Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Another mystery for Karen Armstrong

    Theocracy in Israel.

    Parents of European, or Ashkenazi, origin do not want their daughters to be educated in the same classroom as schoolgirls of Middle Eastern and North African descent, or Sephardim, claiming that they are not as religious…

    Batting off accusations of racism, the parents, who live in the West Bank settler community of Immanuel, have argued that their wish to separate their children is motivated only by religious and cultural differences between the different Jewish communities.

    “The Sephardic Jews are less observant, they dress differently,” said Carter Schwartz, a 31-year-old protester with an American accent. “It’s like sending kids of a totally different learning level to Harvard, and the government forces [Harvard] to take them in.”

    And thus we see how religion makes people nicer and more compassionate.

    Dressed in their traditional black garb and wide-rimmed hats, bearded marchers held aloft banners saying “God will rule for all eternity”, a reference to the supremacy of religious interests over secular law, and “High Court against the people”.

    Right, and that’s why people like that are so terrifying.

    The Haredi Jews are seen as an economic drain on society, with many of the men choosing years of subsidised religious studies over paid employment. A soaring birth rate has led to predictions that they could form a majority of Jerusalem’s half-million population in a decade.

    In recent months, they have proved a disruptive presence, littering Jerusalem with rubbish and soiled nappies to protest against a new parking lot that would encourage more traffic on the Sabbath and clashing with police to prevent the exhumation of ancient human remains that they claim are Jewish to make way for a new emergency hospital wing.

    Right, and that’s why people like that are such a pain in the ass.

  • Women’s rights and “peace” in Afghanistan

    We are told that violations of women’s rights are part of someone else’s culture, and that we have no business interfering.

  • Ben Goldacre on the Independent on bad science

    A worrying resistance to the idea that anyone should dare to engage in legitimate criticism.

  • If the earth quakes, blame the scientists

    Italian seismologists are now being indicted and investigated for manslaughter, because they failed to shout “earthquake!”

  • Matt Ridley on rational optimism

    At some point in human history, ideas began to meet and mate, to have sex with each other.

  • Do you care if what you believe is true or not?

    Greta Christina wonders about people who explicitly say they don’t care whether the things they believe are true.

  • George Pitcher “leaves” the Telegraph

    Did he jump, or was he pushed? Were his attacks on Evan Harris too much even for the Telegraph?

  • London: rally against sharia Sunday

    If you’re in London, or say maybe Dorking, or St Albans, or High Wycombe, or what the hell, Manchester, or Bristol, or Norwich, on Sunday, get yourself to Hyde Park for the rally against sharia and religious laws in the UK.

    Swell the crowd. Bring a friend; bring your dog; bring an inflatable doll. Show the New Statesman that sharia is not wanted.

    Make up the numbers. Tell your friends. Turn up.

  • New report on sharia in Britain

    Sharia courts work against rather than for equality, and are incompatible with human rights.

  • Ireland: rights groups tell bishops where to go

    ICCL seriously doubts that the Irish Catholic bishops retain sufficient moral authority to pontificate on the Civil Partnership Bill.

  • TV imam Zakir Naik banned from UK

    BBC is oddly evasive about why.

  • Clash of “communities” in Israel

    Ultra-orthodox Ashkenazi parents don’t want their daughters going to school with Sephardim.

  • Bunting thinks the MCB is “the Muslim community”

    Still. After all this time.

  • Journalists face obstacles

    And harassment and intimidation tactics by federal officials and local police, as well as BP employees and contractors.

  • BP and government still blocking media access

    BP says they’re not, but they are.

  • FGM at Cornell

    But at Cornell they call it clitoroplasty, so it sounds sciency.

  • More lessons in civility

    Backlash against “new” atheists, chapter 479,811.

    We were initially surprised that our co-authored book, Unscientific America, was so strongly attacked for observing that scientists should strive to improve their skills at public communication–and that this probably includes not alienating potential religious allies or mainstream America. But in a sense, the attacks made a kind of sense. Mostly, they came from those for whom this advice ran contrary to their particular project of denouncing much of America and the world for alleged ignorance and superstition–the New Atheists.

    That’s “backlash” because it’s untrue, and distorted, and misleading. It’s dishonest and unreasonable, and those qualities make it backlash as opposed to disagreement or criticism. It is of course entirely possible to disagree with “the New Atheists” or “new” atheism in a reasonable and truthful way. It’s noticeable and interesting, though, that the vast bulk of the unfavorable reaction to “new” atheism is not like that, but is, rather, untrue, and distorted, and misleading. There has been a torrent of unfavorable reaction to “new” atheism, and I have seen very little of it – to tell the truth I don’t recall any, which of course is not to say that there isn’t any – that is not hostile and dishonest.

    The quoted passage is untrue and distorted in several ways. One is that it doesn’t say who “the New Atheists” are, which means it leaves the impression that anyone and everyone that someone might consider a “new” atheist fits that hostile and dishonest description.

    That’s an ugly trick. And the description itself is ugly – typical, and ugly. It’s typical of the shameless hyperbole that backlashers permit themselves to indulge in, as if it were simply self-evident that “new” atheists are on a moral level with Nazis or child-raping priests. I’m often considered and labeled a “new” atheist, and I consider myself to have a lot in common with people who are so labeled (and so I consider the label a compliment), so I’ll give my position on this description. I have no “project” to “denounce” much of the US and the world for alleged ignorance and superstition. That doesn’t describe me, and it doesn’t describe the “new” atheists I’m familiar with, either.

    It’s a curiously anti-intellectual and paranoiac description of people who make arguments in books and articles and blog posts, too. It makes us sound as if we lead Nuremberg rallies against the majority of human beings.
    In that, of course, it is simply typical of backlash rhetoric, which seems to be hell-bent on stirring up as much hatred of avowed atheists as it possibly can. It never stops surprising me how cheerfully willing the backlashers are to play with this kind of fire.

  • Oxytocin promotes parochial altruism

    Researchers at U of Amsterdam find that oxytocin appears to lead to “defensive” aggression against threatening outgroups.

  • OIC states push for UN action on ‘Islamophobia’

    The new mandate is likely to see increased UN pressure to prevent criticism of Islam.

  • What will any parent do?

    No comment.

    Asha’s family was opposed to a marriage because Yogesh belonged to a different, lower caste. Police have described the murders as a case of “honour killing”…The bodies were brought out in the morning once the police arrived. And details began to emerge of the torture and beatings to which the young couple were subjected. “Their mouths were stuffed with rags, there were signs of beating and small burns on legs suggesting that they were possibly electrocuted,” a senior police officer who was the first to reach the crime scene told the BBC.

    Asha’s uncle and father were arrested but the two men have shown no remorse.

    “I’m not sorry,” a defiant Omprakash Saini told reporters after his arrest. “I would punish them again if given a chance.”

    The reporter, Geeta Pandey, went to talk to Yogesh’s family.

    The neighbours vouch for Yogesh’s character.

    “He was a very good boy,” one of them, Meera Devi, says. “We are very angry. We want justice. If they wanted to kill their daughter, that’s okay. But they shouldn’t have killed our boy.”

    At Asha’s home, her relatives are equally angry.

    Cousin Lokesh Kumar Saini says: “We had talked to Yogesh and his family in the past and told them to stay away. We had also found a good match for Asha and she was engaged.

    “What will any parent do if they see their daughter in a compromising position with a man? What would you do if you were in the same situation?” he asks me angrily. “That’s why my uncles killed them.”

    What will any parents do if they see their daughter having sex with a man? Torture her to death, of course! That’s so totally obvious!