Muhammad Sven Kalisch, a Muslim convert and Germany's first professor of Islamic theology, fasts during the Muslim holy month, doesn't like to shake hands with Muslim women and has spent years studying Islamic scripture. Islam, he says, guides his life. So it came as something of a surprise when Prof. Kalisch announced the fruit of his theological research. His conclusion: The Prophet Muhammad probably never existed.
In one class, Freshwater used Lego pieces to describe the beginning of the world. He dumped the pieces, then asked students if the Legos could assemble by themselves, said Joe Stuart, 18, assistant editor of the high-school newspaper.
When Freshwater taught students about electrical current, he used a device to leave a red mark in the shape of a cross on the forearms of some students, Stuart said.
A number of states have been considering laws that, under the guise of "academic freedom," single out evolution for special criticism. Most of them haven't made it out of the state legislatures, and one that did was promptly vetoed. But the last of these bills under consideration, the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), was enacted by the signature of Governor Bobby Jindal yesterday.
Humans alone practice religion because they're the only creatures to have evolved imagination.
That's the argument of anthropologist Maurice Bloch of the London School of Economics. Bloch challenges the popular notion that religion evolved and spread because it promoted social bonding, as has been argued by some anthropologists.
The officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, began to berate Specialist Hall and another soldier about atheism, Specialist Hall wrote in a sworn statement. “People like you are not holding up the Constitution and are going against what the founding fathers, who were Christians, wanted for America!” Major Welborn said, according to the statement.
Major Welborn told the soldiers he might bar them from re-enlistment and bring charges against them, according to the statement.
Because religious ideas can't be refuted, one might ask, Why not believe them, why not go with the flow? One answer is that they represent an embracement of ignorance, and from a state of ignorance one cannot make clear, informed judgements. It does not further a person to join in the idiots' choir and sing their song, no matter how sweet it is, unless one enjoys being an idiot.
The new edition of Social Trends gives some revealing new statistics about religion the UK and Europe. Social Trends is described by its publisher, the Office for National Statistics, as “An established reference source”, drawing together “social and economic data from a wide range of government departments and other organisations; it paints a broad picture of UK society today, and how it has been changing.”
Religious zealots use a variety of lies, obfuscations, circular logic, and in a word propaganda to push their sordid agendas. This page is dedicated to dismantling and debunking their nonsense point for point.
Respected German historian Guido Knopp has compared a speech by US actor Tom Cruise to the Church of Scientology with a call to war by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
