All entries by this author

Mo is sexually harassed *

Apr 26th, 2011 | Filed by

Jesus is sympathetic.… Read the rest



Man attempts suicide faking devotion for Sai Baba *

Apr 26th, 2011 | Filed by

He pretended he was so upset about Sai Baba but actually he was just in debt, so the police are investigating.… Read the rest



Fred Halliday on solidarity *

Apr 26th, 2011 | Filed by

Solidarity rests on one important principle: the shared moral and political value and equality of all human beings, and of the rights that attach to them.… Read the rest



Watch those assumptions

Apr 25th, 2011 12:39 pm | By

Josh Rosenau has reservations.

As I’ve said before, it’s hardly surprising that making a group more visible is a better way to build public acceptance than being less visible, and I support efforts to increase atheism’s visibility. But New Atheism is hardly the only way for atheists – or nontheists more generally – to get the word out that they’re here and want to be taken seriously.

Yes it is…at least under the most usual and obvious definition of that much-used pejorative label “New Atheism.” The minimal definition of “New Atheism” is, surely,  atheism that makes a point of increasing atheism’s visibility. “New Atheism” means getting the word out that atheists are here and want to be taken seriously. … Read the rest



H Allen Orr reviews The Moral Landscape *

Apr 25th, 2011 | Filed by

If there’s no clear line between science and philosophy, why are we supposed to get so excited about a science of morality? No one ever said there couldn’t be a philosophy of morality.… Read the rest



In some tiny corner of the cosmos

Apr 25th, 2011 11:54 am | By

I wanted to say a few words about the pope’s Easter chat yesterday but I had too many words to say about too many other things so I didn’t get to it. Others have said a few words about it now, but I’ve only glanced over them so far because I wanted to say whatever it was that formed in my head when I first heard (in translation, on the BBC World Service) the salient passage, first. See? I know it’s old news; I’m late; but there was something I wanted to say.

It starts with the usual thing about the Logos. In the beginning was the. You know.

The creation account tells us, then, that the world is a

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Blackford on Coyne’s open letter *

Apr 25th, 2011 | Filed by

Cooperating with the NCSE in court proceedings does not mean that you have to endorse their wider position out of court.… Read the rest



Kenan Malik on the poetry of an Old Atheist *

Apr 25th, 2011 | Filed by

That of Abul Ala Al-Ma’arri (c. 973-1058), whose poetry was renowned for his unflinching religious skepticism.… Read the rest



Cardinal to everyone: more power for us please

Apr 24th, 2011 5:15 pm | By

Outraged privilege squalls again. Outraged privilege wants even more privilege please, and no grumbling.

The leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, has used his Easter message to attack “aggressive secularism”…Cardinal O’Brien said the enemies of Christianity wanted to “take God from the public sphere”.

Whereas the cardinal and his all-male gang want to fill up the public square with their imagined god who endorses all their nasty encrusted hatreds and panics and secret bum-gropings. Well of course they do: that way they would have even more power than they already have. If they had enough power they could even shut up the journalists and bloggers and survivors who keep talking about all that child-rape and … Read the rest



Scottish cardinal demands more theocracy *

Apr 24th, 2011 | Filed by

Priest in expensive goldy hat complains that Christians are being marginalized.… Read the rest



Scotland: Catholic cardinal attacks secularism *

Apr 24th, 2011 | Filed by

Enemies of Christianity, robust, traditionalist, teaching, resist, equality legislation, homosexual, in accordance with their beliefs, power, right, Christ prayed for.… Read the rest



1 for me, 1 for you, 1 for 6.7 billion people

Apr 24th, 2011 1:18 pm | By

I’m still faintly surprised by some of the reactions to Sam Harris’s book, and to the criticisms of it, so I re-read some this morning. I didn’t slap my brow and say “gosh it’s way better than I thought.” Nope.

Consider, for instance, p 199 n. 11.

…many people assume that an emphasis on human “well-being” would lead us to do terrible things like reinstate slavery…Such expectations are the result of not thinking about these issues seriously. There are rather clear reasons not to do these things – all of which relate to the immensity of suffering that such actions would cause and the possibilities of deeper happiness that they would foreclose.

That’s a terrible “argument” – it’s not an … Read the rest



Martin Amis on Christopher Hitchens *

Apr 24th, 2011 | Filed by

One of the most terrifying rhetoricians that the world has yet seen.… Read the rest



Nick Cohen on Fred Halliday’s Open Democracy essays *

Apr 24th, 2011 | Filed by

The intellectuals he admired were clear-sighted secularists who had freed themselves from the myths of their communities and traditions.… Read the rest



Oh yes you did, oh no I didn’t

Apr 24th, 2011 12:22 pm | By

Curious incidents on the Open Letter to the NCSE and BCSE thread at Jerry Coyne’s. 428 comments at present and counting. A guy called Roger Stanyard, who works for the BCSE and has lately been telling Jerry and co. to stop dissing religion because, tried to explain about how the UK is different from the US. This was entirely beside the point, as several people tried to explain in return, but Stanyard doesn’t listen good.

Those of us that run the BCSE have no mandate or freedom whatsover to back New Atheism. A goodly number of our members are religious, or indifferent to religion or are uncomfortable with New Atheism.

If we limited membership to New Atheists we wouldn’t

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The pope’s easter homily *

Apr 24th, 2011 | Filed by

If man were merely a random product of evolution in some place on the margins of the universe, then his life would make no sense. Therefore…… Read the rest



Patricia Churchland’s science of morality *

Apr 24th, 2011 | Filed by

Massimo Pigliucci notes that Churchland is adamant in pointing out that the neural platform for morality is only the platform.… Read the rest



Jason Rosenhouse on out atheists and atheophobia *

Apr 24th, 2011 | Filed by

Will Gervais writes: four studies found converging evidence that perceived atheist prevalence reduces anti-atheist prejudice.… Read the rest



Roe v Wade is the law, but it isn’t *

Apr 24th, 2011 | Filed by

What we’re witnessing is a stealth campaign to make an abortion illegal or as difficult to obtain as possible in as many states as possible, and it’s working.… Read the rest



Priorities

Apr 23rd, 2011 4:09 pm | By

A priest named Roy Bourgeois publicly supports the ordination of women, and participated in the ordination of his friend Janice Sevre-Duszynska, for which the Vatican promptly excommunicated him. Then he went to a film festival that showed a movie on the subject, so the Maryknolls are kicking him out and plan to ask the Vatican to laicize him, i.e. take away his priesthood forever.

This swift and unequivocal action has never been the response of these same church leaders to the rape, sodomizing, sexual torture and torment of children — from infancy through adolescence — by thousands of male Catholic clergy worldwide.

It’s always interesting to see what the Vatican considers important and what it doesn’t.… Read the rest