All entries by this author

Leicester Secular Society Greets JSTO *

Mar 1st, 2006 | Filed by

Lots of battles that we thought were won decades ago may need to be re-fought, says Chris Williams.… Read the rest



Replies to Stanley Fish *

Mar 1st, 2006 | Filed by

Two philosophers, others, take him to task.… Read the rest



Stanley Fish Talks Nonsense *

Mar 1st, 2006 | Filed by

Disgusting nonsense at that.… Read the rest



Victory over Hindu nationalists in California textbooks rewrite

Mar 1st, 2006 | By Friends of South Asia

Sacramento, California, March 1 2006 : The intense struggle over the content of Indian history in California textbooks ended Monday afternoon at 2 p.m. with the special committee of the California State Board of Education [SBE] voting unanimously to overturn a majority of contentious changes proposed by Hindu right-wing groups to California school textbooks. This decision is a victory for community organizations such as Friends of South Asia (FOSA), the Ambedkar Center for Peace and Justice, the Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America, and the Coalition Against Communalism (CAC), who have worked diligently to ensure that ahistorical and sectarian content proposed by Hindu right-wing groups is removed from California textbooks. Hundreds of South Asian scholars from across the United … Read the rest



Limited Horizons

Mar 1st, 2006 2:42 am | By

Yet more on Sen on multiculturalism – it’s a very rich article, and I prefer not to write enormously long N&Cs. They seem to have a built-in ideal maximum length, so I preferred to break things up.

That’s a fancy way of saying I have a short attention span and can’t write more than four or five paragraphs at any one time. After that I have to go outside and play.

On ‘faith schools’ –

Many of these new educational institutions are coming up precisely at a time when religious prioritization has been a major source of violence in the world (adding to the history of such violence in Britain itself, including Catholic-Protestant divisions in Northern Ireland – themselves not

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Hurrah for Disempowerment

Mar 1st, 2006 2:40 am | By

Heinz Schlaffer takes on some more theist misrepresentation – the familiar old ‘we are a beleaguered minority’ schtick. Would that it were true.

What? Belief is being ostracised? But it’s en vogue! Whether or not God exists can’t be decided intellectually; but it can be observed that he’s back in fashion among intellectuals…Literary historians like George Steiner and Roberto Calasso read the fictions of the poets as factual proof of the existence of saints…In the institutions of liberal culture, religious statements are being treated as a novel charm, and increasingly gaining the power of conformity.

This is what I keep saying (and tiresome people who disagree with me say Nuh uh). Religious, or ‘spiritual’, statements are being treated as fun … Read the rest



The Archive

Mar 1st, 2006 12:00 am | By

The ArchiveRead the rest



That’s Not What He Said

Feb 28th, 2006 6:50 pm | By

Theists have a nasty tendency to tell whoppers about atheists. There’s the standing canard that atheists are necessarily immoral; and then there’s the great sea of misquotation, misrecollection, misrepresentation. Theists make a lot of these little careless errors. Like one in this review of Dennett’s new book. (It’s actually a rather interesting and witty review, so the careless error stands out.)

One savors the irony that these lines come from the same man who insisted in an op-ed article for the New York Times two years ago that society should start calling atheists “the Brights” because they’re so much smarter than theists. Right.

The hell he did. Not even close. I was sure of that even without reading it, but … Read the rest



Meera Nanda on Counter-Enightenment in India *

Feb 28th, 2006 | Filed by

Modern science-educated Indians treat the teachings of gurus, yogis and swamis as vaguely ‘scientific.’… Read the rest



Shalom Lappin on the Ken Livingstone Affair *

Feb 28th, 2006 | Filed by

Part of a cynical campaign of divisive ethnic politics that he has been pursuing for electoral advantage.… Read the rest



The Enlightenment Tamed Christianity *

Feb 28th, 2006 | Filed by

In the institutions of liberal culture, religious statements are gaining the power of conformity.… Read the rest



High Rate of Belief in ‘Paranormal’ in US *

Feb 28th, 2006 | Filed by

Especially haunted houses.… Read the rest



David Irving, Richard Evans on Today [audio] *

Feb 28th, 2006 | Filed by

Evans considers law banning Holocaust denial no longer really necessary.… Read the rest



Irving Asks a Question *

Feb 28th, 2006 | Filed by

‘If there was an extermination programme to kill all the Jews, how come so many survived?’… Read the rest



Boxes Without Doors

Feb 27th, 2006 6:15 pm | By

More on Sen on multiculturalism. It’s a terrific article; don’t miss it.

Being born in a particular social background is not in itself an exercise of cultural liberty, since it is not an act of choice. In contrast, the decision to stay firmly within the traditional mode would be an exercise of freedom, if the choice were made after considering other altenatives. In the same way, a decision to move away – by a little or a lot – from the standard behavior pattern, arrived at after reflection and reasoning, would also qualify as such an exercise. Indeed, cultural freedom can frequently clash with cultural conservatism, and if multiculturalism is defended in the name of cultural freedom, then it

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Secluded Boxes

Feb 27th, 2006 5:11 pm | By

Amartya Sen on multiculturalism. Right at the beginning – in the second paragraph – he asks the questions that seem so obviously necessary to ask, but that seem completely ignored in the way that people generally talk (or prate, or babble, or rave) about multiculturalism. As Sen remarks, ‘There is no way of escaping these rather foundational questions if multiculturalism is to be fairly assessed.’ Just so, which is why it so seldom is fairly assessed, why it is instead simply assumed to be a good even without precise specification of what it means.

One of the central issues concerns how human beings are seen. Should they be categorized in terms of inherited traditions, particularly the inherited religion, of

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Students Back Timetable Change for Prayer *

Feb 27th, 2006 | Filed by

Motion calls for ‘the right to education without discrimination against religious needs.’… Read the rest



Thousands March Against Hate Crime in Paris *

Feb 27th, 2006 | Filed by

Smaller marches took place in Lyon and Bordeaux in aftermath of torture-murder of Ilam Halimi.… Read the rest



Geoffrey Wheatcroft on AJP Taylor *

Feb 27th, 2006 | Filed by

‘He didn’t deny the barbarous nature of Stalin’s regime: he accepted and almost relished it.’… Read the rest



Bunting Mocks Phrase ‘the Muslim Community’ *

Feb 27th, 2006 | Filed by

Then proceeds to use it herself; frets about ‘Islamophobia’.… Read the rest