‘For cultures born of the Enlightenment, private religious belief is not so much an enemy as an irrelevance.’… Read the rest
Beware that extreme minority over there
Sep 27th, 2009 5:08 pm | By Ophelia BensonIt goes on, the relentless othering of atheism.
“The anti-evolutionist fearmongers have to link Darwin to every perceived evil from mankind,” says Kevin Padian, professor of paleontology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Berkeley. “The two kinds people who believe that religion and evolution can not coexist are extreme atheists and extreme religious fundamentalists. Everyone else doesn’t really have a problem. [A majority] of Americans believe that a belief in god is compatible with evolution.”
Got that? Atheists who think religion is not epistemically compatible with science (which of course is the view that Padian strawmanned by substituting ‘who believe that religion and evolution can not coexist,’ which no one thinks) are extreme, and furthermore, they … Read the rest
Steve Fuller Responds 
Sep 27th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Simon Underdown indulges in the pop-science fantasy that a clear line can be drawn between science and politics.’… Read the rest
Blaming Darwin for Hitler
Sep 27th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Here is a book that leaves the reader wondering time and time again if the author is serious.’… Read the rest
Australia: Churches May Discriminate
Sep 27th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Victoria’s tweaked equal opportunity laws will still let churches exclude gays and single parents.… Read the rest
Seyran Ates: Human Rights Before Religion
Sep 27th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
In Germany’s recent past, many people have forgotten that human rights must come before religious practices.… Read the rest
Ben Goldacre Sees an AIDS Denialist Film
Sep 26th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Do you give idiots a wider audience when you respond to them? Are they marginal and irrelevant?… Read the rest
Ben Goldacre on How Patents Affect Science
Sep 26th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Drug patents are a fascinating trade off between the benefit of incentive and the harm to innovation.… Read the rest
Johann Hari on ‘the Queen Mother’
Sep 26th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
She would see her children for an hour a day and get them to chant: ‘We are not supposed to be normal.’… Read the rest
World Without Lies is a World Without Religion
Sep 26th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Gervais is refreshingly open about his atheism, which can be risky in a country as pious as the US.… Read the rest
The Repercussions for Muslim Women
Sep 26th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Decisions made by Sharia councils have no room in British law.… Read the rest
The attack in Calabar: Religious Extremism in Nigeria
Sep 26th, 2009 | By Leo IgweAround 11:30 am on Wednesday July 29 2009, a mob of about 200 persons from the Liberty Gospel Church invaded the Cultural Center in Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria. The Cultural Center was the venue of a public symposium on witchcraft and child rights organised by the Nigerian Humanist Movement and Stepping Stones Nigeria.
Most of them arrived at the venue in buses wearing orange T-shirt while others donned plain clothes to hide their identity. As we were about to start, some of them stormed the conference hall stamping their feet on the ground and chanting slogans critical of the event and the organisers.
I tried calming them down without success as they were determined to disrupt the event and … Read the rest
Humanists to Hold an Anti-witchcraft Conference in Uyo
Sep 26th, 2009 | By Leo IgweIn October (21-22) humanists will be meeting in Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom State, for yet another conference on witch hunt and child abuse This is the second antiwitchcraft program to be organized by the Nigerian Humanist Movement (NHM) this year. In July, NHM cosponsored with Steppingstones Nigeria a public symposium in Calabar on Witchcraft and Child Rights. The October meeting, sponsored by the International Humanist and Ethical Union, will be held at the University of Uyo Commmunity Centre. The Governor of Akwa Ibom state, Chief Godswill Akpabio is expected to declare it open.
The theme of the conference is Witch hunt, Christian Fundamentalism and Child Abuse. In the past 10 years, there has been an upsurge in witchcraft … Read the rest
Well hello fossil!
Sep 25th, 2009 6:30 pm | By Ophelia BensonOne reason science is epistemically incomatible with religion is the fact that in science it is not legitimate to form strong affirmative beliefs when the evidence is missing or thin. You see this over and over again reading Why Evolution is True – it’s full of ‘we don’t know the answer to this,’ ‘the evidence is not clear about that,’ ‘thirty years ago we had no idea but now the evidence is abundant’ – you get a sense of how cumulative it all is and how gaps remain gaps pending better evidence.
Religion is entirely unlike that – and that’s not a leap, not a worldview, not metaphysics; it’s epistemology. It’s ‘how do you know that?’
Some examples from WEIT … Read the rest
Fossils Fulfill an Evolutionary Prediction
Sep 25th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Feathered dinosaurs probably continued to exist after one of their kin gave rise to birds’ – and sure enough!… Read the rest
Feathered Fossil Older Than Archaeopteryx Found
Sep 25th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The new fossils, from two separate locations, are about 10 million years older than Archaeopteryx. … Read the rest
Girl’s Refusal to Be Child Bride Inspires India
Sep 25th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
She refused to be married off and stayed in school instead; now other girls in the village are doing the same.… Read the rest
Simon Schama on Ahmadinejad
Sep 25th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Not the least repellent aspect of his reiteration that the Holocaust was a lie, was the muffled response.… Read the rest
Dwight Furrow on ‘Values Voters’
Sep 25th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
They claim to adhere to a culture of life – except for Armageddon of course.… Read the rest
Global Warming and Anti-science
Sep 25th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Modern anti-science is most skilfully executed by a small subset of lobbyists and PR agencies. … Read the rest
