Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Foreign office apologizes to Vatican

    Facetious memo suggested pope should do something useful; FO cites disrespect, grovels.

  • Ben Goldacre on evidence-based voting

    Alongside the science of individual claims, it’s also worth looking at what the parties say about science itself.

  • My magisterium is bigger than yours

    As is well known, Stephen Jay Gould offered ‘the principled resolution of supposed “conflict” or “warfare” between science and religion’ in his short book Rocks of Ages.

    No such conflict should exist because each subject has a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority—and these magisteria do not overlap (the principle that I would like to designate as NOMA, or “nonoverlapping magisteria”).

    The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for starters, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty).

    I’ve always disliked that formula; I disliked the book when it came out. Here’s one reason.

    Gould treats the two ‘magisteria’ as if they were equal – ‘the net of science covers’ and ‘the net of religion extends over’ sounds as if they’re doing more or less the same kind of work. But that’s wrong. Science is the best and only way to explore nature, while religion is not the best and only way to explore moral meaning and value.

    Religion is actually not a very good way to do either one – it tends to be misleading, it tends to be irrelevant, it’s often just plain wrong. The magisterium isn’t really a magisterium. The church has its ‘teachings,’ as it’s always reminding us when they conflict with equality legislation, but its teachings are…not really teachings.

  • Mo is upset about the bear costume

    Well Mo, it is South Park after all, not the prayer room at Liverpool Airport.

  • It’s an outrage

    Harry Taylor left some religion-mocking leaflets and cartoons in a “prayer room” at Liverpool airport. (Why does Liverpool airport have a “prayer room”?) For that he was charged with “three counts of causing religiously aggravated harassment” and convicted by a jury at Liverpool Crown Court. He was given a suspended six-month sentence and an Asbo forbidding him to carry anti-religious leaflets in public.

    One of the posters Taylor left at the airport depicted a smiling crucified Christ next to an advert for a brand of “no nails” glue. In another, a cartoon depicted two Muslims holding a placard demanding equality with the caption: “Not for women or gays, obviously.” A third poster showed Islamic suicide bombers at the gates of paradise being told: “Stop, stop, we’ve run out of virgins”.

    This is simply disgusting, and contemptible, and reactionary, and a scandal.

  • Andrew Brown on a particular kind of ‘faith’ in politics

    You can’t have large-scale voluntary action without faith: a combination of self-discipline and hope in an uncertain future state.

  • Jon Stewart is like Media Matters, but funnier

    He criticizes Fox News a lot because it is “truly a terrible, cynical, disingenuous news organization.”

  • Suspended sentence and Asbo for mocking religion

    Harry Taylor was convicted of “religiously aggravated harassment” for putting religion-teasing leaflets in an airport “prayer room.”

  • Susan Jacoby on Dorothy Height

    She didn’t choose to be out of the limelight, she was shoved there.

  • Teacher Oluwatoyin Oluseesin murdered by students

    She confiscated some books to prevent cheating, and was beaten to death because one was the Koran.

  • Akwa-Ibom Child Witches

    Yemi Ademowo Johnson would like to be able to close down refuges for children accused of witchcraft. Alas, not yet.

  • The law simply acknowledges

    And what business does the Obama administration have appealing the ruling that the “National Prayer Day” is unconstitutional? Yes I know they are under pressure from Fox News, but that’s going to be the case no matter what they do, and they weren’t elected to jump when Fox says jump.

    Crabb ruled the government could not use its authority to try to influence when and whether individuals pray, writing: “In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience.”…

    The administration had argued the law simply acknowledges the role of religion in the United States.

    What is that supposed to mean? And how can a law merely “acknowledge” something? And even if it could why should even that be the president’s business? Even if the law ordered the president to announce once a year that religion has a role in the United States, that would still be the state pushing religion on people instead of keeping its mouth shut on the subject. The state saying that religion has a role in the United States carries a wealth of implication with it, and that’s why it shouldn’t do it; and National Prayer Day mandates a good deal more than merely announcing religion’s “role” anyway.
    I’m aware that religion has a role in the United States, and I’m tired of that role, and I’m tired of having it forced on my attention, and I would like it to withdraw a considerable distance and mind its own business.

    The Justice Department signaled it would appeal not only Crabb’s decision on the merits of the case but also her ruling last month that the defendants had the standing to bring the lawsuit in the first place.

    Well, I hope you lose, Justice Department. You piss me off and I hope you lose.

  • Secular Coalition for America Calls Upon Pentagon to Cancel ‘Christian-Themed’ Event

    The Pentagon should respect the constitutional separation of church and state and cancel a planned National Day of Prayer event, particularly in light of its recent labeling as a “Christian-themed event” by an Army spokesman, the Secular Coalition for America said today. The Pentagon should also sever all operational ties to the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a radical right wing organization headed by the wife of Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, and housed in Focus on the Family’s headquarters.

    “It is bad enough that the administration is going ahead with an observance of the National Day of Prayer, correctly ruled unconstitutional by the courts only last week. But for the Pentagon to hold an explicitly ‘Christian-themed event’ around the day of prayer is brazenly out of all reasonable bounds, and explicitly exclusionary to U.S. service members of all non-Christian faiths and of no faith,” said Secular Coalition for America Executive Director Sean Faircloth, referring to a characterization of the event by Army spokesman Col. Tom Collins, as reported by the Associated Press yesterday. “This event should be cancelled, and the Department of Defense should apologize to all non-Christians who are being rendered second-class by this ill-advised program.”

    Faircloth also called upon the Pentagon’s chaplain’s office to end its working relationship with the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a right-wing, theocratic group headed by Shirley Dobson, wife of Focus on the Family’s James Dobson. “It is difficult to imagine a less wise alliance than one between Pentagon officials and anyone working under the Dobson umbrella. The already-dubious military chaplaincy should end once and for all its connections to Mrs. Dobson’s radical group.”

    On Fox News on April 4, Chaplain Terry Brewly asserted that it was “very true” that there is “no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole,” a direct affront to the brave men and women of the military who identify as nontheists. The Secular Coalition for America has advocated strongly for an end to religious proselytizing and coercion in the U.S. military. The group pressed its case for equal rights for nontheist military personnel in its historic meeting with administration officials in February, and its founding director, Lori Lipman Brown, appears in a new documentary on the military chaplaincy, Chaplains Under Fire, premiering at the Newseum in D.C. on April 30.

    About the Author

    The Secular Coalition for America is the national lobby for atheists, humanists, freethinkers, and other nontheistic Americans. From our office in the nation’s capital, our lobbyists and support staff engage public policy makers and the media on issues ranging from religion’s influence on education and medical research to the privileging of faith groups by government. We are the first and only cooperative venture of ten member organizations coming together to improve the political situation of a previously unrepresented constituency: the tens of millions of atheists and agnostics in the United States. Contact: Paul Fidalgo, 202-299-1091 / press(at)secular.org

  • Obama admin will appeal Prayer Day ruling

    “I would have expected something better from a legal scholar,” FFRF co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor said.

  • God we beseech thee bless this bullet

    Okay, I give up – what is the Pentagon doing having a “special Pentagon prayer service”? Even before we ask what is it doing having Franklin Graham appearing at such a thing, what is it doing having such a thing in the first place?

    And yet people wonder why atheists “proselytize” to the extent of pointing out that there are no genuinely good reasons to believe the things that make a “National Prayer Day” seem like something that an entity called God expects us to have once a year.

  • Franklin Graham uninvited to Pentagon ‘Prayer Day’

    What is the Pentagon doing having a ‘Prayer Day’?

  • Cristina Odone offers theocratic bullying nonsense

    Dr Death, abortion, euthanasia, faith schools, all life precious.

  • The terrible case of Lucia de Berk

    A Dutch nurse who has spent 6 years in jail on a life sentence for murdering 7 people, in a killing spree that never happened.

  • A spectacular reputational car crash for the BCA

    Until they sued, most people thought chiropractors just did backs, Ben Goldacre notes.

  • Pope named in Milwaukee abuse lawsuit

    His lawyers want the Church to release any files it has on abuse cases involving priests.