‘Our leader Shahbaz Khan is Imam Mehdi’ said one, without a hint of irony, over a megaphone.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Pope Still Opposes Abortion and Gay Marriage 
Jan 15th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Ratzinger insists on Vatican’s reactionary views, in case anyone thought it had improved.… Read the rest
Nick Cohen on Weirdness
Jan 15th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Galloway’s Saddam-hugging was okay, but this Big Brother thing is just too much.… Read the rest
A Long List of Imams and Other Men
Jan 15th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘The practice of homosexuality is regarded as being sinful in Islam.’… Read the rest
Pulling Liberal Rabbits out of Cosmopolitan Hats
Jan 15th, 2006 12:07 am | By Ophelia BensonJohn Gray is often irritating, but this review in The Nation of Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Cosmopolitanism is not too bad. It also hooks up with some things we’ve been talking about lately in the discussions on comprehensive liberalism v political liberalism.
In Appiah’s view cosmopolitanism has two intertwined strands: the idea that we have obligations to other human beings above and beyond those to whom we are related by ties of family, kinship or formal citizenship; and an attitude that values others not just as specimens of universal humanity but as having lives whose meaning is bound up with particular practices and beliefs that are often different from our own.
Hmm. One has to wonder exactly what that means (so … Read the rest
How the Taung Baby Was Killed
Jan 14th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
It was an eagle. Hominids had to look up as well as around.… Read the rest
Interview With Paul Berman
Jan 14th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Decision to resist is no help in analyzing politically who are the true oppressors.… Read the rest
Michael Wallerstein Dies
Jan 14th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Known for his work on the redistribution of wealth and inequality in advanced democracies. … Read the rest
John Gray Reviews Kwame Anthony Appiah
Jan 14th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘A welcome attempt to resurrect an older tradition of moral and political reflection.’… Read the rest
Hecklers Cry ‘Torture Lite’ at Michael Ignatieff
Jan 14th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Canadians dislike his endorsement of interrogation techniques such as sleep deprivation.… Read the rest
The Rapture of Waiting for the Mahdi
Jan 14th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Is Ahmadinejad motivated by expectation of the final battle between good and evil?… Read the rest
Police Not to Blame for Hajj Stampede
Jan 14th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Trying to stop massive crowds could have caused more deaths.… Read the rest
Theory’s Empire
Jan 14th, 2006 | By Daphne Patai and Will H. CorralOur anthology, Theory’s Empire, appears at a moment when not only have theoretical discussions of literature become stagnant but articles and books are published in defense of the conceptual stalemates that have led to this very immobility. In the early years of the new millennium, theorists are busily writing about the impasse in which theory finds itself, discoursing on the alternatives as portentously as they once wrote about the death of the novel and of the author. But there is one revealing difference between the predictably cyclical revisions of theoretical notions before structuralism and those present developments that can today be referred to simply as Theory, emblazoned with a capital T: the proponents of the latter tend to avoid … Read the rest
Lucretius Knew
Jan 14th, 2006 4:15 am | By Ophelia Benson‘Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum,’ Lucretius remarked* (that’s one of my few Latin tags. I failed Latin one year. You didn’t fail things in my school, it wasn’t done, but I managed it. I was quite good at failing things when I was fifteen) about what Agamemnon did to his daughter at the behest of a god (he killed her, that’s what, just to get a wind for sailing to Troy). What evil religion can persuade us to. He was right, old Lukers.
There’s this hajj business for instance. Brilliant. Make it a pillar of your religion that if you can make the trip to Mecca, you have to, once in your life. Keep that rule in place when … Read the rest
Johann Hari in Praise of Richard Dawkins
Jan 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Only as you watch the film do you realise how rare it is to hear arguments against organised superstition.… Read the rest
Eyebrows Raised at Public Order Act
Jan 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
And investigation of Sacranie for merely stating an opinion.… Read the rest
Pastor Arrested Over ‘Child Witchcraft’ Cruelty
Jan 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Allegedly advised parents to beat devil out of them or send them to DRC so that he could pray for them to be killed.… Read the rest
Oxford Police Horse Homophobia Case Dropped
Jan 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Student said to officer, ‘Excuse me, do you realise your horse is gay?’ Bystanders were offended.… Read the rest
Maori Community and Fire Brigade Community
Jan 13th, 2006 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Memorandum will help the Maori community and the fire brigade understand each other’s cultures.’… Read the rest
Another Guardian Angel
Jan 13th, 2006 2:06 am | By Ophelia BensonNow you knew I would have to pitch a fit about this. So here, have a fit.
Western liberal democracy owes much to the Christian view that all have equal worth before God, which in our political system reads as democracy and equality before the law; and those ideals have often been applied because of religious faith, not in spite of it.
No it doesn’t. Or at least no one knows if it does or not. That’s just that confusion of correlation with causation again. The ‘Christian’ (and not exclusively Christian, and not thoroughly Christian either, given how many exceptions Xianity always managed to find to its supposed ‘view’ over the years) view that all have equal worth before … Read the rest
