Huffington Post UK helpfully reported on the Twitter blowup, with lots of tweets - so much pleasanter to read than Storify.

I went back to the December NS piece in which Mehdi Hasan confirmed his belief in flying horses. Really he’s not talking about the flying horse in particular, but about how reasonable it is to believe in goddy things overall. It’s the usual shifty kind of thing.

In trying to disparage “faith”, Dawkins and his allies constantly confuse “evidence” with “proof”; those of us who believe in God do so without proof but not without evidence. As the Oxford theologian (and biophysicist) Alister McGrath has observed: “Our beliefs may be shown to be justifiable, without thereby demonstrating that they are proven.”

Those atheists who harangue us theists for our supposed lack of evidence should consider three things. First, it may be a tired cliché but it is nonetheless correct: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I can’t prove God but you can’t disprove him. The only non-faith-based position is that of the agnostic.

That’s not the issue; the issue is which is more reasonable. Is it more reasonable to believe in an untestable hidden god that answers prayers, or is it more reasonable not to?

Second, there are plenty of things that cannot be scientifically tested or proven but that we believe to be true, reasonable, obvious even. Which of these four pretty uncontroversial statements is scientifically testable? 1) Your spouse loves you. 2) The Taj Mahal is beautiful. 3) There are conscious minds other than your own. 4) The Nazis were evil.

Shifty, shifty, shifty. Not even close to a good comparison. 1 and 2 are certainly susceptible to inquiry and evidence. 2 and 4 are value judgements, and thus a different kind of thing from an ontological claim.

Third, there are plenty of good, rational and evidence-based arguments for God. You don’t have to agree with them, but it is intellectually dishonest to claim that they, too, like God, don’t exist.

No it isn’t, not if the reason you don’t agree with them is because you consider them not good and/or rational and/or evidence-based. In any case the claim is shifty in the sense that it assumes that all those arguments are good arguments for God, when in fact some of them are arguments for a first cause and similare abstractions. The two are not just automatically identical.

Four hours ago Hasan replied to a tweet asking if he was equally ”open-minded” about dragons.

Mehdi Hasan‏@mehdirhasan

@Chriss_m But dragons arent the meaningful answer to any question. A divine creator is. To the question of existence. #nicetrythough

What the hell does that mean? “Meaningful”? That’s not any kind of legitimate criterion for how we know things or whether we have good reasons to believe something. An answer can be “meaningful” without being true. #nicetryyourself

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

News from Kansas.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has signed a sweeping antiabortion omnibus bill into law, reaffirming the state’s current ban on abortion at 20 weeks (without exceptions for rape or serious fetal anomalies), blocking tax breaks for abortion providers, expanding “conscience protections” for anti-choice groups and writing into state law that life begins “at fertilization.”

Because it’s imperative to do what we can to make sure women remain enslaved by their own bodies.

…states like Arkansas and North Dakota have moved the bar for judging antiabortion legislation so far to the right that Kansas’ 20-week ban seems “modest” when compared to North Dakota’s six-weeks and Arkansas’ 12 weeks. But make no mistake: The Kansas law is equally dangerous for women, and still violates the accepted definition of fetal viability as defined by Roe v. Wade.

Because women are evil demons, so it’s urgent to give their early pregnancies more rights than they have, so that they can be punished for having the wrong kind of genitalia.

Particularly worrisome for reproductive health advocates is the new law’s language defining life “at fertilization.” Critics like National Organization for Women lobbyist Elise Higgins argue that anti-choice groups could use the language to legally threaten and intimidate abortion care providers.

Well that’s the whole point.

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

In El Salvador this time. (Blargh, what a name for a country, eh? Imagine being a citizen of The Savior. Gag me.) (And in this case, what a fucking bitter joke.)

According to a report from Amnesty International, a seriously ill and pregnant El Salvadorian woman may face jail time if she goes forward with a lifesaving and medically recommended abortion. Abortion is illegal under all circumstances in El Salvador.

The 22-year-old mother of one, identified only as Beatriz, is four-and-a-half months pregnant, but her doctors have confirmed that the fetus has anencephaly (developing without a brain and certain parts of the skull) and that the pregnancy is nonviable. In addition to the fetal diagnosis, Beatriz is experiencing critical health complications related to her lupus and kidney disease.

The hospital treating Beatriz requested legal permission to perform the abortion more than a month ago, but authorities have still not agreed to let them proceed.

The Savior to Beatriz: die, bitch.

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

Atheism is because of something missing in the brain.

Autism associations around Turkey have reacted angrily after the head of Adana’s Health and Education Associations for Autistic Children reportedly said autistic children were “atheists due to a lack of a section for faith in their brains.”

“Autistic children do not know how to believe in God because they do not have a section of faith in their brains,” sociologist Fehmi Kaya reportedly said. “That is why they don’t know how to pray, how to believe in God. It is necessary to create awareness [or religion] in these children through methods of therapy.”

He also reportedly said atheism was a form of autism.

Ok I know this one. It’s theory of mind. Autistic people can have a defective theory of mind. If you have a working theory of mind, you understand that other people have minds just as you do, and that they have thoughts that are theirs and not yours. You don’t know what they’re thinking. So…if you have a working theory of mind, you have the ability to believe in a pure Mind that is not in some body near you, it’s somewhere else altogether, and it’s mysterious and hidden.

Therefore atheists are autistic.

Makes perfect sense!

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

Here’s a disgusting item. Trigger warning, and all that. Video from Burma, in which police look on while Buddhists trash shops owned by Muslims and kill a Muslim boy.

The footage, apparently shot by police officers, shows Buddhist crowds looting and ransacking a Muslim jewellery shop, cheering when Muslims are attacked, and setting fire to mosques and houses. Later, a man who has been set alight and is believed to be Muslim can be seen lying in the road, surrounded by a crowd of people. “Pour water on him,” a man in the crowd commands. “Let him die,” shouts another. “No water for him.”

Both Buddhist monks and police can be seen through much of the footage – the monks often taking part in the violence, the police watching immobile as it progresses.

Dear dear human beings. How we do disgrace ourselves.

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

An interesting question. American Atheists asked on Twitter:

Seeking input! What blog do you think best represents #atheists/#atheism positively? Doesn’t have to be an exclusively atheist blog.

But what does AA mean by ”positively”? I asked, in several doubtless annoying tweets, but AA had skipped off to other activities so I didn’t find out.

The word has come to be a blanket term for nice or not hostile aka not critical while “negative” has come to be a blanket term for nasty or critical or skeptical.

So you see why I asked. Organized, campaigning, activist atheists don’t necessarily see “not critical” as “positive”…so what are we talking about here?

Of course the candidate that came immediately to mind as answering the apparent question was The Friendly Atheist – and sure enough the three replies that came before my annoying questions all named that very blog.

But is that what we mean by representing atheists and atheism positively? If we say that aren’t we buying into exactly the canard that AA exists to combat? If we say that aren’t we buying into the conventional wisdom that outspoken unapologetic atheism is itself, and by itself, not “nice” and not “friendly” and thus not positive? Don’t we want to get away from that perception?

Plus there’s the problem that calling yourself The Friendly ______ implies that other ______s are not friendly, and that too is not altogether “nice” or positive.

So I replied Eric MacDonald’s Choice in Dying. I think Eric represents atheists and atheism positively because of his thoughtfulness, learning, careful argumentation, passion, commitment, and fire of indignation.

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

Allen Esterson has a wonderful article on a 2009 book by Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin’s Sacred Cause, in which they claim that moral passion about the horrors of slavery was Darwin’s motivation for “determined pursuit of an explanatory theory for the transformation of species of which he became convinced as a result of his experiences during the Beagle voyage of 1831 to 1836.”

I once tried to read their 1991 biography of Darwin but I stopped fairly soon because it’s full of nudging innuendo about motives and agendas and complicity – you know the kind of thing. It was obvious bullshit, because it was always stuff they were reading in, not anything they demonstrated or offered good evidence for. I found it very annoying and smug, and it’s a treat to see Allen whisk aside the curtain.

This article explores the means by which the authors seek to persuade readers of the validity of their thesis, and concludes that far from providing compelling evidence, by providing a mass of historically interesting material relating to slavery that is actually tangential to their case, they obscure the fact that they fail to accomplish their aim.

Yes that sounds like them.

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

I saw it on Facebook this morning and the thought of it has been making me smile all day so it would just be wrong not to post it here.

Do admit.

[click on it to see the larger version]

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

The inquest into the death of Savita Halappanavar ended on Friday and Praveen Halappanavar still doesn’t have answers. He told us what he thinks of the whole thing.

The medical care she received was in no way different to staying home. Medicine is all about preventing the natural history of the disease, and improving patients’ lives and health. And look what they did. She was just left there to die. We were never – we were always kept in the dark. If Savita had known her life was at risk she would have jumped off the bed and seeked a different hospital. She was, we were never told, and it’s horrendous, it’s barbaric and inhuman the way Savita was treated in that hospital.

It’s very striking. She might as well have stayed home. They went to the hospital, naturally thinking that they would find there what you’re supposed to get at hospitals – treatment. They didn’t get that, and they weren’t even told they weren’t getting that. She was just left there to die. The medical staff went through insulting mocking motions of treating her – they stuck her in a bed, they took her vital signs, there were medical people around – but they didn’t do what they needed to do to prevent her from dying. They refused to interfere with the natural course of the disease. They decided, without telling much less asking the patient and her husband, that the risk wasn’t big enough for them to do anything about it. It is, indeed, horrendous and barbaric and inhuman.

The Independent reports:

The inquest had heard evidence from an expert witness that the only thing that could have saved Savita was a termination within a day or two of being admitted to hospital, and by the time it was lawful to perform a termination, she was beyond saving.

“An extremely rare condition had been dealt with as best as possible by hospital staff on duty,” he said, referring to the blood poisoning caused by E.coli that ravaged through her with frightening speed, causing her death by multi-organ failure.

Barrister Eileen Barrington said there was “no basis in fact or law” to call for the accountability of her client, Dr Katherine Astbury, the consultant responsible for Savita’s care while in hospital.

Everyone had done their best. No one could be reproached, as was frequently pointed out an inquest is not allowed to point fingers; that is for the civil and criminal courts.

The disturbing (to put it feebly) thing about that is that outside Ireland the risk is considered real and substantial. That’s why the standard of care with PRM is prompt termination: because of the risk of infection. The Irish law is deeply, disturbingly fucked up.

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

The Ada Initiative did an interview with Rebecca; she says a number of amusing and/or insightful things. (No not “inciteful” – that’s not a word. Insightful.)

On why she stipulates a minimum of 35% women speakers as a condition of speaking.

I’ve also seen that the more women who speak on stage, the more women show up in the audience. People feel more at home when they see people like them in prominent positions. Because the conferences I attend are usually heavily male-dominated, having a minimum of 1/3 female speakers is another easy way that conference organizers can show they place a high value on diversity. 35% is actually ridiculously low considering women are 51% of the population, but then, I’ve always been pretty easy-going. Despite the rumors. Next year I may up it to 40% and add a “non-white” percentage for fun.

And the year after that, total world domination.

She was asked what her dream speaking engagement would be.

I like speaking in pubs, because everyone is relaxed and there’s beer. So I suppose my dream speaking engagement would be on a panel with Hillary Clinton, Lucy Lawless, and Amy Poehler, in a pub full of sloths, and also we’re on a spaceship.

A pub full of sloths does sound ideal.

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

Repeating things 50,000 times has to rank high. It could always be worse though. It could be repeating things 100,000 times. Or 500,000 times. Or a million.

It’s a real thing in Turkey though.

A teacher in Istanbul has allegedly ordered his students to say God’s name 50,000 times and “prove it” for homework.

The teacher of a Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge class at Sancaktar Hayrettin Primary School in Istanbul’s Fatih district set fifth grade students the task of repeating “salawat,” meaning “peace be upon him” in Arabic, a phrase often used after the name of the prophet of Islam. The task was to be completed as homework during Islam’s holy week.

And “prove” it? How the hell would you do that?

Students told reporters that the most difficult part of the homework was “proving” that they had completed it. Some parents bought “a salawat-counting machine” called Zikirmatik, which is sold for 2 Turkish Liras (around 1 euro). Zikirmatik is a counter for people who have difficulties counting beads.

One parent said he had gathered his whole family and tried to reach the 50,000 prayers. “I calculated that every salawat lasted three seconds. This means is would take around 40 hours to reach the limit,” he said.

Some students found another solution by marking their notebooks once for each salawat.

Hello? That doesn’t “prove” anything except that you hit click 50 thousand times or that you made a mark 50 thousand times (which would be bad and stupid and tedious enough).

We know what the idea is though. Drill. Self-hypnosis. Self-conditioning. Believers use prettier language for it, naturally, but that’s what it is.

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

Avicenna has a horrific post about rape in India.

His conclusion:

The anger is rising again in India. It doesn’t matter what laws you make. In order to stop rape you need to change the culture of India and empower women. You need to teach men to not rape women, not blame everything else. The real fault here lies in the rapist and a culture of harassment, denigration of women and rape. The protests will keep happening and they SHOULD. Society cannot afford complacency on this.

There are no excuses here. Culture Must Change. You aren’t going to protect girls by keeping them away from boys. You are going to protect them by teaching boys and girls responsible behaviour and how to treat each other properly. Teach boys to respect women and not rape them. Teach girls and boys that No Means No, not No Means Try Harder. These young kids think like that because they have no adult role models to sit them down and tell them that. What they have instead are movies which are made by people who themselves think “No means Try Harder” and who have never had to date either. It’s like taking sex advice from the Pope.

But if people are taught that No Means No then no one will ever have sex again ever ever ever.

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

CNN keeps telling us it feels like a decisive moment, it feels like the end of the story. We don’t care what CNN thinks it feels like. Just tell us what you know.

I want him not to be killed. I want to know why.

I once lived in Boston, for a short time.

“We are getting the feeling that this is it.” Oh shut up.

I also once lived in a house with an old boat of the landlord’s in the yard.

They don’t want him to deploy the suicide vest. Well clearly he doesn’t want to deploy it either.

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

From Dave Muscato of American Atheists:

As part of a joint effort amongst national groups, and in partnership with Boston Atheists and the Humanist Community at Harvard, we want to educate public officials about the diversity of their communities in times of tragedy and atheists’ desire and need to be included.

Atheists are hurting from this news as much as anyone else, and part of the grieving process for atheists affected includes things such as representation at the official memorial service and in the community response. When memorial services include exclusively religious language, and especially when public officials use terms such as “godless” as a slur to describe these attacks, atheists who are affected are excluded and shut out from the community.

We are asking you to assist us by writing a short paragraph that includes the following three things:

1) Who you are and whom you represent or speak on behalf of (e.g. Matt Dillahunty is President of Atheist Community of Austin)

2) Why you’re hurt by the exclusion from the memorial and/or use of “godless” as a pejorative

3) What’s you would like to see happen as a solution

Greg Epstein from the Humanist Community at Harvard is meeting with public officials to discuss this issue and would like to pass on responses from our community’s leaders. We also encourage you to solicit responses from members of your communities (if you run a blog, your readers; if you have a TV show, your viewers, etc) that he can include as well.

Please send your responses to me by early next week so we can make sure he gets them in time.

IMPORTANT: Please send your responses to BostonResponse@gmail.com and encourage your fans/listeners to do the same. Please DO NOT send your responses to dmuscato@atheists.org. Thank you.

—————————

So, get those responses written and send them to BostonResponse@gmail.com. Let’s do this.

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

Jerome Taylor of the Independent seems to be remarkably under-informed on the subject he reports on.

They are often described as “The Unholy Trinity” – a trio of ferociously bright and pugilistic academics who use science to decimate what they believe to be the world’s greatest folly: religion.

But now Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris are on the receiving end of stinging criticism from fellow liberal non-believers who say their particular brand of atheism has swung from being a scientifically rigorous attack on all religions to a populist and crude hatred of Islam.

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

The weirdnesses of modern life, you know? Texting. Cupcakes. Wheely bags. Granite counter tops.

One such weirdness is the recurrence of photographs of young men on their way to kill and maim a lot of random people.

There are some of Timothy McVeigh, I think – renting the truck was it? Getting gas? Or maybe there aren’t.

But there certainly are of some of the 9/11 young men. There are of the July 2005 London bombers. And now there are of the Tsarnaev brothers.

Walking along the street, dapper and casual, with their pressure cookers packed full of shrapnel in the backpacks they carry.

So we can see them. We can see how people look in the process of killing some random people and maiming a lot more. They don’t look like anything. They look normal. They fit right in. They’re as banal as the rest of us.

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