Posts Tagged ‘ FTB ’

A conversation with AC Grayling

Sep 25th, 2012 3:43 pm | By

A student journalist, Will Bordell, has a lovely interview with Anthony Grayling which I’ve just published at ur-B&W. Here’s a big chunk of it.

Spare a thought for philosophy: An interview with A.C. Grayling

What makes Grayling tick is “the fact that the world is so rich in interest and in puzzles, and that the task of finding out as much as we can about it is not an endless task but certainly one which is going to take us many, many millennia to complete”.  There’s a sort of childlike grin that beams out at me, as he affirms that “that’s exciting – discovery is exciting”.  Grayling joys in doubt and possibility, in invention and innovation: the tasks of the … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Not lord of the manor

Sep 25th, 2012 9:09 am | By

Tessa Kendall has a post on Bullies and predators, expanding on Michael Story’s post yesterday.

Because of the stupid libel laws in this country, the Offender cannot be named publicly, which makes him harder to deal with.

I’m one of the hosts of London SitP, along with Carmen and Sid. When I started going to SitP, very few women came. Sometimes I was the only woman there at the King’s Head in Borough. Over the years, we’ve worked hard to encourage women to come and now a lot do. We want them to feel safe and comfortable. This isn’t a major problem, we don’t want to blow it out of proportion, but we do want to act responsibly and

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Raising their voices against known enemies

Sep 24th, 2012 5:35 pm | By

Salman Rushdie talked to Der Spiegel about his memoir of the fatwa years.

Some senior cops didn’t approve of him much.

I wasn’t like the others, those who deserved protection because they had done something for the country. I was someone who received protection because he had made trouble. In their view, it was my own fault that the Muslims were after me. Some members of the police, not all of them, didn’t understand how anyone could be willing to cause such a fuss for such an far-off issue. At least if my book had been about England …

SPIEGEL: The criticism wasn’t just coming from the police and Muslims, but increasingly from colleagues and intellectuals. Perhaps your sharpest

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Stories

Sep 24th, 2012 5:02 pm | By

There’s also an epistemological point in Michael’s post, which is interesting too.

The issue of the day is sexism/feminism and the debate is splitting down two rough sides: those who find religion immoral or irritating and want to campaign against it with no time devoted to anything else, and those whose objection to religion is part of a generally progressive agenda (frequently called ‘social justice’), and who feel that organised atheism is in danger of replicating the same old problems which religions have perpetuated.

Part of the problem here is that skepticism and feminism are coming from different traditions: feminism has historically been less concerned about evidence and more about consciousness-raising, while skepticism treats evidence as a gold standard and

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Biff

Sep 24th, 2012 3:32 pm | By

Headline just seen on the LA Times website.

Romney hits Obama for calling Middle East troubles ‘bumps in road’ 09/24/2012, 2:17 p.m.

Guys…take it outside.… Read the rest

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A distinct way of thinking

Sep 24th, 2012 11:58 am | By

Pakistan is working hard to model mindless slavish submission to religious mandates for the rest of the world, and to bully everyone else into doing the same.

Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf ordered Internet service providers to block YouTube — all of it, not just the offending videos. Interior Minister Rehman Malik has asked Interpol to take up the matter. And he wants the United Nations to develop international legislation to stop the circulation of material deemed blasphemous.

Think of all the religions in the world. What a lot of material could meet the description “deemed blasphemous.” Just imagine a world in which all such material was forbidden to circulate. Just imagine the mental poverty.

…it’s not just Islamist

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The importance of respecting all prophets

Sep 24th, 2012 11:42 am | By

Michael Nugent tells me a bit of news I didn’t know – that the EU has joined the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League and the Commission of the African Union to release a statement “expressing ‘the importance of respecting all prophets’, and ‘strongly committing to take further measures’ to work for ‘full respect of religion’.”

What?!

The joint statement begins by saying that ‘we share a profound respect for all religions,’ and absurdly adds that ‘we believe in the importance of respecting all prophets, regardless of which religion they belong to.’

Or to put it another way, we believe in theocracy, and if you don’t we want you to keep quiet about it.

Why is the EU teaming … Read the rest

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Getting disturbingly touchy-feely with women

Sep 24th, 2012 10:15 am | By

Oh, so it happens in the UK too, eh. Michael W Story says it does, at least.

I like going to public lectures; I’ve met some great friends and friends who became colleagues there, many of whom I saw last weekend at the post Pod Delusion Live drinks. I’ve spoken at Ignite, done the odd Skeptics in the Pub as part of a double act with Martin Robbins and will be giving a solo presentation about my own hobby horse at Leicester in January, but I don’t feel that my attendance at things like Skeptics is an identity that represents me the way that some of the hardcore members do. So maybe it’s not my place to join

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A must-read

Sep 23rd, 2012 5:10 pm | By

They’ve added a great new blogger at Talking Philosophy, Claire Creffield. Alert readers will figure out quite quickly that she is a woman, a type which is generally in short supply there. She’s a dazzling writer, with interesting thoughts.

She is wasted on some of the he-man commenters there, like Michael Reidy.

The question is: What is it like to be woman? Is there a what it is like’ness to the consciousness of a woman? This is a deep question. Is there such a thing as female qualia? Is there inversion in the moral spectrum so to speak? These are bold speculations which led philosophers and others to perhaps consider whether women were ready for the onerous task

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Maryam speaks

Sep 23rd, 2012 4:05 pm | By

Speaking of Maryam, she has her talk yesterday at the NSS conference posted. Richard Dawkins said on Twitter that she was on good fiery form.

A taste -

Hiding behind ‘rights’ and ‘choice’ to excuse misogyny is a betrayal of human principles. After all, years ago, certain men only had the ‘right’ to vote and own slaves.

Remember good old fashioned international solidarity – how I miss it – when we actually joined forces with those suffering under racial apartheid in South Africa for example.

Nowadays, many liberals and post-modernist leftists side with those imposing apartheid – sex apartheid – because it is considered the ‘right to religion’…

It’s a betrayal of human solidarity.

And this solidarity is fundamental

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Last February

Sep 23rd, 2012 3:34 pm | By

Marianne (Noodlemaz) tweeted a very nice picture from the Free Expression rally organized by Maryam in London last February;  it’s of her and Rhys. She gave me permission to post it.

She has a great post on the rally, full of pictures and videos. In the second video there’s Rhys telling about his adventure in censorship-by-being-offended, and there’s Richard Dawkins in the background, cool in shades.… Read the rest

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A special gift

Sep 23rd, 2012 12:05 pm | By

Thomas Nagel explains about Alvin Plantinga and his goddy epistemology.

You know how it goes. Having reliable cognitive faculties as a result of natural selection is not credible, while having them as a result of goddy selection is. (But then explain God. I know, that’s old news, but still – if the first thing isn’t credible, why is God credible? Why is the first any less credible than the second?)

We form our beliefs in various reliable ways – perception, rational intuition, memory. Also one more way.

So far we are in the territory of traditional epistemology; but what about faith? Faith, according to Plantinga, is another basic way of forming beliefs, distinct from but not in competition with

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Moderate shmoderate

Sep 23rd, 2012 11:08 am | By

Yes but. Yes it’s good to point out that “Muslim rage” about the video is actually a tiny fraction of Muslim opinion on the subject, as Avaaz does. But it’s not so good to sort Islamists into the bad radical ones and the “moderates,” as Avaaz also does. Moderate theocracy is still theocracy, and it’s bad.

Like everyone else, many Muslims find the 13 minute Islamophobic video “Innocence of Muslims” trashy and offensive. Protests have spread quickly, tapping into understandable and lasting grievances about neo-colonialist US and western foreign policy in the Middle East, as well as religious sensitivities about depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. But the news coverage often obscures some important points:

1. Early estimates put participation

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$100 k for murder

Sep 22nd, 2012 11:42 am | By

In Pakistan, a government minister offers a reward for committing a murder.

That’s right.

In Pakistan, a government minister offers a reward for committing a murder.

A Pakistani government minister has offered a $100,000 (£61,616) reward for the death of the maker of an anti-Islam film produced in the US.

Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour told reporters that he would pay the reward for the “sacred duty” out of his own pocket.

He suggested the Taliban and al-Qaeda would be eligible for the reward.

His comments came a day after at least 20 people died in clashes between anti-film protesters and police.

“I announce today that this blasphemer who has abused the holy prophet, if somebody will kill him,

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Mockery of religion should be normalized

Sep 22nd, 2012 11:22 am | By

A comment by AJ Milne of Accidental Weblog on “Of course, however”:

My view of mockery of Islam is the same as mockery of Christianity:

That is: it is in everyone’s interest that such mockery be normalized, not discouraged. Whether it’s flippant, silly, rude, juvenile, absurd, insulting, thoughtful, or whatever it might be, people need to get used to the idea that it’s going to be out there if you go looking for it.

And no, I don’t care who does it, how stupid it is, how ugly or stupid anyone thinks it is. Or not much. As in, no, I won’t be writing any asinine fart jokes about anyone’s prophet (tho’ mostly because I can’t make those funny … Read the rest

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And so there was a lot of fear and terrible desperation

Sep 22nd, 2012 10:52 am | By

One of the things religion does is create artificial misery. One of the ways religion does this is by making people feel agonizing terror about eternal torture for themselves or people they love or both, or by making them feel agonizing despair and grief at angering or alienating God. This is especially vile when the putative eternal torture or alienation from God is caused by actions or thoughts that are in no way bad. The misery is doubly artificial (and thus gratuitous and cruel) in these situations: there is no eternal punishment, and the putative Sin is not bad or wicked.

The entrenched belief that not being straight is Sin is a classic and still very active example. Consider Peterson Read the rest

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Dynamize the dilution

Sep 21st, 2012 10:24 am | By

Oy. Via David Colquhoun on Twitter, I’m reading a PhD thesis on homeopathy and Evidence Based Medicine, one that argues that EBM gets it all wrong. I have learned that homeopathy is not just the dilution – tut tut, that’s just silly – it’s dilution that gets dynamized. You didn’t know that, did you. Scientistic bastards.

One might draw an analogy with the relationship between a cake and the cake-mixture. To argue that cake-mixture is a delicious complement to tea because cake is, is clearly to neglect that cake is cooked cake-mixture. And so, to argue that homeopathic treatments are not effective medicines because high dilutions are not, is to neglect that homeopathic treatments are dynamized high

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Pakistan tells the world

Sep 21st, 2012 9:48 am | By

Via Paul Fidalgo’s Morning Heresy – the Prime Minister of Pakistan says the UN “should frame laws to stop blasphemous acts.”

Oh, yes, absolutely, because that kind of thing is working out so well in Pakistan. Asia Bibi for instance, accused of “blasphemy” by a petulant neighbor. Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab, murdered for attempting to help Asia Bibi. A homeless man beaten to death by a mob after he was accused of “blasphemy” and arrested. A Christian girl arrested for “blasphemy” and a few days later an imam arrested and charged with framing the girl for a “blasphemy” that never happened, and a whole neighborhood full of Christians in Islamabad is emptied as a result.

And Raja … Read the rest

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He was a man of 14, I tell you

Sep 20th, 2012 5:47 pm | By

So there’s this Catholic priest in Illinois who’s been accused of sexually abusing a boy of 14 and was removed from his ministry because of the accusation. There’s this bishop who is letting him go back to just a little bit of ministering because 14 is old enough to say yes to the priest’s overtures.

The bishop says Rome has decided that at the time Ryan allegedly molested a teen[ager], what he did was not considered a serious crime by the Church according to Church law at the time. For that reason, Conlon ruled, Ryan could not be moved from ministry altogether.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests says Church law at the time actually said a 14-year-old

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Of course, however

Sep 20th, 2012 5:25 pm | By

Maryam has a post saying Bravo Charlie Hebdo, which alerted me to this cringing piece of crap in the Guardian. It’s by Philippe Marlière, who is a professor of French politics at UCL. The body of the article is a quick history of Charlie Hebdo, then suddenly in the last paragraph he flings himself down on the floor in surrender.

Of course people should be entitled to mock Islam and any other religion. However, in the current climate of racial and religious prejudice in Europe, how can these cartoons be helpful? Charlie Hebdo is waging a rearguard battle.

Helpful to what? It depends what you’re trying to “help,” doesn’t it. If you’re hoping to help defend the genuine right … Read the rest

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