With 756 of every 100,000 residents behind bars, the US has the world’s highest rate of incarceration. … Read the rest
All entries by this author
Madeleine Bunting Ponders Darwin 
Dec 30th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Displays her usual difficulties with accuracy and comprehension.… Read the rest
Hedges says
Dec 29th, 2008 6:05 pm | By Ophelia BensonAnother entry in the ‘religion makes people nicer’ contest – Barney Zwarts, religion editor of The Age, offering a subtle, thoughtful, elegant rumination on the ‘new’ atheists.
… Read the restThis brilliant book highlights what is obvious to most reasonable observers: that these fundamentalist atheists, with their vapid, complacent self-righteousness and their facile and unjustifiable certainties, are the precise mirror image of the fundamentalist Christians, Muslims etc they so despise…Like Christian radicals, the new atheists have built squalid little belief systems that serve themselves and their own power, that seek to scare people about what they do not understand, and to use this fear to justify cruelty and war. “They ask us to kneel before little idols that look and act
Judge Delays Ruling on Zimbabwe Activists
Dec 29th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Morgan Tsvangirai has threatened to suspend negotiations with ZANU-PF over the case.… Read the rest
Many Teenagers Don’t Keep Virginity Pledges
Dec 29th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The notion that it has to be either a virginity pledge or encouraging teens to have sex is a false dichotomy.… Read the rest
Review of Chris Hedges on Atheism
Dec 29th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Takes Hedges’s wild claims at face value, and endorses them.… Read the rest
Could it be Pretty Obvious There’s No God?
Dec 29th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
If we look at the world around us, do we find that there’s no god? Stephen Law asks.… Read the rest
Andrew Brown Kicks ‘the New Atheism’
Dec 29th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Some atheists actively believe there is no god. It’s an outrage.… Read the rest
Grayling on Ideas That Could Save Humanity
Dec 28th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Good ideas should be stashed somewhere so that we don’t have to keep reinventing them.… Read the rest
Philosophers Weigh In on God
Dec 28th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Contemporary Christian philosophers often content themselves with pulling up the drawbridge.… Read the rest
Scientific Illiteracy of the Rich and Famous
Dec 28th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Obama got MMR wrong; Demi Moore recommended ‘highly trained medical leeches.’… Read the rest
Senior Judge Calls for Sharia Divorces
Dec 28th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Baroness Butler-Sloss wants religious divorce to precede civil divorce for Muslim couples.… Read the rest
Ben Goldacre Offers The Year in Bad Science
Dec 27th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
When you line these jokers up side by side you realise what a vast and unwinnable fight we face.… Read the rest
Times Should Read its Own Bad Stats Column
Dec 27th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Public opinion has moved sharply,’ the Times said – but actually it hasn’t.… Read the rest
Ponzi Schemes and Credulity Work Together
Dec 27th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
How an expert on gullibility and financial scams could fall prey to a hustler like Madoff. … Read the rest
Even Atheists Can Go to Heaven
Dec 27th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Only’ 39 % of Xians believe the bible is the literal word of God; 18 % think it’s a book written by humans.… Read the rest
Johann Hari on Harold Pinter
Dec 27th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Pinter often fumed about tyranny, but equally fumed about people who resisted it.… Read the rest
Fighting Straw Men: Mary Midgley and Scientific Discourse
Dec 27th, 2008 | By Tauriq MoosaMary Midgley’s publisher Routledge calls her a fighter of “scientific pretension” – but what remains with the reader is her passion for science’s defamation.
Observe two of her statements: “Genes cannot be selfish or unselfish, any more than atoms can be jealous”[1] and “Reason’s just another faith”[2]. In many of her writings, she refers to scientists as “prophets”, science as an inclusive institution, or evolution as religion[3].
Many will know the typical antiscience mantras – cropping up like weeds in what should be a growth of knowledge and not its stifling. Creationists or anti-Darwinists play the victim-card, stating the scientific community ostracizes anyone who “dares” speak out against the “doctrine” of Darwinism. Of course, if they simply went to any … Read the rest
Girls go to school to show the world their heads
Dec 27th, 2008 11:49 am | By Ophelia BensonFrom the risible to the disgusting – Islam Online phones the Taliban in Swat to discuss their policy on ordering girls not to go to school.
Muslim Khan, a former seaman who has spent two years in the United States in late 1990s, contends that girls are bound to get religious education only. “Yes, education is a must for every man and woman (in Islam), but women are bound to acquire religious education only,” he said. “They go to school without observing Pardah (veil), which is against Islamic norms.”
So…education is a must for every man and woman (in Islam) but women are allowed to get only ‘religious’ education which of course is not education at all. Why are women … Read the rest
Come on in, the water’s fine
Dec 27th, 2008 11:24 am | By Ophelia BensonGood ne-ews – any religion, every religion can get you into heaven, and even better than that, the absence of religion can get you there too. Stone the crows! So there are no entry requirements at all! We’re all saved, no matter how spotty or bad-tempered or unfunny.
According to the American public anyway. This isn’t actually a factual discovery, it’s just the outcome of an opinion survey. The news is actually just that ‘Americans think’ you can get into heaven if you’re a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or an atheist, among other possibilities. In other words ‘Americans think’ whatever they feel like thinking. Not really news at all then. Ah well.
That’s not my favourite … Read the rest
