Agnostics continue to slaughter atheists in Nigeria.
Ah, who am I kidding? It’s Muslims slaughtering Christians (and vice versa). Nigeria’s Acting President–the ironically named Goodluck Jonathan–has promised to quell the violence, but I suspect he’ll do no more than tamp it down temporarily.
Happy New Year! We kick off 2010 by interviewing Stuart Bechman, president of Atheist Alliance International (AtheistAlliance.org). AAI is planning its first-ever Australian convention in Melbourne on March 12-14, 2010. For details visit AtheistConvention.org.au–tickets are going fast!
We interview Danny Zepeda, a skeptical blogger living in Morelia, a city in central Mexico. He talks about the state of freethought South of the Border, the prevalence of superstition and alt-medicine quackery in Mexican society, and the challenges of raising children to be critical thinkers. Visit Danny’s Spanish-language blog Un Papá Escéptico (A Skeptical Papa) at papaesceptico.wordpress.com. If you can’t read Spanish, try pasting the URL into the Babel Fish text translation tool: the results are sometimes a bit iffy but readable.
First I hear that Nigerians are planning a conference to combat witch-hunting, child abuse and Christian fundamentalism. Now Malawi is stepping up. I have no idea how many people this message will reach via my blog, but since I think it’s a worthy effort, I’m passing this along:
If, like mine, your first reaction in hearing about modern-day witch-hunting is to snicker–don’t. It’s just a bunch of superstitious silliness, right? Think again. Witch-hunting kills. It destroys lives. Read this chilling article from Johann Hari. Maybe we won’t snicker so much the next time we see that clip of Sarah Palin being blessed by self-proclaimed Nigerian witch-hunter Thomas Muthee. Muthee isn’t just some African blowhard conning a bunch of Alaskan yahoos. His actions have ruined peoples lives and reputations.
For some reason, witch-hunting seems all the rage in Africa lately. Thankfully, skeptical/secular Africans are working to change that.
This is very encouraging news. Leo Ingwe of the Nigerian Humanist Movement has issued a call for papers for the “National Conference on Witch-hunts, Christian Fundamentalism, and Child Abuse” (you gotta love that they lumped these three topics together). The Conference is scheduled for October 2009.
