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 Ophelia BensonBecause women are nice and men are mean.… Read the rest
Anti-discrimination Principles v Religious Freedom
Dec 9th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonUC 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 Ophelia BensonFor 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 BuppNew 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 Ophelia BensonIt really doesn’t matter what you believe for no good reason, as long as you believe something for no good reason.
… Read the restThe 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
Ugandan Bishop Explains About Homosexuality
Dec 7th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘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 Ophelia BensonHe 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 Ophelia BensonSome 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 Ophelia BensonForms 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 Ophelia BensonQuote 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 Ophelia BensonWhen 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?
… Read the restEven
Egypt, Islamism and the Niqab
Dec 6th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWomen fight for the right to blot themselves out.… Read the rest
Should Health Insurance Pay for Prayer?
Dec 6th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAnd ‘spiritual treatment of the sick’?… Read the rest
Oliver Kamm is in Favour of a Vast Gaping Nullity
Dec 6th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhere 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 Ophelia BensonNo; 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 Ophelia BensonIt’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 Ophelia BensonGordon Brown wants to make the House of Lords ‘more representative of the nation’s religious diversity.’… Read the rest
Welcome back, your holiness
Dec 6th, 2009 11:35 am | By Ophelia BensonI don’t understand New Labour.
[Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor] was poised to become the first Roman Catholic bishop in the Upper House since the Reformation, as part of a drive by the Prime Minister to appoint senior leaders of all the main faiths to sit alongside Church of England bishops. Privately, Gordon Brown had told the cardinal that he was keen for him to provide leadership in the Lords once he had secured backing from the Catholic Church.
Why? Why the hell? Do we really have to bother pointing out that Gordon Brown is the leader of the Labour party? Do we really have to bother pointing out that the Catholic church has not generally been seen as an ally … Read the rest
Dang commOnist muslims, they should all go to muslimville
Dec 5th, 2009 5:21 pm | By Ophelia BensonSo I guess Tennessee schools must not be very good – not if the mayor of Arlington is anything to go by. He’s on Facebook, so he shared some thoughts there.
Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load…..try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it….w…hen the answer should simply be ‘yes’….”
See that’s why I’m not a big fan of religion and the claims it makes – I don’t like being told … Read the rest