Bravo, Sanal! A Profile in Courage and Conviction

It has been a while since I had written about Sanal Edamaraku, the president of the Indian Rationalist Association, a small but growing Indian organization that strives to debunk instances of pseudoscience, superstition and mysticism. For those who are unaware of Sanal's many accomplishments and his relentless efforts to unmask religious preceptors, or Gurus, and self-styled godmen, who claim to perform mystical 'miracles', I recommend the excellent website of this organization, the Rationalist International, of which Sanal is the founding president. In 2010, Sanal was in the news when he took a Tantrik guru upon his words, challenging the guru to kill him using only his 'mystical' powers. Needless to say, the effort didn't work well for the Guru.

Response to Paula Kirby's Open Letter to the Skeptic Community

I never thought I'd be attempting to write a rebuttal to a letter from an author of the stature of Paula Kirby whose excellent writing on atheism in the Washington post I have always admired. But her bizarre response to the entire sexism-in-skeptics business has flabbergasted me; I'd have thought that as a woman and a skeptic, a person of her erudition would be spearheading the efforts to weed out this deplorable attitude that has been plaguing the atheist-skeptic movement for a long time. Instead, I am watching in horrified fascination that she seems to be interested only in the denial of its existence, and vehemently opposed to anyone who dares to point it out.

In a publicly accessible Google doc, she recently wrote an Open Letter titled - rather amusingly - "The Sisterhood of the Oppressed" (dated July 1, 2012) to the Skeptic Community, in order "to spell out (her) position on the "Women in Secularism" issue". I think it's high time to exercise the old noggin' and address comprehensively the points she raised in her Open Letter. Since it is a rather long one, I'd try to break it up in small chunks and respond similarly; I am also quoting directly only the portions I am addressing. In the event the said document is not available in future, worry not, Inquisitive Reader, I Haz PDF!!

(Other bloggers, including atheistlogic and Ophelia Benson (Un et Deux), have already admirably taken on the letter, making a far better job of it that I possibly ever can. However, I take this as an intellectual exercise. To quote Barney Stinson, "Challenge accepted!" I must also acknowledge the invaluable help and input I received from my friend, Tigger The Wing in formulating this response. But I have to warn: this is a L-O-N-G-read!)

'Deep Rifts' Or 'The Humanity Of It All'... Part 1

A friend of mine was curious about the 'Deep Rift' that has been cooking in the atheist-skeptic blogosphere for about a year now, culminating in the Twitter storm over the FTBullies hashtag. I offered to make a timeline with bullet points. Little did I know that chronicling those cataclysmic events was going to be such a monumental task, requiring the last drop of my Google-Fu and reading/listening comprehension. Anyhoo, I must admit it was eeriely fun revisiting those events, and consequently, wondering anew how, atheist-skeptic or not, we all are subject to the very human foibles and frailties of ego, prejudice, presumptions, and sadly, blind irrationality. Vraiment, the humanity of it all!

Disclaimer: Although I shall try to be an unbiased as possible in preparing this chronicle, I find myself sympathetic towards Rebecca Watson and her fellow skeptics in this matter. YMMV, of course. Also, L-O-N-G-read!!!