It is perfectly possible to reassure people that they can combine science and religion…… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Councillor calls Scientology stupid on Twitter
Jul 21st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonFaces a hearing for not showing sufficient “respect.”… Read the rest
Obama: do the right thing, reinstate Sherrod
Jul 21st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe video was faked. Sherrod was summarily fired. This is no good.… Read the rest
No rules in a knife fight
Jul 20th, 2010 4:38 pm | By Ophelia BensonI’m getting very tired of this kind of crap. Of foam-at-the-mouth reactionaries faking videos for Fox “News” that get people shut down or fired. They did it with that video that was supposed to show an Acorn guy helping a prostitute and a pimp get gummint funding when in fact the uncut video shows him collecting information which he gave to the police as soon as they left. Now they’ve done it with another fake video that’s supposed to show Shirley Sherrod telling a Georgia chapter of the NAACP that she refused to help a farmer because he was white when in fact she did help him. Sherrod got pushed out of her job with the Department of Agriculture … Read the rest
Mona Eltahawy defends the burqa ban
Jul 20th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe burqa equates piety with the disappearance of women. The closer you are to God, the less I see of you.… Read the rest
Faked video gets black USDA official fired
Jul 20th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAndrew Breitbart deceived millions of people by releasing only partial clips of Sherrod’s remarks at NAACP meeting.… Read the rest
Eyes are the windows of the soul, yeh?
Jul 20th, 2010 12:00 pm | By Ophelia BensonMartha Nussbaum has been explaining why the burqa is not such a bad thing, as well as explaining why it shouldn’t be banned. She said one thing (in a long post. much of which I skimmed) that froze me in astonishment for a second.
Several readers made the comment that the burqa is objectionable because it portrays women as non-persons. Is this plausible? Isn’t our poetic tradition full of the trope that eyes are the windows of the soul? And I think this is just right: contact with another person, as individual to individual, is made primarily through eyes, not nose or mouth.
Seriously? Contact with another person, as individual to individual, is made through the face – not … Read the rest
Peoria diocese wants to run the U of Illinois
Jul 20th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe diocese and the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center tell the public university what it must do.… Read the rest
Conference on political Islam v women’s rights
Jul 20th, 2010 | By Homa ArjomandInternational Campaign Against Shari’a Court in Canada
Conference on
Effect of globalization of political Islam on Women’s Rights, in connection with
Polygamy, Neqab and Honor Killing
The problem of legal pluralism and cultural relativism with respect to women’s Rights
Discussion on separation of religion from state
Confirmed Speakers:
Social and political activist, founder of the Organization for Women’s Liberation – Iran, founder of Mansoor Hekmat foundation, producer and host of several TV programs in Farsi and English on New Channel TV, a satellite TV broadcasting into Iran under the name of No to Political Islam, co-founder of the Center for Women and Socialism, editor of Medusa, the director of Radio International, a radio station broadcasting into Iran.
Azar Majedie… Read the rest
Catholic organization pays teacher at U of Illinois
Jul 20th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe St. John’s Catholic Newman Center hires and pays instructors of Catholic church history at a public university.… Read the rest
Terry Glavin talks to Majabeen, a future doctor
Jul 20th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTerry Glavin on universalism v culturalism
Jul 20th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonOn the one hand Lauryn Oates, Sima Samar, Alaina Podmorow; on the other hand, “yes but.”… Read the rest
A high risk of swallowing water
Jul 20th, 2010 8:39 am | By Ophelia BensonThe problem here is not just that state schools shouldn’t be fussing around with particular religions and their rules and fasts, though of course it is that. It’s also, frankly, that state schools (or for that matter any schools) shouldn’t be helping to implement rules and fasts that are fundamentally unhealthy and unsafe. It’s a really bad idea to forbid hydration for extended periods (such as dawn to dusk), so schools should at least abstain. They shouldn’t anxiously help religions to enforce stupid dangerous “rules” of that kind. That’s not their job, and it’s a dereliction of their responsibility for the students’ safety while on the premises.
… Read the restStoke-on-Trent City Council has issued an 11-page Ramadan guide for schools to help
Council tells schools how to enforce Ramadan
Jul 20th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonStoke-on-Trent City Council issues an 11-page Ramadan guide for schools; no swimming lessons lest students swallow water.… Read the rest
Science and religion as “ways of knowing”
Jul 19th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIf induction can’t be used to prove an absolute, is that really a problem that religion can solve?… Read the rest
If speaking the truth is offensive, let us offend
Jul 19th, 2010 | By Lauryn OatesOn July 15, Aruna Papp, author of a recently released report, “Culturally-driven violence against women: A growing problem in Canada’s immigrant communities” published by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy’s study, wrote in an editorial in the Vancouver Sun:
Problematically, most advocates and activists for female victims of abuse shy away from challenging the immigrant communities to examine their own traditions and cultural values in explaining the violence in their homes.
The ideology of multiculturalism, even among the most well-meaning advocates for female equality, tends to preclude any discussion of cultural values and traditions. Such advocates are afraid of being seen as “colonialist” and try to avoid a perceived “racialization” of an entire ethnic community.
Papp writes in the … Read the rest
Ann Widdecombe’s huge bundle of straw
Jul 19th, 2010 11:11 am | By Ophelia BensonAnn Widdecombe explains it all to the New Statesman.
Under the last government we saw a raft of law, principally equality law, which specifically set out to crush religious freedom and to crush freedom of conscience. There is an immense difference between being told that you must not discriminate against something and being told that you must promote it.
Like what, the NS asks. Poofters, of course. Poofter adoptions, poofters in your B&B. Half the population are non-believers, the NS says feebly; not a bit of it, says Widdecombe, most are Christians and what they say goes. No, really, the NS bleats; Widdecombe says not at all.
… Read the restPeople may say they’re not religious, and when Richard Dawkins says he’s
When men make lists of sexiest scientists
Jul 19th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThat sends a message about what the point of women is.… Read the rest
Carlin Romano sniggers at Hitchens
Jul 19th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhat an ugly mind is here displayed.… Read the rest
New Statesman interviews Ann Widdicombe
Jul 19th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“I left the Church of England because there was a huge bundle of straw. The ordination of women was the last straw.”… Read the rest