This Week in Freethought and Religion 8/29

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7th day adventist, ALS, ancient, ark park, atheist, beheading, bill nye, brain, casey luskin, catholic, child abuse, childhood, climate, david rives, evangelicals, evolution, execution, ganesh, gaza, greece, hell, invocation, ISIS, islam, islamic, israel, james foley, jesus, karma, latin america, lawsuit, litergy, louisiana, magic, medicine, multiverse, neanderthals, ontario, philosophy, rastafarian, rational, relevance, school, scientific, sex abuse, sikhs, syria, technology, theory, UK, zara

Atheist Group May Sue Over Fla. County Invocation

A central Florida county could face a religious-discrimination lawsuit from an organization of atheists and agnostics after the Brevard County Commission said the organization is not the type of group that would be permitted to give the opening invocation at commission meetings. [Read more]

Why You Don’t Have to Be Rational to Run Your Own Life

Many of us (not all) would argue that autonomy, the process of self-governance, is valuable. It is, after all, the theoretical basis of our civil rights. [Read more]

Young Christians, Muslims, Jews Forge Community for Climate Justice

A group of Christian, Muslim and Jewish youth has formed a multi-faith community to protect creation that will communicate its message to the U.N. Secretary General’s Climate Summit on September 23. [Read more]

5 Reasons to Suspect Jesus Never Existed

A growing number of scholars are openly questioning or actively arguing against whether Jesus lived. [Read more]

Rastafarian Teenager Suspended from Louisiana School Indefinitely for Having Dreadlocks

A school in Louisiana has suspended a Rastafarian teenager for not cutting his dreadlocks. When he tried to return to the South Plaquemines School earlier this month with his dreadlocks pinned up, school officials told him it was still a no-go. [Read more]

Magic Amongst the Mundane

My family has been incredibly busy this month. Here’s a bit of what a week in a polytheist parent’s life looks like. [Read more]

How Soon Will New Technologies Upgrade the Human Brain?

Recently, researchers have turned their focus to how the brain learns: as information arrives from the sensory organs, bursts of electricity carry the new data to the correct brain region to be processed. [Read more]

The Other Neanderthal

Meet the first human-related species to be identified with more than fossil records. [Read more]

Why Climate Change Skeptics and Evolution Deniers Joined Forces

All across the country—most recently, in the state of Texas—local battles over the teaching of evolution are taking on a new complexion. More and more, it isn’t just evolution under attack, it’s also the teaching of climate science. [Read more]

Why Karma is the New Hell

It doesn’t help that there are so many problems when western ex-Judeo Christian people latch onto something from the Far East’s culture and bastardise the living crap out of it. [Read more]

Scientific Realism and is Philosophy Relevant?

Is there such a thing as realism, really, or just useful constructs? Is structural realism, or scientific realism, real? Classifications? Often many things, thought to be not real, are later shown to be so. [Read more]

Radical New Theory Could Kill the Multiverse Hypothesis

Though galaxies look larger than atoms and elephants appear to outweigh ants, some physicists have begun to suspect that size differences are illusory. Perhaps the fundamental description of the universe does not include the concepts of “mass” and “length,” implying that at its core, nature lacks a sense of scale. [Read more]

Islamic State Turns Radical Islam on Syria Muslims

As Islamic State militants advanced in the Syrian province of Deir al-Zor last month, those who had held out against them faced a simple choice: beg for mercy or face certain death. [Read more]

Time to Stop Testing Magic in Medicine

Alternative medicine supporters insist that these trials are necessary to find out what does and does not work. That seems reasonable. But unlike proper scientists, they don’t cast off that which evidence shows to be worthless. [Read more]

Lawsuit Accuses Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1970s of Supporting Convicted Child Molester’s Habit

Two men who say they were molested when they were children in the 1970s by an Oregon youth leader with the Seventh-day Adventist Church are suing for $13.5 million, claiming the church knew the man was a convicted child molester but let him work with children anyway. [Read more]

Rev. David Rives: Six 24-Hour Days, No Gaps

WND’s headline is Did Jesus refute the ‘gap’ theory?, and their subtitle is “David Rives discusses common compromise between Bible, evolution.” [Read more]

Is James Foley a Martyr? A Brutal Death Sparks a Faith-Based Debate

From the moment news broke that U.S. journalist James Foley had been beheaded by Islamic State extremists in the Middle East, many Christians, especially Foley’s fellow Catholics, began calling him a martyr, with some even saying he should be considered a saint. [Read more]

With Bells and Bananas, a Time to Worship Ganesh

At the Hindu Temple Society of North America, in Flushing, Queens, this week is time to worship Ganesh, the elephant-headed, many-armed deity who is believed to remove obstacles. [Read more]

Catholic Diocese Urges Diversion of ALS Donations

A letter to 146 parishes Tuesday urged Catholics to donate instead to John Paul II Medical Research Institute if they participate in the challenge. [Read more]

The Origins of Vatican Power in America

The pope and his hierarchy claim that papal or Vatican power originates from God. However, there are more earthly explanations for the origins of their power. [Read more]

Outside the Religious Childhood Bubble

In the religious indoctrination world, the cult dominates the family, and the parents unthinkingly believe this is virtuous. They don’t know any better than their children. [Read more]

UK Sex Abuse Report Prompts Outrage, Reflection

The number of victims — 1,400 — was terrifying enough for a community of just 250,000. But that wasn’t all: despite repeated warnings over the years, only a handful of men have ever been convicted. [Read more]

Revealed: The Pope’s War with the Vatican

The first non-European Pope was elected to do one thing: reform the Roman Curia, the pitifully disorganised, corrupt and lazy central machinery of the church. [Read more]

The Israel-Gaza Conflict has Names and Faces: Hearing Voices from Both Sides of the Wall

Over the past several weeks, my heart has grieved the violence taking place in Gaza. Hamas hurts the cause of all Palestinians when they shoot their homemade rockets over the wall at innocent civilians in Israel. [Read more]

American Convert to Islam is Killed Fighting in Syria, U.S. Official Says

U.S. officials said Tuesday that an American convert to Islam who recently traveled to Syria apparently has been killed in fighting. The circumstances surrounding the death of Douglas McCain, 33, remain unclear. [Read more]

Tomb Raiders Likely Plundered Ancient Greek Site

Archaeologists on Monday entered the antechamber of Greece’s mystery tomb in Amphipolis — only to find another wall blocking the tomb’s interior as well as worrying evidence of looting in the form of a suspicious opening. [Read more]

I Was Prescient! Bill Nye and the Ark Park

As you probably know, the “Ark Park” under construction in Kentucky was in financial trouble, in danger of not getting enough money from bond issues to build that Christian travesty. [Read more]

Ancient ‘Zigzag Art’ Discovered In 2,800-Year-Old Greek Tomb

Archaeologists working at the ancient city of Corinth, Greece, have discovered a tomb dating back around 2,800 years that has pottery decorated with zigzagging designs. [Read more]

Casey Says: Science Needs Checks and Balances

Casey Luskin — our favorite creationist — is making a guest appearance at a website called The Blaze. We know nothing about them except that they’re willing to publish Casey’s material. [Read more]

On a Roll in the Holy Land, Legion Compares Maciel to Magdalene

The scandal-battered Legionaries of Christ, still facing the unresolved consequences of a disgraced founder, may be seeing a turn in their fortunes with the development of the Magdala Center at the Sea of Galilee in the Holy Land. [Read more]

Ontario Sikhs ‘Deeply Disappointed’ with New Helmet Law

The open road has closed for motorcycle-riding Sikhs in Ontario. The province’s premier has informed Sikhs they are not exempted from motorcycle helmet laws. [Read more]

Zara Removes Striped Pyjamas with Yellow Star Following Online Outrage

Social media users likened the baby’s pyjama top, featuring horizontal stripes and a ‘Sheriff’ star to clothes worn by Jewish concentration camp prisoners. [Read more]

A Place for Liturgy

In his book Word and Church Anglican theologian John Webster writes, “At its best… attention to ‘context’ can remind theology that there is no pure language of Zion, and that theology’s conceptual equipment is borrowed from elsewhere. [Read more]

U.S. Evangelicals Look To Latin America To Advance Conservative Values

Losing the fight against same-sex marriage at home, leading U.S. Evangelical Christians are joining in the culture wars in Latin America as cheerleaders for opponents of gay legal partnerships, abortion and pornography. [Read more]

Hours After Shocking World with Desert Execution of 300 Syrian Soldiers, ISIS Parade Captured Kurds Then Behead One on Video

The grainy video, accompanied by the hashtag ‘2ndAmessagetoAmerica’, shows the vicious beheading of a Kurdish soldier, who was part of a group of 15 fighters likely to have been captured by Islamic State during the fighting in Iraq.

[Read more]