Massimo goes a few rounds with the ol’ science can whup philosophy story.

Oh my, I thought I was done for a while chastising skeptics like Sam Harris on the relationship between philosophy, science and morality, and I just found out that my friend Michael Shermer has incurred a similar (though not quite as egregious as Harris’) bit of questionable thinking. As I explained in my review of Harris’ book for Skeptic, one learns
precisely nothing about morality by reading The Moral Landscape. Indeed, one’s time on that topic is much better spent by leafing through Michael Sandel’s On Justice, for example.

I too reviewed Harris’s book, and I too thought it was way too dismissive of philosophy and way too short on argument as a result. I thought that as a non-philosopher, of course, while Massimo thinks it as a philosopher (and a biologist too!), but I’ve read a little moral philosophy here and there, and I found it a lot more enlightening than I found The Moral Landscape. [Read more…]

Oh how interesting. Catholic hospitals don’t always say that a fetus is a person. For instance, how about when an on-call obstetrician doesn’t answer the page when a pregnant woman is in the ER having a heart attack and she ends up dying? And then her husband files a wrongful death suit?

No, not then.

The lead defendant in the case is Catholic Health Initiatives, the Englewood-based nonprofit that runs St. Thomas More Hospital as well as roughly 170 other health facilities in 17 states. Last year, the hospital chain reported national assets of $15 billion. The organization’s mission, according to its promotional literature, is to “nurture the healing ministry of the Church” and to be guided by “fidelity to the Gospel.” Toward those ends, Catholic Health facilities seek to follow the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church authored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. [Read more…]

A great new Jesus and Mo. First, a word from their sponsor –

You may notice the return of the “Help J&M pay their hosting fees” button in the r/h column. This is because our current host – the magnificent
nearlyfreespeech.net – have changed their billing system to make it fairer for
sites which don’t use up many resources. Unfortunately, J&M is not one of those
sites, and  our monthly bill has increased substantially – so if you have a few
bucks spare to throw into our hosting account, that would be much appreciated.

And now, see them finally get through to the barmaid. [Read more…]

A trade group called the American Beverage Association is in court trying to prevent a New York City law limiting the size of sugar drinks from going into effect on March 12. Well they would, wouldn’t they. But they have some odd allies.

Opponents also are raising questions of racial fairness alongside other complaints as the novel restriction faces a court test.

The NAACP’s New York state branch and the Hispanic Federation have joined beverage makers and sellers in trying to stop the rule from taking effect March 12. Critics are attacking what they call an inconsistent and undemocratic regulation, while city officials and health experts defend it as a pioneering and proper move to fight obesity. [Read more…]

A New Year’s message from Maryam Namazie.

Because the technology to get to the moon existed in 1969, but the technology to fake a moon landing in a studio did not.

The takeaway –

Why does any of this matter? Well my concern is with the ultimate fate of knowing, of seeing the difference between what you can know and what you wish for…The urge to believe drives people to trade in part of their soul in exchange for the comfort of being a rebel.

Via the Ex-Muslims Forum – “perhaps the only time when the misogyny of Islamic Fiqh could ever be described as a relief.”

It is narrated from Ibn Abbas that he said, “The female apostate is not killed.”  This is because the unbelief of the woman is not equal to the unbelief of the man – which leads to (physical) devastation.  So, she is not equal in the liability to be killed, as is known.

– Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi (d. 373 AH/ 983 CE). Mukhtalaf al-Riwayah,, vol 3, p. 1299

Makes sense. The woman’s belief is puny and weak compared to the man’s, so her unbelief is the same way, so meh – nobody cares. No need to kill her; keep her to do the dishes.

On Twitter –

This is a public information announcement: If you self-identify as a “freethinker” or a “progressive” it can seem just a tad conceited.

So does that mean it’s conceited to write for The Freethinker? Probably. Oh well.

(The truth is I don’t self-identify as either of those, because it’s true, it does sound conceited. I don’t like self-flattering labels, and I do avoid them. I prefer neutral, factual ones, when I can find them. That’s part of why I found Shermer’s jeers about “self-declared secular feminists” bizarre, when surely both words are factual more than they are self-flattering. But not calling oneself a freethinker doesn’t preserve one from doing things like writing for The Freethinker. What is one supposed to do? Ask them to change the name? But it’s a good name, and it’s been that name since the 19th century.

Anyway patrolling other people’s vanity can seem just a tad conceited, too. “Just saying.”)

So they do it to Mary Beard, too. Mary Beard! A classics don! Makes me want to get my friend Euripides to give them a dam’ good scolding.

But why, you might say, am I so fussed by this. One tv programme of no moment, a bit of flak, and some great waves of support on twitter (thank you all…Tony Law even, bizarrely, got Sulla martialed in the fight last night…). Why not just “move on”?

One reason, it has introduced me to a side on internet trolling that I haven’t experienced before, and is worth thinking about. My appearance on Question Time prompted a web post that has in the last few days discussed my pubic hair (do I brush the floor with it), whether I need rogering (that comment was taken down, as was the speculation about the capaciousness of my vagina, and the plan to plant a d*** in my mouth). [Read more…]