ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 142

Colorado releases new report on Catholic sex abuse in state

By Jack Jenkins Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has unveiled a new independent report detailing allegations of sex abuse against at least 166 children by 43 Roman Catholic priests over the course of 70 years. Weiser announced the more than 250-page report during a news conference on Wednesday (Oct. 23), describing the documented abuse of children by …

Italian Who Compared Catholic Church to Masochism Club Convicted of Blasphemy

By Hemant Mehta During a radio interview with La Zanzara (“The Mosquito”) in 2014, famed Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani discussed a hypothetical situation in which an alien landed in the country and walked into a Catholic Church for the first time. Oblivious to religious beliefs, he said, the alien would notice a bloody Jesus on a cross, tortured …

Barr and Pompeo Speeches Show Why Evangelical Warriors Won’t Abandon the President

By Bradley Onishi One of the questions over the past couple of weeks has been whether or not white evangelicals would break with President Trump in reaction to his decision to abandon the Kurdish people in Syria. Elizabeth Dias wrote a piece at the New York Times that outlined how prominent evangelical leaders such as Franklin Graham, …

‘You can be Christian & you can be gay.’ Theater teacher says she was forced out of school

By Rick Neale On Oct. 2, a half-hour before her musical theater class began, Covenant Christian School teacher Monica Toro Lisciandro said administrators unexpectedly called her into a meeting. Somebody had apparently called the private Christian school and leveled allegations against her. Lisciandro said the assistant principal told her the school received word that Lisciandro was in a relationship …

Elizabeth Warren Says She’ll Consider Hiring a “Secular Outreach Director”

By Hemant Mehta Sen. Elizabeth Warren said during a town hall meeting in Cedar Falls, Iowa last night that she would think about hiring a staffer whose sole job would be to connect with Americans who aren’t religious. Among the Democratic presidential candidates who have hired “faith outreach directors” to communicate specifically with religious voters …

Google scientists say they’ve achieved ‘quantum supremacy’ breakthrough over classical computers

By Sarah Kaplan For the first time, a machine that runs on the mind-boggling physics of quantum mechanics has reportedly solved a problem that would stump the world’s top supercomputers — a breakthrough known as “quantum supremacy.” If validated, the report by Google’s AI Quantum team constitutes a major leap for quantum computing, a technology …

New ‘prime’ genome editor could surpass CRISPR

By Jon Cohen CRISPR, an extraordinarily powerful genome-editing tool invented in 2012, can still be clumsy. It sometimes changes genes it shouldn’t, and it edits by hacking through both strands of DNA’s double helix, leaving the cell to clean up the mess—shortcomings that limit its use in basic research and agriculture and pose safety risks …

An Atheist Asked Tom Steyer How He’d Handle Anti-Science Christians as President

By Megan Hamilton During a town hall meeting at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Justin Scott, the Iowa State Director for American Atheists, asked 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer a very pointed question that, at its core, highlights perhaps the biggest difference between atheists and white evangelical Christians. Specifically, Scott wanted to know how …

GOP Candidate: Force Pregnant Women To Wear Ankle Monitors To Prevent Abortion

By Michael Stone Can you smell the misogyny? Bill Drennan, a GOP candidate for the Virginia State House, suggests that the way to prevent abortions is by forcing pregnant women to wear ankle monitors. Drennan, speaking at a candidate forum in Sterling, Virginia, last Wednesday, apparently tried to compare common sense gun legislation to a …

Accusing SBC of ‘caving,’ John MacArthur says of Beth Moore: ‘Go home’

By Bob Smietana Evangelical pastor John MacArthur, speaking at a celebration of his 50th year in pulpit ministry this week, weighed in on an ongoing debate in the Southern Baptist Convention over women preachers, claiming the nation’s largest Protestant denomination has lost faith in the authority of the Bible. He claimed the SBC had taken a …