A reader asked me earlier today why religions so adamantly resist assisted suicide legislation, is it just the idea that God is supposed to decide when we die or what. I said that as far as I knew it was all rather ad hoc (not to say lame) and that what justifications were offered tended to be quite disgusting. I offered the example of Richard Swinburne saying suffering is good because it gives people the opportunity to show compassion, and Jonathan Sacks saying he was glad his father hadn’t had the ability to escape the final stages of his death because that mean he, Jonathan, had the chance to take care of his father. Having brought them up, I wanted … Read the rest

The ‘oh sweet jesus Obama is going to talk to little school children and tell them to sniff cocaine and spread their legs and rob banks help help it’s all such a nightmare’ fuss is too much even for some conservatives. Which is good, I suppose, but it ought to be too much for anyone. It ought to be too stupid and too vicious and too evil for anyone.

Blue Indiana knows why.

Let me proffer the following: there is absolutely nothing that could possibly be planned for students next Tuesday that can even begin to approach the pedagogical and personal benefit of hearing the President of the United States tell you that he believes you can change

The ayatollahs know what threatens them, bless their little hearts.

Ayatollah Khamenei said this week that the study of social sciences “promotes doubts and uncertainty.” He urged “ardent defenders of Islam” to review the human sciences that are taught in Iran’s universities and that he said “promote secularism,” according to Iranian news services. “Many of the humanities and liberal arts are based on philosophies whose foundations are materialism and disbelief in godly and Islamic teachings,” Ayatollah Khamenei said at a gathering of university students and professors on Sunday, according to IRNA, the state news agency. Teaching those “sciences leads to the loss of belief in godly and Islamic knowledge.”

Quite right. The more you learn, both about how to … Read the rest