She sought an abortion, but she was refused, and a Catholic magazine compared her to a child killer.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
BBC Looks Into Far-right Extremism 
Sep 23rd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Quotes Edmund Standing, author of The BNP and The Online Fascist Network. … Read the rest
Loser Condemns UNESCO Vote
Sep 23rd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Zionists, north and south, politicized, Jewish pressure, newspapers.… Read the rest
Irina Bokova Voted New Head of UNESCO
Sep 23rd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Faruq Hosni not.… Read the rest
Amnesty’s Sierra Leone Blog
Sep 23rd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Irene asked the crowd to raise their hands if they had lost a woman to maternal mortality and there was a sea of hands.’… Read the rest
Ahmedinejad, Lion of Islam, Gives a Squeak
Sep 23rd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
He scolded Bush over Guantanamo, but Iran’s prisons are not a beacon of justice.… Read the rest
Education Based Only on Reason is Incomplete
Sep 23rd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Says the archbishop. ‘When theologians said that God was rational, they meant that he was consistent with himself.’… Read the rest
Amnesty on Women in Sierra Leone
Sep 23rd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘This is a country where girls are forced into early marriage, excluded from schools and face sexual violence.’… Read the rest
Human Rights Emergency in Sierra Leone
Sep 23rd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Under half of deliveries are attended by a skilled birth attendant; under 1 in 5 are carried out in health facilities.… Read the rest
Sierre Leone: High Rate of Maternal Mortality
Sep 23rd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Thousands of women bleed to death after giving birth. Most die in their homes. Some die on the way to hospital.… Read the rest
Heeeeeeeere’s Rowan!
Sep 23rd, 2009 11:37 am | By Ophelia BensonThe 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
Splendour in the whatsit
Sep 22nd, 2009 5:20 pm | By Ophelia BensonAndrew 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).
… Read the restFor 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
Skeptico on Rosenau on ‘Ways of Knowing’
Sep 22nd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Who are the real enablers?… Read the rest
Imagine – There Are Non-believers in the US
Sep 22nd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Someday they might even be a quarter of the population. Stone the crows.… Read the rest
Halal Slaughter and Animal Suffering
Sep 22nd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Much of halal slaughter involves animals’ throats being cut while they are fully conscious.… Read the rest
Tariq Ramadan ‘Defends’ his Views
Sep 22nd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Stoning is in the Koran, but what do the texts say, what are the conditions to implement the punishment?… Read the rest
Christmas to Remain in Texas Textbooks!
Sep 22nd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Some experts wanted to drop it but that’s not going to happen. Thank you Jesus!… Read the rest
Christians Fighting Assisted Suicide Rules
Sep 22nd, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Christian Legal Centre says Lord Phillips feels inappropriate sympathy for those with terminal illness.… Read the rest
Review of Keith Ward’s Why There Almost Certainly Is a God
Sep 22nd, 2009 | By Eric MacDonaldConnecting the Dots: Aquinas to Ward
As I set off to review this book it may be just as well to say, at the outset, that I can no longer find much sense in typical philosophical arguments for the existence of God. They tend to be, not only far-fetched and implausible, as they seem to be to Richard Dawkins, for example, but even simply unintelligible. Keith Ward suggests that Dawkins’ treatment of Aquinas’ famous Five Ways (of proving the existence of God) is unacceptably brief. In fact, he tells us that Dawkins does not discuss Aquinas at all, but rather five arguments of his own (102). This may well be true, though Ward’s own discussion of Aquinas’ Five Ways in … Read the rest
Justice
Sep 21st, 2009 12:27 pm | By Ophelia BensonSuhaib Hasan, a judge with the UK’s ‘Islamic Sharia Council,’ explains about sharia.
[T]he overwhelming majority of our work is divorce…Under the Islamic system, the man may end the marriage if he thinks it right…When a woman applies, the process is called a khula divorce. If the husband agrees, the matter is settled, but if not, we invite both for an interview, and we do emphasise reconciliation.
Clear? The man may end the marriage, period, no questions asked. The woman not so much. The man may end the marriage period no questions asked even if the wife doesn’t agree; the woman may not end the marriage period no questions asked even if the husband does not agree. He can; … Read the rest
