The police congratulated him on what he had done. ‘They are men and know what honour is,’ he said. … Read the rest
All entries by this author
Murphy-O’Connor on Marriage and Family 
May 11th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Marriage and family way important, he says. Celibate priests are authorities on this.… Read the rest
Pope Reiterates Ban on Contraception
May 11th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Ruthless bastard.… Read the rest
UD Does a Spot of Discourse Analysis
May 11th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A Sunday laugh.… Read the rest
O for the simple life
May 10th, 2008 5:51 pm | By Ophelia BensonIs there a problem with closed religious groups (and with closed groups in general)?
I commented on – or intruded on – a blog post about the Amish the other day. I didn’t set out to intrude, I thought I was just offering some data, but I got called a militant atheist and compared to Leninists (!) and generally told to fuck off, so clearly I was intruding. Must do better. But about the Amish…
I think there is a problem with closed religious groups (and closed groups in general). I think closed religious groups are incompatible with many of the rights in the UDHR. I think that’s why they are closed – and that’s the problem. Why are some … Read the rest
Extract from Neil Gross’s Richard Rorty
May 10th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Rorty concluded that there is no position outside historically situated language games from which to distinguish mind from world. … Read the rest
Students Don’t Know Much, Academic Says
May 10th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
He blames American news networks for creating shows about stupid people yelling at each other.… Read the rest
Robert Irwin on Said’s Shadowy Legacy
May 10th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Tricky with argument, weak in languages, careless of facts, but thirty years on, Said still dominates debate.… Read the rest
Is Schlafly Worthy of an Honorary Doctorate?
May 10th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Lecturing is one thing, an honor is another.… Read the rest
Scott McLemee on Neil Gross on Rorty
May 10th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
What tools does a sociologist bring to a book about Rorty that an intellectual historian wouldn’t?… Read the rest
The Cardinal loses the thread
May 9th, 2008 2:09 pm | By Ophelia Benson[I]n Britain today there is considerable spiritual homelessness…Many people have a sense of being in a sort of exile from faith-guided experience…To some extent this is the effect of the privatisation of religion today: religion comes to be treated as a matter of personal need rather than as a truth that makes an unavoidable claim on us.
Yes. That’s because it’s not a truth that makes an unavoidable claim on us. It sounds pretty to say that, but it isn’t true. (The ‘unavoidable claim’ is largely a matter of childhood imprinting. People who aren’t imprinted don’t experience the claim as unavoidable.)
The Cardinal loses the thread quite easily, and quickly.
… Read the rest‘Pope Benedict knows,’ he said, ‘that religion
Katha Pollitt on Dr. Phyllis Schlafly
May 9th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Washington University is giving Phyllis Schlafly an honorary doctorate. Yes really.… Read the rest
Cardinal’s Lecture [click ‘Transcript’]
May 9th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Have you ever met anyone who believes what Richard Dawkins doesn’t believe in?’ Yes.… Read the rest
God Mysterious, Cardinal Says
May 9th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘If Christians really believed in the mystery of God, we would realise that proper talk about God is always tentative.’… Read the rest
Terry Sanderson on Cormac Murphy-O’Connor
May 9th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘You are a politician as much as a priest, but no one has elected you.’… Read the rest
Resist the Medievalists
May 9th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The pro-choice lobby has no pulpits to marshal its troops.… Read the rest
All the Tom-Toms of the Global Village
May 9th, 2008 | By Andrzej Koraszewski (translated by Malgorzata Koraszewska and Sarah Lawson)“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Our civilization is a civilization of fear. Walk into any bookshop and look at the titles – horrors assail you from all sides; open a newspaper, check how many headlines try to awake in you a feeling, if not of mortal fear at least of anxiety; take a notebook and a stopwatch to your evening news and write down how many times during one evening you are told about violence, disasters, crimes, and suppositions that aim to trigger your fear, flight impulse, or “righteous” anger.
Newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations are waging a deadly battle over who can frighten you more. Every day specialists check to … Read the rest
Undercover Atheist Joins Hagee’s Church
May 8th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Christian Zionism aims to align America with Israel so as to ‘hurry God up’ with Armageddon… Read the rest
Bush Cites God in Defending War Actions
May 8th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
His policies were predicated on the belief that ‘every human being bears the image of our maker.’… Read the rest
MF Husain’s Work Ruled Not Obscene
May 8th, 2008 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Hindu nationalist groups accused him of ‘hurting their religious sentiments.’… Read the rest
