I was thinking earlier today about religion as a meme, and the familiar point that (as Steven Weinberg summarizes it in the TLS) ‘the persistence of belief in a particular religion is naturally aided if that religion teaches that God punishes disbelief.’ I was thinking about the fact that what that means is that religions that do teach that are a racket, in a quite literal sense. A racket, and also circular. ‘Believe in this god because it will punish you if you don’t.’ ‘But why should I believe that?’ ‘Because it will punish you if you don’t.’ ‘Yes but why should I believe that it’s this god that will punish me, what if it’s actually a different one … Read the rest
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Beware of certainty
Feb 25th, 2007 10:25 am | By Ophelia BensonAn interesting point about expertise and epistemology and how they interact in courtrooms.
… Read the restThe evolving science that surrounds DNA, for example, demands caution and careful interpretation, while the criminal law and our adversarial system expects a simple explanation – often nothing better than a “yes” or “no” answer. So the hired expert who presents his data with certainty and determination is more likely to win over a jury than the more hesitant doctor, scientist or expert who is prepared to acknowledge doubt. That’s why Gene Morrison was able to bamboozle the courts for as long as he did – not because he had a fake PhD (after all, even TV diet experts have those), but because he presented what he
What is honour? A word.
Feb 24th, 2007 6:11 pm | By Ophelia BensonThis is unpleasant stuff. Unsurprising, but unpleasant. A statement by the Cambridge Muslim Welfare Society about that business at Clare College.
With sorrow and anger the Mosque notes the publication, in the student newsletter Clareification, of material which deliberately insults the honour of the Blessed Prophet Muhammad (s.w.s.). Mindful of its duty before Almighty Allah and before humanity to defend the honour and good name of the Final Prophet, the Mosque condemns this provocation in the strongest terms.
Its duty? To tell everyone in the entire world that it is forbidden to ‘insult’ the honour of the Blessed Prophet Muhammad (s.w.s.)? To impose the taboos and rules of one religion on everyone everywhere, despite the impossibility and unreasonability of … Read the rest
Gambia’s President Claims to Cure AIDS
Feb 24th, 2007 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Yahya Jammeh says his herbal medicine cures AIDS in three days.… Read the rest
MoD Seeks ‘Psychic Powers’
Feb 24th, 2007 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Funded tests into ability of volunteers to use psychic powers to ‘remotely view’ hidden objects.… Read the rest
MCB School Guidelines
Feb 24th, 2007 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Swimming out, dancing out, Ramadan in, hijab in.… Read the rest
MCB Guidelines for Schools
Feb 24th, 2007 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The list is long, the word ‘should’ appears a lot.… Read the rest
RSF on ‘Kareem Amer’
Feb 24th, 2007 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Egypt is on the list of 13 Internet enemies which Reporters Without Borders compiled in 2006.… Read the rest
HRW on Karim’s Imprisonment
Feb 24th, 2007 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Arrested after he criticized Muslim rioters and Islam in a blog post about sectarian clashes.… Read the rest
Prosecutor Denounced Kareem as ‘Apostate’
Feb 24th, 2007 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Kareem’s father has called for him to be killed if he does not ‘announce his repentence.’ … Read the rest
Holocaust Denier Ernst Zundel Sentenced
Feb 24th, 2007 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
In Germany, to five years for inciting racial hatred.… Read the rest
Having it all
Feb 24th, 2007 11:01 am | By Ophelia BensonThe problem with soothing official boilerplate is that it tends to ignore incompatibilities – it tends to say ‘Yes yes of course we can do everything, of course we can fly through the air and creep along the ground and dive beneath the sea, all at the same time.’ It tends to say everyone can have everything everyone wants, next question please. The Department for Education and Skills reaction to the MCB’s helpful educational guidelines for instance.
… Read the restThe Department for Education and Skills has no involvement with the document produced by the MCB. We have already provided schools with a wealth of official guidance, which makes clear they should take into account, and recognise, the needs and cultural diversity of
Everybody agrees about everything hurrah
Feb 23rd, 2007 12:04 pm | By Ophelia BensonTerry Eagleton says wrong things again.
The basic moral values of the average Muslim dentist who migrates to Britain are much the same as those of a typical English-born plumber. Neither is likely to believe that lying and cheating are the best policy, or that they should beat their children. They may have different customs and beliefs, but what is striking is the vast extent of common ground between them on the issue of what it is for men and women to live well.
Is he joking? No, apparently not, he apparently means it – he means that ‘the average Muslim dentist’ and the ‘typical English-born plumber’ and, presumably, by extension, everyone else in the world is unlikely to … Read the rest
Jonathan Rée on Wordsworth and Coleridge
Feb 23rd, 2007 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
One of the great literary friendships, rivaling Marx and Engels or Beauvoir and Sartre.… Read the rest
Hitchens on Irwin on Orientalism
Feb 23rd, 2007 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Academic reticence about Islam may be to do with potentially atheistic consequences of unfettered inquiry.… Read the rest
Mo Plans a Campaign
Feb 23rd, 2007 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Women should bear reponsibility for the sexual self-control of men – that’s what hijab is about.… Read the rest
How Best to Stop Female Genital Mutilation
Feb 23rd, 2007 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Laws against it ‘can be perceived as discriminatory for targeting particular communities.’… Read the rest
Paul Gross on the Mammoth in the Garden
Feb 23rd, 2007 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Why the harmonization of science and religion is a strong human need.… Read the rest
Operating on the very margin
Feb 23rd, 2007 11:36 am | By Ophelia BensonHitchens’s review of Robert Irwin’s Dangerous Knowledge starts well. Attentive readers of B&W may be able to answer his opening question.
… Read the restOf what book and author was the following sentence written, and by whom? “Rarely has an Oriental servant of a white-identified, imperial design managed to pack so many services to imperial hubris abroad and racist elitism at home — all in one act.”
This was the quasi-articulate attack recently leveled, by a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University, on Reading Lolita in Tehran…The professor described Nafisi’s work as resembling “the most pestiferous colonial projects of the British in India,” and its author as the moral equivalent of a sadistic torturer at Abu Ghraib. “To me there is no
Terry Eagleton Says Strange Things
Feb 22nd, 2007 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Basic values are the same, nobody thinks children should be beaten, though customs differ.… Read the rest