Everything Should Be Open To Questioning? Not Quite

photo showing a happy couple

Being an atheist, I have spent a lot of time debating religious people about all sorts of things such as my freedom to be an atheist to the US motto (In God We Trust) being printed on our money. The theist is on the wrong side of the debate all the time but they seem to believe my equality and freedom is subject to debate. No one would rationally support that kind of injustice. Imagine my shock when a fellow atheist, trying to support debating the equality of women, used a line of argument we atheists dismiss out of hand when fundamentalist Christians use it against Evolution.

This all stems from the unending internal Internet arguments over sexism in secular groups that I’ve written about before in this blog. The fighting has devolved into unproductive name calling and whining one sees on the middle school playground. I try to avoid reading blog posts specifically about the conflict because those posts just seem to be attempts by the authors to feel superior to a straw man and no one really listens to what is being said. The signal to noise ratio is very low.

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How Not To Write A News Story About Rape

Hommer saying Doh!

The home page for my browser shows the news feed for Yahoo News. Imagine my shock when a front page story’s headline talked of the family of a victim of an “alleged rape” filing a civil lawsuit for wrongful death against the suspects after she had committed suicide. Luckily the article wasn’t a news report but a blog post about a news story because this was an excellent example of how not to write a news story about rape.

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Open Letter Addressing Sexism In Secular Community Is A Good Start

image of a man and women arguing

On Tuesday, leaders of most of the secular groups in the United States issued an open letter addressing the ongoing internal firestorm over social justice, sexism, and diversity in the freethought community taking place mainly in online forums and comment sections. I applaud the leaders wanting to take on this serious issue in the community and while it doesn’t go far enough in addressing the real issue in the dispute, I hope the letter does open the door to further progress.

You can read the letter at the end of this post then come back here for my comments.

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Guys, If The Girl Is Drunk It Is Rape – Period

clipart of the scales of justice

The Steubenville, Ohio rape trial is over and a verdict might be known by the time this post is published. No matter the result the news reports of some of the testimony really ticked me off. It is real simple guys, if the girl is shitfaced drunk she can’t give consent for sex – period. Taking advantage of a woman who is drunk is rape. It also makes you a coward since you have to have her intoxicated to get your jollies.

Here’s a bit of the report that pissed me off:

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Complaints About Criticizing Religion Usually Means Stay Silent

image of a Man and woman arguing

On Wednesday, American Secular Census (ASC) posted an article that focused on secular women. The report didn’t have any new information for me since I am a geezer in the movement but I wanted to address something that has bothered me ever since I identified myself as an atheist and secular humanist. There seems to be a notion that criticizing religion is always wrong and that we stunt the growth of freethought by doing it. I feel this is a false notion and is a wrong point to focus on when trying to build a secular community.

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