Ehsan Jami was assaulted by three men who called him a ‘filthy homo’ and ‘filthy traitor’. … Read the rest
Peace Process Fails to Address Sexual Violence
Aug 8th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHRW reports women and girls continue to be subjected to acts of sexual violence in Côte d’Ivoire.… Read the rest
Anthony Grayling on Atheism
Aug 8th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonGrayling explains why he believes atheism to be a well-grounded and ultimately life-affirming position.… Read the rest
Violence Against Women Increasing in Kurdistan
Aug 8th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonKurdish government has overturned lax Iraqi laws; defendants can be charged with ‘deliberate murder.’… Read the rest
Increased Reporting of ‘Honour’ Crime in R’dam
Aug 8th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAuthorities say they have received more than 70 reports since January, compared to 30 for all of 2006.… Read the rest
Threatened Journalist Faces Deportation
Aug 8th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMansoor Hassan wrote an article exposing the ‘honour’ killing of a young woman by her own father.… Read the rest
Another irregular verb
Aug 7th, 2007 2:30 pm | By Ophelia BensonContradict yourself much? Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail –
… Read the restThe big mistake is to see religion and reason as polar opposites. They are not. In fact, reason is intrinsic to the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Bible provides a picture of a rational Creator and an orderly universe – which, accordingly, provided the template for the exercise of reason and the development of science. Dawkins pours particular scorn on the Biblical miracles which don’t correspond to scientific reality. But religious believers have different ways of regarding those events, with many seeing them as either metaphors or as natural occurrences which were invested with a greater significance. The heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition is the belief in the concept of truth,
EU Asks Iran Not to Execute Two Journalists
Aug 7th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRSF hails EU request to Iran not to execute Kurdish journalists Adnan Hassanpour and Abdolvahed Botimar.… Read the rest
Robert Putnam Finds Diversity Bad For Civic Life
Aug 7th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt can be good for creativity, but it’s bad for social capital.… Read the rest
Steven Shapin on Herbert Spencer
Aug 7th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSpencer was the greatest of philosophical hedgehogs: his popularity stemmed from one big idea.… Read the rest
Michael Ignatieff on the Catstrophe in Iraq
Aug 7th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPoliticians live by ideas, but they can’t afford the luxury of entertaining ideas that are merely interesting.… Read the rest
Melanie Phillips: Science is the Enemy of Reason
Aug 7th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘The Bible provides a picture of a rational Creator and an orderly universe.’ And?… Read the rest
Not So Fast, Christian Soldiers
Aug 7th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDOD Inspector General report says generals ‘conferred approval of and support to Christian Embassy.’… Read the rest
New Death Sentence on Journalists in Iran
Aug 7th, 2007 | By Jahanshah RashidianThe Islamic Republic of Iranian’s execution wave has reached the media in Iran. On 16 July 2007, two Kurdish journalists, Mr. Adnan Hassanpour and Mr.Hiva Boutimar were sentenced to death by an Islamic tribunal in Marivan, a Kurdish city in the north-west Iran. They are supposed to be brought to the scaffold in the coming days. Judiciary spokesman, Mr. Ali Reza Jamshidi, confirmed that these two journalists have been sentenced to death, state media reported Tuesday, 31 0f July.
At a trial behind closed doors, the journalists were found guilty of “activities subverting national security, spying, and interviews for foreign news media including Voice of America”. These “accusations” were cited by the prosecution and, amazingly, confirmed by the journalists’ lawyer, … Read the rest
What’s my motivation in this scene?
Aug 6th, 2007 5:20 pm | By Ophelia BensonHave you read Allen’s article on PBS and Einstein’s wife? PBS is extremely irritating. It’s doing a bad thing. It’s ignoring its plain duty and responsibility. It’s not doing its job properly. It’s sneaking around. First it was stalling and delaying and making excuses, and now it’s sneaking around. It’s being bad. It has not only failed to take down the Einstein’s Wife website, despite the advice of its own ombudsman and despite telling Allen ‘We are looking for additional scholarly review to help us know how to proceed in making sure that the web site content is as accurate as possible,’ it has now commissioned Andrea Gabor to rewrite it. That’s like commissioning Michael Behe to rewrite … Read the rest
Ken MacLeod on 21st Century Atheism
Aug 6th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHumanist philosophers in Britain had become Guardian columnists: Baggini, Blackburn, Grayling.… Read the rest
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)
Aug 6th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBy Carol Tavris and Elliott Aronson – sounds like a must-read.… Read the rest
Review of Catriona McKinnon’s ‘Toleration’
Aug 6th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Liberals tend to take for granted that everyone agrees on the value of toleration.’… Read the rest
Ian Birchall Notes: Sartre Was no Nihilist
Aug 6th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSartre takes those of us who see no evidence of a creator through the problem of how we should act in this world.… Read the rest
MPs Reading The God Delusion
Aug 6th, 2007 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAlong with Hague on Wilberforce, and Harry Potter.… Read the rest