Too many things that should be obvious in the light of the history of the past 100 years seem not to be so. … Read the rest
All entries by this author
Worries About ‘Faith’ Schools 
Apr 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Some of the ‘faith communities’ have agendas at odds with reason and science, says chaplain.… Read the rest
Ziauddin Sardar on Verso’s Radical Thinkers
Apr 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Traditions, and intellectual traditions in particular, rapidly ossify and degenerate into obscurantism.’… Read the rest
Scott McLemee on Cell Phones in Libraries
Apr 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
How about a taser gun, with trained shooters?… Read the rest
Catherine MacKinnon: Are Women Human?
Apr 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘If women were human, would we be sexual and reproductive slaves…worked without pay our whole lives?’… Read the rest
Maruf Khwaja on Jamaat-i-Islami
Apr 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Pakistan has been eaten hollow by corrosive obscurantism unleashed by Jamaat and its sympathisers.… Read the rest
Get Out of My Head
Apr 12th, 2006 7:05 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe Christians who want to be intolerant again. Just to be difficult (I do love to be difficult, you know), I want to add that there is one place where one of the complainants had a point, though not a religious point.
In a 2004 case, for instance, an AT&T Broadband employee won the right to express his religious convictions by refusing to sign a pledge to “respect and value the differences among us.” As long as the employee wasn’t harassing co-workers, the company had to make accommodations for his faith, a federal judge in Colorado ruled.
That’s a pretty grotesque pledge, frankly. It’s a pretty demanding employer who wants to tell employees what to respect and value, and it’s … Read the rest
Enlightenment Values as Islamophobia
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
One might almost think there was no current cause for concern about Enlightenment values.… Read the rest
Royal Society on Evolution, Creationism, ID
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Some versions of creationism are incompatible with the scientific evidence.… Read the rest
Temporal Lobe Stimulus Triggers Sense of God
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
In some people; not in others. Dawkins did not find god.… Read the rest
Church Refuses to Serve Transsexual Woman
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
What she has done, Rev. Maxfield said, runs totally ‘contrary to God’s revealed will.’… Read the rest
So Naomi Wolf Has Found Jesus; This is News?
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
In all those years as an activist, she’d been neglecting her spirit. Ho hum.… Read the rest
Academics Prefer Hedged, Impersonal Language
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Case studies are recorded, data are analysed, concepts are defined, all by an invisible agent.… Read the rest
Ishtiaq Ahmed on National Identity
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘There is always the possibility for manoeuvre in defining identity.’… Read the rest
What Is an Intellectual?
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The British are not at all exceptional in suffering from ‘Dreyfus-envy.’… Read the rest
BHL on a Demagoguery Called ‘Youthism’
Apr 12th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Popular opinion is another master, no less capricious, emotional, arbitrary, than the master it corrects.… Read the rest
Free Exercise
Apr 11th, 2006 7:42 pm | By Ophelia BensonWell, this ‘Christians suing for right to be intolerant‘ thing is certainly a place where free speech rights (and the ‘free exercise’ clause and reason and religion and quite a few other things) get interesting, or difficult, or both.
… Read the restRuth Malhotra went to court last month for the right to be intolerant. Malhotra says her Christian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality. But the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she’s a senior, bans speech that puts down others because of their sexual orientation. Malhotra sees that as an unacceptable infringement on her right to religious expression. So she’s demanding that Georgia Tech revoke its tolerance policy. With her lawsuit, the 22-year-old student joins a growing campaign to
John Sutherland Interviews Lewis Wolpert
Apr 11th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
If religion is a result of the way our brains are wired, all the more reason to question the truth of our beliefs.… Read the rest
Royal Society on Creationism in Schools
Apr 11th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Belief that Earth was formed in 4004 BC not consistent with evidence from geology, astronomy, physics.… Read the rest
James Buchan on Adam Smith
Apr 11th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The Adam Smith of the neo-conservative right has abolished not just history but also morality. … Read the rest
