Western writers who want to criticize religious misogyny, homophobia, racism and censorship must also live with accusations of “Islamophobia.”… Read the rest
Kamila Shamsie on Pakistan’s blasphemy laws 
Mar 5th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
From the first, the new and expanded blasphemy laws were used as tools of persecution.… Read the rest
Ahmed Rashid on the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti
Mar 5th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
As leaders worldwide strongly condemn Bhatti’s murder, the reaction of the Pakistani government has been vapid.… Read the rest
Worship is immoral
Mar 5th, 2011 4:27 pm | By Ophelia BensonAikin and Talisse (potentially startling many readers of 3 Quarks Daily) argue that religious belief is morally wrong.
The thought is frequently associated with Bertrand Russell: The worship of anything is beneath the dignity of a rational creature. That is, we argue that worship is immoral. Consequently, for any type of religious belief, if it requires one to worship anything, then it is intrinsically immoral. The argument turns on the claim that any conception of worship that’s worth its salt will involve the voluntary and irrevocable submission of one’s rational faculties to those of another.
That idea resonates with me, whether I know how to defend it or not. It addresses what I dislike about “faith,” even (or … Read the rest
Joseph Hoffmann on a secular ethics
Mar 5th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A secular ethic will always require that religion enjoy no privileged status based on assertions of authority that are widely regarded as untrue.… Read the rest
Aikin and Talisse on the moral argument for atheism
Mar 5th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
We hold that there’s something intrinsically morally wrong about holding religious beliefs. This perhaps is a startling claim.… Read the rest
Susan Jaboby on revolutions and women
Mar 5th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Egypt has many university-educated women. Will they be invited to the table when the organization of political parties begins in the post-Mubarak era?… Read the rest
When regulation is secretive, trust is all you have
Mar 5th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Science is built on transparency, but the pharmaceutical industry is regulated behind closed doors; trust is all that’s left.… Read the rest
Ben Goldacre on torpedoing cherished ideas
Mar 5th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Such as the efficacy of sniffer dogs, who turn out to be doing a Clever Hans.… Read the rest
Lying about Obama
Mar 5th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Mike Huckabee said Obama’s perspective was shaped by “growing up in Kenya.”… Read the rest
PZ Myers reviews David Brooks’s sciencey novel
Mar 5th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The neuroscience in the book feels a micrometer deep and a boring lifetime long.… Read the rest
Why Evolution is not Faith
Mar 4th, 2011 | By Franco HenwoodNine years ago, controversy erupted regarding a Christian school in the UK (Emmanuel College, Gateshead), which openly challenged the theory of evolution in its lessons and taught creationism alongside evolution.
One of the school’s defenders, journalist Melanie Phillips, quoted Emmanuel’s head teacher Nigel McQuoid and the former head John Burns, who stated that ‘the school should teach both evolution and creation theory [my italics], and that both are ‘faith positions [my italics].’[1]
You may think that this issue is now old hat, a storm in a tea cup that has long subsided. You may well be mistaken; if opinion polls are to be believed, such views appear to be gaining traction in the UK. One recent … Read the rest
Katha Pollitt on Republicans v women
Mar 4th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Republicans at the state and federal level are letting their misogyny, their fundamentalism and their sheer nuttiness show.… Read the rest
The Elephant in the Statehouse
Mar 4th, 2011 | By Jim Cornehls, Ph.D, J.D.State governments and (Republican) Governors currently are going through paroxysms of false hand wringing and despair. They pretend not to know why state budgets are so wildly out of balance. In mock anguish they lament the need to cut education budgets, renege on public employee pensions and cut health benefits for these groups.
Something has to be done to balance state budgets. But the nation can’t simply eliminate all the give-away programs and policies for the wealthy and the big corporations. These are the people and businesses that provide the hand-full of jobs in the U.S. that haven’t yet been moved abroad or phased out in essential cost saving measures.
But wait……there may be yet another (Republican) way out after … Read the rest
Drug research fraud
Mar 4th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Sources close to the investigation said that the editors would announce the formal retraction of 89 papers next month.… Read the rest
Student athlete suspended for not being chaste and virtuous
Mar 4th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
All students agree to abide by BYU honour code, which includes prohibitions on drinking, smoking, drugs, tea, coffee, swearing and sex.… Read the rest
Homophobia in Tower Hamlets
Mar 4th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The mayor’s supporters shout abuse from the gallery. “It is horrible, absolutely bloody awful.”… Read the rest
Putting homeopathy in perspective
Mar 4th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
How diluted is it? Well it’s like this…… Read the rest
Hammill the prodigal
Mar 4th, 2011 11:38 am | By Ophelia BensonHammill, as I said in a comment earlier this morning, is Walter Smith, known as Wally, a graduate student in biology at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
He said last summer that he would never do it again. He’s been doing it again.
He’s been sowing little seeds of hostility and paranoia and mistrust. He’s been ever so gently tarnishing the reputations of gnu atheists. Again.
For instance on this post, which of course drew him like a fly to honey, because it was both scornful and inaccurate about me. His kind of thing! (I don’t know why he hates me so particularly, given that I’m hardly the only vocal atheist out there, but he does.) He saw … Read the rest
The prodigal returns
Mar 3rd, 2011 5:09 pm | By Ophelia BensonSo, remember a month ago I wondered about this new Mystery Commenter who went by the name “Hammill” and whose central, indeed almost only, subject seemed to be the sadly naughty ways of the gnu atheists, and who showed a strangely excessive interest in me, and Jerry Coyne, and me again? Remember how I said it reminded me of someone? Remember how I said that someone was “Tom Johnson”/You’re Not Helping/William?
Well that’s who it is. I’ve been able to confirm it.
So?
So the discussion has been distorted by a guy with a known agenda and history posing as someone new and unknown. Someone who frowned gently in concern that people disagreed with Chris Mooney. … Read the rest
