“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
All entries by this author
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
Why atheists are fed up
Jul 1st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt’s because of all the bashing.… Read the rest
Nick Cohen on the BBC on Amnesty International
Jul 1st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt could not spare the time to interview Gita Sahgal or ask how an organisation that was once the pride of the liberal world has ended up preferring Islamists to feminists.… Read the rest
Eagleton redux
Jul 1st, 2011 8:12 am | By Ophelia BensonTerry Eagleton is getting to be embarrassing. He reviewed a collection of essays on secularism last week, with his familiar combination of malice, inaccuracy and laziness. That’s not a good combination for a reviewer.
Most recent defences of secularism, not least those produced by “Ditchkins”
(Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens), have been irate, polemical affairs, powered by a crude species of off-the-peg, reach-me-down Enlightenment.
There’s the laziness and the malice – recycling his own stupid joke, which was never funny in the first place, not least because Dawkins and Hitchens are really not interchangeable. And there’s the inaccuracy too, in the meaningless sneer at the end.
… Read the restIt is scarcely a caricature of Dawkins’s work to suggest we are all getting
Peru has tallest Jesus!
Jul 1st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt’s taller than the one in Poland so ha! The one in Swiebodzin is 36 metres and the one in Lima is 37 so yaboosucks!… Read the rest
Islamists winning in Egypt
Jul 1st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonOne Salafist explained how she slowly converted to wearing a niqab. “It just takes time,” she said reassuringly. “You get used to it.”… Read the rest
Terry Eagleton recycles his own dud jokes
Jul 1st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAnd generates new stupidities.… Read the rest
Italy: small firm downsizes by firing women only
Jul 1st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“We are firing the women so they can stay at home and look after the children. In any case, what they bring in is a second income.”… Read the rest
Solidarity
Jun 30th, 2011 5:37 pm | By Ophelia BensonPious Saudi Arabia, famed the world over for its vast compassion.
Indonesia is stopping all maids from going to work in Saudi Arabia after the
beheading of a maid last week for murdering her allegedly abusive employer.The execution of 54-year-old Ruhati Binti Sapahi caused public outrage in
Indonesia, prompting the government to call for the ban.
Saudi Arabia’s compassionate concern for foreign domestic workers is an old story.
… Read the restSumiati Binti Salan Mustapa, 23, remains hospitalized after suffering injuries by her employer who allegedly beat, mutilated and scalded her…The news of Sumiati’s horrendous abuse came just as another domestic worker’s body was found in a trash bin. The victim, Kikim Moalasari, another Indonesian maid, was allegedly tortured by
Barmaid demonstrates how the backlash works
Jun 30th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJesus and Mo play their parts obligingly.… Read the rest
Saudi Arabia: Indonesian maid beheaded
Jun 30th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIndonesia is stopping all maids from going to work in Saudi Arabia after the beheading of a maid last week for murdering her allegedly abusive employer. … Read the rest
South Africa and ‘corrective rape’
Jun 30th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“They were walking behind us. They just started swearing at me screaming: ‘Hey you lesbian, you tomboy, we’ll show you.”… Read the rest
Secular law under threat in Rhode Island
Jun 30th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe proposed “religious exemption” in RI would go well beyond New York’s.… Read the rest
Less boring than I think, or more?
Jun 29th, 2011 5:49 pm | By Ophelia BensonI’m reading The Pregnant Widow. I’ve heard some good things about it, and I thought The Information was intermittently brilliant, albeit irritating in places, and boring in places, so I’m reading it. The first few pages were electrifying, and I was all excited, thinking I’d struck gold. But then it turned out the first few pages were different from the next pages.
I’m pushing. Hard. I’m trying and failing to resist boredom and the resulting feeling of exasperation – the “why are you telling me all this?” feeling.
Anybody read it? Anybody love it?… Read the rest