There is none.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Religious membership is generally not fully voluntary
Jan 11th, 2010 3:51 pm | By Ophelia BensonTaken from the comments, slightly modified to make it general rather than a reply.
The literal meaning of the term “indoctrination” indicates the matter at issue quite clearly. Here’s a very standard definition from Dictionary.com: “to instruct in a doctrine, principle, ideology, etc.” Children are not merely instructed in doctrine, of course, they are also inducted into the ranks of religious organizations in various ways: not just educationally, but socially, ritually, and so on. Moreover, inducting children into the ranks of their chosen religion is the explicit primary purpose of most parents who emphasize their children’s religious education, which is what makes it indoctrination rather than mere education: The word “education,” when unmodified, is generally used to indicate instruction in … Read the rest
Gay Muslims Made Homeless By Family Violence
Jan 11th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonForced marriage, ‘honor’ killing, beatings, imprisonment.… Read the rest
More ‘Equality Threates Religious Expression’
Jan 11th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘As umpteen bishops and other religious leaders have pointed out.’ Oh well say no more.… Read the rest
More ‘Human Sacrifices’ in Uganda
Jan 11th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWitch doctors, children chopped up for parts, ritual, get rich quickly.… Read the rest
What is Blasphemy and Should We Care?
Jan 11th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMy take on Comment is Free Belief question of the week.… Read the rest
Telegraph Says No to Equality
Jan 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTolerance means letting other people exclude inferiors from power. Why can’t Labour understand this?… Read the rest
UK: Catholic Church in Panic Over Equality Bill
Jan 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe church could no longer exclude women from power. This must not be!… Read the rest
Atheism Has Left the Closet
Jan 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe new atheism is bigger, more organised, and much more assertive than ever before.… Read the rest
Nicholas Kristof on Religion and Women
Jan 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhen religious institutions exclude women from their hierarchies, the implication is that females are inferior.… Read the rest
Gallery Director Pitches Fit at Two Artists
Jan 10th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThey criticized religion! One religion in particular! Director placed giant ‘Warning!’ sign on stairway.… Read the rest
What ‘toleration’ requires
Jan 10th, 2010 11:06 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Telegraph speaks up for inequality.
Toleration is one of the most fundamental values of a liberal society. It is also appears to be the one that some Labour ministers find hardest to understand. It requires accepting that other people are entitled to arrange their lives and institutions around their religious beliefs – even when those beliefs appear, to those who do not adhere to the religion in question, to be wrong-headed, or even discriminatory.
Really? Does it? ‘Toleration’ requires accepting that other people are entitled to arrange their institutions around their religious beliefs, no matter how oppressive and powerful and influential those institutions are? Really? So toleration requires accepting that a few other people are entitled to arrange … Read the rest
Poor sad consumerist infidels
Jan 9th, 2010 2:29 pm | By Ophelia BensonI have this obstinate cold that is being very slow about going away. While it’s packing its things and checking its passport, it sometimes wakes me up in the night by making me cough so hard that it murders sleep. It did that last night at 2 a.m., so I got up and had some lemon zinger tea and listened to the World Service for an hour and then went back to sleep. This means I had the thrill of hearing a program called ‘Heart and Soul’ which on this occasion was about God and football. It was mind-bogglingly stupid.
There was some vicar doing most of the talking, and he sounded like an adult and everything, but he … Read the rest
Michael Totten Interviews Christopher Hitchens
Jan 9th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThese two religions make very large claims for themselves, and further say they should be immune from criticism.… Read the rest
Dubai: Woman Reports Rape, is Arrested
Jan 9th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBritish woman reports a waiter raped her, so she and her boyfriend are arrested for ‘adultery.’… Read the rest
God’s Economy
Jan 9th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe plea of a backward-looking prophet crying in the midst of a welfare wilderness that only democracy can solve.… Read the rest
Harry’s Place on Hitchens on Westergaard
Jan 9th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Then you pick up yesterday’s Guardian, and there’s a long article that says Westergaard asked for it.’… Read the rest
BBC World Service on Football and ‘Faith’
Jan 9th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘A new generation of football players are bringing God back onto the pitch’; isn’t that wonderful.… Read the rest
Reflections on John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty
Jan 9th, 2010 | By Eric B. LitwackThere is a limit to the legitimate interference of political opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.
J.S. Mill, On Liberty, Chapter One.
It can be said of only a very few texts that they are touchstones for important discussions across many generations. John Stuart Mill produced such a text in 1859, and friends of freedom would do well to celebrate the sesquicentennial of On Liberty. At a time when challenges to human rights and freedom of expression continue around the world, the message of this relatively short work remains a clarion-call for liberty and the … Read the rest
It’s my word, you get off it
Jan 8th, 2010 12:01 pm | By Ophelia BensonHooray! More mayhem and violence and carrying-on over ridiculously trivial items. It’s three in one, no, it’s just three. It’s transubstantiation, no it’s taking the biscuit. This is the birthplace of Ram, no it’s the birthplace of Ram’s piano teacher. It’s green, no it’s red, no it’s green. You break an egg at the little end, no you break it at the big end.
… Read the restThere were angry protests at mosques in Malaysia after four arson attacks on Christian churches, apparently provoked by a controversy over the use by Christians of the word Allah. Police were increasing their patrols of areas around churches and Christian communities were hiring security guards, after petrol bombs were thrown at four churches in and around