In the culture of the church hierarchy, the mere idea of a pope being called to account is incomprehensible. … Read the rest
All entries by this author
We love you dearly, now here’s a bag to put over your head
Apr 5th, 2010 3:53 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe American Humanist Association tried to give the ACLU $20,000 to help pay for the alternate prom in Mississippi, and the ACLU said no thanks, on account of humanism is as we all know a dirty word.
The ACLU then thought better of it, and apologized…but it also asked the AHA to donate (if it donated) anonymously. Quoth the spokesperson:
“If you would still like to contribute we would be thrilled, but I understand if you do not feel comfortable contributing a donation that you will not be recognized for.”
That’s an interesting way of putting it. It’s not really a matter of “feeling comfortable,” surely. It’s a matter of being insulted at being treated like a source of … Read the rest
Respect is another one-way valve
Apr 5th, 2010 12:49 pm | By Ophelia BensonThat interview with Ayala in the New Scientist…
They are two windows through which we look at the world. Religion deals with our relationship with our creator, with each other, the meaning and purpose of life, and moral values; science deals with the make-up of matter, expansion of galaxies, evolution of organisms. They deal with different ways of knowing. I feel that science is compatible with religious faith in a personal, omnipotent and benevolent God.
Religion deals with an imaginary or projected relationship with an imagined or projected ‘creator,’ which is a somewhat special kind of relationship, and not really a window through which we look at the world – more like a window through which we conjure a … Read the rest
Humanists Too Shocking for ACLU
Apr 5th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWould love to accept their $20,000, but only if it’s given anonymously.… Read the rest
Previous Pope Also Ignored Child Rape
Apr 5th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAn Austrian cardinal, friend of pope, abused many boys over decades but faced no sanction from Rome. … Read the rest
Sexual Abuse of Women in the Church
Apr 5th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIn 2001 the European parliament passed a motion blaming Vatican for rapes of African nuns in the 1990s.… Read the rest
Child Abuse Overshadows Abuse of Women
Apr 5th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘The church is so dominated by men that there’s a tendency to portray girls as provoking the crimes.’… Read the rest
Afghan Women Defy Militants to Learn to Read
Apr 5th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonEhsanullah Ehsan risks educating girls and women in places where Islamists have murdered teachers.… Read the rest
More Petulant Bullying Confusion from Bunting
Apr 5th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNew atheists, shoddiness, sheer philosophical illiteracy, sheer aggressive intolerance, violent.… Read the rest
Individual Rights and Collective Responsibility
Apr 5th, 2010 | By Joshua F. LeachThe standard collectivist critique of individual rights has been with us a long time. It was best formulated in its classic outlines by the Catholic Church during the nineteenth century, amidst a great many cries for social and political change. The line the Church took at the time was essentially to say that rights cannot be understood without respect to “duties,” and that suffering and self-sacrifice are great virtues against which the individual should not be protected. As the classic statement on Catholic social teaching, the Rerum Novarum (1891), puts it, “The… pains and hardships of life will have no end or cessation on earth; for the consequences of sin are bitter and hard to bear, and they must accompany … Read the rest
Bunting pulls out the ‘new atheist’ file yet again
Apr 5th, 2010 11:34 am | By Ophelia BensonAnother consignment of rebarbative truculent inaccurate wool from Madeleine Bunting. About…? The Vatican’s petulant cries of ‘petty gossip’ in response to revelations of its settled habit of concealing and protecting child rape? No. The ‘new’ atheists – that’s what’s got her worked up: the endless unappeasable horror of the ‘new’ atheists. Their wrongness. Their violence. Their ignorance. Their deafness to the overwhelming arguments of Karen Armstrong and Terry Eagleton.
… Read the rest…in the years since the publication of Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion in 2006 and Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great in 2007, there has been an addition every few weeks from enraged philosophers, theologians, historians and journalists, all trying to convince readers of the shoddiness of the New Atheists.
The Mafia doesn’t give Easter sermons
Apr 4th, 2010 6:01 pm | By Ophelia BensonSholto Byrnes, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, doesn’t entirely buy Peter Hitchens’s line on atheism.
For while Stalin’s atheism may have been a necessary condition for the atrocities he committed — I completely agree with Hitchens that “without God, many more things are possible than are permitted in a Godly order” — it is not a sufficient one. I part company with him when he claims that his preceding sentence proves that which follows it: “Atheism is a licence for ruthlessness, and appeals to the ruthless.”
Good about parting company, but I part company earlier than that. Atheism is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for committing atrocities, and it isn’t necessarily the case that ‘without God, many more things … Read the rest
Anxiety After Terreblanche Murder
Apr 4th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAfrikaner farmers have objected in court to ANC leader singing the old struggle song ‘Kill the Boer’ in public.… Read the rest
Vatican Still Complaining of ‘Petty Gossip’
Apr 4th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Holy Father, the people of God are with you and will not let themselves be influenced by the petty gossip of the moment.’… Read the rest
Saudi Arabia: Lebanese ‘Sorcerer’ Gets Stay
Apr 4th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNot this Friday, but perhaps next Friday. Horoscopes are ‘condemned as un-Islamic’; off with his head.… Read the rest
Demonizing Atheism is a Bad Way to Defend Faith
Apr 4th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘People who are given to ruthlessness can always find a justification for it,’ notes Sholto Byrnes.… Read the rest
New Scientist Talks to Francisco Ayala
Apr 4th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonReligion and science ‘deal with different ways of knowing.’… Read the rest
What kind of interface?
Apr 3rd, 2010 4:25 pm | By Ophelia BensonMichael Ruse says why the Templeton Foundation is a good thing.
More recently, the award has been given to academics working on the science-religion interface. It was therefore appropriate that this year the Prize went to Francisco Ayala, a Spanish-born population geneticist at the University of California at Irvine. Ayala (a former Catholic priest) has long been interested in the science-religion relationship…
The science-religion interface? What’s that? That’s the kind of thing that Templeton always talks about, but what exactly is it? And what does Michael Ruse think it is?
It could just mean, or be intended to mean, scientists and religious believers talking. That would certainly be unexceptionable. The trouble is, that doesn’t really seem like a very plausible … Read the rest
NY Times on Vatican’s Rebuke of NY Times
Apr 3rd, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCardinal Levada singled out several Times reporters and columnists for criticism.… Read the rest
Vatican Official Rebukes New York Times
Apr 3rd, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDetailed fury at reporting, zero worry about victims.… Read the rest