Originally a comment by SC (Salty Current) on When a group is an acceptable target for hostility.

The suggestion that atheists privileged on other dimensions don’t face anything that could be recognized as oppression as atheists is wrong and unhelpful. Probably the element of anti-atheist prejudice that should be most concerning is the suggestion that atheists aren’t fully human* – that we lack some spiritual quality or knowledge or essence that limits us intellectually or ethically or even makes us dangerous. It should be easy enough to see the similarities with misogynistic and anti-Semitic ideas.

One problem, though, is that the insight that the treatment of atheists shares important features with that of other groups has been extremely difficult to … Read the rest

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It’s happening right now in Hyde Park.

The Bread and Roses team will be at Hyde Park across from Serpentine cafe at 1pm on Sunday 20 July to defy fasting rules during Ramadan in solidarity with the many beaten, harassed, flogged and arrested for eating and drinking during Ramadan in Iran and elsewhere. You can either join our picnic if you are close by or hold you own picnic of fast-defying event. Be sure to send us photos or videos of your day!

To show your support, also join the International Day to Defy Ramadan Fasting Rules on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1426741134280903/

Onwards towards an international movement defying fasting laws!

You can find out more about the event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrkXmUYaLIU

A media

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Oh shit I hadn’t seen this until just now. The Guardian yesterday:

As many as 100 of the world’s leading HIV/Aids researchers and advocates may have been on the Malaysia Airlines flight that crashed in Ukraine, in what has been described as a “devastating” blow to efforts to tackle the virus.

The Voice of America this morning, which is the most recent I can find:

The international AIDS community is reeling from the loss of many as 100 researchers who died when Malaysia Airlines flight 17 crashed in eastern Ukraine. They were en route to an AIDS conference that is about to begin in Australia.  Among the dead, a leader in AIDS research, Dr. Joep Lange.

Dr. Joup

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Stephanie makes a very important point in “You’re Not Oppressed, White Atheist Dudes”.

Mild forms of oppression don’t historically stay mild. When a group is an acceptable target for hostility in normal times, this increases their acute risk under more unusual circumstances. Marginalized groups are more likely to be scapegoated in times of economic stresses or societal upheaval. People from marginalized groups are more likely to be considered “safe” targets of random aggression or to be the object of the rare dangerous paranoid delusion.

That that that that that.

I think that’s what’s happening right now with respect to women, and it scares me. Not for myself, but for women and girls in worse circumstances.… Read the rest

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Another variety not to give.

… Read the rest

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Ha! So now they’re actually emailing PZ with this drivel – this “you allow no dissent / you are divisive” drivel that people mutter like a prayer in some rank places.

You seem to start arguments in the atheist community, which largely serve to divide the community and make it harder for us to get in a position to actually do something about the harm that religion causes humanity. You have people on other websites talking bad about other atheists and scientists in your name.

In MY name? That doesn’t even make sense. I’m a guy with a blog and a teaching position, with zero power and authority. I write what I think, and many people agree, and many disagree.

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Why I don’t love the “atheist community” chapter 782. A public Facebook post by “The Amazing Atheist” who is sadly unamazing. Jaclyn Glenn shared it in a public post of her own.

PZ Myers is a pile of shit in a man suit. So here he is attacking Jaclyn Glenn for daring to not identify as a feminist. That’s feminism for you: “Women can make any choice they want! Except the choice not to be feminists!”

His main argument is the Jaclyn’s video fails because she uses some comedic exaggeration in it that he feels distorts a position. Was the position distorted? I’ll let you guys watch the video and read PZ’s blog post and decide for yourselves.

Oh, and

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Well we all know the rules. Women are either fuckworthy, or killworthy. There is nothing else. (Just this morning on Twitter someone called me “old superfluous prune” – meaning, I should be dead, because I’m too old and ugly to be still alive using up resources. Old ugly men are ok because men have multiple uses but old ugly women are not ok because women have only one use.)

Hadley Freeman considers one instantiation of this universal law.

You’ll be thrilled to know – and I’m sure May will be absolutely delighted to know – that this week a male writer for the Spectator officially declared her to be hot; hotter, even, than Jemima Khan, just in case

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So the Russian separatists are busily hiding and destroying all the evidence. If neutral parties show up and try to stop them doing that, they fire warning shots, and the neutral parties leave.

The OSCE was trying to gain access to one part of the large crash site but the commander of a rebel unit, known as Commander Glum, blocked them. After the warning shot, the OSCE convoy departed.

There is also confusion over the black boxes and other devices apparently salvaged from the plane. A rebel military commander initially said he was considering what to do with them, while another rebel leader, Aleksandr Borodai, contradicting his colleague, said the rebels had no black boxes or any other devices.

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There was a pretty good Fresh Air yesterday based on a book, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves.

The new book Trans Bodies, Trans Selves is a collection of essays describing the varied experiences of transgender people — and the social, political and medical issues they face. It’s written by and for transgender and gender-nonconforming people.

The idea was inspired by the groundbreaking 1970s feminist health manual Our Bodies, Ourselves.

That book “was put together … by a group of women who … weren’t getting the care that they needed from what was mostly male physicians at the time,” the book’s editor, Laura Erickson-Schroth, tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “And so they put together this really radical book that included

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And I’ve been trying to get to this all day. Honestly, Jaclyn Glenn and Dave Muscato between them have ruined my schedule.

Bill Maher @billmaher 23h

Dealing w/ Hamas is like dealing w/ a crazy woman who’s trying to kill u – u can only hold her wrists so long before you have to slap her

It’s so cool that the best way to talk about Hamas turns out to be to talk about hitting a woman. Hey, coincidence, Hamas like to hit women too!

It’s so cool that more than 26 hundred people have RTd that already and that there will be more.

It’s so cool that nearly 2 thousand people have favorited that.

It’s so cool that … Read the rest

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I love it when people who have zero experience of a certain kind of prejudicial treatment, because they’re not in the category of person who gets that kind of prejudicial treatment, gets all contemptuously dismissive about that kind of prejudicial treatment. I just love it. It’s so clever, so thoughtful, so reasonable, so everything a mature intellectual and academic should be.

It’s brilliant, that’s what it is.… Read the rest

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Originally a comment by Krasnaya Koshka on Feminist atheists are divisive!!1

When I was a Young White Lesbian, I fought for a lot of YWL shit. I had severe myopia. But I was, at least, fighting for something not already included in my everyday life.

Then I had a Black gf. Wow wow wow, there were a lot of things I’d never even had to consider before. Like, she would go into a motel near Disneyland and be turned down for a room. I would go in, with purple hair, and be given a key. We’d both, then, go to the front counter and just look at the clerk. Just look. WTF?

This video (I did watch it in its … Read the rest

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Big big big tent. Room for all the atheists. Except feminists of course – feminists are shit, because they’re so divisive.

[Description: part of a page at the Richard Dawkins Foundation, promoting Jaclyn Glenn's latest video.]… Read the rest

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Also on Dave Muscato’s Facebook wall – a public Facebook post by Jaclyn Glenn:

While many “hardcore atheists” are subscribed to any number of vloggers, you’re not always the target demographic. I’m trying to reach the undecideds, the a-curious. Each vlogger reaches, or speaks to, a different demographic. If I can reach some that wouldn’t click on Thunderf00t or TheAmazingAtheist or CultofDusy, then great!

With people who have been indoctrinated- for the majority, if not all, of their lives, repetition is necessary. Also, this subject is not as infinitely variable as you might think, and videos are going to always be somewhat derivative. I’m always trying to do things in a creative way- either by humor, including guests on

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Oh hooray, Jaclyn Glenn has yet another video attacking feminists and feminism.

Even better, Dave Muscato, the PR guy for American Atheists, is energetically promoting it. Thanks, Dave!

Updating to add the intro to the vid:

Published on Jul 17, 2014
A video about Atheism+ and pussies. How appropriate. For those of you wondering- Atheism + is pretty much atheism plus radical feminism. This is my skit explaining my feelings on it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a61ZgjPN3is… Read the rest

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Way to deal with the post-Hobby Lobby US, Salem. (The witch thing is forgiven. It’s over. Done.)

Gordon College is a small Christian university that has publicly declared its desire to claim a special right to discriminate against LGBT students, staff, and faculty. Salem, Massachusetts, is a small progressive town with an LGBT non-discrimination ordinance. For years, Salem contracted with Gordon to manage its Old Town Hall. But when Gordon announced its desire to a special right to fire LGBT workers, Salem canceled the contract, finding that the university’s stated discriminatory intent directly violated the town’s non-discrimination ordinance.

Yessssss.

Ah but that’s not all; that’s just step one.

After Glenn Beck’s The Blaze picked this story up, right-wing

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The Guardian discusses the report on Islamist infiltration of Birmingham schools.

A damning report into extremist infiltration of Birmingham schools has uncovered evidence of “coordinated, deliberate and sustained action to introduce an intolerant and aggressive Islamist ethos into some schools in the city”.

The conclusion emerges from a leaked draft of a report, commissioned by the former education secretary Michael Gove and written by Peter Clarke, the former head of the Metropolitan police’s counterterrorism command, which is due to be published in the next 24 hours.

Clarke said there was a “sustained and coordinated agenda to impose upon children in a number of Birmingham schools the segregationist attitudes and practices of a hardline and politicised strain of Sunni Islam”.

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