Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow and the implications for morality and universalism.… Read the rest
The Regime in Iran has silenced the voice of five more activists!
May 9th, 2010 | By Homa ArjomandThe Islamic state of Iran today, May 9th, 2010, hanged five more activists to further their goal of terrorizing the people in Iran. We are well aware that the regime’s crimes will not end until people in Iran, along with concerned citizens globally, put these murderers and all those who have helped this regime on trial in an international court.
We demand an immediate expulsion of the Islamic Republic of Iran from all international agencies, and prosecution of the regime’s leaders for their daily heinous state crimes.
Homa Arjomand, Coordinator of the International Campaign to Close Down Iranian Embassies, is calling a press conference where she and other activists will demand that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and all members of … Read the rest
PZ on Sam Harris v Sean Carroll 
May 9th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Can we use science to justify maximizing the well-being of individuals? No.… Read the rest
Sean Carroll on Sam Harris and a science of morality
May 9th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
There’s no simple way to aggregate well-being over different individuals. … Read the rest
Sam Harris: Toward a science of morality
May 9th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
His goal is to start a conversation. “Few things would make this goal harder to achieve than for me to speak and write like an academic philosopher.”… Read the rest
Metamagician: tone does matter
May 9th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Many readers don’t get tone, but the cure for that isn’t less discussion of tone; it’s more intelligent discussion of tone. … Read the rest
Evan Harris is no stranger to principle
May 9th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Harris was a rare voice in Parliament for reason and evidence and against quackery and nonsense.… Read the rest
Gloating for Britain
May 8th, 2010 5:10 pm | By Ophelia BensonGeorge Pitcher, Anglican vicar and Telegraph columnist, is just beside himself with glee that Evan Harris lost his seat in the election. Why is Pitcher so delighted? Because Harris is a secularist, and because he thinks terminally ill people should be able to choose when their suffering ends. That’s not exactly how Pitcher puts it though.
For a doctor, he supported the strange idea that terminally ill people should be helped to kill themselves…His political demise will be mourned only by those with a strange fascination for death, those euthanasia enthusiasts whose idea of care for the elderly and infirm is a one-way ticket to Switzerland.
Stupid, stupid man, and dishonest besides. (And he can’t even write. “For a doctor, … Read the rest
Heidegger as Nazi philosopher
May 8th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The seminars of 1933-5 show the outright transformation of Heidegger’s thought into a tool of Nazi indoctrination.… Read the rest
Worldwide trends in honor killings
May 8th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Honor killings are based on codes of morality often reinforced by fundamentalist religious dictates.… Read the rest
Underpinnings
May 8th, 2010 11:36 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Sydney Anglican diocese is pissed off because students who have the option are ditching classes in “scripture” to take ethics classes instead. The Sydney Anglican diocese seems to consider this some kind of violation of nature and of its property rights in the children of New South Wales.
… Read the restThe controversial trial of secular ethics classes has ”decimated” Protestant scripture classes in the 10 NSW schools where it has been introduced as an alternative for non-religious children, with the classes losing about 47 per cent of enrolled students.
The figure was calculated by the Sydney Anglican diocese, which is so concerned about the trial that it has created a fund-raising website to ”protect SRE” (special religious education). The website says
Palin thinks US law should be based on bible
May 8th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Cites 10 commandments, which mandate monotheism, sabbath, methods of swearing, iconoclasm.… Read the rest
Prayers and god ruled ok at inaugurations
May 8th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Because they’re longstanding traditions therefore they are constitutional, federal appeals court rules.… Read the rest
Scripture classes “lose” half of students to ethics
May 8th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Because of course the scripture classes owned the students to begin with.… Read the rest
Your petrodollars at work
May 7th, 2010 3:52 pm | By Ophelia BensonA group of lawyers in Egypt who call themselves (with horrible sarcasm) “the Association of Lawyers Without Restrictions” have sued a bunch of people for publishing or just somehow vaguely having something or maybe nothing to do with publishing The Thousand and One Nights,
claiming that the book “offends public decency.” Hisba cases allow citizens to prosecute individuals who they deem to have insulted Islam…
They are demanding those responsible for the publication be brought to trial under Article 178 of the Penal Code, which if convicted is punishable by imprisonment for a term of two years and a fine for everyone that publishes any prints or pictures that “offends the public decency.”
I heard an Egyptian guy talking to … Read the rest
Hesba law lets fanatics sue intellectuals
May 7th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
There are many in Egypt who regard this type of legal vigilantism as ludicrous.… Read the rest
Egypt: call to ban Thousand and One Nights
May 7th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A direct result of opening Egypt to the fundamentalist winds of Wahhabi Salafism.… Read the rest
Saudi photo of women with naked faces shock
May 7th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Titanic struggle between reactionaries and lunatics plays out in Wahhabi kingdom.… Read the rest
