Look anywhere and we see cultures that view women as second to men. I don’t doubt that these attitudes are deeply ingrained in societies, and I see no other explanation than it being a throwback from old and ancient gender role stereotypes, dating back from before the first human captured fire, and poorly interpreted into the 21st century. There is no doubt in my mind that women have been mistreated long before the first religion appeared...

We hear a lot of talk lately about the call for Anti-Blasphemy laws to be formalised to make blasphemy a crime internationally. The United Nations are debating this once again, mostly as a knee-jerk reaction against the poorly made (and probably divisive) YouTube video “The Innocence of Muslims”. But we see this call coming from two camps, and for two different reasons. The cry from Islamic groups and clerics supports this act as a...

My friend Maria Bangs (AKA @BarrelOfOranges) invited me to write a piece on humanism for her awesome blog Barrel Of Oranges. This is an excerpt, but please visit her blog if you’d like to read the piece in its entirety. As social animals, we tend to align ourselves with people who are “like us”; We associate with those who share our outlook on life, with those with whom we are related, with those that we share ideas...

Today marks the third anniversary of my very first ever blog post which was titled “Welcome to the Atheist Climber blog”. The main spin of my inaugural blog post was described thus: This will be a combination of my considered thoughts about science, nature and religion, as well as politics, atheism and the occasional rant about stuff that pisses me off. This will not be about religion-bashing, although atheism is the main...

Image: Weeping Angel from BBC’s Doctor Who Humanism, to me, means doing whatever is possible to better the lives of all of humanity, as a species and inhabitants of this planet, and as individuals in whatever situation life finds them. This includes creating and sustaining an environment for humans to thrive in, and the condemnation of anything that may be harmful to another individual. Of course, evaluating situations involving the...