See Jeremy and Julian being silly – I mean having a serious (albeit brief) discussion of aesthetics, elitism, cuisine, jazz, preferences, and alphabetization.… Read the rest
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Religion and Rationality
Oct 16th, 2006 5:38 pm | By Ophelia BensonMartin Newland tells us plaintively that ‘these days people find it hard to accept that religion and rationality can co-exist.’ Well, maybe; some people; other people clearly find it very easy. And as for ‘these days’, I would say the social pressure is running more in the other direction ‘these days’ than it did, say, twenty years ago. But maybe by ‘these days’ Newland means ‘these past three hundred years’.
At any rate, he shows us how well religion and rationality can co-exist.
… Read the restI am a Roman Catholic. As such, I believe that God took the decision to be born into a poor family in Roman-occupied Palestine. I believe that His short life on earth was spent setting down the
David Thompson on the ‘Phobia’ Ploy
Oct 16th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonOnce beliefs become identity, disagreement becomes racism, and silence falls.… Read the rest
Islamism in Europe
Oct 16th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonArtists and leftists warn that the rise of radical Islam threatens European liberalism.… Read the rest
Bush Advisors Called Evangelicals ‘Nuts’
Oct 16th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAnd goofy; but of course those are terms of endearment.… Read the rest
Martin Newland Reports he is Catholic and Sane
Oct 16th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThen provides details.… Read the rest
Nick Cohen on Homelessness Then and Now
Oct 16th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson216,000 new households are formed each year, but only 160,000 new homes are built.… Read the rest
Creeping Creationism
Oct 16th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPerhaps the rise of creationism is based on a desire to believe that the world is inherently good.… Read the rest
Friends in Bangladesh
Oct 15th, 2006 9:12 pm | By Ophelia BensonSalah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury. He goes on trial on Thursday. He could get the death penalty. For what? ‘His crime is to have tried to attend a writers’ conference in Tel Aviv on how the media can foster world peace.’ Ah yes – that’s a good reason to kill someone.
… Read the restBut few stories better illustrate the Islamist tinderbox that Bangladesh has become than Mr. Choudhury’s. “When I began my newspaper [the Weekly Blitz] in 2003 I decided to make an end to the well-orchestrated propaganda campaign against Jews and Christians and especially against Israel,” he says in the first of several telephone interviews in recent days. “In Bangladesh and especially during Friday prayers, the clerics propagate jihad and encourage
Harriet Harman Talks to the New Statesman
Oct 15th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWould prefer to see the veil gone from British society. ‘Because I want women to be fully included.’… Read the rest
MP Says Niqab Harms Women’s Rights
Oct 15th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘The veil is an obstacle to women’s participation on equal terms,’ Harriet Harman says.… Read the rest
Bachelet Revisits Torture Site
Oct 15th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonSite is now a memorial to the thousands of prisoners who were tortured by the secret police. … Read the rest
Meet Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury
Oct 15th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHe tried to end ‘the well-orchestrated propaganda campaign against Jews and Christians.’… Read the rest
PEN has Concern for the Safety of Choudhury
Oct 15th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonChoudhury faces sedition charges for his criticism of the spread of Islamist militancy in Bangladesh.… Read the rest
In the Name of Justice?
Oct 15th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonJeremy Stangroom on thinking about retribution.… Read the rest
It’s wot?
Oct 15th, 2006 12:04 am | By Ophelia BensonMore on that Eagleton review. I have my doubts about other parts of it.
For mainstream Christianity, reason, argument and honest doubt have always played an integral role in belief.
Well, for one thing, that depends how you define mainstream Christianity (and I’m not too sure about that ‘always,’ either, in fact I think it’s wrong – for most of mainstream Christianity’s history, honest doubt has damn well not played an integral role, but led straight to the nice hot bonfire). For another thing, it could be seen as a contradiction to say that doubt plays an integral role in belief. For another thing, Eagleton doesn’t do a great job of modelling honest doubt himself.
… Read the restHe is what sustains
One suspects
Oct 14th, 2006 7:13 pm | By Ophelia BensonI was stopped cold by a paragraph in Terry Eagleton’s review of Dawkins’s book in the LRB (it’s subscription, so I can’t link to it; a kind reader sent me a copy). I’ll show you why.
Dawkins on God is rather like those right-wing Cambridge dons who filed eagerly into the Senate House some years ago to non-placet Jacques Derrida for an honorary degree. Very few of them, one suspects, had read more than a few pages of his work, and even that judgment might be excessively charitable. Yet they would doubtless have been horrified to receive an essay on Hume from a student who had not read his Treatise of Human Nature.
Staggering, isn’t it? One suspects – one … Read the rest
Run like hell
Oct 14th, 2006 6:27 pm | By Ophelia BensonCatherine Bennett notes that the Rational Dress Society protested against dress fashion that ‘impedes the movements of the body’ with the result that after three or four decades, women were able to ride bicycles. Well, yes. Clothes and dress codes seem like a comparatively trivial matter, but they’re not. They’re immensely important. I’ve felt that literally all my life – from earliest earliest childhood. I always wore jeans when I could, I always fought wearing a skirt whether for school or for social occasions, I always fought binding or uncomfortable clothes. I remember fussing (okay probably whining) about a dress that was too tight or pinchy somewhere when I was a child; my mother said something to the effect that … Read the rest
Catherine Bennett on Clothes and Freedom
Oct 14th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhat does freedom mean, if it doesn’t mean being free to oppress yourself? … Read the rest
Sanjeev Srivastava on Kanshi Ram
Oct 14th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRam united Dalits into a formidable political force in several states.… Read the rest