People struggling to defend basic rights within Muslim communities are called racist.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Minority or Citizen? A Roundtable Discussion
Jan 11th, 2005 | By Hamid Taghvaee, Ali Javadi, Azar MajediWorker-communist review: The debate surrounding the banning of conspicuous religious symbols in schools and government workplaces in France have raised some fundamental questions about religious freedom and freedom of choice and dress. Is the ban a restriction on religious freedom, choice and dress? How far must a ban go? Why?
Hamid Taghvaee: In my view, banning religious symbols in schools and workplaces is completely justified. The ban has nothing to do with religious freedom because it is a social and public ban. In civil societies, religion and religious practices must be free as long as they remain private matters. Civil society can only recognise freedom of religion as a private matter; otherwise it will not be civil society … Read the rest
Breathtaking Modesty
Jan 10th, 2005 7:46 pm | By Ophelia BensonI’ve been reading the Introduction to Astrology, Science and Culture: Pulling Down the Moon, by Roy Willis and Patrick Curry. Patrick Curry teaches in the astrology programme at Bath Spa University College which you may have noticed in Flashback. The introduction is truly fascinating, in the way a gangrenous wound might be fascinating to its owner. I’ll quote from it a little, so that you can see what I mean.
… Read the restVery little in the debate about astrology is entirely new. The word itself means the ‘word’ (logos) or ‘language’ of the stars, and is now customarily
contrasted, as a pathetic remnant of primitive superstition, with the academically respectable science of astronomy. This latter term means
‘measurement of the stars’,
Another Meek Christian Voice Heard From
Jan 10th, 2005 6:44 pm | By Ophelia BensonInteresting developments. And people sometimes ask me, whether plaintively or (more often) crossly, why I insist on trying to argue with metaphysical beliefs, which is a futile and even meaningless thing to do. Well, this sort of thing is one reason. Because ‘metaphysical’ beliefs seem to be the kind that prompt people to feel outraged, ‘offended,’ attacked, insulted, disrespected, challenged in the very core of their identity. I think that’s not a mere coincidence, I think it’s kind of the whole point. When people can’t point to evidence in reply to critics and skeptics of their beliefs, what can they do instead? They can of course do nothing, or they can shake their heads over the benighted ways of the … Read the rest
Hurrah – Christians Have Learned to Threaten Too
Jan 10th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonOffended ethnic minorities take these things seriously: Keating really would have to take himself away on holiday.… Read the rest
‘Christian Voice’ Published Private Details on Website
Jan 10th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRemoved information after warnings from BBC lawyers; Keating and others had received threats.… Read the rest
Complaints to BBC Escalate to Threats of Violence
Jan 10th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonBBC2 controller, director of television deluged with ‘threatening’ and ‘abusive’ phone calls.… Read the rest
New York Times on Guy Davenport
Jan 10th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia Benson‘He talked over everybody’s head, but in a way that made you want to get to where he was.’… Read the rest
Mary Kenny Gratified to See BBC Cages Rattled
Jan 10th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonAnd glad to see Christians catch up with Muslims and Sikhs in the cage-rattling game.… Read the rest
‘The Canon’ Has no Value for the Underprivileged?
Jan 10th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonIn fact ‘the canon’ enabled ‘the masses’ to become thinking individuals. … Read the rest
Sontag v Derrida
Jan 10th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonHair; obit word-count; celebrity score; president is/is not sad; was/was not silly.… Read the rest
Meera Nanda on New Intellectual Betrayal
Jan 9th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMisguided attack on Enlightenment helps pseudoscience, superstitions and tribalism. … Read the rest
Thousands are Offended, BBC is Resolute
Jan 9th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonRude words, nappies, Jesus, chocolate, lesbians – it all goes to show.… Read the rest
David Aaronovitch, Fluffy New Britain Optimist
Jan 9th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThis is exactly the kind of offensive material that I want to see on TV.… Read the rest
Fraud in Science
Jan 8th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonScience may be self-correcting but fraud wastes money and does harm.… Read the rest
Some Uncertainties More Uncertain Than Others
Jan 8th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonThe first duty is to rewrite the encyclopaedia every day – except the semiotics entry.… Read the rest
Punishment-from-Allah Theorists on the Job
Jan 8th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonCorruption, sin, infidels, heresy, man-made laws, fornication, sexual perversion.… Read the rest
Conspiracy Theorists on the Job
Jan 8th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonMaybe eco-weapons that cause earthquakes via electromagnetic waves were being tested. … Read the rest
Linked by Meaning in a Non-linear Fashion
Jan 7th, 2005 9:10 pm | By Ophelia BensonHere’s something to make you think, to shake your comfortable old positivist assumptions down to their roots, to alert you to the fact that there are deeper levels of reality that you’ve been forgetting to take into account…
… Read the restI am glad to see that this page is being read by the press. On 6th December, Catherine Bennett of the Guardian (UK national newspaper and dyed-in-the-wool astrological sceptic) writes: On the Astrology News website, there is already speculation that the tsunami “because it involves destruction originating from a submarine source … appears to fall in line with the mythological themes of Sedna”. Suggesting that the California Institute of Technology scientists whose decision it was, last year, to name the planet
The Fight Against Poverty Neglects Science
Jan 7th, 2005 | Filed by Ophelia BensonUN advisers: potential of science and technology against poverty much more than governments realise.… Read the rest