Sunday, November 25, 2018

Women's March Canada


We call upon people to stand in solidarity with survivors and survivor advocates and women’s human rights defenders who are working to prevent and end violence against women and girls. Women's March Canada

Saturday, November 10, 2018

Wednesday, November 07, 2018


Hello!
First and foremost, if you’re in the United States and voted in yesterday’s elections, thank you! We have unprecedented challenges to overcome, and in many ways, change starts and ends with our reality-based community of humanists, skeptics, and freethinkers taking part in the democratic process in full force.
A Democratically-controlled House of Representatives will help us to keep some of the worst theocratic and anti-science legislation off the federal law books. But we still face extreme religious-right measures coming out of states which means we are still heavily reliant on the judiciary to act as a check. Unfortunately right-wing gains in the Senate mean that extreme judicial appointments will have an even easier path to confirmation. All the more reason for us to keep showing up.
We were more than a little saddened to see White House counselor Kellyanne Conway using the Pittsburgh synagogue attack as an excuse to point an accusatory finger at church-state separation and the nonreligious. The attack was conducted by an anti-Semitic Christian extremist who went on a rampage against Jews. Conway’s feint was absurd on its face and dangerously manipulative at a deeper level.
We were surprised and relieved recently to find that after nearly a decade of persecution and incarceration, Pakistan’s highest court acquitted Asia Bibi of her blasphemy conviction and death sentence. And it was unfortunately not surprising that the U.S. Supreme Court decided to take up the Bladensburg cross case, which this conservative court may use to obliterate another section of the wall between church and state.
The day after Election Day is a good time to remember that not everything comes down to politics. In Los Angeles, CFI West is doing a wonderful job of showing how we can be a welcoming and life-affirming part of the larger community around us, incorporating meaningful aspects of religious traditions into a secular context with the first-ever Secular Day of the Dead.
And while there are powerful forces trying desperately to reverse political and social progress, scientific and technological progress continues apace. We’ll take a look at some advancements in robotics that are more than meets the eye.
Finally, we’ll let off some steam by having a good laugh at a prime target: ourselves. And who better to give skeptics a good roasting than the foremost expert on exotic species, Sir David Attenborough? Or at least, someone who sounds a lot like him...

Robyn E. Blumner
President & CEO, Center for Inquiry Executive Director,
Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science