I was discussing religion and related subjects with an acquaintance yesterday, and he said I have a lot of secular religious or quasi-religious beliefs. I was skeptical of this claim, and we wrangled a bit, but didn’t have time to wrangle thoroughly. So I’ll talk to myself on the subject here, and you can listen in.

The argument was that I (and most people – it’s a general point) hold certain beliefs in a quasi-religious way: moral beliefs for instance. I think murder is wrong, and I believe it’s true that murder is wrong, and that is a commitment without reasons, hence religious. But I dispute all of that. All of it. For one thing, I don’t really think it … Read the rest

What a lovely morning. I woke up far too early (anxiety, no doubt), I spent most of an hour deleting spam from the comments database, then I got an email from a helpful reader (it is just barely possible that some of you can guess which one) who was worried that I might not realize that the signatories of the letter about ‘Christianophobia’ in the Telegraph were loopy. Apparently this reader, who reads B&W regularly and often and has done so for a longish time, thought that perhaps I posted that link because I approved of the letter and the signatories, or that while I might be a little doubtful about their stance I was perhaps not doubtful enough – … Read the rest

What life is like when there is no rule of law, no security, no strong-enough central government, no one able to keep the strong and cruel and violent and selfish from preying on everyone else. Thrasymachus world. Thug world, warlord world, Mafia world, feudal world, give me that world, extortion world. Do what I say or I’ll hit you with a stick or cut you with a knife or shoot you world. Nightmare world.

Escalating attacks by the Taliban and other armed groups on teachers, students and schools in Afghanistan are shutting down schools and depriving another generation of an education, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Schools for girls have been hit particularly hard,