“She said she wanted to sue some of those involved in the campaign to free her for ‘bringing disgrace on me and the country’.” Terrific.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn [pdf]
Jan 2nd, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJonathan Bennett on Huck, Himmler, and Jonathan Edwards, and the relationship between sympathy on the one hand and bad morality on the other.… Read the rest
What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties
Jan 1st, 2011 6:13 pm | By Ophelia BensonI mentioned in a comment yesterday that the way bishops and theologians pride themselves on not letting compassion or empathy trump their mindless Absolute Rules reminded me of something Hannah Arendt said in Eichmann in Jerusalem –
The Nazis prided themselves on exactly that – to the point that they got maudlin about it. “Nobody knows how difficult it is for us” sort of thing. Seriously. They did a lot of quiet boasting about their ability to rise above their sympathies.
I found the passage I was thinking of – pp 105-6 in the Penguin edition.
… Read the restThe troops of the Einsatzgruppen had been drafted from the Armed S.S., a military unit with hardly more crimes in its record than any
David Foster Wallace and Wittgenstein
Jan 1st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThough it represented a clean break from philosophy, fiction offered something comparable to the feeling of aesthetic recognition in mathematical logic.… Read the rest
Pants on fire
Jan 1st, 2011 11:58 am | By Ophelia BensonThis is an old item (December 2) but it’s only now been drawn to my attention, and I want to say about it because it’s so remarkably and revealingly malicious and inaccurate. You won’t be surprised to learn that it comes from someone who presents himself as of The Party of Nice. It is Mark Vernon, smearing Richard Dawkins, in a post ostensibly about Christmas frenzy.
… Read the rest(It seemed appropriate that the Guardian should launch it’s [sic] Advent calendar with a piece from that now most hysterical of writers, Richard Dawkins. Ostensibly it celebrated the moral courage of Christopher Hitchens, which I don’t doubt is worth admiring, only 50% of the piece was against the Pope, and 25% of the
Hungover? Try a detox retreat
Jan 1st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTuscan retreat’s therapeutic wellness programme includes detoxifying powder to cleanse the body and painful toxin-eliminating Marma massage.… Read the rest
Thailand: woo goes modern
Jan 1st, 2011 | Filed by Ophelia Benson“Spirit houses” are now being built with modern construction materials like ceramics, glass and granite panels.… Read the rest
Ten years ago, and last week
Dec 31st, 2010 5:27 pm | By Ophelia BensonI was browsing through Katha Pollitt’s Subject to Debate this morning and read a great piece from September 2000, Freedom From Religion, ¡Si!
…that’s the official American civic religion at the opening of the twenty-first century: What religion you have may be your own business–rather literally so, in the case of Scientology–but it’s society’s business that you have one. Modernity may have eroded some of the distinctions between previously antagonistic belief systems–Quick! Explain the difference between Presbyterianism and Methodism!–as is suggested by the increasing replacement of the word “religion,” with its connotations of dogma and in-groupness, by the warm, fuzzy propaganda term “faith.”
See? I’m not the only one who has noticed the replacement and thinks it’s a plot of … Read the rest
Katha Pollitt: Freedom From Religion, ¡Si!
Dec 31st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBecause the most energetic religions tend to be the ones most invested in keeping women subordinate, women in particular have nothing to gain from the burgeoning involvement of religion in the public sphere.… Read the rest
No one is permitted to ask
Dec 31st, 2010 1:10 pm | By Ophelia BensonEric has an excellent post on Catholic casuistry, compassion, and authority today. It’s a bit like Google Earth, examining this subject – we get closer and closer and closer. The closer we get, the more ridiculous Karen Armstrong’s claim that compassion is central becomes. Compassion is not only not central, it’s nowhere. Compassion is beside the point altogether.
Ronald Conte, as I pointed out yesterday, simply says what the rules are, over and over again, and quotes popes also saying what the rules are. He quotes JP2 saying what they are:
… Read the restTherefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, and in communion with the Bishops of the Catholic Church, I confirm that the direct and voluntary
Pakistan: mullahs on strike against “blasphemy” reform
Dec 31st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonUnder Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of “insulting Islam” faces the death penalty.… Read the rest
Israel: some question benefits for Torah study
Dec 31st, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMore than 60% of haredi men don’t work, ditto more than 50% of haredi women. Other Israelis are getting restive.… Read the rest
A dab more theology
Dec 30th, 2010 6:01 pm | By Ophelia BensonI’m reading Ronald Conte’s laying down of the law more calmly and thoroughly, and along with the vicious brutality of it, another thing that strikes me is the plain stupidity. It doesn’t jump out at you at first, partly because the vicious brutality takes up most of your attention, but also because the sober language obscures it; but after awhile it becomes more salient. It is just stupid. There’s nothing to it but repetition and insistence. He says the same thing over and over, interpersed with popes saying it. It’s just a long long string of stupid assertions – which if heeded of course can ruin people’s lives.
This is the bit I was reading when the stupidity started to … Read the rest
There was an arrogance, an independent and defiant air
Dec 30th, 2010 12:18 pm | By Ophelia BensonManiacal Catholics are still explaining that the bishop was right. Gerard Nadal even explains that the bishop was right to “push back against a culture of death.” By insisting that a woman should have been allowed to die along with her fetus, the bishop was pushing back against a culture of death. How does that work?
Nadal explains the “principle of double effect” to our wondering eyes.
… Read the restIn essence the principle states that a lifesaving procedure that cannot be delayed, such as the removal of a cancerous uterus before the baby can be taken in a Cesarean section at viability (~25 weeks gestation), is permissible so long as the death of the baby is the indirect and unintended effect…
Such
Remembering Denis Dutton
Dec 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe lesson on display every day at ALD is that one can be precise and brisk, and nuanced and weird, at the same time.… Read the rest
Women are trafficked into marriage in India
Dec 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonShafiqur Rahman Khan is a gender rights activist and columnist; his organization helps rescue trafficked women.… Read the rest
Dickens’s Xmas Carol is his protest against Xmas
Dec 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonEric MacDonald does a close reading.… Read the rest
Apathy about human rights is deadly
Dec 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonLauryn Oates points out that tyrannies are just as lethal and sorrowful as earthquakes and tornadoes.… Read the rest
Ashtiani’s fate is still unclear
Dec 30th, 2010 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHer lawyer has been forced out of the country.… Read the rest
Godless women
Dec 29th, 2010 5:20 pm | By Ophelia BensonJen McCreight has a second Most Influential Female Atheist contest, and I’m nominated again, which is my reward for being notoriously obnoxious, which I would be even without a reward, but rewards make it even more fun.
But other sweller more influential people are also nominated, and you get three votes, so vote. Allow me to put in a plug for Maryam Namazie, who rocks. They all rock, but allow me to put in a plug for Maryam anyway.… Read the rest