A law against blasphemy is an obligation to live your life according to the religious beliefs of others.
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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Mediawatchwatch on Kerkar, Threats, Ganesh
‘They told me that they will chop off my fingers for indulging in such acts.’ Or Ganesh might sit on him.
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Indian Artist Receives Threats Over Hindu Images
Subodh Kerkar says threats started when Sanatan Sanstha told Hindus to call him and ‘express their anguish.’
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Police Bow to Pressure, Tell Kerkar to Stop
Police told Goan artist Subodh Kerkar to desist ‘activities which may insult religious feelings or religious beliefs.’
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Kerkar Going Ahead With Exhibition
‘Radical groups do not have the power of attorney over Lord Ganesh,’ Kerkar told reporters.
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Joan Smith on Shameful Gender Segregation
Gender segregation is rooted in religious ideas about purity and the need to curb sexual expression.
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Atheism Helping or Hurting Science Literacy?
Accommodationists create conflict because they realize their ideal world can’t co-exist with dissenting views.
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Lord Patel Demands Apology from Fitzpatrick
Calls him ‘cowardly’ for saying sex segregation is ‘intolerant.’ Fitzpatrick says nothing cowardly about it.
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Focus on Human Rights in Afghanistan
The importance of human rights to the international effort in Afghanistan has been lost.
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Hitchens on Yale UP and the Motoons
Now we have to say that the mayhem we fear is also our fault, if not indeed our direct responsibility.
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Rod Dreher on ‘Fundamentalist Atheism’
‘The True Unbelievers prove that you don’t have to be religious to be a fundamentalist.’
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The Aquatic Ape and Pseudoscience
What distinguishes science from pseudoscience is social.
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Guatemala’s Femicide Crisis
The pattern of violence includes sexual assault and physical torture before the women are killed.
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Violence Against Women in Guatemala
Read more.
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Human Rights Watch: Gay Men Targeted in Iraq
Mahdi Army spokesmen have promoted fears about the ‘third sex’ and the ‘feminization’ of Iraq men.
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Grayling on Opposing Mindsets
On one side are those who inquire; on
the other are those who espouse a belief system which pre-packages all the answers. -
Women Blocked From Voting in Afghanistan
Polling stations are sex-segregated and there aren’t enough women to staff them, so tough luck.
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The Future of Iranian Feminism
The women’s movement has built an independent structure that the regime has not been able to crack.
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Not Chicken Soup for the Soul
Researchers in positive psychology fight its image as a New Agey self-help movement.
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Gambia: State Witch-hunters Grab Villagers
1300 people were seized and made to drink poison; some died, others spent days racked with pain.