Problems that arise when common sense conflicts with the science-based view that we inhabit a purely physical, mechanistic, deterministic universe.
Month: September 2010
-
Sharia is just misunderstood
It’s just like the US Constitution, only older, so that makes it even better.
-
Danish producers regret making ad for Sweden Democrats
Swedish broadcasters declined to show the film, and no Swedish production company was willing to produce it.
-
Sweden: tv station rejects ad as hate speech
“The difference between freedom of speech and incitement to hatred against an ethnic group must be understood,” said Mona Sahlin of Social Democrats.
-
Religious minorities suffering worst in Pakistan floods
The laws offer what is virtually state approval to those intent on attacking minorities. -
Necla Kelek defends Sarrazin (with reservations)
He put some claims badly and should apologize, but he’s right about many of them, and the discussion is necessary.
-
Jesus and Mo and Mo say Hawking is wrong
Science can say how but only religion can say why so yaboosucks.
-
Sarah Palin – not as nice as you thought
She manages to be at once a closed book and a constant noisemaker.
-
Three cheers for “the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death”
Joan Smith is very happy to live in the “geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death” that is contemporary London. Of course she damn well is. She’s allowed to go out in public with without a chaperone there; she won’t be stoned to death there; she won’t be whipped for not wearing hijab there. She can ignore the pope there.
Frankly, I’m tired of hearing religious bigots running down this country….Britain is still one of the most civilised places in the world to live. It’s not Iran, where prisoners are subjected to rape and mock executions; it isn’t Saudi Arabia either…The Catholic Church has picked up this habit of dissing secular culture from hardline Muslims, who dislike pretty much the same things: gay relationships, equal rights for women and the freedom to mock religion.
All good things, you see. Hooray for London – except the reactionary Catholic and Islamist bits of it.
-
Nicholas Humphrey replies to Mary Midgley
By pointing out how she distorted what he had said in order to make her point. Bad philosopher, no cookie.
-
God debate via Hawking on God and universe
Hawking says God played no role in creating the Universe. Dawkins, Gledhill and readers discuss.
-
Joan Smith rejoices in Britain’s “culture of death”
As a “senior Catholic” called it, but the real cultures of death are in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Christianity itself.
-
Hitchens on paradoxes of prayer
The god who would reward cowardice and dishonesty and punish irreconcilable doubt is among the many gods in which I do not believe.
-
Pankaj Mishra
Ugly stuff from Pankaj Mishra.
Bestselling authors like Ayaan Hirsi Ali may be the “new heroes”, as the writer Peter Beinart puts it, of the Republican party’s crusade against Muslims. But “professional” former Muslims have long provided respectable cover for the bigotry and, more often, plain ignorance of mainstream western commentators on Islam…Most of these ex-Muslim “dissidents” lucratively raging against Islam in the west wouldn’t be able to flourish without the imprimatur of influential institutions and individuals in the US and Europe.
Most of what “professional” ex-Muslim “dissidents” lucratively raging against Islam? It’s not lucrative for all ex-Muslim dissidents, after all – in fact it’s not lucrative for any of them except possibly Hirsi Ali, and she has heavy expenses because of the death threats. And for most of them it’s unpaid work, and thankless besides. Sara Mohammed doesn’t find it very “lucrative,” I can tell you. Few ex-Muslim dissidents find it all that lucrative to defend women’s rights and gay rights and human rights, and they find it not all that easy or popular, either, in a world where Pankaj Mishras are always ready to sneer and throw mud.
Certainly, the story of Hirsi Ali’s life attests powerfully to the degradations suffered by many women in patriarchal cultures. There is no question that she should feel free to say that Muslims are programmed to kill infidels and mutilate female bodies, however much these opinions may offend some people. There is little reason, however, for most of her opinions to claim serious intellectual attention.
Oh really? Why not? (Because they “offend some people,” of course. Stupid question.)
Yet the mildest criticism of Hirsi Ali’s naivety triggers a tsunami of vitriol from her army of prominent supporters. In recent months Clive James as well as Melanie Phillips have rebuked Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash for not joining the chorus of praise for Hirsi Ali, a defender of the western Enlightenment, and for being “soft” on apparently closeted jihadists like the Muslim academic Tariq Ramadan.
No. Not for not joining the chorus of praise for Hirsi Ali; not at all; for calling her “an Enlightenment fundamentalist” and other patronizing clueless nonsense.
Thus the writer Paul Berman, a self-described “laptop general” who first stalked Ramadan and hounded Buruma and Garton Ash in the New Republic – once the principal periodical of liberal America – and then expanded his 28,000-word indictment into a much-reviewed book…
And so on and so on, as if there were something deeply sinister about Paul Berman’s analysis – not “stalking” – of Ramadan, or as if it were obviously illiberal of the New Republic to publish it, or as if he had no business writing a book on the subject, or as if it should have gone unreviewed. It’s ugly, nasty, bullying, innuendo-laden stuff.
-
Secular Nepal – Challenges Ahead
Nepal is the youngest secular country in the world. With the interim constitution moving farther away from the nitty-gritty of constitution making, the so-called secular Nepal lingers farther away on the horizon. The politicians are busy manifesting the new but failed doctrine in the name of national consensus to make the national government, merely for the sake of power. Paradoxically, the pro-Hindu faction keeps on demonstrating and chanting against the abolition of the Hindu kingdom, the religious icon of Nepal. There are hundreds of ethnic groups based on particular religions. Ethnic diversity prevails along with the geographic diversity of Nepal. The society is inevitably polarizing in terms of caste, region and religion. Is this the notion of the new secular Nepal? The Nepalese are totally in the doldrums. Democrats, Republicans and progressive communists are busy showing their insane parade in the lust for power. But above all, it’s the politics that rules and it’s the people who are ruled. Nevertheless, the change that we accept with the peaceful revolt should be sustainable and institutionalized. It must be build upon the solid foundation of democratic and modern society.
Changing Nepal from the Hindu kingdom to the federal republic was not only a political saga. It was a transformation of people’s mind and thoughts for the revived aspirations for sustainable social change. It was one of the extraordinary political achievements of our time, with peaceful political demonstration historically abolishing 200 years old kingdom and shifting to a secular federal Nepal. It was all about transformation of the whole country, the society from the ill-fated kingdom to completely a new paradigm, the democratic republic and secular Nepal, the huge shift in political equation.
But what has been achieved so far? Are we institutionalizing the notion of a secular country to the people’s aspiration? Are we empowering the local community? Are we making the classless society in terms of religion? Are religious gaps widening or narrowing? Are we making the constitution? As human right activists are busy writing reports about human rights violations everyday, there will be another incident that’s already happening in the other corner of the society. It’s most of the time about witchcraft, dowry, and religious riots that not only create social disharmony but also polarize society.
Penalizing the violators could be a sort of post-action that is necessary; in many cases the recommendations get piled up in the state cabin with dust and the government is simply apathetic to penalize the perpetrators. Impunity has been the common issue every government is facing and the right activists are always asking the government to be bold. On the contrary, neither the government nor the human rights organization does any comprehensive research on these issues to come up with preventive measures to keep a multifaceted society in harmony.
Making a secular country is a huge challenge for the politicians in Nepal yet we must applaud them for taking such a bold step on transforming the entire political system to the aspiration of common Nepalese people. However, in the country where more than one hundred different dialects are spoken, the caste-system prevails, and Hinduism rules, the multi-layered aspect of society in terms of socio-economic and cultural aspects looms. Writing a word “secular” in a constitution is merely a political drama for political gain. All political parties must revamp their ideologies to address the common people of Nepal and to bridge the social, economic and religious gap among them. The aspiration of common peoples is classless societies, gender equity, and religious harmony. The need of the hour is not only to institutionalize the notion of being secular but also to strengthen the achievement of a sustainable secular state to create a wonderful history.
-
A nasty rant by Pankaj Mishra
At Ayaan Hirsi Ali for daring to disagree with Tariq Ramadan.
-
Evan Harris on religious instruction and science
“It is no good teaching about evolution in a science lesson at 9am then at 10am, in a religious education lesson, instructing pupils not to believe it.”
-
More reactionary hectoring from “senior Catholic”
“Our laws and lawmakers for over 50 years have been the most permissively anti-life and progressively anti-family and marriage.”
-
Gay Christians criticize “unhelpful” pope protests
Instead, the Christian body has said it will hold a prayer vigil instead of a protest. That’ll show him!