Am I wrong to find this funny? A Catholic priest kicking the yoga people out of his church because it turns out they didn’t mean just Downward Facing Dog and Upside Down Candelabra, they meant “spiritual.” Or not, but they could have. You couldn’t be sure. You know how people are. They say it’s not spiritual, they say they just want to strike poses and watch the pounds melt away, but underneath, they’re plotting to do spiritual.

Instructor Cori Withell from Hampshire said her yoga and pilates classes at St Edmund’s Church building in Southampton were cancelled with 10 days to go.

Father John Chandler said that the hall had to be used for Catholic activities, and he banned

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It’s a day for bad lines, innit. For two bad lines in particular.

One is

In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.

The other is

The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.

Pretend for a moment that you don’t know where they’re from, who said them or promoted them, in what context.

They’re just bad. On their own, with no further context, they’re bad. On the face – prima facie.

The word “savage” used as a noun is just stupid, and sinister. It borders on taboo, in the way “nigger” is taboo and “bitch” ought to be taboo but isn’t. It’s a relic of colonialism and … Read the rest

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A student journalist, Will Bordell, has a lovely interview with Anthony Grayling which I’ve just published at ur-B&W. Here’s a big chunk of it.

Spare a thought for philosophy: An interview with A.C. Grayling

What makes Grayling tick is “the fact that the world is so rich in interest and in puzzles, and that the task of finding out as much as we can about it is not an endless task but certainly one which is going to take us many, many millennia to complete”.  There’s a sort of childlike grin that beams out at me, as he affirms that “that’s exciting – discovery is exciting”.  Grayling joys in doubt and possibility, in invention and innovation: the tasks of the … Read the rest

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Salman Rushdie talked to Der Spiegel about his memoir of the fatwa years.

Some senior cops didn’t approve of him much.

I wasn’t like the others, those who deserved protection because they had done something for the country. I was someone who received protection because he had made trouble. In their view, it was my own fault that the Muslims were after me. Some members of the police, not all of them, didn’t understand how anyone could be willing to cause such a fuss for such an far-off issue. At least if my book had been about England …

SPIEGEL: The criticism wasn’t just coming from the police and Muslims, but increasingly from colleagues and intellectuals. Perhaps your sharpest

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There’s also an epistemological point in Michael’s post, which is interesting too.

The issue of the day is sexism/feminism and the debate is splitting down two rough sides: those who find religion immoral or irritating and want to campaign against it with no time devoted to anything else, and those whose objection to religion is part of a generally progressive agenda (frequently called ‘social justice’), and who feel that organised atheism is in danger of replicating the same old problems which religions have perpetuated.

Part of the problem here is that skepticism and feminism are coming from different traditions: feminism has historically been less concerned about evidence and more about consciousness-raising, while skepticism treats evidence as a gold standard and

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Headline just seen on the LA Times website.

Romney hits Obama for calling Middle East troubles ‘bumps in road’ 09/24/2012, 2:17 p.m.

Guys…take it outside.… Read the rest

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Pakistan is working hard to model mindless slavish submission to religious mandates for the rest of the world, and to bully everyone else into doing the same.

Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf ordered Internet service providers to block YouTube — all of it, not just the offending videos. Interior Minister Rehman Malik has asked Interpol to take up the matter. And he wants the United Nations to develop international legislation to stop the circulation of material deemed blasphemous.

Think of all the religions in the world. What a lot of material could meet the description “deemed blasphemous.” Just imagine a world in which all such material was forbidden to circulate. Just imagine the mental poverty.

…it’s not just Islamist

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Michael Nugent tells me a bit of news I didn’t know – that the EU has joined the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League and the Commission of the African Union to release a statement “expressing ‘the importance of respecting all prophets’, and ‘strongly committing to take further measures’ to work for ‘full respect of religion’.”

What?!

The joint statement begins by saying that ‘we share a profound respect for all religions,’ and absurdly adds that ‘we believe in the importance of respecting all prophets, regardless of which religion they belong to.’

Or to put it another way, we believe in theocracy, and if you don’t we want you to keep quiet about it.

Why is the EU teaming … Read the rest

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