Student union wants UCL Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society to remove an image from Jesus and Mo on its Facebook page, claiming it’s “offensive.”… Read the rest
When certain Muslims voiced their offense
Jan 10th, 2012 8:28 am | By Ophelia BensonThe Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society at University College London is the object of attempted censorship by the university’s student union because the former used an image from Jesus and Mo on its Facebook page, and that, of course, is “offensive.”
… Read the restCiting a “number of complaints” regarding both the depiction of Muhammad and the fact that the image shows him with a drink that looks like beer, the union contacted the ASHS president demanding that he remove the image as soon as possible…Pointing out that UCL was the first university in Britain to be founded on secular principles, the ASHS have refused to remove the Jesus & Mo image and have launched an online petitionto defend free expression at
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The monks at Belmont Abbey College knew
Jan 9th, 2012 5:56 pm | By Ophelia BensonNPR’s Barbara Bradley Hagerty haz a sad about the war on religion in the US.
… Read the restIf you’re looking for evidence that the Obama administration is hostile to faith, conservatives say, the new health care law is Exhibit A. The law requires employers to offer health care plans that cover contraceptives. Churches don’t have to, but religiously affiliated charities, hospitals and colleges do. That doesn’t sit well with the Catholic monks at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina.
“When the government said to them, you’re going to have to fund contraception, sterilization, in violation of your deeply held religious convictions, the monks at Belmont Abbey College knew that they just couldn’t do that,” says attorney Hannah Smith at the Becket
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The Church of Kopimism
Jan 9th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWe were founded about 15 months ago and we believe that information is holy and that the act of copying is holy.… Read the rest
University offers discount on tickets for religious people
Jan 9th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPennsylvania ACLU said that’s a no-no.… Read the rest
Mileva Marić: The Other Einstein
Jan 9th, 2012 | By Allen EstersonMileva Marić: The Other Einstein.
A short film written and directed by Alana Cash (Vibegirl Productions)
“Mileva Marić: The Other Einstein”, whose writer and director has also made films on Anna Freud and Marie Curie, is worth detailed analysis because it contains claims about Marić’s alleged collaboration on Einstein’s epoch-making work in physics in the early period of his scientific career some of which are in wide circulation and stated as fact in a number of books. This provides another opportunity for subjecting these claims to close scrutiny.
Before moving on to significant contentions it is worth noting a couple of less important errors and misconceptions in the early section of the film. The narrator states that in the period … Read the rest
What we talk about when we talk about woo
Jan 9th, 2012 10:36 am | By Ophelia BensonEric asked, on the last thread,
When, say, Muslims say that, if we speak of their religion is such and such ways, they simply get angry and can’t see our point, what response do we give? For that’s what so many people have been saying about the new atheism. They’ve been calling it strident and shrill and things like that, and we’ve been accused of writing about religion in ways that simply offend the religious instead of engaging with them. Is there are clear way to make the distinction between the first point about taboo words, and the second about ways of expressing our distaste for, or our criticism of, certain ideas?
I had some related thoughts while these … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Feminist Jewish prayer from 1471
Jan 8th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe siddur was written by the scribe Rabbi Abraham Ben Mordechai Farissol, a well-known Northern Italian rabbi (1451-1525) who was a scholar, cantor, and physician.… Read the rest
The uses of commitment
Jan 8th, 2012 3:24 pm | By Ophelia BensonAs I was saying… in free inquiry one doesn’t want taboos, to put it mildly. In political commitments, however, one does (in a sense).
What sense? Maybe the most basic one, the one you learn slowly as a child: that other people have minds too, and they are different from yours, and you can’t treat them just any old how.
Or maybe Google’s is a better version: don’t be evil. Or that of the Hippocratic Oath: first, do no harm. Or the first clause of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
… Read the restWhereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Conflict at the heart of Scientology is exposed
Jan 8th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA former member circulated a letter criticizing the management style and financial policies of its current leader, David Miscavige on New Year’s Day.… Read the rest
Bring me the flaming head of Barbie
Jan 8th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWe all thought we were holding up the image of the Good Christian Woman, never realizing that culture considers us as unique as an assembly line of Barbies.… Read the rest
Free inquiry v commitment to equality
Jan 8th, 2012 11:56 am | By Ophelia BensonRon Lindsay wrote a post about freedom of expression and critical inquiry a couple of days ago, prompted mostly by the controversy over Ben Radford’s post (this is getting too meta already – so often the case) about pink toys and sexism.
Ron said:
The cornerstone of our mission is freedom of expression and critical inquiry. We see freedom of expression and critical inquiry as indispensable tools for arriving at an accurate understanding of just about any issue of importance, including, but not limited to, the truth of religious or fringe science claims.
Indeed.
There is a trope out there (this is nothing to do with Ron Lindsay) that goes something like: the “radical feminism” of a subset of … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Justice delayed
Jan 7th, 2012 5:46 pm | By Ophelia BensonLast night the CBC’s the fifth estate reported on the murder nearly 12 years ago of Jassi Sidhu, and the fact that her mother and uncle are suspected of having arranged the murder but have never been arrested.
You’ll already know from that what kind of murder it probably was. When Jassi was 2o her family wanted her to marry a man in India who was 40 years older and a stranger to her. She didn’t want to. She married someone else instead, because she liked him, but he wasn’t rich (or 60) and he drove a rickshaw.
Her mother and uncle have been arrested.
… Read the restA B.C. woman and her brother have been arrested in connection with the
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Popehat on legal threats against a science blogger
Jan 7th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe blogger’s comment is indisputably protected by the First Amendment and the threat is freakishly frivolous. Popehat is helping the blogger pro bono.… Read the rest
Malkit Kaur Sidhu and Surjit Singh Badesha arrested
Jan 7th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA B.C. woman and her brother have been arrested in connection with the 2000 slaying of the woman’s daughter, Jassi Sidhu.
Mother and uncle of Jassi Sidhu arrested
Jan 7th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCanadian police on Friday arrested the mother and uncle for complicity in the murder of Jaswinder (Jassi) Kaur Sidhu, 25, in Punjab in June 2000.… Read the rest
CBC on “honor” killing of Jassi Sidhu
Jan 7th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonEvidence gathered by Indian authorities at the time pointed to Jassi’s family allegedly arranging her murder from their home in Canada.… Read the rest
The women have taken over!!11!
Jan 6th, 2012 6:00 pm | By Ophelia BensonYou have got to be kidding, Beeb.
Headline:
Do politicians ignore the ‘men’s vote’?
Listen to the Westminster political debate in recent months and you will hear one group regularly given special attention: women.
Ed Miliband has accused the government of introducing changes in areas such as social security that are “hitting women twice as hard as men”.
Meanwhile, David Cameron says that, with government initiatives like lifting over a million people out of paying tax, “it is mostly women who benefit”.
But what you will not hear is the opposite – top politicians saying they have policies specifically directed at male voters, or “male issues”.
You’re joking. You’re joking. Please tell me you’re joking.
… Read the restBut some men say
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Pharmacy refuses to sell emergency contraception to a man
Jan 6th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonFDA guidelines say both men and women who are over 17 may buy emergency contraception without a prescription. ACLU is on the case.… Read the rest
A “cultural traitor” and “uppity wog” on Hitchens
Jan 6th, 2012 11:34 am | By Ophelia BensonRushdie on Hitchens is simply…unbetterable.
… Read the restI have often been asked if Christopher defended me because he was my close friend. The truth is that he became my close friend because he wanted to defend me.
The spectacle of a despotic cleric with antiquated ideas issuing a death warrant for a writer living in another country, and then sending death squads to carry out the edict, changed something in Christopher. It made him understand that a new danger had been unleashed upon the earth, that a new totalizing ideology had stepped into the down-at-the-heels shoes of Soviet Communism. And when the brute hostility of American and British conservatives (Charles Krauthammer, Hugh Trevor-Roper, and Paul Johnson) joined forces with the appeasement politics
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)