Mahdi Army spokesmen have promoted fears about the ‘third sex’ and the ‘feminization’ of Iraq men.… Read the rest
Responding
Aug 16th, 2009 5:58 pm | By Ophelia BensonRussell checks in on the twins.
I join with Jason and others in objecting to the metaphors of violence that the twins have taken to using whenever they characterise the actions or speech of the people they have constructed as opponents – all those horrible “New Atheists”, such as Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins. More specifically still, I object to the over-the-top language that has been used to describe the views of the small number of people who have, relatively recently, protested the more religion-friendly statements made on behalf of the the National Center for Science Education (NCSE).
Quite. I think the metaphors of violence have been steadily increasing in the twins’ articles lately; my guess is that that’s … Read the rest
Journalists Caught Between Govt and Taliban
Aug 16th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJournalists in Afghanistan face increasing threats and attacks from government officials and the Taleban.… Read the rest
Gambia: State Witch-hunters Grab Villagers
Aug 16th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia Benson1300 people were seized and made to drink poison; some died, others spent days racked with pain.… Read the rest
Russell Blackford on Demonization of Atheists
Aug 16th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWe are presented as vicious and violent rather than as reasonable people with a role to play in public debate.… Read the rest
The Difference Between Faith and Science
Aug 16th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJerry Coyne reads Darrell Falk of BioLogos, Mooney and Kirshenbaum, and Russell Blackford.… Read the rest
Alan Sokal, Science and Politics
Aug 16th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSokal views science and religion as fundamentally epistemologically incompatible.… Read the rest
Iran: A female revolution
Aug 16th, 2009 | By Azar MajediWhat we are witnessing in Iran is not only a movement against a dictatorship and for political freedom; it is not only a movement against poverty and socio-economic injustice and for equality and prosperity; it is a movement against religious institution, hypocrisy, corruption and superstition. In this context, it is for cultural and moral emancipation as well. The political uprising in Iran has a strong anti-religious character.
30 years of religious oppression has created a generation which wants to emancipate itself from any religious domination, restriction or meddling. 30 years of imprisonment by a brutal religious state, which has interfered in the most private spheres of people’s lives, a state run by the most greedy, corrupt and dehumanized men of … Read the rest
Premature termination
Aug 15th, 2009 12:51 pm | By Ophelia BensonBryan Appleyard cuts through all the verbiage and sets everyone straight with just a few words – nineteen words, to be exact.
…the new, militant atheism of Richard Dawkins and friends…The disputes didn’t amount to much then and they don’t amount to much now. Put it like this: it is blindingly obvious that claims about a spiritual reality can neither be proved nor disproved by material means. End of argument.
End of argument! So tidy! Except for the tiny little fact that proving and disproving don’t exhaust the possibilities, so there is argument after all. Quite a lot of it, in fact. So much for ‘End of argument’ – and for bossy attempts to end arguments.
… Read the restIn order to make
NZ Child Killed in ‘Curse Lifting Ceremony’
Aug 15th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPeople picked at the demons they saw in her eyes; water was forced into her mouth to flush out demons. … Read the rest
How Dare You Protest Sexual Segregation?
Aug 15th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonEspecially at a wedding! You can’t have women mixing with men at weddings. Duh.… Read the rest
Afghanistan Passes Patriarchal Shia Law
Aug 15th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonLaw permits men to starve wives who refuse sex, requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.… Read the rest
Afghanistan: Taliban Reaches Out to Voters
Aug 15th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPromising to chop off their fingers if they vote.… Read the rest
Indian Muslim Groups Protest Nasreen Visa
Aug 15th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonClaim Nasreen committed blasphemy through her writings and hurt feelings of Muslims across the world. … Read the rest
Taslima Nasreen Will Not Apologize…
Aug 15th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘for whatever I have written about the fundamentalists. I am willing to risk my life for that and continue my legitimate fight till the day I die.’… Read the rest
Bryan Appleyard Reviews The Evolution of God
Aug 15th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTakes a few kicks at ‘the absurd rhetoric of militant atheism’ while he’s at it.… Read the rest
The Uses of Common Sense
Aug 15th, 2009 | By Joshua F. LeachA great deal of ink has been spilled in the course of Western
philosophy over the question of whether or not the material
world exists. Some great minds have been led to insanity by
the possibility that it does not; others have accepted their
nihilism cheerfully. But just about all philosophers, whether
they came from the tradition of empiricism and skepticism,
like Hume, or from that of idealism, like Hegel, were
eventually forced into a sort of extreme subjectivism,
concluding that we do not, in fact, exist, and that the world
is merely the product of our imagination. Various
philosophers accepted this solipsism to a greater or lesser
degree, but it formed the essential tenor of philosophy in the
modern … Read the rest
Atheists packing heat
Aug 14th, 2009 1:28 pm | By Ophelia BensonNow it’s Michael Ruse’s turn to do the ‘atheists are evil’ routine using the numbingly familiar ‘atheists are evil’ weapon of shameless exaggeration and misrepresentation. In short, like all his pathetic allies in this tawdry campaign, he paints the people he dislikes as violent and aggressive when all in the world they are is verbally explicit.
In the past few years, we have seen the rise and growth of a group that the public sphere has labeled the “new atheists” – people who are aggressively pro-science, especially pro-Darwinism, and violently anti-religion of all kinds…
‘Violently’ – in the sense of coming right out and saying that they think religion is a bad thing in many ways. That’s a pretty … Read the rest
Akbar Ganji: Open Letter to Ban Ki-moon
Aug 14th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAn appeal to heed the widespread protests of the Iranian people.… Read the rest
India: 3 People Killed for ‘Witchcraft’
Aug 14th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonFamily members Karmi, 58 and Rahesh, 24 tried to save Munda, 65, but villagers killed them all.… Read the rest