Grayling and director Mick Gordon co-wrote play with contributions from theologians, clerics, atheists.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
The Christian conscience
Nov 5th, 2006 7:45 pm | By Ophelia BensonIn a startling warning to the Government, senior church and political figures have backed a report advocating force to protest against policies that are “unbiblical” and “inimical to the Christian faith”.
The Telegraph cites the ‘menacing language’ of the report and says ‘Lord Mawhinney, the Tory peer, Andy Reed, the Labour MP, and the Rt Rev Peter Forster, the Bishop of Chester, helped to produce’ it.
… Read the restThe report from the Evangelical Alliance says “violent revolution” should be regarded as a viable response if government legislation encroaches further on basic religious rights. The church is urged to come to a consensus that “at some point there is not only the right but the duty to disobey the state”…Proposals to
We feel special today
Nov 5th, 2006 6:47 pm | By Ophelia BensonMore pondering on this question of what is good and for whom. Compassion is an important human virtue, but would it be an important virtue, or a virtue at all, if humans were different kinds of entities? If we were conscious but immortal and perfect, if we never suffered, if we had no vulnerability of any kind (and didn’t know of any entities that did), would compassion be a virtue? Would we see it as a good thing? I tend to doubt it.
I had similar doubts and questions about some things Keith Ward said in a discussion with Anthony Grayling in Prospect last year.
… Read the restThe scientific perception of the cosmos is that it is an intelligible, law-like, mathematically
Anti-Censorship Conference at National Theatre
Nov 5th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAppignanesi, Mortimer, Hytner, others to confront growing danger to theatre in the UK.… Read the rest
Muslims Join Xians to Bully Gays in Scotland
Nov 5th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘There is a momentum building against the secular parties’ says founder of ‘pro-family’ ‘pro-life’ party.… Read the rest
Church Group Report Offers Threats
Nov 5th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonTory peer, Labour MP, Bishop of Chester helped to produce the menacing report.… Read the rest
Blair Criticizes ‘Anti-science Brigade’
Nov 5th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCondemns ‘outrageous distortion’ of campaigners against pioneering technologies.… Read the rest
Haggard Fired for ‘Sexually Immoral Conduct’
Nov 5th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNoisy opponent of gay marriage admits having a massage from a gay masseur, denies inhaling. … Read the rest
Lords Report on Science Decline in Schools
Nov 5th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPsychology, media studies, photography considered more fun, also easier.… Read the rest
Mock Mock Mock
Nov 5th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRationalists on crusade. Very droll.… Read the rest
U-turn on ‘Faith’ Schools Explained
Nov 5th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIncompatible goals meet, tangle, thrash about, retire to corners again.… Read the rest
Whither virtue?
Nov 4th, 2006 10:21 pm | By Ophelia BensonI’ve been pondering (off and on, mostly off) this question of suffering and compassion – this idea that you can’t have one without the other, or that the one makes the other worthwhile, or acceptable, or the world that includes it more attractive. Swinburne said, as we saw:
… Read the restTheodicy provides good explanations of why God sometimes – for some or all of the short period of our earthly lives – allows us to suffer pain and disability. Although intrinsically bad states, these difficult times often serve good purposes for the sufferers and for others. My suffering provides me with the opportunity to show courage and patience. It provides you with the opportunity to show sympathy and to help alleviate
Anthony Giddens on Climate Change and Greens
Nov 4th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMany greens are hostile to science and technology, which are needed in responses to climate change.… Read the rest
Jesus and Mo Take Moses to Meet the Barmaid
Nov 4th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe’s an outgoing guy.… Read the rest
Bad Science on a Pricey Cure for Dyslexia
Nov 4th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhat was wrong with the paper? Quite a few things.… Read the rest
On Hannah Arendt
Nov 4th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSeyla Benhabib, Michael Hardt, Martin Jay, Julia Neuberger, Ilan Pappe, Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, others.… Read the rest
Scott McLemee on Richardson’s William James
Nov 4th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJames once described the history of philosophy as the record of a ‘certain clash of human temperaments.’… Read the rest
Alan Boyle on Allen Esterson on Mileva Marić
Nov 4th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe evidence and historical documentation are not there.… Read the rest
Who did Einstein’s Mathematics?: A Response to Troemel-Ploetz
Nov 4th, 2006 | By Allen EstersonIn an article in Time magazine in July 2006 Walter Isaacson, president of the Aspen Institute and former chairman of CNN, stated that Einstein’s first wife Mileva Marić was a “Serbian physicist who had helped him with the math of his 1905 [special relativity] paper”[1]
From the unequivocal way that this information was presented by Isaacson, readers would be forgiven for assuming that this a straightforward factual statement. Yet this is far from the case. For a start, the mathematics in the 1905 relativity paper was quite elementary: as Jürgen Renn, an editor of the Albert Einstein Collected Papers, observes, “If he had needed help with that kind of mathematics, he would have ended there.”[2] Then there is the … Read the rest
Ivory-bill Sightings Reported in Florida
Nov 3rd, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNo photos, but repeated sightings, suggestive physical evidence.… Read the rest