Ukpabio sued Igwe, Foxcroft and others, saying state law against accusing children of witchcraft infringes on her religious freedom.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
NY Times profiles Helen Ukpabio 
May 29th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Nigerian Pentecostal minister at the centre of the child-witchcraft hysteria in Akwa Ibom State.… Read the rest
A shabby pretext
May 29th, 2010 11:23 am | By Ophelia BensonInayat Bunglawala is pondering (in a rather inconclusive and unproductive way, which I suppose in his case is probably just as well) the tensions between religious freedom and other kinds of freedom, religious rights and other kinds of rights. One thing he mentions needs more second-guessing than it usually gets.
… Read the restProfessor Roger Trigg kicked off last night’s discussion by pointing out that Article 9 of the European convention on human rights guarantees that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to … manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.” However, Professor Trigg argued that, in reality, a number of recent cases showed that this religious freedom was being
Zimbabwe: gay activists released after alleged torture
May 29th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
They had a letter in their office from former San Francisco mayor criticising Mugabe’s opposition to homosexuality. … Read the rest
Malawi: Ban Ki-moon urges change to laws
May 29th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
38 out of 53 African countries criminalise consensual gay sex; in some it’s a capital crime.… Read the rest
Malawi pardons jailed gay couple
May 29th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Their lawyers say the two men are likely to be freed by Monday.… Read the rest
Archbish of Cant tries to stamp out dissent
May 29th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Dissent continues to ignore archbish.… Read the rest
Violence in Latin America’s cities
May 28th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Fear of street harassment prevents women from freely moving around and hinders their studies, work or recreation.… Read the rest
An exciting breakthrough
May 28th, 2010 3:51 pm | By Ophelia BensonOkay this is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in awhile. On Facebook at least. Salman Rushdie learned from a Facebook friend how to find various “interesting characters” to “add to one’s ✍ writing.” So now he gets to spark up his famously dull prose with little pointing hands ☛, umbrellas ☂, telephones, and other tiny symbols. One wag remarked
oooh! can’t wait for
☀☃✗✈✖☺☆by Salman Rushdie – Published by Random House
Hahahahahahaha.… Read the rest
Aceh: Islamic cops forcing women to wear long skirts
May 28th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
No jeans allowed; women wearing jeans are arrested, forced to put on long skirt and forfeit their jeans.… Read the rest
In philosophy ‘certainty’ has a specific meaning
May 28th, 2010 12:17 pm | By Ophelia BensonJim at Apple Eaters sees Pessin’s ‘paradox’ the way I do.
… Read the restMan, there is so much sloppiness here that I want to bite something. First, in philosophy “certainty” has a specific meaning, and it means that there is no doubt. If that’s not what Pessin has in mind, he should define the term. The point there is that, even if I recognize that I am fallible and capable of mistakes, I likely am not certain that I have made some mistake in my reasoning. Were that the case, I would be going over that reasoning carefully to find the error. Rather, I just see that it is possible that I made a mistake, but that is nothing like having
Kristof on the excommunicated nun
May 28th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Priests who rape children are not excommunicated, but a nun who assents to an abortion to save the woman’s life is.… Read the rest
House votes to allow repeal of ‘don’t ask don’t tell’
May 28th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The provision would allow military commanders to repeal the ban. … Read the rest
Apple Eaters on Pessin on certainty
May 28th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘In philosophy “certainty” has a specific meaning, and it means that there is no doubt.’… Read the rest
Rust Belt Philos on life-saving abortion and ‘trust’
May 28th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Funny how it’s only in the case of abortion that we have to trust that God has a plan.… Read the rest
C and not-C
May 27th, 2010 5:45 pm | By Ophelia BensonAnd then there is this fella Andrew Pessin, who says you can be certain and also uncertain and that way all shall win, all shall have prizes. You do it using the Paradox of the Preface.
… Read the restImagine an author writing something like this as a preface to her work:
I am certain, of each and every sentence in this work, that it is true, on the basis of various considerations including the careful arguments and use of evidence which led me to it. And yet I recognize that I am a fallible human being, likely to have made some error(s) in the course of this long work. Thus I am also quite certain that I have made some such error
The usual stupid way of time and the masses
May 27th, 2010 5:11 pm | By Ophelia BensonAnd while I’m at it, allow me to pause over Grayling’s comment, too.
An equally bad thing about the Dalai Lama’s article is that he calls Buddhism a religion‚ and indeed in the superstitious demon-ridden polytheistic Tibetan version of it that he leads, that is what it is. But original Buddhism is a philosophy, without gods or supernatural beings—all such explicitly rejected by Siddhartha Gautama in offering a quietist ethical teaching; but he has of course been subjected to the Brian’s Sandal phenomenon in the usual stupid way of time and the masses.
Sad, isn’t it. Time and the masses can’t leave a very good and interesting ethical teaching alone, no, they have to stuff superstition and demons into … Read the rest
Secrets of the Dalai Lama
May 27th, 2010 4:57 pm | By Ophelia BensonHere’s a useful item lifted from a comment on Jerry Coyne’s post on Anthony Grayling on the Dalai Lama. The comment is by Michael Kingsford Gray, who has been making sweeping and wrong generalizations about philosophers at Jerry’s, but all due credit to him for the useful item:
1) Who told a press conference in 1997 that men to men sex and woman to woman sex is sexual misconduct?
The Pope, or the Dalai Lama?
2) Who told a Swiss magazine in 2001, that sexual organs were created for the reproduction of the male element and the female element, and anything that deviates from this is not acceptable?
The Pope, or the Dalai Lama?
3) An anti-abortion lobby group … Read the rest
Nigel Warburton on Mohammed and the fundamentalists
May 27th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The scale of the internet censorship imposed in Pakistan is startling, and not just to “free speech fundamentalists.”… Read the rest
Jerry Coyne on whether depression is adaptive
May 27th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Depression does not meet the minimal requirements for qualifying as a biological adaptation.… Read the rest
