Mediawatchwatch on Sebastian Faulks *

Aug 25th, 2009 | Filed by

Did Faulks cave in to threats, or is he merely offering a pre-emptive apology in advance of them?… Read the rest



Excerpt From Dawkins’s ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ *

Aug 25th, 2009 | Filed by

With bizarro Times headline worthy of Glen Beck.… Read the rest



Sebastian Faulks Says the Koran is Terrific *

Aug 25th, 2009 | Filed by

Really – he loves it – he read Karen Armstrong for his research – he wouldn’t dream of offending.… Read the rest



Sebastian Faulks Not Totally Smitten With Koran *

Aug 25th, 2009 | Filed by

Has ‘courted controversy’ by saying so.… Read the rest



A few last pops from the shut up wars

Aug 24th, 2009 6:23 pm | By

I find this quite funny – The Smiling Ones, apparently pleased by the reception of that LA Times article, have offered it up all over again, this time at Comment is Free. What’s funny about it is that the comments are scathing. This line is not working for them.

Just one sample out of many:

I’m amazed by the sheer hostility shown by the Guardian to the “New Atheists”. I don’t agree with everything Dawkins says but I would rate him well above pseudo- intellectuals such as Karen Armstrong and her laughable thesis that religion is about practice rather than belief (contradicted by the Nicene Creed). However the Guardian prefers the “spiritual” Armstrong over the rational Dawkins. Now

Read the rest


Jerry Coyne on Robert Wright’s Pirouetting *

Aug 24th, 2009 | Filed by

If only scientists would ‘accept’ just a few tiny beliefs, everybody could get along.… Read the rest



The Daughter Deficit *

Aug 24th, 2009 | Filed by

In China and India girls are more likely to be missing in richer areas than in poorer ones, in cities than in rural areas. … Read the rest



No Grand Bargain Between Evolution and Theism *

Aug 24th, 2009 | Filed by

It doesn’t follow that because organisms in nature have purposes, nature as a whole has a purpose.… Read the rest



They Want Us to Be Stupid Things *

Aug 24th, 2009 | Filed by

The Mirwais Mena School closed after the acid attacks, but only for a week. Nearly all the girls returned.… Read the rest



Kristof and WuDunn on Unsubordinating Women *

Aug 24th, 2009 | Filed by

The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution.… Read the rest



NY Times Magazine on Global Women’s Rights *

Aug 24th, 2009 | Filed by

Why women’s rights are the cause of our time.… Read the rest



Alun Salt on the Politics of Accommodation *

Aug 24th, 2009 | Filed by

Van Houtan and Pimm do not argue that all the public should be treated as if they’re in the remedial class.… Read the rest



Strike up the band

Aug 23rd, 2009 5:03 pm | By

Karen Armstrong says God is like a melody.

Every day, music confronts us with a mode of knowledge that defies logical analysis and empirical proof…Hence all art constantly aspires to the condition of music; so too, at its best, does theology.

If you say so (and of course ‘at its best’ covers a multitude of sins – at my best I am a paragon of wit and virtue, but my best is oddly elusive). But that is (I can’t help assuming) because the ‘the’ in ‘theology’ is so flexible, so adaptable, so shape-shifting, so all things to all people, that it makes just as much sense to say that theology at its best aspires to the condition of poetry, … Read the rest



Robert Wright Lectures ‘Strident’ Atheists *

Aug 23rd, 2009 | Filed by

‘When you define the system this broadly, it takes on a more spiritually suggestive cast.’… Read the rest



Joan Smith on Women Defying the Taliban *

Aug 23rd, 2009 | Filed by

Khaled Hosseini: ‘The struggle of women against traditional forces dates back before the Taliban.’… Read the rest



Novelist Says Atheists Are Intellectually Lazy *

Aug 23rd, 2009 | Filed by

Self-righteous – as bad as fundamentalists – fashionable absolutism – Stalin – elite – smug.… Read the rest



Dawkins Wants to ‘Convert’ ‘Islamic World’ *

Aug 23rd, 2009 | Filed by

Or rather, he wants to popularize evolution in places where Islam is the dominant religion.… Read the rest



Times Interviews Richard Dawkins *

Aug 23rd, 2009 | Filed by

‘There’s a widespread perception that I am polemical and strident and shrill…I don’t think I’m strident and shrill.’… Read the rest



A novelty item

Aug 23rd, 2009 11:47 am | By

We’re in luck – we have a whole new barrage of clichés to set us straight.

David Adams Richards is angry. The acclaimed novelist and essayist is raging at atheists, the self-righteous ones. The writer with the tough New Brunswick background believes anti-religious people are as bad as fundamentalists in their fashionable absolutism.

Does he! How exciting! How novel, how original, how refreshing, how ground-breaking.

Not that I can talk – I don’t break new ground. I think there’s a place for saying things that have been said before, because the mere fact that something has been said before doesn’t mean that everyone knows that, so there is always room for popularizers to help circulate that which has been said … Read the rest



The Science of Origins *

Aug 22nd, 2009 | Filed by

How did the universe begin? Is our universe unique? How did life arise? How does consciousness arise? … Read the rest