Jean has a post about belief at Talking Philosophy*. I find myself unconvinced, and I’m curious as to what other people think.

The idea is that ‘faith’ in the sense of belief without evidence is okay, and it’s belief in belief that is pernicious.

A person who was willing to believe nothing “on faith” would have a rather scanty store of beliefs. He or she would be missing some beliefs I take to be very important. For example—the belief that every human being matters. Exactly why does everyone matter? No doubt you could say a few intelligent things about it, but you’d soon find yourself not quite sure what the basis for the belief is.

I argued that moral … Read the rest

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown talks better sense this time.

You hear these outpourings of grief and hopelessness a lot these days. Ignorance is not bliss, it is oblivion, wrote the American novelist Philip Wylie. Ill-educated, volatile, easily led, despised by millions, Muslims the world over are falling into that void, into oblivion. Some are and will be annihilated by external foes and enemies within, including the demon cheerleaders inside the heads of suicide bombers, but many more will be consumed by their own terror of the modern world.

There is discrimination, she notes, but there is also self-limitation.

In nearly all universities in this country, including the elite establishments, there are cells of well organised Muslim obscurantists who entice or bully

I’ve just read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. I know, I know, you all read it two years ago, where have I been – well I meant to read it but didn’t get to it, but I spotted it at the library the other day and grabbed it.

Absolutely extraordinary novel. Shockingly readable, for one thing, in the way thrillers are supposed to be but mostly (for me) aren’t, and also fascinating in multiple ways.

Consider item (or entry or chapter) 181 for instance. It starts ‘I see everything’ then goes on to enumerate the detail with which Christopher does indeed see and notice, if not everything, at least a great deal more than non-autistic … Read the rest

Peter Tatchell asks some pointed questions.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has executed three more Arab political prisoners…There have been no protests from Britain, the EU or the UN. The UN’s silence comes on top of the truly appalling vote by UN Human Rights Council to abandon its monitoring of human rights abuses in Iran…While condemning Israel for abusing the Palestinian people, Arab states are silent about the abuse of fellow Arabs by the Iranian regime. The anti-imperialist left is also mute. Why the double standards? Palestinian Arabs get the support of progressives and radicals everywhere; Iranian Arabs get no support at all. They swing from nooses in public squares like cattle hanging in an abattoir. Does anyone care?