This is an argument between those who think that only violence need concern us, and those who believe it is from bad ideas that bad actions spring.… Read the rest
Pope says Berlusconi should be moral
Jan 22nd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWho is less moral, Berlusconi or Ratzinger?… Read the rest
Giles Fraser worries about “Islamophobia”
Jan 22nd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonOffers two random comments at Dawkins’s website as “evidence.” Yes really.… Read the rest
Soumaya Ghannoushi has such a good idea!
Jan 22nd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonShe thinks an alliance of independent socialists, Islamists and liberals would be just the thing for Tunisia.… Read the rest
Sikivu Hutchinson on black infidels
Jan 22nd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAs a pioneer of the African American freethought and Humanist traditions, Frederick Douglass actively challenged the moral hypocrisy of white Christianity.… Read the rest
Signs and portents
Jan 21st, 2011 5:39 pm | By Ophelia BensonOther people have been disputing BioLogos guest poster Loren Wilkinson; I’ll just add a footnote or two.
The BioLogos Foundation, with its commitment to the “integration of science and Christian faith” is one of many signs that the 150-year-old idea of a “warfare” between science and religion is ending.
You wish. It’s actually just a sign that the Templeton Foundation has a lot of money, much of which it spends on a great many organizations and conferences and books devoted to creating “signs” that science and religion are deeply in love. The BioLogos Foundation isn’t some independent phenomenon that just happened without any interested parties helping and funding – it’s the product of a well-funded agenda. It’s disingenuous to … Read the rest
The Council of Ex-Muslims needs your support
Jan 21st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCEMB is a hugely important sanctuary for women and men who face threats, intimidation and/or isolation for leaving Islam.… Read the rest
Why Tunisia’s revolution is not Islamist
Jan 21st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonObservers hoping Ben Ali’s fall will portend a similar fate for other Arab autocrats may be left waiting a lot longer than they think.… Read the rest
The implicit tyranny
Jan 21st, 2011 11:46 am | By Ophelia BensonEric explains why he writes about religion.
Suddenly, I find myself reading more and more about religion, and, since I spent a lifetime in the church, and am trying to put this behind me, I need to explain to myself, sometimes, why I am doing so. For now, instead of trying to give an account of myself, as St. Paul would have said, for the faith that is in me, I write to oppose religion, and all, or pretty much all, that it stands for…I oppose religion because I find that it diminishes — and cannot fail to diminish — us as persons.
He zooms in on the religious tendency to try to mandate a “religious” view of the … Read the rest
Ashraf Azad jailed for beating up sister
Jan 21st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe punched and throttled her and called her a slag; her mother called her a prostitute; she was dating a Hindu boy.… Read the rest
Humans are forgetting how to walk
Jan 21st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThey stare at objects in their hands instead of the ground and surrounding objects, so they fall down or collide with people/cars/walls.… Read the rest
Who, us?
Jan 20th, 2011 12:53 pm | By Ophelia BensonJust look at the Telegraph’s bland concealment of the nasty truth about misogynist Anglican clerics converting to Catholicism. Look at the jolly personable “we’re just a buncha nice guys” photo, look at the tactful phrasing:
The most Rev Vincent Nichols, leader of Catholics in England and Wales, ordained Andrew Burnham, former bishop of Ebbsfleet, Keith Newton, ex-bishop of Richborough, and John Broadhurst, former bishop of Fulham, as Catholic priests at a service at Westminster Cathedral in London on Saturday.
They are the first members of an Ordinariate specially set up by the Pope, for groups of Anglicans who wish to join the Roman Catholic Church while retaining aspects of their Anglican heritage.
Paras 1 and 2. It takes until para … Read the rest
The report [pdf]
Jan 20th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSome Catholic hospitals delay treatment for women having miscarriages until there is no fetal heartbeat.… Read the rest
NWLC reports on religious restrictions at hospitals
Jan 20th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe Center’s findings apply to any institution or individual delaying or denying treatment based on religious beliefs rather than medical considerations.… Read the rest
The final arbiter is the local bishop
Jan 20th, 2011 11:29 am | By Ophelia BensonJust imagine, some people see handing over medical care to god-botherers as a bad idea.
“Physicians are being told they must refuse to provide certain services even when they believe their refusal would harm their patient and violate established medical standards of care,” said Lois Uttley, who heads MergerWatch, a New York-based group that fights the takeover of secular medical centers by religiously affiliated hospitals.
Church officials, bioethicists and hospital officials counter that the facilities are guided by directives calibrated to deliver state-of-the-art medical care without violating religious and moral beliefs.
But they shouldn’t be guided by directives calibrated to avoid violating religious beliefs. Period. Religious beliefs have nothing to do with decisions about what the best medical … Read the rest
Catholic takeover of hospitals causes problems
Jan 20th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCatholic official says there is no problem at all, cites “respect for each and every life in our care.”… Read the rest
NY Times: the Vatican is bullshitting
Jan 20th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRome officials insist that the letter from Rome is outdated, misinterpreted, and superseded by tougher church rules. It’s not.… Read the rest
Baroness Warsi to talk crap
Jan 20th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWill say stupid things about “Islamophobia” in a future speech.… Read the rest
Ratzinger’s finest hour
Jan 19th, 2011 4:47 pm | By Ophelia BensonBrothers and sisters, join with me once again in reading the holy and most sanctified letter of the bishop of Rome to his beloved members of The Church in Ireland, and see with your own weeping eyes how he places all the blame gently but firmly on them, pretending with all the oiliness of a can of sardines and all the unction of a tube of BenGay that the higher ups in Rome knew nothing whatever about it and were going about their business in innocent piety and pious innocence while those Celtic ruffians were making a dog’s breakfast of things over there on the edge of the known world. We have read it before, my dear siblings, we … Read the rest
Russian cleric to women: it’s your fault
Jan 19th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIf she wears a miniskirt and gets drunk and seeks contact with people “and is then surprised when that contact ends in rape she is wrong.”… Read the rest