Universities can still have some funding, provided they do research on David Cameron’s hot new idea.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
For women in Afghanistan life is crap
Mar 27th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIt is estimated that 70-80% of marriages are forced. The literacy rate of Afghan girls of 15 or more is just 12%. Violence and abuse are widespread.… Read the rest
Nick Cohen on the demo
Mar 27th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonConservatives and Liberals will hand over much of what’s left of the public sector to corporations seeking to build private monopolies at public expense.… Read the rest
What did we think of the retreat, honey?
Mar 26th, 2011 4:38 pm | By Ophelia BensonThere’s a churchy thing called a Couples Retreat. It’s at the First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana, where the pastor is Jack Schaap, who is apparently what professionals call a Real Doozy. The church offers a list of What We Believe, in case any confused people try to join in, thinking they’re Wiccans or something. The list of What They Believe would cause a wondering frown to appear on the face of Karen Armstrong, and as for Terry Eagleton, he would probably decide to become a line order cook.
… Read the restWe take instruction from the Bible literally; we believe what it is actually saying, not that it is an allegory or a fable. We take instruction from the
Libyan woman alleges rape by security forces
Mar 26th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSecurity forces moved to subdue the woman. Even a member of the hotel’s kitchen staff drew a knife. “Traitor!” he shouted at her in contempt.… Read the rest
Zimbabwe: churches ban HIV and Aids medication
Mar 26th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThey tell people to take holy water instead; hundreds die.… Read the rest
A spiritual connection via pole dancing
Mar 26th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“This is just another attempt to think through how to live a full Christian life.”… Read the rest
Spain: Catholic medical staff stole babies and sold them
Mar 26th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“Nuns and priests who simply decided that the child would be better off with families they trusted than with the ones to which they had been born.”… Read the rest
Egypt: MB elbowing aside the secularists
Mar 26th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe young, educated secular activists who initially propelled the nonideological revolution are no longer the driving political force.… Read the rest
Notes from Hitchens
Mar 26th, 2011 8:22 am | By Ophelia BensonHitchens on death-bed evangelism.
… Read the rest‘It’s considered acceptable in our culture to approach perfect strangers, as often or not who may be in extremis, and evangelise. I don’t see why that’s considered a normal thing.’ His voice rises in indignation. ‘They’re allowed to roam the wards. They tried it on me.’I know people old and young who’ve been terrified by attentions of this kind.’
He has been thinking of making a short speech along precisely these lines, to the effect that he, Harris and Dawkins may set up a secular equivalent of hospital visitors. ‘We’d go round – “Hope you don’t mind, you said you were Catholic? Only three weeks to live? Well, listen, you don’t have to live them as
A new interview with Hitchens
Mar 26th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘It’s considered acceptable in our culture to approach perfect strangers, as often as not in extremis, and evangelise. I don’t see why that’s considered a normal thing.’… Read the rest
Amnesty International on arrests in Tahrir Square
Mar 26th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAI calls on the Egyptian authorities to investigate allegations of torture, including forced ‘virginity tests’, inflicted by the army on women protesters.… Read the rest
The yukkists
Mar 25th, 2011 3:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonMan, it’s been a busy week for the gnu-hating crowd. There was Michael Ruse, then Jacques Berlinerblau, and now (it grieves me to say) Joseph Hoffmann. All three doing an extended yell of rage at “the new atheists” while seldom actually giving any specifics or quoting anyone or linking to anything, so that a reader could figure out exactly what they’re talking about. They do mention Dawkins and Harris, and Hoffmann quotes from a press release by the Center for Inquiry, but mostly there’s just a great deal of generalization.
Here’s Ruse:
… Read the restI think the New Atheists are a disaster, a danger to the wellbeing of America comparable to the Tea Party. It is not so much
EZ theist ethics
Mar 25th, 2011 12:00 pm | By Ophelia BensonRabbi Adam Jacobs tells the Huffington Post and its readers that atheists can’t say it’s wrong to stone women to death because they are atheists.
In fact, the most sensible and logically consistent outgrowth of the atheist worldview should be permission to get for one’s self whatever one’s heart desires at any moment (assuming that you can get away with it). Why not have that affair? Why not take a few bucks from the Alzheimer victim’s purse — as it can not possibly have any meaning either way. Did not Richard Dawkins teach us that selfishness was built into our very genes?
I wonder if Jacques Berlinerblau will do a thoughtful erudite eloquent piece saying why that is ignorant and … Read the rest
Atheists get their morality from theists so ha
Mar 25th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“The atheistic understanding of morality comes directly or indirectly from what is commonly referred to as the Judeo-Christian ethic.”… Read the rest
OIC states drop “defamation of religion” campaign
Mar 25th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNew resolution “condemns any advocacy of religious hatred that amounts to incitement to hostility or violence.” Non-believers not mentioned.… Read the rest
Pakistan: children play “suicide bombing”
Mar 25th, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTeenagers are the best suicide bombers, because they’re easy to train and to brainwash.… Read the rest
It gets better
Mar 24th, 2011 4:56 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe It Gets Better project is a good thing.
The interview with Dan and Terry on Fresh Air was also good. Terry had an especially horrible time the first two years of high school. He said he couldn’t even walk down the hall in such a way that he didn’t attract bullying. Everything he did – the way he moved, the way he talked, everything – got him bullied. His mother went to the school and asked them to do something about the bullying.
… Read the restTheir response was, ‘There’s nothing that they could do. If he looks that way, if he talks that way, if he walks that way, there’s absolutely nothing they could do to protect me and it was
Whited sepulchre
Mar 24th, 2011 11:04 am | By Ophelia BensonBut hey, then again, why worry about religious privilege and entitlement when the Vatican is busy telling the UN Human Rights Council that people who dispute its vicious homophbia are “attacking” it and interfering with its human rights? Why bother? Why not just give up, since we’re obviously outnumbered?
People who criticise gay sexual relations for religious or moral reasons are increasingly being attacked and vilified for their views, a Vatican diplomat told the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday.
Or to put it another way, gay people are increasingly being attacked and vilified by reactionary religious fanatics who think they should have the power to tell everyone everywhere what to do down to the smallest detail.
… Read the rest“People are
Poor little mites, only 30 places for them
Mar 24th, 2011 10:43 am | By Ophelia BensonBig excitement: another religious state school is opening in Leicester, a Hindu one modeled on another in Harrow (London). Hooray hooray, even though there are people who think Not hooray hooray.
It, like other faith school proposals for “free” schools, has its opponents, those that think the plethora of religious schools being opened under the Gove initiative will destroy community cohesion and increase segregation on racial and religious grounds among pupils.
And that that’s not something the state should be fostering and funding. What’s the other view, exactly? I can never quite figure it out. That it will do those things but those are good things to do? Or that it won’t do those things? Either one seems…feeble.
… Read the restThe