I had another look at that post David Thompson did last July, and noticed a couple of things. Ironically (or not) I wanted to address that post in a substantive way at the time, and was just about to, but then the torrent of sexist abuse killed any interest in engaging, so I never got to it. This is, by the way, one reason epithets are not such a great thing: discussions that collapse into stupid name-calling do not generally also manage to discuss ideas in a substantive way. That’s probably because discussions that collapse into stupid name-calling tend to repel intelligent people and attract stupid ones, which makes substantive discussion kind of difficult. There is something quite risible … Read the rest
All entries by this author
A few days in the low countries
Apr 10th, 2009 5:00 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis discussion gets more and more peculiar and interesting as it goes on. There is a whiff of disingenuousness about much of it – a peculiar air of outraged innocence about something that many people take to be a very overt insult. The thing that’s peculiar about that is that usually when we are told we have accidentally said something insulting – we blush and stammer and hasten to explain that we didn’t mean it that way. We don’t insist on going on using the word in the way we (but not other people) understand it. Yet this apparently doesn’t apply to epithets about women. That’s interesting.
Suppose you know a little Dutch, and you’re in Haarlem visiting friends, and … Read the rest
A Telephone to God 
Apr 10th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
But you have to leave a message. No reports of God calling back yet.… Read the rest
What’s New About New Atheism?
Apr 10th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The more clerics rely on arguments based on religious claims, the more those claims will be challenged.… Read the rest
Michael Ruse on ‘Darwinism’ and Christianity
Apr 10th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
If a parent objects to what a child is being taught in science class, the teaching is religious and unconstitutional.… Read the rest
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on ‘Fresh Air’
Apr 10th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The president of Liberia talks to Terry Gross.… Read the rest
Transcending Madeleine Bunting
Apr 10th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Bunting argues all systems of thought rely on myth. Not all of them do. One in particular: thinking.… Read the rest
Blair Talks of ‘His Spiritual Side’
Apr 10th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
He believes that expanding faith school provision helped to foster inter-faith relations.… Read the rest
Tony Blair Should Shut Up About the Church
Apr 10th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Given his commitment to female equality, what does he really think of a church that bans women priests?… Read the rest
Ben Goldacre’s Missing Chapter on Matthias Rath
Apr 9th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
How Rath and Mbeki combined to block treatment by anti-retroviral drugs in South Africa.… Read the rest
Taj Hargey Takes on the ‘Muslim McCarthyists’
Apr 9th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Progressives like me are described as heretics in order to ruin our credibility.’… Read the rest
Telling the Truth About the Armenian Genocide
Apr 9th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence.’… Read the rest
Reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Birmingham
Apr 9th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“Imams and Mullahs ignore our plight, and the community labels women ‘mad’ or ‘heretic’ or ‘loose’ when they stand up for their rights.”… Read the rest
Rasmussen Apologizes – Not
Apr 9th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
This is one time when ‘I’m sorry you were upset’ is the right response.… Read the rest
Normblog on Moral Judgment as Intuition
Apr 9th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
At the level of intuition and emotion people often have competing impulses.… Read the rest
HRW: Rescind ‘Provider Conscience’ Rule
Apr 8th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Freedom of conscience should not be used to trample on others’ rights to life and health.… Read the rest
Yeshiva Student Strips in Store to Protest…Uh…
Apr 8th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Guy gets naked to protest sale of foods Jewish law prohibits on Passover. It doesn’t work.… Read the rest
Blair Tuts at Vatican Policy on Gays
Apr 8th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
So why did he convert?… Read the rest
The Right to ‘Defame’ Religions
Apr 8th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
An insidious blurring of categories compared to the more rigorous language of the UDHR.… Read the rest
Bush’s Lawless Interior Department
Apr 8th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Of all the corruption of the Bush years, none is more shocking than the scandals and cronyism at Interior.… Read the rest
