Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Why Self-flagellation Matters

    Those adults who engage in self-flagellation do so with a consciousness of the ceremonial nature of the act.

  • Like Everything Else, It’s About ‘Choice’

    If parents have the right to believe what they like, their children have the right learn that some things are wrong.

  • Giordano Bruno

    Once he mounted the pyre, a crucifix was held up to his face; he turned away angrily.

  • Carl Elliott in Defense of the Beta Blocker

    Especially good performance enhancers when the performance involves an anxiety-producing public setting.

  • Stephen Law’s Book Club Starts

    Even if religious leaders do have expertise on ethical issues, that doesn’t entail we should defer to them.

  • Grayling on Religion and Self-inflicted Pain

    Christianity and Hinduism can offer examples that make zanjir self-flagellation look like a haircut.

  • No Eating at Council Meetings During Ramadan

    ‘No one religion should be accorded more status or influence than others,’ says Lib-Dem councillor.

  • Court Upholds Abortion Rights in Mexico

    Mexico values its anticlerical political tradition as well as its Catholic heritage.

  • Religious Riots Spread in Orissa

    Hindu groups accuse Xians of forced conversion, Xians say lower-caste Hindus convert willingly to escape caste system.

  • Atheists Are the Last Outgroup

    The Democratic Convention is all ‘faith’ all the time. Dissenters are requested to leave.

  • Jerry Coyne and Matthew Cobb Letter to ‘Nature’

    Can science bring about ‘advances in theological thinking’? Or is atheism the only advance available.

  • Religious Group Causes Mumps Outbreak in BC

    BC health official says mumps outbreak began with Fraser Valley religious group that shuns immunization.

  • Candidates Spurn Science Debate

    Forum on ‘faith,’ you bet; forum on science, no thanks. Great priorities.

  • ‘Just do it, just do it,’ he said

    A Shia Muslim was convicted of child cruelty after he forced two boys to flog themselves during a ritual.

  • Wondering if

    I’m wondering, because of a discussion with Don in the comments, if there is a valid distinction between saying ‘there is no good evidence that “God” (as commonly understood) exists’ and affirmatively claiming that ‘God’ doesn’t exist. I think there is, but I’m wondering if I’m cheating in thinking that.

    Surely not, though. Not least because it is perfectly possible to know there is no evidence for something without taking that as evidence for not-something. There is no evidence for an infinite number of things (that someone had a particular thought a year ago, for instance) that may well be true just the same.

    God of course is somewhat different, since given the usual definition of God, we know that there would be evidence if a God so defined wanted there to be evidence. An omnipotent God must be able to produce evidence of itself – so in the case of a God so defined, the lack of evidence is a little suspicious. Either it’s playing silly games, or it doesn’t exist; both possibilities are disconcerting for believers.

  • The Miscalculation of Small Nations

    Fred Halliday notes that ‘the flaws of nationalism can match or exceed those of religion.’

  • Ali Eteraz on Pakistan’s Political Soap Opera

    The Taliban are not resistance fighters standing up to a dictatorship; they are cold-blooded serial killers.

  • Pankaj Mishra on Kashmir

    In 2005 MSF found that Muslim women in Kashmir, prey to the Indian troops, suffered pervasive sexual violence.

  • Yes it is too so a question for science

    In a high school biology class.

    “Can anybody think of a question science can’t answer?”

    “Is there a God?” shot back a boy near the window.

    “Good,” said Mr. Campbell, an Anglican who attends church most Sundays. “Can’t test it. Can’t prove it, can’t disprove it. It’s not a question for science.”

    Can test it if it’s the kind of God that pokes around in our world. Is a question for science if it causes people to win sprints and get sick and get well and survive hurricanes.

    PZ is on the case.

    I despise that chicken-hearted answer. There are two reasonable ways to address that. One is to accept the usual open-ended, undefined vagueness of the god entity and point out that the reason it can’t be answered is that it is a bad question — it’s not even wrong. Science doesn’t answer it, but then no discipline can, because it’s a garbage question like “what color are invisible elephants?” If that’s what window-boy intends with his petty little gotcha, he deserves to have the inanity of his idea disparaged.

    The other approach is to pin the question down. What god? What actions has it taken in the natural world? How does it influence us specifically? Then you can tackle that god with science by testing the purported effects it has. A potentially falsifiable or verifiable god is a legitimate target of scientific investigation…of course, that kind of god seems to vanish as soon as it is scrutinized, and its advocates rapidly fall back on the not-even-wrong version of a deity.

    Just so.

    I do wish – forlornly – there weren’t such a torrent of goddy nonsense in the US presidential campaign. I know that’s asking for the moon, but I do wish. I wish Obama didn’t have to ‘reach out’ to the godbotherers.

    Russell Blackford is putting together a book of essays on not believing in God. I’m one of the contributors and I sent my essay off today.

  • Voices of Disbelief

    Russell Blackford says it will be a strong book.