Tariq Ramadan explains things.

My position on homosexuality is quite clear…Islam, as Christianity, as Judaism, as even the Dalai Lama…[are] not accepting of homosexuality, saying that this is forbidden according to the principles of our religion…My position, with homosexuals, is to say, “We don’t agree with what you are doing, but we respect who you are,” which I think is the only true liberal position that you can have.

Why no, actually, that’s not the only true liberal position you can have. On the contrary. The true liberal position would be to look carefully at those ‘principles of our religion’ and ask whether they are good principles or not, in secular, human, this-world terms. The true liberal position would … Read the rest

Okay, so life is shit for women in Poland.

When Alicja Tysiac became pregnant in February 2000, three eye specialists told her having another baby could put her eyesight at serious risk. But neither the specialists nor her GP would authorise an abortion. After giving birth later that year, Ms Tysiac suffered a retinal haemorrhage and feared she [might] go blind. She now wears glasses with thick powerful lenses but she cannot see objects more than a metre and a half (5ft) away.

Yeah, so? If she didn’t want to go blind she shouldn’t have gotten pregnant! Not in Poland anyway.… Read the rest

Susan Haack makes a very interesting point in ‘Irreconcilable Differences? The Troubled Marriage of Science and Law. She makes many such points, but one in particular grabbed my attention.

Because of its adversarial character, the legal system tends to draw in as
witnesses scientists who are in a sense marginal – more willing than most of their
colleagues to give an opinion on the basis of less-than-overwhelming evidence;
moreover, the more often he serves as an expert witness, the more unbudgeably
confident a scientist may become in his opinion. An attorney obligated to make
the best possible case for his client will have an incentive to call on those
scientists who are ready to accept an answer to some

The archbishop of Canterbury has (not for the first time) joined hands with people like Madeleine Bunting by telling the world how despicable reason is.

We understand ‘reason’ as a way of arguing and testing propositions – usually so as to become better at manipulating the world round us. Because religious faith is not a matter of argument in this way, it is then easy to conclude that faith and reason are enemies, or at least operating in different territory.

See that? The way he casually informs us that reason is usually understood as a way ‘to become better at manipulating the world’? It looks as if he’s been studying his feminist epistemology – science and reason are just … Read the rest

Andrew Sullivan justifies the ways of god to human beings (though decidedly not to other animals) – by which I mean he says things about the ways of god to human beings (but definitely not to animals).

For me, the unique human capacity to somehow rise above such suffering, while experiencing it as vividly as any animal, is evidence of God’s love for us (and the divine spark within us), while it cannot, of course, resolve the ultimate mystery of why we are here at all in a fallen, mortal world. This Christian response to suffering merely offers a way in which to transcend this veil of tears a little. No one is saying this is easy or should not