http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/30/sharia-law-civitas-islam
The Civitas report into sharia law courts relies on evidence from the internet to create a unrealistic picture of the work they do. (Inayat Bunglawala tries to shoot the messenger rather than address the built-in inequalities of sharia. Shifty is the word that springs to mind)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/01/exxon-mobil-climate-change-sceptics-funding
The world's largest oil company is continuing to fund lobby groups that question the reality of global warming, despite a public pledge to cut support for such climate change denial, a new analysis shows. Company records show that ExxonMobil handed over hundreds of thousands of pounds to such lobby groups in 2008. These include the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) in Dallas, Texas, which received $75,000 (£45,500), and the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC, which received $50,000. According to Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at the London School of Economics, both the NCPA and the Heritage Foundation have published "misleading and inaccurate information about climate change." (Unscrupulous manipulative bastards)
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/recession-road/2009/07/_tallahassee_fla--in_times_of.html
In times of uncertainty, some people go to church. Michael and I went to Dolly Ephraim’s house. From her dining room—decorated with statues of praying angels, an open Bible and an array of crystals—she has watched the recession spread, leading people, hopeless and in need of guidance, in her direction. “Walk-ins welcome,” reads a sign in her yard pointing toward another sign resting at the foot of the front door: “Palm Reader.” (Totally uncritical plug for a charlatan)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/30/bjorn-ulvaeus-religion-schools
Without thinking too much about it at the time, when I wrote the lyrics for Abba's songs the message I wished to convey tallies well with campaigns launched recently by humanist organisations in the UK, US and Australia: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." Earlier this month the Swedish Humanist Association (Humanisterna) launched a similar campaign. And in light of the growing influence of religious schools in Sweden, the campaign could hardly be more timely. (Björn Ulvaeus op-ed)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090701/tuk-offensive-ice-cream-ad-is-banned-6323e80.html
An ice cream advert which showed a priest and a nun in a "seductive pose" has been banned after readers complained that it was offensive, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article6606035.ece
A teacher was barred from joining students on a visit to a Roman Catholic sixth-form college because she refused a request to remove her Muslim veil. She was accompanying two teenage girls on an open day to see if they wanted to study for their A levels at St Mary’s College, in Blackburn. The town is in the constituency of Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, who once said that he preferred Muslim women not to wear veils that covered their faces.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6605062.ece
As the post-election crisis in Iran enters its third week, one thing is clear: the oxymoron that was the Islamic Republic is already dead. If the radical faction led by Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, wins the power struggle, Iran will drop its “republican” pretensions to become an Islamic emirate or an imamate. But if the opposition wins, the theocratic aspect of the regime will end, allowing Iran to become a normal republic in which power belongs to the people.
Guidance given by the NHS suggests staff could be sanctioned if they offer spiritual help to anyone who does not share their beliefs, according to the sponsors of a motion at the British Medical Association’s (BMA) annual representatives meeting in Liverpool. (Oh great, not only are you ill but you have to put up with some pious sod's whining)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/28/conversion-religion-philosophy
I was an atheist, or perhaps an agnostic, until an experience at once dramatic and banal changed my understanding of religion for good. (A strange feeling in the shower is parlayed into a conversion. Silly and trivial, although not for her personally, this conversion story by Janet Soskice tells us nothing of any import)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/29/st-paul-vatican-pope
Human remains found beneath the Vatican have been identified as belonging to St Paul, Pope Benedict XVI said, apparently laying to rest the mystery of a tomb first discovered in the city in 2006. "This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that these are the mortal remains of Paul the apostle," he said, adding that the discovery "fills our souls with great emotion". (Have these bones got Paul's name on them? No, but they make for some nice relics for Ratzinger's death cult)
Hardline Somali Islamists amputated a leg and a hand from each of four alleged thieves in a public punishment held in the middle of Mogadishu.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/5662294/Britain-is-no-longer-a-Christian-nation.html
If recent trends are any guide, many Church of England parishes will have been cheered by higher attendances at Easter services. The last published statistics for 2006/7 show rises of 7 and 5 per cent in church going at Christmas and Easter. But these figures are just about the only signs of hope for the church and certainly not the first green shoots of a revival. Other statistics make for gloomy reading. Annual decline in Sunday attendance is running at around 1 per cent. At this rate it is hard to see the church surviving for more than 30 years though few of its leaders are prepared to face that possibility. (Don't hang around then, go now, let's have a dignified disestablishment - let's not drag this out to its inevitable conclusion)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6591231.ece
WHEN schoolchildren break up for their summer holidays at the end of next month, India Jago, aged 12, and her brother Peter, 11, will be taking a vacation with a twist. While their friends jet off to Spain or the Greek islands, the siblings will be hunting for imaginary unicorns in Somerset, while learning about moral philosophy. The Jagos, from Basingstoke, Hampshire, are among 24 children who will be taking part in Britain’s first summer camp for atheists. (Project backed by Richard Dawkins or as the crappy Times puts it "Dawkins sets up kids camp to groom atheists")
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/28/faith-schools-judaism-christianity-catholicism
An oversubscribed Jewish school in north London, JFS, once called the Jewish Free School, has been found to be breaking race laws. A 12-year-old boy, known as M, was not let in because, although his mother converted to Judaism, she did so at a progressive rather than an orthodox synagogue, which did not meet their criteria. Now the Court of Appeal has found this to be a "test of ethnicity that contravenes the Race Relations Act", comparing it with a practising Christian child not gaining entrance to a faith school because of their Jewish origins. Well, fair enough, but is this story just about one school's rigidity?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/26/religion-politics-britain-public
Can religion provide answers to our social and political problems, or should we exclude it from the public sphere? (Exclude it, obviously)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jun/26/turkish-novelist-gursel-religious-hatred
An Istanbul court has acquitted the Turkish novelist Nedim Gürsel of inciting religious hatred with the publication of his novel The Daughters of Islam.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/26/kentucky-new-bethel-church-guns
For tomorrow's service at his church in Kentucky, a pastor has invited his congregation to bring along their Bibles, a tin of canned food, a friend - and their guns. Ken Pagano, who packs a pistol of his own, wants his parishioners to openly wear their firearms at the New Bethel Church in Louisville to mark the 4 July Independence anniversary and celebrate the part guns played in the making of the nation.
For well over a century, popes and councils of bishops have issued letters and documents that have added to the church's tradition of teaching; analysing and reflecting on the challenges of the day, whether it be peace, capitalism and socialism, international trade or ecology. They have done this because the Christian gospel has a commandment - to love God and to love your neighbour as yourself. That imperative to love one's neighbour has no boundaries and knows no limits. Not geographical boundaries - our neighbours may be in Manchester, or in Malawi. They are not generational boundaries either - our neighbours include future generations, and it is our responsibility to ensure that they have a planet to live on. (It would be more impressive to act of one's own free will rather than slavishly obey a command. Hardly real morality, is it?"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/26/sarkozy-france-paris-islamic-veils
In the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, with its busy market, fast-food joints and bargain clothes shops, Angelica Winterstein only goes out once a week – and only if she really has to. "I feel like I'm being judged walking down the street. People tut or spit. In a smart area west of Paris, one man stopped his car and shouted: 'Why don't you go back to where you came from?' But I'm French, I couldn't be more French," said the 23-year-old, who was born and raised in bourgeois Versailles. Once a fervent Catholic, Winterstein converted to Islam at 18. Six months ago she began wearing a loose, floor-length black jilbab, showing only her expertly made-up face from eyebrows to chin. She now wants to add the final piece, and wear full niqab, covering her face and leaving just her eyes visible.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/reviews/2009-06-25-stoning-of-soraya_N.htm
Soraya, a woman brutally slain because her husband wanted to marry a 14-year-old girl, refers to herself as "an inconvenient wife" in the shattering and powerful drama The Stoning of Soraya M. The film, in Farsi and English, was inspired by the 1994 best seller by French-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam. In this deeply unsettling account, based a real-life event, charges of adultery are fabricated against Soraya (Mozhan Marno) by Ali, her unremittingly cruel husband (Navid Negahban). He wants a divorce but doesn't want to provide for her and their children. So he trumps up accusations and threatens the village mullah (Ali Pourtash), forcing him to go along with his plan. Soraya is stoned to death in front of her children and cheering villagers. Ali and their sons, as well as her father, participate in her killing.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iTIEU0UOO-bCaaSgLSOzAIuorzRg
Sri Lankan police say they have arrested an astrologer after he predicted serious political and economic problems for the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse. Chandrasiri Bandara, who writes an astrology column for a pro-opposition weekly, was taken in on Thursday, police spokesman Ranjith Gunasekara said. "The CID (Criminal Investigations Department) is questioning the astrologer," Gunasekara said Friday, adding that they wanted to find out the "basis" for the prediction. The astrologer had predicted that a planetary change on October 8 will be inauspicious for parliament and the government may not be able to arrest rising living costs -- a prediction already made by private economists.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8119201.stm
Villagers, many straight from their farms, and armed with machetes, sticks and axes, are shouting and crowding round in a big group in Kenya's fertile Kisii district. I can't see clearly what is going on, but heavy smoke is rising from the ground and a horrible stench fills the air. More people are streaming up the hill, some of them with firewood and maize stalks. Suddenly an old woman breaks from the crowd, screaming for mercy. Three or four people go after her, beat her and drag her back, pushing her onto - what I can now see - is a raging fire. I was witnessing a horrific practice which appears to be on the increase in Kenya - the lynching of people accused of being witches.
Whenever the subject of atheism comes up, anywhere that isn't an atheist discussion group or something, one sentiment almost inevitably comes up: "I wish atheists wouldn't talk so much about atheism." The sentiment gets worded in many different ways. "The new atheists are so evangelical." "This atheist criticism of religion is just intolerant." "You atheists are just as close-minded as the hard-line religious believers you're criticizing." But the essence of it is the same: The fact that many atheists are talking publicly about our atheism, and are trying to persuade people that we're right about it, shows that we're ... well, evangelical, intolerant and close-minded. So today, I want to explain why so many atheists think it's important to talk about atheism ... and why many of us try to persuade other people that atheism is correct.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article6578944.ece
In declaring that the burka, the all-eveloping garment that covers a woman from head to toe, was an unwelcome symbol of subservience, President Sarkozy has reignited the vexed issue of religion, culture and personal liberty with implications far beyond his own country. While many in France, home to more than five million Muslims, have applauded his stance, conservative Muslims in Europe and the Middle East have deplored his remarks. The burka, they insist, is a “symbol of freedom” and a Western state has no business dictating how Muslims should dress. But does it?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6579299.ece
A Roman Catholic bishop called for the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi, the first time that such a senior figure of the Church has done so, adding to a growing sense that the crisis over the beleaguered Italian Prime Minister’s private life is out of control. Monsignor Domenico Mogavero, Bishop of Mazara del Vallo in Sicily and a former senior official in the Italian Bishops' Conference, said that Mr Berlusconi should “consider whether it is opportune to resign in the interests of the country”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/25/france-burka-veil-controversy
For a week now, the hundred or so French women who wear the sitar (a veil that covers the face, incorrectly referred to as the burka) or the niqab have been at the heart of the French political debate. Nicolas Sarkozy made a speech to parliament stating that the burka was not welcome in France as it was incompatible with women's rights and adding that France shouldn't be afraid to defend its values. A new commission has been set up to determine the best ways to combat the adoption of the full veil, and will eventually propose a law banning it from public spaces.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jun/25/jewish-school-admissions-policy-discriminatory
A Jewish school that prioritised applications from children with Jewish mothers discriminated on grounds of race, the Court of Appeal ruled today, in a landmark decision on the admissions criteria used by faith schools. (It is bleeding obvious that sectarian schools are inherently discriminatory)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jun/24/mark-sanford-sex-argentina
So. After a whirlwind few days of speculation regarding the whereabouts of Republican South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, we now have the answer. He was not, in fact, hiking on the Appalachian Trail clearing his head after a tough legislative session, as we were repeatedly assured by his staff, but was instead in Buenos Aires, Argentina, having an affair. Or ending an affair. Or something. (Right-wing conservative Christian politician is a hypocrite - now tell me something I don't know)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/25/gay-exorcism-youtube-video
An American church has been condemned over a video showing a 16-year-old boy apparently being exorcised by church leaders trying to cast a "homosexual demon" from his body. (What a revolting development. Primitive, abusive nonsense from ignorant fools)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/23/bnp-discrimination-human-rights-commission
The British National party is facing the threat of an injunction from the official body on race discrimination in the first such action taken against a political party. The Equality and Human Rights Commission wrote to the far-right party today saying that it believes the BNP is in breach of the Race Relations Act on three counts. (The Toytown Nazis get some unwelcome scrutiny)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/23/france-commission-burkas-nicolas-sarkoszy
France has set up a commission to study the wearing of burkas and niqabs after President Nicolas Sarkozy said the Islamic veils turn women into prisoners.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/23/confession-does-not-diminish-spirituality
Tom Kington reports from Rome that "according to the Vatican, real life confessions are in danger of turning into cosy counselling sessions" (Confession is not therapy, Vatican warns, 4 June). Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, an official at the Vatican office on clergy, told Vatican Radio the declining number of churchgoers who went to confession were confusing it with "a psychiatrist's couch". Pronouncements like this show how senior members of the Catholic clergy fail to engage in discourse on matters of conscience with an increasingly sophisticated congregation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/23/pope-caritas-capitalism-encyclical
In the next few days Benedict XVI is to sign a new encyclical letter to be called Caritas in Veritate. Its formal title, "Charity in Truth" might best be rendered in English as "Home Truths for Bankers". The White House and Wall Street are on notice of the bad news that is about to come out of the Vatican for the already battered supporters of free markets and global capitalism.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/22/church-england-cut-bishops
The Church of England is to debate trimming the number of bishops and other senior clergy, amid falling investment returns and a £352m pension deficit. The measure, proposed by the diocese of Bradford, will be discussed at next month's meeting of the General Synod, the church's legislative body. In a paper the diocese said that despite a "large decline" in church membership and full-time paid clergy there had been no serious consideration given to the need to reduce the number of senior posts and the structures around them
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/22/scientology-leader-attacked-staff-allegation
The leader of the controversial Church of Scientology routinely physically attacked members of his management team, according to former executives, a Florida newspaper has reported. Defectors from the controversial organisation who spoke to the St Petersburg Times told the paper that David Miscavige was "constantly denigrating and beating on people". Mike Rinder, the church's spokesman for decades, said he was attacked by Miscavige some 50 times.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jpZtQRdZfXVRO20xlXFqXmIe4argD98VRG183
Ten Muslim villagers killed by gunmen firing assault rifles into a mosque during evening prayers. A 53-year-old Buddhist rubber tapper shot, decapitated and limbs cut from his torso, his head impaled on a stick. The circumstances and brutality of those attacks this month have revived fears that a long-running insurgency in Thailand's south could be evolving into a sectarian conflict pitting Buddhists against Muslims. (Religion works it magic once again)
President Nicolas Sarkozy has used a major policy speech to declare the burqa was "not welcome" in France and should be banned. In comments which will reignite the debate about religious clothing in the country, he said the full-body garment was "not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience". Mr Sarkozy used the first presidential address to a joint session of France's two houses of parliament in 136 years to declare his support for a ban, even before hearing from a parliamentary commission set up to study the issue.
The BBC faces a clash with the Church of England over claims that its new head of religious broadcasting has given preferential treatment to minority faiths. Concerns over the appointment of Aaqil Ahmed, who was poached by the corporation from Channel 4 last month, will be raised in a Church document to be published tomorrow. It calls his move to the BBC a "worrying" development and accuses the corporation of treating religion like "a freak show".
A Christian registrar has been demoted to receptionist after she refused to preside over gay 'marriages'. (The headline for this reads "Christian registrar demoted to receptionist after she refused to preside over gay 'marriages'." It should say "Woman demoted for refusing to do her job because of her superstitious beliefs")
Thousands of Burmese have donated 1,750 pounds of their hair in a campaign to repair the route to a sacred Buddhist pagoda, reports said on Sunday. About 30,000 women and more than 100 men from the central city of Mandalay and nearby towns have donated the hair, Kumudra magazine quoted a Buddhist monk as saying. Some of the locks measured 4 feet in length, said Shin Wayama Nanda, the chief abbot of Mandalay's Naga monastery. Monks overseeing the upkeep of the remote Alaungdaw Kathapha pagoda will use proceeds from the sale of hair to repair sections of a road and build bridges leading to the popular pilgrimage site, which is said to contain the remains of one of Buddha's disciples.
French police are on the hunt for an elusive creature dubbed the "Loch Ness monster of the Vosges" after residents have reported several sightings of a crocodile in a local pond. (Who dubbed it "Loch Ness monster of the Vosges"? We are not told.)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6550355.ece
The Roman Catholic Church in Spain has started a new offensive in a battle over plans by the ruling Socialists to liberalise the country’s strict abortion law. The Spanish Bishops’ Conference (CEE) urged all Catholic MPs in the Lower House to vote against a Bill to allow abortion on demand. Bishop Juan Antonio Martínez Camino said: “Strict church doctrine says no true Catholic believer can agree with or support this move.” Bishop Camino said those who participated in abortion would be immediately excommunicated.
Gordon Brown is to raise his sights above the Westminster expenses scandal by appearing on Songs of Praise, the BBC’s popular religious programme. The Prime Minister will be interviewed by Sally Magnusson, one of the show’s regular presenters, about the importance of courage, and will discuss the people who have inspired him. The interview will be recorded in Downing Street this week. When the show is broadcast next month, hymns will include The Lord’s My Shepherd, Be Still My Soul and Fight the Good Fight – particularly apt, some might suggest, for a premier who has battled to stay in office. They will be sung by the Exultate Singers, Tessera and Lexie Stobie. (Pass the sickbag)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6544139.ece
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. (When does faith become foolhardy? These people have been warned but still put their children in harm's way)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/19/veil-burka-france-muslim-women
France's ability to reconcile secularism with religious diversity came under fresh scrutiny today after the government said it would not rule out banning Muslim women from wearing the full Islamic veil. Five years after a law was passed forbidding children from wearing the headscarf or any other "conspicuous" religious symbol in schools, the government indicated it was prepared to wade into another thorny row over the state's right to tell individuals what not to wear.
Britons should have plenty to smile about on Friday June 19 as it's officially the happiest day of 2009. Psychologist Dr Cliff Arnall has devised a formula to pinpoint the day we are all most likely to feel the cheeriest. The former NHS psychologist and Cardiff University lecturer said people should forget credit crunch worries because the secret of happiness lies with things which are free. (Trivial crap from attention-seeker Arnall. This is far from the first time he has cobbled together a nonsensical formula to get in the papers. Jerk)
A Catholic mother, who did not know she was pregnant, killed her newly born son within moments of giving birth alone, an inquest heard. Elizabeth Tevenan, 30, who later died from severe blood loss, gave birth in November 2008 in the downstairs lavatory of the home she shared with her parents in Stratford-upon-Avon. Miss Tevenan, who was an only child with a strict Catholic upbringing, is believed to have been unaware of the pregnancy until she gave birth. (Desperately sad but also infuriating story - chalk up another success to Ratzinger's death cult)
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/20090618_troy_jollimore_on_gods_evolution/
The title of Robert Wright’s new book—“The Evolution of God”—will surely put some people off; indeed it seems designed to do so. So many religious believers in the U.S. have so much antipathy toward the idea that evolution might explain anything, it seems highly unlikely that many of them will pick up a book whose title suggests that God, of all things, might have evolved—let alone (dare I mention it?) a book containing a chapter titled “Survival of the Fittest Christianity.” (Troy Jollimore reviews Wright's book and finds that goes over previously well-trodden ground and offers little new in his attempt to insert god into the physical world)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6532503.ece
The former Anglican clergyman John Henry Newman has moved a step closer to sainthood after the Holy See recognised a cure of a back disorder as a miracle. (Vatican confirms Middle Ages not over yet)
What is it like to be a black atheist? Obviously, I wouldn't know. But via Friendly Atheist, I recently read a piece by Sikivu Hutchinson for the L.A. Watts Times, titled 'Out of the Closet' -- Black Atheists. (A must-read, by the way.) Her piece focused on one side of this question -- being an atheist in the African American community. But I was curious about the other side: What is it like to be African American in the atheist community? (Interview by Greta Christina)
A new Foreign Office directive promoting homosexual rights has provoked an outcry in Europe after a second British ambassador in the space of a week was criticised for supporting a pride march. "He should mind his own business and his country's business," said Bojan Rasate, the leader of the Guardia Bulgarian National Alliance. "He has no right to tell Bulgarians how to live in Bulgaria. Europe has been ruled by homosexuals for a long time. We do not care how they live, but we do not want them to impose their pervert values on us." (No, they already have pervert values of their own)
One of the Catholic Church's most senior clerics has told Catholics in China not to 'give in' to pressure from the state-sanctioned church and to remain loyal to the Pope even to the point of 'martyrdom'. (After you, Cardinal)
A Republican Senator who once denounced President Bill Clinton for his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky has confessed to an affair with a campaign aide whose husband also worked for him. (Shock horror! US right-wing Christian conservative is a hypocrite. Next up, dog bites man)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/17/anglican-church-disestablishment
Well, OK, we're not Iran, but our constitution does have a theocratic structure. I think this holds us back, impedes us, like an old invisible injury. Like a subtle poison in the blood, it quietly harms us. Most people seem unaware of it. Even Hazel Blears, who recently said that we are a secular democracy. (Confused and confusing piece from Theo Hobson)
Health claims made on the label of a newly-licensed homeopathic product are misleading and should be illegal under fair trading regulations, even though they've been approved by Britain's drug safety watchdog, says a top scientist. Nelsons Arnicare Arnica 30c pills are the first homeopathic product to be licensed under a scheme that allows traditional remedies to be sold without proof that they work.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/18/tony-blair-secret-torture-policy
Tony Blair was aware of the existence of a secret interrogation policy which effectively led to British citizens, and others, being tortured during counter-terrorism investigations, the Guardian can reveal. (How very Christian of him)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jun/18/islamist-al-muhajiroun-meeting-chaos
An attempt to relaunch the controversial Islamist group Al-Muhajiroun ended in chaotic scenes after the management of the London venue that was to host the group's first meeting in five years cancelled proceedings, complaining "fundamentalist thugs" had tried to enforce the segregation of men and women.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31388177/ns/health-cold_and_flu/
Consumers should stop using Zicam Cold Remedy nasal gel and related products because they can permanently damage the sense of smell, federal health regulators said Tuesday. (A homeopathic remedy with a detectable effect? Surely that's a first? At least then you don't have to bear the stench of irresponsible quacks peddling their useless but oh so lucrative wares)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/16/wiki_bans_fresco/
Back in February 2008, we told you the epic Wikitale of Jossi Fresco, who had worked his way into the site's inner circle to guard the Wikimage of his guru and apparent employer, Prem Rawat. Formerly known as Guru Maharaj Ji, Rawat once fostered a worldwide religious movement styling himself as the "Perfect Master" and encouraging followers to call him "Lord of the Universe."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/16/AR2009061603201.html
The Public Broadcasting Service agreed yesterday to ban its member stations from airing new religious TV programs, but permitted the handful of stations that already carry "sectarian" shows to continue doing so. The vote by PBS's board was a compromise from a proposed ban on all religious programming. Such a ban would have forced a few stations around the country to give up their PBS affiliation if they continued to broadcast local church services and religious lectures. (A poor compromise that pleases no one. There is more than enough religious broadcasting around it doesn't need to be carried by PBS too.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/16/AR2009061603413.html
LAHORE, Pakistan, June 16 -- The modest office where Sarfraz Naeemi kept his library and received visitors seeking spiritual guidance is now a charred hole. The floor is strewn with burned pages, glass shards and ball bearings from a young suicide bomber's lethal vest. Even though this cultured provincial capital is fast becoming used to bombings, the assassination of Naeemi, a scholarly cleric who promoted religious harmony and spoke out against Taliban extremism, has resonated far beyond the blackened walls and shattered windows of the quiet seminary he headed here.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2009/06/is-there-a-mars-conspiracy.html
Some pesky scientists have just pointed out an appalling design error in NASA’s latest attempts to find life on Mars. This is beginning to look like a conspiracy. Does someone not want us to find life on Mars? (This is more than a little paranoid - Christians sabotaged the search for life on Mars?)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6513866.ece
A Jewish couple are suing neighbours over motion sensors that turn on the lights in their communal stairwell, which they claim make it impossible for them to leave their flat during the sabbath.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5541750/UFOs-spotted-over-Lake-District.html
Campers in the Lake District were treated to a spectacular light show from a string of glowing orbs which flew in formation across the night sky. t is the latest in a series of sightings which has baffled onlookers and excited UFO spotters across the UK. The lights were seen above Ullswater on Saturday night over the Park Foot campsite.
Five people have been arrested in China for digging up the corpse of a young woman to be a "ghost bride" for a man killed in a car crash. The suspects included a grieving father who allegedly paid his four accomplices around £2,700 pounds to find a female to be his son's companion in the afterlife.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6503218.ece
A Muslim waitress has been awarded a £3,000 pay out for sexual harassment after being made to wear a revealing red dress for work. Fata Lemes, 33, quit her job after claiming that the low-cut dress was “disgusting” and made her look like a “prostitute”. Miss Lemes, a Bosnian Muslim, had told an employment tribunal that she “might as well have been naked” in the dress. “I was brought up a Muslim and am not used to wearing sexually attractive clothes,” she said. But lawyers acting for the Rocket Bar where she worked, have tried to re-open the case after a picture emerged of Miss Lemes on Facebook showed her wearing a plunging T-shirt exposing her cleavage while she was at the beach. (One could be forgiven for thinking this woman is a hypocrite after some easy cash. She seems to have had no problem serving alcohol)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/jun/13/cameron-diaz-malthusian-population
It's official: Malthusianism, the belief that there are too many people on the planet, has become fashionable. A-list fashionable. Alongside the grumpy old men in grey suits who have traditionally made up the Malthusian lobby, Hollywood starlets now bemoan the burden of humanity on the planet. (Brendan O'Neill parades his ignorance)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/14/rightwing-extremists-racists-us
A series of attacks by rightwing extremists has raised fears of a new wave of violence triggered by the economic crisis and the election of the country's first black president. Since the inauguration of Barack Obama this year a series of shootings have taken place, with targets ranging from an abortion clinic to a liberal church and police officers. The attacks have often been fuelled by a potent mix of race hate and conspiracy theories.
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090614/tc_nm/us_israel_internet_religion_5
Religiously devout Jews barred by rabbis from surfing the Internet may now "Koogle" it on a new "kosher" search engine, the site manager said on Sunday. (The web, specially crippled for fundamentalists)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/14/bnp-andrew-brons-mep-racist
One of the British National party's first MEPs' attempts to play down his past links to the extreme right as "silly" teenage posturing are today exposed as a sham after it emerged that for many years he played a crucial role in shaping the National Front's most overtly racist policies.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/35/20090613/ten-kylie-minogue-wants-catholic-wedding-764dee7.html
Kylie Minogue is converting to Catholicism. The 41-year-old singer reportedly has her heart set on a traditional church wedding to Spanish model Andres Valencoso - who she has been dating since last November - and is even considering adopting his faith in order to have the ceremony of her dreams. (First Blair, now Kylie, how lucky can one church be?)
When the self-declared racist, white supremacist, conspiracy theorist and hardcore antisemtite (sic) James von Brunn walked into the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and opened fire, he brought more than death and the shattering of innocent lives to the public consciousness. He also shattered a number of myths and rationales that saner members of society carry around with them when not confronted with pure hatred face-to-face.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/11/teen.self.diagnosis/index.html
Suicide bombers are said to have killed at least five people and wounded dozens more in almost simultaneous attacks on two cities in Pakistan. A leading anti-Taliban Muslim cleric died in the blast at a religious school in the eastern city of Lahore while a suicide bomber in a pick-up truck set off explosives at a mosque and reportedly destroyed its roof in the north-western garrison town of Nowshera.
A FORMER Melbourne priest who sexually abused young boys over an 18-year period from 1958 refused to apologise for indecently assaulting an 11-year-old for fear of a compensation claim being made against the church, a court has heard.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/12/pakistan-bomb-blasts
Two bomb blasts hit Pakistan today, with a suicide bomber reportedly targeting a religious school in the eastern city of Lahore and an almost simultaneous attack on a mosque wounding dozens in the north-western garrison city of Nowshera. Reuters said an anti-Taliban cleric had been killed in the Lahore attack, and at least a dozen people were wounded, according to al-Jazeera television. Police were said to have recovered the body of a suicide bomber. The second bomb wounded at least 32 people in a mosque near an army base soon after Friday prayers. (Yet more Muslims kill Muslims)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/11/holocaust-museum-shooting-bnp-von-brunn
A white supremacist who killed a security guard at a Holocaust memorial museum in the US has links to the British National party, which gained two MEPs in last week's European elections.
The alleged shooter at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum today has an online book excerpt revealing his deep roots in historic White Supremacy and antisemitic conspiracy theories, including references to the hoax document The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. His website includes links to White Supremacist and Holocaust denial sites.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8095409.stm
A Church in Wales vicar has been banned from office for sending text messages of a "sexual and intimate nature" to a teenage girl. The Reverend David Waters, vicar of Gelligaer, near Caerphilly, went before a disciplinary tribunal last year. The tribunal recognised the 61-year-old was "suffering from a mental illness" when he sent the texts.
The Egyptian politician who is favourite to take over at the helm of the United Nations' education body has defended himself against charges of anti-semitism after he called for the burning of Israeli books. In an interview with The Telegraph, Farouk Hosni, Egypt's minister of culture, said his words had been taken out of context. "I did not mean it at all," he said. Mr Hosni has also banned and censored books and films, including The Da Vinci Code and novels that offended Islamists. (Then he is not fit for purpose)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article6474485.ece
A sombre silence fell over Dublin yesterday when thousands of men, women and children marched through the capital to highlight decades of abuse in Catholic-run residential institutions, a shameful secret exposed last month by a government report.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jun/10/complementary-medicine-nhs-more4
Homeopathy, which many doctors argue has an effect only in the mind of the believer, cost the cash-strapped NHS £12m over three years, according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act. Homeopathic treatments have been described as "biologically implausible" by the UK's only professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst of Exeter University. They are highly diluted solutions that may contain no discernible trace of the original ingredients. In 2005, The Lancet, one of the world's leading medical journals, published a major review of homeopathy and concluded its cures were no better than placebos. Some doctors have since called for the NHS to stop funding it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/mortarboard/2009/jun/10/homeopathy-courses-scrapped
The use of complementary therapies on the NHS will be explored in a More 4 documentary tonight, which will reveal that £12m has been spent on homeopathy over the last three years. Why does it matter? Homeopathy – where patients are treated with a diluted dose of the substance that caused their original symptoms – has been widely discredited as little more than "sugar pills" by scientists. After a six-year campaign by Professor David Colquhoun at University College London, the last BSc in homeopathy was suspended by Westminster University in March after it failed to recruit enough students. Five homeopathy degrees have been scrapped since 2007.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/10/holocaust-museum-shooting-washington
A suspected white supremacist opened fire inside the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington today, killing a security guard who stopped him in the entrance before being wounded by return gunfire. The museum that commemorates the victims of genocide in the second world war became the scene of bloodshed and panic today, when an elderly man suspected of writing racist anti-Semitic internet tracts entered the building brandishing a rifle and opened fire on two guards who confronted him.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090610/tuk-starved-girl-was-possessed-dba1618.html
A mother accused of starving her daughter to death claimed the child was possessed by an evil spirit, a court has heard. Angela Gordon, charged alongside her partner Junaid Abuhamza with the murder of seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq, said the spirit was controlling the child's body after she "accepted it as a friend".
Church care homes could be forced to remove crucifixes from their walls in case they offend "atheist cleaners" under the new Equality Bill, Catholic bishops have warned. The way the bill is written means non-Christians could sue for harassment if church authorities do not remove religious imagery, according to Monsignor Andrew Summersgill, general secretary of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. He said the bill, currently being examined by Parliament's Equality Bill Committee, could have a "chilling effect" on religious expression. (Utter bollocks and idiot scaremongering. Rampant church pedophilia has a more chilling effect)
A decision by the medicines watchdog to allow a homeopathic remedy to claim that it can relieve sprains or bruising "makes a mockery" of its own rules, an expert has said. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) licence could even be "illegal", Prof David Colquhoun from University College London, claimed. Controversy has surrounded the MHRA decision to grant its first licence to a homeopathic remedy, Nelsons Arnicare Arnica 30c pillules, last month. Prof Colquhoun said that the claims could contravene consumer protection laws which ban "falsely claiming that a product is able to cure illnesses".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/09/religion-statistics-uk
Several years ago, Romani Prodi, then EU president, received some unsolicited advice about the UK's 2001 census. According to one of his senior advisors, a British anti-religious group wrote telling him to ignore the results of the religious question on the Census. Prodi and his advisor were baffled, not having considered the question until then. Fortunately, the anti-religious intervention had brought it to their attention and they subsequently studied the results with interest. (In short there are lies, damned lies and census returns. Self-serving article by the director of studies at Theos, a Christian thinktank. May the force be with you)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/09/worship-communion-wafers-post
In recent years the communion wafer has been made available in a variety of forms - including patterned, wholemeal, crumb-proof and gluten-free - to satisfy the demands of modern life. Soon, altar bread will become even more convenient and accessible with the advent of the "host in the post".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/08/gunmen-open-fire-mosque-thailand
At least 10 people were killed in southern Thailand when five or six men with automatic rifles opened fire on a mosque in Narathiwat province during evening prayers, according to police. Among those who died at the scene was the mosque's imam.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/08/gay-rights-petition-marriage-adoption
An American same-sex rights group plans to post on the internet the names of thousands of backers of a Washington state effort to roll back domestic partnership benefits, in a move denounced on both sides of the marriage debate as intimidating and needlessly confrontational.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/5472658/Colour-changing-frog-worshipped-as-god-in-India.html
A frog that constantly changes colour is being worshipped as a god in India. The creature was discovered in a flower bed and now draws hundreds of followers to the home where it is kept in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
Wild Justice makes a compelling argument for open-mindedness regarding non-human animals. It also argues that social behaviours such as cooperation provide evidence for a sophisticated animal consciousness. In particular, the authors propose that other animal species possess empathy, compassion and a sense of justice - in other words, a moral code not unlike our own. (New Scientist book review)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/07/yemen-jews-exodus-arab-countries
The last Jews of Yemen are leaving. They are packing their bags and moving to Israel or the US. A community dating back to Biblical times is on the brink of extinction. Sixty years ago one million Jews lived in Arab countries, but violence and state-sanctioned discrimination scapegoating them as Zionist spies have forced out all but 4,000 – who remain mainly in Yemen, Morocco and Tunisia.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/07/muslim-world-quilliam-foundation
The Qulliam Foundation says that talk of the 'Muslim world' serves to bolster Islamist and al-Qaida narratives. Are they serious? (One assumes they are. A better question is whether the point is well-founded.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jun/08/faith-schools-divisive-opinion-poll
State-funded faith schools undermine community cohesion, according to 57% of more than 2,000 people questioned in a poll released today. (A finding worthy of the Dept. of the Bleeding Obvious)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/07/islamic-college-us-zaytuna-institute
The first accredited Islamic college in the US is being planned by an influential Muslim body hoping to produce "a generation of indigenised scholars".
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article6440674.ece
In just a few weeks, amid riots and arrests in the Coptic communities, an entire way of life was eradicated. In the hysteria, a large number of the pigs were herded into pits and buried alive for what the authorities described as rapid hygienic disposal. (There wasn't much outcry from the country at large, after all the victims are only impoverished - and Christian)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkiMxbHNH0BqgpWA2ZG6VD6wVTmAD98LTAAO0
Hundreds of Pakistani tribesmen furious over a deadly suicide bombing at a mosque laid siege to several Taliban strongholds in their troubled northwestern region, killing at least 11 militants, officials said Sunday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/07/catherine-bennett-mmr-schools
It's time we created special schools for MMR dodgers. The continuing resistance by a certain kind of mummy to vaccination is selfish, ignorant and downright dangerous
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/07/priest-vicarage-squatting-church-of-england
Two Church of England bishops have begun legal proceedings to evict a defrocked cleric who is squatting in one of their properties. The Rev Patrick Okechi was barred from office last December when a tribunal found him guilty of "conduct unbecoming to the office and work of a clerk in holy orders", following an affair he had with a parishioner.
Children should be taught Christian values, according to the new Archbishop of Westminster, who has called for religion to be allowed to flourish in schools. (Like the values the church instilled in Irish schools I presume)
Catholic charities who discriminate against homosexual couples who want to adopt children are breaking the law, the Charity Tribunal has ruled
An American pastor has invited his parishioners to bring their guns to church to celebrate America's Independence Day, in a show of support for the right to bear arms.
A suicide bomber has killed 40 people attending Friday prayers at a mosque in a restive area of northwest Pakistan. (Chalk up another success to the religion of peace)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jun/04/terror-suspect-isa-ibrahim
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. When police searched Isa Ibrahim's one-bedroom flat they found the explosive HMTD (hexamethylene triperoxide diamine) in a family assorted biscuit tin in the fridge. Ingredients for the explosive and electrical equipment that could have been used to detonate it were discovered in a cupboard under the kitchen sink. (There is no one quite so fanatical as a convert. What a wonderful advert for Islam this guy is)
And lo, Mel brings the Apocalypse down upon the unrighteous. (Amusing piece by Marina Hyde on traditionalist Roman Catholic nutjob Mel Gibson)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090604/tuk-blair-and-brown-topped-death-list-6323e80.html
A British man "devoted to the task of stirring up terrorism" encouraged fellow Muslims to murder Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, a court has been told. Ishaq Kanmi, 23, of Blackburn, Lancashire, is alleged to have called for the elimination of political leaders, with the Prime Minister and his predecessor at the "top of the list". At Preston Crown Court, he denies charges including two counts of soliciting to murder Mr Brown and Mr Blair and professing to belong to a terrorist organisation, namely al Qaida.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20090603/tod-gay-penguins-hatch-rejected-egg-86d1698.html
Two homosexual penguins have successfully hatched an egg that was rejected by its parents and are now proudly rearing the chick, the German zoo housing the couple said on Wednesday. "Z and Vielpunkt, both males, gladly accepted their 'Easter present' and began straight away with hatching the egg," said the zoo in Bremerhaven, in northern Germany. "Homosexuality is nothing unusual among animals," the zoo said. "Sex and coupling up in our world do not necessarily have anything to do with reproduction."
The vast pattern appeared in the field last week and experts are claiming it to be the first of its kind in the world. Karen Alexander, a crop circle expert, said: "We have seen butterfly and bird patterns in the past, but this is the first jellyfish crop circle in the world. "It is absolutely huge - roughly three times the size of most crop patterns and extremely interesting. People have been aghast at the size of it. It is a complete monster. "We are looking into the meaning of it, but at present it just seems to have appeared out of nowhere." (Some of these agricultural graphics are beautiful - the same cannot be said for the idiot speculations of so-called "crop circle experts)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090603/tuk-mmr-jab-should-be-made-compulsory-6323e80.html
Children should not be allowed to go to school unless they can prove they have had the MMR vaccine, a public health expert said. (It is only common sense)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6392462.ece
The BBC has offered £30,000 and an apology to the Muslim Council of Britain after airing accusations that it encouraged the killing of British troops. (But see This Could Be Interesting)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/01/george-tiller-murder-anti-abortion
As of 30 May, abortion providers in America had experienced 15,124 acts of violence. On 31 May, the number rose to 15,125. Dr George Tiller was murdered at church in Wichita, Kansas. His wife, who was singing in the choir, was a witness. Tiller had been shot in 1993. His clinic has often been the target of violence and vandalism as one of only three places in the US where women could get late-term abortions, and he refused to turn his back on his patients.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/02/david-cameron-alliance-polish-nationalists
Global warming is a lie, homosexuality is a "pathology" and Europe is becoming a "neo-totalitarian" regime, according to one of David Cameron's new European allies. Tory headquarters may never have heard of Urszula Krupa, a militant Roman Catholic and strong Polish nationalist, but at the weekend in Warsaw, Cameron sealed his new alliance in Europe with Krupa's rightwing party in Poland, the opposition Law and Justice party (PiS) run by twin brothers Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczy´nski. (Cameron shows his true colors palling around with the Potato Twins)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/03/kuwait-parliament-women
Four years to the day after the election law was changed to give Kuwaiti women full political rights it looked as though the battle had been won as four outstanding women were elected to the national parliament. The celebrations were hardly over, however, when a lawyer brought a case against the two second-district winners, Rola and Aseel, for having violated the election law – because they do not veil. A last-minute and vaguely worded add-on to the law requires female – but not male – candidates and elected officials to abide by "Islamic law".
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/sathnam_sanghera/article6407907.ece
Is Sikhism succumbing to fundamentalism? The fatal shooting at a Sikh temple in Austria shows up an ugly schism in a religion built on monotheism and equality
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6412065.ece
The man arrested for killing prominent abortion doctor George Tiller is a 'fanatical' anti-abortionist who suscribed to a magazine that promoted 'justifiable homicide' against abortionists, it is claimed. Police arrested Scott Roeder, 51, three hours after Dr Tiller, who provided late term abortions, was shot dead as he attended church in Kansas. The gunman fired one shot at Dr Tiller, 67, as he performed his duties as an usher at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, and threatened two other people who tried to stop him.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/01/paranormal-twitter-psychologist-experiment
Thousands of hopeful mystics will attempt to use psychic powers to locate an itinerant psychologist this week in a mass experiment into the paranormal. The volunteers will use Twitter, the instant messaging service, to try to pinpoint the whereabouts of Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, in a supernatural version of the children's game Where's Wally? The experiment will test what believers in the paranormal call "remote viewing", the ability to describe what is happening at a distant location they have never been to. (Or, to use the more accurate technical term, "remote bollocks")
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jun/01/world-health-organisation-homeopathy-hiv
British scientists have appealed to the World Health Organisation to publicly condemn homeopathy as a treatment for serious diseases, such as HIV, TB and malaria. The researchers, many of whom have worked in developing countries, called on the WHO to act amid fears that vulnerable patients are dying after turning to homeopathic preparations instead of effective medicines.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/01/us-abortion-doctor-shot-dead
The bitter dispute over abortion in the US has received a violent jolt after a doctor in Kansas, one of the few in the country to perform so-called late-term abortions, was gunned down at a church near his clinic. George Tiller, 67, who had been targeted in other attacks over the years, was shot dead just after 10am yesterday in the lobby of the Reformation Lutheran church in Wichita, where he was acting as an usher during a morning service. His wife was singing in the choir at the time.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/31/dalai-lama-osel-hita-torres
As a toddler, he was put on a throne and worshipped as by monks who treated him like a god. But the boy chosen by the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of a spiritual leader has caused consternation – and some embarrassment – for Tibetan Buddhists by turning his back on the order that had such high hopes for him. Instead of leading a monastic life, Osel Hita Torres now sports baggy trousers and long hair, and is more likely to quote Jimi Hendrix than Buddha.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/8074292.stm
On the surface Naseebah Bibi did not appear to be an out-of-the-ordinary figure. Often seen around her home town of Blackburn, she would wear a niqab while shopping for her family. But behind closed doors the grandmother imprisoned her three daughters-in-law and used one as her slave for 13 years.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/8074312.stm
A 63-year-old woman who imprisoned her three daughters-in-law, treating them as "slaves and dogs", has been jailed for seven years. Naseebah Bibi would not let the women - also her nieces - leave the family home in Blackburn, Lancashire, without permission, Preston Crown Court heard. Judge Brown said he had taken into account the "cultural element" of the case. (That would be a culture that condones slavery would it? Not a civilized culture then.)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20090530/tod-high-roller-has-bad-feng-shui-in-us-f62056d.html
A Taiwanese man who lost two million US dollars in Las Vegas is threatening to sue the casino for using feng shui to cause his losing streak, a report here said. (He deserved to lose)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/may/22/atheism-religion-god-richard-dawkins
I can't stand atheists – but it's not because they don't believe in God. It's because they're crashing bores. (Provocative and yet paradoxically deeply boring rant by Charlotte Allen, the author of The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/29/muslim-scholars-voting-european-elections
Muslim scholars in Britain have urged the country's imams to stress the importance of local and European elections during their sermons, warning that a low turnout could lead to "openly anti-Muslim parties" gaining national and international prominence.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090530/twl-wikipedia-to-block-edits-by-scientol-3fd0ae9.html
Wikipedia has banned the Church of Scientology from editing its online encyclopaedia after a long-running dispute between the group and its critics. Any computer addresses "owned or operated" by the Church or associates linked to it have been blocked by the popular site. It follows attempts by supporters and those opposed to the group to "slant" the Scientology page, according to Wikipedia editors.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090530/tuk-muslims-in-face-off-with-extremists-6323e80.html
Islamist extremists who protested at a parade for returning soldiers have been forced off the streets by an organised demonstration of moderate Muslims. It happened in Luton, prompted by an outcry when the fundamentalists barracked members of the Royal Anglian Regiment during the troops' homecoming in March. Bedfordshire Police would not comment on the incident but it is understood no-one was injured in the clash and no arrests were made.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20090529/tod-book-of-psalms-deflects-bullet-saves-7f81b96.html
An Argentine evangelical pastor was born again after a book of Psalms he was holding deflected a bullet fired at close range, officials in the western province of Mendoza said. "That leads me to believe in a God that takes care of me," Zanes Condor told the online publication, Los Andes. (This is the same caring god who allowed him to be shot at in the first place, is it?)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5404577/X-Files-hum-hits-Cornwall.html
A mystery low-level hum which featured in The X-Files is plaguing residents of a Cornish village. (What, the very same hum? How can they tell?)
Last week, Liberty University – the evangelical Christian mega-college founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell – made the national news when, while implementing a new funding scheme for student organisations, it revoked approval for the campus Democratic organisation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/29/cults-new-religious-movements
In popular parlance, a cult is a religion I don't like; or it is a cult rather than a religion – either way, it is a group or movement of which I disapprove. (In 80's view that means all of them)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/28/hinduism-tolerance-india
There is a profoundly disquieting myth about Hinduism which has been put about by its adherents so often and so successfully that it is in danger of crystallising into a truth – that of its essentially pluralistic and tolerant traditions. Recently this viewpoint was repeated in the Face to faith column of this newspaper by Nitin Mehta who argued that "There are thousands of sects within Hinduism, and violence between them is unknown." This is, at best, disingenuous and, at worst, dishonest. He appears to gloss over the troublesome fact that caste Hindus have been callous towards their own – the Dalits or the "Untouchables" as they were previously known. To argue that they are not a sect would be pure semantics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/us/politics/28abortion.html?th&emc=th
In nearly 11 years as a federal appeals court judge, President Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, has never directly ruled on whether the Constitution protects a woman’s right to an abortion. But when she has written opinions that touched tangentially on abortion disputes, she has reached outcomes in some cases that were favorable to abortion opponents. (Has Obama out-clevered himself?)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8072315.stm
At least 10 people have been killed in two separate attacks in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. Six were killed and about 70 injured when two bombs exploded at a busy market, police said. Shortly after, a suicide bomber attacked a military checkpoint on the city outskirts, killing four soldiers. The attacks came hours after Pakistani Taliban warned of further violence following a gun and bomb attack in Lahore which killed at least 24 people. (The devotees of the religion of peace have been busy yet again - also see below)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8072795.stm
A bomb in a mosque in south-east Iran has killed at least 15 people and wounded 50, the governor of Sistan-Baluchestan province said. The explosion happened in Zahedan, the provincial capital, at the time of evening prayer, Ali Mohammad Azad told Iranian state TV.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8071865.stm
It may not be immediately obvious to everyone, but one family are convinced they can see the face of Jesus on the lid of a jar of Marmite. (Is there no end to this sort of stupidity? Of course not, silly question. Sorry)
Two founding members of what was once the largest Muslim charity in America have been sentenced to 65 years in prison for funnelling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Shukri Abu Baker, 50, and Ghassan Elashi, 55, were among the five members of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development sentenced to prison on Wednesday. The men and Holy Land were convicted in November on 108 charges, following a mistrial in 2007 in which the government failed to convince jurors that the charity sent more than $12 million (£7.5 million) to Hamas. (Can we now expect George Galloway to be arrested next time he sets foot in the US?)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article6374844.ece
Funny to return from Lebanon, Syria and Turkey - where women go unveiled - and return to Britain, the land of the full hijab. I see more women with their faces covered in Tower Hamlets than I did in Damascus. (Op-ed by Matthew Parris on culturally inappropriate Muslim face masks. One point he misses is that the decision to be masked does not necessarily lie with the woman wearing it)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6375093.ece
An American whose swim to the lakeside house of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader, led to her arrest, told her trial yesterday that he wanted to warn the Nobel laureate about a premonition that she was to be assassinated by terrorists. John Yettaw, a Mormon, told the court that God asked him to travel to Burma from his home in Missouri to warn Ms Suu Kyi that terrorists intended to kill her and then place the blame on the junta. (This bloody religious nutter could get Suu Kyi 5 years in prison.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/may/26/mi5-terrorism-islam
Last week, the Independent led with the story of how MI5 agents are harassing young British Muslims and bullying them into becoming informants. Although I'm sure these cold-war tactics have shocked many, it came as no shock to me.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/28/pakistan-bomb-taliban-claim-responsibility
A senior leader of the Taliban in Pakistan today claimed responsibility for the bomb attack in Lahore that killed at least 24 people and wounded hundreds more, saying it was revenge for the army offensive against militants in Swat valley.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/may/27/back-pain-nhs-alternative-therapy-osteopathy
Back pain sufferers will get improved access to treatments by acupuncturists, osteopaths and chiropractors on the NHS in an effort to reduce the misery, welfare bills and inability to work caused by the condition, it was announced today. (The NHS embraces placebos and bullshit. See Acupuncture needles can improve back pain - and so can toothpicks)
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090527/tuk-jailed-cleric-s-sons-1m-car-scam-6323e80.html
Three sons of jailed cleric Abu Hamza are due to be sentenced for a £1 million luxury car scam. They and others targeted Mercedes, BMWs and Range Rovers and other expensive makes in long-stay car parks. Hamza's sons Hamza Kamel, 22, and Mohamed Mostafa, 27, helped run the two-year fraud with stepson Mohssin Ghailam, 28. Last year another of his seven sons, Yasser Mostafa Kamel, 18, narrowly escaped jail after admitting burglary. (Ah, the benefits of a religious upbringing)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6440787.html
Senate Democrats say they have more than enough votes to remove Don McLeroy as chairman of the State Board of Education Tuesday when McLeroy’s confirmation reaches the Senate floor. The Bryan dentist has presided over a contentious 15-member State Board of Education that fought over curriculum standards for science earlier this year and English language arts and reading last year. Critics faulted McLeroy for applying his strong religious beliefs in shaping new science standards. McLeroy believes in creationism and that the Earth is about 6,000 years old.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/25/mediums-psychics-vulnerable
This time last year you'd be forgiven for thinking that mediums and psychics had finally run out of luck. New consumer legislation that replaced the Fraudulent Mediums Act (FMA) was widely interpreted as forcing psychics to put up a disclaimer saying what they did was not scientifically proven. Under the old law, prosecutors had to prove an intent to deceive, but under the new regulations psychics had to prove they did not mislead, hence the disclaimers. The British Humanist Society announced at the time that people would be better protected from psychics preying on the vulnerable. They are not.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/25/hay-festival-science
Two striking facts about the Hay festival this weekend have been (a) the weather – everyone has doubtless commented on the sunshine blazing down on what is usually a Somme-like vista of mud seen through slanting rain – and (b) the huge audiences for the science talks, with both of the big tents filled to capacity for two talks by Martin Rees and one by Steve Jones. (Op-ed by A C Grayling)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/25/youth-worker-murdered-northern-ireland
Nine people were in custody tonight after the sectarian murder of a Catholic youth worker in Northern Ireland. Up to 30 loyalists beat 49-year-old Kevin McDaid after they invaded a Catholic area of Coleraine in County Derry on Sunday evening. The PSNI confirmed that the victim was singled out simply because of his religion. A police spokesman said McDaid had worked with the police to improve community relations in the town.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/25/scientology-france-court
The two main branches of the Church of Scientology in France go on trial today on charges of organised fraud in a case that could lead to the nationwide dissolution of the organisation. Six senior members of the church, as well as its Paris "celebrity centre" headquarters and its bookshop, are accused of targeting vulnerable people for commercial gain.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/25/luton-protest-march-violence
Two of the nine people arrested over disorder during a protest march in Luton were charged today. The largely peaceful march, in support of the armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, took place on Sunday, but was marred by anti-Muslim protests, according to Bedfordshire police. A number of demonstrators chanted anti-Islamic slogans, and carried banners that read "No Sharia Law in the UK".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/foyle_and_west/8067198.stm
The 49-year-old father-of-four who died during post-football match violence in Coleraine was "brutally beaten by a sectarian mob", the police have said.
The revelation this month in GQ Magazine that Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary embellished top-secret wartime memos with quotations from the Bible prompts a question. Why did he believe he could influence President Bush by that means? The answer may lie in an alarming story about George Bush's Christian millenarian beliefs that has yet to come to light.
Vandals have desecrated about 70 graves in two Palestinian Christian cemeteries in what a Palestinian Authority official said was a rare attack on the Christian minority in the occupied West Bank.
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.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/25/yemen-jihadi-guantanamo-saudi-arabia
In the wake of the Taliban regime's overthrow in Afghanistan, bin Laden and his followers have come to regard Yemen, alongside Pakistan, as a haven. Indeed, Yemen is now a bubbling cauldron of jihadis who have flocked there because it, like Afghanistan and Pakistan, has weak, easily manipulated state institutions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/24/majid-nawaz-pakistan-death-threats
The last time Maajid Nawaz visited Pakistan, he was on a covert mission: to infiltrate the country's universities, persuade the educated elite to join his cause, and lay the foundation for a military coup that would create an Islamic caliphate.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20090524/tuk-british-tourists-arrested-on-crete-o-a7ad41d.html
Seventeen British tourists were arrested on the island of Crete Sunday for insulting the Catholic church after they paraded themselves dressed "in nun attire and naughty lingerie", police said.
A nurse has lost his job after he advised two "patients" to find God during a role play session on a training course. (Good)
Tony Blair viewed his decision to go to war in Iraq and Kosovo as part of a "Christian battle", according to one of his closest political allies.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6353864.ece
The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has upheld the appointment of an openly gay minister after an intense debate ended with nearly one third of members abstaining.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6350500.ece
IN a darkened room in Peshawar, far from prying eyes, a medical student from the Swat valley opens his laptop and begins a slideshow of terror. Over the past three years, the 22-year-old has secretly catalogued the horrors of life in Swat under the Taliban. The burning down of schools, bodies hanging upside down, public lashings and decapitated heads with dollars stuffed in their nostrils and notes reading, “This is what happens to spies,” were all captured on his mobile phone at great personal risk.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/23/scotland-hebrides-ferry-ian-jack
The long Hebridean island that comprises Lewis and Harris – the third largest island in Great Britain and Ireland, after Great Britain and Ireland – may be the last place in Europe where Christianity rather than commerce or secular law can dictate the pattern of everyday life for Christians and non-Christians alike.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/24/church-of-england-incitement-hatred
Church of England bishops are on a collision course with the government over its plans to amend the incitement to hatred laws, claiming they will stifle what they believe is legitimate criticism of homosexual lifestyles. In what is being portrayed in some parliamentary quarters as a battle for free speech, a coalition of Anglican bishops, Conservative peers, Labour malcontents and leading crossbenchers have united to block the proposals. (What the hell is a "homosexual lifestyle?)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6349602.ece
A CHRISTIAN hospital worker is facing the sack after refusing orders to remove her crucifix on health and safety grounds. Helen Slatter 43, was told by bosses at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital to remove her cross as it 'could harbour infection'. (Mental and physical infection)
Baroness Thatcher is to have a private audience with the Pope at the Vatican next week. (There is fear that such a concentration of self-righteous bigotry may cause a moral black hole).
Churches will be banned from turning down gay job applicants on the grounds of their sexuality under new anti-discrimination laws, a Government minister said. Religious groups are to be forced to accept homosexual youth workers, secretaries and other staff, even if their faith holds same-sex relationships to be sinful. Christian organisations fear that the tightened legislation, which is due to come into force next year, will undermine the integrity of churches and dilute their moral message. (Integrity? Moral message? They're kidding, right?)
Spanish police have said they detained 23 people across the country who are suspected of using voodoo curses to force Nigerian women into prostitution in Spain.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090522/ap_on_re_eu/eu_greece_quran_protest
Authorities fired tear gas and stun grenades at hundreds of Muslims in central Athens on Friday as they protested a Greek policeman's alleged defacement of a Quran owned by an Iraqi immigrant. The clashes occurred outside Parliament as the demonstrators threw rocks and plastic bottles at police, and smashed windows of a luxury hotel in central Syntagma Square. A police helicopter hovered overhead. Chanting "God is great!" and waving leather-bound copies of Islam's holy book, about 1,000 Muslim immigrants had begun the demonstration with a march to Parliament to express their outrage. The clashes occurred after the protest had dwindled to about 300. (All this over a book, and a plagiarised one at that)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article6345930.ece
Up to a thousand foreign fighters, including Britons, have answered the call to jihad in Somalia and are leading street-fighting Islamist extremists in the war-torn capital Mogadishu, The Times has learnt. Early yesterday the Western-backed Government launched a counter-offensive after almost a fortnight of attacks by insurgents that have killed at least 200 civilians.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/22/bad-science-man-flu
Last week the papers were filled with more quirky, prejudice-affirming, untrue science news. Here is just one. "Man flu: it really does exist, girls," said the Daily Star. "Man flu is not a myth: female hormones give women stronger immune systems," said the Daily Mail. The Daily Telegraph palmed this fantastical assertion off on to "scientists", saying: "Men succumb to man flu because women have stronger immune systems, claim scientists." "Women 'fight off disease better'," said the BBC. (Ben Goldacre on the lamentably poor and irresponsible reporting of health studies in the mainstream press)
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090522/ap_on_hi_te/as_indonesia_islam_facebook
Muslim clerics debating the exploding popularity of Facebook in Indonesia said Friday that followers could use the networking site to connect with friends or for work — but not to gossip or flirt. The nonbinding ruling followed a two-day meeting of clerics in the world's most populous Muslim nation.
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090522/tc_nm/us_pope_facebook_3
You won't get an email saying Pope Benedict added you as a friend and you can't "poke" him or write on his wall, but the Vatican is still keen to use the networking site Facebook to woo young people back to church. (The idea of a cleric "wooing" young people takes on sinister connotations in the light of recent news)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/20/catholic-clergy-courageous-nichols
The new leader of Catholics in England and Wales has provoked outrage after describing members of the clergy who admitted abusing children in their care as courageous for facing up to their past. (He is no better than his predecessor, the pedophile's pal)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/21/rumsfield-biblical-quotes
Poor Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary, is in hot water again over messages his team at the Pentagon put on the cover of their briefings to President Bush during the Iraq war in 2003. Rather than send a dull-looking folder detailing the military situation that would test the president's notoriously short attention span, Rumsfeld's briefers stuck a photo on the front alongside an appropriate and uplifting quote from the Bible.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090521/ap_on_re_as/as_indonesia_islam_facebook
Muslim clerics are seeking ways to regulate online behavior in Indonesia, saying the exploding popularity of social networking sites like Facebook could encourage illicit sex.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8059826.stm
An inquiry into child abuse at Catholic institutions in Ireland has found church leaders knew that sexual abuse was "endemic" in boys' institutions. It also found physical and emotional abuse and neglect were features of institutions. Schools were run "in a severe, regimented manner that imposed unreasonable and oppressive discipline on children and even on staff".
Few men have made such an extraordinary personal journey. Raped and abused in his early teens by Father Sean Fortune, one of Ireland's most notorious paedophiles, Colm O'Gorman ran away from home when he was 17 and lived rough on the streets of Dublin. It was the Seventies, when both church and state were in full-blown denial that any priest could be guilty of sexually abusing a child, and Colm felt only shame and fear. His future could not have been bleaker. Yet, with effort and determination he fought back, spoke out about the abuse, and in 2002 even tried to sue the Pope arguing that, by moving paedophile priests like Fortune to different parishes and deliberately concealing their actions from the local authorities, the Vatican had failed to protect children like him. He was outraged when the Pope claimed diplomatic immunity but, undaunted, continued to campaign that the authority of the Irish church should not be above that of the State.
The Catholic Church was aware long-term sex offenders were repeatedly abusing children while working in Ireland's church and state-run institutions, a damning report has revealed. The Child Abuse Commission detailed a catalogue of disturbing and chronic sexual, physical and emotional abuse inflicted on thousands of disadvantaged, neglected and abandoned children by both religious and lay staff over the last 70 years. The dangers to the children were not taken into account, the inquiry found in a report which caused outrage at the news that no abusers will be prosecuted as a result. The report found: "The risk (to children), however, was seen by the congregations in terms of the potential scandal and bad publicity should the abuse be disclosed."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6321339.ece
The Vatican is seeking ways to embrace full online “interactivity” with all one billion members of the global Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Church wants to emulate and globalise President Obama’s use of the internet both during his election campaign and with more recent events, such as an online question-and-answer session at the end of March that attracted 100,000 questions and 3.6 million votes. The new strategy was outlined by the Jesuit priest Father Federico Lombardi, long-standing head of Vatican Radio, who also took over as head of the Holy See press office on the election of Pope Benedict XVI.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/19/vatican-pope-pr-gaffe-lombardi
The pope's press man, Federico Lombardi, thinks papal gaffes have strengthened the church. Earth to Vatican: they haven't (Opinion piece by Riazat Butt)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6315008.ece
A gift-shop owner extorted £8,000 from a Muslim student who feared that she would be reported to the police as a “terrorist sympathiser”, a court was told yesterday. Mary Sturges, who owns a shop selling teddy bears in Totnes, Devon, is alleged to have concocted an elaborate story to persuade Nabilah Hussain, 21, to hand over the money. Mrs Sturges, 53, claimed that Ms Hussain, whom she had befriended, had been recorded by her hairdresser’s husband saying that the “the British deserve what they get” during a discussion about terrorism. (We further learn that Sturges is a convert to Islam. Not one that Islam would want to keep one presumes)
Scientists have dismissed claims that people are being severely effected by a low-level hum - as featured in The X-Files - saying it is the effect of over-sensitive hearing. (Ho-hum)
A Turkish court has ruled that President Abdullah Gul should face trial over a funding scandal in the 1990s involving a now-defunct Islamist party to which he belonged.
Carla Bruni has issued a scathing attack on Pope Benedict XVI saying that she has allowed her Catholic faith to lapse because of his approach to contraception in Africa. France's First Lady said that the Church's teachings had left her feeling "profoundly secular". She departed from her post's traditional religious neutrality to accuse the Pope of "damaging" countries like Africa with his stance on birth control.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/may/18/angels-and-demons-catholic-church
Now that they've got round to seeing Angels & Demons, the pope's people seem to have decided that it is, after all, harmless. Perhaps they'll now be apologising to director Ron Howard's people for obstructing the shoot. At the very least, let's hope they'll discourage conservative media watchdogs from calling Tom Hanks a "pawn of Satan" for starring in the sequel to The Da Vinci Code.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/may/17/agora-rachel-weisz-cannes-amenabar-minghella
Democritus's atomic theory and Aristarchus's heliocentric model of the universe are not subjects that can often be said to delight audiences at the Cannes film festival. But Alejandro Amenabar's Agora did just that in its premiere today, with Rachel Weisz starring as the 4th-century mathematician and astronomer Hypatia, who was killed by an angry Christian mob in Romano-Egyptian Alexandria.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/17/barack-obama-notre-dame-abortion
Police arrested dozens of protesters in a tight security operation at America's most famous Catholic university as a graduation speech by President Barack Obama today became a battleground for clashes over stem cell research and abortion. Students held an all-night prayer vigil at Notre Dame University, Indiana, with some threatening to wear mortar boards decorated with Christian crosses and yellow babies' feet to show their opposition to Obama's pro-choice stance on abortion.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/18/tony-blair-religion-faith-foundation
Following the Faith Foundation launch in 2008, it was said that Tony Blair had the chance to do for the interfaith movement what Al Gore had done for environmentalism – "create a tipping-point effect on one of the most important issues of the 21st century". The man who made this claim, US sociologist and activist Eboo Patel, still believes Blair has the clout to promote respect and understanding about and between major religions and show how faith can be a force for good. Patel, who founded the Interfaith Youth Core, cites the Faiths Act Fellows as an example. (This would be the same Blair that was complicit in the attack on Iraq?)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,520393,00.html
A Weston woman, accused of praying instead of seeking medical attention for her dying daughter, suffered a medical emergency as her homicide trial got under way but appeared OK about 30 minutes later. Her case is believed to be the first of its kind in Wisconsin involving faith healing in which someone died and another person was charged with a homicide. Prosecutors had begun laying out their case against Leilani Neumann, 41, on Saturday morning. About 20 minutes in to their opening statement, as they described the girl's condition the day before she died, Neumann put her head in her arms on the table. Moments later her attorneys expressed concern, asking for a recess so they could get her some air. She appeared visibly weak as her husband and others escorted her from the courtroom to a downstairs office.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/16/AR2009051602363.html
As President Obama prepares to name his first Supreme Court justice, conservatives in Washington are making clear that his nominee will face plenty of questions during the confirmation process on the legal underpinnings of same-sex marriage.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8054179.stm
Hardline Islamist militants have captured a strategically important town north of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, eyewitnesses say.
Doctor Musarrat Syed-Shah, 31, is alleging religious discrimination and victimisation against four partners from the North Leeds Medical Practice after her partnership agreement was terminated on August 8 last year. The employment tribunal in Leeds heard that Dr Syed-Shah claims the other doctors were "unhappy" about her attending the weekly prayers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/15/bad-science-susan-greenfield-computers
You will be familiar with the work of Professor Baroness Susan Greenfield. The Oxford University professor is head of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, where she has charged herself with promoting the public's understanding of science, of what it means for there to be evidence for a given proposition. This is important work. You will also be aware of her more prominent activity on the terrifying risks of computers, exemplified in the Daily Mail headline "Social websites harm children's brains: Chilling warning to parents from top neuroscientist", "Computers could be fuelling obesity crisis, says Baroness Susan Greenfield" in the Telegraph, and so on.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/may/15/obama-notre-dame-abortion-catholics
Some Catholics see Obama's presence at the graduation ceremony, as well as the honorary degree that he will receive, as wrong. They believe that his support of abortion rights is in direct conflict with Catholic teachings and that, therefore, he shouldn't be given a "platform" at Notre Dame, even though he is not going there to talk about abortion or reproductive issues
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227081.100-the-science-of-voodoo-when-mind-attacks-body.html
Late one night in a small Alabama cemetery, Vance Vanders had a run-in with the local witch doctor, who wafted a bottle of unpleasant-smelling liquid in front of his face, and told him he was about to die and that no one could save him. Back home, Vanders took to his bed and began to deteriorate. Some weeks later, emaciated and near death, he was admitted to the local hospital, where doctors were unable to find a cause for his symptoms or slow his decline. Only then did his wife tell one of the doctors, Drayton Doherty, of the hex. (Article on voodoo)
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, has given his approval to a stage show of Ben Hur that will only use the ancient languages of Latin and Aramaic. (Is this because his Koine Greek, the common tongue most likely used between Jews and Romans, is not up to speed?)
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6245144.ece
An honour established by the Queen has been declared unlawful after Muslims and Hindus complained that its Christian name and cross insignia were offensive. (This is surely going too far. If someone doesn't like the cross shape and the name Trinity they can refuse the honor - simple as that)
Frederick Toben, an Australian 'revisionist historian', has been sentenced to three months in jail after publishing offensive material about Jews and the Holocaust on his website. (Free speech is free speech and even an asshole such as this should not be jailed. Mocked, argued with, spurned but not jailed)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6276839.ece
The Church of Scotland is moving towards a schism after one of its ministers compared an increasingly determined campaign against gay clergymen to the war against the Nazis. The Rev Ian Watson railed against homosexual lifestyles, declaring that such people would not “inherit the kingdom of God” in a sermon that religious leaders and politicians condemned as deeply disturbing. (Methinks he doth protest too much)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6275936.ece
The beauty queen who sparked a national controversy in America with her opposition to same-sex marriage will be allowed to keep her tiara after insisting that her stance is the same as that of President Obama. (See Hey Miss California, How Does God Feel About Fake Breasts?)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6274826.ece
The wartime past of Pope Benedict XVI threatened to overwhelm his peace mission to the Holy Land as the Vatican issued a denial that the pontiff had served in the Hitler Youth. “The Pope has said he never, never was a member of the Hitler Youth, which was a movement of fanatical volunteers,” Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said — contradicting statements the Pope has himself made about his involvement with the group. The Vatican denial came as Benedict’s trip sank deeper in controversy and recrimination, eclipsing the message of peace and reconciliation he has been pushing during his pilgrimage. (He was just was a brave little anti-aircraft gunner?)
A month ago I argued on these pages, in quite strident terms, that someone called Aaqil Ahmed should not be appointed to the new job of head of commissioning for religion at the BBC. At the weekend, he was given the post. As Ozymandias once said: "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" (It seems not everyone is happy with the Beeb's new religion head)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/12/aaqil-ahmed-bbc-religion
Without much fanfare and to little surprise the BBC yesterday said Aaqil Ahmed had been appointed its new head of religious programming. This is significant for various reasons, not least because he is the first Muslim to occupy the post and the second non-Christian to do so. (It has been pointed out elsewhere that the BBC has far more food and cookery programs than religion ones so why is their no head of food and cookery programming? This is an instance of religion being unfairly favored by a public-funded body in a largely secular country)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/5314504/My-night-with-the-spectre-inspectors.html
We are sitting here, a small group of us, in a tiny flat on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, staring fixedly at three blue cups balanced on top of a television. There is Ewan Irvine, a medium, Paul Rowland, a psychic investigator, and Ciaran O'Keeffe, whom insomniac couch potatoes will know as the sceptical parapsychologist in the popular TV series Most Haunted. The clock has just struck midnight and we are waiting for a poltergeist to reveal itself. (Amusing skeptical piece on ghosthunting)
http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1506
Let us now put our hands together and pray. O God, we gather here today to ask you to free our schoolchildren from being forced to go through this charade every day. As you know, O Lord, because You see all, British law requires every schoolchild to participate in "an act of collective worship" every 24 hours. Irrespective of what the child thinks or believes, they are shepherded into a hall, silenced, and forced to pray – or pretend to. (Johann Hari on form)
http://timesonline.typepad.com/faith/2009/05/-wanted-miss-beautiful-morals.html
Meet Khandra al-Mubarak, founder of Miss Beautiful Morals, a contest which surely qualifies as the world’s oddest beauty competition. The winner of the Saudi-based event will be selected on the grounds of their filial devotion, rather than looks per se. “The idea of the pageant is to measure the contestants' commitment to Islamic morals... It's an alternative to the calls for decadence in the other beauty contests that only take into account a woman's body and looks," explains al-Mubarak.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6269247.ece
Using acupuncture to treat chronic back pain is more effective than standard treatments alone, a leading scientific study has found. Trials involving 638 back pain sufferers have suggested that acupuncture is successful in relieving discomfort, although how it works remains unclear. A “fake” version also produced results, indicating that belief in the therapy may have played a key role in its success. (How many times does this have to be "tested" before it is accepted that any benefit is due to the placebo effect? Practitioners can't even agree on the sites of so-called meridians)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6273220.ece
Pope Benedict XVI walked out of an inter-faith meeting in Israel last night after a Palestinian cleric called on the pontiff to help stop Israeli "crimes".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/11/buddhism-religion-dawkins
I doubt it was his intention, but in 100 years time Richard Dawkins could be hailed as a prime architect of 21st-century religion. Though strident to the point of comic fundamentalism, the New Atheist diatribe has not only laid bare the irrationalities of believers, but forced those of us who favour scientific-spiritual accommodation to sharpen our arguments. And that can only aid the development of spiritual forms fit for the modern world. (New Atheist diatribe? More like long overdue criticism)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/11/miami-priest-photos-kissing-woman
A popular Miami priest and media personality said today he is thinking about leaving the Roman Catholic Church for a woman he loves after a magazine ran pictures of the couple kissing and hugging. The Rev Alberto Cutie told the CBS Early Show today he supports the church's stand that priests should be celibate and said he does not want to become the "anti-celibacy priest". (It sounds like he already is)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/12/bbc-first-muslim-religion-commissioner
The BBC has appointed its first Muslim head of religious programming, only the second time in its 87-year history a non-Christian has taken the role. Channel 4 executive Aaqil Ahmed, who commissioned Christianity: A History, The Qur'an and the Bafta-winning Saving Africa's Witch Children while at the commercial broadcaster, is expected to take up the position this summer. The only previous non-Christian head of religious programming at the BBC was agnostic Alan Bookbinder, who was appointed in 2001.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/11/pope-pilgrimage-criticism
Pope Benedict XVI was publicly criticised today for not going far enough in his condemnation of the Holocaust, on his arrival in Israel for a week's pilgrimage to the Holy Land
http://www.wbay.com/Global/story.asp?S=10342446
A Roman Catholic archbishop in Milwaukee who resigned in 2002 over a sex and financial scandal involving a man describes his struggles with being gay in an upcoming memoir about his decades serving the church.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/10/islamic-advice-hotline-uk
The proverb says that good advice is beyond all price. But for callers to an Islamic advice line it will be 75p a minute. Next month sees the UK launch of el-Hatef el-Islami, one of the world's most popular Islamic hotlines. Dubbed dial-a-fatwa and dial-a-sheikh in its native Egypt, it will draw on the expertise of scholars from Cairo's al-Azhar University to provide perplexed believers with help and religious rulings (fatwas) on everyday dilemmas. British callers can ring in with their problems, and access the answer up to 48 hours later by punching in a pin number. The hotline will also include an email facility, with advice sent in English, Urdu and Arabic at a cost of 69p a message
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090511/tuk-muslim-chef-s-claim-over-pork-order-6323e80.html
A Muslim catering manager who was asked to handle pork sausages and bacon is bringing a claim for religious discrimination against the Metropolitan Police. Hasanali Khoja was told he would be expected to handle pork products when he started a new job at the Empress State Building in Earls Court, west London. An informal agreement has been reached but Mr Khoja, who launched his claim last year, wants it to be formalised.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/09/iran-christianity-conversion
There's no shortage of press coverage on Iran. Its ambitious nuclear programme combines with a steady flow of delusional commentary from President Ahmadinejad to ensure it a permanent presence on the international media stage. What we rarely get to hear about in detail is the damage the Iranian ruling elite causes its own citizens on a daily basis. Since the Islamic revolution, the 300,000-strong Baha'i community has faced consistent discrimination in Iran. They've been the victims of extrajudicial killings and unexplained disappearances. According to the community, 40 Baha'is are currently being detained in prison for no other "crime" than practicing their own beliefs. This number includes members of their national leadership. Baha'is are still banned from receiving higher education. Although members of historical Christian minorities, such as Armenians, enjoy relative freedom in Iran, the story is different for those who have converted to Christianity from Islam.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/09/superstitions
Take the ladder test. Fifty per cent of Britons won't walk under one. Would you? Do you touch wood? Psychologist Bruce Hood believes even the most rational among us are more superstitious than we'd like to admit. (Hood is the guy whose work apparently shows human beings are hard wired to believe in the supernatural. Many people took this to mean that we are hard wired to be religious. 80 reckons Bruce is hard wired to plug his new book, Supersense)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8042214.stm
Parliament's moral authority has slumped to its "lowest ebb in living memory", former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has said. Lord Carey told the News of the World that leaked reports about MPs' expenses had shaken trust in politics. He said the revelations had exposed the "clawing greed" at the heart of Westminster's "culture of abuse".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/07/vatican-pope-visit-israel-holocaust
Halfway down the corridor in a room on the left are two black and white photographs of the wartime pope, Pius XII, with a few lines of text in English and Hebrew. It is one of hundreds of displays in the museum and easily overlooked, but it runs to the heart of Israel's often troubled relationship with the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI makes an official visit to the Holy Land next week and will attend Yad Vashem on Monday to lay a wreath, but he will not visit the museum or see the caption. The wording set off a diplomatic spat two years ago when the papal envoy to Jerusalem threatened to skip Israel's Holocaust day service and it remains contentious, symbolic of the troubled history between the Catholic church and the Jewish people.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6242313.ece
British Muslims identify with the UK far more than the general public, according to research published today. More than three-quarters of British Muslims, 77 per cent, said that they identified with the UK, compared with half of the overall population. The survey by Gallup and the Coexist Foundation showed that more than eight out of 10, 82 per cent, of British Muslims thought that Muslims in this country were loyal, but just over a third, 36 per cent, of the general public considered Muslims to be loyal. The report also showed that British Muslims have more confidence in British institutions such as the courts, elections, financial bodies and the media. (Though interesting this poll is far from reliable. There are many questions. It was only part of a survey of attitudes in France, Germany and Britain but doesn't seem to take account of the very different origins of the Muslims questioned, such as Pakistan, Algeria and Turkey. All Muslims are not the same and should not be treated so. Are these Muslims immigrants, second or third generation? We are not told. Were those questioned evenly divided as to gender? )
President Barack Obama has demanded that the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan intensify their campaigns against the Taliban amid fears the region could be overrun by extremism.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6229864.ece
The level of the claim to be made by Patrick Raggett is the clearest indication yet that damages for abuse cases in Britain could rise closer to US levels. Because of the different legal systems governing compensation cases, damages are unlikely to be as large as in the US, where in February the US Northwest Jesuit Chapter filed for bankruptcy, citing civil lawsuits resulting from allegations of clergy sex abuse. But it still reflects a trend that could have far-reaching consequences for the finances of the Church. Mr Raggett’s case is one of the first involving a case of alleged Roman Catholic abuse to reach the courts since the victim of the so-called Lotto rapist opened the way in January last year for thousands of other victims of sexual assault to claim compensation.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6232180.ece
Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, who is embroiled in a divorce battle with his wife, was criticised by the Vatican today despite denying her allegations that he not only "frequents" starlets but has had a relationship with an under-age model from Naples.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/8034237.stm
A Salvation Army youth leader has been jailed for seven years after being convicted of sexually assaulting an underage girl who had a crush on him.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8033516.stm
A former City lawyer has won the right to bring a £5m damages action against a Jesuit-run school over alleged sexual abuse as a child. Patrick Raggett, 50, was allegedly abused at Preston Catholic College in the 1970s, the High Court heard. (Give me the child....and I will scar him for life?)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8032265.stm
Somalia's influential Islamist leader has ruled out holding talks with the president to end years of violence. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys called on Islamists to continue fighting the government led by moderate Islamist Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8032754.stm
The body of a man believed to be homosexual has twice been dug up from a Muslim cemetery in Senegal. The man, in his 30s, was first buried on Saturday before residents of the western town of Thies dug up his body and left it near his grave, police say. His family then reburied him, but he was once more exhumed by people who did not want him buried there. His body was dumped outside the family house.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8033376.stm
Born-again Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has been baptised by a self-proclaimed prophet known for his doomsday warnings. He was immersed in a swimming pool in Nairobi by David Owuor, of the National Repentance and Holiness Ministry. The minister once foretold that half of Nairobi would be destroyed in an earthquake, which never happened.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/139788/40_million_nonbelievers_in_america_the_secret_is_almost_out/
According to the latest American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) of more than 54,000 adults, between 2001 and 2008 the number willing to identify themselves as atheist and agnostic has gone from under 2 million to 3.6 million. Small numbers compared to the whole, of course, but most notably it’s a rise of 85% of those willing to describe themselves as living without God during the years of our most overtly religious presidency! Even more newsworthy, when the widely-scorned labels “atheist” and “agnostic” are replaced with specifics about beliefs (“There is no such thing” as God, “There is no way to know,” or “I’m not sure,” and added to those who refused to answer) it turns out that over eighteen percent of Americans do not profess belief in a God or a higher power. According to ARIS, then, there could be as many as 40 million adult nonbelievers in the United States!
The belief that goldfish have a memory span of only three seconds is among a series of myths which have been exposed by the animal charity the PDSA. Widely held ideas about dogs only being able to see in black and white or that purring means that a cat is content are also misconceptions, according to the group. Even the assumption that a dog wagging its tail shows that it is happy is not necessarily true, according to research.
Tom Hanks has admitted that the controversial film sequel to The Da Vinci Code plays 'fast and loose' with the facts about religion.
Police are investigating after a suspected arson attack gutted an Islamic centre in a town where extremist Muslim protesters barracked British soldiers returning from Iraq. Emergency services were called to the centre in Bury Park Road, Luton, Bedfordshire, just after midnight on Monday night. Nobody was injured in the blaze, which started at the back of the building, but a spokesman said there was "considerable damage".
The sovereignty of Christian holy sites in Israel could be handed over to the Vatican under plans drawn up by President Shimon Peres. Those included are reported to be the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the Coenaculum on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, the site where tradition says Jesus held The Last Supper, along with Gethsemane at the bottom of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, Mount Tabor, and the Church of the Multiplication on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. For the past twelve years the Israeli government and the Vatican have been deadlocked in discussions over the status of certain Christian holy places, officials claimed, but Mr Peres is said to be pressing the issue ahead of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Israel next week. (Why the Vatican? Why not the Orthodox Church?)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/david_aaronovitch/article6222039.ece
On a desk in my school, long ago, some past sixth-former had written four words: “God is dead - Nietzsche”, followed by four more: “ Nietzsche is dead - God.” Even as a juvenile atheist I could see that the idea of the mad German getting his comeuppance from the unbelieved Almighty was funny. (Characteristically good piece on the "resurgence" of religion by David Aaronovitch)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6222672.ece
Scott Rennie, the gay minister who is opposed by conservatives in the Church of Scotland, hit back at his critics yesterday, saying that their views had “strengthened my faith” and “heightened my sense of call” to serve the Kirk. The Rev Rennie's appointment last summer to Queen's Cross Parish Church in Aberdeen led to protest by evangelicals in the Kirk, who say that the move is unacceptable.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/04/richard-dawkins-ridiculing-belief
Richard Dawkins' tactic of ridiculing religion will inspire only hostility among those who feel their worldview to be under attack. (But supernatural worldviews are ridiculous. Is Dawkins supposed to not mention this? Carlo Strenger is yet another Guardian contributor who wants Dawkins to tiptoe around religion's many absurdities which would be hypocritical)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/03/AR2009050301892.html
The bulldozers are working overtime in Jesus's home town, where Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to celebrate Mass in mid-May with a crowd expected to be in the tens of thousands. Road and other improvements long planned by the city are being finished in rapid fashion. A small amphitheater is being expanded for the papal mass into a concert-size facility that local leaders hope will eventually steal major acts from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The pope's upcoming trip to Israel is not planned as an economic development tool. But the mood in this Arab city, which has felt short-changed in its share of the tourist trade, is that Benedict's day-long itinerary here will be an important boost. "People will be told, 'Nazareth, Nazareth, Nazareth.' We believe this is the most important Christian city in the world," said Tareq Shehada, general manager of the Nazareth Cultural and Tourism Association.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6218663.ece
A New Zealand family drowned a young mother by pouring water down her throat during a Maori exorcism, a court heard today. Janet Moses, 22, died after family members poured water down her throat and into her eyes in an attempt to lift a curse on her, the High Court in Wellington, the capital, was told. Ms Moses' 14-year-old cousin also had her eyes gouged and water poured down her throat during the same ceremony. Six women and three men, all members of Ms Moses' family, are charged with manslaughter.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/03/honour-killing
Though relatively rare, killing a family member in the name of honour should be a cause for shame, not pride, as it reflects a cowardly compliance with inhumane norms. Killing someone, especially a family member, is something I cannot begin to contemplate. Of course, I realise that it is a sad fact of life that some of the worst physical, sexual and psychological abuses – and even murders – are perpetrated by relatives. (Editorial on familial murder and vendettas)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/03/taliban-sharia-pakistan
In the Malakand region of Pakistan, the Taliban have started correcting the "moral wrongs" of society by banning women from shopping in public areas, as it is believed to be obscene. They have have punished men by shaving their hair and moustaches for listening to music, seen as un-Islamic. As non-Muslims living under sharia law, the Sikh community in Orakzai Agency is being forced to pay 15m rupees, approximately £130,000, in tax to live in peace. If Sikhs refuse, then the Taliban will occupy their properties. The Taliban are, of course, not the first to attempt to implement sharia law. Governments in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and northern Nigeria have implemented "Islamic" laws that have resulted in systematic human rights abuses by employing medieval punishments for transgressing God's "boundaries", such as death for apostasy and stoning for adultery. The implementation of such sharia laws leads people to question the compatibility of Islam and human rights. (The Taliban are accused of perverting sharia but with no central authority in Islam who is to say whether their interpretation is right or wrong?)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/03/islamic-games-iran-persian-gulf
For millennia Iran has guarded the strategic waterway dividing it from its Arab neighbours as a symbol of national greatness that should be defended in name and deed. But now its insistence that it be known only as the Persian Gulf threatens to torpedo ambitious plans for a sporting extravaganza intended to promote Islamic harmony. Iran announced it was cancelling the Islamic Solidarity Games planned for October rather than bow to Arab demands that the Persian tag be dropped from the competition's medals and promotional material. Arab nations, led by Saudi Arabia, refused to compete unless the waterway was called the Arabian Gulf or simply the Gulf. (What's the fuss? Iran's state religion is Arabian so why not acknowledge this by re-naming the Gulf?)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/04/anti-jihadist-islamist-blog
Last year, I said the making of the film Fitna, by the crazed rightwing Dutch MP Geert Wilders, indicated that the anti-jihadist neocons had run out of things to say. But the collapse in the sanity of the anti-jihadist movement has been more amusing and spectacular than I expected. This collapse was no doubt accelerated by the election of Barack Obama, who was attacked by a range of nutjobs convinced he represented the anti-Christ, or went to a jihadist school, or that he wasn't Christian, or that he was a "black power" segregationist. (Muddled op-ed by Sunny Hundal)
At first glance it looks like a rocky desert - but this image of the Mars landscape has got space-gazers talking. An oddly shaped space boulder appears to show eye sockets and a nose leading to speculation it might be a Martian skull.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/03/america-abortion-choose-life-plates
America's perpetual battle over abortion is again being fought in courts and state legislatures across the nation, but this time it concerns the right of its opponents to declare themselves "pro-life" at 60mph. The rising popularity of specialised number plates – which allow drivers to express allegiances to everything from fishing to support for war widows – has enabled a growing number of states to offer Choose Life plates. That has prompted political and legal battles in states that are refusing to adopt them, as well as demands for plates in support of abortion rights in states that permit the Choose Life version. The arguments look increasingly likely to end up before the supreme court.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/may/03/stonehenge-king-arthur-protest
The druid protester King Arthur Pendragon defied a court order to leave Stonehenge this afternoon, vowing to continue his protest until the site is open to all. Pendragon, formerly known as John Rothwell, set up camp on the edge of the site in June 2008 and faces eviction by Wiltshire council, which says he is blocking the public highway.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/03/atheist-ireland-blasphemy-legislation
A group that claims to represent the rights of atheists in Ireland has launched a campaign to expel God from the Irish constitution, starting with an attempt to block plans for a new blasphemy law. Atheist Ireland, which is led by a Bono impersonator and the writer of a hit musical about Roy Keane's infamous World Cup tantrum, says the proposed legislation combines the oppressive religious thinking of 1950s Catholic Ireland and Islamic fundamentalism. Co-founder Michael Nugent said they intended to launch a roadshow in the republic to kick-start their campaign.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6211511.ece
TALIBAN militants who have seized swathes of North West Frontier Province in Pakistan have inflicted a reign of terror on villagers, landowners and the police, using kidnapping, looting, pillaging and murder to impose their will. Yesterday, as Pakistani forces stepped up their campaign to retake territory in the districts of Buner, Dir and Swat, it emerged that in one Taliban-controlled village, Pir Baba in Buner, the militants were holding 2,000 people as human shields in case the army attacked.
Delara Darabi knew the end was close when she made a panic-filled call to her mother from prison to say that she could see the hangman's noose from her window. The Iranian artist was executed on Friday for a murder allegedly committed when she was a juvenile and for which she retracted her brief confession, claiming she was covering up for her boyfriend. The prison authorities hung Miss Darabi, 23, even though the head of Iran's judiciary granted her a two-month stay of execution on April 19 amid international outrage over her case. They also did not give her lawyer the required 48 hours notice.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6206880.ece
Four young Protestant men found guilty of the sectarian murder of a 15-year-old Catholic boy received life sentences yesterday. Michael “Mickey Bo” McIlveen died after being attacked by a gang in May 2006 in Ballymena, Co Antrim, sending shock waves through Northern Ireland at the return of religiously motivated violence, a common thread of the Troubles.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17064-quack-remedies-spread-by-virtue-of-being-useless.html
Eating a vulture won't clear a bad case of syphilis nor will a drink made of rotting snakes treat leprosy, but these and other bogus medical treatments spread precisely because they don't work. That's the counterintuitive finding of a mathematical model of medical quackery.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6207112.ece
A man threatened to blow up Glasgow Central Mosque after becoming “upset” by a video clip of a beheading, a court was told yesterday. Neil MacGregor sent threats to Strathclyde Police after a friend sent him the clip by e-mail. The 36-year-old told officers that he would execute a Muslim a day unless all mosques in Scotland were closed.
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13579713
TWO government ministers, both practising Muslims, met in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, in April and agreed to co-ordinate their efforts to broaden the curriculum at religious schools. A set of teaching materials would be sent out to madrassas with the aim of enriching the diet. As well as learning the Koran, pupils would be taught how Islam was compatible with citizenship. This approach, the ministers decided, would work well in their respective countries, Britain and Pakistan. Admittedly, the role played by madrassas in the two places is different. In England’s smokestack cities, they are frequented by Muslim children as a supplement to state schooling. In the slums and refugee camps of Pakistan, they offer a meal and an education of sorts to boys who would otherwise be illiterate.
'I will give £5 to anyone in Britain who wants to live under Sharia law,' he declares. 'It will help pay for their ticket to Sudan, Yemen, Pakistan, or wherever it is customary to live under Sharia law. 'Please, please go and leave us alone. This is Britain, not 10th century Arabia!' We are indeed sitting in a bar, on a busy main road in Oxford. But the man before me is no stereotypical Islamophobe. For one, he is sipping a glass of water rather than something more inflammatory. More importantly, though by no means obviously, Dr Taj Hargey is himself an Islamic cleric; perhaps the most controversial imam in Britain today.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6194872.ece
They were stoned, spat on and assaulted, but when 200 women staged Afghanistan’s first public women’s rights protest since the 1970s their voices were heard around the world. And if centuries-old traditions are to change, it may well be a petite but pugnacious 28-year-old called Diana Saqeb who is responsible. One of the organisers of the march, which took place a fortnight ago in the capital, Kabul, Ms Saqeb was present this week when President Karzai promised activists that there would be changes to the Shia Family Law that prompted their protest.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6201792.ece
The thunder of artillery fire echoed in the distance. Helicopters hovered above the mountain where the Taleban fighters were making their last stand. Streams of rickety buses, vans and trucks packed with refugees sped along the road. The new front line in the war against the militants cuts through the village of Chinglai in northwest Pakistan. Yesterday its dusty streets were all but deserted, with just a few old men lingering outside their shattered homes. On Wednesday night the Taleban blew up the police station, forcing frightened residents to flee
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/30/texas-school-creationism-textbooks
"In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards." Mark Twain wrote that in 1897, and Americans still quote it, with feeling. It comes to mind for many observers of a current battle over science education in Texas. Texas's school board, the State Board of Education (BOE), has been fighting about standards for science textbooks the state buys. Since March, clamorous attention has focused on a proposal to require that texts discuss the "strengths and weaknesses" of evolutionary theory. Everyone knew this was a ploy to get creationist ideas into the classroom. The scientific community was relieved when the BOE finally voted not to include that language – and dismayed when it then voted for amendments that mandate the same thing. The BOE's exuberant chair says he's not afraid to "stand up to the experts."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/apr/30/religion-atheism-dawkins-contempt
There has been a long-running battle among the American scientific community about the degree to which atheism should be identified with science teaching. On the one side are those bodies, like the National Centre for Science Education, whose chief concern is to get evolution taught in schools, and who will happily enlist mainstream Christians in their cause. On the other side are the hard-line new atheists, who think that science must sweep away religion and the sooner the better: if believers object, so much the worse for them. No prizes for guessing which side Richard Dawkins is on. (Andrew Brown does some selective quoting - I suppose it makes a change from misattribution)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/01/saudi-arabian-child-marriage-annulled
An eight-year old Saudi Arabian girl who was married off by her father to a man in his 50s has had the union annulled, it was reported yesterday. The case, which had generated local and international outrage, ended with an out-of-court settlement. The child, who has not been named, had been told by a court last December that she would not be allowed to divorce her husband until she reached puberty.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/30/july-7-london-bombings-trial
Two British Muslims cleared of helping the 7 July bombers were yesterday accused by a judge of betraying the country that had given them a home, as he jailed them for seven years each for planning to attend a terrorist training camp in Pakistan. Mr Justice Gross told Waheed Ali and Mohammed Shakil their "firm intention" of going to a camp in Baluchistan, which trained people to fight with the Taliban against UK forces in Afghanistan, was no "one-off naive frolic by a pair of dupes".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5219687/Atheists-target-UK-schools.html
Atheists are targeting schools in a campaign designed to challenge Christian societies, collective worship and religious education. The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) plans to launch a recruitment drive this summer. Backed by professors Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling, the initiative aims to establish a network of atheist societies in schools to counter the role of Christianity. (The article is complete with a scare quote from some twerp at the Christian Institute)
Pope Benedict XVI named five new saints on Sunday, including Portugal's 14th century independence leader and a priest who ministered to factory workers at the dawn of the industrial era.
Saudi Arabia is considering allowing women to vote in municipal elections this year but they would still be barred from running for office, a senior government official has said.
Pakistan is to expand its military offensive against the Taliban into the militants' stronghold in the Swat Valley after ousting them from a neighbouring district.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6190513.ece
The Pakistani army says it has retaken control of a town 65 miles away from the capital which had been overrun by Taleban militants. Commandos swarmed down ropes from helicopters to enter the town of Daggar, which lies in the strategically important Buna valley to the northwest of Islamabad. Their mission was to drive out Taleban guerilla fighters who had infiltrated the area from their stronghold in neighbouring Swat
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/28/dan-brown-angels-demons-vatican
I share the Vatican's horror at the flouting of a ban on filming Angels and Demons. But mainly because it's a rubbish book (Amusing piece by Carrie Quinlan)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/28/sex-education-faith-schools
"No parent or school should be able to prevent a young person receiving good, high-quality sex and relationship education." Typical, some would say, of the view of humanists and others who believe that sex and relationships education should be an entitlement for all our children, and are often accused as a consequence of riding roughshod over the rights of some religious parents and the "rights" of religious schools.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/us/27atheist.html?_r=2&hp
Two months after the local atheist organization here put up a billboard saying “Don’t Believe in God? You Are Not Alone,” the group’s 13 board members met in Laura and Alex Kasman’s living room to grapple with the fallout. The problem was not that the group, the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, had attracted an outpouring of hostility. It was the opposite. An overflow audience of more than 100 had showed up for their most recent public symposium, and the board members discussed whether it was time to find a larger place. And now parents were coming out of the woodwork asking for family-oriented programs where they could meet like-minded nonbelievers. (A welcome and upbeat piece about South Carolina's godfree)
A gang of 28 Muslims known as 'the barbarians' go on trial today accused of the 24-day torture and murder of a younge Jewish man that appalled France due to it's brutality and apparent anti-Semitism. Ilan Halimi was lured into a honey trap, kidnapped and tortured for three weeks, before being found naked and handcuffed to a tree near a railway track in February 2006. The 23-year-old was in a state of shock and unable to talk, his body covered with burns, cuts and bruises, and he died en route to hospital.
A Muslim-owned jewellery shop has decided to ban customers wearing veils after being targeted by robbers disguised as Islamic women. Everyone entering ATAA Jewellers in Glasgow must reveal their faces under planned new rules to protect staff from further attacks. The store owners decided to act after two Asian men wearing traditional Muslim women's clothes – including niqab veils – made away with thousands of pounds worth of jewellery earlier this month. (It is interesting to compare this story to the one below)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6035022.ece
A MUSLIM mother was banned from her son’s parents' evening because she was wearing a veil. The 32-year-old was told she could not enter the school hall wearing her niquab on Tuesday evening for security reasons. Our Lady and St John Catholic Art College in Blackburn say it is school policy for visitors faces to be visible at all time. Police were called after the woman, who has asked not to be identified and is a former pupil at the school, refused to leave or remove the veil and she eventually walked away in tears.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6169989.ece
A BRITISH air stewardess was sacked for refusing to fly to Saudi Arabia after she was ordered to wear a traditional Islamic robe and walk behind male colleagues. Lisa Ashton, a £15,000-a-year stewardess with BMI, was told that in public areas in Saudi Arabia she was required to wear a black robe, known as an abaya. This covers everything but the face, feet and hands. She was told to follow her male colleagues, irrespective of rank. Ashton, 37, who was worried about security in the country, refused to fly there, claiming the instructions were discriminatory. She was sacked last April. “It’s not the law that you have to walk behind men in Saudi Arabia, or that you have to wear an abaya, and I’m not going to be treated as a second-class citizen,” Ashton said last week.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6181964.ece
President Karzai bowed to international pressure yesterday by promising to amend a new law condoning marital rape and child marriage that provoked violent clashes in the Afghan capital.
Religious groups are calling for a ban on an online game where holy figures such as Jesus and the prophet Muhammad fight to the death. Critics say the free Faith Fighter game is 'deeply provocative' and 'disrespectful' towards all world religions. (Brilliant! This game has offended just about every faith. To play click here )
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/apr/28/sex-education-faith-state-schools
Sex education is to be made compulsory in all state schools in England but faith schools will also be free to preach against sex outside marriage and homosexuality, under government proposals.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/28/stonehenge-pagan-protest
A pagan protester named Arthur Pendragon who believes he is an incarnation of King Arthur was yesterday ordered to halt a 10-month sit-in close to Stonehenge. Pendragon - John Rothwell before he changed his name by deed poll 30 years ago - set up camp at the edge of the site last summer to protest against the restricted access to the stone circle. He believes visitors should be allowed to walk close to the stones and touch them rather than being confined to a visitor centre and a pathway well away from the monument. Pendragon also believes the fence designed to keep visitors out has a damaging impact on the stone circle itself, holding it "in a stranglehold like a snared animal". (Not that Pendragon or anybody else can say for sure what the purpose/s of Stonehenge is/are)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/apr/27/angels-and-demons-vatican-fake-tourists
How do you film a movie set largely in the Vatican when the Holy See itself has banned you from shooting within its walls? If you are the producers of Angels and Demons, the prequel to the church-baiting worldwide blockbuster The Da Vinci Code, you send in cameramen posing as tourists to take more than 250,000 photographs and shoot hours of video footage.
http://www.secularism.org.uk/murphy-oconnor-will-bring-the-ho1.html
If the retiring Cardinal of Westminster, Cormac Murphy O’Connor, is given a place in the House of Lords, it will make the most eloquent case yet for the abolition of the second chamber, said Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8019966.stm
The Taleban's talks with the government in north-west Pakistan have been suspended amid army operations against militants, a Taleban negotiator says. Pakistani troops and Taleban militants have clashed in Lower Dir in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), forcing hundreds of civilians to flee.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/27/alqaida-north-africa-hostages
Al-Qaida's North African wing has threatened to kill a British tourist taken hostage in the Sahara unless the radical cleric and terrorism suspect Abu Qatada is released within 20 days
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/26/saudi-women-sports-ban
Saudi women could see their private sports clubs and gyms closed down because the government seems likely to agree licensing of the clubs for men only. But news of the likely shutdown of dozens of female-only gyms came as a government official suggested that women might be allowed to vote in municipal elections, although they would still be barred from running for office. With the sexes strictly separated in public in the conservative kingdom, the two reports illustrate the slow and fitful nature of the progress made since the octogenarian King Abdullah instigated reforms three years ago.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/26/idaho.rock.auction/index.html
A man in northern Idaho says he has seen a massive hand of God in his life, and he is willing to share it with the highest bidder. Paul Grayhek, 52, listed the rock formation he dubbed the "Hand of God Rock Wall" on the online auction Web site eBay. The highest bid was $250 early Sunday, with three days left to go in the auction.The hand-like formation, approximately 9 feet tall and 4 feet wide, appeared in Grayhek's backyard after a rockfall during Lent on March 8, he said. The Coeur d'Alene resident said he faced tough times after losing his job, and believed the rock was a sign. (A sign that he is an asshole)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-military27-2009apr27,0,6611205.story
Reporting from New Delhi, India -- Pakistan launched a military operation against militants today in a district that had been covered under a controversial peace deal concluded with the Taliban, suggesting a tougher line by the government -- at least temporarily. The military action in the Lower Dir region could jeopardize the pact, under which the Taliban has been allowed to enforce Sharia, or Islamic law, giving it de facto authority in the Swat Valley and nearby areas.
Taliban militants on Sunday handed over to Pakistani officials the body of a Polish man who was beheaded in February after being held by the hardliners for months, officials said. Geologist Piotr Stanczak, 42, was working in Pakistan for a Polish oil and natural gas exploration company when he was seized in the volatile northwest of the country last September. His abductors killed his driver and his bodyguard. His decapitation on February 7 – which was filmed by his captors and was the first of a Pole by Islamic militants – provoked a furious reaction from Warsaw, which slammed Islamabad's "apathy" over tackling terrorism.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/24/gay-christian-conservatives
The Anglican Mainstream conservative Christian conference has been learning about the work of American therapists who claim to be able to cure homosexuality – or at least bring out the "heterosexual potential" in ostensibly gay people. It is unclear whether they are able to bring out the homosexual potential in ostensibly straight people, or would want to. What is clear is that there is an insidious religious agenda implicit in their presence. It neither has the wellbeing of gay people in mind, nor is it honest.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Saudi-action-on-mosque-speakers/articleshow/4449005.cms
Saudi Arabia is cracking down on overly loud loudspeakers used to call the faithful to prayer, as mosques increasingly drown each other out, the official SPA news agency said on Saturday. Islamic Affairs Minister Sheikh Saleh al-Sheikh has ordered teams to inspect mosques in the holy city of Mecca, in Riyadh and elsewhere around the kingdom for too powerful speakers.
Roger Preece, 44, has been dubbed The Rolling Reverend after skating up and down the aisle of his church in roller blades. Parishioners at St Mary's Church, Bowden, near Altrincham, Cheshire, had expected a conventional sermon on the Resurrection. But midway through his service the Rev Preece slipped on his blades, stepped out of the pulpit and took to the boards. The one-time investment banker hit upon the roller-blading idea as a way of illustrating the astonishment that would have greeted Christ's Resurrection. (What? Was the Naz wearing skates? I don't remember that in the gospels)
A day after more than 75 people were killed in suicide bombings in Baghdad and in Diyala province, Sunni terrorists wearing suicide vests struck again, targeting Shia pilgrims. Iraqi police said that 25 of those killed in the latest attack at the Imam Moussa al-Kadhim shrine in the Shia neighbourhood of Kadhimiya were Iranians.
Muslims have accused Christians of trying to convert Sarah Obama to Christianity. Mrs Obama, a figure of substance in her homeland since her grandson was elected US President, was reported locally to have been stopped from going to a Seventh Day Adventist Church by Muslims because they thought the church would try to convert her.
Taliban fighters in Pakistan have begun a tactical retreat from a district just 60 miles from the capital Islamabad following an international outcry over their growing grip on parts of the country. The withdrawal followed an accusation from Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, that the Pakistani government was "abdicating to the Taliban". Pickup trucks of heavily armed militants, their faces covered with scarves, started to move out of the strategically important Buner district, having invaded the area more than two weeks ago.
Taliban gunmen have been filmed executing a surprised couple whom they repeatedly shot for the alleged crime of adultery. Their deaths were squalid, riddled with bullets in a field near their home by Taliban gunmen as the execution was captured on a mobile telephone. In footage which is being watched with horror by Pakistanis, the couple try to flee when they realise what is about to happen. But a gunman casually shoots the man and then the woman in the back with a burst of gunfire, leaving them bleeding in the dirt. (Appeasing scum like this is madness)
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/crime/bal-pushia0424,0,3230832.story
A Baltimore pastor who worked with developmentally disabled people was charged Friday with befriending a blind and disabled man in his care, then paying a hit man $50,000 in church funds for an execution so he could collect life insurance money. Police say Kevin Jerome Pushia, 32, who worked for four months as an operations manager for the Arc of Baltimore before abruptly quitting in January, confessed to plotting to kill Lemuel Wallace. Pushia told police he persuaded Wallace and "numerous" other mentally challenged individuals to list him as a beneficiary on insurance policies
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6164563.ece
A leader of a prominent evangelical Anglican group has been appointed bishop to Sherborne, one of the oldest episcopal seats in the country. The appointment of Dr Graham Kings is a strong sign that the Archbishop of Canterbury is winning the battle for Anglican unity. Dr Kings, 55, is the founder of Fulcrum, which has campaigned for orthodoxy without schism in the Church of England. Centrist conservatives are resisting moves to defect over the consecration of a gay bishop and the blessing of same-sex marriages.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6164949.ece
Evil cult or spiritual sect? The Falun Gong is the most persecuted group in China, even though 10 years have passed since thousands of its activists stunned the leadership by quietly surrounding its headquarters in the heart of Beijing for a day and then melting away. The demonstration was unprecedented. Seemingly out of nowhere 10,000 people appeared who stood silently for hours before walking away into the night, leaving barely a scrap of rubbish behind them. They read and they meditated. Their aim was to demand justice for fellow believers detained or harassed by police.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6164687.ece
Thousands of Pakistani troops were massing for an assault on Taleban positions 65 miles from the country’s capital last night after giving the insurgents 24 hours to withdraw from their advanced positions or face attack. The threat of force follows a stern warning from American policymakers that Islamabad was doing too little to stem a growing militant insurgency
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/apr/24/homeopathy-pets-vets-animals-placebo
I am about to embark on a series of lectures, debates and discussions to promote the paperback publication of our book Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial. The first event is a public debate organised by King's College School of Medicine: "This house believes that complementary and alternative therapies do more harm than good." One of the therapies under discussion will be homeopathy, and the evidence from clinical trials suggests that homeopathic pills are nothing more than placebos. Bearing in mind that homeopathic remedies are generally so diluted that they contain no active remedy, it seems obvious they can be nothing more than placebos. However, if previous outings are anything to go by, it will not be very long before someone at the King's College debate sticks up a hand and says: "Homeopathy must work, because it helped my pet cat!" (Good piece by Simon Singh)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/24/pakistan-swat-valley-taliban
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Rather than endlessly engage in inconclusive, on-off guerrilla warfare with Taliban insurgents, Pakistan's security forces cut a deal. The Islamists would have de facto local administrative control, including implementation of sharia law. In return, they would accept federal government authority, stop fighting, and lay down their arms. But February's deal in Swat has brought nothing but trouble, as its many domestic and foreign critics predicted.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/25/liberal-islam
One side-effect of the so-called war on terror has been a crisis of liberalism. This is not only a question of alarmingly illiberal legislation, but a more general problem of how the liberal state deals with its anti-liberal enemies. This, surely, is the acid test of any liberal creed. Anyone can be tolerant of those who are tolerant (Confused and confusing piece by Terry Eagleton)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/22/AR2009042200863.html
Taliban forces consolidated control of two north-western Pakistan districts and sent patrols into a third Thursday, stepping up their defiance of a government peace deal and raising fears of further advances by violent Islamists who are now within 60 miles of this capital city. Officials reacted with only mild concern, saying that the Taliban should comply with their pledge to lay down arms and that the peace deal should be given a chance. Pakistan's national security adviser, Rehman Malik, said security had actually "improved" in the past two weeks but that force would be "the only option" if the Islamists did not halt their violence.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/23/AR2009042304114.html
The Obama administration reacted with increasing alarm yesterday to ongoing Taliban advances in Pakistan, warning the Pakistani government that failure to take action against the extremists could endanger its partnership with the United States as well as American strategy in neighboring Afghanistan.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/24/taliban-pakistan-islamists-swat-sharia-law
International alarm at the Talibanisation of parts of northern Pakistan near Islamabad was mounting last night after militants ambushed a convoy of soldiers deployed to prevent extremists taking over a district only 60 miles from the capital. Snipers opened fire on police escorting four platoons of Frontier Corps paramilitary troops into Buner district, a day after militants overran government buildings and looted western aid offices. One policeman was killed and one injured, an army spokesman said. Locals said the ambush had forced the Frontier Corps to retreat. "Now Buner is ruled by the Taliban," one resident told the Guardian by phone. "They go anywhere they want."
A peace deal between Taliban militants and the Pakistani government could create a safe haven for al-Qaeda to plan attacks on British and American forces in Afghanistan, Western officials said on Thursday. They voiced their fears after Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, told the Pakistani government that it had “no choice” but to challenge Taliban militants pushing closer to the capital Islamabad.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20090423/tod-the-force-is-with-jedi-british-polic-6058bda.html
A police officer in Scotland has confessed to following the Jedi faith beloved of Star Wars film fans, respected policing analysis group Jane's reported Thursday. Pam Fleming, a 45-year-old beat officer in Glasgow for Strathclyde Police, said that she thought all police officers "should be Jedis," when interviewed by Jane's Police Review "For me, it is not a joke," she said. "Being a Jedi is a way of life. "I love the Star Wars films and the concept of being a Jedi, that the faith is not divisive." (It is as believable as any other religion)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/23/cormac-lord-peerage-cardinal
When Cardinal Basil Hume was offered a seat in the House of Lords three things happened: first, his former pupil, leading Catholic and Guardian columnist, Hugo Young, launched into the op-ed columns with condemnation of the idea. Second, Hume said that if such an offer were ever to be acceptable it should only come to a serving Archbishop of Westminster as a "Lord Spiritual". Third, the idea was quietly shelved as a likely emasculation of Catholic authenticity. In contrast, the current prime minister, Gordon Brown, has been tempting Cardinal Murphy O'Connor with the promise of earthly powers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/23/taliban-clinton-swat-valley-mingora
Taliban fighters spilling out of the Swat Valley have swept across Buner, a district 60 miles from Islamabad, underscoring Hilary Clinton's fears that the situation in Pakistan now poses a "mortal threat" to the security of the world. The US secretary of state told congress yesterday that Pakistan faced an "existential" threat from Islamist militants. "I think the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists," she said. Any further deterioration in the situation "poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world", she said.
Alien life does exist but the truth is being covered up by the United States government, former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell has claimed. Mr Mitchell, who was part of the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission, made the claims in a talk to the fifth annual X-Conference – a meeting of those who believe in UFOs and other life forms. (One look at the headline "Aliens exist and UFOs are covered-up by US government, says ex-astronaut" was enough to confirm it was Ed Mitchell spinning his woo-woo claptrap yet again)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article6135887.ece
Iraqi security forces have arrested four children who were allegedly part of a group of youngsters being groomed by al-Qaeda to become suicide bombers, an Iraqi army general said. The children, who were detained in a village near the northern city of Kirkuk, were part of a cell known as the “Birds of Paradise” and were being specially trained to avoid detection as they carried out attacks, security officials said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6143625.ece
Two Muslim converts and two Turks go on trial in a bomb-proof courtroom in Düsseldorf today accused of plotting to blow up German civilians and US soldiers. “The world will burn!” boasted an intercepted e-mail sent between the accused, who are alleged to have wanted to wage an Islamic holy war in the heart of Europe. (More evidence, as if any were needed, that Islam is no religion of peace)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/21/middle-east
In my previous piece on Arab secularism, both overt and veiled, I promised to consider ways of advancing progressive secularism in the Arab world. The question of bringing the Arab and Muslim worlds into the "modern age" has occupied some of the greatest minds of the past two centuries. It has been approached by natives of the region and foreigners, by friends and foes, by those with an honest desire for reform and those with their own agenda. Some may question why Arab and Muslim societies need to secularise, while others will argue it is a doomed project because Islam and secularism are apparently incompatible beasts. (Apparently?)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/20/hamas-killings-gaza-human-rights
Human Rights Watch today accused the Islamist movement Hamas of a campaign of killing and attacks against Palestinians in Gaza that has left at least 32 dead and dozens more seriously injured. The attacks came over the past three months, beginning during Israel's three-week war in Gaza. "Hamas authorities there took extraordinary steps to control, intimidate, punish and at times eliminate their internal political rivals as well as persons suspected of collaboration with Israel," Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. (Hamas shows its true face. Will this influence the idiot lefties who support them? Don't hold your breath)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6135103.ece
The Vatican distanced the Pope from plans to give the Prince of Wales a copy of an historic document relating to the divorce of Henry VIII when the pair meet on Monday. Although the publishing house linked to the Vatican archives confirmed today that it hoped to present Prince Charles with the item, the Vatican said that it would not be an official gift from the pontiff. (Oops)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6129130.ece
It may be an unfortunate accident or a piece of mischievous theatre. Either way, the Prince of Wales will need all his regal sang-froid when he tears off the wrapping of his gift from the Pope next week. When the Prince presents the Duchess of Cornwall to Benedict XVI as his wife for the first time, he will receive a gift that may strike an unwelcome chord: a “luxury facsimile” of the 1530 appeal by English peers to Pope Clement VII asking for the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. (Perhaps Ratzinger is signalling how he feels about a divorcé and adulterer)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6132972.ece
British delegates joined a dramatic diplomatic walkout today when President Ahmadinejad of Iran told a major UN conference against racism that the state of Israel had been founded "on the pretext of Jewish suffering" during the Second World War. Around 20 delegates, including envoys from the UK, France, and Finland stood up and left the room at what was considered an anti-Semitic remark by the Iranian leader, who has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map. (The Poison Dwarf is a malevolent little sod but Israel under Netanyahu will prove harder to defend)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/20/bnp-handbook-european-elections
The British National party is urging its members not to set up official party blogs in the run-up to this year's European elections because "they can't write proper English" and "get carried away with conspiracy theories", according to a leaked internal guide for senior party activists. The handbook says that some BNP members are "oddballs", "Walter Mitty characters", "compulsive liars" and "born troublemakers", and advises activists: "If you hear something odd or unpleasant about someone either forget about it or ask them about it to their face." (Some members? The toytown nazis try to clean up their act)
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/04/16/macedonia-alexander-the-great-as-media-bait/
Alexander III of Macedon (356 BC – 323 BC), on the other hand, has no such luck – national TV Kanal 5 this Sunday descended to a new level of Hades when it literally “raised” his spirit in a so-called news item [MKD] about a “historian” who went to Florida with a camera crew to seek the services of an allegedly famous medium to provide contact with his (sic!) ancestors. In the video, the spiritualist claims that a young man dressed in lion's skin is standing in the room, saying he went to Persia not for conquest but to seek cultural exchange, and would like to know more about the contemporary Macedonian linguistics.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6122313.ece
Pope Benedict will visit L'Aquila, the historic town at the centre of the Abruzzo earthquake two weeks ago, on 28 April and will pray at the ruins of a student hostel where eight students died, the Vatican said. Italian media had earlier indicated the papal trip would take place on 1 May, a public holiday. The Pope will also visit the mountain village of Onna, one of the worst hit communities, where 40 of the 250 inhabitants died and medieval buildings were flattened. The earthquake killed 295 people in Abruzzo and left some 65,000 homeless, around half of whom are sheltering in tents provided by the Civil Protection agency. The rest have found refuge with relatives or in hotels on the Adriatic coast nearby. (He'd better these prayers good ones - otherwise his loving god might unleash another earthquake. Is it wrong to hope for a minor aftershock during Ratzinger's visit?)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/18/afghanistan-shia-law-women
A new Shia family law has divided Afghanistan, revealing a nation struggling to come to terms with a common yet complex problem: how to reconcile traditional, religious values with the demands of the 21st century, which measures a nation's progress in terms of its treatment of women. The result is a cultural war between the traditionalists and the progressives. In between is a third group in whose view the controversy over the law is an unnecessary distraction from the country's more urgent problems. Why focus on a law whose sole function is to make legal what's already common practice when the country is facing the more serious problems of foreign occupation, extreme poverty and a corrupt central state perpetually on the verge of collapse? (A look at the life and malign influence of Ayatollah Asif Mohseni who has his own TV channel laughably called Civilization)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/apr/17/geert-wilders-fitna-sequel
Geert Wilders, the far-right Dutch MP, has announced that he will make a sequel to his 17-minute anti-Qur'an film Fitna, which sparked protests from Muslims around the world last year and saw him banned from entering the UK. "This is the next phase," the Freedom party leader told De Telegraaf yesterday, adding that his followup to the controversial short was intended to warn against the threat that Islam, in his view, posed to free speech. He said that the film would probably be finished next year. [Fitna] The film led to angry condemnation from groups as diverse as the Muslim Council of Britain and Al-Qaida, which issued a fatwa calling for his assassination. (In light of the Istanbul Declaration perhaps not quite as diverse as one might have thought)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/18/bad-science-cancer-jabs-daily-mail
Is it somehow possible - and I know I'm going out on a limb here - that journalists wilfully misinterpret and ignore scientific evidence, in order to generate stories that reflect their own political and cultural prejudices? (Ben Goldacre on form)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/apr/18/faith-schools-standards-failing
Faith schools fail to improve standards and create "social sorting" of children along lines of class, ability and religion, researchers said yesterday. Academics at the London School of Economics and the Institute of Education, both part of the University of London, found no proof that providing parents with the choice of a religious secondary school either raised results or helped drive up standards in other local schools. The research suggests that government policies to promote a market in education - by promising parents a choice of school in the belief that the competition for children will improve standards - only create a more socially fragmented system. (Sectarian schools are divisive? They call this news?)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/18/wine-lunar-calender-tesco-supermarkets
Will Gau holds his glass of ruby chinon to the light and tastes. "It's strict, a little dusty, a little jagged," says the wine connoisseur. But his disappointment may not be down to bad selection or the bottle being corked but to an altogether more cosmic force: the moon. The idea that the taste of wine changes with the lunar calendar is gaining credibility among the UK's major retailers, who believe the day, and even hour, on which wine is drunk alters its taste. Tesco and its rival Marks & Spencer, which sell about a third of all wine drunk in Britain, now invite critics to taste their ranges only at times when the biodynamic calendar suggests they will show at their best. (It's amazing these people seem to take this pseudoscientific drivel seriously)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/18/iraq-legacy-extremism-basra-women
Lamis Munshed grew up in a house of music, filled with tambourines, lutes and newly carved guitars, and the scent of freshly cut timber hanging in the air like incense. But that was before the militias over-ran Basra, outlawing most sport and music and confining women like her to their homes. "That was our livelihood," the 26-year-old said of the vocation her father was ordered to abandon, leading to the family's income being slashed. Although security has improved, her father is too fearful of the militias' return to start up his business again - but Lamis, at least, has been able to restart her studies, walk down the streets and dare to dream again.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/18/islamabad-war-islamic-militants
Fortifications are springing up across Islamabad as foreigners retreat from public view and Pakistanis worry about the possibility of a Mumbai-style attack on shops, offices or even schoolchildren. Twelve-metre (40ft) high sandbag walls, nests of gun-toting soldiers and concrete blast walls have started to appear around the once sleepy federal capital, where over the last year Taliban suicide bombers have attacked a five-star hotel, the Danish embassy and several army and police posts. The most visible precautions have been taken at UN offices, most of which now resemble facilities in war zones. "In terms of security instability Pakistan has become as dangerous as Iraq and Afghanistan," said a senior UN official.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/18/afghanistan-womens-rights-politicians
Despite being called a prostitute and a bitch by furious madrasa students, Shinkai Karokhail, one of Afghanistan's 68 MPs with seats constitutionally reserved for women, described what happened on Wednesday morning as "a wonderful occasion". "It was the first time in the history of Afghanistan that women were aware of their rights," she said. "It was a fantastic statement that women will demand equal rights." The previous evening one of Afghanistan's most powerful Shia clerics, Mohamad Asif Mohseni, published an order on his personal television station that members of his sect must not allow their wives and daughters to attend the unprecedented and historic demonstration in Kabul against a law the UN says legalises marital rape.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/17/bbc-head-religion-christian
A couple of weeks ago, the Sunday Telegraph ran a front-page story alleging that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was worried the appointment of a Muslim as head of religion at the BBC would "sideline" the "Christian voice". Coincidentally, the Sunday Times ran a remarkably similar story the same day, as did the Daily Mail the following day. (Religious programs are only of interest to a minority of British listeners and viewers. I'll wager most folk couldn't give a damn who gets the job. It is a lot of fuss about nothing. An atheist would be the most impartial holder of such an office)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/17/racism-conference-islam-durban-ii
Intensive diplomatic efforts are under way to salvage a UN conference on combating racism amid western fears that Muslim countries may use it to attack Israel, restrict freedom of expression and promote Islamist views on religion and sexual orientation. The World Conference Against Racism, due to open in Geneva on Monday, is a follow-up to a similarly named summit in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. That meeting saw vocal clashes over Palestine, the likening of Zionism to racism, and the legacy of slavery. It ended in disarray when the US and Israel walked out. The decision of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran and a Holocaust denier, to attend this year's event has increased worries that the conference is being politicised.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/17/red-mosque-pakistan-cleric-bail
The cleric in charge of Islamabad's Red mosque made a triumphant return to the battle-scarred building last night, vowing to avenge his fallen supporters and to continue the fight for an Islamic revolution in Pakistan. Supporters shouting "jihad, jihad" carried Maulana Abdul Aziz into the mosque on their shoulders, nearly two years after a bloody 10-day siege that left more than 100 people dead and became a rallying cry for the forces of Islamist militancy. The jubilant welcome was a turnaround for Aziz, who was captured during the July 2007 siege as he tried to flee the mosque disguised in a burka (Pakistan takes another step back to the Middle Ages)
The crisis gay youth face in the Bible Belt struck home particularly hard for me this week while dining with members of a gay/straight alliance in a small Southern town. After asking the conversation-opener of the group -- "So, would you like to all share your coming out stories with me?" -- a young woman on my right named Angie* immediately burst out, "My mother came at me with a butcher knife!" Stunned, I was trying to process this when a young woman to my left whispered, "You don't want to hear my story, it's too violent." More violent than your mother attacking you with a butcher knife? How is that possible? What does that mean?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7974855.stm
A film recently opened in Cairo has revived a controversy about the depiction of Copts in Egyptian drama. The film, called One-Nil, tells the story of a Christian woman who is granted a divorce but cannot remarry because of the strict rules of the Egyptian Coptic Church.The film is the latest in a series of dramatic works which focus on Christian issues and characters. Starring Elham Shahin and Khaled Abou El Naja, the movie deals with the social circumstances of the Egyptian middle class. Within its plot and subplots, the film follows the tragic story of the heroine who wants to remarry.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7999168.stm
Saudi police say they are investigating a hoax that has seen people rushing to buy old-fashioned sewing machines for up to $50,000 (£33,500). The Singer sewing machines are said to contain traces of red mercury, a substance that may not exist. But it is widely thought that it can be used to find treasure, ward off evil spirits or even make nuclear bombs. (Maybe it could do all three!)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7999777.stm
Saudi Arabia says it plans to start regulating the marriage of young girls, amid controversy over a union between a 60-year-old man and a girl of eight. A court in Unaiza upheld the marriage on condition the groom does not have sex with her until she reaches puberty. (How very civilized...)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7998797.stm
Police in Nigeria say they have made 120 arrests following clashes when Muslim youths allegedly attacked a Christian procession on Easter Monday. Sectarian violence erupted in the towns of Gwada and Minna in the state of Niger when Christians were attacked and churches set on fire. (More from the religion of peace)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/14/AR2009041403455.html
For most of the country, the unanimous decision this month by the Iowa Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage was an unexpected and seemingly random victory for a movement that has long drawn its deepest support from major cities in liberal coastal states. But for Camilla Taylor, a Chicago-based lawyer for the gay rights group Lambda Legal, it was the logical conclusion to a deliberate seven-year effort to make the Midwestern state one of the first in the country to allow same-sex marriage.
Women were pelted with stones in Kabul as they mounted a rare street protest against a new Afghan law said to legalise marital rape. The group of up to 300 women faced verbal and physical abuse and at one point a volley of stones from a counter-demonstration by conservative men and women. Sections of the law, which rules on marital relations, divorce, inheritance and family matters for the country's Shia Muslim minority provoked international alarm when passed last month. One clause said a wife must submit to her husband's sexual advances one day in four, unless she is ill.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090413_israels_racist_in_chief/
There has been a steady decline from the days of the socialist Labor Party, which founded Israel in 1948 and held within its ranks many leaders, such as Yitzhak Rabin, who were serious about peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians. The moral squalor of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and Lieberman reflects the country’s degeneration. Labor, like Israel, is a shell of its old self. Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu Party, with 15 seats in the Knesset, is likely to bring down the Netanyahu government the moment his power base is robust enough to move him into the prime minister’s office. He is the new face of the Jewish state. (Faced with Hamas and Hezbollah the Israeli strategy seems to be "fight scum with scum". That will never solve anything)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6094270.ece
Facing another bloody summer of fighting in Helmand province, the Taleban commander uttered words that could cost him his life. “We all want peace. We want to put down our guns,” he said quietly. A powerfully built man with a flowing beard and a disarmingly soft voice, Commander Mansoor is — according to checks with Western and Afghan sources — a mid-level Taleban commander from southern Helmand, part of the bloody insurgency fighting against US and British troops in Afghanistan. At a meeting with The Times arranged by tribal intermediaries, however, he painted a picture of war weariness and of local communities desperate to find a way to escape a war that is seemingly without end. (Peace in which to behead schoolteachers perhaps? Is he telling the truth? Lying to one's enemy is no sin)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/14/religion-islam-secularism
On the first page of his book, Islam and the Secular State, Abdullahi an-Na'im writes: "In order to be a Muslim by conviction and free choice, which is the only way one can be a Muslim, I need a secular state." He explains that he is not advocating a secular society but a state which is neutral with regard to religion – a state whose institutions "neither favour nor disfavour any religious doctrine or principle", a state that has no enforcing role in religious matters. The object of state neutrality, an-Na'im says, is to facilitate "the possibility of religious piety out of honest conviction" and allow individuals in their communities the freedom "to accept, object to, or modify any view of religious doctrine or principle". States that take sides in such matters become an obstacle to religious freedom.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/15/afghanistan-taliban-lovers-elope-nimroz
A young couple who tried to elope in one of the most lawless and conservative parts of Afghanistan have been publicly executed by Taliban gunmen after their parents handed them over to be tried by insurgents. Officials from the south-western province of Nimroz say Gul Pecha, in her late teens, and her boyfriend Abdul Aziz, 21, were shot by a firing squad outside a mosque in their home village of Lokhi on Monday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/14/vatican-vetoes-obama-nominees-abortion
The Vatican has vetoed three of Barack Obama's potential nominees as US ambassador amid a growing dispute between the White House and the Roman Catholic church over the new administration's support for abortion rights and the lifting of a ban on stem cell research. Vatican sources told Italy's Il Giornale newspaper that among those rejected were Caroline Kennedy and two other Roman Catholics who were unacceptable to the pope because they have publicly stood against church dogma.
A Muslim organisation has issued a fatwa over mobile phone etiquette as verses from the Koran were being used as ringtones. A panel of clerics from the Islamic group Jamia Ashraf-ul-Madaris has ruled that the use of aayats - or verses from the Koran - as ringtones is anti-Islamic as people answer their calls midway through, leaving the verse incomplete. The organisation from the north Indian city of Kanpur has now set new rules over using phones.
Fernando Lugo, the president of Paraguay, admitted on Monday that he is the father of a child who was conceived when he was still a Roman Catholic bishop.
Pakistani government officials have told police to allow Taliban militants a free hand in a district they captured last week. The presence of the militants has spread fear in the area only 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad. Clashes erupted in Buner district last week after scores of Taliban moved in unopposed from the neighbouring Swat valley, where authorities struck a deal with Islamists in February to enforce Islamic law in a bid to end violence. "We have been instructed by the government to stay away from Taliban as they are our guests and should be allowed to walk around the marketplace", said, a police officer in Pir Baba police station in Buner district. He said he had been told that any action against the Taliban could derail peace process. (Peace process as in capitulation)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/14/sharia-law-in-pakistans-swat-valley
President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan signed a bill introducing the Islamic law into the Taliban-controlled Swat Valley last night, boosting fears that armed extremists were gaining power in the volatile north-western region. Zardari ratified the sharia law regulations after receiving cross-party support during a late evening sitting of parliament. During a short debate the prime minister, Yousaf Reza Gilani, said the new law had "the support of the nation". (A craven response to violent zealots will bring no peace - the women of Swat have been betrayed)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227033.600-praying-to-god-is-like-talking-to-a-friend.html
IS PRAYER just another kind of friendly conversation? Yes, says Uffe Schjødt, who used MRI to scan the brains of 20 devout Christians. "It's like talking to another human. We found no evidence of anything mystical." Schjødt, of the University of Aarhus, Denmark, and colleagues, asked volunteers to carry out two tasks involving both religious and "secular" activities. In the first task, they silently recited the Lord's Prayer, then a nursery rhyme. Identical brain areas, typically associated with rehearsal and repetition, were activated.
The fact that the latest suspected terrorist threat involves students should come as no surprise. It is the predictable result of three things: an insatiably violent Islamist ideology; the politically-correct refusal of our political class to admit reality; and the comprehensive neglectfulness of our university authorities. This country has already produced a number of students who have gone on to become jihadist murderers. If this situation is not to get even worse, it is time not just to start asking questions, but to demand answers.
We’ll soon know whether the BBC takes religion seriously, when it appoints a new head of commissioning for its re-structured Religion & Ethics Department. Director-general Mark Thompson, a Roman Catholic, claims that religion is important to him and to the corporation.. (Boring piece made even more so by the inclusion of the discredited "72 per cent of the British population who describe themselves as Christian" nonsense)
Pilgrims have been walking the wrong Way of the Cross for almost 1,000 years, a prominent archaeological expert on Jerusalem has claimed. The path they have been taking - called the Via Dolorosa or Via Crucis - starts in the wrong part of the city, according to Professor Shimon Gibson, a British-born academic who studied at University College London. For centuries it has been assumed that the place where Jesus was tried by Pontius Pilate was the Antonia Fortress in the north of Jerusalem. Christian pilgrims have consequently followed the route from there to Calvary Hill, believing this was the way Jesus dragged the cross. (This assumes that Jesus actually existed. See this examination of the evidence)
The man was in Iraq when he sent the SMS informing her she was no longer his spouse. Saudi Arabia practises a strict form of Islamic Sharia law, under which the law a man can divorce his wife by simply saying "I divorce you" three times. (It sounds as though the bastard has actually done her a favor)
In recent weeks, 25 young men and boys have been killed in the country and gay rights groups claim the government has given tacit support to the death squads by staying silent on the crimes. The lack of action by the authorities has prompted Amnesty International to the Iraqi President, Nouri al-Maliki, demanding "urgent and concerted action" by his government to stop the killings, according to the Independent. The majority of the deadly attacks have taken place in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, controlled by ultra-conservative Shia militia. The bodies of four gay men, each bearing a sign with the Arabic word for "pervert" on their chests, were discovered in Sadr City three weeks ago. No arrests have been made. Amnesty said the murders appeared to have been committed by militiamen and relatives of the victims, who had been incited by religious leaders who condemned 'deviancy'. (Yet again the religion of peace shows its true colors)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6081782.ece
A charity worker has been suspended after telling a colleague about his Christian beliefs against homosexuality, even though he says he is not homophobic and was merely responding to questions from a colleague about his beliefs. David Booker, 44, who works at a Christian hostel in Southampton, a charity whose patron is the Archbishop of Canterbury, was asked about his faith by a colleague, Fiona Vardy during a late shift last month. He told her he was opposed to same-sex marriages and to homosexual clergy but denied being homophobic and said that he had homosexual friends. (Persecution! Persecution! Thank god for the Christian Legal Centre)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6081919.ece
Four out of ten people in Britain believe in ghosts and more than half believe in life after death, according to research to be published today. Research by Theos, the theology think-tank, shows that seven out of ten people believe in the human soul and more than five out of ten believe in heaven. One in five believes in astrology or horoscopes, one in ten in Tarot or fortune telling and nearly three in ten people believe in reincarnation. (Fascinating. Does Theos have anything useful they should be doing?)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/12/archbishop-rowan-williams-easter-sermon
The Church of England should harness public disillusionment with materialism to encourage people to pursue a monastic lifestyle, the archbishop of Canterbury said in his Easter sermon. Rowan Williams said there could "hardly be a more propitious time" to promote a life of prayer and self-sacrifice than during the global economic crisis, which had "dealt a heavy blow" to the idea that people could gain fulfilment from a materialistic lifestyle. (This old fool lost what little credibility he had with his endorsement of sharia.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/13/atheists-christianity-religion-dawkins-bunting
When I threw off my Christianity, I did not throw out my Bible, I just learned to read it properly. Intelligent atheism rejects what is false in religion, but should retain an interest in what is true about it. I don't think many of my fellow atheists would disagree. Why is it, then, that we are increasingly seen as shrill, bishop-bashing fanatics who are tone deaf to the spiritual? The answer, I fear, is to be found in St Paul's Letter to the Galatians: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." In short, we had it coming. (Julian Baggini falls for the "shrill atheist" nonsense)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/13/terrorism-islamophobia-muslims-manchester-student
The father of a Pakistani computer science student detained under anti-terrorism laws has come forward to defend his son, calling him victim of anti-Muslim discrimination. "This is all about his prayers and his beard. I am his father and I know him. He is not involved in any mysterious plot," the man, whose son was one of 11 Pakistani students picked up in raids across the north-western England last week, told the Guardian in an interview in Pakistan.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/13/taliban-afghanistan-kandahar-achakzai-womens-rights
A leading female Afghan politician was shot dead yesterday after leaving a provincial council meeting in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, which her colleagues had begged her not to attend. Sitara Achakzai was attacked by two gunmen as she arrived at her home in a rickshaw - a vehicle colleagues said she deliberately chose to use to avoid attracting attention.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1077422.html
Iran was behind the planning of terror attacks against targets in Egypt by Hezbollah operatives, the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram quoted a senior official in Cairo as saying Thursday. Two employees of an Iranian satellite TV channel planned the attacks, the paper said, which were meant to be carried out simultaneously at a number of locations across the country.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6081397.ece
Pope Benedict XVI today urged mankind to fight "a peaceful battle" to "rediscover grounds for hope" despite disasters such as the Abruzzo earthquake, food shortages, financial turmoil, climate change and "the ever-present threat of terrorism." Earlier, in his Easter Day message "urbi et orbi" (to the city and the world), the Pope said that the Resurrection was "not a fairytale" and attacked the "emptiness" of materialism and atheism. He said that thanks to the Resurrection of Christ "death no longer has power over man". (The little anti-aircraft gunner delivers his nonsensical Easter message)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/12/barack-obama-religion-homosexuality
For decades, the "three Gs" have been a defining feature of the American political landscape. Guns, God and gays have been reliable hot-button issues constantly used to fire up Republicans and lambast Democrats.But there are signs of a fundamental shift away from the so-called "culture wars" that have raged across American public life since at least the 1970s. In his first two months in office, Barack Obama has moved forward on a series of controversial issues yet his popularity has barely suffered.
Is there a connection between same-sex marriage and mass murder? That's what one religious right outfit is suggesting. This week, Morality in Media disseminated a statement noting that the Iowa Supreme Court had legalized gay marriage on the same day that a gunman murdered 13 people in Binghamton, New York. The headline on the release: "Connecting the Dots: The Line Between Gay Marriage and Mass Murders." The group's president, Bob Peters, notes that the "underlying problem is that increasingly we live in a 'post-Christian' society, where Judeo-Christian faith and values have less and less influence." And, he continues, this "secular value system is also reflected in the 'sexual revolution,' which is the driving force behind the push for 'gay marriage.'"
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/09/state/n164534D55.DTL&tsp=1
A man who called himself a naturopathic doctor and told patients his supplements could cure cancer was charged Thursday with practicing medicine without a license and giving patients unapproved drugs, prosecutors said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/10/AR2009041003638.html
When Afghanistan's government quietly enacted a sweeping law last month restricting the rights of minority Shiite women, few Afghans were aware of what it said. But since the law's contents became known here just over a week ago, it has provoked an extraordinary public debate on the once-taboo topic of religion and sex in this conservative Muslim nation and spurred an unprecedented protest by senior officials. The law, which was approved by parliament and signed by President Hamid Karzai, codifies proper behavior for Shiite couples and families in the most intimate detail. It requires women to seek their husband's permission to leave home, except for "culturally legitimate" purposes such as work or weddings, and to submit to their sexual demands unless ill or menstruating.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6074235.ece
Leading Roman Catholic adoption agencies have severed their links with the Church so that they can comply with the law and provide a service to gay couples. The Times has learnt that five big agencies, including the largest in the country, felt that they had no choice because the Church opposes gay adoptions. Some agencies are changing their constitutions, funding structures and even their names.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6074562.ece
Rolling up the sleeve of his grubby cream shirt, Ananda Joshi shows off a deep scar, 3in long and 1in wide, where he was stabbed by an angry mob in this south Indian town last year. His crime? The 47-year-old electrician’s assistant is an Untouchable, or Dalit, and he had used a public lavatory in an area inhabited by members of the higher levels of the Hindu caste system. No one has been arrested, let alone convicted, nor does Mr Joshi expect them to be. (So much for India being a democracy)
Slide show of loons in the Philippines playing the crucifixion game.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/10/easter-christianity
A message to the archbishop of Westminster: your lot didn't invent this holiday, so stop trying to force religion on the rest of us. (Good op-ed from Cath Elliott)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/11/kingsway-international-christian-centre
A pentecostal church based in a disused cinema in north-east London has emerged as one of the country's richest religious institutions. The Kingsway International Christian Centre, in Walthamstow, has filed company accounts which reveal it made a £4.9m profit over the last 18 months. It also has assets of £22.9m - more than three times the amount held by the foundation which maintains St Paul's Cathedral. The church is led by a controversial Nigerian pastor, Matthew Ashimolowo, who earns a salary of £100,000 a year and preaches that God wants you rich. (Or more accurately god wants him, Ashimolowo, rich)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/09/indigo_child/
A Russian schoolgirl has wowed the crowds at an exhibition of youthful scientific inventions by rolling out a high-tech Venus rover, Pravda reports. Anna Shvetsova, of Noginsk, near Moscow, used “A Step to the Future” to demonstrate her "silvery disk, reminiscent to either a UFO or two bowls glued together" which apparently uses an engine based on Tolchin’s inertioid. (Anna is an indigo child no less!)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/09/AR2009040903505.html
Pakistan seems like a Molotov cocktail waiting for a match. Its ruling elite bickers over politics, while out on the streets Taliban insurgents step up their suicide attacks. Its military plays the role of national conciliator even as it worries about Muslim revolutionaries in its own ranks. Meanwhile, the United States, Pakistan's historic friend and benefactor, is symbolized in the popular mind by unmanned drones that cruise over the western frontier assassinating Taliban militants by remote control.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/09/AR2009040904063.html
Faith organizations and individuals who view homosexuality as sinful and refuse to provide services to gay people are losing a growing number of legal battles that they say are costing them their religious freedom. (Live with it. What these jerks call religious freedom is merely freedom to discriminate)
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090408_taliban_the_sequel/
Maybe it was the sex that caught our attention. Sex has a way of doing that. The lead of the story, after all, was that any Shiite woman in Afghanistan would be required by law “to fulfill the sexual desires of her husband.” Or maybe it wasn’t the sex. Maybe it was the report that under this religious law, Shiite women could leave their homes alone only for “legitimate purposes.” Either way, the story ricocheted around the world as if it were a trailer for a horror movie: “Taliban, the Sequel.” This time our man in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai, signed a Personal Status Law that enshrined the lowest personal status on women from the Shiite minority that makes up 10 percent of the Afghan population. He bargained women’s lives like a chit in the struggle for political power, wooing the religious right in the run-up to the summer election.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/melanie_reid/article6062107.ece
Hospitals have never needed God more. A&E departments are a war zone. There could not be a worse time to get rid of their chaplains. (Melanie Phillips misses the point. The NHS should stop funding chaplains and leave the churches to do it. No one has suggested removing them.)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6070052.ece
A total of 272 people have been confirmed dead after Italy’s deadliest earthquake in 30 years. Dr Colangeli, 52, prides himself on being a man of science, yet he attributes his son’s survival to “something close to divine intervention”. (And all of the people that died, or were crippled, that was divine intervention too, was it?)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/apr/09/religion-controversiesinscience
Can science be used to prove the existence of God? (No. This is an interview with John Polkinghorne quantum physicist turned clergyman)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/10/contraception-ads-archbishop-westminster
The newly-appointed Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, has used his first interview since being named by the Pope last week to denounce plans to permit television advertisements for condoms and birth control clinics.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/10/student-visas-pakistan-terrorism
With certain inevitability, the Pakistan connection to the latest terror arrests has emerged: 11 of the 12 people arrested in Wednesday's dramatic raids on houses and businesses in north-west England were Pakistani nationals. No one has been charged yet in connection with any alleged terrorist offences, but this has echoes of previous plots - Pakistan, and Pakistanis, have been connected to most of the major terrorist plots in Britain since 2001, including the July 7 2005 attacks on London.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/10/blair-think-about-iraq-war
Tony Blair today discussed again how he does not pass a "single day" without reflecting on the aftermath of the Iraq war. In a wide-ranging Easter interview, the former prime minister spoke of his religious faith being a "comfort" to him at all times. (Pass the sickbag)
http://www.slate.com/id/2215127?nav=wp
For thousands of years, skeptics and believers alike have debated whether the events described in the Passover story—the parting of the Red Sea, the 10 plagues, and the burning bush—actually took place. (Another pointless exercise in explaining miracles in the Bible)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/08/AR2009040804077.html
DEPOK, Indonesia -- Ismi Safeya is a student at an Islamic school who veils her hair for modesty, prays five times a day and is inspired by the idea of a society based on Muslim principles. But when the 18-year-old casts her vote for the first time in parliamentary elections Thursday, she won't vote for an Islamist party. "The wisest choice is a government not dependent on Islamic law," she said, acknowledging the religious diversity of Indonesia and arguing that rules must be fair for everyone. "Islam actually guides our lives, but it doesn't seem to be shown in the way we vote."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/08/AR2009040804378.html
On March 25, a Taliban Web site claiming to be the voice of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" boasted of a deadly new attack on coalition forces in that country. Four soldiers were killed in an ambush, the site claimed, and the "mujahideen took the weapons and ammunition as booty." Most remarkable about the message was how it was delivered. The words were the Taliban's, but they were flashed around the globe by an American-owned firm located in a leafy corner of downtown Houston.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6063469.ece
Cheetham Hill has been the centre of terror investigations before now. In November 2007, Abdul Rahman, 25, from Pakistan, became the first person in Britain to be convicted of disseminating terrorist information. He was also the first to be convicted of helping another person to breach a Home Office control order. He ran a cell of disaffected and radical young Muslim men, which was largely based at a council house in Cheetham Hill, recruiting them for a “holy war” against the coalition forces in Afghanistan. At least one of their number travelled there and sent home a message in which he encouraged others to follow him.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6062601.ece
A controversial law that reintroduces many Taleban-era restrictions on women has provoked a rare public protest from liberals in Afghanistan’s increasingly divided Establishment. Five Cabinet ministers were among nearly 200 Afghan officials and intellectuals who issued a petition opposing the law yesterday, claiming that it “violates the essence of the Afghan Constitution and principle of selfautonomy (sic) of citizens, [and] permits women to be dealt with not as human beings . . . but rather as an object”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/08/middleeast-islam
Ninety years ago in Egypt a new political party was formed. The Secular party, as it was initially known, campaigned under the slogan: "Religion belongs to God, the homeland belongs to everyone." The Secular party did not oppose religion as such but objected to the Egyptian king's use of religion to boost his authority. Today, it is almost unimaginable that anyone in Egypt, or any other Arab country for that matter, would be foolhardy enough to set up a political party with such a name or platform. In the intervening years, secularism has become a dirty word, and debates about separating religion from the state – a necessary condition if liberty is ever to flourish in the Middle East – have been firmly shut down
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/08/italy-pope-benedict-xvi
The secular state in Italy is under threat from Papal power in an ever more intolerant and triumphalist Church. If the chamber of deputies (the lower house of the Italian parliament) confirms the living will law, which has already been approved by the Italian Senate (the upper house) it will reintroduce an oppressive climate of callous Papal obscurantism. Silvio Berlusconi's coalition, completely in the grip of the hysterical fundamentalists and Communione e Liberazione, fellow travellers of the Lefebvre traditionalists, has backed a shameful measure: that the patient and his/her family's will, despite being expressed before a notary, is not binding for the doctor. Under no circumstances can treatment be suspended.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/09/indonesia-parliamentary-elections
Indonesians began voting today in parliamentary elections that could determine if president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will have enough support to win a second five-year term needed to push through aggressive economic and institutional reforms. The vote will also test the role of Islamic parties in politics.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090408/tuk-hamza-s-sons-in-car-ringing-scam-dba1618.html
Three sons of hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza are facing jail after admitting taking part in a £1 million car ringing racket. The two-year plot targeted high value BMWs, Range Rovers and Mercedes that had been left for weeks in long-stay car parks. Using false identities, conmen tricked the DVLA into diverting registration details from the real owners to a string of addresses. The fraudsters would then go to dealerships across London to claim the spare keys.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6046578.ece
The new Archbishop of Westminster has attacked the heads of the Premier League and Setanta Sports for showing “disdain” for the religious traditions of Britain. The Most Rev Vincent Nichols, who will be installed at Westminster in May, has written a strong letter of complaint to Richard Scudamore, the chief executive of the Premier League and Trevor East, the director of sport at Sentanta. (That will endear the idiot to footie fans)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7989151.stm
One person has been killed and four injured in a shooting at a Korean Christian retreat in California, officials say. The gunman was believed to be one of the people injured at a campground in Temecula, about 85 miles (135km) southeast of Los Angeles, police said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7989016.stm
An Egyptian court has withdrawn the publishing licence of a monthly magazine, Ibdaa (Creativity), because it carried a "blasphemous" poem. In its ruling the court said the poem, printed two years ago, had included "expressions that insulted God".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/apr/07/sexual-abuse-false-memory-syndrome
Despite the falling away of media interest, families are still being torn apart when 'recovered' memories of childhood sexual abuse are introduced into the minds of vulnerable people
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/08/asa-cheat-death-pom-wonderful-ad
A soft-drink ad featuring a noose has been banned for misleading consumers by claiming that the juice could help consumers "cheat death" and live longer. The poster campaign, by pomegranate juice maker POM Wonderful, featured a bottle of the product with a frayed noose around the neck and the line "Cheat death. The antioxidant power of pomegranate juice." The Advertising Standards Authority received 23 complaints that the claims in the ad "misleadingly exaggerated" the health benefits of drinking the juice.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6055696.ece
Tony Blair has challenged the “entrenched” attitudes of the Pope on homosexuality, and argued that it is time for him to “rethink” his views. Speaking to the gay magazine Attitude, the former Prime Minister, himself now a Roman Catholic, said that he wanted to urge religious figures everywhere to reinterpret their religious texts to see them as metaphorical, not literal, and suggested that in time this would make all religious groups accept gay people as equals
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6047263.ece
A controversial law condoning marital rape and reintroducing Taleban-era rules for Afghan women has been shelved after an outcry in the West. The Afghan Foreign Ministry said that the law had not been enacted, while Justice Ministry officials said that its contents might be reconsidered. The legislation was put on hold pending a review. (It doesn't need a review it wants bloody striking down)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/06/denmark-nato
Rasmussen's unpopularity in the Muslim world may become a liability for Nato. As such it is perhaps a bit surprising that Obama chose to support the Dane. For Rasmussen is not a pragmatist dove: under his leadership, Denmark has been involved in more wars than in the last 150 years put together, and his strong belief in western values as a common denominator may sit uneasily with many of the world leaders that Nato has to deal with. Likewise, his continued endorsement of the DPP has divided the Danish political landscape into two blocs and has given the nationalist party a final say on matters such as immigration, religion and Danishness. His ability to convince Muslims around the world that he is not their foe will be put to the test today when he speaks about Islam in Istanbul. (Op-ed on NATO's new secretary general)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/06/pakistan-afghanistan
Pakistanis have been offered a frightening glimpse into the true character of the Taliban over the past weeks. Last Monday, 30 March, a group of heavily armed men in police uniforms stormed a police academy killing 11 and injuring close to another 100. Those traumatised police cadets that survived painted a grisly picture of bloodstained walls and body parts. The leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the umbrella network of pro-Taliban groups in the country, Baitullah Masud claimed responsibility for the attack. (See here an interesting comment on creeping Islamism)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/06/pakistan-flogging-video-court
Pakistan's supreme court today launched an investigation into a video showing Taliban militants flogging a 17-year-old woman, hours before top American officials were due in Islamabad for talks on the country's deteriorating security situation. The recently restored chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, summoned senior government officials before a special eight-judge bench in response to public outrage over the video, which shows a bearded militant whipping the screaming woman 34 times.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/07/barack-obama-turkey-islam
Barack Obama extended an olive branch to the Muslim world from the floor of Turkey's parliament yesterday by declaring the US was not "at war with Islam" but instead sought its partnership to pursue common goals. In his first visit to a predominantly Muslim country, he praised Islam's contribution to civilisation and said America's relationship with it must extend beyond fighting terrorism.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7985032.stm
A series of six bombs in Baghdad has killed more than 34 people and injured about 110, as the US military announced its first combat death in weeks. One blast tore through the crowded Shia district of Sadr City, killing 12 people and wounding 28.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7984762.stm
Barack Obama has declared that the US "is not at war with Islam", in a major speech during his first visit as president to a mainly Muslim country. Addressing the Turkish parliament, Mr Obama called for a greater partnership with the Muslim world and said the US would soon launch outreach programmes. "America's relationship with the Muslim world cannot and will not be based on opposition to al-Qaeda," he said. The president also reiterated that the US government strongly supported Turkey's bid to become a member of the European Union. (The Turkish government's Islamist streak will jeopardize any bid for EU membership.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/05/AR2009040501586.html
Most Americans think President Obama's pledge to "seek a new way forward" with the Muslim world is an important goal, even as nearly half hold negative views about Islam and a sizable number say that even mainstream adherents to the religion encourage violence against non-Muslims, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
A human skull, femur, and other bones were found on the altar, and detectives were investigating whether human sacrifices were carried out at the church in Argentina. Police arrested the 44-year-old priest after allegations that he forced female followers into prostitution to raise money for the Umbanda cult, a spiritualist religious group which has followers throughout South America.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6040067.ece
A suicide bomb attack on a Shia mosque in central Pakistan killed at least 35 people and wounded more than 150. Up to 2,000 worshippers had gathered for prayers at the mosque in Chakwal town where the bomber, believed to be in his teens, set off an explosive. (More from the religion of peace)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6040521.ece
Medieval knights hid and secretly venerated The Holy Shroud of Turin for more than 100 years after the Crusades, the Vatican said yesterday in an announcement that appeared to solve the mystery of the relic’s missing years. (Speculation dressed up as fact)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/apr/03/bnp-far-right-religion
Jesus coming out for the BNP was one of the more bizarre religious spectacles of this week. The party's new poster quotes Jesus, the well-known white supremacist, saying "if they have persecuted me they will also persecute you." Often assumed to be directed at believers arrested for their refusal to worship other Gods, it turns out that these words are actually about the sufferings of far right political parties whose members are not allowed to be clergy in the Church of England.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/02/india-elections-islam-hinduism
As India prepares for the 15th general election since it became a republic in 1950, the country's religious minorities are anxious. The impressive economic growth that put India on the covers of major western news weeklies has not touched their lives, and they are acutely aware of their precarious position in a country that is routinely celebrated by the rest of the world as a redoubt of western-style modernity in a region associated with backwardness.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/135152/iraqis_execute_six_gay_men_in_past_10_days/
An Iraqi defense ministry official reports that at least six gay men have been shot dead in two separate incidents during the past 10 days in a Shia-controlled part of Baghdad. The official said today that three bullet-riddled bodies of gay individuals have been identified in Sadr City: “Three corpses of homosexuals have been recovered in Sadr City. Two of the bodies, found on Thursday, had pieces of paper attached on which was written the word ‘Pervert.’ The third body was retrieved on Friday,” the official said. (The word is murder not execute)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/03/AR2009040300376.html
Iowa became the third state in the country and the first from the rural heartland to legalize same-sex marriage when its Supreme Court yesterday unanimously struck down the state's decade-long ban.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5087523/Dancing-Pope-advert-banned.html
A nightclub leaflet showing the late Pope John Paul II holding a bottle of beer and dancing with a blonde woman has been banned. The Advertising Standards Authority branded the flyer offensive and ordered it to be removed after a complaint by the Ipswich and Suffolk Council for Racial Equality (ISCRE) on behalf of angry Poles and Catholics. The leaflet showed Pope John Paul II with a bottle of beer dancing with a blonde woman wearing a short dress.
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article6032010.ece
Senior family judges have joined Muslim leaders in condemning forced marriage as intolerable and a gross abuse of human rights. Sir Mark Potter, Britain’s most senior family judge, and Mr Justice Munby, a High Court judge, said the challenge was to spread the message that forced marriage was not acceptable, and pledged the courts’ backing to prevent such marriages. The judges were speaking at a seminar on forced marriages at the London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel, East London, where four key Muslim organisations — the Islamic Sharia Council, the Council of Mosques, the Islamic Cultural Centre and the East London Mosque — said that forced marriage was contrary to Islam and not to be condoned. (It would be useful to have the concept of "forced marriage" clearly defined so that all sides and the public can know they are talking about the same thing)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6032196.ece
The extremist cleric Abu Qatada has issued a 6,000-word rallying cry to his followers from inside one of Britain’s most secure prison units. The Palestinian preacher hails the “victory” of the Mujahidin and claims that his treatment has helped to radicalise a new generation of young British Muslims.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/03/religion-islam
A few days ago Bob Lambert and Jonathan Githens-Mazer complained about the "unnecessary schism" created between the government and "British Islamists". They are right up to a point: it is good to have British Muslims engaged in British politics, and we should not be shocked or surprised when they express concern about the treatment of fellow Muslims elsewhere in the world. However, Lambert and Githens-Mazer are not talking just about Muslims but "Islamists" – who they define, citing the Oxford Dictionary of Islam, as Islamic political or social activists. This is the broadest possible definition and it helps their argument. But it doesn't help us to distinguish between politically active Muslims who are unfairly shunned and those who ought to be challenged because their ideas undermine democracy and freedom. (Good piece from Brian Whitaker)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/04/livnat-landver-photos-israel
Two female ministers within a 30-strong cabinet may not sound like such a big deal to most. However, it was two women too many for Israeli ultra-orthodox newspapers, so they simply airbrushed the offending female figures out of photographs of Binyamin Netanyahu's new cabinet, on the grounds that printing pictures of women is "immodest".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/04/new-archbishop-westminster-catholics
Religion still has a vital role to play in uniting communities in Britain, the new Archbishop of Westminster said yesterday in his first public appearance since accepting the job from Pope Benedict XVI. The Most Rev Vincent Gerard Nichols, who was the favourite to inherit the office, has long impressed the Roman Catholic hierarchy with his spirited defence of traditional values and his ease with the media, and admits to being blessed with the "gift of the gab" (Another bloody fantasist who cannot see that religion divides it does not unite)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/04/taliban-flogging-inquiry-pakistan
The Pakistani government has ordered an inquiry into the flogging of a 17-year-old woman by Taliban militants in the troubled Swat valley, after public outrage triggered by shocking video footage of the punishment.The images, played yesterday on private television channels, show a burka-clad woman being pinned to the ground by two men while a third whips her backside 34 times. The woman is seen screaming and begging for mercy as a crowd of largely silent men look on. She is accused of having had an illegal sexual relationship, according to local law. Her brother is among those restraining her.
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13416209
America rejoins the argument over which human rights are sacred. (Good piece on the UN religious defamation nonsense)
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/20090402_troy_jollimore_on_the_god_debate/
“Ever since the Enlightenment,” write John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge in “God Is Back,” “there has been a schism in Western thought over the relationship between religion and modernity. Europeans, on the whole, have assumed that modernity would marginalize religion; Americans, in the main, have assumed that the two things can thrive together.” (Fairly scathing review of a book by two religious apologists)
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090401_silence_meets_despair_of_afghan_women/
Afghanistan’s women are no longer in vogue. It was only a few years ago that Laura Bush, who normally shied from causes that could be considered controversial, took up their banner. “The brutal oppression of women is a central goal of the terrorists,” the first lady said in a radio address shortly after President Bush launched the U.S-led invasion to overthrow the Taliban following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “The plight of women and children in Afghanistan is a matter of deliberate human cruelty, carried out by those who seek to intimidate and control.” That was then. This is now: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has just signed a law that forces women to obey their husbands’ sexual demands, keeps women from leaving the house—even for work or school—without a husband’s permission, automatically grants child custody rights to fathers and grandfathers before mothers, and favors men in inheritance disputes and other legal matters. In short, the law again consigns Afghan women to lives of brutal repression.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/02/taliban-pakistan-justice-women-flogging
A video showing a teenage girl being flogged by Taliban fighters has emerged from the Swat Valley in Pakistan, offering a shocking glimpse of militant brutality in the once-peaceful district, and a sign of Taliban influence spreading deeper into the country. The two-minute video, shot using a mobile phone, shows a burka-clad woman face down on the ground. Two men hold her arms and feet while a third, a black-turbaned fighter with a flowing beard, whips her repeatedly. (What big brave men they are beating up a girl. These scum are beneath contempt - as is the supine Pakistani government)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/30/AR2009033002931.html
Accepting a plea bargain that her attorney described as unprecedented in American jurisprudence, a 22-year-old Maryland woman yesterday agreed to cooperate in the prosecution of other defendants in the death of her son under the condition that charges against her be dropped if the child rises from the dead.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/02/muslim.minister.defrocked/
Ann Holmes Redding has what could be called a crisis of faiths. For nearly 30 years, Redding has been an ordained minister in the Episcopal Church. Her priesthood ended Wednesday when she was defrocked. The reason? For the past three years Redding has been both a practicing Christian and a Muslim.
The Catholic Church leadership continues to render itself more and more irrelevant with out-of-date and loudly proclaimed stances on abortion, reproductive rights, gay rights, AIDS policy, stem cell research — the list can go on and on, until the End Times. But a new Gallup poll reveals that most American Catholics appear comfortable existing in the new millennium.
Rev Markus Bomhard, 38, an evangelical preacher from Eschborn, Hesse, glued breasts on to his "Eve" character and even recreated the Passion in plastic, depicting the Crucifixion by using a hairdryer to melt and mould the Christ figure's hands to a cross. But the montage attracted the wrath of Germany's favourite toy company, which produces the Klicky figures used by the pastor, after a series of pictures were published on the internet.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/31/AR2009033103201.html
Some friends who are loyal alumni of Notre Dame are distressed that God's alma mater is hosting a pro-choice president at commencement. For decades, they argue, Notre Dame has accommodated, legitimated and enabled pro-choice views, compromising its identity as a Catholic institution. They question the wisdom of the Obama invitation, which they believe adds to that confusion. But some critics go further, calling President Obama's appearance "an outrage and a scandal." And that goes too far.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/31/AR2009033103148.html
FOR DECADES, summit meetings of the Arab League have resounded with rhetoric about the alleged "double standards" of the West in enforcing U.N. resolutions or respecting international law. No communique of the group -- including the one issued from its summit this week in Doha, Qatar -- has been complete without a demand that conflicts be resolved "within the framework of international legitimacy." So it was interesting to see what else was in the latest statement issued by the kings, princes and authoritarian presidents of the Middle East and North Africa. First there was a call on "the international community to prosecute those responsible" for alleged "war crimes" committed by Israel in its recent offensive in Gaza. Then came an ardent defense of Sudanese dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir -- who was welcomed to the Doha summit despite an outstanding arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court on multiple war crimes charges. (My enemy's enemy is my brother is the code of these hypocritical Arabs who are keen to embrace a mass murderer)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/31/AR2009033100333.html
The reclusive commander of the Pakistani Taliban said Tuesday that his fighters had carried out Monday's bold assault on a police academy in eastern Pakistan and boasted that he was planning a terrorist attack in Washington that would astonish the world. Baitullah Mehsud, an Islamist leader from the South Waziristan tribal area in northwest Pakistan, called several international news agencies in Pakistan to assert responsibility for the armed occupation of the police training compound that ended with 11 people dead.
The Pope has taken the unusual step of ordering an investigation into an ultra-conservative Roman Catholic order after it revealed that its late founder had a mistress and fathered a child. The Legionaries of Christ revealed in February that its Mexican founder, Rev Marcial Maciel, who died last year at the age of 87, had a daughter who is now in her twenties. For decades he was also faced allegations that he sexually abused seminarians, and was disciplined by the Vatican on the charges in 2006. ("Disciplined" but not handed over to the police. Bloody hypocrites)
One of Saudi Arabia's most conservative Princes has moved closer towards the throne, casting a shadow over the Kingdom's tentative reforms. Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, the interior minister and a half-brother of King Abdullah, has assumed second place in the line of succession. His appointment as second deputy prime minister places him next in line after Crown Prince Sultan. (This is dismaying news for anyone concerned about human rights in that medieval country)
Women's rights campaigners have condemned village elders in Assam, India, who tied a 17-year-old-girl to a bullock and forced her to plough a field. The girl was seized with the consent of her father after local priests said it was a traditional ritual which would help to end a drought which had devastated farmers' crops. Police in Assam confirmed the "ritual" had been practised in Lohalibasti village, where it is known as "langol". Farmers and villagers were joined by a local Hindu priest who called on the father of Rupali Bhuyan to seek his consent.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6009526.ece
The Israeli Army today closed an internal investigation into war crimes allegedly committed during its Gaza invasion within a fortnight, concluding that soldiers had "purposely exaggerated" their accounts. (They would say that, wouldn't they?)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/G20/article6011316.ece
The Pope has urged Gordon Brown to push for the establishment of an ethical financial system at the G20 summit this week (Great, advice on ethics from a man who would rather see someone die of HIV/AIDS than have them use a condom)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/31/university-funding-china-iran
Some of the UK's finest universities are taking money from the world's worst regimes – without revealing it. (No surprise here that Islam is deeply involved)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/01/afghanistan-womens-rights-hamid-karzai
Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, came under intense western pressure yesterday to scrap a new law that the UN said legalised rape within marriage and severely limited the rights of women.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/30/AR2009033003312.html
In the shadow of the nation's most recognizable phallic symbol, they gather and march. There are about 50 of them, all ages, both sexes, nearly all white, smiling, quiet, enjoying the sun as they make a slow loop in front of the White House with their signs of protest. Their mounted photos of pink squealing babies make the event look, at first glance, like an anti-abortion rally. But look closer at the squealing baby photos and see why they're squealing. (Protest against male genital mutilation - the female is far, far more vile and that's what these people should be protesting)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/30/AR2009033000098.html
The brazen occupation of a Pakistani police academy Monday by heavily armed gunmen near the eastern mega-city of Lahore was the latest indication that Islamist terrorism, once confined to Pakistan's northwest tribal belt, now threatens political stability nationwide. (Handing these bastards Swat only convinced them with this government violence is the key)
http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/gardens/article6005645.ece
Of all the statements for which the Prince of Wales has been lampooned, one has endured more than most in the public imagination and done much to cement his reputation for eccentricity. Now, more than two decades after he said that it was “very important” to talk to plants and that “they respond”, the Royal Horticultural Society is trying to determine if he was right. (Hardly more loony than his belief a coffee enema cures cancer.)
In a speech at St Paul's Cathedral, the Prime Minister drew on religious doctrine in a highly-personal address which warned that "markets need morals". The speech is intended to set the tone for this week's G20 summit in London by placing world leaders under a moral obligation to agree new rules for the financial system. Mr Brown also revealed he had received a letter from the Pope earlier this week. (Idiot - religious faith is not a prerequisite for the possession of morals. Not just an idiot but an offensive idiot who played a role in the creation of the current financial crisis.)
The Legionaries of Christ revealed in February that its Mexican founder, Rev Marcial Maciel, who died last year at the age of 87, had a daughter who is now in her twenties. For decades he was also faced allegations that he sexually abused seminarians, and was disciplined by the Vatican on the charges in 2006.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6008782.ece
A Brazilian diver is expected to make a full recovery despite having a six-inch fishing spear embedded in his head after a freak accident. Dr Manoel Moreira told the Brazilian station Globo TV that it took five hours of high-risk surgery to remove the projectile from the Rio resident, who is doing well and is not likely to suffer major and lasting damage. Mr Abreu's father, Edilson, described the recovery as a “miracle". (No, not a miracle but the work of a highly-skilled surgical team. A miracle would be if Abreu healed spontaneously through divine intervention)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/31/robert-crumb-book-genesis
The famously subversive US cartoonist Robert Crumb has announced the completion of his long-awaited take on the Book of Genesis. The acclaimed satirist revealed on his personal website that he had finished the project, which is out this autumn, and which his UK publisher is predicting will "provoke the religious right". Four years in the making, Crumb worked from the King James Bible and Robert Alter's translation to reinterpret the Book of Genesis, from the Creation via Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to Noah boarding his ark.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/31/northern-ireland-police-force-recruiting-catholics
More Catholics are joining the police in Northern Ireland despite being targets for the Real IRA and Continuity IRA, a Cabinet minister revealedtoday .Northern Ireland's security minister Paul Goggins said that Catholic composition within the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) now stands at just over 26%, the highest level since the introduction of temporary 50:50 recruitment provisions in 2001. (Good news in the face of new terrorist murders)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/31/george-galloway-canada-ban
A judge yesterday upheld a government order banning the outspoken anti-war MP George Galloway from visiting Canada for a speaking tour. The government refused entry to Galloway on security grounds, saying he provided money to the Palestinian group Hamas, which is banned in Canada as a terrorist organisation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/31/music-orelsan-rap-misogyny
French rapper OrelSan was forced to explain himself this week, as outrage over his song Sale Pute (Dirty Slut), hit the headlines. Sale Pute is an immediately recognisable type: women are described only as "bitches" or "hos"; violence is a valid response to infidelity; and – most importantly – there is an imperative not to take the lyrics seriously
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/31/pakistan-taliban-lahore-police-attack
The Pakistani warlord Baitullah Mehsud today claimed responsibility for yesterday's assault on the police training academy in Lahore. Mehsud leads the biggest faction of the Pakistani Taliban and is based in the lawless South Waziristan tribal region, which borders Afghanistan. Earlier this month, the US put a $5m (£3.4m) bounty on his head, describing him as key commander of al-Qaida.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/91891/Hate-preacher-I-want-Sharia-law-in-Britain
RADICAL Muslim Anjem Choudary has brushed aside a Scotland Yard probe into his inflammatory speeches to demand that Britain should become a Sharia state. His voice rising with passion and vigour, he told his growing army of followers in central London on Friday night: “Let me tell you something – the Sharia will be implemented in Pakistan, it will be implemented in India and Bangladesh and even down the road in Downing Street.” (Want sharia? Go to Saudi Arabia or any place that has a medieval justice system)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article5960010.ece
Christianity in China is booming. With 100 million believers, far more than the 74 million-member communist party, Jesus is a force to be reckoned with in the People’s Republic. We talk to the new faithful who love China – but love God more
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5983220.ece
A graphic video featuring aborted foetuses was shown to teenage pupils at a Catholic school as part of a campaign against the Spanish Government’s planned abortion reform. Fifteen-year-olds at the Purisima Concepcion y Santa Maria Micaela school in Logrono, northern Spain, were shown images of the remains of foetuses, which feature in the film alongside pictures of a laughing Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister. (Then they can tell the kids about the deaths of women driven to having botched illegal abortions, the kids born into hopeless poverty just to balance the picture)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/26/religion-catholicism1
It may sound pretty nonsensical but I find myself nodding in hearty agreement with both Cath Elliot and Mary Kenny on whether religion is good for women. (That's because it is)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/28/pope-benedict-xvi-hiv
The Lancet has accused Pope Benedict XVI of distorting scientific evidence to promote Catholic doctrine following his remarks about condom use and HIV.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/28/pakistan-suicide-bomb-attack
A suicide bomb attack at a mosque during Friday prayers killed at least 50 people in Pakistan's tribal area, the territory described by Barack Obama yesterday as the "most dangerous place in the world".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/28/children-extremist-terrorism-uk-polic
One hundred and eighty schoolchildren across Britain have been identified as potential Islamic extremists by a police-run early intervention programme which aims to coax youngsters away from radical influences.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/28/spain-abortion-laws
A move to allow abortion on demand for Spanish women is ushering in perhaps the most virulent clash yet between the conservative clergy and the Socialist government of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whose gay marriage law drove hundreds of thousands of people on to the streets. The abortion proposal has shattered the fragile truce between women's groups and anti-abortion activists in this traditionally Catholic country.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090327/tuk-spooky-haunting-photo-baffles-ghost-45dbed5.html
An eerie image of a figure in period costume has spooked experts investigating apparent photographic evidence of ghosts. The picture, taken in May 2008, appears to show a man or woman in a ruff peering out of a barred window at Tantallon Castle. No mannequins or costumed guides are employed at the castle, and three photographic experts have confirmed that no digital trickery was used on the photo. (Oh gosh, then ghosts must be real....This piece finds the pics less than mysterious)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/24/sobrinho-abortion-catholic
If Brazilian Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho had had his way, an innocent nine-year-old girl would be living out a death sentence now. Carrying twins after being raped by her stepfather, the girl underwent an abortion after complaining of stomach pains four months into the pregnancy. Sobrinho's humane and Christian response? He excommunicated the girl's family, excommunicated the doctors who performed the abortion, and on being told that the medics had acted within the law, announced: "The law of God is above any human law." He then went on to say: "Abortion is much more serious than killing an adult. An adult may or may not be an innocent, but an unborn child is most definitely innocent. Taking that life cannot be ignored." I wonder how the death of a nine-year-old would have sat on his conscience. (Cath Elliott makes the point that "Wherever religion and its patriarchs rule, women's lives are in danger")
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/26/hazelblears-islam
In her misguided and ill-advised attempt to exercise control on the affairs of the largest independent Muslim organisation, the MCB, which has steadfastly and with honesty represented the views of Muslims over the years, Hazel Blears has used my attendance at the Global Anti-Aggression Campaign conference and the signing of a position document as the peg to hang her coat on. Her latest claim as stated in a letter on her behalf to our secretary-general and published in the Guardian today is that I signed a document "advocating attacks on Jewish communities all around the world". She had not raised this allegation before yesterday and it is entirely untrue. (Daud Abdullah telling it like it isn't.What the hell is the "Islamic Nation"?)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/mar/26/evolution-science-texas-school-board
Evolution is a scientific fact – except, perhaps, in Texas, where the school board is trying to cast doubt on it. So what do creationism and its new incarnation of "intelligent design" explain? Nothing. Despite all this, the Texas school board will vote this week on a bill that requires educators and textbooks to play up the "problems" with evolution, emphasising both its "strengths and weaknesses". The weaknesses supposedly involve "the insufficiency of common ancestry to explain the sudden appearance, stasis and sequential nature of groups in the fossil record." This is nonsense, of course. There is a mountain of evidence for common ancestry – ancestry that clearly explains the "sequential nature of groups in the fossil record".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/27/monarchy-catholicism-constitutional-reform
Gordon Brown has opened discussions with Buckingham Palace about ending the "anomaly", dating back to the 1701 Act of Settlement, that bans Catholics from marrying into the royal family.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/26/homosexuality-gay-cure-treatment-orientation
Gay men and women in Britain are being offered controversial treatments to reverse their homosexuality, despite there being no proof that such therapies are effective and fears that they are actually harmful. A survey of more than 1,300 therapists, psychoanalysts and psychiatrists throughout the country found more than 200 practitioners had attempted to change at least one patient's sexual orientation, while 55 said they were still offering the therapy. Some counsellors said they were motivated to help people change their sexuality because of their own moral and religious views, while others said they thought it might help those under pressure from discrimination.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/26/muslim-council-britain-hazel-blears
Britain's largest Muslim body has accused ministers of wanting to "undermine its independence" by demanding one of its leaders be removed from office. The accusation is the strongest public attack yet by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) in its row with the government after ministers broke off relations earlier this month.Hazel Blears, the communities and local government minister, wrote to the MCB demanding the resignation of Daud Abdullah, its deputy secretary general, after he allegedly called for violence against Israel. The private letter containing her ultimatum to the MCB was published in full (pdf) on Monday by the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/26/chemist-terror-arrested-bangladesh
A British chemist who was twice cleared in the UK of plotting explosions has been arrested by anti-terrorist police in Bangladesh, after a raid on an orphanage which officers say was used as a training camp for Islamist militants.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5971105.ece
Conservative peer Baroness Warsi was last night named Britain’s most powerful Muslim woman. The Conservative Shadow Minister headed the first Muslim Women Power List , which was announced at a dinner in Manchester. Paying tribute to the achievements of the successful women, Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: “I would like to congratulate Sayeeda Warsi and the other women who have been shortlisted for our inaugural Muslim Women Power List. “Our list of female Muslim high achievers challenges many stereotypes, celebrating some truly impressive individuals. This list is just the start of a more ambitious project to create a network of women defined by their professional capabilities and interests, where faith and their background may just be one part of who they are.” (Warsi is far from representative and under sharia she is still of less worth than a man)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5971074.ece
Since the September 11 attacks the British security services have agonised over how to monitor British Pakistanis who regularly travel back to Pakistan to study, get married or visit relatives. The problem is that, although most do just that, a significant number disappear into radical Islamic seminaries or militant training camps and return with the potential to carry out an attack. British security officials estimate that about 4,000 people have been trained in this way in Pakistan or Afghanistan and now account for three quarters of serious terrorist plots in Britain — which explains why Pakistan features so prominently in the new counter-terrorism strategy.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5972749.ece
An orphanage run by a British charity in Bangladesh has been raided by local security forces who say that it was being used as a training camp and arms factory for Islamic militants. The Rapid Action Battalion said today that it had arrested four people, including a teacher and three caretakers, and was searching for the head of the charity, a British citizen known only as Faisal.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/24/hate-speech-rowan-atkinson
For the last 33 years, if I opined publicly that black people should be murdered I would be prosecuted. Yet only last week former lawyer Anjem Choudary said at a London press conference that gay people should be "stoned to death". He remains unchallenged by the law. This is why Jack Straw is right to add a clause to the coroners and justice bill that would make "hatred against persons on grounds of sexual orientation" an offence. The clause would remove the get-out-of-jail-free card currently available to protect those who try to incite violence against gay people. But judging from the response you would think that Straw's clause was revoking every word of the Magna Carta and the European convention on human rights in one autocratic swoop
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/25/lebanon-islam
Ibrahim Mousawi was due to address a university course about political Islam this week, but will not be attending because he has now been banned from entering Britain. We invited him to write an article for Cif instead. (A serpent speaking honeyed words. The best comment is "Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid Guardian. Whenever and wherever people like Hezbollah have gained power, people like you are the first against the wall. Still the turkeys vote for Christmas.")
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/25/muslim-council-britain-hazel-blears
A standoff between the communities secretary, Hazel Blears, and the Muslim Council of Britain was said last night to "cut to the heart" of the government's revised counter-terror strategy to challenge those who defend terrorism and violent extremism.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/23/BAOU16LGNI.DTL
A long-standing lawsuit against a UC Berkeley evolution web site by a Roseville woman who takes the Bible literally has been rejected without comment by the U.S. Supreme Court, the court announced today. One page on Cal's 840-page "Understanding Evolution" web site says Darwinism can be compatible with religion. The four-year-old suit by Jeanne Caldwell said the government-funded web site contradicts her religious belief about the incompatibility of religion and Darwinism and amounts to a state position on religious doctrine that violates the Constitutional separation of church and state.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032301275.html
A federal judge ordered the Food and Drug Administration yesterday to reconsider its 2006 decision to deny girls younger than 18 access to the morning-after pill Plan B without a prescription. U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman in New York instructed the agency to make Plan B available to 17-year-olds within 30 days and to review whether to make the emergency contraceptive available to all ages without a doctor's order. In his 52-page decision, Korman repeatedly criticized the FDA's handling of the issue, agreeing with allegations in a lawsuit that the decision was "arbitrary and capricious" and influenced by "political and ideological" considerations imposed by the Bush administration. Plan B remains the focus of intense debate, particularly over whether pharmacists who oppose its use on moral grounds should be required to sell it.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5036835/Twins-sixth-sense-saves-drowning-sister.html
A teenage twin believes that her sixth sense helped her to save her sister's life as she was drowning in a bath. Gemma Houghton, 15, said she had a "feeling" that her sister, Leanne, needed help and ran upstairs to check on her. She found her lying lifeless and submerged under the water after suffering a fit in the bath and losing consciousness. (What a great piece of luck. One wonders how many other times she has had such a presentiment and then forgotten it when nothing untoward happened.)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5039928/UFOs-may-be-light-show.html
A group of UFOs spotted hovering over London may have been a laser light show, locals claim. At the weekend the Ministry of Defence issued files detailing scores of sitings of UFOs across the UK. It included a blue banana-shaped object with human limbs hovering above London in 1989.
Schoolchildren will be taught about the "rise of atheism" in a new religious studies GCSE, it has been announced. Lessons will also focus on Druids and Rastafarianism as part of a syllabus designed to boost understanding of religious diversity around the world. Attitudes by different faiths towards same sex marriages, human rights, gender equality and even GM crops will be among the topics covered. The course will largely snub traditional lessons on the Bible and other holy books. Examiners said the syllabus - by one of Britain's biggest exam boards - will make the subject more "relevant" to students. (This would appear to be a move in the right direction. Wait for howls of outrage from the churchmen over this unusually sensible move)
The alleged leader of an Italian religious group will go on trial on Tuesday charged with helping a Swiss gigolo blackmail millions of pounds from some of Europe's richest women, including a billionaire BMW heiress. Investigators believe Ernani Barretta, 64, holds the key to where Swiss con man Helg Sgarbi hid the fortune he swindled out of a succession of ultra-rich society women and industrialists' wives. The Italian businessman called himself the "Instrument of God", according to police, and told his 30 followers that he had special faith healing powers, could walk on water and was capable of being in two places at the same time.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5962357.ece
The Government's strategy for dealing with Islamist violence betrays an all too familiar spirit. The best antidote to “violent” extremism is deemed to be dealing with those “non-violent” extremists who hold exactly the same views. The Government's counter-terrorism strategy, published today, puts the emphasis on stopping the spread of Islamist ideology through education, propaganda and funding organisations and programmes run by Islamist extremists.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5962256.ece
The British Government is threatening to cut ties with the country's most high-profile Muslim organisation, the Muslim Council of Britain, over allegations that one of its most senior members is a supporter of Hamas. (If true this is welcome news indeed. Now what about George Galloway?)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5962736.ece
Pope Benedict XVI returned to Rome from his six day trip to Africa today to be greeted by support from Italian bishops for his controversial stand on condoms and protests from gay rights and left wing campaigners. Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the Italian Bishops Conference said the attacks on the Pope during his African trip had been "offensive and unacceptable" (Although not quite as bad as contracting AIDS/HIV after believing the old fool's lies about condoms.)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5962971.ece
It was described as a “phantasmagorical cocktail of inventions”, a “masonic plot” and a “pot pourri of lies”. Now a nervous Vatican is braced for the sequel to The Da Vinci Code and the return of its nemesis, Dan Brown. Angels & Demonsis the latest Brown thriller to be turned into a film, and already the Catholic Church is agonising over how best to respond: to urge the faithful to boycott the film, or to ignore it? The Vatican and the Italian Catholic Church condemned The Da Vinci Codein its book and film version, but some church officials argued that the campaign against it merely boosted the public’s curiosity by giving it the “oxygen of publicity”.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090324/tuk-bid-for-traditional-hindu-cremation-6323e80.html
An elderly Hindu man is going to the High Court in a bid to win the right to be cremated on a traditional open-air funeral pyre when he dies. In a test case on religious burials, Davender Ghai, 70, is challenging a refusal by Newcastle City Council to permit him to be cremated according to his Hindu faith. His human rights application is being supported by a wide range of Hindu organisations.
A recent study carried out by the Policy Exchange think tank found that nearly £90 million of taxpayers' money was being spent on reactionary Muslim groups in the hope that by building them up they may somehow divert radicals from a violent path. The report found that the Government was "underwriting the very Islamist ideology which spawns an illiberal, intolerant and anti-Western world view".
The Malaysian government has warned the country's lawyers not to debate legal issues relating to religion on the bar council's own website. At the heart of the row is whether non-Muslims in the multi-racial country should be allowed to use the word "Allah". Last year the government banned the Catholic Herald newspaper for using the word "Allah" to refer to the Christian God. The newspapers editors protest that in the Malay language the only word for "God" is "Allah". Around 60 per cent of Malaysians are ethnic Malays who are defined by law as Muslims and forbidden from leaving the religion. The rest of the population are mostly Buddhists, Hindus and Christians of Chinese and Indian origin. (80 is coming to the conclusion that Islam does not mean submission but trouble inextricably coupled with violence. The religion of peace? Get out of here)
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/132781/zombie_newt_gingrich_wants_more_brains%2C_er_religion/
Anyone who looks at the American landscape and sees "threats to religious liberty" is f*cking delusional. Newt Gingrich's career is like the stubbornest zombie in all the land. What will it take to kill this thing—a silver bullet? A stake? A machete? A Molotov cocktail to the undead head? Somebody just tell me, so we can kill his stumbling, blue-faced, boil-crusted, shredded clothes-wearing, incoherently gurgling, and BRAINS!-craving career once and for all and get on with our lives. (Melissa McEwan in over-the-top mode)
A round up of what went down in religious right circles this week. First up from the God Machine this week is an unfortunate situation in which public officials with a religious agenda have cost their communities dearly.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5955148.ece
Pope Benedict XVI’s first trip to Africa ended in further controversy yesterday after the deaths of two teenage girls in a stadium stampede in Angola. The Vatican said it had been told that up to 40 people were hurt in the rush to enter the stadium in Luanda, the capital, about four hours before the Pope arrived on Saturday. More than 30,000 young people attended the rally, in a country where more than half the population is under 18. (No doubt the dead will go straight to heaven)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/william_rees_mogg/article5955647.ece
The Pope's message is not the problem. The image of an ultra-conservative pontiff is false. The Vatican must overhaul its PR machine (Rees-Mogg talks bollocks)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/20/nigeria-gay-rights
I am still recovering from the pains and stress of making sure members of Changing Attitude Nigeria were present at last week's hearing of the same-sex marriage prohibition bill in Abuja. When we started Changing Attitude Nigeria in 2005, the first reaction I received from Archbishop Akinola was to allow his then communications officer to use his name to launch a smear campaign against me. What is my crime? My crime is that I said I was a gay Nigerian Anglican who is tired of living in the closet over my sexuality, which already was an open secret.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/23/rowan-williams-britain-religion-archbishop
Britain is not a secular country but it is "uncomfortably haunted by the memory of religion", the archbishop of Canterbury said yesterday. In a lecture called Faith and the Public Square, delivered at Leicester Cathedral, Dr Rowan Williams said Britain was "not necessarily hostile" to faith and that the church continued to offer people something that could not be found elsewhere. (More waffle from Williams. The UK grows more secular every day and he is in denial)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/23/islamic-studies-leadership-course
A course to help classically trained imams use their skills more effectively in the UK has been launched in Cambridge, with its first students enrolling in September. The one-year diploma in contextual Islamic studies and leadership is aimed at helping imams to be more responsive to the values and needs of British-born Muslims and better placed to deal with issues of cohesion, doctrinal radicalism and exclusion. Its 19 compulsory modules include understanding UK law and government, religious pluralism, Islam and gender, and managing mosques and charitable institutions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/20/pakistan-afghanistan
For once the news out of Pakistan was positive this week with the reinstatement of Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and all other judges sacked by the former president, Pervez Musharraf. But, in the afterglow of that great landmark in Pakistan's still youthful experiment with democracy, there were sobering reminders of the bitter reality of an encroaching Taliban insurgency.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/mar/17/templeton-quantum-entanglement
I believe that some of our most engrained notions about space and causality should be reconsidered. Anyone who takes quantum mechanics seriously will have reached the same conclusion. What quantum mechanics tells us, I believe, is surprising to say the least. It tells us that the basic components of objects – the particles, electrons, quarks etc. – cannot be thought of as "self-existent". The reality that they, and hence all objects, are components of is merely "empirical reality". (Nothing particularly new here. This guy's interpretation is one of several. Scroll down to the very bottom of the article and you will see d'Espagnat is a winner of the Templeton prize, always a warning sign. But see this from Pharyngula)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/22/ufos-aliens-di55-mod
As close encounters go, the claim by a woman that an alien attempted to seduce her on a country road sounds far-fetched, but files released today reveal that it was considered serious enough for the Ministry of Defence to investigate. The Norfolk woman who claimed she was approached by a man who said he came from another planet similar to Earth was questioned by the MoD intelligence branch DI55, whose brief was to investigate credible UFO reports. She told them that, during their 10-minute chat, the man said his race was responsible for creating crop circles and explained the importance of contact between humans and his own people. The woman, whose identity is not revealed in the government's "X-Files", was described by officials as "agitated" following the incident in which she "heard a loud buzzing noise behind her, then turned to witness a large, glowing spherical object rise steadily until it disappeared". (More crap "x-files" released. Why do they even bother?)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/22/pope-benedict-archbishop-cardiff
Pope Benedict XVI's Vatican advisers should do more to protect him from controversy, according to one of Britain's most senior Roman Catholics. Recent furores, including criticism over his comments on the use of condoms as a weapon against HIV/Aids, showed that the Vatican's press team was failing him, the archbishop of Cardiff, Peter Smith, said. He added that communication of the pope's messages was "not very satisfactory at the moment" and that he needed "very good, competent advisers". (It's Ratzinger that's the problem not his minions)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/20/religion-italy-pope-benedict
If there is one leader on earth who ought to be sending out clear and unequivocal messages, then it is surely the pope. Yet, once again, the signals from Benedict and the Vatican this week have been oddly confusing. In his written clarification of the pope's remarks aboard the plane taking him to Africa, his spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, explained that the church's policy was to concentrate on educating people in sexual responsibility, and that it did not believe that "aiming essentially at the wider diffusion of condoms was really the best, most far-sighted or efficient way to combat Aids". (More on His Ghouliness and the AIDS/condom lies)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/21/george-galloway-canada
A furious George Galloway last night vowed to fight a ban on him entering Canada on the grounds of national security. The MP for Bethnal Green and Bow had been due to speak at a number of events in the country but his anti-war stance was drawn to the attention of the government by a Jewish group. He will challenge the decision in court.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/mar/20/picket-anti-homophobia
A group of American Christian fundamentalists whose slogan is "God hates fags" is threatening to picket an east London primary school over its anti-homophobia work. A row broke out at George Tomlinson primary school in Waltham Forest, north-east London, earlier this month when some parents pulled their children out of lessons planned for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender history month. The school used books on homosexual relationships, in one case between two male penguins.
http://www.alternet.org/story/132550/the_coming_evangelical_collapse/
We are on the verge -- within 10 years -- of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West. Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century. (Opinion piece from Christian Science Monitor)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/17/atheism-christianity-debaptism
Over the weekend the BBC carried news of an attempt by a man called John Hunt to get himself debaptised from the Church of England. This caused a small volcanic eruption in the Christian blogosphere and a rush of emails from around the world (the story was carried on the World Service) to the National Secular Society (which had provided a tongue-in-cheek debaptism certificate to Hunt). The reactions ranged from the deranged ("you're possessed by devils – you are the antichrist") to the reasonably rational ("Baptism is a ritual more for the parents than the child – rather like a funeral provides comfort for the living rather than release for the dead").
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article5941506.ece
A campaign by two Muslim governors to give Islam a greater presence in a state school played a key part in forcing a successful head from her job, the High Court found yesterday. Erica Connor, 57, the former head teacher of the New Monument primary school in Woking, Surrey, was forced to leave the school because of stress after she was accused of Islamophobia. The High Court ruled yesterday that Surrey County Council had failed in its duty to protect her and to intervene when the actions of the governors created problems in the school’s governing body, and awarded her £400,000 damages. (Islamophobia is a nonsense word - its continued use by interested parties can only make the attitude it purports to describe a reality.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/20/faith-schools-judaism-religion-ideology
Simon Rocker, in his article on Haredim (strictly Orthodox) Jews, may be correct to say that they "suffer little defection from their ranks" (Face to Faith, 7 March). But in stating merely that "Haredim are far warier of secular culture", Rocker glosses over the level of ideological control to which young Orthodox Jews are subjected via a total exclusion from civil society, including an education entirely composed of faith schools from synagogue-administered nursery school to yeshiva or seminary.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/19/gay-rights-religion
The rhetoric of patriotism and morality is currently being used to try to justify the same gender marriage (prohibition) bill in Nigeria. Sex between men is already illegal, but this bill could be used to imprison people of the same sex who live together "as husband and wife or for other purposes of same sexual relationship" and anyone who "witnesses, abet[s] and aids" such a relationship. Not surprisingly, it has been condemned by human rights activists in Nigeria and internationally.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/20/omidreza-mirsayafi-iran-blogger-rouznegar
An Iranian blogger convicted of insulting the country's religious leaders has died in jail after taking a drug overdose. Omidreza Mirsayafi, 29, died in Tehran's notorious Evin prison on Wednesday, just over a month after a judge gave him a two-and-a-half year sentence for posting comments on his blog about figures including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
Fears over the threat to cricket posed by Islamic terrorism grew yesterday as it was revealed that two top Indian players were the targets of a kidnap plot hatched by Muslim militants. A court in India has heard that a Pakistan-based Islamic group planned to kidnap the country's former national cricket captain, Sourav Ganguly, together with legendary Test batsman Sachin Tendulkar. The confession was made by Tariq Mohammed and Ashfaq Ahmed, who were members of the Harkat ul-Jehadi Islami (Islamic Holy War Movement), a Kashmiri separatist organisation which draws inspiration from Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.
Up to 1,000 Gambian villagers were abducted by "witch doctors" and forced to drink hallucinogens, an international rights group said on Wednesday. Amnesty International called on the government of President Yahya Jammeh, who seized power in a 1994 coup and has claimed he can cure Aids, to halt the campaign and bring those responsible to justice. Police officers, soldiers and some of the president's personal security guards accompanied the "witch doctors" in the series of round-ups, witnesses said. In the most recent incident, which took place on March 9, paramilitary police armed with guns and shovels surrounded the village of Sintet before dawn.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/18/iran
Last night, millions of Iranians lit bonfires at sunset and jumped over them till midnight to celebrate Chaharshanbe Suri, the most prominent ancient Persian outdoor festival to prelude the New Year, Norouz, which is coming next Saturday. Chaharshanbe Suri (Red Wednesday in English), is an ancient Persian fire festivity from the Zoroastrian era which marks the euphoria of nature on the eve of spring, a Persian version of Guy Fawkes night with a difference. Despite all the crackdowns over the past 30 years by the Islamic Republic, the ritual is still observed by an increasing number of people who go on to the streets to sing the traditional song: "Give me your fiery red colour and take back my wintry sallowness." (The Arab religion has yet to supplant Iranian culture completely)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/19/police-brutatlity-racism
The Metropolitan police agreed to pay £60,000 damages to a British Muslim yesterday after admitting that officers had subjected him to a "serious, gratuitous and prolonged" attack. Babar Ahmad, who is accused of raising funds for terrorism, was punched, kicked, stamped on and strangled during his arrest by officers from the Metropolitan police's Territorial Support Group at his London home in December 2003.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/19/india-politics-gandhi-racism
Varun Gandhi, the lesser-known grandson of Indira Gandhi, was pitched into the centre of a national row yesterday after an election campaign video showed him apparently delivering a venomous attack on Muslims. The video, played repeatedly on Indian news television channels and on websites, shows him denigrating Muslims while addressing an election meeting in his parliamentary constituency in northern Uttar Pradesh, the home state of the charismatic Nehru-Gandhi family.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7949111.stm
People with strong religious beliefs appear to want doctors to do everything they can to keep them alive as death approaches, a US study suggests.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5927922.ece
The Pope is being more than disingenuous in his statement claiming that condom use will not solve the Aids crisis. No responsible agency or individual claims that condoms are a panacea. But they are a critical aspect of any programme that seeks to stem the spread of HIV. (More than disingenuous? He is killing people as surely as if he had fired a gun at their heads)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5927923.ece
In September 1990, John Paul II gave a speech in northern Tanzania that many believe set the tone for the Aids crisis in Africa. The Pope was unequivocal. He told his audience that condoms, then internationally accepted as the only real way to curtail the spread of the disease, especially in the developing world, were a sin in any circumstances. He lauded family values and praised fidelity and abstinence as the only true ways to combat the disease – seemingly ignorant of many traditional practices such as wives marrying the brothers of deceased husbands, a form of security in countries with no social services.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5927964.ece
The Pope caused dismay among Aids campaigners yesterday by declaring on his first trip to Africa that condoms were not the solution to the epidemic ravaging the continent. In his first public comments on condom use, an issue that has divided even Roman Catholic clergy working with Aids sufferers, he told reporters en route to Cameroon that Aids “cannot be overcome by distributing condoms – it only increases the problem” (It's a shame Ratzinger's father didn't use one)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/mar/18/afghan-star-documentary-music
It is the show that's rocking Afghanistan. But contestants on the country's answer to Pop Idol are risking not just humiliation, but their lives. Simon Broughton reports
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/16/scientology_xenu_confirmation/
A Scientology spokesman has confirmed that Scientologists believe that mankind's problems stem from brainwashed alien soul remnants created millions of years ago by genocidal alien overlord Xenu. The admission follows years of attempts to dismiss the story, first leaked by defectors, as anti-church propaganda.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5923927.ece
The Pope courted further controversy on his first trip to Africa today by declaring that condoms were not a solution to the Aids epidemic – but were instead part of the problem. In his first public comments on condom use, the pontiff told reporters en route to Cameroon that Aids "is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, and that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems". (Then Ratzinger is responsible for the resultant deaths and suffering of those who listen to his lies. Culture of life? Not while this vile old man is in charge)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5920774.ece
Pope Benedict XVI begins his first trip to Africa today, heading for a part of the world where the Roman Catholic faith is flourishing but also facing some of its greatest challenges. Evangelical churches have grown rapidly in Africa over the past decade, some financed by their counterparts in the southern states of the US which have also dispatched dozens of eager, young missionaries to the continent where there are millions of people still to convert.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/16/religion-philosophy-templeton-prize
The Templeton Prize has gone to a physicist who believes science, though it predicts the world successfully, cannot reveal its ultimate reality. (And mumbo-jumbo can?)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/16/serbia-equality
The Serbian government's controversial decision to first withdraw and then amend a draft antidiscrimination law following objections by the Serbian Orthodox church and other religious denominations, including the Catholic and Evangelical church and the Jewish and Islamic communities, has prompted widespread consternation about the undue influence exerted upon human rights affairs by various religious constituents. Indeed, the decision led Rasim Ljajic, Serbia's minister of labour and social policy, to ask somewhat sardonically whether politicians "will have to ask different churches for their opinion every time a law is being adopted".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/mar/13/usa-religion
In recent years, non-religious Americans have won a modicum of public acknowledgment. Not long ago, politicians insulted them with impunity or at best simply overlooked them. But the heightened public religious fervour of the Bush years led the country's infidels to organise as never before, turning atheist authors like Sam Harris into celebrities and opening lobbying offices in Washington, DC, just like religious interest groups do.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/15/turkey-charles-darwin
Turkey's feuding political factions are embroiled in a row over academic freedom after state officials forced a science journal to scrap an article celebrating the work of Charles Darwin. Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology) withdrew the 16-page feature from this month's issue under orders from its publisher, the state-run Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council (Tubitak). The magazine's editor, Cigdem Atakuman, was also sacked for "exceeding her authority" by commissioning the article, which Tubitak said was "not planned or scientifically evaluated beforehand". (Is science compatible with Islam?)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/17/honour-crimes-children-care-law
Conduct based on "honour" within some ethnic minority groups that compromises the safety of others has no place in English law, a senior judge said yesterday. In what is believed to be the first court case concerning care proceedings for children based on "honour" crimes, Lord Justice Wall said such acts should be re-branded "sordid, criminal behaviour".
The United States is facing what has been described as its "most serious instance of domestic terrorism" to date, the FBI has warned. Officials say a second generation of Somali immigrants is becoming increasingly radicalised and could pose a growing threat to security. The warnings come amid the revelation that 20 young Somali American men who returned to their war-torn homeland have been radicalised by a group linked to al-Qaeda.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5913324.ece
The cost of disciplinary action against the researchers who sparked a health scare over the MMR vaccine is likely to exceed £1million, The Times has learnt. The General Medical Council (GMC), the medical regulator, is now looking to overhaul its disciplinary procedures to reduce mounting costs as the case against Dr Andrew Wakefield, the longest running in the council's history, reconvenes today.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5913979.ece
The NHS is to advertise free operations to reverse female circumcisions, with experts warning that each year more than 500 British girls have their genitals mutilated. (There can be no excuse, religious or cultural for such a cruel and barbaric practice)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/mar/15/chaplin-film-hindu-activists
Hindu activists in India have blocked an attempt to put up a statue of Charlie Chaplin for use in a movie, claiming a monument to a non-Hindu close to their temple is offensive, a film-maker said today. Hemant Hegde, a film-maker who was building the 67ft (20-metre) statue of the Hollywood legend to use as a backdrop to a dance routine in his new film, told the CNN-IBN news channel he had been forced to stop work by a band of Hindu activists. "I'm really surprised that people would associate Charlie Chaplin with being a Christian and not allowing the statue," he said. Chaplin, who was baptised into the Church of England, was an avowed agnostic.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/16/catholicism-brazil-abortion-penalty-criticised
An influential prelate has said Brazilian doctors did not deserve excommunication for aborting the twin foetuses of a nine-year-old girl who was allegedly raped by her stepfather, because the doctors were saving her life.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/16/pope-visit-uk
Catholics welcomed the prospect of the first papal visit to Britain for almost 30 years yesterday as it emerged that Pope Benedict XVI may visit the country next year.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rod_liddle/article5908258.ece
Are you at all worried about the check-in procedures at your local airport? That demonstration against the returning British soldiers at Luton has slightly put the wind up me, given that at least one of the furious protesters was an airport baggage handler. The check-in babe asks that ubiquitous question: did you pack this bag yourself, sir? And in future the only answer is “Well, yes, I did, actually – but in a few moments it will be in the custody of this man . . .” At which point you hold up a picture from the newspaper of an extravagantly bearded Muslim fanatic carrying a placard saying “Death to the Infidel Cockroach Scum” and with white foam dribbling down his chin and several numbers from the Waziristan region logged on his pay-as-you-go Nokia mobile phone. (Good op-ed from Rod Liddle)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5908534.ece
AN Islamic cleric, whose supporters led a hate-filled protest against British troops returning from Iraq, has urged his followers to give cash to front-line mujaheddin fighters. A recording has emerged of Anjem Choudary, a self-styled sharia judge and former leader of the banned group Al-Muhajiroun, telling his followers to stop spending their money on their families and divert it to Muslim soldiers waging jihad, or holy war.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/15/islam-britain-jamaat-labour-extremists
No political movement can hope to win arguments if it turns the best and bravest into its foes. For the most courageous British Muslims, the Labour government and wider liberal society already seem slippery and hypocritical. Soon, they will be irredeemably tainted.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/13/atheist-christian-bus-advertisement
"You can always see through people who make spectacles of themselves", read a Unitarian Wayside Pulpit in Liverpool. For as long as anyone can remember, churches have been advertising – seldom very effectively. But the bad ads stick in the memory. "This is a ch..ch. What is missing?" (You are. Geddit?) The recent spate of religious and anti-religious poster campaigns have certainly created work for the Advertising Standards Authority in the sheer volume of complaints they have generated; but in terms of the application of the advertising standards code, there has really been nothing of substance for the regulator to do.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/13/muslim-safety-forum-boris-johnson
Boris Johnson today said he would cut funding to a Muslim advisory body that works with the police following a row over its links with a controversial blogger. The London mayor's pledge to halt money to the Muslim Safety Forum came after the Evening Standard yesterday revealed the organisation had received City Hall funding worth £30,000 under his watch, despite the fact that one of its founding members is Azad Ali.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/mar/13/religion-anglicanism-akinola-nigeria
If ever you think the Anglican church of Nigeria cannot get more incoherently bigoted about gay people, you're wrong. The latest proof comes in a position paper (pdf) submitted by the church to a parliamentary committee which is planning a law against gay marriage. Homosexuality is already illegal in Nigeria, of course, as is gay marriage. But the proposed law would provide three years in jail for gay couples who got married, and five years for any witnesses. Earlier drafts have proposed long jail sentences, also, for anyone who argues in favour of gay marriage.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/14/leadersandreplycatholic-adoption-societies
The words "Catholic church" and "compromise" don't usually occur in the same sentence, but some Catholic adoption societies in England, Wales and Scotland have reached a very British compromise to ensure that their services continue. Two years ago their future appeared under threat when the government refused to exempt them from the sexual orientation regulations (SORs), which made it mandatory for them to accept gay couples as potential adopters
Thousands of people have been become part of a national ghost debunking exercise, posting hundreds of snapshots of alleged ghosts online for an experiment at the Edinburgh Science Festival. Dancing at a party, at dinner or even a faint figure outside a window, the unexpected additions to family pictures have puzzled many photographers. Now the images posted on a site created by psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire, will be examined to see if any defy explanation. (Not only does Wiseman do interesting research he has a gift for publicizing it)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5896803.ece
Lord Ahmed, a Labour life peer, who sent and received text messages minutes before he was involved in a fatal motorway crash in Rotherham, has been freed from a 12-week jail sentence by the Court of Appeal. Lady Hallett said Ahmed’s conduct after the accident was “exemplary” and “he could not have done more”. He had co-operated with police, handing over his mobile phone and had not tried to deceive them. It was claimed that a prison record would hinder his work building bridges between the Muslim world and others. (So he is rewarded for not deceiving the police? This stinks. His "bridge building" includes threats as in the recent ban of Gert Wilders)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/12/eudy-simelane-corrective-rape-south-africa
The partially clothed body of Eudy Simelane, former star of South Africa's acclaimed Banyana Banyana national female football squad, was found in a creek in a park in Kwa Thema, on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Simelane had been gang-raped and brutally beaten before being stabbed 25 times in the face, chest and legs. As well as being one of South Africa's best-known female footballers, Simelane was a voracious equality rights campaigner and one of the first women to live openly as a lesbian in Kwa Thema.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/13/netherlands-terrorism
Dutch police arrested seven people yesterday on suspicion of plotting to bomb an Ikea outlet and other shops in Amsterdam. Among those held was a relative of one of the suspected Madrid train bombers who killed 191 people five years ago, prosecutors said. (Yet more devotees of the religion of peace)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7939467.stm
Nearly four years have passed since the election of Pope Benedict XVI. They have been marked by several eruptions of controversy. David Willey reflects on the performance so far of the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Does the Pope live in a bubble?
What connects an academic, a blogger, a Nobel prize winner, a postgraduate researcher, a cyber feminist, a journalist and a woman who let her head covering slip? The answer? They have all had their freedom to express themselves violated. They have all been imprisoned, flogged and fined in Iran. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Today, Iran severely restricts such freedom. Human Rights Watch, the UN Secretary General and numerous others have recently observed an escalation in attempts to silence Iranians who have something to say. (Iran a repressive barbaric state? Surely not)
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/03/12/what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-the-independent/
A reminder that the Independent newspaper is now little more than toilet paper
http://heresycorner.blogspot.com/2009/03/fringe-elements.html
Good piece from Heresy Corner on Bungle, the MCB and al-Muhajiroun and its myriad offspring
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5889411.ece
The name al-Muhajiroun — the Islamist movement to which the Luton protesters are linked — will be best known among many for the antics of its former leader, Omar Bakri Mohammed. (Background to the story of the Islamist nitwits exercising the free speech they would deny others.)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5888650.ece
The Pope has admitted mistakes over the lifting of the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop and said that the Holy See must modernise its response to future controversies.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/10/forty-lashes-saudi-arabia
Reports that a Saudi court has ordered a 75-year-old widow to be sentenced to 40 lashes and four months in prison, to be followed by deportation for "mingling with two young men who were not her close relatives" has once again put the spotlight on the influence wielded by that country's religious police.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/11/protest-islam-mujahiroun-luton
The latest publicity stunt organised by some former members of the banned al-Muhajiroun outfit in Luton yesterday appears to have gone exactly to plan. It is a simple formula – hold up some offensive placards designed to get people's backs up and call a local reporter to come along and capture some footage - that has reliably generated acres of media coverage for them in recent years. (Bungle on the oxygen of publicity)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/12/voice-analysis-system-vra
A voice analysis system is heralded as the answer to millions lost through fraud - yet two academics claim it is about as valid as astrology
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/11/prince-charles-detox-tincture?DCMP=EMC-thewrap08
The heir to the throne has always prided himself on his alternative views, establishing himself as something of a royal iconoclast who gives voice to public fears over GM foods and nanotechnology, while pioneering a simpler vision of society based on championing organic agriculture, local produce and traditional architecture. But this time, Prince Charles's embrace of the alternative has led to him being accused of peddling "outright quackery".
(The clown prince demonstrates yet again that he is an ignorant buffoon)http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iN7bgenPq26KqMbut2w864ExMuEQ
Defence minister condemned as "insulting" Tuesday a Muslim protest against a parade for British soldiers returning from Iraq. Prime Minister Gordon Brown also voiced disappointment at the protest, in which two people were arrested, marring the rally to welcome home troops withdrawing from southern Iraq. The protesters carried placards with slogans including "Anglian Soldiers: Butchers of Basra", "Anglian Soldiers: cowards, killers, extremists" and "British government terrorist government." (Anger at the invasion of Iraq is one thing - insulting soldiers who were posted thing is another. This is totally unacceptable)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/mar/09/terrorism-islam-sharia-pakistan
In February, the government capitulated to the demands of Islamic militants who have been fighting the state in the Swat Valley for over a year and promised the promulgation of Sharia law in the valley. There was no vote, no referendum, no democracy in the matter. The government, who cannot fight the militants in Swat – it is too busy assisting the flight of Predator drones from internal airbases and making sure they hit their targets in Waziristan – just declared that federal law would be replaced by Sharia. No room for dissent or choice was given. The decision, however, is a redundant one; Pakistan's 1973 constitution stipulates that no law contrary to Islam can be enacted in the land. (Op-ed by Fatima Bhutto)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/mar/09/chris-french-sceptic
From Richard Dawkins to the atheist bus, critical thinking has made an unexpected return to popularity. Chris French, editor of the Skeptic magazine, wonders why.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/09/pakistan-sri-lanka-cricket-team-attack
The attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team shocked Pakistanis; now they're having to think about the political role of their first religion
A new generation of Muslims is being radicalised using the very Government funds that are supposed to be fighting the problem, a new report by the Policy Exchange think-tank says. An obsession with talking to extremists means that moderates are being ignored, leaving the stage clear for radicalisation, according to the report. The Government is "underwriting the very Islamist ideology which spawns an illiberal, intolerant and anti-western world view" the report says. "Political and theological extremists, acting with the authority conferred by official recognition, are indoctrinating young people with an ideology of hostility to western values."
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/03/09/saudi.arabia.lashes/
A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a 75-year-old Syrian woman to 40 lashes, four months imprisonment and deportation from the kingdom for having two unrelated men in her house, according to local media reports. (Ah yes, the religion of peace)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29585222/
A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the Roman Catholic population has been shifting out of the Northeast to the Southwest, the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all.
Miss Eweida, 57, claimed that she was the victim of religious discrimination after being told that her small crucifix necklace did not conform to uniform regulations. After a national outcry against her treatment the airline changed its rules and allowed her back to work at Heathrow But Miss Eweida wants to overturn an employment tribunal ruling that she was not a victim of religious discrimination, and has now won the support of the civil rights group Liberty. (What the hell do Liberty think they are doing? This tiresome publicity-seeker refused to follow the company dress code. That's it. She is a pain in the ass)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/4958574/Ali-Bongo.html
Obituary of magician Ali Bongo who was one of the first to challenge the preposterous claims of Uri Geller.
As The Sunday Telegraph reports today, the Government has yet to decide whether it will allow Dr Ibrahim Moussawi into Britain to give a talk at the University of London next month. Dr Moussawi is a spokesman for Hizbollah, the Islamist group responsible for a string of kidnappings, murders and bombings in Lebanon, and for violent jihad against Israel. He has yet to apply to the Home Office for permission to enter Britain for next month's lecture, but he has applied for, and been granted, a visa to visit this country twice before. (Op-ed on whether to admit this deeply unpleasant individual. If the government banned Wilders consistency would dictate they ban Moussawi)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5872418.ece
The pastor of a church in America's Midwest was shot and killed as he delivered a sermon about happiness yesterday. Horrified church-goers at first thought that they were witnessing a church skit when a gunman strode up to the Rev Fred Winters and shot him at point-blank range. Rev Winters, 45, managed to deflect the first of the gunman's four rounds with his Bible, sending a spray of paper showering the church like confetti, witnesses said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/mar/06/freedom-of-speech
Bishop Richard Williamson has some very peculiar, and frankly odious, views: that no Jews were murdered in gas chambers during the second world war; that the twin towers were brought down by American explosives, not by airplanes, on September 11, 2001; and that Jews are fighting to dominate the world "to prepare the anti-Christ's throne in Jerusalem". And these are just some of his opinions on secular matters.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/08/gender-equality-middle-east
Habitually dressed in a long black abaya, with a veil placed firmly against her cheek, Shaikha Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa, the wife of the king of Bahrain, does not conform to the usual image of a political activist. Neither does Suzanne Mubarak, the demure, whippet-thin wife of Egypt's long-standing leader, Hosni Mubarak. Yet last week, at a trail-blazing international conference in Bahrain, both these women delivered a stark message that polite Arab society never wanted to hear. Mubarak and Sabeeka warned of the blight of "sexual slavery", "trafficking", "child exploitation", "prostitution" and "rape" in the Middle East.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/08/daud-abdullah-gaza-middle-east
One of the UK's most influential Islamic leaders, who has helped counter extremism in the country's mosques, is accused of advocating attacks on the Royal Navy if it tries to stop arms for Hamas being smuggled into Gaza.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/08/child-abuse-catholicism-john-magee