The main need is for more space for the school to grow. … Read the rest
No skepticism please we’re American
Jul 5th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMajor US publishers say skeptical books don’t sell.… Read the rest
Will Ireland apologize to the Magdalenes?
Jul 5th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe ten Magdalene laundries were for-profit businesses where women and girls were incarcerated against their will and forced to do unpaid physical labor.… Read the rest
Health minister calls homosexuality “a disease”
Jul 5th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIndia’s health minister told a conference on HIV/Aids that homosexuality “is a disease which has come from other countries.”… Read the rest
A priest and a rabbi go into an elevator and…
Jul 4th, 2011 12:16 pm | By Ophelia BensonWhere were we. Rebecca Watson said about elevator guy, a student said about Watson about elevator guy, Watson said about the student at her CFI talk, lots of people said about Watson saying about the student at her talk, while, meanwhile, Dawkins said about Watson about elevator guy. Dawkins said something sarcastic the point of which was that women living under Islamic laws have things worse than Watson. This did not go down well. Lots of people pointed out, with some heat, that the fact that X is bad is not a reason to be quiet about less-bad Y, and that Dawkins was being clueless about Y, and that he shouldn’t do that because he was never going to … Read the rest
Christians battle witches in Alcester
Jul 4th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThey take each other seriously…… Read the rest
Homophobic imam cites “Islamophobia”
Jul 4th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe got expelled from Germany for saying “homosexuals should be executed if they are caught in the act.” It’s an outrage!… Read the rest
The risks of being a Somali woman journalist
Jul 4th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“A gun to your head is not much of an encouragement.”… Read the rest
Vocabulary
Jul 3rd, 2011 4:13 pm | By Ophelia BensonThere’s been some back and forth about the term “passive-aggressive” and what its exact meaning is. I’ve been using it loosely in what I took to be the vernacular sense, not in what I took to be any kind of technical sense. On being questioned about this, I looked it up; I hadn’t realized it was technical in quite that way, included in the DSM and all. It’s a personality disorder, by gum. I thought it was just a bit of outdated descriptive psychology of the kind that Woody Allen likes to throw around – a bit of pseudo-Freudianism.
What, exactly, is the difference? What’s the difference between an official personality disorder that appears in the DSM and an … Read the rest
Nick Cohen notes the real class divide
Jul 3rd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt’s not between rich and poor but between rich and everyone else.… Read the rest
Europe is less secular than you might think
Jul 3rd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThere is the state funding of churches, for example. Marc Alan Di Martino explains.… Read the rest
Oh no, another atheist emergency
Jul 3rd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAtheists are advertising again. That is SO unfair.… Read the rest
Francis Collins talks god in public
Jul 3rd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“God’s plan included the mechanism of evolution to achieve that, to create this marvelous diversity of living things on our planet.”… Read the rest
Nominalism
Jul 2nd, 2011 4:09 pm | By Ophelia BensonSo there are various atheist and skeptical conferences, and Rebecca Watson talks at them and says things about sexism, and at the Dublin one she talks to people afterwards until 4 a.m. at which point she says she’s exhausted and going to bed, and she gets in the hotel elevator to do that and a guy joins her in the elevator (just the two of them, how romantic) and says
Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, would you like to come to my room for coffee?
And she says, mildly, “Guys, don’t do that.”
Quite right. Nobody should do that, really. In the afternoon, fine; in the evening, well, it depends, use your … Read the rest
Terry Glavin on post-pullout Afghanistan
Jul 2nd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe “international community” is falling all over itself to offer the Taliban a surrender, negotiated or otherwise.… Read the rest
Anti-gay speakers at Muslim conference during Pride
Jul 2nd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“We need to learn how to respect one another and live in peace”…with people who think gays should be executed.… Read the rest
Tory gay group: Ken should be banned from Pride
Jul 2nd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe’s too friendly with too many homophobes like al-Qaradawi.… Read the rest
God told man to rape and stab lesbian couple
Jul 2nd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“I was told by my God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to attack my enemies, and I did so.”… Read the rest
Not meekly asking
Jul 1st, 2011 4:26 pm | By Ophelia BensonWell exactly.
Many of the millions of Americans who do not believe in the supernatural have had enough of being targeted by unremitting discrimination.
Indeed we have, and this is what we keep saying, and why we keep pushing back against all the people who started squeaking, the instant Sam Harris’s book hit the shelves, “Yes but please be quiet now, you will frighten the moderates and shock the liberals and horrify the agnostics and spook the undecideds and terrify the moderate-liberal agnostic undecideds.”
… Read the restThe “crime” that the nonpious are committing is nothing more than declining to believe in supernatural beings and forces that lack sufficient verification of their reality. There is no excuse for discrimination that is as under