Human Dignity Blog Posts

by Liu Xiaobo In the labour camp, Dalian, August 1998   In a totalitarian state, the purpose of politics is power and power alone. The “nation” and its peoples are mentioned only to give an air legitimacy to the application of power.

I was so struck by the sight of the table where they were lifting the woman I didn't say a word. It looked like some awful torture table, with these metal stirrups sticking up in mid-air at one end and all sorts of instruments and wires and tubes I...

I wanted to hold off on posting this, because I don't want to take advantage of the tragedy in Colorado to get on my soap box. However, the shooting and discussion of it on facebook were the impetus for this post, and I want you to know that up fron...

I don't care how many people she's slept with.I don't care how tight her clothes are.I don't care how much boob or ass I can see.I don't care how much you think she's flirting with you.I don't care what kind of kink or fetish she's into.She's not a s...

The thought occurred to me today that what really ended my belief in the Judeo-Christian god was my exploration of the concept of attachment parenting. The more I learned about AP, for instance, that using punishment to teach right from wrong had ne...

Someone told me recently that it's perfectly all right for employers to not be required to pay for birth control in insurance plans because 1. women are still "free" to pay for it out of pocket and 2. everyone is capable of abstaining.Can everyone re...

Rape culture is a buzz-word thrown around a lot, especially in feminist circles (in my experience, anyway), but often without much discussion of what we mean when we use it. This will be a discussion of the basics of rape and rape culture, what we m...

In the same week controversy has erupted in both Canada and South Africa over the depiction of the genitals of politicical leaders of those countries in works of art.In Canada 'Well hung' nude Harper painting sparks mixed reactions | Toronto SUN:A nu...

by Erhard Gerstenberger   Presupposing an all-round contextuality of biblical messages, we have already admitted a tight affinity between ancient cultures and biblical concepts of the world, mankind, God, etc. The Word of God always came into an...

[Spoiler Warning: If you have not seen the 4-12 episode, read at your own risk.]Last week's episode of Grey's Anatomy featured a run down of what happened when Owen "cheated" on Cristina, which really disturbed me. From what I saw of the flashbacks:...

Tweet These are the statements I want to live and love by when I have children. I don't know for sure that I'll never make a hypocrite of myself. I can't promise that I'll always be in control and always do the right thing, but this is my hope.

I have not yet involved myself in the discussion of the Occupy Wall Street movement going on all across the country. I agree with the message, I am disgusted by the police brutality, and I hope that someone wakes up and sees that you can't serve The...

Tweet This is a difficult post to write. I want to avoid the stereotype that anyone who wants to own a gun is mentally unbalanced or has some kind of sick bloodlust, but I do have a problem with guns, and it's not necessarily to do with whether o...

"When I was about twenty years old, I met an old pastor's wife who told me that when she was young and had her first child, she didn't believe in striking children, although spanking kids with a switch pulled from a tree was standard punishment at th...

Tweet It's a disturbing trend in country music, that corporal punishment is spoken of fondly and nostalgically in songs by country artists. They seem to think that the only way for children to learn right and wrong is to be hit (not so), and they i...

Tweet I've been reading and commenting on this blog post after I saw it posted on Reddit. It made me want to create this post discussing the issues around gentle discipline/peaceful parenting. Honestly, some of the comments had me really upset, an...

Tweet I just finished Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. The book takes several points made about religion and secularism and makes the argument that, whether you accept the truth claims of religion or not, org...