‘Your governments have replaced the fundamentalist rule of the Taliban with another fundamentalist regime of warlords.’
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Inevitably links go out of date.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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Charles Taylor Notices the Obvious
You can’t fit a serious argument onto the side of a bus. Who knew?!
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Nigeria: Islamist Group Kills 150 People
Radical Islamists, who claim to be linked to al-Qaeda, have killed more than 150 people in two days of violence.
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Quarrel Over ‘Islamic School’ in Sydney
Some campaigners say the debate has been laced with racial and religious intolerance.
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Jerry Coyne Reviews Robert Wright on God
The faithful – the ones who care about science – have tweaked the theory of evolution to make it more congenial.
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M and K to ‘the New Atheist Blogosphere’
They try to engage in a civil debate, but it’s hopeless, because ‘the New Atheists’ just don’t understand.
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Coyne on Francis Collins, Science and Religion
By describing in the same talk the evidence for evolution and the ‘evidence’ for God, he is confusing his audiences.
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Sam Harris on Francis Collins
It can be difficult to think like a scientist. But few things make thinking like a scientist more difficult than religion.
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Russell Blackford on Francis Collins
Folk metaethics is probably mistaken, whether an almighty law-giving deity exists or not.
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PZ Myers on Francis Collins
Collins does not trust the godless people in his communities because, to his mind, they are blind to good and evil.
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Woman’s Whipping Sentence Prompts Backlash
A Sharia court sentenced her to six strokes of the cane and a fine for consuming alcohol a year ago.
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Angry Jaffa Christians get Jesus Play Canceled
Amos Kenan’s satirical play deals with the nature of being Israeli and with the occupation.
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Solution: Blame Scientists, Add Fluff
The cause of scientific illiteracy in America is the aloofness of scientists. Next question?
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The Scientology Contract
You too can become a scientologist provided you don’t mind signing all your rights away.
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Nick Cohen on Tory Hypocrisy
Reactionaries left and right.
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Child Raped, Then Rejected by Her Family
Allegedly raped by four boys, an 8-year-old Liberian girl is now in foster care after being shunned by her family.
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Support Offered for Rejected Child
Her father said he no longer wanted her in the home because she brought shame to the family.
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‘Fundamentalist Atheist’ Trope Must Go
There is a difference – call it a fundamental one – between being certain and wrong and being certain and right.
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Atheism is so Totally Fashionable
‘Everyone claims to be one. Like in the 90s, everyone was a Buddhist, then doing Kabbalah.’
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Max Dunbar Reviews Karen Armstrong
Armstrong seems to associate all transcendent and mystical activity with religious faith.