It’s getting meta. (It always does, doesn’t it. Internet–>everyone can answer–>everyone does–>everything always goes meta.) Fans of Christians who crash non-theist events are indignant that atheists think Christians who crash events are obnoxious belligerent intrusive shits. Like this guy at the Blaze; he reports the plans of the “True Reason” people then adds:

The Christians behind the effort want atheists to know that they’re reasonable individuals who are prepared to confront them with love.

Typical, innit – first, the stupid assumption that atheists are unaware that Christians see themselves that way, and second, the blithe assumption that “confronting” people with a religious ideology they are known to reject is a benevolent thing to do. The atheists at the Reason … Read the rest

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More from ill-mannered intrusive uninvited missionary Christians planning to crash the Reason Rally, this time from a site called Ratio Christi: Student Apologetics Alliance. They call their rude intrusive uninvited plan Reason Rally Reachout 2012. “Reachout” is it – crashing other people’s event in order to harass them with dogmatic nonsense that you know they dislike and don’t want – that’s “reachout.” Nice name for it. Yo student apologists: if we all turned up for one of your Apologetics meetings would you consider it Reachout?

Ratio Christi, along with some other groups and campus ministries, are planning on attending the rally to interact one-on-one with skeptics and atheists in attendance, conduct surveys, engage in dialogue, and present the

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Here’s something I hadn’t seen before. I probably could have predicted it if I’d thought about it, but I didn’t, so I didn’t. It’s a website called True Reason, set up to rally Christians to go to the Reason Rally in D.C. next month in order to pester it, because religion doesn’t get to pester us enough already without shoving itself into an event that is not all about religion.

It has a nice line in passive-aggressive pseudo-decency.

This is not a counter-demonstration. We are going there to share Christ person to person as opportunity arises. We will not raise our voices. We will talk with those who want to talk with us. We will offer gifts and

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

Andrew Copson at the BHA on Warsi’s theocratic bullshit:

…it is surreal to hear secularism being condemned as intolerant – it is not secular schools that select pupils according to their parents’ beliefs, it is not secular agencies that reserve employment opportunities for staff according to their beliefs, and it is not secular organisations which lobby to maintain privilege and have exemption from laws – like equality laws – that should affect everyone equally.

Terry Sanderson at the NSS on the same subject: 

…why is the British Government courting the Holy See in this way? Why should the last absolute theocracy in Europe be invited to participate in the affairs of the British Government?

Well, it might be

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JT has a post live-blogging (via informants) the Cranston school committee meeting to discuss whether to appeal the judge’s ruling on the goddy banner. It features a lot of grown-ups bullying a teenage girl for upholding the law.

WPRO, the Cranston radio station that has been nothing but horrible to Jessica makes the following tweet.

RT @WPRO_newsroom: Change of location for Jessica Ahlquist at #prayerbanner meeting tonight: she’s in the back instead of front row, crouching way down #WPRO

These are adults, and they’re acting like they’ve achieved some form of noble triumph when a young girl who has endured an environment of threats and is probably worried for her safety is trying to stay out of the line of

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

Update: I missed the date, which is 2009. I probably blogged about it three years ago. Possibly word for word, in which case I think I’ll take up basket-weaving.

More entitled bleating from an entitled Christian about the requirement to “respect” her religious beliefs no matter how vicious they are.

A five-year-old child at a school in Devon told a classmate she would go to hell if she didn’t believe in god. The school told the child not to do that kind of thing, and the child told her mother, and her mother pitched the usual kind of fit.

Mr Read defended the school’s treatment of the matter and said they encouraged all children to “think independently”, but would not

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Now I’ve seen everything – now that I’ve seen an editorial in the Telegraph saying how swell Islam is compared to those other timid religions that won’t stand up for themselves.

It’s another Warsi-flatter, saying how right she is to order everyone to be intrusively religious and to go urge the pope to be more intrusively religious along with her.

It is unsurprising that it has taken a Muslim member of the Cabinet to speak out clearly and forcefully on the importance of faith in the life of the nation; followers of Islam tend to be less mealy-mouthed about their beliefs than many Christians.

Why yes, yes they do. Some are so much less mealy-mouthed that they threaten cartoonists and … Read the rest

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Oh vomit. Sayeeda Warsi is off to visit the pope, and by way of preparation she and the Telegraph unite in telling us all that we need more religion and less “militant secularism.” Warsi says it in her own article, and the political editor says it all over again in an article about her article. Why two articles where one would do? I have no idea.

First Warsi’s bullying theocratic shit, under the sinister threatening headline We stand side by side with the Pope in fighting for faith:

Today I have the honour of leading the largest ministerial delegation from the United Kingdom to the Vatican – our reciprocal visit following the momentous State Visit of His

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

The long arm of the law shouldn’t be helping theocratic hell-holes like Saudi Arabia to arrest people for non-crimes like saying something critical about Mohammed.

Interpol has been accused of abusing its powers after Saudi Arabia used the organisation’s red notice system to get a journalist arrested in Malaysia for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

Police in Kuala Lumpur said Hamza Kashgari, 23, was detained at the airport “following a request made to us by Interpol” the international police cooperation agency, on behalf of the Saudi authorities.

Kashgari, a newspaper columnist, fled Saudi Arabia after posting a tweet on the prophet’s birthday that sparked more than 30,000 responses and several death threats. The posting, which was later deleted, read: “I have

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You know how it’s impossible to keep up and you’re always missing stuff? I missed Maya Khan. I saw a mention somewhere, but didn’t have time to follow it up.

One morning last week, television viewers in Pakistan were treated to a darkly comic sight: a posse of middle-class women roaming through a public park in Karachi, on the hunt for dating couples engaged in “immoral” behavior.

It shouldn’t be called comic, not even “darkly.” It doesn’t sound the least bit comic to me. I’ve heard too much about posses of that kind in Gaza, in Saudi Arabia, in Malaysia. There’s nothing funny about them. Mohammed and Tooba and Hemat Shafia were a kind of posse of that sort, … Read the rest

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Brilliant. The Obama admin knows the bishops and the Republicans won’t be mollified but the admin is submitting anyway. Worst of both worlds! Lose-lose! Give way on the principle but gain no actual votes or support. Good thinking!

The Obama administration, seeking to rein in a runaway political furor over birth control and religious liberty, is set to announce a possible compromise on Friday that is meant to calm ire from the right about a new administration rule that would require health insurance plans — including those offered by Roman Catholic hospitals, universities and charities — to offer free birth control to female employees.

Administration officials called the expected announcement an “accommodation” that they said sought to demonstrate respect

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Can I play too?

Want to see Arianna Huffington’s garage?

Want to see where bankers go camping?

Want to see Barbra Streisand’s little house in Malibu?

 That’s enough blaspheming and “hurting the sentiments” for one day.

 The BBC is more sympathetic than I am. The BBC takes it all rather seriously, or pretends to.

The US has defended comedian Jay Leno’s right to free speech after India condemned a reference he made to the holiest Sikh shrine.

A Leno skit showed the Golden Temple of Amritsar as the summer home of Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

Mr Romney has faced questions over his wealth and many Sikhs are angry the temple has been depicted as a place for the rich.

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

Another busy day for the shutters up.

A bunch of Islamist bullies managed to get Salman Rushdie’s video talk to the Jaipur Literary Festival blocked.

A bunch of Islamist bullies and some allies wrote a stupid letter to the Guardian demanding more friendly coverage of Islam in the media.

Let’s take a look at that letter. (Martin Bright has been arguing with Sunny Hundal, who signed the letter, at Twitter for an hour or two. Sunny ended up saying he signs letters he doesn’t agree with, leaving Martin and also Padraig Reidy gobsmacked.)

That letter is a dog’s breakfast.

Over the past decade, a number of academic studies have indicated a worrying and disproportionate trend towards negative, distorted and

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