“It’s an attack on free speech. It’s a novel, it’s fiction and it isn’t offensive because a lot of these men have been corrupted and led astray into their lifestyle.”… Read the rest
All entries by this author
BHA survey: 65% say they are not religious 
Mar 22nd, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
While 61% of the poll’s respondents said they did belong to a religion, 65% of those surveyed answered “no” to the further question: “Are you religious?”… Read the rest
“Vilifying Gaddafi externalises evil”
Mar 22nd, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The people of Libya will be so relieved to hear it.… Read the rest
Veena Malik hands a mufti his head
Mar 22nd, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
He tries hard to bully and shame her, and she fights back.… Read the rest
Carla Corsetti of Democrazia Atea on the crucifix
Mar 21st, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
After this ruling no Catholic will be able to calmly assert that the crucifix is a symbol which “unites”, or that is it shared peacefully.… Read the rest
Hardly a disaster
Mar 21st, 2011 4:38 pm | By Ophelia BensonSo now poor Michael Ruse has to write a petulant article (for Comment is Free this time? we don’t want to get out of sequence) saying that that horrid new atheist David Barash is mad at him, that he doesn’t care a bit, that he’s a brave contrarian who pisses off campus feminists and other bores who believe in equal rights, that he likes a good dust up, that he was in Arkansas testifying when everyone else was in nursery school, and that new atheists are a danger to the wellbeing of America comparable to the al Qaeda and the Westboro Baptist Church combined. That should take him at least ten minutes.
Barash was gobsmacked by Ruse’s
… Read the restassertion that
David Barash on Ruse’s new atheist:Tea Party comparison
Mar 21st, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The New Atheists do not propose to make the rich richer while withdrawing government assistance from the poor; the Tea Party does.… Read the rest
Students suspended for wearing pro-choice stickers
Mar 21st, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Students at a Catholic high school in Thunder Bay were not suspended for wearing anti-choice stickers.… Read the rest
Forced marriage in Germany
Mar 21st, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“That’s just the way it is in our world: a family can restore its honor by killing the runaway daughter.”… Read the rest
RAWA on Malalai Joya
Mar 20th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
In 2012 Jaya was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world and in 2005 at the age of 27 she was elected to Afghanistan’s parliament.… Read the rest
Malalai Joya denied visa to US
Mar 20th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Because she is “unemployed and living underground.” What?!?!… Read the rest
Johann Hari on the myth of the panicking disaster victim
Mar 20th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The evidence gathered over centuries is overwhelming. The vast majority of people, when a disaster hits, behave in the aftermath as altruists.… Read the rest
You people are so amusing, and a danger to the wellbeing of America
Mar 20th, 2011 12:01 pm | By Ophelia BensonWhat, again? Yes, again. Yes, for the 14 thousandth time, Michael Ruse is telling us how angry with him “the new atheists” are, how right he is in spite of their anger, how wrong and bad and dangerous and immoral they are, how brave he is, and how right and brave and amusing and important he Michael Ruse is.
Oh dear, I am in trouble again with the New Atheists… I am being called all sorts of nasty things…Even I sometimes wonder why I am in such bad odor, apart from the fact that whenever I am confronted with people for whom disagreement is considered not just wrong but morally offensive my first tendency is to laugh and tease.
No … Read the rest
Irish bishops promise more support to abuse victims
Mar 20th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Last year the pope wrote a letter.… Read the rest
Secular activists resist ultra-Orthodox takeover
Mar 20th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The secular residents say they fear their communities will become overwhelmingly Haredi over the years.… Read the rest
Nick Cohen on Midsomer and class segregation
Mar 20th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
At the heart of Tory England lies a determination to use state controls they would normally condemn as “socialist” to protect property values.… Read the rest
Michael Ruse on “the new atheists” #6429
Mar 20th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
They’re mad at me, which is baffling when I’m so swell; I will continue to carp no matter what they say about me, I’m that brave; they are immoral.… Read the rest
A fun event for Lewisham Islamic Centre
Mar 19th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
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
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
