It’s exhilarating to know that Egypt is in such wonderful shape that its national security officials can squander their valuable time arresting people for posting atheism on Facebook.

A 20-year-old Egyptian student is reportedly under investigation for starting a Facebook group calling for atheism.

The unnamed student who studies commerce at the Suez Canal University in Ismailia, was arrested after the university’s administration filed a complaint over his alleged activities, Egypt’s largest news organisation Al-Ahram online writes.

The newspaper adds the accused student is now being investigated by national security officials.

There’s actually a law against that though?

Don’t be silly; of course there is.

While the story has yet to be verified by other sources, article 98 of Egypt’s penal code says anyone found guilty of offending religion in any form can face up to six years in prison.

In December last year, a Cairo court convicted Coptic Christian blogger Alber Saber of blasphemy and contempt of religion, sentencing him to three years in prison.

Offending religion in any form – that could mean literally anything.

I dislike theocracy.

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

Turkey used to be more secular than it is now. It’s going in the wrong direction. It’s going backward. Of course, theocrats think it’s going in the right direction, and going forward, or else that going backward is a good thing.

Torcant sent me this example from Hürriyet, in which a woman is fired because cleavage.

A television presenter has been dismissed over a low-cut top she wore on a television program, following criticism from ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) spokesperson Hüseyin Çelik.

Çelik criticized the presenter’s costume during a TV program, without giving a name, saying he found the dress “extreme” because of its open cleavage.

“We don’t intervene against anyone, but this is too much. It is unacceptable,” he said.

We don’t intervene against anyone, except when we do. We, the political party in power, decide what is acceptable in the way of women’s shirts. When we turn our thumbs down the woman is kicked out of her job.

Following Çelik’s remarks, it was revealed that the host in question was Gözde Kansu, who was taking part on the show “Veliaht” on the ATV station, and rumors spread that she had been fired.

The show’s producer, Caner Erdem, previously said nothing had been resolved, adding that Kansu might not take part in the program next week “due to her busy schedule.”

However, after discussions between the channel and the producer, Kansu’s dismissal was confirmed on Oct. 8.

The company that produces the show released a statement on Oct. 9, denying that Kansu was fired due to her low-cut dress.

The company said it no longer wanted to work with Kansu after the first  episode because her way of presentation and style was not in line with  the show’s aims, the statement said.

And those aims were…to jump when the party in power said jump.

Gözde Kansu is more direct about the matter.

Gözde Kansu, the television presenter who was fired from a TV show after a government official criticized her low-cut dress, said her firing was political, as nobody at her station was “willing to stand against the political will.”

“Sacrificing me was the easiest thing they could have done and they did. A woman again,” Kansu said in an interview with daily Hürriyet, speaking for the first time in public after reports of her dismissal from private broadcaster ATV surfaced.

She objected to the show producer’s claim that said they had parted ways because “her way of presentation and style was not in line with the show’s aims.”

“Look, if they didn’t like my performance they would tell me, right? They are investing a lot of money in this business. But they didn’t tell me anything. When [Hüseyin] Çelik talked, things changed,” Kansu said, insisting that her presenting had previously been praised and encouraged by the producers. “This is only the excuse. The ratings were not bad. But nobody wanted to act contrary to political will that slammed my décolleté. This is obvious,” she said.

Well, you know. Tits are haram.

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

You know that thing where you’re in a place with a lot of people you don’t see very often, and you cross paths with someone who says, warmly, “Hi, [your name here]!” and you know who it is but can’t pull the name up quite fast enough to say it before you’ve already said the “Hi” part and it’s too late? And you feel terrible? But then later you figure out a way to seek the person out so that you can say the name right off the bat? And then you feel very relieved?

That.

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

I sat next to Eddie Tabash at the speakers’ dinner Saturday, so I’ve been reminded (aka inspired) to focus more on the church/state issues looming at the Supreme Court, so you can expect me to be sharing more reportage on the subject.

The LA Times has a useful article by its business columnist on the “do corporations have a ‘religious conscience’?” question.

Now that the Supreme Court has endowed corporations with the right to have their voices heard via unrestrained spending on political campaigns (in the Citizens United decision of 2010), there aren’t many frontiers left to test the idea that corporations are “persons.”

But one test is heading our way with the speed of a freight train. This is the claim that corporations can have a religious conscience — more to the point, that they can impose their own religious beliefs on their employees. 

The issue is raised by three corporations’ challenges to Obamacare, specifically its requirement that employer health plans cover a wide range of contraceptives. The companies’ owners maintain that the rule infringes on their enterprises’ free expression of religion. Lower courts have split on whether a federal law forbidding the government to “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” applies to corporations. If it does, the road is wide open for employers to allow their religious beliefs to govern how they do business. Two appellate courts have ruled that for-profit corporations don’t have religious rights and a third says they might; what this split means is that the issue is on a certain path to the Supreme Court.

The implications of granting corporations the right to free expression of religion are horrific. The precedent, writes David H. Gans of the Constitutional Accountability Center, would allow companies to fire workers “for engaging in all manner of activities that may not conform to the religious code of the company’s owners, including using contraceptives or terminating a pregnancy, becoming pregnant out of wedlock, or marrying a person of the same sex.”

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

More on the teenage Kenyan girl who was gangraped and then thrown into a toilet pit, from the BBC.

They threw her unconscious body into a latrine. Her spine was broken, and the girl – referred to simply as Liz to protect her identity – is now in a wheelchair.

Earlier this year, a similarly horrific gang rape in India sparked a worldwide frenzy in social media and brought international condemnation.

Liz’s case was first reported by Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper on 7 October. “This is one of many such cases that happen in rural areas and the slums,” says Njeri Rugene, the journalist who broke the story. “People keep quiet about it – but it’s rampant.”

The men who allegedly attacked Liz – three of whom she says she knows – were
told to cut grass, then set free. The lack of punishment spurred a handful of
journalists and activists to use social media to raise awareness of the case.
The hashtags created did not get widespread traction, with #Justice4Liz getting
just a couple of hundred tweets. But in recent days, an online
petition set up by activist Nebila Abdulmelik started to gain international
attention.

How does that even happen? They broke her back – and still the cops just made them mow the lawn and that was the end of it?

I must not despair. But some of these stories…

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

He never should have been in prison in the first place, and he was there for 20 months, but he’s out now, so YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

Al Jazeera reports:

Supporters of Saudi writer Hamza Kashgari are celebrating his release after his imprisonment 20 months ago. His lawyer Abdulrahman Allahim said he was released early Tuesday, though there was no official confirmation from the government.

Kashgari was detained in February 2012 for allegedly blasphemous tweets. He fled to Malaysia following widespread outcry and death threats from some religious conservatives. He was extradited back to the kingdom where he was apprehended.

Remember that? He was heading for Indonesia, I think, New Zealand but he had to go via Kuala Lumpur and there the bastards grabbed him and sent him back – probably in violation of international law. Extradition is for serious shit, not made-up bullshit “blasphemy.”

Anyway, he’s out now. Enjoy your freedom, Hamza.

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

I knew the situation with antibiotics was bad but I didn’t know how bad. It’s really bad. The part I didn’t realize (which was stupid of me, because it’s obvious once it’s pointed out) is how heavily most advances in medical treatment, i.e. surgeries, depend on antibiotics. We’re screwed.

Frontline did a big show on it last week which I haven’t seen yet. It has an interview with Dr. Arjun Srinivasan of the CDC on its website.

They really are miracle drugs, and not only have they saved the lives of millions and millions of people … but antibiotics have opened up new frontiers in medicine that would be impossible without them.

Like what?

For example, organ transplantation. One of the major causes of death in patients who would have an organ transplant would be an infection. Without antibiotics, we wouldn’t be able to treat any of those infections.

And stem cell?

Stem cell transplants, bone marrow transplantation, cancer chemotherapy would be largely impossible … because all of these are therapies that weaken people’s immune system, which of course makes them then vulnerable to infections. We don’t have to worry about that so much because we have antibiotics that can treat those infections.

A lot of the therapies that we use now for different types of arthritis, like rheumatoid arthritis — you see ads for that now on television — again, these are therapies that weaken immune systems. They make people vulnerable for infections, but because we have antibiotics, that’s not something that we have to particularly worry about as much as if we didn’t have the antibiotics.

But now we don’t, so much, so we do have to worry. And it’s getting worse not better.

We are quickly running out of therapies to treat some of these infections that previously had been eminently treatable. There are bacteria that we encounter, particularly in health-care settings, that are resistant to nearly all — or, in some cases, all — the antibiotics that we have available to us, and we are thus entering an era that people have talked about for a long time.

For a long time, there have been newspaper stories and covers of magazines that talked about “The end of antibiotics, question mark?” Well, now I would say you can change the title to “The end of antibiotics, period.”

We’re here. We’re in the post-antibiotic era. There are patients for whom we have no therapy, and we are literally in a position of having a patient in a bed who has an infection, something that five years ago even we could have treated, but now we can’t. …

And that is just scary as hell.

I talked to a friend about it the other day, and she told me she’d recently had major spinal surgery and the hospital told her to go home the next day. She was aghast, and said, “What? Surely I need to recuperate more first?” And they told her every minute she stayed was more risk of untreatable infection.

Oh.my.god.

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

For awhile the Mormon church tried to appear like less of a malicious hate-driven institution, but now that Romney has not been elected president it’s decided the hell with that, at least in Hawaii. It’s back to the old project of trying to repair the gayness, according to Mother Jones.

This week, the Hawaii state legislature began a special session to consider a bill that would legalize gay marriage in the state. The church is actively working to kill that measure.

One Sunday in September, local Mormon bishops read a letter from top Hawaii Mormon leadership instructing churchgoers to contact public officials about the same-sex marriage bill.

The letter was not the full-throated call to action the church issued during the fight over California’s anti-gay marriage measure, Proposition 8, when church leaders read letters directing members to “do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment by donating of your means and time.” The September Hawaii letter was far subtler, and even acknowledged that some Mormons might actually be in favor of the marriage bill. Nonetheless, it urged members to “review” the church’s “proclamation to the world,” a 1995 speech given by church president Gordon Hinckley that spelled out the church’s belief that marriage can only be between a man and woman. This latest letter also recommended members donate time and resources to groups working on the bill, though it didn’t say on which side they should be working.

The church also suggested that regardless of how members felt about the marriage bill, they should advocate for an exemption that would protect religious organizations from having to perform same-sex marriages and to allow individuals and small businesses to refuse to cater to such marriages (a nod to the famous cases of photographers and bakeries that have refused to serve customers celebrating a same-sex wedding in states where it’s now legal). The language the Mormon church favors mirrors the religious freedom argument the Catholic Church has adopted in its fights over everything from contraceptive coverage to gay marriage.

Because that’s the important thing. Interfering with people who aren’t like them, meddling with people’s ability to be happy together, defending the “freedom” to interfere with and poke at and torment people for no good reason.

But Salt Lake City’s focus-grouped language didn’t sit well with Hawaii church leaders, who wanted a more forceful message. On October 13, Hawaii church leaders read another letter to their flocks, this time stating flatly that the church’s position on same-sex marriage had not changed and that the church “is opposed to the proposed legislation in Hawaii.” The state church’s letter argues that traditional marriage is “fundamental to successful families and a strong society,” and directs members to actively oppose the legislation.

Dear flocks: let us all persist in being tiny-minded and spiteful and interfering, forever and ever, amen.

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

Another petition worth flagging up (because worth signing) - about a rape case in Kenya in which the rapists were basically congratulated and sent on their merry way.

["Liz" is not the victim's real name and that's not a picture of her.]

16 year old Liz was walking home from her grandfather’s funeral when she was ambushed by six men who took turns raping her and then threw her unconscious body down a 6-meter toilet pit. Their punishment? Police had them mow their station lawn, then let them go free!

Liz’s horror story has sent shockwaves through Kenya and now politicians and the police are under pressure to respond. But women’s groups in Kenya say nothing will truly change unless the government is put under the global spotlight. They are calling on us urgently to help ensure justice is done and that Liz’s nightmare marks a turning-point in Kenya’s rape epidemic.

Nobody has been brought to justice – not the rapists, and not the police. Today, we change that. Let’s stand with Liz right now, before her attackers and the police escape. Sign now to get justice for Liz and help make sure no girl anywhere suffers this violence.

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

That must have been an exciting day in the Religious Education class.

A religious education teacher has been struck off after telling pupils: “Hitler wasn’t all bad – he killed the Jews, the gays and the disabled”.

David McNally also told pupils at Kilwinning Academy that he would rather have been a child abuser and liked to watch porn on his mobile phone.

The remarks were made to S3 and higher RE classes on 1 November 2012.

First of all he seems to have gone off topic…although I suppose he could have been attempting to explain why Hitler was a good and orthodox Catholic, to start with, and then shifted to explaining why child abuse is totally Catholic and orthodox and good. (I still don’t get the porn connection though.)

Second, too much information.

As well as the remark about Hitler he asked one of his Higher pupils if they had had sex at the weekend.

On the same day he said to pupils in his third year class: “I didn’t want to be a teacher. I would rather have been a prison warden or a child abuser.”

He also said: “I have a part-time job at a children’s home – they have taught me how to whip a child with a wet towel without leaving a mark.”

The hearing was also told he said: “I love my mobile phone because I can sit and watch porn on it.”

McNally also made inappropriate comments about disgraced DJ Jimmy Savile after widespread reports emerged about him being a child abuser.

He really was thorough about it, wasn’t he.

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

Joking aside, though, I really do have profound contempt for this whole “there are bigger issues so shut up about your issues because they’re not the biggest issues” line of patter. It’s even worse because it’s not even serious, or really meant, it’s just a pretext for saying some kind of shit, however desperate. But it wouldn’t be very respectable even if it were meant.

It’s just fucking dumb. The world is a big place, with a lot of people in it, and it’s a good thing that different people work on different things in different ways. It’s not a reason to spend a big chunk of time using social media for the purpose of badmouthing people who work on things that are not The Most Important Things Anyone Could Possibly Work On.

Saudi women are not allowed to drive, therefore people who blog about feminism should shut up.

Wut? Why should they? Why should we? And who made random creepers on Twitter the experts on the subject?

They shouldn’t, we shouldn’t, and no one did.

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

Dan Fincke sent me the link to an inspirational discussion on William Lane Craig’s Q and A page.

Dear Dr. Craig,

I have usually found your words to be a source of information and reassurance  in my Christian faith, and have often sought out your writings and videos in  times of doubt or questioning.

So I was really disappointed, almost shocked, when I read your newsletter of  April of this year in which you casually stereotypes men and women, and complain  that the church is becoming increasingly feminized, and has difficulties in  attracting men.

Your compared the audiences at a couple of your speaking engagements to the  audience from a clip of a Downton Abbey Q&A at another location – concluding  that they were all men at the former and almost all women at the latter “simply  because the Downton Abbey program is highly relational, which is more appealing  to women, whereas my talks were principally intellectually oriented, which is  more appealing to men.”

Wuhay! It’s dear old “it’s more of a guy thing” again. Women like fluffy stuff like relations and big huge expensive houses with expensive dresses, and men hard bony stuff like intellectual talks.

His correspondent goes on,

I believe that you are using stereotypes here, which you justify by making a  ridiculous comparison that holds zero statistical significance. Not only is your  statement unreasonable, it is potentially damaging – especially when made so  carelessly. Stereotypes are shortcuts in classifying people. They can, and often  do, limit and distort the way we perceive others and the world. Stereotypes are  a lazy way of thinking that can lead to discrimination, and their use should not  be encouraged.

So he turns red with rage and tries to stomp her into the ground, yes?

No, he’s better than that. He just talks a lot of patronizing bullshit.

My observations about the peculiar attraction that Christian apologetics has  for men involves several claims. Let’s tease these apart to see which of them  are objectionable.

First is my observation that apologetics seems to have far more interest for  men than for women. That observation is based upon an enormous amount of  experience in speaking on university campuses, at apologetics conferences, and  in classroom teaching. It is a realization that gradually and unexpectedly  forced itself upon me. It became very evident to me not only that the audiences  which came to these events were largely male but that in event after event only  the men stood up to ask a question. These facts seem to me to be undeniable.

Second is my hypothesis that this disparity is to be explained by the fact  that men respond more readily to a rational approach, whereas women tend to  respond more to relational approaches. Of course, this is just my best  suggestion, and if you’ve got a better hypothesis to explain the disparity,  Alexandra, I’m open to it. But there has to be an explanation.

Well, Bill, could part of the explanation be stereotype threat? Which you are doing your bit to re-enforce right here? Could it be that blather like that boils down to “women are kind of stupid, though in the nicest possible way” and that it makes women hesitant to open their mouths lest stupidity come tumbling out?

I think it could. I think patronizing crap like that is part of the very explanation you claim to be looking for.

Please understand that what I’m doing is not stereotyping but generalizing.  There’s a difference between a stereotype and a generalization. A generalization  admits of exceptions but remains an accurate characterization of most members of  a group. Most women do respond better to relational appeals, whereas men tend to  like the rational approach. Books on marriage improvement strongly emphasize  this difference. In her fascinating book You Just Don’t Understand: Women  and Men in Conversation, Deborah Tanner, for example, says that the way men  and women communicate is so different that when a man talks to a woman it’s a  case of cross-cultural communication!

Ah yes, generalization is obviously nothing like stereotype at all. Notice how he demonstrates that: by using the word “do” before “respond better” – that way we know it’s true. Then he makes us know it even more by saying the name of a book.

I thought at first that maybe the reason women almost never stood up to ask a  question was due the intimidation factor: they just feel less comfortable than  men getting up publicly to ask a question. That’s why the experience of seeing  the Downton Abbey panel was so intriguing to me. Though there were men in the  audience, everyone who got up and asked a question was a woman! When a man  finally stood up and asked something, this was almost a cause of celebration and  was noticed by everyone. Now obviously, this evidence is anecdotal, not  statistical, as you point out, but still this was not just accidental. What is  the explanation? Those of us who, like Jan and me, are fans of Downton Abbey  know how relational the program is, as it follows the personal lives and  struggles of those in the house. It’s striking that women didn’t feel  intimidated about getting up publicly and asking questions about very relational  matters.

What is the explanation? Here’s my hypothesis. It’s that there are no William Lane Craigs running around saying that Downton Abbey is an intellectual subject and that’s more of a guy thing.

He ends on a courageous note. That’s the guy thing coming into play again.

I doubt that what I’ve said in response to your question, Alexandra, will do  much to rebuild your faith in my words! My observations about the peculiar  attraction that Christian apologetics has for men may not be politically correct, but I believe that they are accurate, even if disappointing and  shocking to some.

His observations may not be politically correct, but he believes that they are accurate. Well that’s good enough for me, William Lane Craig!

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

I posted a short excerpt from The Collected Tweets of Someone Very Angry About Something on Facebook, and people couldn’t even figure out what it was supposed to mean, so I thought I’d crowd-source it another way.

One pernicious aspect of identity politics favored by social justice warriors is it tends to subvert any concern with the horrors of poverty

Something about a tricycle is it?

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

Pink News reports a Nigerian bishop raging at the archbishop of Canterbury for not hating teh gaze.

The Most Rev Justin Welby risks allowing the Church of Nigeria to break away from the worldwide Anglican Communion, Bishop Emmanuel Chukwuma warned during a conversation with journalists at Nigera’s Akanu Ibiam International Airport.

Bishop Chukwuma had returned from Nairobi, where he’d been attending the Global Anglican Future Conference, along with 500 other Nigerian bishops.

He said: “We are not going to compromise. And we have made it quite known even to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the whole Europe and America, that there is no compromise as far as the scripture is concerned. So, if they do not repent, we are ready to stand on our own and go ahead with that authority of the scriptures and confess that faith as Anglicans for the future of church of Anglicanism.

“We secede. We are ready to secede because if you look at Ephesians chapter 5, verse 7, it says that you should not have anything to do with those people [homosexuals] who are becoming disobedient. So, why should we yoke with unbelievers. So, if they do not repent, we are ready to say, go away, we go our way. We love them but we hate their sins.”

Who cares what Ephesians chapter 5, verse 7 says about what you should not? Ephesians was written many centuries ago, and morality has improved since then. What pathetic bungling ignorance it is to point at a page in one single book and treat it as dispositive of anything.

Let’s take a look at the conversation-stopping wisdom of Ephesians 5. The New International Version.

5 ¹ Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children ² and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

³ But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. ⁴ Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. ⁵ For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.^[a]6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. ⁷ Therefore do not be partners with them.

Well there you go – it’s just some ignorant anal-compulsive narrow pseudo-morality about being pure. It’s ethically impoverished. It’s barely adequate even as advice on polite manners in a public place, and as for being an irrefutable reason to treat LGBTQ people as tenth-class citizens, it’s beneath contempt.

Your morality is shit, Bishop Chukwuma. You’re a bad man doing bad things. You may not mean to be, but you are.

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

One thing I learned (or was nudged into noticing more clearly) at the CFI event is that I should be paying more attention to Greece v Galloway.

Or to put it another way, it’s the Supreme Court, stupid.

Eddie Tabash points out that we are one justice away from being second-class citizens. The “we” in that sentence is atheists and secularists.

As the Center for American Progress puts it,

The Supreme Court’s decision in Greece will serve as the basis for what is and is not permitted when it comes to prayers before official public meetings—guidance that could also be applied in cases involving all aspects of religion in the public sphere.

SCOTUS will hear the case November 6. It all hinges on Kennedy. (The ruling will come months later.)

Part of me thinks I should pay less attention to it instead of more, on the grounds that I like to remain cheerful. But that’s just cowardly.

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

I thought it was a great conference, and I know I had a great time there. But there are dissenters registering their dissent.

Sara E. Mayhew @saramayhew

If we want to be good at popularising skepticism, orgs need to cut cheap imitation speakers; Myers, Watson, Benson, Szvan, Skepchick/FTB.

That’s how to popularize skepticism.

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

And from the Halloween party last night – the winner of the costume contest – Martin Marvin the Martian, who was hilarious in person, being very tall, so it was like a 10-foot-tall cartoon character.

http://t.co/Im5C11rC0D

Michael DeDora was a convincing Clark Kent.

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

The last talk at the CFI Summit was perhaps the most inspiring of all: it was by Bill Cooke, the Director of International Programs at CFI, telling us what the programs do. They do enormously important things with a very small budget. I was frankly unaware of the International Programs before. I feel a little less embarrassed about that because I’m not the only one; lots of people were exclaiming that they’d had no idea. Bill said he blames himself for not publicizing it more, because he’s not very techy. Well!! Neither am I, but I do happen to have this noisy blog here, lying around not doing anything, so I can use it to give the International Programs a signal boost.

Herewith begins the signal boost!

(I told Bill I want to do that, and to send me pictures and stuff. Division of labor. He can do the hard work and stretch a tiny budget to do big things, and I can do the soft job of spreading the word about that online.)

There’s a report from last February at CFI.

In January, the Center for Inquiry’s director of international programs, Bill Cooke, journeyed to Kenya, Uganda, and Egypt to meet with CFI’s affiliates in those countries and discuss their work. The trip was very informative, as it revealed the impact these organizations are having in their countries as well as the extent of their need for support to further the cause of critical thinking and humanism.

Here we focus on Bill’s trip to CFI–Kenya, where he spent much of his time.

First on the itinerary for Bill’s five-day engagement, he met with the children involved in the CFI–Kenya program “Humanist Orphans.” This is an ambitious initiative for the education and assistance of kids and their families from all
across rural Africa who have been accused of witchcraft. Bill met with teachers, students, and families, shared stories, and gave them an excellent lesson on humanism and the dangers of superstition, of which they have direct experience.

Bill later met with leaders from various community organizations on the ground in Nairobi, sharing strategies and insight on skepticism and combatting superstition. He even got to spend time engaging with the brilliant young minds of the University of Nairobi Humanists and Freethinkers, giving them a firmer grasp on the ideals of humanism.

Reporting on the visit, George Ongere, director of CFI–Kenya told us that Bill was “inspiring” and that it “instilled confidence in us,” particularly because exposure to international members of the organized global freethought community gives these local activists the opportunity to be “more prepared to defend their stance intellectually” as well as “more confidence in our activities.”

Ok that’s another reason this signal needs to be boosted. I wanted to boost it so that more people will DONATE to the International Programs (which you can do easily just by donating to CFI and earmarking the donation for the International Programs), but of course international solidarity is another huge reason.

I talked about that in my part of the panel, as a matter of fact. The panel was about how humanism and skepticism relate to each other, and I ended up finding it oddly difficult to figure out what to say, so in the end I said I’m not sure I care all that much, because I care more about internationalism and human rights, and that I think if there’s one thing that’s actually useful about my writing, it’s boosting the signal of people like Leo Igwe and Maryam Namazie. I was the last person to speak and Bill was the first person to comment, and much to my surprise he started by warmly agreeing with what I’d said. I’ve gotten used to annoying people whenever I open my mouth or type words, so that made a change.

So anyway – donate to Bill’s program if you can, and spread the word if you have a word-spreading machine.

It heartens all of us at CFI to know what fantastic work is being done by George and everyone at CFI–Kenya, and that interactions that bridge national and cultural divides, like Bill Cooke’s sojourn, make this worldwide movement stronger and more closely-knit.

That.

Source

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

I’m back! So if you’ve been holding any complaints, suggestions, insults, compliments, orders until I had more time to deal with them. you can send them now.

I kid. As if anyone would wait.

But I am back. I had a great time. They’re a great bunch of people.

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