All entries by this author

Hardly a disaster

Mar 21st, 2011 4:38 pm | By

So now poor Michael Ruse has to write a petulant article (for Comment is Free this time? we don’t want to get out of sequence) saying that that horrid new atheist David Barash is mad at him, that he doesn’t care a bit, that he’s a brave contrarian who pisses off campus feminists and other bores who believe in equal rights, that he likes a good dust up, that he was in Arkansas testifying when everyone else was in nursery school, and that new atheists are a danger to the wellbeing of America comparable to the al Qaeda and the Westboro Baptist Church combined. That should take him at least ten minutes.

Barash was gobsmacked by Ruse’s

assertion that

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David Barash on Ruse’s new atheist:Tea Party comparison *

Mar 21st, 2011 | Filed by

The New Atheists do not propose to make the rich richer while withdrawing government assistance from the poor; the Tea Party does.… Read the rest



Germany: legal penalties for forced marriage *

Mar 21st, 2011 | Filed by

Those who force women and girls into marriage can now face up to five years in prison, under a new law passed by the German parliament.… Read the rest



Students suspended for wearing pro-choice stickers *

Mar 21st, 2011 | Filed by

Students at a Catholic high school in Thunder Bay were not suspended for wearing anti-choice stickers.… Read the rest



Forced marriage in Germany *

Mar 21st, 2011 | Filed by

“That’s just the way it is in our world: a family can restore its honor by killing the runaway daughter.”… Read the rest



RAWA on Malalai Joya *

Mar 20th, 2011 | Filed by

In 2012 Jaya was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world and in 2005 at the age of 27 she was elected to Afghanistan’s parliament.… Read the rest



Malalai Joya denied visa to US *

Mar 20th, 2011 | Filed by

Because she is “unemployed and living underground.” What?!?!… Read the rest



Johann Hari on the myth of the panicking disaster victim *

Mar 20th, 2011 | Filed by

The evidence gathered over centuries is overwhelming. The vast majority of people, when a disaster hits, behave in the aftermath as altruists.… Read the rest



You people are so amusing, and a danger to the wellbeing of America

Mar 20th, 2011 12:01 pm | By

What, again? Yes, again. Yes, for the 14 thousandth time, Michael Ruse is telling us how angry with him “the new atheists” are, how right he is in spite of their anger, how wrong and bad and dangerous and immoral they are, how brave he is, and how right and brave and amusing and important he Michael Ruse is.

Oh dear, I am in trouble again with the New Atheists… I am being called all sorts of nasty things…Even I sometimes wonder why I am in such bad odor, apart from the fact that whenever I am confronted with people for whom disagreement is considered not just wrong but morally offensive my first tendency is to laugh and tease.

No … Read the rest



Irish bishops promise more support to abuse victims *

Mar 20th, 2011 | Filed by

Last year the pope wrote a letter.… Read the rest



Secular activists resist ultra-Orthodox takeover *

Mar 20th, 2011 | Filed by

The secular residents say they fear their communities will become overwhelmingly Haredi over the years.… Read the rest



Nick Cohen on Midsomer and class segregation *

Mar 20th, 2011 | Filed by

At the heart of Tory England lies a determination to use state controls they would normally condemn as “socialist” to protect property values.… Read the rest



Michael Ruse on “the new atheists” #6429 *

Mar 20th, 2011 | Filed by

They’re mad at me, which is baffling when I’m so swell; I will continue to carp no matter what they say about me, I’m that brave; they are immoral.… Read the rest



A fun event for Lewisham Islamic Centre *

Mar 19th, 2011 | Filed by

A speaker by video link from Saudi Arabia who says it’s “permissible” to rape female prisoners of war. Pass the popcorn.… Read the rest



Audacity of unbelief

Mar 19th, 2011 2:01 pm | By

I wanted to say a bit more about that passage from Obama’s Audacity of Hope that Rieux quoted yesterday.

And yet for all her professed secularism, my mother was in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I’ve ever known. She had an unswerving instinct for kindness, charity, and love, and spent much of her life acting on that instinct, sometimes to her detriment. Without the help of religious texts or outside authorities, she worked mightily to instill in me the values that many Americans learn in Sunday school: honesty, empathy, discipline, delayed gratification, and hard work. She raged at poverty and injustice.

I wish he had managed to say that without presenting it as somehow at odds … Read the rest



As Irigaray might have said

Mar 19th, 2011 1:02 pm | By

In the mood for some spiritual discipline? Have some Giles Fraser. He’s very kinky.

It’s good to do without stuff. It’s a discipline. Food, sex, hot showers, reality tv, flowers, poetry, music – whatever you like, you should give it up, so as to exercise your giving it up muscle. For those of you who like to ask questions: you should give that up. It’s good for you and it’s a pretty compliment to god.

…one of the things that we learn from earthquakes and tsunamis is precisely that such mastery is an illusion. To use Lacanian language: it is an eruption of the Real against the neat meaningfulness with which we structure our lives. Are religious believers especially

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Giles Fraser on giving up thinking for Lent *

Mar 19th, 2011 | Filed by

Don’t understand why a loving god throws tsunamis at people? Give up asking questions as a Lenten discipline.… Read the rest



Scientology is “a difficult organization to leave” *

Mar 19th, 2011 | Filed by

“Everybody watches everybody. All the bases have a perimeter of some form, and they are locked, wired and under surveillance.”… Read the rest



Can we all get along?

Mar 19th, 2011 11:11 am | By

The Vatican knows how it wants this “bring in the atheists” party to go. It wants it to go well for the Vatican.

“The aim is to help to ensure that the great questions about human existence, especially the spiritual questions, are borne in mind and discussed in our societies, using our common reason,” Cardinal Ravasi said.

See? Like that. It wants atheists to pretend to think that the Vatican uses reason when it discusses the great questions about human existence.

Ideally, Cardinal Ravasi said, the conversations begun by this project should resemble not a “duel” but a “duet,” with believers and non-believers offering complementary ideas and helping each other to refine their views.

See? The non-believers are supposed … Read the rest



Vatican explains rules for engagement with atheists *

Mar 19th, 2011 | Filed by

The conversations should resemble not a “duel” but a “duet,” with believers and non-believers offering complementary ideas and helping each other to refine their views.… Read the rest