Two Taliban men held her down while a third man whipped her.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Bhatti had been receiving death threats
Mar 2nd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe had said fatwas had been issued calling for him to be beheaded, by extremist clerics who were allowed to spread messages of violence with impunity.… Read the rest
Salman Rushdie on the secular revolution
Mar 2nd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAt its most optimistic – this could be the moment when the Islamic world moves beyond Islamism.… Read the rest
Pakistan: minorities minister murdered
Mar 2nd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonShahbaz Bhatti, an advocate of reform of the country’s blasphemy laws and a Christian, was killed by gunmen in Islamabad.… Read the rest
Norway is going to hell
Mar 2nd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt’s that wicked high literacy rate.… Read the rest
Meta x 11
Mar 1st, 2011 2:41 pm | By Ophelia BensonA couple of thoughts on the hunting of the snark.
One thought is that I always wonder why the focus is so exclusively on the evil gnu atheists. To put it another way, I always wonder why the standard is so double. I wonder why the filter has only gnu atheist-shaped holes.
I wonder why the sustained activities of “Tom Johnson” are ignored in favor of shining a spotlight on something someone said five years ago. Gnu atheists are sometimes irritable, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes rude. “Tom Johnson” is a malicious misogynist liar who put great energy into attempting to smear several chosen gnu atheists. Why so much heavy breathing about the former and nothing at all about the latter? It’s … Read the rest
LSE investigates Saif Gaddafi plagiarism claims
Mar 1st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAllegations have emerged that he used a ghost writer, and copied sections of his thesis.… Read the rest
John Esposito says “mainstream Islamists” are fine
Mar 1st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThey just want normal mainstream humdrum theocracy, not the bad scary extreme kind.… Read the rest
Child brides in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa
Mar 1st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonOne bad effect of early marriage is the exclusion of women from education in favour of domestic work and child rearing.… Read the rest
Telegraph pitches a fit about secular law
Mar 1st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHow dare judges not enforce theocracy?!… Read the rest
Woman with measles spent time at 3 airports
Mar 1st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonToo bad she hadn’t been vaccinated.… Read the rest
Speaking of objective morality…
Feb 28th, 2011 11:53 am | By Ophelia BensonI’ll take a break from following the “new atheists are the rudest people in the history of the universe” discussion, to take a sad and pitying look at Ronald Conte, a Catholic theologian. (Professional? Amateur? He doesn’t say. Oh I take it back, yes he does. Amateur. Self-appointed. Not affiliated with any church or college or university that he mentions. Like me – but then I don’t call myself a theologian.)
We’ve seen him before, talking vicious murderous nonsense about the life-saving abortion in Phoenix. Now, in jocular vein, he’s talking about whether or not married people are allowed to do things to each other’s genitals with their hands (or, godforbid, their mouths). His answer is absolutely not.… Read the rest
An important question for Freeman Dyson
Feb 28th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhy should the public believe a few lone heretics rather than the vast body of scientists who have a plethora of published work to back up their claims?… Read the rest
Ron Conte says: foreplay is evil
Feb 28th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIntrinsically evil, at that.… Read the rest
Angela Saini on the god confusion in India
Feb 28th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonGiven that India is intent on becoming a scientific superpower, why are these odd ideas tolerated?… Read the rest
Texas school board re-writes history
Feb 27th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote patriotism and to promote the free enterprise system.”… Read the rest
Atheists like me are less willing to settle for the status quo
Feb 27th, 2011 1:16 pm | By Ophelia BensonJason Streitfeld says some very cogent things on the subject of public displays of atheism.
… Read the restFor atheists like me, there is one issue that matters most in all of this: the role of religious authority in society. I’m not saying atheists are concerned with this issue above all else. Not at all. They might be more concerned about global warming, say, or human rights violations in third-world countries. What I am saying is that, for many atheists, atheism is first and foremost about the rejection of religious authority. Public atheism is first and foremost about putting religious authority in its proper place. For us, to be a public atheist just is to deny that there is any objectively valid moral
They do not represent any of the local communities
Feb 27th, 2011 12:50 pm | By Ophelia BensonTower Hamlets Council is shocked shocked by those anti-gay posters that appeared recently. So is the Mayor, so is Dilwar Khan, Director of the London Muslim Centre, so are the chairs of Rainbow Hamlets LGBT Community Forum.
Andrew Gilligan says some of the shock shock is bogus. Guess which part.
…the East London Mosque speaks with forked tongue. Yesterday, it was due to demonstrate its deep commitment to “standing together against homophobia” by hosting a gala dinner with one Uthman Lateef, a homophobic preacher who has stated: “We don’t accept homosexuality… we hate it because Allah hates it.”
Why does the East London Mosque say one thing while it means another? Because it can. Because it works.… Read the rest
Ratzinger muses aloud
Feb 27th, 2011 12:28 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe pope has been telling doctors to straighten women out on something the poor deluded darlings are hopelessly confused about. What – that homeopathic “polio vaccinations” are real vaccinations? That their most important job in life is to have flat abs? That they have to be “spiritual”? No.
Pope Benedict XVI has urged doctors to protect women from the “deceptive” thought that an abortion might be a solution to social or economic difficulties or health problems.
Has he indeed. How, I wonder, does he know that that thought is deceptive? If a woman or a couple doesn’t have enough money to have a child, how is it deceptive to think that an abortion might be a solution to the problem? … Read the rest
Stop the tsunami of executions – add your name
Feb 27th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDemand an immediate end to this state-sponsored murder that aims to intimidate the protest movement in Iran.… Read the rest