It’s not clear what good work Mortenson has done, with schools that don’t exist, schools built by other people, empty schools, and schools that are cabbage sheds.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Three Cups of Deceit [pdf]
Apr 19th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“It turns out that Mortenson’s books and public statements are permeated with
falsehoods.”… Read the rest
Shut up so that you won’t have to shut up
Apr 18th, 2011 11:42 am | By Ophelia BensonAnother thing about Ruse’s claim.
Most of all I detest the New Atheism because I think it is playing into the hands of the Religious Right.
But if you decide it’s Forbidden to say certain things lest you “play into the hands of the Religious Right” then you are already playing into the hands of the Religious Right. If you give up the right to free speech as a precaution against theocracy then you are already in a theocracy. It doesn’t make sense to give up secular rights in order to hang on to secular rights.
I don’t want the religious Right deciding what I can say. I don’t want to defer to their sensitivities or their unreasonable beliefs. … Read the rest
70 days in prison for burning a Koran
Apr 18th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt was a library book.… Read the rest
My conversation with Johan Signert
Apr 18th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAbout theocratic misogyny, “compassion” and religion, gnu atheism and the backlash.… Read the rest
Catholics join “smash the offensive” brigade
Apr 18th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThugs shredded Serrano’s “Piss Christ.” Gallery is leaving the destroyed work on show “so people can see what barbarians can do.”… Read the rest
Wendy Grossman on the flowering of atheism
Apr 18th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAs an ideology, strong atheism tends to emerge under the threat of theocracy.… Read the rest
“What can science say about atheism?”
Apr 18th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“Atheism clearly isn’t natural.” Wha?… Read the rest
Katha Pollitt on anti-abortion movement v. women
Apr 18th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMany of the 370-plus anti-abortion bills now wending their way through state legislatures are simply about creating misery, anxiety and fear.… Read the rest
Another sober reasoned argument
Apr 17th, 2011 5:33 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh no he didn’t, did he? Seriously? Again?
Yes, he did. I know it’s hard to believe, but he did. Yet again, the same thing – the self-obsession, the artless confiding of boring trivial details about his precious Self, the pompous kvetching, the wondering why he can’t stop, the repetition, the childish sneering, the bad reasons.
By now you know who “he” is – Michael Ruse, of course. Michael Ruse pitching yet another absurd embarrassing fit about the dreaded nooo atheists and their failure to do what he tells them.
He’s desperate for attention, so I shouldn’t give it to him, but on the other hand, he’s also publicly self-destructing, so if he gets more attention who knows, maybe a … Read the rest
Books like yours balkanize the world
Apr 17th, 2011 11:01 am | By Ophelia BensonRobert Winston says the Templeton Prize is just fine, no problem, what’s the big deal, relax, take a chill pill, don’t get your knickers in a twist, why do you have such an attitude. Sam Harris says religious language is unscientific in its claims for what is true. Winston says there’s no such thing as “the truth.” Harris says we can still recognise falsehood. Winston says
I suppose I really wonder why you’re so angry.
Whut?
Yes really; he says that. Maybe not that abruptly and inconsequentially – that may be editing – but those are the words. Harris attempts to laugh off this sudden rudeness, but Winston isn’t having it. “You write angrily, too,” he says. Furthermore,
… Read the restbooks
Simon Blackburn on morality without God
Apr 17th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“Aristotle himself thought that ethics concerned wellbeing. But he appreciated, as Harris does not, the twists and turns involved in that simple sounding idea.”… Read the rest
No option when Allah and his Messenger have decreed a matter
Apr 17th, 2011 10:02 am | By Ophelia BensonAndrew Gilligan tells us that the Muslim Council of Britain says…well actually I’m not sure what he tells us it says, and I can’t find the statement itself so that I can say what it says as opposed to what Gilligan says. Frankly he could have done a better job with this – he should have included a link and he should have put the crucial bit inside quotation marks so that we would know who said what. As it is it isn’t clear. The words “women,” “niqab,” and “veil” are not inside quotation marks, so I’m left wondering exactly what the MCB said.
Here’s Gilligan’s unhelpful summary:
… Read the restThe Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said that not covering the face
MCB considers face-veil mandatory
Apr 17th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCites the Koran: “It is not for a believer, man or woman, that they should have any option in their decision when Allah and his Messenger have decreed a matter.”… Read the rest
Coyne on Blackford on New Atheism
Apr 17th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhat explains the unusual vitriol heaped upon the Gnus by certain non-gnu atheists?… Read the rest
Grayling on a secular Good Book
Apr 17th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“We have to take the Socratic challenge to lead the examined life. You must transcend the teachings and the teachers. Don’t be a disciple.”… Read the rest
Nick Cohen on Cameron and PR and the NHS
Apr 17th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCameron’s “political guru” wrote a book on how corporations could fight anti-capitalist protesters by emphasising the benefits they delivered…… Read the rest
The morality of the gaps
Apr 16th, 2011 12:53 pm | By Ophelia BensonKenan Malik is not bowled over by Sam Harris on morality.
Harris is nothing if not self-confident. There is a voluminous philosophical literature that stretches back almost to the origins of the discipline on the relationship between facts and values. Harris chooses to ignore most of it…It is one thing to want to “start a conversation that a wider audience can engage with and can find helpful”, something that many of us, including many of those boring moral philosophers, seek to do. It is quite another to imagine that you can engage in any kind of conversation, with any kind of audience, by wilfully ignoring the relevant scholarship because it is “boring”.
I share that view. (I agree with Polly-O!) … Read the rest
Grayling interviewed
Apr 16th, 2011 11:36 am | By Ophelia BensonMatthew Adams interviewed Anthony Grayling for the New Humanist. He met the same fella I met.
The couple of hours I spend with him reveal a warm and generous character, capable of being both expansive and associative, while retaining a sense of measure, order and precision.
With an additional element I didn’t meet.
That order, however, is not much in evidence in his office. It is a catastrophe of books and papers, though in common with people who inhabit catastrophes of books and papers, he is keen to point out that he knows where everything is.
Ah yes that catastrophe of books and papers; I inhabit that too, but I don’t point out that I know where everything is, … Read the rest
New Humanist talks to Anthony Grayling
Apr 16th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHis disdain for the notion of submission before a deity is put with characteristic force.… Read the rest