Young people are so spoiled these days. They just want to fritter away all their time in school when they could be sold into slavery I mean ‘marriage’ to pay off their fathers’ gambling debts. Why, when I was growing up, four year old girls were sold so their fathers could buy an ice cream cone, and they were thankful for the opportunity. Kids are so selfish now.

Shabana, a pretty Afghan teenager with a modern haircut, was 12 years old when she was forced to marry a man 38 years her senior to settle her father’s 600-dollar gambling debt. Two years later, she is unhappy and angry. She doesn’t like her husband, 52-year-old farmer Mohammad Asef. “He is

And another thing. If we think that we can justify the belief that our senses are a reliable guide to reality by appealing to our belief that God exists because a good God would not allow us systematically to be deceived – then what about the rest? If a good God would not allow us systematically to be deceived, why would a good God allow us to have such incomplete senses? Why would a good God not arrange for us to have exhaustive senses, that sense everything that can be sensed? Why are there senses that we don’t have? Why are the senses that we do have so limited? Why are there senses that animals have that we don’t have? … Read the rest

I’ve been thinking of objections to this – to the reply to the reply to the claim that belief in God is no more a “faith position” than is empirical science because our belief that our senses are a reliable guide to reality cannot be justified. One reply to that is we all assume our senses are a reliable guide to reality, while belief in God is an extra; reply to that reply is

if we accept (ii) [there is a God], then (i) [our senses are a reliable guide to reality] is no longer an assumption. We can justify it by appealing to (ii) (in the style of Descartes – a good God would not allow us systematically to

I like it when people fix little problems that most of us don’t even notice.

Iran plans to make special bicycles designed for women that will be compatible with Islamic regulations and not expose their body movements while riding, the newspaper Iran reported. The new bicycle would have a cabin to cover half of a rider’s body…Women in Iran are obliged to wear scarves and long gowns to hide their hair and body contours. Female athletes must also follow this rule and participate in sports wearing scarves and gowns. The clergy considers women’s body movements made while riding a bicycle to be provoking to men and not compatible with social rules.

I know what they mean, don’t you? Women’s … Read the rest