DancingSamurai.ca

Dr. Dawg weighs in on the recent push to ban burkas in Canada, and he is incredibly eloquent and right on the money:

Summing up Fatah’s arguments, then, if some women in Canada want to walk around in niqab, they are in fact oppressed by a mediaeval, non-religious, misogynist custom, and must be rescued from themselves.

Hard-line feminists have said much the same thing in the past about miniskirts, heels and fishnets, although I don’t recall their demanding government legislation to enforce an alternative norm. Once again, they had a point, but it wasn’t the whole story. Social interaction, indeed the very construction of the “self,” is complex, volatile, always in flux, with numerous contending forces at play.

Here are a couple of stories I’ve seen on my RSS feeds (I use Google Reader now), that I keep meaning to write lengthy posts about but I know I’ll never get around to it… so here’s the linkalicious list for any who are interested:

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Video on being open-minded (and what it does not mean): [Local cache]

(via Respectful Insolence)

Also, the author has 15 other videos of skepticism on his Youtube Channel. They’re all pretty good, check them out!

Here’s a religion survey with some numbers – useful to know.

The poll found 72 per cent of respondents said they believed in a god, while 23 per cent said they did not believe in any god. Six per cent did not offer an opinion.

Unsurprisingly:

The Harris-Decima poll also indicated:

• Women (76 per cent) were more likely than men (67 per cent) to say they believed in a god.
• Canadians over the age of 50 (82 per cent) were far more likely than those under the age of 25 (60 per cent) to say they believed in a god. More than one in three (36 per cent) of those under the age of 25 said they did not believe in any god.
• English Canadians (73 per cent) were more likely than French Canadians (67 per cent) to say they believed in a god.
• Belief in a god is higher in rural Canada (76 per cent) than in urban Canada (69 per cent).

(via Canadian Cynic)

I’ve talked about the atheist bus campaign before, but I just had to highlight the news that the Brazilian Atheists and Agnostics Association (BAAA? Their portugese acronym – ATEA – is much better!) is starting their own campaign. And many of their slogans are actually witty, smart, and thought provoking. I can see some of them as resolutions for debate teams, for example. Now THAT would be a high school debate I’d love to see! :)

PZ has them all in English translation, but here are some of my favourites:

Faith does not give answers. It only prevents questioning.

Smile! Hell doesn’t exist.

Two hands working do more than a thousand praying.

Well, I’m at the hospital on my second call shift as staff. It’s pretty quiet, but because of the weather and the fact that I have a labouring (if in early labour) patient here, I can’t go home. So, what better time than now to get caught up on my blog reading, and my highlighting of interesting / depressing / infuriating stories for you, oh my readers (both of you!)

So, here we go, with the things that caught my eye:

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PZ Myzers, eloquent as always, has a great piece on a response to the Atheist Bus Campaign that’s been making news around the world lately.

Basically, what started out as an atheist group in Britain seeing a bus ad for a religious group which pointed to a URL declaring that all non-believers will be eternally tormented in hell, and deciding they should do their own bit of counter-advertising, has turned into an International movement to advertise for atheist groups, with ads going up (or trying to go up) in Toronto, Italy, and Spain. One of the commons logans is “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

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… but not surprised at the lack of ethics demonstrated by religious health care providers in the US:

The patient went to the Presbyterian Health Services Rio Rancho Family Health Center in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, and saw nurse practitioner Sylvia Olona.  Her request: Simply to shorten the strings on her IUD for greater comfort.

The result?  Nurse Olona took it upon herself to remove the troublesome device.  Why? Simple, Nurse Olona told her patient:

“Having the IUD come out was a good thing [because] I personally do not like IUDs. I feel they are a type of abortion. I don’t know how you feel about abortion, but I am against them. …What the IUD does is take the fertilized egg and pushes it out of the uterus.”

When questioned, she added:

Everyone in the office always laughs and tells me I pull these out on purpose because I am against them, but it’s not true, they accidentally come out when I tug.

Why are you tugging on IUDs, anyway?

The really scary thing: people like this are not just in the US.

(via Pharyngula: They have a conscientious need to control your ovaries.)