Social justice book reviews
It is a strange position to find myself in, trying to reconcile my values as an atheist and as an intersectional feminist. Allow me to explain.
In the beginning of this month, the French Senate passed a bill that, if made into a law, would enforce a sort of “secular dress code”. This amendment applies very specifically toward the rights of Muslim women, including:
Read more
After a four-month-long break, I am happy to finally be returning to my series critiquing the claims of creationists—specifically, Answers in Genesis—about human evolution! Anyone who has created critiques to AiG’s content knows how frustrating and exasperating it can be. For those who do this for a living, I applaud you. AiG has so much content, with so many twists and turns and overlaps, that it is almost too easy to get lost on their website and in their…unique ideas. They seem to have a great fascination with Neanderthals, which in their eyes are just an archaic group of Homo sapiens. (They can’t seem to agree on whether Neanderthals were an ethnic group, a race, or a subspecies.) In the world of paleoanthropology, Neanderthals have always been a hot topic, as we know more about them than any other hominid species but our own. There is a lot of fluctuation in our understanding of Neanderthals, because scientists are discovering more about them by the day.
Read more
Multi-level marketing schemes have been among my greatest pet peeves for a long time. These younger sisters of pyramid schemes, which are barely legal and barely not pyramid schemes only on a mere technicality, are a dangerous fad. I’ve been glad to see that more and more people have been making others aware of the harm of MLM schemes, and how to identify one of these scams is becoming more widely known. Even so, I’ll start with a brief overview of what they are:
Read more
Since I was a kid, I’ve had a tendency to get “obsessed” with various things. I think “obsessed” might be a harsh word for it, but it’s not entirely inaccurate: over the years I have become enamored with different book series, TV shows, and musicians in the sense that one could have thought that my being a fan of that thing was my main personality trait. As I’ve grown older, this zeal has gone more towards things like atheism, paleoanthropology, and most recently, everything Carl Sagan has ever written.
Read more
One of my favorite things about my blog has always been the ability to sit down on the weekends and write about whatever topic it is that plagued my mind all week. Sometimes it’s paleoanthropology or progressive Christianity, and this week it’s been astrology. I’ve written about astrology before (why it is pseudoscience, and why mercury retrograde is strictly an astronomical rather than astrological phenomenon), so one might wonder why I can’t just let it go. The fact is, something about astrology really rubs me the wrong way, and anyone close to me knows it.
Read more
I grew up steeped in conservative Christianity only to make a 180° turn to cold, hard atheism in college. I took no detours in progressive Christianity, but I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to be both a Christian and an open-minded, accepting person. Luckily, I’ve lately been enjoying Brenda Marie Davies’ YouTube channel, which is a glimpse into the lifestyle, opinions, and beliefs of a progressive Christian. If you can achieve a messy but confident faith in God and a loving call for equality and recognition for all, then why not embrace both?
Read more
I’d like to start this post off by asking that you read it in its entirety before commenting or passing judgment.
Now that that’s out of the way: This post is not going to be about the morality of actually getting an abortion. I personally believe in a woman’s right to choose what is best for her, her body, and her family. I’ve written a post before that only broke the ice on why I am pro-choice, and my sources there go into way more depth. That’s why I will just refer you to those (here, here, and here) instead of repeating their points either in this post or my last.
Read more
I wish that I could rejoice in the fact that today, I write my first ever blog post reviewing a book by a woman, but after reading it, I feel as though there is little to be joyful for. Don’t get me wrong, I truly believe that it would be greatly beneficial for the future of America (and the rest of the world) if everyone read The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, but at the same time I felt that it was deeply disturbing.
Read more
It’s August 15th, 2008. You’re nine-year-old Matthew Berger, and you’re in Gladysvale, South Africa, looking for ancient human fossils with your paleoanthropologist dad, Lee Berger. “Okay, go find fossils!” says your dad. Only moments later, you find a hominid collarbone sticking out of a rock. Your dad curses in shock after seeing all the other hominid bones lying around it: a tooth and part of a jaw, among others. He goes on to spend years studying these fossils among his colleagues, and he names it Australopithecus sediba.
Fast forward: It’s August 15th, 2020, and you’re a 24-year-old woman with an interest in paleoanthropology. You’re writing a blog post about Australopithecus sediba for a series defending finds like the Bergers’ from the heinous claims of anti-scientists. Hours into your research, you see an article telling you that Matthew’s find was in fact made on this very day, twelve years ago. You don’t believe in coincidences or fate, but it makes you smile nonetheless.
Read more
Cosmos by Carl Sagan left me speechless. I don’t even know how to express to you how moved I was by Sagan’s writing. But alas, putting into words the impressions left on me by nonfiction masterpieces like Cosmos is what The Curious Atheist blog is all about, so I suppose I’ll give it my best shot.
Read more