All entries by this author

Not to defend the Catholic Church but to smear the New atheists

Oct 6th, 2011 10:44 am | By

As long as we’re on the subject of Brendan O’Neill…let’s stay on it a little longer. I neglected him last year when he was making contorted attacks on critics of the pope and the Vatican. Allow me to make amends now.

He made a heavy-breathing correction to claims of how many priestly rapes there had been, then he explained why he did that.

Why point out these basic facts? Not to defend the Catholic Church, which  clearly has a sexual abuse problem, or to minimise the suffering of those  individuals who ”only” suffered being verbally abused, shown dirty photos or  fondled over their clothing by priests – all of those acts are abhorrent and  potentially punishable by law.

No,

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Can al-Shabab retake Mogadishu? *

Oct 6th, 2011 | Filed by

Probably not, but it can keep on killing people.… Read the rest



Religious freedom in Turkey *

Oct 6th, 2011 | Filed by

“Turkey may look like a secular state on paper, but in terms of international law it is actually a Sunni Islamic state,” a leader of the country’s Alevi minority charged.… Read the rest



“Secularism” in Turkey

Oct 6th, 2011 8:55 am | By

Burak Bekdil explains why Turkish secularism isn’t.

A majority of Turks, Sunni Muslims, overtly or covertly believe that they should be “more equal” than the others because they constitute the majority. They think that it is their natural right to enjoy preferential treatment in terms of governance and law enforcement. Remember how the crowds in Istanbul last year, trying to attack the Israeli consulate, shouted at the police who were trying to prevent bloodshed? “Leave the Jews to us! What kind of Muslims are you?” A simple search will produce thousands of examples of this nature unveiling the conscious or subconscious desire of the Sunni Turk for preferential treatment in public administration.

It’s not unlike the US that way. … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Democracy and secularism in Turkey *

Oct 6th, 2011 | Filed by

A majority of Turks, Sunni Muslims, overtly or covertly believe that they should be “more equal” than the others because they constitute the majority.… Read the rest



Sigmund on an unholy alliance *

Oct 6th, 2011 | Filed by

Between “the Iona Institute” and Brendan O’Neill of Spiked. Reactionary Catholicism pairs up with reactive ex-Trotskyist libertarian posturing.… Read the rest



Insulting the religious values

Oct 6th, 2011 8:14 am | By

Oh noes, a cartoonist did a cartoon. Call the cops!

A Turkish cartoonist will be put on trial for a caricature he drew in which he renounced god, daily Habertürk reported on its website Wednesday.

The Istanbul chief public prosecutor’s office charged cartoonist Bahadır Baruter with “insulting the religious values adopted by a part of the population” and requested his imprisonment for up to one year.

A mild and liberal response.

Baruter’s caricature depicted an imam and believers praying in a mosque. One of the characters is talking to God on his cellphone and asking to be pardoned from the last part of the prayer because he has errands to run.

Within the wall decorations of the mosque, Baruter hid

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Turkish cartoonist to be put on trial for teasing ‘God’ *

Oct 6th, 2011 | Filed by

Istanbul chief public prosecutor charged cartoonist Bahadir Baruter with “insulting the religious values adopted by a part of the population.”… Read the rest



New atheists think people are just monkeys so nyah

Oct 5th, 2011 5:41 pm | By

Frequent commenter Sigmund alerted me to another entity crying out for scrutiny and derision: the Iona Institute, an Irish “institute” (can any old thing call itself an institute? The Faraday Institute, the Tobacco Institute, the Iona Institute – are there any gates, any gatekeepers? is it just anarchy around here?) dedicated to saying how great the Catholic church is.

The amusing thing (amusing in a rebarbative kind of way) is that the Iona Institute invited dear auld Brendan O’Neill to give a talk, and he obliged. From Trotskyist splinter group to libertarian “contrarian” faitheist pope-cheering what-the-hell-is-that – that’s Spiked and its editor Brendan O’Neill. So the Trotskyist libertarian pope-fan told the Iona Institute…you’ll never guess what. … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Divination, not research

Oct 5th, 2011 12:23 pm | By

Frederick Crews has a fascinating pair of articles in the New York Review of Books on Freud’s cocaine addiction and its connection to his work.

According to the official version of Freud’s career, sexuality scarcely entered his mind as a topic of interest until, to his shock and embarrassment, it was forced upon him by his patients’ indecent confessions. His early psychological papers and his letters to Wilhelm Fliess, however, show just the opposite: it was a sex-obsessed Freud who tried to harangue those patients into admitting that they harbored the perverse desires and guilty secrets that were already on his mind. But when and why had sexual issues become paramount for him? His surviving letters from adolescence are

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Far from being in thrall?

Oct 5th, 2011 11:05 am | By

Is secularism really winning in the US?

The US is increasingly portrayed as a hotbed of religious fervour. Yet in the homeland of ostentatiously religious politicians such as Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, agnostics and atheists are actually part of one of the fastest-growing demographics in the US: the godless. Far from being in thrall to its religious leaders, the US is in fact becoming a more secular country, some experts say. “It has never been better to be a free-thinker or an agnostic in America,” says Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the FFRF.

Well, it depends on what you mean by “in thrall” and “fast becoming” and the like. It also depends on what you mean by ”a … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Rising atheism in US puts religious right on the defensive *

Oct 5th, 2011 | Filed by

Most experts agree that the number of secular Americans has probably doubled in the past three decades.… Read the rest



Pakistan’s blasphemy laws: even judges fear for their lives *

Oct 5th, 2011 | Filed by

The mixing of religion and politics has long troubled Pakistan, but over the past 30 years that dangerous cocktail has been spiked by the army’s policy of nurturing extremists.… Read the rest



Meeting in Oslo

Oct 4th, 2011 5:42 pm | By

Narendra Nayak has an article in Nirmukta about his experiences at the Humanist Congress in Oslo – which included getting - to his great surprise – an award for distinguished service to humanism, and getting his picture taken with one of Freethought Blogs’ overlords (who also got such an award, also to his surprise).

 … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Test of honesty

Oct 4th, 2011 12:03 pm | By

Despite profound disagreements about elevatorism and its fallout, I can’t ignore useful investigations of the Templeton Foundation and similar at Why Evolution is True, like today’s post on Templeton’s ridiculous stealth “Faraday Institute” and its hot new “Test of Faith” project.

The “Test of Faith” project has a Study Guide. The study guide has an introduction. The introduction explains things.

The challenge that has been put forward so many times recently is that God is a delusion and science has removed the need for faith in anything. But there are many practising scientists who have a sincere Christian faith, even at the highest levels of academia. They have all been trained to think and test ideas to the limit.

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Without religion

Oct 3rd, 2011 11:52 am | By

One important step away from theocracy.

The court ruling last week that granted the writer Yoram Kaniuk the right to be registered with the Interior Ministry as “without religion” rather than as Jewish, is a step in the direction of separation of religion and state. Such is the view of Irit Rosenblum, who heads the New Family organization, which favors making civil marriage more easily available in the country.

Currently Jewish Israelis can only marry other Jews in the country under the auspices of the Orthodox rabbinate. A law was passed last year that allows civil unions and considers them as marriage for all intents and purposes – but only under special, limited circumstances in which both parties are

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



If you start now to let women drive, let them go wherever they want…

Oct 3rd, 2011 10:08 am | By

So, Nawwaf, tell us why you think women should not drive – or rather, tell us why you think “we” should not “let” “them” drive.

If you start now to let women drive, let them go wherever they want, let them do whatever they want, we will be in the same position some day. Then Saudi Arabia will be like New York.

It’s not good for some girl to show her body, wear very short skirts. This
is not about Saudi Arabia, it’s about Islam. We’ve got a generation who were
raised watching Gossip Girls and other series. They only want to be
like that, dress like that, drive like that. It’s not about need.

Now it’s driving. After five

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Israel: a victory for separation of state and religion *

Oct 3rd, 2011 | Filed by

“Israel is the only country in the Western world in which Jews don’t have freedom of religion.”… Read the rest



Why “we” should not let “them” drive cars *

Oct 3rd, 2011 | Filed by

“If you start now to let women drive, let them go wherever they want, let them do whatever they want, Saudi Arabia will be like New York.”… Read the rest



The barmaid cites the Dunning Kruger effect *

Oct 2nd, 2011 | Filed by

In telling the boys they don’t know enough to realize how little they know.… Read the rest