Check with a veterinarian first.… Read the rest
Welcome to our archive of news stories relevant to the project of fighting fashionable nonsense. The stories are drawn from the electronic pages of the world’s media. On this page, you’ll find links to those stories that have been featured on Butterflies and Wheels during the current year. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find links to separate archives of stories from previous years.
We’re always pleased to hear about news stories that you think should be featured on Butterflies and Wheels. Just send an email here, if you want to point one out to us.
A note about links
Inevitably links go out of date. We suggest, therefore, that you make hard-copies of the stories that particularly interest you.
Yes there are too so atheists in foxholes 
May 16th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
There are more humanists in the military than Muslims, Buddhists, Jews and even many Christian denominations. Why no humanist chaplains?… Read the rest
India: 2 women charged with daughters’ murders
May 16th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Zahida, 19, and Husna, 26, were strangled last week after they returned home to make peace with their families. They eloped with Hindu men.… Read the rest
Burma: slap in the face to political prisoners
May 16th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A small reduction in sentences for people who should never have been charged is not an “amnesty.”… Read the rest
He loves you, he beats you
May 16th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
HRW report documents brutal and long-lasting violence against women and girls by family members and the survivors’ struggle to seek protection.… Read the rest
Bishop says we are not trying to convert kids
May 15th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Access Ministries are in Victorian government schools just to…to…to teach values, yes, that’s it.… Read the rest
Muslims for burqa bans
May 15th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Tarek Fatah, Taj Hargey, Qanta Ahmed, Mona Eltahawy, and Naser Khader to name a few.… Read the rest
Circumcision party in the Philippines
May 15th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Health officials chopped about 1,500 pre-teen boys (not infants, but half-grown boys) in bid for Guinness Book of World Records.… Read the rest
Xian student flips out to prove god exists
May 15th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Loiters around “ask an atheist” table, stabs self in hand, fights cops, kicks out window in cop car, assaults 2 cops. Therefore god exists.… Read the rest
Strauss-Khan arrested, accused of sexual assault
May 15th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the IMF, was arrested on a plane at JFK airport accused of a sex attack on a hotel maid earlier in the day.… Read the rest
Zurich voters overwhelmingly reject bans
May 15th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Only 15.5% of voters in the local referendum backed a ban on assisted suicide, while nearly 22% supported a ban on “suicide tourism.”… Read the rest
Zurich votes no on bans on assisted suicide
May 15th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Concerns about suicide tourism carry less weight with voters than their conviction that the right to die is universal.… Read the rest
NY Times on Synthese, ID, Forrest, and that statement
May 14th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Three philosophers have admitted complaining to the editors about Forrest’s article; one was Alvin Plantinga.… Read the rest
Grayling’s top books for a secular good life
May 14th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Aristotle, Gibbon, Mill, Hazlitt – enjoy.… Read the rest
Deepa Mehta films “Midnight’s Children”
May 14th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The BBC tried to make it as a five-part miniseries in 1997, but the government withdrew permission for that production after Muslim protests.… Read the rest
Belarus: former presidential candidate jailed
May 14th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Leading Belarusian opposition politician Andrei Sannikov has been sentenced to five years hard labour for “organising mass disturbance”.… Read the rest
Patricia Churchland on science, philosophy and morality
May 14th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Tension is inevitable, because caring broadly raises challenging, practical problems: all those competing moral obligations need to be balanced out.… Read the rest
Massimo Pigliucci on Jonathan Haidt
May 14th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Haidt has a tendency to step over from “is” to “ought” in the sort of seamless way that rightly annoyed David Hume.… Read the rest
Oxford study finds religion pervasive, inescapable
May 13th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
And guess who paid for that study.… Read the rest
Interfaith leaders meet in Istanbul
May 13th, 2011 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
“When a supreme body that will force all to act according to the Creator’s will shall be formed, the level of religious extremism will drop.” Srsly.… Read the rest
