The Organisation for Promoting Virtue and Discouraging Evil says officers have punished those caught so far.… Read the rest
Virginia House passes fetal personhood bill
Feb 15th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe House of Delegates voted 66-32 in favor of defining the word person under state law to include unborn children “from the moment of conception.”… Read the rest
Carl Elliott on ghostwriting and plagiarism
Feb 15th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonUniversity administrators sometimes compare themselves to corporate executives, who are not generally criticized for having ghostwriters on staff.… Read the rest
Eric MacDonald on Michael Ruse on Darwin Day
Feb 15th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRuse wants us to leave a little protected reserve for otherworldly thoughts that can be shielded from the deep quest for knowledge on which science is founded.… Read the rest
The non-skeptical “Skeptiko”
Feb 15th, 2012 9:55 am | By Ophelia BensonAh, this brings back memories – Jerry Coyne did an interview with Alex Tsakiris of “Skeptiko”- which is “Skeptiko,” please note, not “Skeptico.” There’s a difference. I didn’t know that in September 2010, which is why I accepted Tsakiris’s invitation to do an interview.
It was a complete dog’s breakfast. The guy’s an asshole. He’s not a skeptic at all, and the name is pretty obviously meant to trap people in just the way that several people – including me – have been trapped. He’s a woo-meister. He didn’t tip his hand for the first few minutes, so we had an amicable conversation for that long, but then he did, and we hit a brick wall.
He bullshitted … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The barmaid praises Jesus and Mo for ingenuity
Feb 15th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThey are grateful.… Read the rest
Sahara TV on Helen Ukpabio
Feb 14th, 2012 5:32 pm | By Ophelia BensonSahara TV talks to Pastor Godwin Umotong of Liberty Gospel Church in Houston about the “deliverance” mission of Helen Ukpabio.
Where are the mermaids, by the way? Are they in the Gulf of Mexico?
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Valerie Tarico on Plan B and motivated beliefs
Feb 14th, 2012 5:10 pm | By Ophelia BensonRemember the caring sensitive Mummy whose disabled daughter was raped and who decided not to let her have Plan B? Because “It’s about taking the life of an innocent child”?
Well Valerie Tarico has an excellent post on The Big Lie about Plan B.
Plan B doesn’t cause abortion. It stops or delays ovulation. No egg, no fertilization, no pregnancy – no abortion. It’s that simple.
Well then why did the caring sensitive Mummy say it did? Why did she get all maudlin about the innocent child whose life had to not be taken?
… Read the restSo why does the Religious Right keep telling us that post-coital contraceptives function by aborting teeny babies? Because in the minds of many
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The Women’s Ministry should exist to improve the lives of women
Feb 14th, 2012 11:37 am | By Ophelia BensonHouzan Mahmoud will soon have a statement on Iraq’s Women’s Minister Ibtihal Kasid Alzaidi, who thinks and says that women are not equal to men. Not a good thing for a Women’s Minister to think. … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
More than one valence
Feb 14th, 2012 11:16 am | By Ophelia BensonSomething I’m ambivalent about:
On the one hand, there’s the value of being reasonable, and trying to see all sides of a question. There’s the value of not getting things wrong by being too one-sided; by confirmation bias; by seeing everything the way you see everything and so becoming blind to other ways of seeing everything. That’s different from the more political value of giving everybody a fair hearing, and letting people pursue the good in their own way as far as is compatible with the rights of others. The value I mean is epistemic and cognitive.
On the other hand there’s the value of countering a very loud, dominant, hegemonic, majoritarian, conformist brand of conventional wisdom.
Those two things … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Derby: 3 men jailed for distributing gay death call leaflets
Feb 14th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe leaflets showed an image of a wooden mannequin hanging from a noose, quoted Islamic texts, and said capital punishment was the only way to rid society of homosexuality.… Read the rest
The purpose of a university: to learn to question
Feb 14th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNot to shut ourselves off from ideas we find threatening.… Read the rest
Catholic cardinal says leaks damage church’s image
Feb 14th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt’s a question of dignity.… Read the rest
Jason Rosenhouse on the trouble with theistic evolution
Feb 14th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonToo often the defender of reconciliation acts as though a logically possible scenario that includes both God and evolution is all that’s needed.… Read the rest
Lawyers for Liberty are pissed
Feb 13th, 2012 5:53 pm | By Ophelia BensonAt Malaysia’s Home Minister, for one.
… Read the restLawyers for Liberty is simply astonished and outraged at Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein and PDRM’s continuing attempt to spin further lies and deceit over the illegal and unconstitutional detention and deportation of Hamza Kashgari by now alleging or insinuating that he is a “criminal” or “terrorist” wanted by his home country.
The truth is Hamza had sent a few tweets on the Prophet Muhammad which he has since deleted and apologized. It must be noted a similar poem on the prophet was published on his blog a year ago but did not receive any negative reaction from anybody. More importantly, he belongs to a group of emerging young pro-democracy activists which among others
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Mukund Padmanabhan on the republic of hurt sentiments
Feb 13th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“We have allowed hurt sentiment in this country to become a cover for aggressive moral vigilantism, an excuse to perpetrate violence in the name of emotional victimhood.”… Read the rest
Roberto Malini: Poetry Before the Law
Feb 13th, 2012 4:59 pm | By Ophelia BensonRoberto Malini, co-president of EveryOne Group, an NGO supporting Roma people and refugees, left a poem he wrote for Hamza Kashgari in a comment. I want it to be more visible than that, so here it is again.
Poetry Before the Law
on the deportation of the poet Hamza Kashgari back to Saudi Arabia
Spare the poet, O Law,
for his soul expands
beyond the sources of reason,
as far as truth.
Spare the poet, O Death,
for his heart is the brother of a quasar
that ignites the Universe.
Spare the poet, O Faith,
for his song rises like the Sun
and reawakens the eternal in stone.
Roberto Malini (English translation by Glenys Robinson)… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Sayeeda Warsi will tell the pope of need for religion
Feb 13th, 2012 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAnd how evil “militant secularism” is. Telegraph wets itself with joy.… Read the rest