Academics are supposed to adhere to the highest standards of facts, truth and of evidence-based claims.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Three Books on Honour Killing Reviewed
Nov 7th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJacqueline Rose is worried about ‘giving the West a monopoly on the forward march of history.’… Read the rest
Checking references
Nov 7th, 2009 9:01 am | By Ophelia BensonReading Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God is an irritating experience, and not just in the more obvious or predictable way. There is also the matter of her pretense of scholarship, which upon inspection turns out to be rather thin. For example:
Chapter 11, ‘Unknowing,’ begins with three pages of factual statements with names, dates, and other particulars, beginning with the Second International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900 and what David Hilbert said there, what it implied about confidence in scientific progress, what Virginia Woolf said, what Picasso and James Joyce were up to, moving on to the First World War, the depression, and the war after that, with a pause halfway through to sum up: “It was … Read the rest
Why we write
Nov 6th, 2009 4:11 pm | By Ophelia BensonUdo and Russell have their say on the putative schism between atheist camps.
In a different world, the merits, or otherwise, of religious teachings might be discussed more dispassionately. In that world, some of us who criticise religion itself might be content to argue that the church (and the mosque, and all the other religious architecture that sprouts across the landscape) should be kept separate from the state. Unfortunately, however, we don’t live in that world.
No, we don’t, and furthermore, all the fuming and name-calling from the people who despise the “new” atheists is, perversely or tragically or amusingly, just fanning the flames of “new” atheism. That’s partly because nearly all of the fuming and name-calling is noticeably unfair … Read the rest
Putting God Out of the Ethics Business
Nov 6th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhen we act ethically, our reasons are usually nothing transcendental, just respect and compassion for others.… Read the rest
Science Advisors Call for Autonomy
Nov 6th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMinisters should be denied the power to fire advisers who publicly disagree with official policy.… Read the rest
ACLU on Buju Banton and Free Speech
Nov 6th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSays singing ‘let’s kill women’ or ‘let’s kill gays’ is not a true threat. Really?… Read the rest
UK’s Chief Rabbi Warns Against Secularism
Nov 6th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSays civil society needs religion because it sanctifies the family and parenthood.… Read the rest
Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk at CisF
Nov 6th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIn a different world, the merits or otherwise of religious teachings might be discussed more dispassionately.… Read the rest
Putting Human Rights First
Nov 6th, 2009 | By Joshua F. LeachJudith Shklar, the American political theorist, wrote a famous
essay entitled “Putting Cruelty First.” The contrast with my
own title will be immediately obvious, but I would insist that
the worldview which proceeds from both is essentially similar.
What Shklar intended was that prior to any question of
positive virtues and utopian ideals—before we throw around
grand ideas about love and brotherhood—we need to achieve the
seemingly simple yet nearly impossible task of protecting
living beings from cruelty and injustice. As for my title,
human rights may sound like a positive ideal, the sort of
sweet nothing that ought to be anterior to the goal of saving
the world from cruelty, but I would say that it is, in
reality, … Read the rest
Jesus and Mo Are Worried About Scientology
Nov 5th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIn the information age, religions can no longer hide the failings of their founders. Uh oh.… Read the rest
Ibn Warraq on Muslim Reformers
Nov 5th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThere are some, and they risk their lives. Here is the first of three Kuwaiti secularists.… Read the rest
Baseej Women Beaters
Nov 5th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThis is what they do in public, just imagine what they do inside the prisons.… Read the rest
The New Theists
Nov 5th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHaving lost the power of the gun, apologists of religion have a new weapon: being offended.… Read the rest
Wendy Grossman on Climate Change as ‘Belief’
Nov 5th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMaking issues that should be settled on the scientific evidence into philosophical discussions is nothing new.… Read the rest
The shrill and strident new theists
Nov 5th, 2009 10:12 am | By Ophelia BensonMichael Brull replies to the elegant vice-chancellor.
… Read the restThe public and commercial prominence and success of atheist writers such as Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling has been heralded as the rise of a “new atheism”. Yet the response to this could equally be heralded as the rise of a “new theism”. Facing a new attack with an international audience playing close attention, religions have as little rational argument in their favour as ever. There was a time when they could deal with dissent through more draconian measures: the kind that can still be practiced in, say, Saudi Arabia. Having lost the power of the gun in the West, apologists of religion have a new weapon: being offended. Rather
More and more and more and more
Nov 4th, 2009 3:16 pm | By Ophelia BensonSee, here’s yet another one – yet another apparently grown-up responsible person who apparently feels quite comfortable saying things about atheists that are not true. I bet she would not feel comfortable saying things that are not true about Other Races, or gays, or Jews, or Muslims, or immigrants, or foreigners. But atheists? Well you say they are bad people, so it’s all right to say untrue things about them. That would appear to be the thinking, at least.
Coming a year after London’s city buses were plastered with adverts that stated flatly, “There’s probably no God. Stop worrying and enjoy your life,” New York City’s subway trains were plastered with similar ads…
But buses weren’t plastered with … Read the rest
European Court Rules Crucifex is Religious
Nov 4th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNot a bit, says Vatican, it’s a symbol of unity and welcoming for all of humanity.… Read the rest
Seth Kalichman: How to Spot an Aids Denialist
Nov 4th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDenialism uses rhetorical tactics to give the impression of a legitimate debate among experts.… Read the rest
AN Wilson Explains About Science
Nov 4th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘The worship of science is the great superstition of our age.’… Read the rest