Two signs of the times this week. Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt comes out in favour of assisted suicide; and a seriously ill baby, “Baby OT”, dies after the High Court orders an end to its assisted breathing. Behind both developments, an underlying intuition that death is preferable to a painful life.
I worry where this utilitarian [...]
Filed under: ideas, jonathanbirch, religion on March 21st, 2009 | No Comments »
Creative Commons licensed photograph courtesy of Flickr user jgraham.
Even after eleven years, there’s still something a bit shocking about tuition fees. If the vice-chancellors get their way, fees will rise to at least £5000 per student per year. It’s a policy that flaunts its pragmatism on its sleeve. I still think fees defy any principled [...]
Filed under: barackobama, education, jonathanbirch, labour, religion, ukpolitics on March 17th, 2009 | No Comments »
I was saddened to see Michael Reiss step down today as the Royal Society’s Director of Education. I have been following the furore over his supposedly pro-Creationist remarks — noting the complete absence of incriminating direct quotations in any of the reports. The reality, obviously, is that Reiss is no Creationist. He thinks Creationism is [...]
Filed under: education, jonathanbirch, religion on September 16th, 2008 | No Comments »
Mike Huckabee’s Iowa victory last week has stirred a sleeping giant in US politics. It was a timely reminder that the Religious Right owns a large section of America’s conservative electorate. We can forget Barack Obama’s enormous grassroots appeal, his massive student following, his precinct captains and armies of volunteers. Nothing can match the pull [...]
Filed under: andrewnoakes, election2008, mikehuckabee, religion, republican, uspolitics on January 11th, 2008 | No Comments »
It’s a terrible day for Pakistan, a terrible day for democracy, and a terrible day for Islam. This is just one more reminder of an obvious fact: a vast, vast majority of the victims of Islamic extremist terrorism are Muslims. In nearly every case the casualties are Muslims, and the people having their democracy [...]
Filed under: democracy, jonathanbirch, religion on December 27th, 2007 | No Comments »
Thousands of bombs exploded, 22 on the streets of the capital on just one Friday; thousands of people interned without trial; pitched battles with the armed police forces and the British Army in urban streets; whole areas of cities effectively closed off to the security forces, run more by paramilitary organisations than the state; communicants [...]
Filed under: religion, tonyblair, ukpolitics on March 11th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
The Glasgow Herald reports that parts of the prison system are going to be taken over by the Church of Scotland. This made me laugh, although it is on the face of it a perfectly reasonable suggestion, as church groups including the Church of Scotland already provide other social services such as schools and [...]
Filed under: crime, religion, scotland on March 7th, 2007 | 7 Comments »
Having all but placed the Christian adoption agency matter to bed, after it was pointed out that they receive government funding and thus are required to follow the equal opportunities criteria set out by government, I am faced with a quandary.
Mosques in this country receive substantial government grants as part of a broader scheme [...]
Filed under: culture, gender, religion, ukpolitics on March 5th, 2007 | 16 Comments »
The coverage of this issue on many of the blogs which have picked it up needs a sense of perspective. Clareification is a magazine by Clare students, and aimed at Clare students. I am not a Clare student (and have no official ties with Clare College whatsoever) and have never even seen a copy of [...]
Filed under: clareification, freespeech, religion on February 14th, 2007 | 10 Comments »
Following Owen’s post, I think it is fair to say that we, the bloggers, have all been keen not to undermine the position of Clareification’s guest editor by posting on the issue and sparking wider international, as well as national, controversy. This would only lead to the college’s position vis-a-vis the editor being even more [...]
Filed under: clareification, freespeech, religion on February 14th, 2007 | 12 Comments »
