Her requests for secure official transport and bodyguards were not granted by the government.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Passes in the air
Sep 24th, 2006 8:38 pm | By Ophelia BensonWhy do people think there is a deity? (Small question. I’ll just knock off the answer in a few hundred words here. No biggy.) Partly (only partly) because of the thought that something must have created the universe – that there must be Mind behind it all. There is the regress problem – what created the mind then? – but many people simply find it more plausible to start with a mind than to start with a brute fact, or a Big Bang. Okay – but then you have to ask what kind of mind is it, and what kind of deity is it?
That’s one place you get the two-step. Mind in the form of an Intelligent Agent must … Read the rest
Why Aren’t Academics Intellectuals?
Sep 24th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Why periodicals written for non-specialists matter.… Read the rest
Michael Frayn on a World Spun from Stories
Sep 24th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
He sneaks into the territory of physicists, linguists or psychologists to rustle prime intellectual steers.… Read the rest
The Super-rich and Competitive Compassion
Sep 24th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘A lot of poverty is caused by war.’ And a lot of war is caused by religion, so where does Deepak Chopra fit?… Read the rest
Jesus and Mo on Pontifical Rationality
Sep 24th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Misunderstood guy was ragging on secularism, not Islam. Whew.… Read the rest
More Extracts from The God Delusion
Sep 24th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Religious dogma still serves to abuse basic human rights such as those of women and gay people.… Read the rest
On Multiculturalism And Religion – Jesus Doesn’t Morris Dance
Sep 24th, 2006 | By Jonathan ThakeWhen we think of multiculturalism we tend to think of an educated internationalist outlook: a broad modern palate able to appreciate foods, wines, books, music and art from around the world. We also tend to include religion on that list; but that is a mistake.
Religion is in another category than food, clothes and wine. It is a system of ideas in its own right, and, what is more, it is a system of ideas that stands in absolute opposition to the multicultural principle. Religion is about narrowing options: reducing the amount of reading, reducing the number of competing thoughts, channelling everything towards the one book, the one way, the one lord. When religious people pretend they are multicultural they … Read the rest
Fork
Sep 23rd, 2006 6:44 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe Guardian gives us an extract from Dawkins’s new book, in which he talks about things I’ve been pondering myself for the past couple of days, I suppose prompted by that long discussion on ‘Explain’.
… Read the restAll Sagan’s books touch the nerve-endings of transcendent wonder that religion monopolized in past centuries. My own books have the same aspiration. Consequently I hear myself often described as a deeply religious man…Steven Weinberg made the point as well as anybody, in Dreams of a Final Theory: “Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him. One hears it said that ‘God is the ultimate’ or ‘God
Extract from The God Delusion
Sep 23rd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Metaphorical God of physicists is light years away from the God of the Bible and ordinary language.… Read the rest
Joan Bakewell on The God Delusion
Sep 23rd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Enumerates the many ways religion is excessively privileged in our supposedly secular society.… Read the rest
Danny Postel on Hossein Derakhshan
Sep 23rd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Why did openDemocracy publish an article that justifies the repression of intellectual freedom?… Read the rest
Chet Raymo on Knowing You Don’t Know
Sep 23rd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Wisdom is willingness to say ‘I don’t know.’ Why is there something rather than nothing? ‘I don’t know.’… Read the rest
Pre-infected Condoms
Sep 22nd, 2006 8:34 pm | By Ophelia BensonWhy did no one (until G Tingey in comments today) tell me Richard Dawkins has set up a foundation and a website? It’s apparently (judging by the dates on some of the postings) been there since May. This is September. I’m out of touch.
So it republishes this Johann Hari piece about the real reasons to feel disapprobation for the pontiff. Here’s an item that stirred a certain amount of distaste in me.
… Read the restFor over a decade now, he has been one of the primary defenders of priests who go to the poorest, most vulnerable people in the world and tell them condoms are the cause of AIDS. In the past year, I have sat in two Catholic churches
Johann Hari: the Real Reasons to be Cross at Pope
Sep 22nd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Hari has heard priests tell people that condoms come pre-infected with AIDS and are the reason people die of it.… Read the rest
Dawkins on Newsnight Tonight
Sep 22nd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Talking to Jeremy Paxman about The God Delusion.… Read the rest
Bad Science: the Fish Oil Files
Sep 22nd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Equazen won’t let Ben Goldacre review the research evidence unless he signs a confidentiality agreement.… Read the rest
The Economist on The God Delusion
Sep 22nd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘If nothing else, his book should help bring the atheists out of the closet.’… Read the rest
Michael Shermer on Conservatives and Evolution
Sep 22nd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Ways to find compatibility.… Read the rest
SciAm on Dikika Baby
Sep 22nd, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Skeleton provides new information on A. afarensis locomotion.… Read the rest