Author: Ophelia Benson

  • What Kind of Dialogue?

    Where does it start? Jokes? No. Cartoons? No. A film? No. A book? No. Where then?

  • Normblog on the Debate About Values

    To assert the superiority of some values over others is no different from defending the former.

  • Ibn Warraq Debates Tariq Ramadan

    Easterners flock to collect their degrees from Oxbridge, Harvard and the Sorbonne. Traffic in the other direction is minimal.

  • Quebec Council on the Status of Women v Hijab

    ‘Freedom of religion must be limited, intrinsically, by the right to equality between women and men.’

  • Wars in Africa Piss Away $300 Billion in 15 Years

    Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf wrote the preface to the NGO report.

  • New Humanist Poll

    Is Sam Harris right to reject labels like ‘Atheist’ and ‘Humanist’?

  • David Barash on Redirected Aggression

    The urge to pass along pain lurks behind modern warfare no less than it did behind medieval pageantry.

  • Hitchens on a Death in Iraq

    ‘I don’t remember ever feeling, in every allowable sense of the word, quite so hollow.’

  • Kanan Makiya

    The catastrophe in Iraq has made Makiya and the others who justified the invasion look reckless and naïve.

  • What Label for People Like Us?

    I note with interest that Margaret Downey organized a blockbuster atheist conference in the Washington, D.C. area, to which she brought many of the “new atheists.” We congratulate her on her energy. However, may I agree with Sam Harris who states that in accepting the label of “atheist” that “we are consenting to be viewed as a cranky sub-culture… a marginal interest group that meets in hotel ballrooms.”

    May I first compliment Sam (as the newest kid on the block) for his two fine books and his eloquent voice now being heard on the national scene. May I then disagree with his subsequent “seditious proposal” that we should not call ourselves “secularists,” “humanists,” “secular humanists,” “naturalists,” “skeptics,” etc. “We should go under the radar for the rest of our lives,” he advises. We should be “responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them.”

    That sounds lofty but in my view it is counter-productive. For in order to develop new ideas and policies that are effective, we need to organize with other like-minded individuals. And a name is crucial. If we followed Sam’s advice, the critical opposition to religious claims would naturally collapse. If we generalize from this, we could not come together as Democrats or Republicans, Libertarians or Socialists, feminists or civic libertarians, world federalists or environmentalists, utilitarians or pragmatists. Should we operate only as single individuals who may get published or speak on street corners with little influence or clout? Come on, Sam, that is unrealistic; for almost no one would be heard and we would be lone voices in the city canyons, unheard and drowned out by the powerful media. We say that democracy best functions when the citizens of a country unite under whatever label they choose to achieve what they deem to be worthy goals. True, you have had a best-seller which brought you to the public forum. But for most people the opportunity to affect the public debate is lost unless they work together with others to make their views heard, and unless they build institutions dedicated to their ideals and to the values they hope will endure.

    Paul Kurtz is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, chairman of CSICOP, the Council for Secular Humanism, and Prometheus Books, and editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry Magazine.

    Posted October 10 2007

  • Philosophy and Popular Culture

    Is this new wave exploiting pop culture in the service of philosophical inquiry? Yes, and a good thing too.

  • Dawkins on Dennett

    One of the things that strikes me about reading Dan’s books is how much science I learn from them.

  • The ‘Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act

    The Texas law is a salvo in a long-running battle over the place of religion in US public schools.

  • Sam Harris and Salman Rushdie on Hirsi Ali

    An indispensable witness to the splendor of open society and to the boundless energy of its antagonists.

  • Hitchens on Protection for Ayaan Hirsi Ali

    A symbol of the resistance, by many women from the Muslim world, to the horrors of clerical repression.

  • ‘Militant Atheists are Wrong’

    ‘You cannot prove the existence of truth, beauty, goodness and decency.’ No, really?!

  • Turkish Hackers Hit Swedish Websites

    Website of a children’s cartoon was replaced by a message saying Islam’s prophet had been insulted.

  • Sainsbury’s Policy on Muslims Selling Alcohol

    It creates a space the religious fanatics will use to bully their mostly female fellow workers.

  • The Crisis in North Pakistan

    Khatoon Bibi was murdered near a security check post while attempting to reach the school where she taught.

  • Medical Students Have ‘Religious Objections’

    Some Muslim medical students are refusing to attend lectures that ‘offend their religious beliefs.’