Saeed Mortazavi has been accused of direct participation in the murder of Zahra Kazemi.… Read the rest
Colin McGinn
Jul 8th, 2006 10:12 pm | By Ophelia BensonColin McGinn talks to Bill Moyers [link fixed!]:
BILL MOYERS: What do you think is missing in our conversation between faith and reason? You’ve been at this festival of writers for several days now. What’s missing in our conversation between faith and reason?
COLIN MCGINN: Well, I think there’s too much tolerance of faith, and there’s not enough respect for reason. I think there are two sides to what’s happening in contemporary culture. Let’s talk about the reason side first. For the last 30-50 years, reason has been under attack. Subjectivism, relativism, multi-culturalism have been brought in to undermine the enlightenment values of the disinterested search for truth, the belief in objective justification, the belief in objective reality, the belief … Read the rest
One Eye Closed
Jul 8th, 2006 9:54 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis piece by Karen Armstrong has a big gaping hole in the middle of it.
[Blair’s rebuke of ‘moderate Muslims’] ignores the fact that the chief problem for most Muslims is not “the west” per se, but the suffering of Muslims in Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Iraq and Palestine. Many Britons share this dismay, but the strong emphasis placed by Islam upon justice and community solidarity makes this a religious issue for Muslims. When they see their brothers and sisters systematically oppressed and humiliated, some feel as wounded as a Christian who sees the Bible spat upon or the eucharistic host violated.
Speaking of ignoring facts – why is the chief problem for most Muslims the suffering of Muslims in Guantánamo, … Read the rest
Karen Armstrong Takes Oddly Selective View
Jul 8th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSeems to assume that all Muslim suffering is at the hands of non-Muslims. Not quite right.… Read the rest
Colin McGinn Talks to Bill Moyers
Jul 8th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘I think there’s too much tolerance of faith, and there’s not enough respect for reason.’… Read the rest
Salman Rushdie Talks to Bill Moyers
Jul 8th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘The big change may come because Muslim women reject the oppression that they’ve been subjected to.’… Read the rest
Anger at Cardinal’s Excommunication Promise
Jul 8th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonOther planet residence suggested.… Read the rest
Vatican Heading Back to Inquisition
Jul 8th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonItaly’s leading expert on cloning likens the Vatican to the Taliban.… Read the rest
Leading Nothing
Jul 7th, 2006 8:28 pm | By Ophelia BensonHere it is again. Yet again. The BBC declaring the head of the MCB a ‘leading Muslim’. But what makes him a leading Muslim, who says he’s a leading Muslim? The MCB is a self-appointed, very reactionary ‘council’ that gets treated and deferred to as if it represented all UK Muslims in some way, but it doesn’t. It’s very annoying and unhelpful and lazy and obscurantist that the BBC keeps pretending it does, keeps handing it a giant megaphone by rushing to ask its opinion every ten minutes and by refraining from asking non-MCB Muslims and people of Muslim background for their opinion at the same rate. Why does the BBC do that? Why doesn’t it stop doing that? … Read the rest
Death Penalty for not Praying in Somalia
Jul 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSomali Muslims who fail to perform daily prayers will be killed in accordance with Koranic law.… Read the rest
Munira Mirza: Nobody Elected Khan or Tanweer
Jul 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBut they thought elected governments had less claim to act on behalf of people than they did. … Read the rest
BBC Anoints MCB and Bari Yet Again
Jul 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHead of self-appointed unelected ‘Council’ called a ‘leading Muslim’ and respectfully quoted.… Read the rest
Never Mind the Flag, Save the Constitution
Jul 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe First Amendment exists to forestall the instatement of taboos.… Read the rest
Philip Rieff Obituary
Jul 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBest known in scholarly circles for three early works on Freud and culture… Read the rest
Peter Tatchell Objects to Incitement to Murder
Jul 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBuju Banton’s Boom Bye Bye urges people to shoot gays in the head, pour acid over them, burn them.… Read the rest
Guardian Has Fun Riling its Readers
Jul 7th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson7/7 was Blair’s fault, and the Muslim community has had just about enough.… Read the rest
History and Falsification Again
Jul 6th, 2006 8:31 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe Ward Churchill matter, as I’ve mentioned before, raises some interesting issues. One issue is that of free speech, which Norm and I along with Eve and, later, Jonathan, kept disagreeing about a few months ago. I still disagree with all of them – but I think the disagreements may have rested on various confusions among terms. The terms kept shifting, I think, back and forth between legal and moral, law and principle, without being nailed down often enough. Still…I think my point stands: there is no free speech right to falsify evidence. There is no free speech principle that protects Churchill’s right to falsify evidence. Falsification of evidence is not always a criminal offence (although it certainly … Read the rest
A United Majority of Communities
Jul 6th, 2006 8:29 pm | By Ophelia BensonCommunity again. Sometimes the helpless dependence on the word ends up in confusion.
“We are sure that the overwhelming majority of all communities are united in condemning any attempt to justify last year’s terrorist attacks in London,” he went on.
The overwhelming majority of all communities…I’m confused already. Does that mean that some entire ‘communities’ are not united in condemning any attempt to justify last year’s bombs? If so, which ones are they? What are we talking about? Or does it mean that the overwhelming majority of all people are united that way? But then why say ‘communities’? If it is the first, if what is meant is that some ‘communities’ are not united that way, does that mean … Read the rest
Lecturing Skills
Jul 6th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNot everyone has them, Jonathan Wolff points out.… Read the rest
Iranian Journalist Urges Freeing Political Prisoners
Jul 6th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAkbar Ganji says Jahanbegloo, Mansoor Osanloo, Ali Akbar Moussavi Khoeini should be freed.… Read the rest