Defends ‘religious dissidents and believers’; no mention of atheists.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Wishful Thinking 
Nov 14th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Saudi King is ‘articulating the central Muslim value of religious pluralism.’ The wot?… Read the rest
UN: ‘Defamation of Religion’ Should be Banned
Nov 14th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Yes, I believe that defamation of religion should be banned,’ official said in reply to question.… Read the rest
‘Christian Voice’ Gets Book Launch Canceled
Nov 14th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Patrick Jones said he had not singled out Christianity in his poems, but was questioning beliefs in society.… Read the rest
Support Political Prisoners in Burundi
Nov 14th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Several opposition leaders have been arrested including Jean Claude Kavumbagu and Alexis Sinduhije.… Read the rest
Two blogs
Nov 13th, 2008 6:00 pm | By Ophelia BensonAs you may have seen, Edmund Standing has started a blog, amusingly called ‘I kid you not’ as a compliment to Sarah Palin. Okay not a compliment exactly. Palin has been saying things again, as Edmund notes.
… Read the restThen there’s the whole down to earth ‘mom next door’ persona. Palin, it should be remembered, proudly announced herself to the Republican National Convention as ‘just your average hockey mom’…So, we have a woman who calls herself ‘average’, thinks some ‘God’ or other gives her career guidance, is completely ignorant of evolutionary biology and the history of the world, and conducts political interviews while cooking moose for her ‘guy’…And this woman wants to become President of the most powerful nation on
Burundi Opposition Leader Charged
Nov 13th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The news has sparked anguish at Harvard, where specialists on journalism and human rights have followed Sinduhije’s career.… Read the rest
Burundi: Journalist Jailed for ‘Insulting the President’
Nov 13th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Richard Wilson on why some thought Nkurunziza was not too bad. Wishful thinking, yes, but more.… Read the rest
Catholic Bishops Warn of Abortion Fight
Nov 13th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Bishop Jaime Soto fumed, ‘There really is plenty of choice for women in this culture.’… Read the rest
Thailand: Prison for Lèse Majesté
Nov 13th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Army warns it will not tolerate anything that could be interpreted as criticism of the royal family.… Read the rest
Acid Attack on Afghan Schoolgirls
Nov 13th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Attackers have sprayed acid in the faces of at least 15 girls near a school in Kandahar.… Read the rest
Human Solidarity in a World Without God
Nov 13th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Human solidarity is in fact a rational response to the ‘human condition,’ as Schopenhauer saw.… Read the rest
The Dogma of Halal and Haram
Nov 13th, 2008 | By Jahanshah RashidianIf you walk at random in any Muslim district in Europe, you will certainly find somewhere an Islamic butcher with the word ”halal” written on its shop-window. For meat products, the word “halal” is a badge of Islamic quality.
Muslims believe that since blood is not ritually a pure substance, slaughter is necessary to inhibit the thorough draining of all of the animal’s blood. Furthermore, the verse” Bismillah al Rahman Al Rahim”, in the name of Allah the Beneficent the Merciful, is necessary to render the meat halal or lawful to eat.
The word halal refers, here, to meat killed and prepared in line with Islamic dietary laws. Jewish and Islamic religions demand that slaughter be carried out with a … Read the rest
Religious obligation
Nov 12th, 2008 4:18 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis is a familiar subject, but you know how it is – there’s always more to say.
About what? About religious law, religious obligation, religious duty, religious requirements, religious teachings, religious commandments.
… Read the restMotl Brody of Brooklyn was pronounced dead this week after a half-year fight against a brain tumor, and doctors at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington say the seventh-grader’s brain has ceased functioning entirely. But for the past few days, a machine has continued to inflate and deflate his lungs. As of late Friday afternoon, his heart was still beating with the help of a cocktail of intravenous drugs and adrenaline. That heartbeat has prompted Motl’s parents, who are Orthodox Jews, to refuse the hospital’s request to
Haredi Parents Demand Heart Machine for Corpse
Nov 12th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
They haven’t been to the hospital since July, but say ‘religious law’ decides when death occurs.… Read the rest
Daniel Drezner on Public Intellectuals and Blogs
Nov 12th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘The growth of the blogosphere erodes the barriers erected by a professionalized academy.… Read the rest
Garden Gnomes Banned From Church Cemetery
Nov 12th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘There is no such thing as a real gnome so why should we have such unnatural creatures in churchyards?’… Read the rest
Did McCain Lose More Than an Election?
Nov 12th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
He had presented himself as a figure who would never pander or betray his convictions.… Read the rest
A Good Night for the English Language
Nov 12th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
James Wood on the defeat of a politics hostile to words by a victory speech eloquent in echo, allusion, and counterpoint.… Read the rest
The New Atheists
Nov 12th, 2008 | By Max DunbarThe cliché goes that atheism is a form of theism; Tina Beattie writes:
A professor of theology (Denys Turner) tells of how he makes a bet with his students that, if they can tell him why they do not believe in God, he will tell them which Christian denomination they were brought up in. He says he usually wins the bet.
I’d love to make that bet with Turner: being a liberal atheist born to liberal atheists, I suspect it’d be easy money for me. (Admittedly my great-grandfather was a Glaswegian missionary, and I’ve always regretted that he died before I was born.) But in this critique of the ‘New Atheists’ Beattie often treats unbelief the way that Turner apparently … Read the rest
