Posts Tagged ‘
FTB ’
Dec 12th, 2011 3:06 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The Skeptic is giving awards for best skeptical things in several categories. This is its debut in the awards business, so give it a big hand!
Please join in, by voting for:
- The best podcast
- The best blog
- The best event, campaign or outreach event of the year. This could be an organisation or website that has done a particular task over a period of time, or it could be one event which has helped to raise public awareness of a skeptical issue
- The best science video clip on the web
- The best sceptical video clip on the web
We’ll sort the five most popular of your podcast, blog and event/campaign/outreach nominations and present them to our panel of judges
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Dec 12th, 2011 10:07 am |
By Ophelia Benson
So after weeks of heavy breathing, Julian’s Heathen’s Progress arrives at what we already knew – that believers actually do believe the tenets of their religion.
So what is the headline finding? It is that whatever some might say about religion being more about practice than belief, more praxis than dogma, more about the moral insight of mythos than the factual claims of logos, the vast majority of churchgoing Christians appear to believe orthodox doctrine at pretty much face value. They believe that Jesus is divine, not simply an exceptional human being; that his resurrection was a real, bodily one; that he performed miracles no human being ever could; that he needed to die on the cross so that
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Apologetics, FTB, The backlash
Dec 11th, 2011 4:44 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Steve Jones wrote about denial of science in the Telegraph the other day.
Anyone, of course, is free to believe whatever they wish. But why train to become a biologist, or a doctor, when you deny the very foundations of your subject? For a biology student to refuse to accept the fact of evolution is equivalent to choosing to do a degree in English without believing in grammar, or in physics with a rooted objection to gravity: it makes no sense at all. The same is true for doctors. How can you put a body right with no idea as to why it is liable to go wrong?
I suppose the idea is that you do it by following … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Science denial
Dec 11th, 2011 11:05 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Some parents in Irvine California suspected their son, age 15, of smoking. So they sat him down and explained to him how useful it is to be able to breathe freely, how addictive tobacco is, how bad smoking makes you smell, right?
Not quite. They asked a guy to beat the kid up for them (authorities said).
An Irvine couple who suspected their 15-year-old son of smoking turned to a man believed to be relied on in their church to violently discipline children, authorities said.
Ah in their church – relied on in their church. Uh…whut? So people who attend this church have a designated guy who beats their children, and this is understood and relied on? Funny kind of … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Religious child abuse
Dec 10th, 2011 3:39 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
One of the beneficial side effects of the Burzynski uproar was finding Popehat (via Rhys Morgan, finding whom was another beneficial side effect). Popehat is funny.
A few days ago he got a “friendly note” from Marc Stephens.
The note contained what I would characterize as a decent effort, given his apparent abilities, to intimidate me. He sent it to my Popehat address and to my real-world big-boy-pants Ken’s-sekrit-identity law firm address.
The note is classic Marc Stephens. (Which is odd, because the Observer reported a week ago, on December 3, that Stephens was no longer working for the Burzynski clinic, but Popehat says Stephens sent him this note on December 6.) Very very bossy, as if … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Diversions, FTB
Dec 10th, 2011 11:21 am |
By Ophelia Benson
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay went to the Maldives, and there she said some things. She said some things relevant to human rights.
In an address delivered in parliament last Thursday, Pillay said the practice of flogging women found guilty of extra-marital sex “constitutes one of the most inhumane and degrading forms of violence against women, and should have no place in the legal framework of a democratic country.”
The UN human rights chief called for a public debate “on this issue of major concern.” In a press conference later in the day, Pillay called on the judiciary and the executive to issue a moratorium on flogging.
Well yes. Commissioners for human rights can be expected … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Flogging, FTB, Religious coercion, Sharia, Theocracy
Dec 9th, 2011 12:30 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Human Rights Watch on child (meaning girl) marriage in Yemen.
Fourteen-year-old Reem, from Sanaa, was 11 years old when her father married her to her cousin, a man almost 21 years her senior. One day, Reem’s father dressed her in a niqab (the Islamic veil that covers the face, exposing only the eyes), and took her by car to Radda,150 kilometers southeast of Sanaa, to meet her soon-to-be husband. Against Reem’s will, a quick religious marriage ensued. Three days after she was married, her husband raped her. Reem attempted suicide by cutting her wrists with a razor. Her husband took her back to her father in Sanaa, and Reem then ran away to her mother (her parents are divorced).
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Child marriage, FTB, Religious child abuse
Dec 9th, 2011 9:59 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Via Sigmund at WEIT, an MIT physicist offers part 1 of a series on “scientism.” Yes really, an MIT physicist. I know, I know.
He (Ian Hutchinson) gives the gist in the first para.
One of the most visible conflicts in current culture is between “scientism” and religion. Because religious knowledge differs from scientific knowledge, scientism claims (or at least assumes) that it must therefore be inferior. However, there are many other important beliefs, secular as well as religious, which are justified and rational, but not scientific, and therefore marginalized by scientism. And if that is so, then scientism is a ghastly intellectual mistake.
Notice that he carefully leaves out the “true” in “justified true beliefs” – the standard … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Apologetics, Epistemology, FTB
Dec 8th, 2011 3:25 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
And then there are the Republican contestants battling each other to see who can be Most Evil.
Starting point: the Secretary of State addressed delegates to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday and
delivered what historians will one day look back upon as a monumental speech, in which she declared that the continuing oppression of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people is “one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time.”
Sexual minorities, Clinton said, “are treated with contempt and violence by their fellow citizens while authorities empowered to protect them look the other way or, too often, even join in the abuse.” She addressed the pernicious argument — common in Uganda and many other
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Human rights
Dec 8th, 2011 10:42 am |
By Ophelia Benson
I’m handicapped in thinking about this by the fact that I’ve never seen, let alone read, a lads’ mag. I’ve spent the past few minutes trying to figure out what they are, which has led to my finding out what “lad culture” is, which I’m not sure I wanted to know.
In an ironic, self-conscious fashion, “lads took up an anti-intellectual position, scorning sensitivity and caring in favour of drinking, violence, and a pre-feminist attitude to women as both sex objects and creatures from another species”.
Oh I hate that “ironic” thing. Pretentious jerks in the UK are always telling you they’re doing or saying whatever it is “ironically,” which just means don’t go thinking I’m a jerk merely … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB, Misogyny, Sexism
Dec 7th, 2011 5:02 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
More on Mansor Almaribe, sentenced to 500 lashes in Saudi Arabia for “insulting the companions of the prophet.”
THE family of a Victorian man sentenced to 500 lashes in Saudi Arabia has made an emotional plea to bring him home, fearing he will die in jail.
The Shepparton family of Mansor Almaribe, 45, who was also sentenced to a year in jail for blasphemy, will head to Canberra to plead for help.
Isaam Almaribe, 21, said his father suffered from diabetes and had broken bones in his back and knees from a car accident in Australia.
“Dad told us ‘Take me out of here as soon as possible because if I stay here I will die’ – that’s how
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Crazy vicious theocratic bastards, FTB, Religious coercion, Religious punishment
Dec 7th, 2011 3:49 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Imagine going to Saudi Arabia for the hajj, all the way from Australia, and finding yourself sentenced to a year in jail and…
500 lashes.
To the best of my knowledge, 500 lashes is a death sentence. One hundred risks being a death sentence; five hundred just plain is one.
What did Mansor Almaribe of southern Victoria state do? Torture a lot of children to death? Set fire to a hospital and laugh while patients jumped screaming from high windows? Shoot up a hotel or a night club?
No.
Saudi officials accused him of insulting the companions of the prophet Muhammad, a violation of Saudi Arabia’s blasphemy laws.
And for that they plan to torture him to death.
He … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Cruelty, FTB, Religious punishment
Dec 7th, 2011 3:31 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Get that smirk off your face.
CAIRO: An Islamic cleric residing in Europe said that women should not be close to bananas or cucumbers, in order to avoid any “sexual thoughts.”
The unnamed sheikh, who was featured in an article on el-Senousa news, was quoted saying that if women wish to eat these food items, a third party, preferably a male related to them such as their a father or husband, should cut the items into small pieces and serve.
He said that these fruits and vegetables “resemble the male penis” and hence could arouse women or “make them think of sex.”
He also added carrots and zucchini to the list of forbidden foods for women.
Answering another question … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Bananaquake, FTB
Dec 6th, 2011 3:34 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Following up some links from the coverage of the Burzynski matter. From David Colquhoun, an item from the National Council Against Health Fraud newsletter March/April 1997:
The trial of Stanislaw Burzynski for cancer fraud ended in a hung jury (6-6)
on March 4. CBS’s 48 Hours‘ interviews of jurors told the tale as to why
they couldn’t agree. Clearly, the jurors agreed that Burzynski was guilty as
charged of violating court orders not to distribute his unapproved
“Antineoplastons” in interstate commerce, but the fact that some desperate
cancer patients believed Burzynski’s remedy was keeping them alive (or, at
least, was keeping their hope for recovery alive) made the case too emotional a matter for them to convict
…
Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Dec 6th, 2011 12:13 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Jacques Berlinerblau has some advice for US atheists.
The real priority for American Atheism concerns its political future, its ability to shape policy agendas so as to represent the interests of its constituency.
Does it? I don’t think it does – not (as implied) to the exclusion of other things. I don’t really think of atheism as having a “constituency,” or as expecting to be able to shape policy agendas so as to represent the interests of its constituency. That sounds like political operative talk, and while I do think atheism is political as well as philosophical (in the broad sense of the word), I don’t think it’s political in that way. It’s too specialized for that. Secularism can … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: FTB
Dec 6th, 2011 11:44 am |
By Ophelia Benson
The brains of children raised in violent families resemble the brains of soldiers exposed to combat, according to an article in Wired.
They’re primed to perceive threat and anticipate pain, adaptations that may be helpful in abusive environments but produce long-term problems with stress and anxiety.
“For them to detect early cues that might signal danger is adaptive. It allows them to react, to try and avoid the danger,” said psychologist Eamon McCrory of University College London. However, “a very similar neural signature characterizes quite a few anxiety disorders.”
Absolutely nothing surprising there. Bad things keep happening, so you develop a strong tendency to react quickly…and you’re stuck with it. A lifetime of feeling extra, exaggerated fear and dread. … Read the rest
(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: Cruelty, FTB
