Author: Ophelia Benson

  • His elbow slipped

    I was inspired by the new levels of Wallyism we dug up yesterday so I thought I would dig up a little more.

    Am I rubbing it in? Yes, I am. But when you look at the newly-dug levels, I think you will see why. I think nose-rubbing is just the right thing to do about this degree of mendacious bullying. I mean, in particular, the place where Wally is caught lying by one “Sean” and uses four sock puppets posting right on top of each other to bully Sean and then congratulate himself on the bullying. What could be more suitable than to make this contemptible behavior public?

    It wasn’t about gnu atheists this time, December 2009; it was about climate change and denialism. It’s not a disagreement on the substance this time; it’s a disagreement on morality.

    Wally as bilbo had said there were a lot of tobacco-deniers “here”; Sean had said who, where, show me; bilbo didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t; Sean pressed; bilbo wriggled; Sean pressed; bilbo coughed up one, without a link. Sean said link please; bilbo was silent; Sean said link please; bilbo was silent; Sean said you were noisy enough yesterday, how about it – and bilbo rose to his full height and let fly. bilbo let fly in a fashion that is all too familiar from our Wally-You’re Not Helping-bilbo-Tom Johnson (though kept under wraps by our friend Hammill).

    …and Sean chooses the petty, desperate adult path. Or, should I say the Way of the Troll. Predictable. I wish I had bet money on it.

    Why Sean, if it is this much of an issue to you (after now FOUR responses over two days with evidence on my part which you have made no concerted effort to disprove or even respond to outside of rote repetition), you are free to browse the blog archives yourself and find the quote(s) you are looking for. They are there for you, I promise. I will not argue with a brick wall who demands evidence but offers no retort when evidence is provided.

    You have two choices: find the quote yourself (or some other form of evidence refuting my point since you were the one who challenged it, after all) or continue repeating yourself into troll obscurity. The choice is yours, but I have a feeling I already know which one you’ll pick.

    Enjoy.

    Brings it all back, doesn’t it?

    That’s comment 82; 83 and 84 are jeering socks. Yes really: immediately after bilbo posts, the socks chime in. He’s not what you’d call subtle!

    Sean, bilbo is slapping you around this comment board like a little child. Man up!

    Since making his original point, bilbo has posted multiple quotes from this very blog that support it. Yet you continue you scream “WRONG!!!!!” without backing yourself up with evidence of yor own. The burden of proof is on the accuser, and you’re screaming accusations like a child. If you’re not trolling like bilbo says, let’s see something to back your point up. Put up or shut up.

    I agree with Polly-O!

    There’s more of the same kind of thing, then one genius – FergalR, he’s called – points out the sockery. December 2009 that was. Too bad Mooney and Kirshenbaum didn’t check. Wally, of course, simply blustered in his usual way.

  • 98.   bilbo Says:
    December 10th, 2009 at 8:49 pm

    Of course, Fergal! It’s soooooooo clear that I have multiple personality disorder.

    So, by agreeing with me, EDK, The Accuser, Bill S., and Seminatrix all become me? Is this what you’re accusing, or am I missing something here?

    • I agree with Polly-O!

  • Why are atheists so angry?

    Rabbi David Wolpe pretends to be mystified that atheists find theism irritating.

    How harmless is it to post an article about why people should read the bible on a site devoted to religion? I did on this very page, and it evoked more than 2,000 responses, most of them angry…

    It is curious that a religion site draws responses mostly from atheists, and that the atheists are very unhappy…Only the untutored assume that religious people predominate on websites (Huffington Post Religion page, On Faith in the Washington Post, Beliefnet.com) devoted to religion.

    He thinks a section of a website is itself a website, or he pretends to think that so that he can claim that the religion section of the Huffington Post is a website and therefore that he was just minding his own business on a religion website and a lot of pesky atheists barged in and started yelling at him. But HuffPo is not a religion website and it is not obvious or self-explanatory that news sites or commentary sites have to include “faith” sections at all. The fact that some such sites treat “faith” with such deference is a major source of the irritation.

    Or to put it another way, HuffPo has a mixed audience, so Wolpe can’t expect atheists to stay off his particular articles on the grounds that he’s not talking to us. It doesn’t work that way. There’s no invisible fence around the “faith” section of HuffPo. We don’t look at his stuff and say “well he’s just doing his job” and go away again without saying anything.

    In short, no, it’s not curious that pieces like his draw more atheists than theists. It’s not that we’re trespassing on his space, it’s that he’s trespassing on ours – on everyone’s. We simply don’t take it for granted that religion should have a place at every single table.

    But why seek out a religious site solely to insult religion? I wondered: Why are atheists so angry?

    It’s not a religious site; it’s a section of a secular site, which we think pays far too much attention to religion. We don’t seek it out; it thrusts itself upon our attention. We’re angry because we’re tired of sanctimonious nagging.

  • HRW report

    On Islamic dress code for women in Chechnya.

  • Rosenhouse reviews Collins and Giberson

    Their book is not a good defense of theistic evolution.

  • A more hopeful view of women and Egypt

    But she wrote just before going to Tahrir Square for the March 8 Million Woman March…

  • Why are atheists so angry?

    Because theists keep asking why they’re so angry.

  • Daily Mail: did “supermoon” cause earthquake?

    Ben Goldacre finds this question tasteless. Extremely fucking tasteless, actually.

  • Chechnya: women bullied into dressing “modestly”

    Chechen authorities are enforcing a compulsory Islamic dress code for women and condoning violent attacks on women deemed to dress immodestly.

  • Rahila Gupta on feminism and secularism

    Some on the left have developed an anti-racist politics that gives succour to religious extremism rather than challenging it.

  • A memo from Fred Halliday to LSE

    Halliday wrote this memo to LSE’s governing body in October 2009 to try to convince them not to accept a grant from the Qaddafi Foundation.

  • The Holy See was tired and emotional

    The “Holy See,” not for the first time, had nothing to say. Not a peep. About?

    about reports that the Archbishop of Philadelphia, Cardinal Justin Rigali, this week suspended 21 priests pending investigation into allegations of child sex abuse.

    Oh that. Well…what can it say? “We didn’t tell them to.” “It wasn’t our idea.” “Don’t look at us.” “It’s the parents we blame.” “Philadelphia is a very secular place.”

    No doubt it will say all of those in good time, but it doesn’t like to be rushed.

    The suspension of the priests on Tuesday follows on from the findings of a Philadelphia grand jury which last month indicted three priests and one lay teacher on charges of rape, assault and other felonies related to minors, mainly in the late 1990s. The damning grand jury report also concluded that 37 priests remained in ministry “despite solid, credible accusations of sex abuse”.

    Well…um…well it’s the filing system you see, along with the thing about canon law. Put the two together and it does tend to slow us down, to the point that it takes us an average of three centuries to investigate any particular act of child-rape. We’re sorry, but you do get a lot of value out of us all the same, so go away and stop bothering us, you secular bastards.

  • Philadelphia: 21 priests suspended

    A grand jury last month indicted three priests and one lay teacher on charges of rape, assault and other felonies related to minors, mainly in the late 1990s.

  • Newt Gingrich considers secularism “elitist”

    “In America, religious belief is being challenged by a cultural elite trying to create a secularized America, in which God is driven out of public life.”

  • Governor of Illinois repeals death penalty

    “We cannot have a death penalty system in our state that kills innocent people.”

  • A scary theocrat

    But can the tension between religion and state always and at any time be resolved with a bias in favour of the law?

  • Sean Carroll on modal logic and the ontological proof

    The OP is perfectly logical — that is, the conclusions follow inevitably from the premises. It’s the premises that are a bit loopy.

  • CFI’s Living Without Religion campaign

    Too many people think atheists are miserable or savage or both.

  • The opposite of engaging

    Paul Sims did an interview for the Catholic Herald, and wants to know what people think. (At least he did; the post is a couple of weeks old now.)

    Ed West sets the scene for Herald readers.

    Last month two groups of people met in a church in central London to discuss gay adoption, abortion and religious schools. On one side were representatives of Catholic Voices, on the other a group from the Central London Humanist Group.

    The point, says Paul Sims of New Humanist magazine, was “to experiment with the idea of Humanists and Catholics sitting down and engaging with each other on contentious issues in a cordial manner”.

    Yes but (I’ve said this before, I’m sorry for the repetition) Catholic Voices are not just “Catholics” – they are a self-appointed PR group formed to defend the Vatican’s views:

    a bureau of Catholic speakers able to articulate with conviction the Church’s positions on major contentious issues in the media.

    Talking to them is not the same thing as talking to a generic or random group of Catholics; it’s talking to a group whose purpose is to defend views chosen and handed down by other people. It’s hard to think of a category of group it is more pointless to talk to when as Paul said

    the point, as I explained in a piece in the current issue of New Humanist, is to experiment with the idea of humanists and Catholics sitting down and engaging with each other on contentious issues in a cordial manner.

    Catholic Voices won’t be engaging with humanists on the issues. They will be defending the church’s positions on those issues, which is the opposite of “engaging.”

  • Theocrats come to Harvard

    The April 1-2 Social Transformation Conference ostensibly aims to employ “faith-based principles to better our society.”

  • Campaign Against Witchcraft Accusations in Akwa Ibom State

    A campaign to Prevent the Abuse of Children Today (PACT) in Akwa Ibom, also known as Operation Enlightenment, is underway in Eket Senatorial distirict in Akwa Ibom state. The program sponsored by Stepping Stones Nigeria aims at enlightening the people and getting them to know that child witchcraft is a myth and a form of superstition, and that the prophets and apostles who claim to cure or deliver people from witchcraft are fraudsters and criminals. The campaign team will tour all the local government areas under the senatorial zone. In each LGA a drama will be staged in two schools. 130 t-shirts, 1000 stickers, 500 posters, 800 calendars are to be distributed across the district. So far we have toured 5 local government areas – Oron, Okobo, Urue Offong Oruko, Udung Uko, and Mbo – and reached out to around 10,000 students and teachers. In each LGA we visited, the drama group – the Oron Cultural Troupe – performed in two schools and PACT campaign materials were distributed to students and teachers.

    [media id=24815 title=”Leo’s drama” width=”150″ height=”150″ ]

    On February 28 we toured Oron LGA. The drama group performed at Infant Jesus Secondary School, Mary Hanney Secondary School. Over 3 thousand students turned out to watch the performance. Some asked questions and shared their ideas and thoughts about witchcraft-related abuses in their communities. The PACT team paid a courtesy visit to the paramount ruler of Oron, HRH Odiong Akan.

    [media id=24816 title=”Leo drama 2″ width=”150″ height=”150″ ]

    On March 1 The campaign team toured Okobo LGA. The drama was performed at Methodist Primary school Nsie and Comprehensive Secondary School Amamong. Over 2 thousand students watched the performance. We later paid a visit to the paramount ruler of Okobo, HRH Owang Ibok, and the village head of Nsie community. While in Nsie, we visited the local police station where two children who allegedly confessed to be witches were detained. The family kept them at the police station for fear that they could be lynched by the members of the community. We met with the head of the police station who confirmed the incident. The matter was reported to the Commission of Inquiry set up by the government of Akwa Ibom state to verify claims of witchcraft accusations. The Commission has invited me to testify before it on Tuesday, March 8.  On March 2, we toured Urrue Offong Oruko LGA. We performed at Ubudong Communiy Secondary School and Comprehensive High School Okossi. Over 2000 students watched our performance. We later paid a courtesy visit to the paramount ruler of the LGA, HRH Amasi.

    [media id=24817 title=”Leo drama 3″ width=”150″ height=”150″ ]

    On March 3 our team was at Udung Uko LGA. The drama was staged at Community secondary school Edikor and Community secondary school Udung Uko. Over a thousand students from the Community were there when we performed. While we were in Edikor, a man from the community, Victor Effiong Dickson, reported to us that his daughter, Esther, was given witchcraft by a woman in the community and that the daughter was responsible for the death of her sisters. The man had to withdraw the girl from school for fear that she could be killed. I plan to use his case as additional evidence before the commission on Tuesday. Many people we met believed that children can be infected with witchcraft through food or biscuits. Many children have been tortured to confess that they got their supposed witchcraft powers through food or snacks. At the end of our tour we visited the paramount ruler, and gave him a pack of PACT materials (he was not onsite so we left the materials with his wife).

    On March 4, the PACT campaign team was at Mbo LGA. We performed at Community Secondary Ewang and at Ebughu Grammar School. Over 2 thousand students watched the performance, asked questions and received campaign materials. So far the campaign has been a great success. The 5 LGA we have visited fall under Oron Nation where witchcraft related abuses are said to be rampant. Children alleged to be witches suddenly disappear. They are reportedly killed, lynched or thrown into the river. The drama was rendered in the local (Oron) dialect and was well received by the students. The students clapped and cheered during the performance. The message was drummed home to all who watched the drama that child witchcraft was a myth and that the so called prophets who claimed to ‘cure’ witchcraft were fraudsters and criminals.

    In a school in Nsie (Okobo LGA), some teachers said we could make all the noise we liked about stopping the abuse of children in the name of witchcraft, but that children could actually be witches. No doubt I know that there were some people who watched our drama and still went away with similar impressions. But one thing is clear, the drama challenged the students’ belief in witchcraft, and provoked them to re-examine it. Our performance emboldened  them – to challenge  or report to the police peddlers of the ancient myth – in a manner that has never been the case in the history of Akwa Ibom state.

    Leo Igwe in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state.