All entries by this author

Hotel ‘Religious Abuse’ Case Dismissed *

Dec 9th, 2009 | Filed by

‘We had to consider whether there was any evidence that the defendants had caused harassment, alarm or distress.’ … Read the rest



The Parliament of Religions *

Dec 9th, 2009 | Filed by

‘Pagans, Zoroastrians, and even atheists make up the rich mix of perspectives.’… Read the rest



PZ Responds to Stephen Prothero *

Dec 9th, 2009 | Filed by

There are a fair number of outspoken women active in atheism, and none of them are genteel belles.… Read the rest



Stephen Prothero: More Women Atheists *

Dec 9th, 2009 | Filed by

Because women are nice and men are mean.… Read the rest



Anti-discrimination Principles v Religious Freedom *

Dec 9th, 2009 | Filed by

UC allows student groups to use facilities provided they agree to open membership; Xian group wants to exclude.… Read the rest



Robert Talisse on the Simple Truth Thesis *

Dec 9th, 2009 | Filed by

For any Big Question, there are several defensible positions; it is precisely this feature that makes them big.… Read the rest



Witch Hunter Sues Humanist Activist in Attempt to Quell Criticism

Dec 9th, 2009 | By Nathan Bupp

New York, NY December 4, 2009—The Center for Inquiry (CFI), an international organization that fights for science and reason, launched an anti-superstition campaign in May 2009 to highlight and combat the abuse of alleged child witches throughout the African continent. Now witch hunter Helen Ukpabio, head of the Liberty Gospel Church in Nigeria and a frequent target of criticism by CFI, has filed a lawsuit in Nigerian federal court against Leo Igwe, CFI’s representative in Nigeria.

A mob of about 150 members from Ukpabio’s Liberty Gospel Church attacked Igwe and others during a “Child Rights and Witchcraft” event in Calabar, Nigeria on July 29, 2009. At the end of the frightening event, Igwe found his eyeglasses smashed and his bag, … Read the rest



You have your perspective, and I have my perspective

Dec 9th, 2009 11:27 am | By

It really doesn’t matter what you believe for no good reason, as long as you believe something for no good reason.

The Parliament of the World’s Religions has brought together representatives from 80 nationalities and more than 220 faith traditions for seven days of debate and dialogue…The parliament could hardly be accused of failing to account for the broadest possible range of spirituality and religious experience. Pagans, Zoroastrians, and even atheists make up the rich mix of perspectives. Organisers have faced some criticism for giving a platform to the Church of Scientology – which some accuse of being more of a business than a conventional religion. But this is an event which is prepared to given even the most

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Ugandan Bishop Explains About Homosexuality *

Dec 7th, 2009 | Filed by

‘Gayism can be fought like any other disease against the people and the Word of God.’… Read the rest



Uganda’s Homophobic Bill a Problem for Archbish *

Dec 7th, 2009 | Filed by

He can no longer be seen to be doing nothing, any more than he can be seen to be acting against it. … Read the rest



Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the Swiss Minaret Ban *

Dec 7th, 2009 | Filed by

Some symbols represent a collectivist political theory of supremacy by one group over all others. … Read the rest



Chagnon, Tierney, Dreger, the AAA *

Dec 7th, 2009 | Filed by

Forms of scholarship that deny evidence, truth, the importance of facts, are dangerous.… Read the rest



New improved atheism with added antagonism

Dec 7th, 2009 11:49 am | By

Quote for the day, from Oliver Kamm.

I reject – in the sense that I’m antagonistic towards them, not just that I don’t accept them – all religious claims to truth.

Precisely. That is no doubt what put the ‘new’ in ‘new atheism’ – the addition of antagonism to non-acceptance. The move from plain unbelief to unbelief plus dislike. The adoption of Kingsley Amis’s ‘Yes [I’m an atheist] but it’s more that I hate him.’ The brazen unapologetic frank hostility to all religious claims to truth, because they are religious claims to truth, and therefore not only worthless but also harmful, because religion is not the way to get at truth, and pretending it is just trains people to … Read the rest



The evolution of Robert Wright

Dec 6th, 2009 1:09 pm | By

When othering the ‘New’ atheists, there is no need to be too nice about accuracy. Robert Wright gives a demonstration of that to join the growing stack of such demonstrations from otherwise liberal commentators.

[T]he New Atheists’ main short-term goal wasn’t to turn believers into atheists, it was to turn atheists into New Atheists — fellow fire-breathing preachers of the anti-gospel. The point was to make it not just uncool to believe, but cool to ridicule believers.

The usual thing – exaggeration (to put it charitably), malicious rhetoric, sheer invention. (Who says the point was to make it cool to ridicule unbelievers?) Childish stuff – in Foreign Policy. What next, Rush Limbaugh writing for The Wilson Quarterly?

Even

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Egypt, Islamism and the Niqab *

Dec 6th, 2009 | Filed by

Women fight for the right to blot themselves out.… Read the rest



Should Health Insurance Pay for Prayer? *

Dec 6th, 2009 | Filed by

And ‘spiritual treatment of the sick’?… Read the rest



Oliver Kamm is in Favour of a Vast Gaping Nullity *

Dec 6th, 2009 | Filed by

Where citizens can choose the good for themselves rather than be regimented into other people’s conception of it. … Read the rest



Are Atheists Really Fundamentalists? *

Dec 6th, 2009 | Filed by

No; they are open to any hypothesis, provided that it can be substantiated by evidence. … Read the rest



Robert Wright Preaches a Sermon on ‘New Atheism’ *

Dec 6th, 2009 | Filed by

It’s a crusade, a mission, an anti-gospel, and it’s ‘objectively’ right wing.… Read the rest



Brown Wants More ‘Faith Leaders’ in Lords *

Dec 6th, 2009 | Filed by

Gordon Brown wants to make the House of Lords ‘more representative of the nation’s religious diversity.’… Read the rest