The evolution of “eye avoidance” (which generalizes to eyespot avoidance) is likely to be innate rather than learned.… Read the rest
Christopher Hitchens to undergo chemotherapy
Jun 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDouble-plus ungood.… Read the rest
The pope’s plans
Jun 30th, 2010 5:43 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe pope has plans to fight the good fight against secularization and re-impose Catholic theocracy in developed countries where it has lost a lot of popularity lately.
Pope Benedict XVI announced the new Vatican department dedicated to tackling what he called “a grave crisis in the sense of the Christian faith and the role of the church”…
The new department, to be called The Pontifical Council for New Evangelisation, will try to reinvigorate belief among Catholics in rich, developed countries — or, in the Pontiff’s words, “find the right means to repropose the perennial truth of the Gospel”.
Do we detect a note of sarcasm? Anyway, one wonders how this pontifical council will go about the reinvigorating. Posters on … Read the rest
Belgium sets the Vatican straight
Jun 30th, 2010 5:00 pm | By Ophelia BensonBelgium isn’t having it. Very good.
Belgium and the Vatican are on a collision course after the Holy See accused the Belgian police of using communist tactics in their paedophilia raids on Catholic bishops last week…
The Belgian Foreign Minister, Steven Vanackere, underlined the Belgian judiciary’s independence from the Church and its freedom to investigate.
“It’s good to [keep in mind] very important principles of the state of law. [There are] very elementary principles of having a separation of powers and accepting that the judiciary has to do its work,” Mr Vanackere told RNW. “That’s crucial for every democratic state.”
And that’s all there is to it. The Belgian government is the right body to investigate crimes by priests; … Read the rest
Buddhists have their sentiments hurt!
Jun 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCombining pseudo-humility and threats in a new and exciting way.… Read the rest
Belgium trumps Vatican on chuch abuse probes
Jun 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonInsists that Belgian law enforcement authorities — not the Catholic Church — will investigate sexual abuse cases involving clergy.… Read the rest
Belgium reminds Vatican who is in charge
Jun 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBelgian Foreign Minister underlined the Belgian judiciary’s independence from the Church and its freedom to investigate.… Read the rest
Pope plans new theocratic push
Jun 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRatzinger will create a new Vatican office to fight secularisation and “re-evangelise” the West. … Read the rest
Why Belgian cops raided church institutions
Jun 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThey had reliable information that the church was hiding information on sexual abuse.… Read the rest
The chat show in Pakistan
Jun 29th, 2010 4:35 pm | By Ophelia BensonIs it okie dokie for Muslim men to have concubines?
Why of course it is; what a silly question. Evry fule kno that.
The first condition is that if during waging of jihad the women who come with the enemy forces to support them are captured and the emir of the army distributes them, it is his discretion, we can keep them as concubines. Second, if we explore and find some market where slaves and concubines are sold and the sale is established as a social institution there, the women you buy from there will be concubine. Abducting a free woman to take her as a concubine or to sell a free woman is, I think, wrong…
Oh my, … Read the rest
Heads I win tails you lose
Jun 29th, 2010 4:06 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe Vatican seems to want to have it both ways. It wants to tell everybody what to do, especially all Catholics, especially especially all priests. It wants to tell everybody what to do about abortion and condoms and assisted suicide. It wants to tell all Catholics what to do about that only more so, and on pain of excommunication. It wants to tell priests not to marry or have sex with women (children are ok) or go to the police when they know a colleague has been raping children. It wants to be the boss of everyone. But – then when people get angry about what its priests have been getting up to, it wants to say no no … Read the rest
Vatican and Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act
Jun 29th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIs the Vatican a state or an employer?… Read the rest
Pakistan TV Debate on Concubines in Islam
Jun 29th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDoes Islam permit Muslim men to keep concubines? Yes of course. There are no two opinions about it.… Read the rest
Vatican arguing over child abuse
Jun 29th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAnd briefly, cryptically, makes the argument public.… Read the rest
Supreme Court declines to hear Vatican’s appeal
Jun 29th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSo the clergy sex abuse case will go to trial in an Oregon district court.… Read the rest
Belgium: church-backed “commission” resigns
Jun 29th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMembers are angry that Belgian police are investigating crimes against Belgian children.… Read the rest
Where are the atheist women?
Jun 29th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBusy? Too nice to argue? Poor? Not invited?… Read the rest
Farmworkers challenge: take our jobs!
Jun 29th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonUnited Farm Workers urges unemployed Americans to sign up for backbreaking jobs at low pay in dangerous conditions.… Read the rest
Ron Rosenbaum presents his offering
Jun 28th, 2010 6:01 pm | By Ophelia BensonWell, Templeton got its money’s worth out of overpaid Ron Rosenbaum. He’s already hard at work saying how horrible “new” atheists are. Man, $15,000 and two weeks in Cambridge all expenses paid and a library’s worth of new books, all to kick the “new” atheists, when so many people are willing to do it for fifty bucks! Templeton is nothing if not generous.
I think it’s time for a new agnosticism, one that takes on the New Atheists. Indeed agnostics see atheism as “a theism”—as much a faith-based creed as the most orthodox of the religious variety.
… Read the restFaith-based atheism? Yes, alas. Atheists display a credulous and childlike faith, worship a certainty as yet unsupported by evidence—the certainty that they
Reasons for reasons for reasons
Jun 28th, 2010 5:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonI was looking for something else, and stumbled on a blog post commenting on my post on atheism and reasons.
It’s one thing to have reasons to be an atheist (I do) and a Jew (I do), another thing altogether to adopt some level of “observance.” You can have good reasons to be an atheist, and other good reasons not to be observant–i.e. not to focus on it, talk about it a lot, promote it.
Yes but I wasn’t talking about being observant, I was talking about not pretending not to have reasons. I was talking about treating one’s atheism as if it were accidental, for the purpose of othering atheists. I wasn’t saying or suggesting that one … Read the rest