Death penalty not gratuitously applied; scholars differ; death threat evoked rarely; all okay then.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Center for Inquiry Joins Debate at UN HRC
Oct 23rd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCFI and IHEU sponsored a discussion on restrictions to free inquiry into religious matters at the HRC.… Read the rest
At the Seminar
Oct 23rd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDiene: Freedom of Expression is politically instrumantalised to propagate racist platforms.… Read the rest
UN Seminar to Discuss Limits to Free Speech
Oct 23rd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPakistan, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia and the OIC representative called for tighter restrictions.… Read the rest
Apostates are seldom killed; whew
Oct 23rd, 2008 11:02 am | By Ophelia BensonNesrine Malik lets us know that all this fuss about death for apostasy is silly.
Reading AC Grayling’s latest article and listening to the protestations of the Council of Ex-Muslims, you would think that the death penalty is being gratuitously and frequently applied to those who renounce Islam or harbour thoughts of apostasy.
Oh. So if the death penalty is being purposefully and seldom applied to those who renounce Islam, there would be no reason for a Council of Ex-Muslims to exist and no article for Anthony Grayling to write? The death penalty for renouncing Islam is a bad thing only if it’s applied gratuitously and frequently? A rare and cautious execution for renouncing Islam is all right?
… Read the restI
Thrasymachus and the Baptist ethicist
Oct 22nd, 2008 12:25 pm | By Ophelia BensonRonald Aronson answers Baptist Center for Ethics Executive Director Robert Parham who wrote an essay criticizing ‘the new atheists.’ He first addresses the fact that some atheists are blunter than believers have become used to expecting (and that irritation with this is at least understandable).
Why are these so harsh? Above all, each sees himself as breaking a taboo: Thou shalt not criticize religion…I for one am grateful for the space for discussion these writers, along with Dennett (certainly no angry professor) have opened up, and forgive them for not being calmer and more measured.
Same here. I think we badly need the space – and that the taboo in many (or perhaps most) circles, at least in the US, … Read the rest
Susan Neiman on Morality and Religion
Oct 22nd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhatever the source of moral judgment is, it isn’t divine authority.… Read the rest
The Atheist Bus Campaign
Oct 22nd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThere’s probably no God; now stop worrying and enjoy your life. Any more fares please.… Read the rest
Higher Education in the US
Oct 22nd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA majority of the students whom colleges admit are grossly underprepared.… Read the rest
Review of ‘Philosophy and Real Politics’
Oct 22nd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTo introduce a note of realism into philosophical debates about justice, by force if necessary.… Read the rest
Ronald Aronson Replies to ‘The New Atheists’
Oct 22nd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonLet’s all oppose claims of absolute knowledge, and those who would impose their claims on others.… Read the rest
Michael Walzer on Possible Foreign Policy
Oct 22nd, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIf Obama is elected, how will American foreign policy change?… Read the rest
We’re here
Oct 21st, 2008 12:38 pm | By Ophelia BensonRon Aronson points out that atheists and secularists get undercounted in the US.
Surveys regularly receive front-page coverage for reporting, as the 2008 Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Survey did, that nearly all Americans believe in God. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life concluded that 92% of Americans are believers and that only 5% of Americans don’t believe in God…But something is wrong with this picture. It erases vast numbers of Americans…It encourages the sense that there are two kinds of Americans, the overwhelming majority who believe and belong, and those few do not believe, and are outsiders. But the conventional wisdom that nearly all Americans believe in God is wrong.
A senior fellow at Pew says the … Read the rest
Saudi: Executions Target Foreign Nationals
Oct 21st, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSaudi executed at least 158 in 2007; almost half were foreign nationals from poor and developing countries.… Read the rest
Poverty and the Death Penalty in Nigeria
Oct 21st, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘Nigeria: Waiting for the Hangman’ says those sentenced to death are poor; most confessed under torture.… Read the rest
Humanitarian Workers are Targeted
Oct 21st, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonDeliberately killing humanitarian workers is an outrage which we don’t denounce enough.… Read the rest
UN Engineer Killed in Somalia
Oct 21st, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIntelligence sources say the assassination of aid workers by trained killers has become the norm.… Read the rest
Charity Worker Killed in Afghanistan
Oct 21st, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTaleban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told AFP that they killed Gayle Williams.… Read the rest
Kambaksh Death Sentence Commuted
Oct 21st, 2008 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTo 20 years in prison for downloading material from the internet on women’s rights in Islam.… Read the rest
Choosing to Know
Oct 21st, 2008 | By Ronald AronsonThe fact that nearly half of all Americans reject evolution is depressing enough, but the opinions of college graduates may cause despair. One in three holders of bachelor’s and postgraduate degrees deny that “Darwin’s theory of evolution [is] proved by fossil evidence.” Even more dismal, only about one-third of U.S. college graduates and postgraduates admit to a “belief in evolution”—while about sixty percent accept Creationism or its Trojan Horse, Intelligent Design.[1] In over thirty countries, including every other advanced society, a higher percentage of the general population accepts evolution: in pious Ireland, for example, the number accepting evolution is sixty percent higher than in the U.S.! Americans are just as likely to choose to believe in ghosts and UFOs as … Read the rest