Weekly Update: 16-Dec-2017 to 22-Dec-2017

Happy HumanLight, heathens!

This week’s Update is really a bit of a mini-update, for reasons I’d imagine are obvious. I’m already in holiday break mode, and I’ll probably still be in holiday break mode by the time next week’s Update rolls around. (So don’t expect too much from next week’s Update either.

So whatever it is you’re celebrating, be it the solstice, Yule, Saturnalia (happy belated), HumanLight, Festivus, Chrismakkuh, or, ya know, one of those plebeian holidays, I hope you get a chance to relax or party as you please in a safety, comfort, and happiness.

So with no further ado, here’s your Canadian Atheist Weekly Update for 16-Dec-2017 to 22-Dec-2017.

The obvious response to this is just too tempting.

• [5-Dec-2017] The politics of abortion after Morgentaler

  This is an excerpt from Rachael Johnstone’s book After Morgentaler, that gives a really interesting, in depth look at the way abortion has been handled in Ontario politics… and how federal politics have threatened abortion access in that province.

• [13-Dec-2017] Salvation Army says it’s ‘evolved’ on LGBT rights but we’re not too sure about that

  So we’ve gone from “we never discriminate against LGBT people! anyone who says we do is lying!”… to “individual churches and members have discriminated against LGBT people, but those are just bad apples in isolated incidents; we don’t have a systemic problem!”… to “okay, we had a systemic problem, but it’s totes fixed now!” According to the pattern, then next stage is: “okay, we still discriminate against LGBT people all the time, but it’s just locker room talk; you are bigots for making an issue of it!”

• [19-Dec-2017] Religious rights at issue in case of brain-dead Toronto man

  I know it’s a little evil of me, but I can’t be the only atheist who saw the headlines about a “brain-dead religious man” and thought: “Well, that’s redundant.”

• [20-Dec-2017] Barry Sherman wrote frankly about atheist convictions in unfinished memoir

  I honestly have no idea why this is news. If he’d prattled on about Jesus in his memoir – as so many do – would anyone have cared?

• [20-Dec-2017] The cynical roots of Rempel’s female genital mutilation crusade

  At this point it should be stating the obvious, but amazingly there are people who still truly believe that the Conservative Party of Canada really cares about the women in this issue. I mean, that’s obviously why they created all those programs and directed all that funding to help wome― oh… wait… that’s right… they actually did fuck-all on the issue in their years in power… never mind. (’Course, they did plenty to harass make life more miserable for immigrants and anyone else associated with the countries and ethnicities even just peripherally related to FGM. I’m not saying there’s a pattern there; but the pattern that’s there is screaming at you to notice it.)

• [20-Dec-2017] “Omni” by Zach Weinersmith (Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)

  I must have heard at least a dozen apologetics in response to the problem of evil, but I have to admit that this one is novel!

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