Ruse’s dud Amazon review and Figes’s fake Amazon reviews.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Bill Donohue pitches a fit at Empire State Building 
May 15th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
He wants it to wear blue and white lights for Ma Teresa’s birthday, and it won’t oblige.… Read the rest
“Spiritual counselor” on Sam Harris on morality
May 15th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Thinks reciprocity is a religious idea.… Read the rest
Holford Watch on bad science communication
May 15th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Nature Publishing Group should be careful about what it links to, even via reader posts.… Read the rest
Goldacre on evidence based smear campaigns
May 15th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A new experiment shows again that correction of falsehoods only entrenches them.… Read the rest
Ben Goldacre on whistleblowers
May 15th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Doctors are expected to blow the whistle, but they can be punished for doing so. That’s bad.… Read the rest
The pope visits Fátima
May 14th, 2010 3:05 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe pope is telling everyone what to do, again – not that he ever stopped, but still it’s interesting to see that he apparently feels no shyness or hesitation, no doubts about his moral authority, even now that it has been searchingly and thoroughly revealed that he and his church have been protecting child rapists and bullying their victims for many decades.
This is interesting, in its way. I think ordinarily people who have been morally compromised the way the pope has become a little bashful about pretending to be moral bosses. It’s interesting that the pope doesn’t, especially since the content of his moral bossing is so godawful – so harmful for actual existing people, so fretful about … Read the rest
Life inside two mental boxes
May 14th, 2010 10:21 am | By Ophelia BensonAnthony Grayling nails Terry Eagleton (who has written a new book pretending to say something about evil).
… Read the rest[H]e sets off on one of those complexifying journeys, like the route of a pinball bouncing backwards and forwards among a thicket of pingers, from William Golding to St Augustine, Macbeth to Pseudo-Dionysus, original sin to the Holocaust, Shakespeare to Freud, Satan to Thomas Mann, Arendt to Aristotle, and so copiously on – a verbal pinball ride among the entries in the telephone book of Western culture, to tell us what evil is. But do not expect, by the end, a conclusion, still less a definition, nor even a summary. Eagleton has been too long among the theorists to risk a straightforward statement.
Grayling reviews Eagleton on evil
May 14th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A verbal pinball ride among the entries in the telephone book of Western culture.… Read the rest
Roger Scruton urges pessimism
May 14th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Not John Gray’s misanthropic nihilism, but reasoned avoidance of false hopes.… Read the rest
Tatchell calls pope “arch-homophobe”
May 14th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Will the new coalition government think twice about welcoming this ghastly bigot to the UK?… Read the rest
Pope denounces abortion and gay marriage
May 14th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Inexplicably, he still assumes he is a moral authority.… Read the rest
Paul Anderson responds to City University Islamic Society
May 13th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
All speaker meetings held on university premises should allow participation by all members of the university.… Read the rest
Peculiar George
May 13th, 2010 5:21 pm | By Ophelia BensonMore Pitcher. He’s an embarrassment to the Anglican church and to the Telegraph (whether the Anglican church and the Telegraph know it or not) so let’s by all means rub it in.
He was so pleased with his stupid abusive self-admiring reply to Sholto Byrnes that he re-posted it on the Telegraph blog. Well all right then, that makes it worth ridiculing.
(I’m doing what I’m criticizing him for doing, of course, and I do it all the time. But 1) I’m not an Anglican vicar 2) I write more restrainedly when I write on other people’s sites and 3) I do it better than he does. Plus did I mention I’m not a vicar?)
He starts by alluding … Read the rest
Therapists want to be free to…whatever
May 13th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Fox, henhouse.… Read the rest
“Nicky”?
May 13th, 2010 12:36 pm | By Ophelia BensonI think I’m going to start being more thorough about observing the antics of George Pitcher. I find him really remarkable, and all the more so because he’s an Anglican vicar. He’s such a bizarre ambassador for his institution.
Yesterday he extruded a little heap of sneers at Nick Clegg and atheism and Nick Clegg’s atheism.
One aspect of this new Con-Dem Government that hasn’t got an airing yet is that David Cameron is a devout Christian and his new deputy-dawg Nick Clegg is an atheist…I’ve had a right ear-bashing from Nicky’s press office in the past for describing his atheism as “numbskull”. I’m sorry, I’m sure he’s up there with AC Grayling and Dr Simon Heffer.
Really. This is … Read the rest
Psychotherapists must address failure of self-regulation
May 13th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Thousands of psychotherapists are considering adopting new titles to avoid government regulation.… Read the rest
More impressive eloquence from George Pitcher
May 13th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“I’ve had a right ear-bashing from Nicky’s press office in the past for describing his atheism as ‘numbskull’.” … Read the rest
MEMRI on Iran’s enforcement of hijab
May 13th, 2010 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“Sister, sister, the reward for wearing the hijab is Paradise,” “Violating the Islamic dress code leads to the spread of corruption.”… Read the rest
