Remember the Islamic University of Gaza? That the LSE Student Union twinned with a few days ago? The Boston Globe did quite a flattering piece on it in February 2010.

The first sign that this is a different place from the Western universities it resembles comes when a bell rings in the library. Quickly the students on odd-numbered floors  – all men  – gather their books and file into the stairwells. Women file in to take their turn. In keeping with a puritanical interpretation of Islamic law, men and women aren’t allowed to study together, so they switch floors every two hours. They lounge in separate student unions and eat in separate cafeterias. At intervals during the day, the call

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Ah yes – the ever-popular “random man tells woman to smile” number.

When I did not smile (I continued looking for my keys in my purse and avoided all eye contact, in fact), he told me my “pretty face was going to waste.”

Ah, no. It’s not. It’s being put to good use keeping her eyes in their right place so that she can see to find her keys and make her way around, and keeping her mouth where it belongs so that she can eat. It’s not going to waste at all. Its function isn’t to provide something for that random man.

There are lots of comments. Some are interesting.

• A guy did this to me recently

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It can be so puzzling, looking back at even quite recent history, trying to figure out “what were they thinking?” What were the people who ran Irish industrial “schools” thinking when they treated the children like shit? What were the people who screamed abuse outside Little Rock High School in 1957 thinking? What were the people who owned slaves thinking? What were the people who sold slaves thinking? What were the people who captured human beings and sold them into slavery thinking?

What were the people who stole children from unmarried mothers in Australia thinking?

Hundreds of mothers and their families gathered yesterday to hear a historic national apology from Australia’s prime minister Julia Gillard. Forced to give up their

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I’m reading a little book published in 1982: Vision and Realism: a hundred years of The Freethinker, by Jim Herrick.

There are some things that sound very familiar, amusingly so.

Foote joined with G.J. Holyoake when the two of them started the Secularist in 1876. They parted after two months, differing over the extent to which religion should be attacked…[p 6]

Oh yes? So it’s not just us, and it’s not just Paul Kurtz and Madalyn Murray O’Hair. It feels vaguely reassuring to know that.

The extent to which freethought journals should be aggressively anti-Christian was – and has remained – contentious. [p 9]

And in Foote’s case it was so contentious that he was sent to prison for … Read the rest

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I’ve always liked Thomas Paine’s point about revelation in The Age of Reason.

Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.

Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran)

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The “Atheist Missionary” came back, to do two more pointless tweets at me, because that works so well. His tweets went so:

Your “bend a knee” comment suggests @michaelshermer somehow bows to popular figures in freethought movement or …

…it suggests that @michaelshermer expects you to bow to him. Both suggestions are BS, IMHO.

That’s why it’s stupid to try to have complicated arguments on Twitter. Another reason is that he left as soon as he fired those shots. There are so many reasons it’s stupid to try to have complicated arguments on Twitter.

I told him

No it doesn’t. It’s in direct response to his claim about “our most prominent leaders.”

 But it was futile, because no reply. Why … Read the rest

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The National Secular Society had its annual awards event last night.

The National Secular Society has donated its Secularist of the Year prize fund to a global charity campaigning to ensure girls everywhere have equal access to education.

The prize fund of £7,000 was awarded to Plan UK in honour of Malala Yousafzai…

The prize was collected on Saturday at the National Secular Society’s Secularist of the Year event by Debbie Langdon-Davies, whose father John founded Plan in 1937. The prize was handed over by NSS honorary associate Michael Cashman MEP. The money will be used to support Plan’s Girls Fund which, as part of its ‘Because I am a Girl’ campaign, helps girls to claim their rights and

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That has to have been a pretty amazing event in London yesterday evening – the one at which Maryam Namazie, Nahla Mamoud, Gita Sahgal, and Leo Igwe were all present!

Damn I would have liked to be there.

Were any of you there?… Read the rest

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More Jesus.

In a twirly roll.

It’s the one at ten o’clock, so it’s hard to make out.

Bird shit. You didn’t think the Ohio one was the first, did you?

A Colomba Pasquale. How appropriate!

Raisin bread.

The one on the left. Jesus of the sad face.… Read the rest

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The new Free Inquiry appeared a few days ago, but it’s not online yet, and I haven’t received a copy yet. Other people have though, and one tweeter reached out to me as a result.

TheAtheistMissionary @AtheistMission

Just read @OpheliaBenson’s lame response to @michaelshermer in Free Inquiry. Ophelia, don’t “bend a knee” – tell someone who cares.

Tell someone who cares? That’s a dumb fuck thing to say. Somebody does care, or I wouldn’t have been invited to write it, would I. Also I know a few people who care. “Tell someone who cares” is just a stupid retort to a published article. I didn’t tell “The Atheist Missionary” personally, I simply wrote a response to something that was written … Read the rest

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See update at end.

So all the irritated or difficult or especial feminist types think all of atheism is sexist to the core and hostile to all but the most compliant and Hot women, right?

No. Not at all.

Adam Lee has a post on the subject.

He starts with a post by Melissa McEwan that lists a string of rules (in the form of tweets). I’m not all that fond of strings of rules. I think that’s for the same sort of reason I’m not fond of attempts (let alone demands) to discuss complicated philosophical issues on Twitter. I’ve been finding it pretty funny lately to see Richard Dawkins doing exactly that, repeatedly – discuss abortion on Twitter, discuss … Read the rest

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One miracle after another.

Apple pie and custard.

A stone wall.

This one daffodil that looks taller than the others because of the angle.

This other dog too.

A pineapple. (Yes, I went there.)

Beans on toast.

… Read the rest

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Ah no I can’t resist. Resistance is too much to ask.

A guy in Ohio found some bird shit on his windshield, and at first he thought it was just some bird shit, as one does, you know, but then he took a closer look and guess what?! It turned out to be a picture (delicately drawn in bird shit) of a piece of toast with a picture of Jesus on it!

No, wait, that’s not right. It was the lid of a jar of Marmite with a picture of Jesus in it.

No. It was a tortilla with a picture of Jesus on it.

No. It was a 14th century painting of Jesus that looked uncannily like Jesus.… Read the rest

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Ah the old put a hidden camera in the room where women use the toilets trick.

A Tippecanoe County pastor who was arrested last year under suspicions that he had planted cameras in his church’s ladies’ room has been charged going on 1 year later with child exploitation and voyeurism.

Fifty-six-year-old Robert A. Lyzenga, a former pastor at Sunrise Christian Reformed Church in Lafayette, was charged Thursday with five counts of child exploitation and five counts of voyeurism. That’s 10 felony charges.

According to court documents, on April 22, 2012, a Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Office deputy was dispatched to the church (located on County Road 500 South) on a complaint of a camera being found in a women’s bathroom.

So … Read the rest

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Well, the Adria Richards blowup sounds very familiar.

Lindy West at Jezebel comments.

Now. A few things. Yes, in the grand scheme of the entire earth, a few offhand jokes about “big dongles” are almost completely innocuous. In fact, I made pretty much exactly the same joke one million times, whenever my nerdy former roommate said he was looking for his “dongle” or he needed to go “dongle shopping.” However, CONTEXT MATTERS. And the issue that a lot of (white) men seem to have trouble grasping is that not everyone gets to move through the world wrapped in the comfy presumption that every space is their space. Many people almost never get to feel like that, outside of

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Julia Gillard has apologized for Australia’s policy in the 1950s 60s and 70s of forcing unmarried mothers to give up their infants for adoption.

A senate inquiry found that about 250,000 children were removed from unmarried mothers in Australian hospitals shortly after their births in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and given to childless married couples.

Many women said they were coerced into signing away their children.

That doesn’t sound like a very humane policy.

Ms Gillard made the apology at Parliament House in Canberra in the presence of more than 800 people affected by the policy.

They cried and cheered as they listened to Ms Gillard and responded with a standing ovation when it was finished.

The prime minister

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Atheist Convention to Feature “Dinner With The Stars,” Live Auction

Cranford, NJ—American Atheists will host some of the leading national and international atheists at a fundraiser dinner and auction on the eve of its 50th Anniversary Celebration and National Convention in Austin, Texas next week.

The event is scheduled for 7:00 PM on Thursday, March 28, the night before the convention weekend begins.

Attendees will be able to dine with many star speakers including former California Congressman Pete Stark, Twisted Sister lead guitarist Jay Jay French, British philosopher and author A.C. Grayling, blogger and activist Greta Christina, author Katherine Stewart, Biblical scholar Dr. Hector Avalos, President of the Atheist Community of Austin Matt Dillahunty, former preacher Teresa MacBain, … Read the rest

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Well guess what the LSE Student Union has spent its afternoon doing. It spent it discussing a Motion to “Twin the LSE with the Islamic University of Gaza.” Abhishek Phadnis was there.

I spoke against the Motion, saying I was non-committal on the support of Palestine but strongly opposed to any alliance with the Islamic University of Gaza, on account of it being inseparably intertwined with Hamas and having as its stated aim the reformation of Islamic societies “in line with the revolutionary side of religion”; the wish of its founder, Hamas’s Ahmed Yassin.

Yes the “revolutionary side of religion” that’s all about stripping women of all rights while muffling them in yards of cloth.

But Abhishek might as well … Read the rest

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Oh, god, another one. A girl of 16 in Morocco was raped, and the judge ruled that she had to marry her rapist, which was nice for the rapist because it allowed him to stay out of jail, but was a bucket of rancid liquid shit for the girl. The rapist, to show his gratitude to Amina Filali, beat her severely – so she ate rat poison and died.

The girl’s father said he “did not want to accept this marriage,” which some have said was pushed in order to protect the family’s honor. But “my wife, my family and the court of the city of Larache” wanted the union to proceed, as it did.

“The judge decided he must

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