Every now and then people spot a search term in their stats that is too funny (and puzzling) not to share.
At last I have one.
soxs with sandles over them for dogs
All the odder because I don’t know any dogs who wear soxs, or sandles either…let alone both at once.… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Science an act of faith? Science a belief system? But then how else to explain the grip of the mechanistic, physicalist, purposeless cosmology?… Read the rest
Symbiosis University cancelled screening of documentary on Kashmir after Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad raised objections to its ‘separatist’ nature.… Read the rest
A week ago a Canadian woman, Sheila Nabb, was found beaten and unconscious in a pool of blood in an elevator at a resort hotel in Mazatlan. Every bone in her face was broken.
According to Mexican police, the suspect has confessed. Making him repeat the confession at a press conference is horrendous legal procedure, but his account of what happened is…interesting.
… Read the restPrior to the assault, Quintero said he had been drinking with a Canadian friend and “doing a line of cocaine.” He told reporters that he got into the elevator with the intention of riding to the top floor and gazing down at the lights of the resort city.
He says he encountered Nabb, who he said wasn’t
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Hmm, I don’t know. It’s very sweet of Alain de Botton, but I don’t know. A temple to atheism…
The philosopher and writer Alain de Botton is proposing to build a 46-metre (151ft) tower to celebrate a “new atheism” as an antidote to what he describes as Professor Richard Dawkins’s “aggressive” and “destructive” approach to non-belief.
One, De Botton is not a philosopher. (He writes poppy books that mention philosophers here and there. That doesn’t make him a philosopher.) Two, as we all know to the point of mind-numbing tedium, Dawkins’s approach is not destructive (destructive of what? what’s he destroyed?) and it’s usually not all that aggressive. Forthright, yes; sometimes acerbic, yes; but aggressive, no, not really.
So … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The New York Times reports on the bullying of Jessica Ahlquist…sort of.
… Read the restA federal judge ruled this month that the prayer’s presence at Cranston High School West was unconstitutional, concluding that it violated the principle of government neutrality in religion. In the weeks since, residents have crowded school board meetings to demand an appeal, Jessica has received online threats and the police have escorted her at school, and Cranston, a dense city of 80,000 just south of Providence, has throbbed with raw emotion.
State Representative Peter G. Palumbo, a Democrat from Cranston, called Jessica “an evil little thing” on a popular talk radio show. Three separate florists refused to deliver her roses sent from a national atheist group. The
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
William Dalrymple tells us what last Tuesday afternoon in Jaipur was like.
… Read the restIt was the last afternoon of the Jaipur Literature Festival, of which I am co-director, and more than 10,000 people were milling around the grounds of Diggi Palace, the festival venue, eagerly waiting to hear Salman Rushdie speak by video link from London. For three weeks we had waited anxiously for this moment, ever since Maulana Abdul Qasim Nomani of the Deoband madrasa had called for the Indian Muslim community to oppose Rushdie’s visit to our festival…
Then at about one o’clock a large number of Muslim activists appeared in the property and gravitated to the back of the lawns where a huge crowd had gathered
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
New York Times asks, bullyingly, “Does she empathize in any way with members of her community who want the prayer to stay?”… Read the rest
Someone commenting on Scofield’s Tikkun post endorses the claim that “new atheists” are totes privileged.
The literature, social spaces, and most widely recognized voices of atheism are predominantly populated by Western, white, male, heterosexual, cis, middle class (and above) people…[T]he lopsided demography of our communities tends to draw upon otherwise privileged life experiences, and as you have illustrated, this privilege inadvertently shines through in our literature and our actions.
True up to a point, but there’s another way to view that, which Scofield seems to be not just overlooking, but perhaps self-disabled from even recognizing.
Many of those “voices of atheism” are privileged, but what is the most conspicuous kind of privilege they have? It’s actually not anything mentioned … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
To celebrate a “new atheism” as an antidote to what he describes as Professor Richard Dawkins’s “aggressive” and “destructive” approach to non-belief.… Read the rest
“Then they sought out our producer, Sanjoy Roy, and told him that they were prepared to use any amount of violence in order to stop Rushdie’s voice being heard.”… Read the rest
James O’Malley talks to Chris Moos of LSE ASH.… Read the rest
Maybe they won’t be so bad, people say nervously. Maybe they’ll be only a little bit bad. We hope so.… Read the rest
Kentucky Governor is suggesting over $50 million in cuts to education – while preserving $43 million in tax breaks for Answers in Genesis Ark Encounter theme park.… Read the rest
Primrose Hill is lovely.
But for some strange reason, it’s going to have a replica of Rio de Janeiro’s Jesus statue stuck on it to celebrate the end of the Olympics.
Blasphemy.… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Something to do with the Olympics and Rio de Janeiro, but the people of North London are not delighted.… Read the rest
Breaking news – the LSE Student Union vote is in: 339 for, 179 against, 24 undecided.
As one of the ASH people said, they went up against a Union whose sole consistent voting bloc consisted of the far left and Islamic societies. It’s impressive that they got 179 votes against.
I would just add: it’s strange that it’s the “far left” that votes this way, because there is nothing far left about Islamism. It’s as if the far left were voting for fascism…rather as the Stalinist “left” did at the time of the Nazi-Soviet pact.… Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
…police from protecting victims of domestic violence. That’s family values.… Read the rest
Be Scofield tweeted me about a new article of his at Tikkun, apparently hoping I would dislike it enough to give it publicity by saying why I dislike it. Ok, sure, why not. I do dislike it. Why do I dislike it? Well because it quite unbashfully calls “the New Atheists” racist.
It also claims that “New Atheists” see everything from a privileged point of view.
… Read the restRacism In the New Atheist Movement
When Greta Christina says that religious people should be actively converted to atheism or Dawkins likens religion to a virus that infects the mind they are effectively saying “we know what’s best for you.” This is the crux of the problem with the New Atheists. They’ve identified
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
