What kind of all-powerful Deity needs secular law enforcement to protect it from the jests of a few comedians and other riffraff?
Category: Latest News
Welcome to our archive of news stories relevant to the project of fighting fashionable nonsense. The stories are drawn from the electronic pages of the world’s media. On this page, you’ll find links to those stories that have been featured on Butterflies and Wheels during the current year. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find links to separate archives of stories from previous years.
We’re always pleased to hear about news stories that you think should be featured on Butterflies and Wheels. Just send an email here, if you want to point one out to us.
A note about links
Inevitably links go out of date. We suggest, therefore, that you make hard-copies of the stories that particularly interest you.
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How Berlusconi disagrees with a female politician
By telling her she’s old and ugly. Italian women “protest against this cretinisation of women, of democracy, of politics itself.”
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What climate change needs is a New Narrative
People who make a living painstakingly creating stories from ideas tend to overvalue the importance of narrative.
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Hitchens on submitting to the needle in the arm
He thinks of the obituaries he’d like to write, listing Robert Mugabe. Joseph Ratzinger. Henry Kissinger.
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Terrorists inspired by Fox News and Glen Beck
The campaign coordinator for Rand Paul who stepped on the head of a female protester is not an isolated example.
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Discovery Institute does a bait and switch
It was “the Vibrant Dance of Faith and Science,” but then it became War.
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Jesus and Mo blow a kiss to Franco Frattini
The guy who’s whipping up the monotheists to make war on atheism.
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More on Arkansas’s fragrant Clint McCance
“being a fag doesnt give you the right to ruin the rest of our lives. If you get easily offended by being called a fag then dont tell anyone you are a fag.”
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Arkansas school board member to resign over FB post
He wrote that he wanted gay people to commit suicide, used the terms “queer” and “fag” repeatedly, rejoiced “that [gay people] give each other AIDS and die.”
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Hari on Naipaul on African belief in spirits
Once you cede power to an invisible force, you cede power to other human beings who can then claim to use those invisible forces against you.
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Blasphemy laws are a serious threat to human rights
Governments use these laws to legitimize crackdowns on minority groups and dissidents under the pretext of maintaining ‘social harmony.’
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Why blasphemy laws are a terrible idea
Because they can be and are used to suppress freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
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Skeptics u r doin it rong
It’s affected to spell “skeptic” with a k, for one thing, and you think you’re so clever, for another.
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NHS funding for homeopathy risks misleading patients
“If the government is paying out millions for homeopathy, people will think there’s something in it.”
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Vic Stenger on why religion should be confronted
“Young people are joining the rising atheist movement in increasing numbers. I have not met one yet who is an accommodationist.”
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Franco Frattini calls for holy war on atheists
“Christians also must be able to forge an agreement with Muslims on how to fight atheism, materialism and relativism.”
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Zainab Rashid on her “controversial” personality
“The Palestinian woman lives in a chauvinistic society, which continues to treat women as immature and incompetent beings.”
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Jesus and Mo are full of deep questions
Know-it-all barmaid replies.
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Joshua Knobe on morality and hidden judgements
Our moral judgements influence our intutions about the non-moral question whether someone is acting intentionally or not. [rr]
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Patricia Churchland on the brain roots of morality
Neuroscientists are catching the first glimpses of how altruistic behaviour happens in the brain. [registration required]