Boys are to remain “steadfast in their conviction” while girls are to guard against “anything that would rob them of purity.”… Read the rest
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An inspiration
Oct 7th, 2011 12:01 pm | By Ophelia BensonVia Libby Anne -
Couple pleads not guilty in homicide of adopted daughter
… Read the restAccording to court documents, the couple’s adopted daughter, Hana Williams, 13, was systematically starved, beaten, forced to use an outdoor toilet and
sometimes locked in a dark closet for days by the Williams.Hana Williams was found dead in May – naked, face-down in the mud in her own backyard – after she had spent much of a cold, rainy day outside as a punishment, according to court documents.
Although she died of hypothermia, there were other contributing causes to her death, including severe malnutrition and chronic gastritis, doctors said.
The Williams had adopted Hana from Ethiopia in 2008 as a diseased little girl to begin a
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Adopted child, 8, dies of exposure and malnutrition 
Oct 7th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A witness told investigators that the Williams got their ideas for the disciplinary measures from a book, “How to Train Up Your Child,” by Michael Pearl.… Read the rest
We demonstrate a noble submission to authority
Oct 7th, 2011 11:30 am | By Ophelia BensonHere’s a fun new thing to explore: True Woman.
It haz a manifesto.
… Read the restWe believe that the creation of humanity as male and female was a purposeful and magnificent part of God’s wise plan, and that men and women were designed to reflect the image of God in complementary and distinct ways.
…
We realize that we live in a culture that does not recognize God’s right to rule, does not accept Scripture as the pattern for life, and is experiencing the consequences of abandoning God’s design for men and women.
…
Scripture is God’s authoritative means of instructing us in His ways and it reveals His holy pattern for our womanhood, our character, our priorities, and our
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Bishops running wild
Oct 6th, 2011 5:34 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe Iona Institute tells us that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has set up a Committee for Religious Liberty. That’s very funny, in a sick kind of way. Here’s why: Catholic bishops don’t really give two shits about religious liberty as such; they care only about religious liberty for them.
The Catholic church is not a Millian kind of organization. It’s not a liberal organization. It’s not dedicated to or interested in liberty. It’s a ferociously authoritarian hierarchical organization with a body of “teachings” that it does its best to impose on as many people as it can reach.
The Catholic church has nothing to do with ideas about liberty and freedom, autonomy and independence, self-fashioning and … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
The Iona Institute’s stealth patriarchy
Oct 6th, 2011 11:18 am | By Ophelia BensonIt finds “experts” to say policies that benefit working women are “unfair” to “women who want to stay home with their children.”
Keynote speaker Dr Catherine Hakim of the London School of Economics told the audience that social policies which assume all women want to work are unfair and act against the actual wishes of most women.
What about social policies that assume all men want to work? Is it only women who should benefit from social policies which assume some women don’t want to work? How about social policies that assume no one wants to work? Wouldn’t that be the fairest thing?
… Read the restSwedish social policy expert Jonas Himmelstrand told the audience that Sweden’s experiment with daycare had failed. Swedish
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Not to defend the Catholic Church but to smear the New atheists
Oct 6th, 2011 10:44 am | By Ophelia BensonAs long as we’re on the subject of Brendan O’Neill…let’s stay on it a little longer. I neglected him last year when he was making contorted attacks on critics of the pope and the Vatican. Allow me to make amends now.
He made a heavy-breathing correction to claims of how many priestly rapes there had been, then he explained why he did that.
… Read the restWhy point out these basic facts? Not to defend the Catholic Church, which clearly has a sexual abuse problem, or to minimise the suffering of those individuals who ”only” suffered being verbally abused, shown dirty photos or fondled over their clothing by priests – all of those acts are abhorrent and potentially punishable by law.
No,
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Can al-Shabab retake Mogadishu?
Oct 6th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Probably not, but it can keep on killing people.… Read the rest
Religious freedom in Turkey
Oct 6th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“Turkey may look like a secular state on paper, but in terms of international law it is actually a Sunni Islamic state,” a leader of the country’s Alevi minority charged.… Read the rest
“Secularism” in Turkey
Oct 6th, 2011 8:55 am | By Ophelia BensonBurak Bekdil explains why Turkish secularism isn’t.
A majority of Turks, Sunni Muslims, overtly or covertly believe that they should be “more equal” than the others because they constitute the majority. They think that it is their natural right to enjoy preferential treatment in terms of governance and law enforcement. Remember how the crowds in Istanbul last year, trying to attack the Israeli consulate, shouted at the police who were trying to prevent bloodshed? “Leave the Jews to us! What kind of Muslims are you?” A simple search will produce thousands of examples of this nature unveiling the conscious or subconscious desire of the Sunni Turk for preferential treatment in public administration.
It’s not unlike the US that way. … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Democracy and secularism in Turkey
Oct 6th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A majority of Turks, Sunni Muslims, overtly or covertly believe that they should be “more equal” than the others because they constitute the majority.… Read the rest
Sigmund on an unholy alliance
Oct 6th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Between “the Iona Institute” and Brendan O’Neill of Spiked. Reactionary Catholicism pairs up with reactive ex-Trotskyist libertarian posturing.… Read the rest
Turkish cartoonist to be put on trial for teasing ‘God’
Oct 6th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Istanbul chief public prosecutor charged cartoonist Bahadir Baruter with “insulting the religious values adopted by a part of the population.”… Read the rest
New atheists think people are just monkeys so nyah
Oct 5th, 2011 5:41 pm | By Ophelia BensonFrequent commenter Sigmund alerted me to another entity crying out for scrutiny and derision: the Iona Institute, an Irish “institute” (can any old thing call itself an institute? The Faraday Institute, the Tobacco Institute, the Iona Institute – are there any gates, any gatekeepers? is it just anarchy around here?) dedicated to saying how great the Catholic church is.
The amusing thing (amusing in a rebarbative kind of way) is that the Iona Institute invited dear auld Brendan O’Neill to give a talk, and he obliged. From Trotskyist splinter group to libertarian “contrarian” faitheist pope-cheering what-the-hell-is-that – that’s Spiked and its editor Brendan O’Neill. So the Trotskyist libertarian pope-fan told the Iona Institute…you’ll never guess what. … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Divination, not research
Oct 5th, 2011 12:23 pm | By Ophelia BensonFrederick Crews has a fascinating pair of articles in the New York Review of Books on Freud’s cocaine addiction and its connection to his work.
… Read the restAccording to the official version of Freud’s career, sexuality scarcely entered his mind as a topic of interest until, to his shock and embarrassment, it was forced upon him by his patients’ indecent confessions. His early psychological papers and his letters to Wilhelm Fliess, however, show just the opposite: it was a sex-obsessed Freud who tried to harangue those patients into admitting that they harbored the perverse desires and guilty secrets that were already on his mind. But when and why had sexual issues become paramount for him? His surviving letters from adolescence are
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Far from being in thrall?
Oct 5th, 2011 11:05 am | By Ophelia BensonIs secularism really winning in the US?
The US is increasingly portrayed as a hotbed of religious fervour. Yet in the homeland of ostentatiously religious politicians such as Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, agnostics and atheists are actually part of one of the fastest-growing demographics in the US: the godless. Far from being in thrall to its religious leaders, the US is in fact becoming a more secular country, some experts say. “It has never been better to be a free-thinker or an agnostic in America,” says Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the FFRF.
Well, it depends on what you mean by “in thrall” and “fast becoming” and the like. It also depends on what you mean by ”a … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Rising atheism in US puts religious right on the defensive
Oct 5th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Most experts agree that the number of secular Americans has probably doubled in the past three decades.… Read the rest
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws: even judges fear for their lives
Oct 5th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The mixing of religion and politics has long troubled Pakistan, but over the past 30 years that dangerous cocktail has been spiked by the army’s policy of nurturing extremists.… Read the rest
Meeting in Oslo
Oct 4th, 2011 5:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonNarendra Nayak has an article in Nirmukta about his experiences at the Humanist Congress in Oslo – which included getting - to his great surprise – an award for distinguished service to humanism, and getting his picture taken with one of Freethought Blogs’ overlords (who also got such an award, also to his surprise).
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
