Here’s your Canadian Atheist Weekly Update for to .
![[Photo of Raif Badawi]](https://www.canadianatheist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/raif-badawi.jpg)
Raif Badawi
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[] Halton Catholic students stage walkouts to protest charities ban
I continue to be amazed at the legs this story has, and a large part of that is due to the parents and students not putting up with the Board’s shit. Buried in this story is an interesting tidbit, though. Bishop Reding Catholic Secondary School student council president Karyssa Chan – one of the protesters – said this:
I’m not Catholic but I do believe in giving back.
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[] Why are more and more non-Catholic students attending separate schools?
Catholic schools siphoning students away from public schools has always been a problem – it’s what triggered the Theodore lawsuit in Saskatchewan – but as bad is it is to siphon away Catholic students, Catholic schools are increasingly taking non-Catholic students. Of course, they’re not hiring non-Catholic teachers.
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[] Response to Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould re: the government’s response to Petition E-1264
Last week’s Update included an item about the government’s disappointing response to petition E-1264, calling for an investigation into systemic discrimination against nonbelievers. Doug Thomas, president of Secular Connexion Séculaire, was the originator of the petition, and now he has published a response to the government’s response. (See also this piece by British Columbia Humanist Association executive director Ian Bushfield.)
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[] “It Takes 6 Months to Turn a Standard Racist into a Nazi” (Video: 4:41)
This is a really interesting study, and timely as hell. It’s not just about Nazis, it’s about radicalization in general, and contains interesting insights not just about the surprisingly short time span, but also about how radicalization happens. The original study is open access, too, if you’re interested.
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[] Vancouver protesters rally against LGBT-inclusive school program
I encourage you to read through this piece because it’s fascinating. The exchange between the LGBT group representative and the religious mother would be fascinating enough… but there is a hell of a twist at the end of the piece!
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[] Trudeau raises ‘serious concern’ over jailed blogger in call with Saudi king
It’s been almost six years since his arrest, and almost three years since the torture/punishment began. I mean, it’s good that Trudeau is still pushing this issue, but one wonders how much more pressure it will take before the Saudi royalty caves.
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[] The misogynist ideology behind Toronto’s incel terror attack must be confronted
Arshy Mann lays out the plan for how to tackle extremists on the Internet.
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•[26-Apr-2018] The misogynist ideology behind Toronto’s incel terror attack must be confronted
I wonder how many other people besides myself were able to discover from the news a simple fact about the man accused of the Toronto van attack. How many people are aware that he is autistic and attended special classes in school growing up where he was known for his violent behaviour.
I doubt there’s any effort to hide these facts; it’s probably more a matter of no one’s interested.
That he had a violent history is hardly news; every mass murderer has a violent history – barring a catastrophic mental breakdown, you don’t just wake up one morning and go out to murder a dozen people after a lifetime of hugging babies and kissing puppies. Usually the only time a mass murderer’s violent history is “news” is when their attack is politically/religiously motivated, and then it turns out they were also abusive toward the women in their life – which has nothing to do with politics/religion, and indicates they were just violent bastards. But in this case, the entire attack itself was about being violent toward women, so any history of abuse toward women would be… kinda superfluous.
The fact that he is on the autism spectrum is irrelevant; last I heard there was no science showing any connection between autism and violence.
If anyone’s interested, Arshy Mann expands a lot on his piece in this Canadaland interview.
The Conversation recently posted a good piece summarizing the state of the science around linking autism and violence: “The straightforward and scientifically supported answer to the question is unequivocally that no, individuals with ASD are not prone to violence any more than any other individual in society.”
Sometimes I think a little common sense is worth a lot more than a mile high stack of university degrees. I don’t know if you are familiar with the saying “don’t let your children play on the freeway”. What it means is that if your send your children on their tricycles out to play on the freeway you aren’t doing yourself or those using the freeway any favours.
I don’t know if there is or ever was a ‘clinical’ diagnosis of this individual but obviously he had to have a driver’s license to rent the van he used. I believe the public space should be for those who have a reasonable chance of using it properly, some other space should be reserved for those who don’t.