And why David Koch funded it: because it gives the impression that human-caused climate change is no big deal, we’ll just “adapt.”… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Kitcher and Dennett on new atheism 
Oct 7th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The orientation model and the belief model, and whether the first makes the second worth keeping.… Read the rest
Russell Blackford on good and bad dissent
Oct 7th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A nuanced explanation and advocacy of how to do nuanced explanation and advocacy.… Read the rest
USA Today’s “Faith and Reason” asks questions
Oct 6th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“Do you think a baby conceived in test tube is still a child in the eyes of God?” Gee, I don’t know. Maybe they’re all zombies and we should kill them.… Read the rest
Hey, atheists all have something wrong with them
Oct 6th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Agnostic has a think, concludes that “most of the new wave of atheists who offer screeds against faith” are ideologues. Exciting!… Read the rest
The true nature of Steiner education
Oct 6th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The role of the Steiner kindergarten teacher is to facilitate the ‘incarnation’ of the spirits and souls of children into their physical bodies…… Read the rest
Bonjour, canard
Oct 6th, 2010 11:04 am | By Ophelia BensonIt’s kind of the friendly people at the “Battle of Ideas” (some of whom are also the people at the Institute of Ideas, some of whom are also the people at Spiked, some of whom are also the people who used to be Living Marxism and the Revolutionary Communist Party) to offer up a neat example of the backlash against gnu atheism just when the New Humanist posts online the article I wrote for the next issue, on that very subject. Caspar Melville invited me to write it in reply to his article on the new atheism at Comment is Free. Honorable!
As for David Bowden of the Battle of Ideas…well, he’s all too typical of that … Read the rest
Greg Mayer on The Hall of Human Origins
Oct 6th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Many excellent displays but also lost opportunities.… Read the rest
Philippa Foot 1920-2010
Oct 6th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
TPM republishes an interview with Foot from 2003.… Read the rest
My reply to Caspar Melville on “new atheism”
Oct 6th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
In general it’s a good thing to be sceptical of one’s own commitments as well as other people’s. But…… Read the rest
Another pre-emptive self-censorship
Oct 5th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A cartoon that does not show Mohammed. Some newspapers turned pale and said no no no no we can’t run that.… Read the rest
Sam Harris on the Daily Show
Oct 5th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Harris says moral realism is suspect. Perhaps not suspect but complex, says Stewart. Quite.… Read the rest
Appropriate decorum
Oct 5th, 2010 12:11 pm | By Ophelia BensonA guy called Erich Vieth did a useful interview with Paul Kurtz the other day. There are some odd things in it, which could shed some oblique light on the PK-CFI quarrel.
PK says he left voluntarily but under great duress, which is useful to know. I don’t think I’ve seen that before. Then they talk about why no explanation of his resignation appeared in Free Inquiry, and he said it was because it was censored. Vieth said isn’t that at odds with free inquiry?
… Read the restPK: It is similar to thought police. Alas! They refused to publish three of my editorials, and they refused to publish my statement regarding my resignation. What a contradiction. Even though I am the founder
Jesus and Mo on the Vatican on condoms and IVF
Oct 5th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Catholic church is against both because…?… Read the rest
Erich Vieth interviews Paul Kurtz
Oct 5th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“They refused to publish my statement regarding my resignation…I consider this as similar to a Board of Bishops seeking to control its Founder.”… Read the rest
Institute for Ideas throws more crap at secularism
Oct 5th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“Militant secularists call for the Pope to be refused entry to the country on the grounds he offends victims of child abuse, sexism and homophobia.”… Read the rest
Keith Olbermann and Steven Pinker talk evolution
Oct 5th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
What difference does it make to education? If you sow confusion about evolution, you sow confusion about biology.… Read the rest
World Day against the Death Penalty
Oct 4th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Save Ashtiani campaign invites everyone to endorse a resolution against capital punishment.… Read the rest
Don’t I feel special
Oct 4th, 2010 5:37 pm | By Ophelia BensonI skimmed The Observer’s profile of Karen Armstrong yesterday, but I must have done a sloppy job of it, because I failed to notice something that if I’d really been properly skimming, would have jumped out at me. I never would have known about it if Nicholas Lawrence hadn’t told me.
But like Kissinger, Armstrong has enemies. Many devout Catholics quietly accuse her of treachery, while professional theologians despise her for emphasising the opposition between rationality and faith. Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom have accused her of being a religious apologist who covers up inconvenient texts to bolster the idea there is no conflict between modern morality and religion in matters, for instance, of gender and sexuality.
Well now I … Read the rest
Vatican honcho pitches fit about Nobel for Edwards
Oct 4th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
All those abandoned or dead embryos are his fault, said the head of the “Pontifical Academy for Life.”… Read the rest
