ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 109

Mysterious Object Beyond Pluto Could Help Explain How Our Solar System Formed

By Ryan F. Mandelbaum Nothing you encounter is truly “pristine.” Nearly every atom on our planet has been processed in some way, either by humans, the Sun, Earth’s core, or other influences. But on New Year’s Day 2019, the New Horizons mission flew past one of the most pristine objects in the solar system: Arrokoth, an object far beyond Pluto that …

A Journalist Caught Christians Scamming People With Fake Biblical Oil

By Hemant Mehta Back in 2015, a supposed miracle occurred in Dalton, Georgia. A group of Christians who regularly met in the city’s Wink Theatre discovered that their prayer room was dripping with oil. A year later they found the same oil coming out of a Bible owned by church member Jerry Pearce. They never claimed …

‘The tongue is a fire’: Southern Baptist church fractures over secrets and spiritual abuse

By Tricia L. Nadolny, USA Today On a Sunday morning in late 2017, Oakwood Baptist Church pastor Donald Foose stood before a congregation that had been blindsided by the sudden departure of their previous head pastor. Foose offered no answers to their lingering questions. Instead, his voice booming through the sparse sanctuary, he preached about …

Turtles the size of a car once roamed the Earth. Scientists just found their fossils.

By Reis Thebault In the swamps of northern South America some 10 million years ago, quotidian life-or-death battles unfolded at epic scale. Giant caimans, in the same family as alligators, stalked the wetlands of modern-day Venezuela and Colombia, slinking along at 30-feet, snout to tail. Among their most formidable prey: the Stupendemys geographicus, a colossal …

Scientists find evidence of ‘ghost population’ of ancient humans

By Ian Sample Scientists have found evidence for a mysterious “ghost population” of ancient humans that lived in Africa about half a million years ago and whose genes live on in people today. Traces of the unknown ancestor emerged when researchers analysed genomes from west African populations and found that up to a fifth of their DNA …

Roy Moore Blasts LGBTQ People During Ten Commandments Party

By Trudy Ring Noted homophobe and accused pedophile Roy Moore has put his Ten Commandments monument on display once more. Moore lost his position as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2003 because he refused to remove the monument from the state courthouse, a violation of the separation of church and state. Now, seeking …

Catholic Priest Attempts to Walk Back “Pedophilia Doesn’t Kill Anyone” Comment

By Hemant Mehta A couple of weeks ago, Rev. Richard Bucci of Sacred Heart Church in Rhode Island handed out a flyer with a list of all politicians in the state who backed abortion rights in a law passed last year… insisting that those lawmakers would never be allowed to receive communion in the Church. When it was pointed …

Televangelist Jim Bakker Claims His Magic ‘Silver Solution’ Cures Coronavirus

By Michael Stone Fraud For Jesus: Televangelist Jim Bakker claims his magic “Silver Solution” will kill the coronavirus within 12 hours. Bakker, the disgraced and infamous Trump-loving televangelist who spent time in prison after bilking his followers out of $158 million, made the claim that his magic “Silver Solution” would cure the coronavirus within 12 hours …

UK Scientists Have Started Testing a New Coronavirus Vaccine on Mice

By Agence France-Presse A team of UK scientists believe they are among the first to start animal testing of a vaccine for the new coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 1,000 people and spread around the world. Researchers at Imperial College London said their ultimate goal was to have an effective and safe way …

Ten Commandments Monument returning to Montgomery Feb. 11

By Cherish Lombard Judge Roy Moore, and his wife, Kayla Moore, President of the Foundation for Moral Law, announced that on Tuesday, February 11, 2020, the “Ten Commandments Monument” will be returning to Montgomery, Alabama, to be placed at One Dexter Avenue on the first floor of the Foundation for Moral Law. Judge Moore stated, “One …