Some of you may have been following the controversy involving posters in the subways. Pamela Geller, who sees the threat of Sharia under every bed, wanted to place signs in the subway stations of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) of New York that said “In any war between civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” The odd wording derives from something that Ayn Rand once said. [Read more…]
There was considerable excitement in the Christian theological world when a Harvard scholar announced the discovery of a papyrus fragment that seemed to imply the possibility that Jesus had a wife because it ended with the phrase “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife . . .’ “. [Read more…]
Via Jerry Coyne, I learned about this interesting radio discussion with three philosophers on BBC4, hosted by Melvyn Bragg, on the Ontological Argument. [Read more…]
I managed to find online the controversial British documentary Islam: The Untold Story in two parts part 1 (40 minutes) and part 2 (32 minutes) and watched it yesterday. [Read more…]
The Catholic bishops seem to be going all in against president Obama in this election, with the issues of same-sex marriage and contraception services taking precedence even over that old standby, abortion. [Read more…]
As could be predicted, the violence resulting from the anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims has resulted in calls for the limits to freedom of speech and laws for the protection of religious sensibilities. The president of Egypt Mohamed Morsi and the president of Yemen Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi both made speeches at the United Nations this week calling for such restrictions. [Read more…]
You can be sure that when Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the United Nations General Assembly today, he will ramp up the rhetoric against Iran. With all this saber rattling, the plight of the Palestinians in the occupied territories has taken a back seat. [Read more…]
Last week, the Australian parliament took a step backwards by voting 98-42 to uphold the ban on same-sex marriages, despite opinion polls that favor allowing it. (On a more encouraging note, here are photos of a same sex marriage held at a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. It is not yet legal there, though legislation has been pending since 2003.) [Read more…]
Religious people (at least the sophisticated ones) have abandoned trying to argue as evidence that god provides explanations for how things work. They have realized that this is a losing strategy as science has made god redundant as an explanation for anything, and that signs of god’s power seem to show a notable inverse correlation to the advance of science. [Read more…]
I have argued that the world would be a lot better off without religion. Religious people disagree and one would expect them to. But more surprisingly, there are those who are not believers and yet feel that religion serves a useful purpose and is worth retaining. [Read more…]