Canada made repeated concerted efforts to obtain consular access to Jahanbegloo.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Ramin Jahanbegloo is Out of Prison
Aug 31st, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonReleased on bail, perhaps to face trial on unknown charges.… Read the rest
Cultural Barriers
Aug 31st, 2006 2:09 am | By Ophelia BensonWhat about healthy invigorating sport?
But is everyone getting excited about sport? Not according to the organisation Sport England which encourages nationwide participation of sporting activities. Its figures show that Muslim women are significantly less likely to take up exercise compared to other groups.
Wait, you said sport first, then you made it exercise. Different thing. But never mind that’s not the part that caught my attention.
… Read the restIn addition, there are cultural barriers involved in the take up of sport as a professional career option for many Muslims, both male and female…Shahid Saleh, a young British Muslim who has five sisters, explains how he does not like the idea of them playing games. “I wouldn’t want them to play
S Africa’s Health Minister Asks ‘Whose science?’
Aug 30th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonPolio in Nigeria, AIDS in South Africa, clean needles in the US, MMR in north London.… Read the rest
Study Finds no God Spot in Brain
Aug 30th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonNuns’ brains light up here there and everywhere.… Read the rest
Sophie Botros Reviews Cosmopolitanism
Aug 30th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAppiah argues that moral and religious disagreement between cultures is overstated. … Read the rest
Naguib Mahfouz 1911-2006
Aug 30th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHad health problems after 1994 stabbing by Islamist angry at portrayal of God in one of his novels.… Read the rest
Man City’s Pink Strip
Aug 30th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIf football is permeated by casual homophobia, what does that say about our society? … Read the rest
Manchester City Join Stonewall Programme
Aug 30th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonA spokesman for Stonewall praised the club for being the first to ‘put their head above the parapet.’… Read the rest
Harris on Collins
Aug 29th, 2006 11:32 pm | By Ophelia BensonSam Harris has harsh things to say about Francis Collins’s book. “His book, however, reveals that a stellar career in science offers no guarantee of a scientific frame of mind,” he observes, then he quotes from the book:
As believers, you are right to hold fast to the concept of God as Creator; you are right to hold fast to the truths of the Bible; you are right to hold fast to the conclusion that science offers no answers to the most pressing questions of human existence; and you are right to hold fast to the certainty that the claims of atheistic materialism must be steadfastly resisted….
You are “right”? What does he mean? Morally right? To “hold fast” … Read the rest
Glamour
Aug 29th, 2006 8:30 pm | By Ophelia BensonSalman Rushdie has noticed.
Spiegel asked him, “Leading British Muslims have written a letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair claiming that the growing willingness to engage in terrorism is due to Bush’s and Blair’s policies in Iraq and in Lebanon. Are they completely wrong?”
There are always reasons for criticism, also for outrage. But there’s one thing we must all be clear about: terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate goals by some sort of illegitimate means. Whatever the murderers may be trying to achieve, creating a better world certainly isn’t one of their goals. Instead they are out to murder innocent people.
Spiegel protested a little, “And yet there must be reasons, or at least triggers, for … Read the rest
Girl Abducted by Father and Sister
Aug 29th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRelatives fear abducted girl has been taken to Pakistan for an ‘arranged’ marriage.… Read the rest
Salman Rushdie Talks to Spiegel
Aug 29th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonWhatever the murderers may be trying to achieve, creating a better world certainly isn’t one of their goals. … Read the rest
Olivier Roy on Islamic Evangelism
Aug 29th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIslamic revival shares the dogmatism, communitarianism, scripturalism of US evangelist movements.… Read the rest
Ibn Warraq on Islam
Aug 29th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘While the Koran is open to some re-interpretation, it is not infinitely flexible.’… Read the rest
Sam Harris on Francis Collins’s Goddy Book
Aug 29th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIf the beauty of nature can mean that Jesus really is the son of God, then anything can mean anything. … Read the rest
Polygamist Busted
Aug 29th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonOn the lam since being charged for allegedly arranging marriages between minors and older men. … Read the rest
Bashing
Aug 28th, 2006 10:32 pm | By Ophelia BensonTime for a little religion-bashing. (A former acquaintance once kindly informed me that he didn’t like B&W because of the religion-bashing. Ruined my day. Or month, or year.) This bishop again. I want to look at what’s worrying him, once more.
The seven “sacraments” of their secular culture are abortion, buggery, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, feminism of the radical type, and genetic experimentation and mutilation…The toleration of sexual perversions among inverts, widespread contraception, easy access to “no fault” divorce, the killing of the elderly, radical feminism, embryonic stem cell research…
I want to look at the remarkable, and rather shameless, distortion of some of those. Especially that “the killing of the elderly.” The…killing of the elderly? Libbruls and Democrats want a … Read the rest
Rational Argument is Cultural Relativism?
Aug 28th, 2006 9:30 pm | By Ophelia BensonHere’s another thing I’m curious about: this idea (if it is an idea, as opposed to a mere ad hoc ploy snatched up for the purposes of evasive argumentation) that rational argument is the same thing as cultural relativism. Is that an idea? In the sense that several or many people think that, as opposed to one idiosyncratic person commenting on a Note and Comment?
Well I suppose it is an idea, yes, come to think of it, but surely it’s an idea that belongs to the, how shall I say, the fervent moral majoritarian fundamentalist right wing crowd, not the multiculti diversity-celebrating Islamophobia-spotting crowd. That’s a favourite ploy with the fundies: doing things by contraries, declaring opposites to be … Read the rest
Director of Vatican Observatory Replaced
Aug 28th, 2006 | Filed by Ophelia BensonGeorge Coyne said ID isn’t science. Naughty.… Read the rest