The following letter was originally written by Miri Mogilevsky of Freethought Blogs. As I'm a signatory, I'm reprinting it below. This was sent to the CFI Board of Directors as they prepare to meet this week to discuss the controversy surrounding Dr. Ron Lindsay's opening remarks at the Women in Secularism conference. If you have something to say about this, the CFI Board of Directors can be reached via the Corporate Secretary, Tom Flynn, at tflynn@centerforinquiry.net. If you'd like to, feel … [Read more...]
Women in Secularism Speakers’ Letter to CFI Board
June 4, 2013 By 1 Comment
In the aftermath of the unfortunate introduction at Women in Secularism 2, a group of speakers have written and signed a joint letter to the Center for Inquiry's board of directors, detailing their objections to Ron Lindsay's offensive remarks and what they're asking the board to do. I highly recommend reading the full text of the letter, which was posted by Stephanie Zvan and also by Greta Christina, two of the speakers that signed it. I expect it will appear on other speakers' blogs as … [Read more...]
Weekend Coffee: May 26
May 26, 2013 By 2 Comments
• Presenting the inaugural Patheos Atheists Blog Carnival! Dan Fincke has put together a list of some of the best recent writing from all of us. Go check it out! • From the Department of You Can't Make This Up: earlier this week, the pope made a surprisingly ecumenical comment about how even atheists can be good people. A Vatican spokesman then issued a follow-up in which he clarified that, just in case there was any doubt, we're still going to hell. • After the … [Read more...]
My Interview with Thom Hartmann
May 22, 2013 By 5 Comments
As you know if you follow me on Twitter, last night I was on TV, being interviewed by Thom Hartmann for his show The Big Picture. I had a short segment discussing my latest AlterNet column on harassment of church-state plaintiffs. Watch it below: My appearance is at around 45 minutes into the show. If you'd like to skip directly to it, you can use this link. … [Read more...]
Women in Secularism 2 Wrap-Up
May 21, 2013 By 2 Comments
This past weekend, I was in Washington, D.C. for the second Women in Secularism conference, sponsored by the Center for Inquiry. As promised, here's my report. I was expecting the conference to be overwhelmingly attended by women, but I was pleasantly surprised that there was only a slight majority of women over men, maybe 55-45 or 60-40. That could just be a consequence of the fact that men generally outnumber women in the secular movement, but I don't think so, since I'm told the first WiS … [Read more...]
Some Sadly Necessary Remarks on the #wiscfi Intro
May 19, 2013 By 38 Comments
Hey everyone - I'm checking in from the final day of the Women in Secularism 2 convention in Washington, D.C. I'm going to write a full wrap-up later (and I enjoyed it enormously, I want to be very clear about that), but there's something that cast a cloud over this weekend, and I want to clear the air about it first. Although every other speaker this weekend was a woman, as you'd expect at a conference about women in secularism, Ron Lindsay, the president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry, … [Read more...]
Weekend Coffee: Snap Responses to Current Events
May 11, 2013 By 4 Comments
In the Times this week, Israel's ultra-Orthodox rabbis are enforcing gender apartheid by sending their own women and girls to flood the Wailing Wall plaza, so that women who actually want to pray there can't get in: “They’re trying to change the religion and politics in Israel — they should do that in the Knesset and not at the Kotel,” Ms. Beskin said, using the Hebrew terms for Israel’s Parliament and the Western Wall. “The rules should be, honestly, just respect the tradition … [Read more...]
Weekend Coffee: May 5
May 5, 2013 By 5 Comments
• A Christian fundamentalist couple that believes in faith healing has now killed two of their children by refusing to seek medical care for them. This likely violates the terms of their probation, agreed to in 2011 after the death of their first child, in which they agreed to obtain medical care for any of their other children who needed it. • John Paulk, the former chairman of the "ex-gay" ministry Exodus International, has recanted. In a statement, Paulk said he no longer … [Read more...]
Friday Night Music: Metric
May 3, 2013 By 1 Comment
It's Friday night and I'm feeling pretty good, so let's toast the weekend with another of my favorites, the Canadian indie-rock band Metric. I like their older albums too, but the two most recent are far and away the best, so here's one from each. From Fantasies (2009): From Synthetica (2012): And don't forget, I'm still taking donations for the Secular Student Alliance's SSA Week! I'll answer any question in exchange for a contribution of $5 or more, including more about my … [Read more...]
A Change for the Worse
May 1, 2013 By 13 Comments
Well, as you've probably noticed, the blog is back to using Disqus. This wasn't my decision, and I'm not happy about it. Disqus offers no advantages over the built-in WordPress commenting system, as far as I'm concerned. Plus, because it's based on active scripting, it's inherently slower and less accessible, and its moderation capabilities are substandard. It gave me constant headaches on Big Think, and I expect the same will be true here. If you run into any problems, as I'm sure you will, … [Read more...]
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