Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1780

This is How Everyone Should React When a Politician Admits He Doesn’t Accept Evolution

In the United States, when a politician refuses to admit he accepts evolution, he’s still considered a plausible candidate for President.

In Canada, when a politician doubts evolution, he’s laughed off the public stage:

MPP Rick Nicholls

An Ontario Tory’s statement that he doesn’t believe in evolution has puzzled and frustrated his fellow Conservatives who admitted Wednesday that stance doesn’t help a party trying to rebuild after four consecutive election defeats.

Progressive Conservative Rick N...

Why Are Christian Right Groups Suddenly Creating Enemies Lists?

In 2012, a couple of years after the Southern Poverty Law Center designated the (anti-gay) Family Research Council a “hate group,” a shooter walked into FRC’s building and injured a security guard before being subdued (by the same guard) and later apprehended. The shooter even said he knew about FRC through the hate-group list.

Obviously, this was a tragedy and SPLC said as much, though they never removed the “hate group” designation. They felt it was warranted:

Contrary to what the FRC has rep...

Florida Naturopath Who Treated 11-Year-Old Makayla Sault Charged with Practicing Medicine Without a License

Earlier this year, we learned that Makayla Sault (below), an 11-year-old with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, had died. Her disease was treatable with two years of tough chemotherapy and had a nearly 90% survival rate… but Makayla wanted to stop with the chemo and her Ojibwe/First Nations parents were more than happy to oblige, seeking out useless faith-based treatments instead.

Part of the problem was the Makayla was being treated by a “doctor” in Florida. Why the quotation marks?

Brian Clement,...

Harlem Hate-Pastor: Don’t Call People “Gay.” Call Them “Faggots”

Harlem Pastor James David Manning — known for saying coffee at Starbucks contains the “semen of sodomites” and that LGBT individuals and those who support them should get “cancer HIV syphilis stroke madness the itch then hell” — is somehow even more hateful in his latest video, in which he refuses to call gay people “gay”:

They want you to say “gay” when they’re really “faggots,” “bulldykes,” “hermaphrodites,” “lesbos,” “queers”… no, they say, “Just call us ‘gay’”… You know why?… ‘Cause even t...

One In Four British Muslims Thinks That Attacks on Mohammed Cartoonists and Their Publishers Can Be Justified

From the U.K. Telegraph:

One in four British Muslims sympathize with terrorists behind the Charlie Hebdo attacks, a new poll shows.

A poll reveals how a significant minority of Muslims endorse terrorist atrocities against those who mock the Prophet Mohammed.

Some 27 percent of British Muslims said they have “some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks” on the Paris magazine, according to polling by ComRes for the BBC.

A further 32 percent said they were not surprised by the attacks. Some 11...

American Atheists Will (Once Again) Have a Booth at CPAC, the Conference for Fringe Conservatives

Last year, to the frustration of many, American Atheists decided to purchase booth space at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Why bother reaching out to the most conservative Republicans out there? This is what AA said at the time:

“‘Conservative’ isn’t a synonym for ‘religious’,” said American Atheists President David Silverman. “In fact, a fifth of conservatives seldom or never pray, and the same number state religion is not important in their lives.”

“If conservatism doesn’...

If You Illustrate Bible Passages, They May Look Like This…

Turns out if you illustrate certain passages in the Bible, they make even less sense than when you read them directly:

“If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.” — Deuteronomy 25:11-12

This image and others like it are from The Bible Said What?: 10 Things They Didn’t Teach Me in Catholic School by Evan Mascagni and illustrated by Nick S...

Finnish National Broadcaster to Devote 30 Hours of Radio to Reading and Discussing the Entire Qur’an

Starting next month, on Finnish public radio, the Qur’an will be read out loud. In its entirety.

The country’s public broadcaster, Yle, has divided the reading into 60 half-hour segments, including a discussion between two experts on the context and meaning of each part. Beginning on 7 March, the project is “intended to increase people’s knowledge of the Koran and Muslim culture in Finland”,Yle says on its website.

A leader from Finland’s Muslim community, Imam Anas Hajjar, will discuss each se...

ISIS Captures Up To a Hundred Christian Hostages, Calling Them “Crusaders”

Yesterday, suddenly, acts of warfare and terror became more than academictoOsama Edward of the Sweden-based Assyrian Human Rights Network. Christian relatives of his in Syria had disappeared.

[He]told the BBC that his wife’s elderly aunt and her cousin were among the hostages. “My wife tried to call her cousin’s house and there was somebody who picked up the phone and said: ‘This is not Akram’s house. This is the Islamic State’s house‘.”

The aunt and cousin weren’t the only ones. Other human-ri...

Expert in HBO Scientology Documentary Says the Church Can No Longer Afford to Sic Investigators On All Its Critics

Reporting critically on the Church of Scientology used to be a dicey proposition. If you tried, Scientology’s shady chieftains were likely to sic private investigatorsand a phalanx of lawyers on you, who operated with suchlack of restraint that the experience could feel like something between death by a thousand paper cuts and a full-blown bid to driveyou insane.

As Joe Nocerawrites in theNew York Times,

Going on the offensive against its criticsis part of Scientology’s doctrine, handed down by...