Category Archives: Religion

The thought police are listening

July 15, 2007 – 7:48 pm

It seems pretty ridiculous that Dr Haneef has been charged with supporting a terrorist organisation by leaving his SIM card with his second cousins in Glasgow. I was wondering how they could charge him, and decided to look at the terrorism offences. I’m not a criminal lawyer, let alone one acquainted with the Federal jurisdiction. [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Law, Terrorism | Comments (26)

Carrots that eat milk

July 8, 2007 – 6:53 pm

When my sister and I were little, we came up with the sentence which is the title of this post (during a trip to Jenolan Caves). We found it hilarious because it made no sense. Carrots are incapable of eating, and even if they were capable, they couldn’t “eat” milk anyway. Yeah, we were strange [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Drugs, Education, Law | Comments (12)

Religion, politics and therapeutic cloning

July 1, 2007 – 11:01 pm

I’ve been invited to join the Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm. I thought I might write about something which happened a month ago, involving the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell.
In early June 2007, the NSW Parliament proposed to amend the Human Cloning and Other Practices Act 2003 to legalise therapeutic cloning.
“Therapeutic cloning” is shorthand [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Law, Politics | Comments (12)

The subtle knife

June 10, 2007 – 5:52 pm

Reader -k from The Blonde Canadian has alerted me to another interesting religious issue, following on from my post about hijabs at school. The issue involves the kirpan, the ceremonial sword worn by baptised Sikhs, or Khalsa Sikhs.
To wear a kirpan is one of the five commandments followed by a baptised Sikh. Others include not [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Law, Society | Comments (11)

Fighting the Good Fight?

June 8, 2007 – 11:58 pm

What happens, say, when two devoutly religious football teams play a match, and the captain of each team prays to God that his team will win? Do the devoutly religious believe He balances the competing prayers, and that the winner is the more righteous before God?
The doctrine of free will would say that He doesn’t [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in History, Law | Comments (9)

Quick post on hijabs

June 6, 2007 – 6:48 pm

I read today that legislation banning teachers from wearing a hijab in class passed by the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia has been upheld as legal. Obviously I can’t comment on the nature of the decision (I don’t know much about German law). But I do think that it represents a disturbing trend of intolerance.
What [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Education, Law, Society | Comments (21)

National Day of Secularism

May 26, 2007 – 1:56 pm

Bruce has tagged me for the National Day of Secularism meme.

He’s interested to see what I will say because of a comment I made to him when discussing those stupid citizenship questions…namely:
“The Ten Commandments can be regarded as forming one of the precedents for modern law, canon law, and all kinds of other law. [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in History, Law | Comments (16)

Why?

April 18, 2007 – 6:32 am

“Acts of God”, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, random acts of violence…they are all terrifying. We can’t predict when such things will happen, and we can’t easily control them. It is for this reason that airplanes are more scary than cars. Although statistically, many more people have car accidents than have airplane accidents, we are not [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Society | Comments (11)

Unveiling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

March 31, 2007 – 10:21 am

Recent reports say that an American Muslim woman, Ginnah Muhammad, has issued a lawsuit against a Michigan judge who required her to remove the niqab in court. The niqab is a full veil revealing only the eyes. The judge said that he had to see Ms Muhammad’s face to judge the veracity of her evidence, [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Feminism, Law | Comments (5)

Do What Thou Wilt

March 6, 2007 – 6:39 pm

Continuing my professional interest in evil…
Without Aleister Crowley, those well meaning people who press cheap tracts on the dangers of the occult into your hands would have to find other ways to waste their Saturday nights. Crowley is a staple - no, a star - of tractdom. Almost inevitably, [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Literature, Skeptics | Comments (11)