The Reading List, 6/1/2014

I share a lot of links on Twitter and Facebook that I don’t blog about because I don’t have much to add. The reading list is a periodic feature where I share those links with my blog audience too. Of course, you’re still welcome to follow me on Twitter.

Around FtB

  • People of Color Beyond Faith – Please Support!–“People of Color Beyond Faith are a new coalition of atheist/humanist of color organizations whose primary focus is social justice. They’re planning several national and local projects which focus on humanist issues that deeply impact communities of color.”

The Wider Web

  • The wages of low pay–“Unless we change our public policies, that price will explode as a significant number of children grow up without proper care and diet, and with no reason to believe their own initiative will make their lives any better.”
  • Why I Miss Being A Born-Again Christian–“Many people would call this a good thing, this kicking of the ‘opiate of the masses’ habit, and I would too. Putting on my existential big-girl pants. Confronting the fact that God didn’t get me through any hard times. I did.”
  • #YesAllWomen–“Oh, and then I’ve had it happen that the guy acts like you were LYING to them by HAVING A FUN CONVERSATION AND BEING INTERESTING. HOW DARE I BE FUN IF IM NOT WILLING TO FALL IN LOVE/AND OR HAVE SEX WITH THEM?!?!”
  • Male Entitlement Is a Deadly Drug–“Similarly, when Christian terrorists shoot abortion providers, or Islamist fanatics bomb schools or marketplaces, we don’t leap to blame mental illness. But in this case, there are people who disregard the murderer’s own clearly stated motivation, because that would force them to admit that sexism is a much more serious danger than they’d previously believed.”
  • NE mayor challenges atheists over faith-based event: ‘Take me to f-cking court — I don’t care’–“One of the group’s members, Robert Fuller, said he gave his business card to Mayor Douglas Kindig and asked to speak with him later about his concerns, but the mayor indicated he wasn’t interested.”
  • Wiscon 38 Guest of Honor Speech–“So. If they think we are a threat? Let’s give them a threat. They want to call us savages? Let’s show them exactly what that means.”
  • A Series of Portraits From Women in Secularism 3–“I did something at this year’s event that I really wish I had done in the years prior. I brought my camera.”
  • Global Warming’s ‘Useful Idiots’–“Take George F. Will, who helpfully explains that the reason behind these reports is a global conspiracy so immense that it encompasses approximately 97 percent of the world’s scientific establishment.”
  • “Where do your characters come from?”–“Because I seriously have no idea how to answer this question. At least not in a way that makes me sound sane.”
  • Trigger warnings are not censorship–“Likewise, David M. Perry, an associate professor of history at Dominican University, notes that informing students of potentially triggering content makes them more able to engage with and learn from the material as opposed to being surprised by it. He writes, ‘Spoilers might be bad for entertainment, but they are good for education.'”
  • When I was a freshman, my sister was in eighth grade.–“When he was arrested, some of my sister’s friends (some female, even) told her that she was selfish for saying no so many times.”
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds–“Classic nerd fantasy, right? Immensely attractive to the young male audience who saw it. And a stock trope, the “bed trick,” that many of the nerds watching probably knew dates back to the legend of King Arthur. It’s also, you know, rape.”
  • 5 Questions with The Curly Hair Mafia–“The way that the stories in horror are populated tells us a lot about how we identify with characters, how we sympathize with them (or how we are entertained by their suffering).”
  • Machine Gun Misogynists: How Open Carry Texas Tried To Silence Me–“My initial feelings of fear and anxiety were founded – if calling 911 is in itself a dangerous act, where can I turn?”
  • #WisCon Post, Part the Second: The Elephant in the Room or #FrenkelFail–“But nice guys do not view women as property, as objects they can do anything they like to regardless of consent. And this is WisCon, the premier feminist science fiction and fantasy convention, which means the stakes are much higher.”
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The Reading List, 6/1/2014
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8 thoughts on “The Reading List, 6/1/2014

  1. 1

    The “Why I Miss Being A Born-Again Christian” appears to be unlinked. A ‘net search suggests that it is a BuzzFeed article by jessicamisener, titled: why-i-miss-being-a-born-again-christian

    In case you didn’t link it intentionally, I’ll avoid making a clickable link myself, either.

  2. 3

    Glad to do it — it prompted me to read the piece; which is scary, due to how well it explains the drug-like, addictive quality of such beliefs. They very obviously prey (or should that be, pray) on widespread human weaknesses, and those weaknesses don’t go away even when their victims stop using. It worries me that the author hasn’t yet come to a stronger affirmation of the real, non-supernatural world. I hope she finds it.

  3. 7

    I keep getting too lost in all the links to remember to comment! I do want to say thanks for doing this. I’ve enjoyed reading interesting material in parts of the internet into which I had never before ventured.

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