All entries by this author

Why Not Be a Tattletale? *

Apr 8th, 2006 | Filed by

Sociologist Charles Tilly examines our reasons for giving reasons.… Read the rest



Translation of Polittiken Piece by Ibrahim Ramadan *

Apr 8th, 2006 | Filed by

Organisations such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir working to control what other Moslems should believe, think, do.… Read the rest



Armchair Warriors Pile On Jill Carroll *

Apr 8th, 2006 | Filed by

Ooh, I’m sitting in the Empire State Building, I’m on the front lines.… Read the rest



Close Encounters and Identity *

Apr 8th, 2006 | Filed by

‘Having the right mix of strong and weak ties is an essential component of people’s quality of life.’… Read the rest



Kanan Makiya on What’s Gone Right and Wrong *

Apr 7th, 2006 | Filed by

The Ba’ath party was hated, but it turned out to be far more deep rooted in Iraq than we thought.… Read the rest



Enough With the ‘Faith Schools’ Already *

Apr 7th, 2006 | Filed by

National Union of Teachers says religious fundamentalists are gaining control of state schools.… Read the rest



Ignatieff Interviewed *

Apr 7th, 2006 | Filed by

Even when cabinet ministers admit they’ve lied, nobody believes them, interviewer notes.… Read the rest



Misinterpretation and Misreporting *

Apr 7th, 2006 | Filed by

Mims, Pianka, the Discovery Institute.… Read the rest



Conversation and Cosmopolitanism *

Apr 7th, 2006 | Filed by

Carlin Romano on conversation as a process of learning to live with one another.… Read the rest



It Takes a Sentence

Apr 6th, 2006 7:49 pm | By

There’s a lot of kack in this piece on religion in the New Statesman. This particular sentence especially caught my eye, for sheer quantity of kack in one sentence.

“So far, the response of the government has been mostly correct: dismissing the crude secularism of the French ban on the hijab, allowing for the establishment of Muslim schools and working closely with the leaders of the Muslim community.”

One, the word ‘correct’, as if political decisions were as clear-cut as arithmetic. Two, that much-recycled bit of obfuscation: the French ban on the hijab is not a French ban on the hijab, it’s a French ban on the hijab (and other conspicuous religious symbols and garments) in state schools. … Read the rest



Explaining and Understanding

Apr 6th, 2006 7:21 pm | By

I posted a comment on Dennett’s reply to Ruse and Bunting this morning – and since the idea I was commenting on is (I think) a fairly pervasive one, and related to this whole question of ‘shut up about your atheism, they might hear you,’ I thought I might as well post it here too. The first para, in italics, is someone else commenting.

on the subject of Dawkins getting up ones nose, it would be all well and good if he was just another academic. He does however hold a position called ‘The Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University’ (according to wikipedia) which means he has the task of communicating his subject to Read the rest



Introduction to ‘Living Without God’ [pdf] *

Apr 6th, 2006 | Filed by

Ronald Aronson on finding faith in disbelief.… Read the rest



Only Animists Shout at Their Computers *

Apr 6th, 2006 | Filed by

The danger here, Dennett says, lies in the sacred becoming too sacred.… Read the rest



André Glucksmann on Separating Truth and Belief *

Apr 6th, 2006 | Filed by

Civilized discourse analyzes and defines matters of fact relating to knowledge, not to faith. … Read the rest



What War on Christians? *

Apr 6th, 2006 | Filed by

Disagreement isn’t oppression.… Read the rest



Irfan Husain on Apostasy and Liberal Attitudes *

Apr 6th, 2006 | Filed by

Double standards can be problematic.… Read the rest



On Taking the Templeton Foundation’s Dime *

Apr 6th, 2006 | Filed by

If you don’t think science and religion should be reconciled, qualms arise.… Read the rest



Cultural Relativism and its Enemies

Apr 6th, 2006 1:26 am | By

Phyllis Chesler and Maryam Namazie are (you should pardon the expression) singing out of the same hymnbook.

Chesler:

Chesler’s experiences in Afghanistan have helped shape her thoughts about the failure of feminism to engage with what she sees as the oppression of women in Islamic countries…looking at mainstream feminism in the west – in the universities, in the media, among academics and the socalled intelligentsia – there is a moral failure, a moral bankruptcy, a refusal to take on, in particular, Muslim gender apartheid. So you have many contemporary feminists who say, ‘We have to be multiculturally relativist. We cannot uphold a single, or absolute, standard of human rights. And, therefore, we can’t condemn Islamic culture, because their countries have

Read the rest


All-purpose Tool Going Cheap

Apr 5th, 2006 5:31 pm | By

It’s good to know that whatever happens, whatever the conditions, whether it rains or sizzles, at midnight and at noon, whether things are going well or badly, in peace and war, in poverty and plenty, whether there are too few women or too many, the result is always the same – women are treated like dirt. Women are grabbed, pushed around, sold and bought, beaten and killed, raped and enslaved, exploited and used, thrown away and swapped around. Women are treated like livestock, like farm machinery, like incubators, like any old possession except worse because they have to be broken and forced and violently bent to the will of other people. Incubators and ploughs don’t argue, but women – well, … Read the rest



Profile of Maryam Namazie *

Apr 5th, 2006 | Filed by

She rejects attempts to silence all criticism of theocratic regimes as ‘racism’ or ‘Islamophobic.’ … Read the rest