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

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

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

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

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

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

They’ve added a great new blogger at Talking Philosophy, Claire Creffield. Alert readers will figure out quite quickly that she is a woman, a type which is generally in short supply there. She’s a dazzling writer, with interesting thoughts.

She is wasted on some of the he-man commenters there, like Michael Reidy.

The question is: What is it like to be woman? Is there a what it is like’ness to the consciousness of a woman? This is a deep question. Is there such a thing as female qualia? Is there inversion in the moral spectrum so to speak? These are bold speculations which led philosophers and others to perhaps consider whether women were ready for the onerous task

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Speaking of Maryam, she has her talk yesterday at the NSS conference posted. Richard Dawkins said on Twitter that she was on good fiery form.

A taste -

Hiding behind ‘rights’ and ‘choice’ to excuse misogyny is a betrayal of human principles. After all, years ago, certain men only had the ‘right’ to vote and own slaves.

Remember good old fashioned international solidarity – how I miss it – when we actually joined forces with those suffering under racial apartheid in South Africa for example.

Nowadays, many liberals and post-modernist leftists side with those imposing apartheid – sex apartheid – because it is considered the ‘right to religion’…

It’s a betrayal of human solidarity.

And this solidarity is fundamental

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Marianne (Noodlemaz) tweeted a very nice picture from the Free Expression rally organized by Maryam in London last February;  it’s of her and Rhys. She gave me permission to post it.

She has a great post on the rally, full of pictures and videos. In the second video there’s Rhys telling about his adventure in censorship-by-being-offended, and there’s Richard Dawkins in the background, cool in shades.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Thomas Nagel explains about Alvin Plantinga and his goddy epistemology.

You know how it goes. Having reliable cognitive faculties as a result of natural selection is not credible, while having them as a result of goddy selection is. (But then explain God. I know, that’s old news, but still – if the first thing isn’t credible, why is God credible? Why is the first any less credible than the second?)

We form our beliefs in various reliable ways – perception, rational intuition, memory. Also one more way.

So far we are in the territory of traditional epistemology; but what about faith? Faith, according to Plantinga, is another basic way of forming beliefs, distinct from but not in competition with

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Yes but. Yes it’s good to point out that “Muslim rage” about the video is actually a tiny fraction of Muslim opinion on the subject, as Avaaz does. But it’s not so good to sort Islamists into the bad radical ones and the “moderates,” as Avaaz also does. Moderate theocracy is still theocracy, and it’s bad.

Like everyone else, many Muslims find the 13 minute Islamophobic video “Innocence of Muslims” trashy and offensive. Protests have spread quickly, tapping into understandable and lasting grievances about neo-colonialist US and western foreign policy in the Middle East, as well as religious sensitivities about depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. But the news coverage often obscures some important points:

1. Early estimates put participation

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

In Pakistan, a government minister offers a reward for committing a murder.

That’s right.

In Pakistan, a government minister offers a reward for committing a murder.

A Pakistani government minister has offered a $100,000 (£61,616) reward for the death of the maker of an anti-Islam film produced in the US.

Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour told reporters that he would pay the reward for the “sacred duty” out of his own pocket.

He suggested the Taliban and al-Qaeda would be eligible for the reward.

His comments came a day after at least 20 people died in clashes between anti-film protesters and police.

“I announce today that this blasphemer who has abused the holy prophet, if somebody will kill him,

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A comment by AJ Milne of Accidental Weblog on “Of course, however”:

My view of mockery of Islam is the same as mockery of Christianity:

That is: it is in everyone’s interest that such mockery be normalized, not discouraged. Whether it’s flippant, silly, rude, juvenile, absurd, insulting, thoughtful, or whatever it might be, people need to get used to the idea that it’s going to be out there if you go looking for it.

And no, I don’t care who does it, how stupid it is, how ugly or stupid anyone thinks it is. Or not much. As in, no, I won’t be writing any asinine fart jokes about anyone’s prophet (tho’ mostly because I can’t make those funny … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)