Anglican congregation accepts pope’s invitation *

Oct 17th, 2010 | Filed by

To convert to Catholicism to escape ordination of women. God hates women.… Read the rest



Baggini gives atheist “sermon” in Westminster Abbey *

Oct 17th, 2010 | Filed by

Divides atheists into good, reasonable atheists and bad, dogmatic, theist-hating atheists. Puts himself in the first group.… Read the rest



Alex Clark reviews Luka and the Fire of Life *

Oct 17th, 2010 | Filed by

Rushdie includes a trip through the Respectorate of I, where everyone takes offence and visitors are warned to mind their manners.… Read the rest



Benoît Mandelbrot 1924-2010 *

Oct 17th, 2010 | Filed by

Mandelbrot coined the term “fractal” to refer to a new class of mathematical shapes whose uneven contours could mimic the irregularities found in nature.… Read the rest



10 die in Indian temple stampede *

Oct 17th, 2010 | Filed by

The victims had gathered to witness the traditional sacrifice of goats; 40,000 devotees had thronged the temple at the time of the stampede.… Read the rest



Gender equality in Sweden *

Oct 17th, 2010 | Filed by

Both in education and in the labour market, the genders are not equally represented.… Read the rest



The anger fuelling Serbia’s rioters *

Oct 17th, 2010 | Filed by

“The gay parade was a provocation against Serbian people,” explains a member of the nationalist group 1389.… Read the rest



Anthroposophy is not a safe haven from despair *

Oct 16th, 2010 | Filed by

It’s a common accusation from anthroposophists that materialism, atheism and even intellectualism cause mental disease and unhappiness.… Read the rest



Waldorf communities *

Oct 16th, 2010 | Filed by

The very strong community bonds and shared values and ideals risk creating very strong exclusion mechanisms as well.… Read the rest



Why is there bumping rather than nutting?

Oct 16th, 2010 4:12 pm | By

Michael Ruse is explaining about religion and morality now. It’s way deep.

Is there a place under the accommodationism canvas for the non-believer? I think there is for I aspire to be one such person. As…argued at length in my book Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science, I believe that one can argue for all of modern science and yet agree that there are certain questions that science leaves unanswered: Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the ultimate ground of morality?

I believe that although one need not turn to religion — I am simply a skeptic on these sorts of questions — it is legitimate for the believer

Read the rest


Enough about me, what do you think of me?

Oct 16th, 2010 12:05 pm | By

So let’s just make it a solipsism triple, and get it out of the way, shall we?

Michael Ruse, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, talking at first about the pressures on people who teach at religious colleges, but then, as usual, veering back to the real subject, which is the evilness of gnu atheists and their especial evilness toward him and his debonair indifference to that evilness toward him.

I hope very much that this will blow over.  I hope even more that if it does blow over it will not be with the understanding, implicit or explicit, that neither Schneider nor any other Calvin faculty member ever again try to reconcile science and religion.  These days it

Read the rest


Science as a ‘faith-laden exigential discourse’ *

Oct 16th, 2010 | Filed by

…the insight of the wider spectrum of human thought and experience rather than a singular self-establishing discourse which asserts superiority and hegemony…… Read the rest



Another additional year

Oct 16th, 2010 11:21 am | By

And while I’m in solipsistic vein, and besides I’m even later than usual, I will point out that B&W is another year older, and more. Last year I celebrated on the 16th of September, so I’m a whole entire calendar month late by that standard, and that standard was already late anyway, so I’m metaLate.

B&W is (more than) eight years old. That’s, like, 40 thousand years in butterfly time. B&W is older than the oldest Galápagos tortoise, older than the redwoods, older than the wingéd trilobites, older than bacteria, older than water, older than the sun.

But thanks to a healthy constitution, maintained by daily walks and a quart of wine every evening, and thanks to Josh Larios … Read the rest



My enemy’s blacklist is my friend

Oct 16th, 2010 10:42 am | By

Oh look, Radio Zamaneh has something about Does God Hate Women?

I’m not sure exactly what it has, because Google translate doesn’t seem to do Farsi very well, and I can’t make much of what it comes up with. But something is better than nothing, yeh?

Radio Zamaneh is based in Amsterdam and was (according to Wikipedia) set up by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs but operates independently. At any rate –

Radio Zamaneh was among a list of foreign organizations, including media outlets and human rights groups, which Iran’s Intelligence Ministry placed on a blacklist over their alleged role in fomenting the unrest that followed the disputed presidential election in June 2009.

Good on them.… Read the rest



NY Times: “Atheists debate how pushy to be” *

Oct 16th, 2010 | Filed by

“They agreed that people can be good without religion, and religion has too much influence. But they disagreed about how stridently to make those claims.”… Read the rest



Why documentation matters *

Oct 16th, 2010 | Filed by

The excesses of the bubble years have created a legal morass, in which property rights are ill defined because nobody has proper documentation.… Read the rest



Rift in Canadian Islamic Congress *

Oct 16th, 2010 | Filed by
The forces of orthodoxy are resisting the progressives.… Read the rest


Oklahoma: 19-year-old gay man kills himself *

Oct 16th, 2010 | Filed by

His family says the suicide followed by just a week his attendance at a Norman City Council meeting where he heard some hostile views.… Read the rest



The caution is in paragraph 19 *

Oct 15th, 2010 | Filed by

Since most people don’t read as far as paragraph 19, this is not helpful.… Read the rest



Ben Goldacre on “biological cause” and stigma *

Oct 15th, 2010 | Filed by

Does a “biological cause” story about mental health problems always reduce stigma? Not necessarily.… Read the rest