuse and allowing systematic cover-ups, calling on the Church to remove clergy suspected of raping or molesting children.

It accused the Vatican of systematically placing the “preservation of the reputation of the Church and the alleged offender over the protection of child victims” – an accusation which was heatedly rebuffed.

The Argentine pontiff, who will celebrate the one-year anniversary of his election on March 13, said in the interview that the abuse cases “are terrible because they leave very deep wounds.”

“The statistics on the phenomenon of violence against children are shocking, but they also clearly show that the great majority of abuses are carried out in family or neighbourhood environments,” he said.

Ahhhhhhh Mr Pontiff that’s not the point at all. No no no no no no. How could you think it is? Since when are holy people supposed to point and shout, “they do it way more than we do!!”?

I’m surprised at you, Mr Pontiff. I thought you were better at PR than that.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

What’s the thing about skeptics?

Is there a thing about them? Yes, I think there is. They tend to attract assholes. They tend to be assholes. I know lots who aren’t assholes, but I also know, and know of, lots who are. More than many other groups and movements and “communities,” skepticism seems to be a recruiting hall for assholes. Why is that?

Jason talked about this issue yesterday:

I do not consent to the skeptical “brand”, insofar as there is one, being represented by malicious con-men and other ne’er-do-wells. The skeptical way of thinking is a toolset that supplements a person’s identity. Not every person’s identity toolset is complete — many people lack empathy or a strong moral compass, among other numerous lacks. The skeptical toolset has too long been associated with amoral Libertarian con-artists that comprise the big-name skeptics, like Dunning, and I’d very much like that to end now.

That, I think, is the thing, the one I asked about above. What’s the thing about skeptics? That. The fact that skepticism is not enough, not nearly enough. It’s useful, but it’s woefully inadequate as a foundation for morality or a worldview. It has nothing to do with concern for fairness or equality, it has no connection to kindness or generosity or even politeness. It presents a constant temptation to be a smug superior jerk.

It’s not enough, and it attracts a lot of people who seem to think it is enough – people whose first loyalty is to the skeptical “movement” and other skeptics. It’s becoming more obvious all the time that the result is a movement packed to the rafters with noisy abrasive belligerent assholes, people who think they’re another Christopher Hitchens but are actually another Penn Jillette.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

About this god person.

I’ve been arguing about it with Michael Nugent on the Atheist Ireland Facebook group. It started from an aphoristic remark Michael made there yesterday:

Because theism is a statement about the nature of reality and morality, atheism is also a statement about the nature of reality and morality.

I said

I think both theism and atheism are statements about reality. I’m not sure either is necessarily a statement about morality.

There could be a theism that posited a “god” with no interest in humans and thus no interest in giving them moral instructions.

Michael’s view is that belief even in a god with no interest in humans is still a belief about morality.

I agree that it can be, but I disagree that it has to be. Believing that an infinite array of things have nothing to do with morality isn’t a substantive belief about morality (except in the attenuated sense that it’s a belief that some things are about morality while others are not). I don’t think the moon has anything to do with morality; that’s not really a belief about morality.

(Well I suppose you could make a case that it is, in the sense that it’s a belief that gravity isn’t the foundation of morality, that morality isn’t influenced by the tides, and faintly absurd notes like that. But I don’t think that’s what we mean by “about morality.”)

My objection to the idea (and I do object to it, as well as just disagreeing with it) is that it buys into the conventional assumption that god just is about morality, when instead we should realize that that’s a contingent belief, not an inherent aspect of belief in a god or some gods.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

An interview with Ensaf Haider, wife of the imprisoned Saudi blogger Raef Badawi.

The background:

Saudi Arabian blogger and editor of a liberal website, Raef Badawi, was arrested on 17 June 2012 in Jeddah.

Over a year later, in July 2013, Badawi was convicted under Saudi Arabia’s anti-cybercrime law and sentenced to 600 lashes and seven years and three months in prison.

He was found guilty of “insulting Islam”, “founding a liberal website” and “adopting liberal thought”. He was also convicted of “insulting religious symbols” and criticising the religious police and officials calling for gender segregation in the Shura Council. The online forum, Liberal Saudi Network – created to foster political and social debate in Saudi Arabia – was ordered closed by the judge.

It’s startling, isn’t it? Even when you already know what Saudi Arabia is like? He was “convicted” of founding a liberal website…as if that’s any kind of crime in the first place.

Why did Raef decide to set up Free Saudi Liberals?

For Raef, liberalism is an intellectual project, which aspired to achieve an official status and to represent Saudi liberals on the ground and to fight injustice wherever it exists. This was the idea in 2008 when Raef first set up the Free Saudi Liberals website as a platform for this project to take shape.

Can you talk about the aims and objectives of the ‘day of liberalism’ conference that Raef was organising? Why was it important to him?

The idea for the ‘day of liberalism’ conference came from the belief, held by Raef and by Saudi liberals specifically, as well as others in the Gulf more generally, that there is a need for our voice to be heard in the international and local communities. It also accused the opponents of liberals of distorting the image of liberalism by claiming that this thought leads to degeneration, vice and so on.

And so that’s why the bosses decided to punish him.

How did you find out that Raef may face apostasy charges in court? What were your reactions? What are the legal next steps? Are you in contact with his lawyer?

I am in regular contact with his lawyer, and that is how I found out. We are currently waiting for the Court of Appeal to make a decision on his case. I consider Raef’s trial as an inquisition, just like the ones that took place during the European Dark Ages. To kill a person just for their opinion, that is the real crime.

It does indeed seem astonishingly medieval.

Do you believe the legal consequences faced by Raif and other prisoners of conscious in the country will work to deter or frighten others from engaging in similar activism?

No not at all, I believe that there is a will for freedom in the country that will not be deterred. When Raef heard the judge tell him ‘we will kill you’, Raef responded with a wide smile and the victory sign.

It makes me want to weep.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

More of Ben Radford’s…indirectness, from the comments on that public Facebook post.

Torkel Ødegård and now that this is out in open, let the rageblogging commence!

Scott Mardis Good luck, ben.

Ben Radford I will not be participating in any discussions, debates, or blogging about this. This is now a legal matter, and it will be decided by a judge or jury.

Torkel Ødegård I wasn’t referring to you. I was referring to THOSE people.

Laurie Miller Tarr Yes, Torkel, they are going to blog about it, and they are going to say that all Karen did was speak out, and Ben is being a bully and and further punishing her. But the truth is she accused Ben of both sexual harassment and sexual assault, without providing any evidence. They are taking her accusation as proof of Ben’s guilt. But in court Ben will finally have a chance to answer her, for the first time. And Ben has evidence, and the truth, on his side.

Note what Radford said. (Note also the stupid malice about “rageblogging”, but what Radford said is what I’m getting at.) He will not be participating in any blogging about this, it’s now a legal matter.

But he did participate in blogging about it. He wrote a whole long post about false accusations last week. The date on it is February 26. The date on the lawsuit – which is right there on Facebook, in a public post – is February 17.

That’s very…indirect.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Hey remember the other day – February 27th it was, last Thursday – I wrote a post about how Ben Radford wrote a post about False Accusations of Sexual Assault? And how it was more or less simultaneous with one by Carol Tavris on the same subject? And how it all seemed rather pointed? And then Orac wrote one? About conflicts of interest and how Ben Radford hadn’t disclosed his?

Yes well today Radford did a public post on Facebook that was a photograph of his lawsuit against Karen Stollznow. That was a secret last week but now it isn’t.

So Radford’s post last week looks even more pointed once you know that, doesn’t it, and the conflict of interest looks even more undisclosed.

I don’t know: that’s not what I ever thought blogging was for.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Another one. The previous one worked, so naturally there’s another one! Just as all the commentators pointed out.

Another publisher has pulled all copies in India of another book by Wendy Doniger.

BANGALORE: Within weeks of Penguin controversially recalling Wendy Doniger’s book, ‘The Hindus: An Alternative History’, another publisher, Aleph, pulled out the American author’s previous work, ‘On Hinduism’, on Tuesday. Bookshops across Bangalore received calls from representatives of Aleph Book Company, promoted by Rupa Publications, seeking return of all copies of the book.

Confirming the move, an Aleph spokesman said, “We don’t want to get involved in any controversy. Officials from our Delhi office sent a clear message to us — recall all copies of ‘On Hinduism’ we had sold to across Karnataka. We got back about 100 copies till Tuesday evening.”

Just like that. Not a four year struggle, as with Penguin, but just a demand followed by obedience.

Advocate Lawrence Liang of the Bangalore-based Alternative Law Forum, who had filed a legal notice on Penguin India over the withdrawal of Doniger’s book, described Aleph’s step as “terrible”.

“It’s absolutely shameful and ridiculous. If you want a publisher to withdraw a book, all you have to do is file a police complaint. Reading has no future in this country,” Liang said.

‘The Hindus’ had been recalled by Penguin following protests by a little-known organization’ Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti, on grounds that its contents were “derogatory and offensive to Hinduism” and misrepresented facts. The Samiti upped the ante last week and demanded ‘On Hinduism’ be withdrawn as well, as it too was “malicious and offending.”

Well of course it did. The bullying worked, so naturally the Samiti did it again – and this time obedience took not four years but a few days.

India might as well just pass a law telling everyone to forget how to read.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A horror story from Kurdistan Region.

A photograph of two bodies being dragged out of a pond with chains has caused even a greater outcry in Iraqi Kurdistan than the murder of the two young sisters involved.

“We intend to visit the Ministry of Internal Affairs to ask them about it,” says Parwa Ali, an MP in the Kurdistan parliament for the Change Movement (Gorran), the second-largest Kurdish party.

“This is too terrible. It is clear that the police from top to bottom needs training.”

The bodies of two sisters (aged 16 and 18) were found in a pond in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Said Sadiq, some 50 kilometers from Sulaimani, Kurdistan’s second-biggest city. They had been missing for two weeks, after appearing in court to fight their family’s opposition to marrying men they had chosen themselves.

The police used chains to pull the bodies out of the water.

“That is what you would use for a cow, not a human!” protests Ali, who was told the police resorted to this because of the state of the bodies, and for lack of better equipment.

What the hell? The issue isn’t how the corpses were treated, the issue is how the two girls were treated before they were dumped in that pond.

The picture of the girls, floating face down, was shared on Facebook, which led to reactions of shock and disgust.

“It shows the low value (that) is given to women,” someone commented. The condemnations of the way the bodies were handled overshadowed those protesting the deaths.

Ali suggests that was possibly because the case was seen as just another probable murder of women in Kurdistan, or so-called “honor killings.” On the same day, a girl of 16 was killed by her father, after the shelter where she had sought refuge handed her over to her uncle.

“Honor killings” are a common feature in Iraqi Kurdistan, where women who are deemed to have dishonored the family by associating with men who are not immediate relatives are killed by a relative. Every year, there are hundreds of such murders, with victims often set on fire or forced into committing suicide.

That’s the real horror.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Another great who will be at Women in Secularism 3 in a few weeks:

Katha Pollitt.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

It’s annoying when someone you’re arguing with (yes, on social media, not in actual [shudder] real life) says “I’m just being pedantic.”

No, you’re not being pedantic, you’re being wrong. I’m being pedantic, not you.

Sheesh.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

News from the British Humanist Association:

The British Humanist Association (BHA) has expressed alarm after a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed that Ofqual, OCR and other exam boards have been reaching agreements with at least one and seemingly several state funded ‘faith’ schools to allow them to black out exam questions on evolution, where such questions are deemed incompatible with the schools’ religious ethos.

If a “school” has a “religious ethos” that is incompatible with teaching about evolution then it’s not a “school”; it’s a religious institution of some kind. It’s not education, it’s not teaching, it’s not a school, if there is a religious filter on the content.

The information came to light after Yesoday Hatorah Senior Girls School, a state-maintained Charedi Jewish secondary school in Hackney, was found last October to have blacked out a question on evolution in pupils’ GCSE science exams. An FOI request found the exam board in question, OCR, writing to Ofqual, the Office for Qualifications and Examinations Regulation: ‘In our deliberations we have reached the conclusion the most proportionate and reasonable approach would be to come to an agreement with the centres concerned which will protect the future integrity of our examinations – by stipulating how, when and where the redactions take place – but at the same time respect their need to do this in view of their religious beliefs. We believe we need to be mindful of the fact that if we do not come to an agreement with the centres we could be seen as creating a barrier to accessing the examinations for the candidates.’

There shouldn’t be any official “respect” for “beliefs” that forbid teaching the best scientific knowledge.

This is one time when some abrupt tweets from Richard Dawkins would be suitable.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Via Marcus Ranum: Pro Publica reports that guards may be responsible for half of prison sexual assaults.

A new Justice Department study shows that allegations of sex abuse in the nation’s prisons and jails are increasing — with correctional officers responsible for half of it  — but prosecution is still extremely rare.

…

The survey also shows a growing proportion of the allegations have been dismissed by prison officials as “unfounded” or “unsubstantiated.” Only about 10 percent are substantiated by an investigation.

But even in the rare cases where there is enough evidence to prove that sexual abuse occurred, and that a correctional officer is responsible for it, the perpetrator rarely faces prosecution. While most prison staff shown to be involved in sexual misconduct lost their jobs, fewer than half were referred for prosecution, and only 1 percent ultimately got convicted.

Roughly one-third of staff caught abusing prisoners are allowed to resign before the investigation comes to a close, the report concludes, meaning there’s no public record of what exactly transpired and nothing preventing them from getting a similar job at another facility.

Why, that sounds exactly like the Catholic church and its way with priests who rape children. Huh. What a coincidence.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Speaking of our grotesque rates of incarceration in the US – here’s a guy in California who was legally growing legal marijuana for a collective of medical marijuana dispensaries, who has been sentenced to two years in the slammer.

Robert Duncan moved from Los Angeles to Northern California in 2010 to manage marijuana growing operations for a collective of medical marijuana dispensaries. Although California voters legalized medical cannabis more than 17 years ago, the plant remains illegal under federal law, and the Obama administration launched a renewed crackdown on marijuana in California in 2011.

That October, Duncan’s grow house was raided. A few months later, U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner indicted him and others involved in the dispensary business on the grounds that it had grown too large. Despite California’s struggle with prison overcrowding, and despite new federal guidelines that say size should no longer be considered in prosecution decisions, Duncan, 31, was sentenced to two years in prison. He is scheduled to report to Mendota Federal Correctional Institution near Fresno, Calif., on Monday afternoon.

What is wrong with us?

Duncan reports his version:

I honestly had some stereotypes of what I expected to see when I got into the business — people who probably really didn’t need marijuana for medicinal purposes. But I was actually quite surprised to see people who were battling cancer, in wheelchairs, suffering from chronic pain from car accidents. It was quite justified. We had thousands and thousands of members of our cooperatives.

We hired lawyers from day one. We were entirely compliant with state law. It was shortly after the federal government said it would not intervene if people followed state law. We wanted to abide by the rules. None of us had criminal backgrounds. We’re all regular guys. The only reason we got into this was because the federal government said they wouldn’t intervene.

One of our stores in Sacramento, Medizen, was broken into once, and robbed once. Both times the police responded and police reports were filed, proving we were interacting with law enforcement like any other business would.

What’s the thinking here? Jobs for prison guards make this kind of thing totally worth it?

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

There’s an interview with Rebecca Goldstein in the Atlantic. She’s a speaker at Women in Secularism 3.

[pause for inward tap dance; inward so as not to alarm Cooper who is asleep]\

From the intro:

At a time when advances in science and technology have changed our understanding of our mental and physical selves, it is easy for some to dismiss the discipline of philosophy as obsolete. Stephen Hawking, boldly, argues that philosophy is dead.

Yes, and Richard Dawkins, absurdly, demands why philosophy didn’t think of natural selection before Darwin.

How early do you think children can, or should, start learning about philosophy?

I started really early with my daughters. They said the most interesting things that if you’re trained in philosophy you realize are big philosophical statements. The wonderful thing about kids is that the normal way of thinking, the conceptual schemes we get locked up in, haven’t gelled yet with them. When my daughter was a toddler, I’d say “Danielle!” she would very assuredly, almost indignantly, say, “I’m not Danielle! I’m this!” I’d think, What is she trying to express? This is going to sound ridiculous, but she was trying to express what Immanuel Kant calls the transcendental ego.

It doesn’t sound ridiculous.

You’re not a thing in the world the way there are other things in the world, you’re the thing experiencing other things—putting it all together. This is what this toddler was trying to tell me. Or when my other daughter, six at the time, was talking with her hands and knocked over a glass of juice. She said, “Look at what my body did!” I said, “Oh, you didn’t do that?” And she said, “No! My body did that!” I thought, Oh! Cartesian dualism! She meant that she didn’t intend to do that, and she identified herself with her intentional self. It was fascinating to me.

There’s a book there. She should write that book.

What changes in philosophy curriculum have you seen over the last 40 years?

One thing that’s changed tremendously is the presence of women and the change in focus because of that. There’s a lot of interest in literature and philosophy, and using literature as a philosophical examination. It makes me so happy! Because I was seen as a hard-core analytic philosopher, and when I first began to write novels people thought, Oh, and we thought she was serious! But that’s changed entirely. People take literature seriously, especially in moral philosophy, as thought experiments. A lot of the most developed and effective thought experiments come from novels. Also, novels contribute to making moral progress, changing people’s emotions.

Right—a recent study shows how reading literature leads to increased compassion.

Exactly. It changes our view of what’s imaginable. Commercial fiction that didn’t challenge people’s stereotypes about characters didn’t have the same effect of being able to read others better, but literary fiction that challenges our views of stereotypes has a huge effect. A lot of women philosophers have brought this into the conversation. Martha Nussbaum really led the way in this. She claimed that literature was philosophically important in many different ways.

See for instance The Fragility of Goodness; an extraordinary book.

I gotta go, I gotta do an external tap dance. Just a few weeks until Women in Secularism 3!

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A tour around FTB…

From the newest blog, On the Margin of Error, Kaveh talks about the fetish for uncertainty.

…we are not certain if there is an alien species or not. But if someone says that he knows aliens have their asses on their heads and every time they fart their eyes pop out, then we can be certain that person is wrong, and our certainty is not dogmatic, but only rational.

I have that thought often. There could be a First Cause, or a Whatever, or another cosmos in which this cosmos is just an atom, along with a cosmos in every atom of this cosmos…But none of that has anything to do with all the nonsensical specificity about Mr God and his Inflatable Knees.

Taslima has some thoughts on the burqa.

All India imam council’s Vice President claims burqas are for women’s protection, but fitting burqas or designer’s burqas attract rapists. It means, not really burqas, but the embroidery works on burqas make men’s penises erected and they can not control their desire to rape the persons hiding under embroidered burqas.

Muftis are allowed to issue fatwas. So the fatwa is, women should not wear nice looking burqas, they should wear plain burqas without embroidery designs.

These fatwabaz men are very busy thinking about women. But obviously their brains don’t think, their penises think. All they can think is how to fuck women. They dream of fucking women. They like embroidery design, so they have to fuck.

Maryam has the terrible news that Iran stoning case Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani attempted suicide in Tabriz prison.

After several days she was transferred back to the prison’s clinic and remains in terrible physical and psychological state.

The Islamic regime of Iran must release Sakineh now.

Ask Rouhani: Why don’t you release Sakineh now!

At Nirmukta, Anish Nair has a piece on that annoying article by Jakob de Roover that I blogged about the other day – so now I will cut the tour short so that I can read Anish’s piece.

A very short tour, a very tiny sample, but quite impressive. It occurs to me that this is not a bad little blog network we have here.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

And just today, a few hours ago, at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, the third annual Flowers for Magdalenes event, to remember the women who died in the Magdalene Laundries.

Speakers included Mary Lou McDonald TD (Sinn Féin), Claire McGettrick (Justice for Magdalenes), Lynn Boylan (Sinn Féin) and Martina Keogh (Survivor of the Magdalene laundries).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwcXTlWEx1k

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Meet Mari Steed.

Mari Steed was two-years-old when she was adopted from Ireland by a family from Flourtown, PA. Years later, her search for her birth mother turned up the Magdalene Laundries’ terrifying legacy, and Steed is widely credited for her campaign for justice and the Irish Government’s apology to the Magdalene survivors.

Mari is the daughter of a Magdalene survivor. She was taken from her mother and sent for adoption in America at eighteen months old.

She might never have gone looking for the woman who relinquished her had fate not brought her a great empathy for her mother’s experience. In her senior year of high school, Steed became pregnant by her boyfriend. Her parents sent her to St. Vincent’s, a home in Upper Darby for unwed mot­hers. On rare visits home to Flourtown, young Mari was kept indoors, lest her growing bump may attract neighborhood gossip.

Mari was reunited with her birth mother, who is now known as Josephine Bassett, through her campaign with Justice for Madeline Survivors. Josephine was one of the thousands of women who worked for years in the Magdalene laundries system before the last one closed in 1996. Her mother’s life, Steed told The Irish Voice in 2013, is a “kind of testament to the shadow side of Ireland and the deceitful tale it told itself of a kindly and compassionate social order.”

Cognitive dissonance on a national scale, that.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Boko Haram struck again yesterday.

The attackers – believed to be from the Boko Haram group – destroyed the entire village of Mainok, about 50km (30 miles) west of the city of Maiduguri.

The incident took place late on Saturday, hours after two bomb blasts killed at least 50 people in Maiduguri.

Boko Haram has been conducting a four-year violent campaign to demand Islamic rule in northern Nigeria.

The morning after the latest attack, bodies were lying in front of the mosque waiting to be buried and buildings in Mainok were still on fire, the BBC’s Will Ross reports from Lagos.

An eyewitness described how the attack unfolded: “They started shooting everywhere, they started burning all the houses in the village.

“I don’t think that there is any house that is standing in the village and they have killed at least 39 people in the village.”

CNN reports as of half an hour ago that dozens of people have been killed in three attacks. The first casualties were in a village bombed by a military plane trying to bomb Boko Haram camps on Friday night.

Dozens of attackers in military uniforms stormed the village of Mainok on Saturday evening, riding four-wheelers and motorcycles, as residents were preparing for evening prayers.

“They came in around 7 p.m. and opened fire indiscriminately with RPGs (rocket propelled grenades), explosives and AK-47 rifles,” said Mainok resident Yahaya Umar. “They killed 39 people who were buried this morning and destroyed the whole town.”

…

The attack on Mainok came soon after two explosions in Maiduguri, 50 kilometers away.

“We were just lamenting the twin blasts in Maiduguri at the soccer viewing center when the Boko Haram gunmen arrived and started firing volleys of RPGs and guns,” Abdullahi Gana said. The Mainok resident added that some of the victims were burnt in their homes while others were shot as they tried to flee.

More corpses for Allah.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)