Let’s all oppose claims of absolute knowledge, and those who would impose their claims on others.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Michael Walzer on Possible Foreign Policy 
Oct 22nd, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
If Obama is elected, how will American foreign policy change?… Read the rest
We’re here
Oct 21st, 2008 12:38 pm | By Ophelia BensonRon Aronson points out that atheists and secularists get undercounted in the US.
Surveys regularly receive front-page coverage for reporting, as the 2008 Pew U.S. Religious Landscape Survey did, that nearly all Americans believe in God. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life concluded that 92% of Americans are believers and that only 5% of Americans don’t believe in God…But something is wrong with this picture. It erases vast numbers of Americans…It encourages the sense that there are two kinds of Americans, the overwhelming majority who believe and belong, and those few do not believe, and are outsiders. But the conventional wisdom that nearly all Americans believe in God is wrong.
A senior fellow at Pew says the … Read the rest
Saudi: Executions Target Foreign Nationals
Oct 21st, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Saudi executed at least 158 in 2007; almost half were foreign nationals from poor and developing countries.… Read the rest
Poverty and the Death Penalty in Nigeria
Oct 21st, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Nigeria: Waiting for the Hangman’ says those sentenced to death are poor; most confessed under torture.… Read the rest
Humanitarian Workers are Targeted
Oct 21st, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Deliberately killing humanitarian workers is an outrage which we don’t denounce enough.… Read the rest
UN Engineer Killed in Somalia
Oct 21st, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Intelligence sources say the assassination of aid workers by trained killers has become the norm.… Read the rest
Charity Worker Killed in Afghanistan
Oct 21st, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Taleban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told AFP that they killed Gayle Williams.… Read the rest
Kambaksh Death Sentence Commuted
Oct 21st, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
To 20 years in prison for downloading material from the internet on women’s rights in Islam.… Read the rest
Choosing to Know
Oct 21st, 2008 | By Ronald AronsonThe fact that nearly half of all Americans reject evolution is depressing enough, but the opinions of college graduates may cause despair. One in three holders of bachelor’s and postgraduate degrees deny that “Darwin’s theory of evolution [is] proved by fossil evidence.” Even more dismal, only about one-third of U.S. college graduates and postgraduates admit to a “belief in evolution”—while about sixty percent accept Creationism or its Trojan Horse, Intelligent Design.[1] In over thirty countries, including every other advanced society, a higher percentage of the general population accepts evolution: in pious Ireland, for example, the number accepting evolution is sixty percent higher than in the U.S.! Americans are just as likely to choose to believe in ghosts and UFOs as … Read the rest
The right to be offended
Oct 20th, 2008 4:21 pm | By Ophelia BensonShelina Zahra Janmohamed has read The Jewel of Medina.
Muslims hold Muhammad, Aisha and other religious figures very close to their hearts, dearer to them than their own parents, and just as much to be respected, protected and defended.
What other religious figures? And how many of them? And in any case how very peculiar to hold long-dead people dearer than one’s parents, and also to consider them to need to be respected, protected and defended. They’re dead – they don’t need to be respected, protected and defended, and furthermore, as ‘religious figures,’ they shouldn’t be respected, protected and defended as a matter of right and duty; they should be closely watched, questioned, doubted, and if necessary disobeyed. This … Read the rest
Atheist Supports Sharia in Scotland
Oct 20th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Domestic violence would not be crime in sharia courts, so that would be good for Muslim men.… Read the rest
The Guardian Sneers at Libraries
Oct 20th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Libraries could hardly not be about books,’ but they can damn well give it their best shot.… Read the rest
Fleischacker on the Israel-Palestine Conflict 7
Oct 20th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Nationalists are frequently contemptuous of the individual rights beloved of liberals.… Read the rest
Jane Mayer on the Choice of Sarah Palin
Oct 20th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Palin has positioned herself as an insurgent but has routinely turned to Washington’s Old Guard for help.… Read the rest
Ronald Aronson on Undercounting Secularists
Oct 20th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
When will they demand that the spirit of multiculturalism be extended to those who do not pray?… Read the rest
Shelina Zahra Janmohamed on Jewel of Medina
Oct 20th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Outdated Orientalist reading; marriage for girls in early teens normal; offended; hurt; empathy; respect.… Read the rest
Just Fancy: the Soul is the Brain
Oct 19th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Your mental life is a product of your brain. If you want to call that a soul…whatever.… Read the rest
Religious Grievances on the Increase
Oct 19th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Muslims want prayer breaks, non-Muslims don’t want to do their work; impasse.… Read the rest
Girl, 11, Set on Fire for Wearing Lipstick
Oct 19th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Her great-uncle, a conservative Muslim, told police he was enraged at the girl for being ‘scantily dressed.’… Read the rest
