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
All entries by this author
Audacity of unbelief
Mar 19th, 2011 2:01 pm | By Ophelia BensonI 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 Ophelia BensonIn 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.
… Read the rest…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
Giles Fraser on giving up thinking for Lent 
Mar 19th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
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 Ophelia Benson
“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 Ophelia BensonThe 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 Ophelia Benson
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
Michael Ruse kicks the “new” atheists some more
Mar 19th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Also says something or other about the problem of evil, and Giberson and Collins, but gnu-kicking is the real game.… Read the rest
Killer argument against “new” atheism
Mar 19th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
How many Democrats have “new” atheists helped elect in the US? None that the reviewer knows of. Answer that, smarty pants!… Read the rest
Atheists should be banned
Mar 18th, 2011 5:44 pm | By Ophelia BensonI accidentally encountered a new (new to me) atheist-hater yesterday. Very unpleasant guy. I was curious so I followed the link to his blog, and found this winsome little essay.
… Read the restLet me make a loud and clear statement that a James Lee or Jared Loughner type would or should understand. A secular humanist seeks to improve human welfare upon our planet while atheism is amoral and only claims to be a lack of belief. Isn’t it clear that these two men lack respect for human life? So they can rightfully call themselves atheists but should be denied entrance into a humanist organization. Yet the above humanist organizations welcome and recruit atheists who may or may not respect human life.
You mean you’re not going to throw me out?
Mar 18th, 2011 5:16 pm | By Ophelia BensonGreg Epstein, the “humanist chaplain” at Harvard, is rather too easily pleased.
Yesterday, the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships unveiled an unprecedented new initiative: The President’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge…for me and perhaps for millions of my fellow nonreligious Americans, there is one particularly historic and controversial aspect of the challenge that cannot be ignored. As with his other main speeches on interfaith cooperation, President Obama has gone out of his way to make clear that this initiative must be fully open to and inclusive [of] atheists, and agnostics, and Humanists.
Well, just for one thing, it can’t be. An Interfaith Challenge offered by an Interfaith Office can’t be fully open to and … Read the rest
The Invisibility of Misogyny
Mar 18th, 2011 | By Phil MoléIn the summer of 2010, Mel Gibson’s phone rant to his ex-partner Oksana Grigorieva became an internet sensation. The recording of Gibson’s enraged comments was circulated under headlines about his “insane,” “racist” and “psychotic” rant. There’s no doubt about the aptness of the “insane” and “psychotic” descriptions, and Gibson’s statement that Grigorieva’s choice of wardrobe made her look “ like a fucking pig in heat” who risked getting “raped by a pack of niggers” shows plenty of overachievement in the racism department. But while commenters seemed to easily notice the general craziness of Gibson’s words and their disturbing racism, very few drew attention to his rant’s most distinguishing feature: its unremitting misogyny. Gibson proclaims, “I am going to come and … Read the rest
A big win for the theocrats
Mar 18th, 2011 12:21 pm | By Ophelia BensonSo there’s no freedom of/from religion for Italy or for 47 other European countries either.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled Friday that crucifixes are acceptable in public school classrooms, and its decision will be binding in 47 countries.
The ruling overturned a decision the court had reached in November 2009 in which it said the crucifix could be disturbing to non-Christian or atheist pupils. Led by Italy, several European countries appealed that ruling.
And they won, so non-Christian and atheist pupils just have to lump it. The majority wins so ha; no rights for you.
… Read the restThe original case was heard by a seven-judge panel. The appeal hearing was heard by a “grand chamber” of 19 judges.
The case
Many voices of disbelief
Mar 18th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Jerry Coyne asks readers: why are you an atheist? Does it have anything to do with a lack of evidence for god, or are there other factors involved?… Read the rest
ECHR to atheists and non-Xians: tough
Mar 18th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Vatican hailed the court’s decision as “historic.” Head of the German Bishops’ Conference said the majority is always right.… Read the rest
School crucifixes ‘do not breach human rights’
Mar 18th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
So suck it up, atheists, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, deists, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, secularists.… Read the rest
ECHR rules: no secularism for public schools
Mar 18th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The European Court of Human Rights ruled Friday that crucifixes are acceptable in public school classrooms; its decision will be binding in 47 countries.… Read the rest
Between different communities
Mar 17th, 2011 4:27 pm | By Ophelia BensonI don’t see the benefit of interfaith whatsits. I don’t see why it’s Obama’s job to encourage them.
Since his inauguration, President Obama has emphasized interfaith cooperation and community service – “interfaith service” for short – as an important way to build understanding between different communities and contribute to the common good.
But if you don’t sort people into “different communities” in the first place, then you don’t need to build understanding between different communities, because people won’t be constantly seeing everyone as part of a different community. If you don’t keep insisting on this community-sorting project, you won’t entrench people in their communities and make them all prickly and defensive about their everlasting precious communities. That is, of … Read the rest
Marc Alan Di Martino on bogus Judeo-Christian roots
Mar 17th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“Judeo-Christian” lets the pope sound ecumenical to the uninitiated. Don’t be fooled.… Read the rest
Jesus and Mo on taking the Koran out of context
Mar 17th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
And on putting it in context. Both can be bad – it depends on the context.… Read the rest
