The god of the gaps was grandfathered in; discuss.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Looking at pictures
Feb 26th, 2009 11:58 am | By Ophelia BensonThere are no atheists in CAT scanners – or are there.
Katja Wiech is a cheerful young German researcher who is fascinated by pain. She’s discovered many things—for example, when devout Catholics are given electric shocks while looking at a picture of the Virgin Mary they feel less pain than atheists do when administered the same unpleasant treatment.
Mary; that’s interesting. Not Jesus, not God. (Showing people pictures of God is a little tricky of course. There are a few – that Michelangelo one of course, where God and Adam attempt to do a fist bump, and some medieval ones where God wears a mitre and looks eminently unSpiritual – but not so many that there’s a stock visual ‘God’ … Read the rest
Carl Zimmer Fact-checks George Will
Feb 25th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe fact-checker doesn’t rely on press releases or blog posts, but calls scientists up to get the best information.… Read the rest
Darwin Was Agnostic and Nontheist and Antitheist
Feb 25th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRick Weiss and Matt Nisbet are using a misrepresentation of Darwin to make a case against New Atheists.… Read the rest
Are Christians Persecuted in the UK?
Feb 25th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIf a teachers tells a child not to tell her friends they are going to hell, is that persecution?… Read the rest
Saudi Underwear Panic
Feb 25th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNo fitting rooms! Jobs are for men! These are too small! Daily life in a theocracy.… Read the rest
Aaronovitch Notes: All Theocracies Are Coercive
Feb 25th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCrooke’s failure to see that theocracy is unlikely to lead to a world of ‘compassion and justice’ is stunning. … Read the rest
There is a part that is dangerous and ugly
Feb 25th, 2009 11:23 am | By Ophelia BensonDavid Aaaronovitch heard ‘one of those fashionable voices that calls for more understanding of political Islamism and less confrontation’ on Start the Week on Monday.
The former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke, who has become a kind of Dr Dolittle of Islamist movements, was discussing his new book, Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution with Andrew Marr. Crooke’s point seemed to be that we in the West could learn a lot from Islamism, since it was, in some ways, morally superior to our fly-blown, materialist, individualist societies…Islamists wanted “a society based on compassion and justice”.
Oh do they. Then why is it that the first thing Islamists do is to kick girls out of school or tell women to ‘cover … Read the rest
Homeopathy: the Opposite of Science
Feb 24th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBSc courses in homeopathy are closing. Yessss!… Read the rest
Andrew Sullivan on Defending Blasphemy
Feb 24th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHari’s article is a classic piece of political polemic, the kind of thing that no free society should ever suppress. … Read the rest
Katha Pollitt on Freedom of Speech, Round 5,425
Feb 24th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWomen can’t point out sexism in the Bible or Koran but clerics can use those texts to declare women inferior?… Read the rest
Are ‘Honor’ Killings Simply Domestic Violence?
Feb 24th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDenial is rife.… Read the rest
Theocracy and the Death of the Critical Intellect
Feb 24th, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonI must exorcise the temptation to choose against the divinely sanctioned authority of the church.… Read the rest
Globalized, fluid, culturally impure
Feb 24th, 2009 11:57 am | By Ophelia BensonKatha Pollitt read Johann Hari’s article.
[I]t would be nice to say that the world has learned what happens when freedom of speech and thought is subordinated to religious authority. In fact, the lesson seems to be the opposite: careful, you might hurt the feelings of the faithful. Oh, and they might kill you.
And, as Katha doesn’t go on to say but could have, since you hurt their feelings, it would be your fault if they did kill you.
… Read the restHere on the American left we tend to see these incidents as gratuitous provocations by insensitive Westerners, and there’s something to that…The problem with that argument is that the same spirit of religious dogmatism backed by violence that shaped
IHEU on Durban II and Freedom of Expression
Feb 23rd, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDefamation of Religion is a concept that has no place in Human Rights discourse.… Read the rest
IHEU on a Bad Week for Free Speech
Feb 23rd, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘It’s time our leaders learned that Islam is just another religion.’… Read the rest
Bubble and Bust in Ireland
Feb 23rd, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBanking and politics in bed together; how familiar, how deranged.… Read the rest
‘On the Media’ on Islam and Free Speech
Feb 23rd, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia BensonLeft out some crucial facts, especially the 3 added cartoons, especially the farmer in the pig-mask.… Read the rest
OIC Secretary-General on Durban II
Feb 23rd, 2009 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘It should be every individual’s right to criticize practices in breach of human rights.’ Indeed.… Read the rest
Wilders Has a Right to Express Appalling Views
Feb 23rd, 2009 | By Azar MajediGeert Wilders, the right wing Dutch MP, was refused entry to the UK on Thursday, on the grounds that his presence would threaten public order and damage community relations. It was said that any extremist will be refused entry to the UK. This is a dangerous statement. It is a real threat to individual and civil liberty. By this argument any one who espouses any idea regarded as extreme by the British government will be banned from the UK.
This is the world after September 11 and the world which has been pulled into a so-called “war on terror” by the neo-conservative US government. “Any thing goes!” Under the guise of security, any violation of human rights, human dignity and … Read the rest