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Ability To Literally Imagine Oneself In Another's Shoes May Be Tied To Empathy
ScienceDaily -- New research from Vanderbilt University indicates the way our brain handles how we move through space -- including being able to imagine literally stepping into someone else's shoes -- may be related to how and why we experience empathy toward others. --snip-- The researchers compared performance on the test with how empathetic the subjects reported themselves to be. They found that higher self-reported empathy was associated with paying more attention to the right side of space. Previous research has found that the left side of the face is more emotionally expressive than the right side. Since the left side of the face would be on the right side of the observer, it is possible that attending more to the expressive side of people's faces would allow one to better understand and respond to their mental state. These findings could also point to a role of the left hemisphere in empathy. More...See also: Brain Detects Happiness More Quickly Than SadnessMorning People And Night Owls Show Different Brain Function
Scientology: The Truth Rundown
Americans United Urges Attorney General to Act On Unlawful 'Earmark' Funding Of Nine Religious Institutions
Atheist Bus Campaign In... New York City!
This month, some two dozen buses will roll through Manhattan, debuting our 12-foot long, three foot high message, "You don't have to believe in god to be a moral or ethical person". Look for the signs the first day our buses maneuver through the city in late June. More...See also: German "atheist bus" brings tour of the country to a close
American Atheists Joins Secular Coalition For America
The nontheistic movement expanded its unified front this week as American Atheists joined the Secular Coalition for America. Their application to become a member was unanimously approved on Sunday June 14th. Along with the recent addition of Camp Quest in January 2009, this brings the number of groups in the Secular Coalition to ten. More...
Does God Answer Prayers To Do Someone Ill? (God As Your Private Hitman)
Derided by some as a bad Judeo-Christian imitation of voodoo, the literal practice of imprecatory prayer has some newfound fans. More...
No Rush For Pews
According to Frank Newport, the editor-in-chief of Gallup Poll, which interviews 30,000 Americans every month, "to guess that attendance would increase [in recessions] is a common-sense assumption with no basis in data." John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which recently published a study on the correlation between church attendance and economics, has found no link in the past 20 years. More...
Orphanage Abuse: Christian Brother Jailed
A Christian Brother will serve 15 months in jail for the abuse of a boy at a South Melbourne orphanage more than three decades ago. John Francis Coswello, 70, was convicted of two counts of indecent assault and three of gross indecency. More...
British Man Snatched Over Religion
A BRITISH engineer kidnapped in Yemen by armed killers was part of an evangelical group that may have been targeted as an act of revenge for its attempts to convert local Muslims to Christianity. His captors have already killed three women members of the group and abducted a married couple and their three young children. More...
Catholic Mother Killed Newborn Baby From 'Shame' After Giving Birth Alone
A Catholic mother, who did not know she was pregnant, killed her newly born son within moments of giving birth alone, an inquest heard. More...
Scores Killed In Baghdad Market Bombing
Record Crowds At Stonehenge For Summer Solstice Celebrations
Druids began their incantations, Wiccan priestesses drew their cowls tight against the damp morning air and four half-naked Papuan dancers waved their hands in the air and went: "Woo, woo, woo". More...
India's Romeo And Juliet Tragedy
It was a story buried in the middle of the Indian newspapers. Two star-crossed lovers committed suicide after the local village council, or panchayat, ordered them to annul their marriage or face death. Amreen was Muslim and her husband, Lokesh, a Hindu. Their match was simply unacceptable to their communities. The couple poisoned themselves. --snip-- "In our village, Hindus marry Hindus and Muslims marry Muslims. It's very sad, what happened but what can you expect? The pressure on their families was enormous. They were being disgraced and dishonoured." More...See also: US religious freedom watchdog 'barred from India'
Saudi Arabian Religious Police Arrest 67 Filipino Men At Drag Party
Saudi Arabia's religious police have shown the limits of their tolerance by arresting 67 Filipino men at a drag party. More...
Statistics Defy Israeli Settlement Stance
(AP) Israelis moving to the West Bank accounted for more than a third of settler population growth in recent years, government statistics show, undercutting Israel's argument that it is continuing settlement construction only to accommodate growing families already living there. More...
Afghanistan: Soldiers Killed In Attack On U.S. Base
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Two NATO-led soldiers were killed and six wounded in an attack in a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan early Sunday, officials said. More...
A Lecture By Robert Sapolsky
A great 90-minute lecture by Stanford's Robert Sapolsky on schizotypal and OCD personalities in relationship to religion and evolution. HERE
Same-Sex Behavior Seen In Nearly All Animals, Review Finds
ScienceDaily -- Same-sex behavior is a nearly universal phenomenon in the animal kingdom, common across species, from worms to frogs to birds, concludes a new review of existing research. More...
Judge Rejects Defense Argument In Oregon Prayer Case
OREGON CITY, Oregon (AP) - An Oregon judge has rejected defense claims of selective and vindictive prosecution in the manslaughter trial of a couple whose 15-month-old daughter died of pneumonia while they prayed for her recovery. More...
ACLU Wants La. To Ban Creationism In Public Schools
BATON ROUGE -- New rules for teaching science in Louisiana should include specific prohibitions on the teaching of scientific creationism and intelligent design, the American Civil Liberties Union said today. More...
Americans United Applauds Court Decision Striking Down Oklahoma County's Commandments Display
Christian Prayers to Open City Council Meetings Illegal, Watchdog Charges
New Support Group Recovering Religionists Helps People Who Leave The Church
The idea for the group came from Darrel Ray, an organizational psychologist and author of "The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture." He was raised in a fundamentalist Christian church and attended seminary. But by the time he graduated, he had abandoned the notion of becoming a minister. More...
Accused Abortion Doctor Killer Claims More Violence Is Planned
WICHITA, Kan. -- The man charged with killing a prominent abortion provider claimed Sunday that more violence is possible as long as the medical procedure is allowed to continue, giving his warning in calls that also focused on complaints about his treatment in jail. More...
Recruitment Shooting Suspect Doesn't Think Killing Was Murder
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- A Muslim convert charged with fatally shooting an American soldier at a military recruiting center said Tuesday that he doesn't consider the killing a murder because U.S. military action in the Middle East made the killing justified. More...
Prosecutors Demand End Of Scientology
THE Church of Scientology in France should be dissolved due to alleged fraudulent activities, the Paris public prosecution service has demanded.THE Church of Scientology in France should be dissolved due to alleged fraudulent activities, the Paris public prosecution service has demanded. More...
Light Sensors Cause Religious Row
A couple have taken legal action after claiming motion sensors installed at their holiday flat in Dorset breached their rights as Orthodox Jews. Gordon and Dena Coleman said they cannot leave or enter their Bournemouth flat on the Sabbath because the hallway sensors automatically switch on lights. The couple's religious code bans lights and other electrical equipment being switched on during Jewish holidays. More...
Catholic Group Call For Madonna Show To Be Axed
Poland -- The Catholic Society are protesting against Madge's show in Warsaw on August 15 which coincides with the holy event, the Assumption of Mary Feast. More...
Mother Caned In Bangladesh For Talking To Hindu Man
American Soldier Killed By Bomb In Iraq
US Military Deaths In Afghanistan Region At 632
(AP) As of Friday, June 12, 2009, at least 632 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures Friday at 10 a.m. EDT. More...See also: Suicide bomber kills 17 in Afghanistan
11 Killed As Truck Bomb Strikes Five-Star Pakistan Hotel
Shooting At Thai Mosque Kills 10, Police Say
(CNN) -- Gunmen believed to be linked to an Islamic militant group opened fire Monday in a mosque in Thailand, killing 10 people, a police official said. More...
Rebels Seize 9 Foreigners In Yemen
(CNN) -- Nine foreigners, including three children, were kidnapped by Shiite rebels in northern Yemen, the state-run news agency reported Sunday. More...
Hamas: 5 Killed In Attack On Israeli Forces
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Five militants died early Monday as they attempted to carry out an attack against Israeli forces, near Nachal Oz Crossing in northern Gaza, Hamas security sources said. More...
Humanists Speak Out About Godless Billboard In The Phoenix Area
 "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." These words are part of a coordinated multi-organizational advertising campaign designed to raise awareness about people who don't believe in a god. And now the nationwide campaign has come to the Phoenix area. The prominent ad appears on a highway billboard and can be read by motorists traveling north of the Sky Harbor Airport, at the intersection of 44th and Washington, just outside of Phoenix. It has been placed by the Arizona Coalition of Reason, with funding from the United Coalition of Reason and logistical support from the American Humanist Association. It features an image of blue sky and clouds with the words superimposed over. "The point of this national billboard campaign is to reach out to the millions of humanists, atheists and agnostics living in the United States," explained Fred Edwords, head of the United Coalition of Reason, speaking at a press conference today. "Nontheists sometimes don't realize there's a community out there for them because they're inundated with religious messages at every turn. So we hope this will serve as a beacon and let them know they aren't alone." The conference coincides with the opening of the 68th Annual Conference of the American Humanist Association (AHA), at the Tempe Mission Palms Hotel. "The American Humanist Association has funded a number of these billboards in the past, and this annual conference is among the nation's largest gatherings of humanists and other nontheists each year," said Maggie Ardiente, director of development for the Washington, D.C.-based AHA. "It allows our community to communicate, thrive and strategize." More...Last week: Godless Billboard Greets New Orleans Motorists
Nonbelievers Bring Nonbeliefs To Phoenix, Tempe
Man Pleads Not Guilty In Deadly Recruiting Center Shootings
(CNN) -- An Arkansas man suspected in a shooting that killed one soldier and wounded another at a Little Rock military recruiting center was angry over the treatment of Muslims, authorities said Tuesday. --snip-- He "stated that he was a practicing Muslim ... that he was mad at the U.S. military because of what they had done to Muslims in the past," homicide detective Tommy Hudson said in a police report. More...See also: Man Pleads Not Guilty to Religion Driven Military Murder
Humanists Lament Murder Of Dr. George Tiller
Religious School Grads Likelier To Have Abortions
Chuckling Chimps Traced To Human Laughter
17th Century Urine-Filled 'Witch Bottle' Found
During the 17th century in England, someone urinated in a jar, added nail clippings, hair and pins, and buried it upside-down in Greenwich, where it was recently unearthed and identified by scientists as being the world's most complete known "witch bottle." This spell device, often meant to attract and trap negative energy, was particularly common from the 16th to the 17th centuries, so the discovery provides a unique insight into witchcraft beliefs of that period, according to a report published in the latest British Archaeology. More...
Child Rape Survivor Saves 'Virgin Myth' Victims
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Hope was 14 years old when her uncle raped her. --snip-- Like many young girls in Zimbabwe, Hope was the victim of a widely held belief that if a man with HIV or AIDS rapes a virgin he will be cured of his disease. This so-called virgin myth, perpetuated by Zimbabwe's traditional healers, has led to the rape of hundreds of girls, according to UNICEF. Some of those victims are too young to walk, much less protect themselves. More...See also: Darfuri women live 'nightmare,' Harvard-backed study says
Malaysia Christians Still Banned From Using 'Allah'
The Catholic Church in Malaysia has lost its latest bid to use 'Allah' as a translation for 'God' in its newspaper. More...
Terror Suspect Student 'Had Suicide Vest And Explosives'
A student from Bristol made explosive material and a suicide vest after converting to Islam and then becoming fascinated with the teachings of radical preachers and suicide attacks, a jury heard today. More...
Blast At Pakistan Mosque Kills 30
(CBS/AP) An explosion at a mosque killed 30 people during Friday prayers, while a roadside bomb killed four soldiers in Pakistan's tribal belt - the latest violence to rock the country's northwest as the army says it is beating back the Taliban in the Swat Valley. More...
3 Troops Killed In Afghan Attack
(AP) Three foreign soldiers with the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan were killed Thursday when insurgents attacked their vehicle with a bomb and small-arms fire, the military announced. More...See also: Afghan Bombs Kills 10 Security Contractors
Godless Billboard Greets New Orleans Motorists
 "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." These words are part of a national billboard campaign designed to raise awareness about people who don't believe in a god, and the campaign is now in full swing in the Big Easy. The latest billboard can be read by motorists driving from downtown New Orleans on I-10 W. It can be seen on the left-hand side just prior to the Carrollton exits. It was placed by the New Orleans Secular Humanist Association and funded by the United Coalition of Reason. It features an image of blue sky and clouds with the words superimposed over. More...See also: Atheist Billboard Turns Heads Along I-10Earlier... A Streetcar Named Disbelief!
Animals Can Tell Right From Wrong
Scientists studying animal behaviour believe they have growing evidence that species ranging from mice to primates are governed by moral codes of conduct in the same way as humans. More...
Saved By Junk DNA: Vital Role In The Evolution Of Human Genome
'Out of the Closet' -- Black Atheists
In some black communities it's akin to donning a white sheet and a Confederate flag. In others, it's ostensibly tolerated yet whispered about, branded culturally incorrect and bad form, if not outright sacrilege. More...
FFRF National Day Of Prayer Case Proceeds
U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb of the western district of Wisconsin, in an opinion and order issued on Tuesday, denied motions to dismiss the Freedom From Religion Foundation's far-reaching legal challenge of National Day of Prayer proclamations. Denied were motions to dismiss filed by defendants Pres. Barack Obama, press secretary Robert Gibbs and Shirley Dobson, of the National Day of Prayer Taskforce. More...See also: US judge refuses to dismiss 'Day of Prayer' suit
Americans United Criticizes California Supreme Court Ruling Allowing Ban On Same-Sex Marriage To Stand
Salvation Subsidy?: AU Questions Wisconsin Funding Of Faith-Based Facility
AU had received complaints that the Salvation Army regularly presents prayers and sermons at meals and holds religious services at its shelter facility. Yet the Army is in contract with the county, and in previous contracts, the Army promised in exchange for taking $50,000 in public funds to operate the shelter, it would not use the money for religious services. More...
IRS Should Review Liberty University's Tax-Exempt Status For Partisan Politicking, Says Americans United
Americans United for Separation of Church and State today asked the Internal Revenue Service to review the tax-exempt status of Liberty University in the wake of the school's decision to yank official recognition of a student-run Democratic club. More...See also: Liberty Univ. expels campus Democrats
Prisoner Sues Oregon County Over Forced Religion
The lawsuit contends Lane County violated the US Constitution's separation of church and state clause. More...
Atheists Cite "Pattern Of Proselytizing" In Military
An Atheist public policy group has called upon the US Congress to be more pro-active in monitoring what it described as a "pattern of proselytizing." More...
Dallas Atheist Discrimination Claims
Wired PR News -- A woman in Texas is claiming that she was fired from her job for being an atheist. More...
Christian Beliefs Cost Texas Schools Chief His Post
He has steadfastly argued that Texas students should be taught the weaknesses of evolution. More...
Georgia Lawmaker: 2010 Should Be Year Of The Bible
Told of the measure, several Democrats and liberal and atheist bloggers objected. More...
Group Opposes La Crosse County Shelter Prayer
Woman Claims Face Of Jesus Appeared On Kitchen Cabinet
On the same day Erica Conner listened to visiting author Don Piper give his purported glimpse of heaven from his book, "90 Minutes in Heaven"she got her own peek into the supernatural, she said. More...
Face Of Jesus Found In Jar Of Marmite
A family breakfast turned into a religious experience when they spotted what appears to be the face of Jesus in the lid of a Marmite jar. More...
Wikipedia Bans Church Of Scientology
In an unprecedented effort to crack down on self-serving edits, the Wikipedia supreme court has banned contributions from all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates. More...
Scientology On Trial In France
Bridgeport Diocese Defends Its Actions
The Diocese of Bridgeport lashed back Tuesday at critics, who delivered a letter asking Bishop William Lori to stop the legal fight to keep thousands of pages of court files secret, saying that the diocese has done more than any other institution to deal with the clergy sexual abuse scandal. More...
Abused While In Care Of Church
A West Belfast community worker who was sexually abused whilst in care has accused the Catholic Church of protecting paedophiles. More...
Catholic Man Killed In Sectarian Attack
A Catholic man with four children was kicked to death by a sectarian "mob" in Northern Ireland, neighbours said yesterday. More...
Church In Nepal Hit By Explosion
Two people have been killed and at least 12 injured in an explosion at a Roman Catholic church in Nepal. --snip-- No group has said it carried out the attack but police said they suspected the involvement of a Hindu extremist group, the Nepal Defence Army. More...
Guru Dies In Clash At Sikh Temple In Austria
A visiting Indian religious guru has been killed and 30 people were injured when a shooting and knife fight erupted during a dispute between rival communities at a Sikh temple in Vienna. More...
Pakistan Army Retakes Town From Taliban
Dozens Killed In Western Afghan Battle
5 Killed In Baghdad Bombing
Clinton: Israeli West Bank Growth Must End
Somali President Calls For Help In Battling Islamist Militias
(CNN) -- Somalia needs international help to fight Islamist extremists battling for power in the lawless Horn of Africa nation, the country's moderate Islamist president said Monday. More...
Celebrated Biologist PZ Myers, Popular Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson And Other Top Names Headline Humanist Conference
The godless are gathering for the 68th Annual Conference of the American Humanist Association in Tempe, Arizona, to honor such trailblazers as PZ Myers, Barbara Forrest, the Reverend Barry Lynn, Norma Ramos and Neil deGrasse Tyson. A special press conference at 9:00 AM, Friday, June 5, at the Tempe Mission Palms Hotel (the annual conference's main venue) will launch the event with the unveiling of a nontheistic billboard going up along a nearby, well-traveled Arizona highway. More...
Chicago Buses Get Ads Reading 'In The Beginning, Man Created God'
Parents Gather To Nurture Nonbelief
RALEIGH -- On Sunday mornings, when many of their contemporaries are taking their seats in church pews, a group of young parents mingle in the living room of a suburban home while their children run around playing games. This congregation of Triangle residents has no creed or ceremony, just a desire to get together and offer each other support for rearing children without religion. Taking their cue from a primer of the same name, they call themselves Parenting Beyond Belief, and they meet nearly every Sunday, in a city park, an indoor playground or in people's homes. More...
Torture Prompts Soul-Searching Among Some Christians
A survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that white evangelical Christians are more likely to support torture than people who rarely or never attend religious services. More...
Texas ACLU Investigating Distribution Of Bibles In Class
Governor Signs 10 Commandments Bill
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Gov. Brad Henry on Monday signed a bill to permit a Ten Commandments monument to be placed on the grounds of the state Capitol. More...
Rumsfeld 'Bible Texts' Criticised
Mother Convicted In Prayer-Death Trial
WAUSAU, Wis. - A mother accused of praying instead of seeking medical help for her dying 11-year-old daughter was found guilty Friday of second-degree reckless homicide. --snip-- Her daughter, Madeline Neumann, died of untreated diabetes March 23, 2008, surrounded by people praying for her. When she suddenly stopped breathing, her parents' business and Bible study partners finally called 911. More...See also: Mother knew diabetic daughter was gravely ill, sister-in-law testifies
Christian College Drops Approval Of Democrats Club
Last October, back before Barack Obama was in the White House, several college kids in Virginia decided to start a chapter of College Democrats on their campus. They set up a table in the cafeteria, handed out literature and got a faculty adviser. Nothing too unusual about this situation -- unless it's at Liberty University. More...
Italy: Requests For 'Debaptisms' Soar In Milan
Milan -- The northern Italian city of Milan is experiencing a boom in the number of people who want to renounce their baptism and leave the Catholic church. More...
'Endemic' Rape And Abuse Of Irish Children In Catholic Care, Inquiry Finds
CofE Accused Of Care Cover Up
The Church of England has been accused of conducting a cover up over allegations that it drugged girls in one of its children's homes in the 1970s and 1980s. More...
Abuse Of Child 'Witches' On Rise, Aid Group Says
(CNN) -- Christian Eshiett was a rambunctious pre-teen who spent a lot of time cavorting with his friends in southern Nigeria. He would skip school and run away from home for days, frustrating his grandfather, who oversaw the boy's care. "I beat him severely with canes until they broke, yet he never shed a tear," said Eshiett Nelson Eshiett, 76. "One day, I took a broom to hit him and he started crying. Then I knew he was possessed by demons. ... Nigerian witches are terrified of brooms.""I beat him severely with canes until they broke, yet he never shed a tear," said Eshiett Nelson Eshiett, 76. "One day, I took a broom to hit him and he started crying. Then I knew he was possessed by demons. ... Nigerian witches are terrified of brooms." More...See also: Witch-hunt terror stalks Gambia
Man Dies After Vienna Sikh Clash
Thousands Defend Secularism In Turkey
Thousands of people blocked the centre of Ankara, to defend the secular Turkish state and accuse their government of being pro-Islamic. Local television said 100,000 people joined the rally, many brandishing pictures of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey and a staunch defender of secularism. Similar demonstrations have been held since 2007, amid growing fears that Turkey's Islamist-based ruling AK Party and its Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan want to erode the traditional separation of religion and the state. More...
Islamic Militants Behead Christian
Islamic militants have beheaded a retired Christian carpenter abducted nearly two months ago in the southern Philippines. More...
Saudi Religious Police Bust Anti-Islam Satanists
From Satanists desecrating Islam's holy book to journalists who publically criticize them, Saudi Arabia's religious police flexed their muscles on Sunday and cracked down hard with a sweep of arrests and lawsuits. More...
Muslim Clerics Consider Facebook Fatwa
Muslim clerics are seeking ways to regulate online behaviour in Indonesia, saying the exploding popularity of social networking sites like Facebook could encourage illicit sex. More...
Islamists Seize Key Town In Somalia
President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's forces control only parts of the city and central region after two weeks of fighting. Human rights workers in the Horn of Africa nation say the clashes have killed at least 172 civilians and wounded 528. More...See also: Dozens of civilians killed in latest Somalia fighting
Pakistani Army Fights Taliban In Streets
2 Americans Killed In Baghdad Green Zone
(AP) Two Americans have been killed in separate incidents inside Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Saturday, raising concerns about its security as Iraq's forces assume more control. More...See also: Baghdad Blast Kills 3 U.S. Troops
U.S.: Afghan Civilian Deaths Closer To 20
Life's First Spark Re-Created In The Laboratory
A fundamental but elusive step in the early evolution of life on Earth has been replicated in a laboratory. Researchers synthesized the basic ingredients of RNA, a molecule from which the simplest self-replicating structures are made. Until now, they couldn't explain how these ingredients might have formed. More...
New Primate Fossil Discovery Is Heralded
In what could prove to be a landmark discovery, a leading paleontologist said scientists have dug up the 47 million-year-old fossil of an ancient primate whose features suggest it could be the common ancestor of all later monkeys, apes and humans. More...
Ivory Venus Figurine From The Swabian Jura Rewrites Prehistory
ScienceDaily -- The 2008 excavations at Hohle Fels Cave in the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany recovered a female figurine carved from mammoth ivory from the basal Aurignacian deposit. This figurine, which is the earliest depiction of a human, and one of the oldest known examples of figurative art worldwide, was made at least 35,000 years ago. This discovery radically changes our views of the context and meaning of the earliest Paleolithic art. More...
Herschel And Planck On Way To Study Our Cosmic Roots
Antimatter Goes To The Movies
They're making antimatter at the Large Hadron Collider?! That little jolt of reality is what sets the plot in motion for "Angels & Demons," Hollywood's follow-up to "The Da Vinci Code." More...
Former Fundamentalist Debunks Bible
Ehrman, a best-selling author and a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a biblical sleuth whose investigations make some people very angry. Like the fictional Robert Langdon character played by actor Tom Hanks in the movie "Angels & Demons," he delves into the past to challenge some of Christianity's central claims. In Ehrman's latest book, "Jesus, Interrupted," he concludes: Doctrines such as the divinity of Jesus and heaven and hell are not based on anything Jesus or his earlier followers said. At least 19 of the 27 books in the New Testament are forgeries. More...
'Coming Out' Can Be A Trial For Atheists And Agnostics
During the eight years that George W Bush, a born-again Christian, was in the White House, the United States appeared to be a nation tilting towards deeper religious faith. But appearances can be deceiving. In fact, a recent study has found that about one in every five Americans either no longer believes in God at all, or doubts that a higher force exists. More...
Obama Calls For 'Common Ground' On Abortion At Notre Dame
Judge Rules Family Can't Refuse Chemo For Boy
MINNEAPOLIS -- A Minnesota judge ruled Friday that a 13-year-old cancer patient must be evaluated by a doctor to determine if the boy would benefit from restarting chemotherapy over his parents' objections. More...
Maine Becomes Fifth US State To Legalise Same Sex Marriage
The Democratic governor said he now believed that gays and lesbians were entitled to marry under the fairness and equal protection provisions of the state constitution. More...
Judge Makes Final Ruling For ACLU In Prayer Suit
PENSACOLA - After months of negotiating through the courts, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Florida have won the final chapter of a lawsuit filed against the Santa Rosa County School District last August. The suit was filed on behalf of two Pace High School students who alleged that school officials regularly promoted religion and offered prayers at school events in violation of their First Amendment rights. More...
Shifting Boundaries: The Establishment Clause And Government Funding Of Religious Schools And Other Faith-Based Organizations
In an ongoing series of occasional reports, "Religion and the Courts: The Pillars of Church-State Law," the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life explores the complex, fluid relationship between government and religion. Among the issues to be examined are religion in public schools, displays of religious symbols on public property, conflicts concerning the free exercise of religion, and government funding of faith-based organizations. More...
Mass. Hospital Deciding Fate Of Virgin Mary Window
(AP) A Massachusetts hospital is trying to figure out what to do with a window in which some Catholics claim to see an image of the Virgin Mary. More...
And He Shall Be Judged
ON THE MORNING OF Thursday, April 10, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon prepared a top-secret briefing for George W. Bush. This document, known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, was a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president; Rumsfeld himself often delivered it, by hand, to the White House. The briefing's cover sheet generally featured triumphant, color images from the previous days' war efforts: On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: "Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him...To deliver their soul from death." This mixing of Crusades-like messaging with war imagery, which until now has not been revealed, had become routine. On March 31, a U.S. tank roared through the desert beneath a quote from Ephesians: "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand." On April 7, Saddam Hussein struck a dictatorial pose, under this passage from the First Epistle of Peter: "It is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men." More...
Ireland Abuse Inquiry Report Due
Inquiries into alleged child abuse by Catholic orders in the Irish Republic are due to publish their findings. More...
Witch Hunts, Murder And Evil In Papua New Guinea
A tide of torture and killing of innocent women linked to 'sorcery' and the 'dark arts' is overwhelming the nation's police. More...
Islamic Militants Seize Somali City
Pakistan Bomb Hits Handicapped Kids' Bus
More Than 80 Girls Hospitalised By 'Poison Gas Attack'
Reeducating Osama Bin Laden's Disciples
(CBS) President Obama has ordered the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay closed and his new administration is close to figuring out what to do with the 240 inmates still held there. Some, like Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self proclaimed mastermind of 9/11, will undoubtedly be put on trial for their lives. But more than half the so-called detainees will probably never go before a jury because the U.S. government does not have a case that will stand up in court. So what happens when a prisoner is set free from Guantanamo? More...
Saudis' "Miss Beautiful Morals" Pageant
The Miss Beautiful Morals pageant is the latest example of conservative Muslims co-opting Western-style formats to spread their message in the face of the onslaught of foreign influences flooding the region through the Internet and satellite television. More...See also: Islamic Idol: Music Spreading Message Of Faith
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