Acting out of ‘religious conviction’ is not necessarily problem-free.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
Battle Between Enlightenment and Medievalism 
Oct 14th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Religious thinking still permeates public life as the religious occupy positions of power.… Read the rest
Only Greater Rights for Women Can End Poverty
Oct 13th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Report calls for government action to free women from poverty and ignorance their cultures impose.… Read the rest
Rampant Violence Against Women
Oct 13th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
UN Population Fund report found 94 percent of women in Egypt think it’s ok to be beaten.… Read the rest
Pinter’s Dramatic Impact
Oct 13th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Pinter remains…a questioner of accepted truths.’ Some of them.… Read the rest
Bad Poet Wins Nobel Prize for Literature
Oct 13th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Good playwright though. … Read the rest
Committee to Protect Journalists is Worried
Oct 13th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Articles in the magazine Women’s Rights deemed “un-Islamic” and “insulting to Islam” by local clerics.… Read the rest
‘Religious Leaders’ Demand Long Sentence
Oct 13th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Nasab questioned the use of harsh punishments such as amputation and stoning.… Read the rest
Afghan Editor on Trial for ‘Blasphemy’
Oct 13th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Editor of women’s rights magazine charged after after complaints from religious figures.… Read the rest
EU Official Has Lunch With Orhan Pamuk
Oct 13th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Pamuk was charged under law forbidding calling Armenian genocide ‘genocide’.… Read the rest
Incompetent Writers Make History Too
Oct 13th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Hitler offers a vision of revitalization and rebirth following the perceived decay of the liberal era.… Read the rest
Afghanistan: Women’s rights editor Mohaqiq Nasar arrested for blasphemy
Oct 13th, 2005 | By Rationalist InternationalMohaqiq Nasar (50), editor-in-chief of the magazine Hoqooq-i-Zan (Women’s Rights), has been arrested on 29 September 2005 on charges of blasphemy. He was detained on instructions from the religious adviser to President Hamid Karzai, a government official said. President Karzai’s religious adviser – though not explicitly named in this connection – is Mohaibuddin Baloch. The editor’s arrest is violating the press law of Afghanistan, which clearly demands that a journalist can only be arrested after the government appointed media-commission has studied the case, questioned him personally and recommended his arrest. This has obviously not happened. In a letter to President Karzai, Rationalist International strongly condemned the illegal arrest of Mohaqiq Nasar and the act of violation of press freedom and … Read the rest
Vatican, Meet the Supreme Court; Court, Meet Vatican
Oct 13th, 2005 1:33 am | By Ophelia BensonChristopher Hitchens is irritated.
What in God’s name – you should forgive the expression – is all this about there being “no religious test” for appointments to high public office? Most particularly in the case of the U.S. Supreme Court, there is the most blatant religious test imaginable. You may not even be considered for the bench unless you have a religion of some kind. Surely no adherent of any version of “originalism” can possibly argue that the Framers of the Constitution intended a spoils system to be awarded among competing clerical sects.
Argue, no, probably not, but then the adherents don’t have to, do they, since no one (Hitchens apart) ever makes an issue of it. Especially not … Read the rest
‘Thought’ for the Day
Oct 12th, 2005 4:44 pm | By Ophelia BensonMore on the ‘no you may not die until God says you may’ line of cant. This time from Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on Thought (thought?) for the Day.
… Read the restNine years ago my brothers, my mother and I saw my father go through five major operations in his eighties. It was almost unbearably painful to see one who was once so strong and upright, fight a long, slow, losing battle with death. Yet I can’t begin to imagine what it would have been like if he, or we on his behalf, had been given the choice to bring that last day closer. He was a proud man who hated being a burden to others. How easy it would have
The Most Blatant Religious Test Imaginable
Oct 12th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
You may not even be considered for the Supreme Court unless you have a religion of some kind. … Read the rest
18 Friends?! Who Even Knows That Many People?
Oct 12th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Friendship is the new sex – everybody pretends to be good at it.… Read the rest
The Muslim Brotherhood in France
Oct 12th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Muslim Brotherhood works to roll back secularism and assimilation.… Read the rest
Not Subconscious Drives but Helicobacter Pylori
Oct 12th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A bacterium causes ulcers.… Read the rest
Wayne Booth 1921-2005
Oct 12th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Author of The Rhetoric of Irony, The Company We Keep, The Vocation of a Teacher.… Read the rest
Science by Assumption
Oct 12th, 2005 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
ID is an insidious attempt by a religious caucus to impose its views on the whole US.… Read the rest
