ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 174

Once Again, a Christian Health Insurance Company Won’t Cover a Couple’s Bills

By Hemant Mehta Just as there’s a Christian substitute for just about everything in the secular world, there’s Christian health insurance that only the most devout believers can buy into. And just like those other Christian alternatives, it’s much worse than the original. The way groups like Samaritan Ministries and Liberty HealthShare work is that everyone in the system …

Former Baptist missionary pleads guilty in indecency case

By Sarah Smith A former top Southern Baptist missionary pleaded guilty Tuesday to misdemeanor assault causing bodily injury in a case that his missionary organization knew about nearly 11 years before it was reported to police. Mark Aderholt was charged in Tarrant County in July 2018 with sexual assault of a child under 17 and …

A Startling Spike on Mars

By Marina Koren If humans ever discovered life on Mars, this is how it might start, with a breaking-news alert, heralding a startling development well beyond Earth. On a recent Saturday afternoon, The New York Times sent a bulletin: “Mars is belching a large amount of methane gas. It’s a sign of possible life on the red …

Was Abraham Lincoln an Atheist?

By Becky Little Every U.S. president has been a member of a church, except for one: Abraham Lincoln. Famously opaque on the subject of religion, Lincoln’s personal faith was something even his closest friends said they couldn’t figure out. Though he became more interested in religious questions toward the end of his life, “Honest Abe” never directly …

Yes, it’s worth arguing with science deniers — and here are some techniques you can use

By Laura Hazard Owen Countering science denialism. Arguing with the anti-vaxxers/flat earthers/climate change deniers may feel futile, but research just published in Nature Human Behaviour suggests that it’s actually worth it and can be effective. Philipp Schmid and Cornelia Betsch of the University of Erfurt in Germany conducted six experiments, online with 1,773 subjects, to see how to “counter arguments of …

Increasing Support for Religiously Based Service Refusals

By Daniel Greenberg, Maxine Najle, PhD, Natalie Jackson, Ph.D., Oyindamola Bola, Robert P. Jones, Ph.D., Three in ten (30%) Americans say they think it should be permissible for a small business owner in their state to refuse to provide services to gay or lesbian people if doing so violates their religious beliefs, while two-thirds (67%) …

AI Created a 3D Replica of Our Universe. We Have No Idea How It Works.

By Stephanie Pappas The first-ever artificial intelligence simulation of the universe seems to work like the real thing — and is almost as mysterious. Researchers reported the new simulation June 24 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The goal was to create a virtual version of the cosmos in order to simulate …

‘May God bless you’: evangelical pastors’ hidden role in human smuggling’s boom

By Sarah Kinosian Early in the morning, Antonio knelt before an altar with white candles and a small statue of the Virgin Mary and prayed for a miracle. It was still dark when he piled into a blue van with his six-year-old son, Gaspar, and a group of other farmers and their family members hoping …

Evangelical denomination expels entire congregation over LGBT policy

By Yonat Shimron For the first time in its 134-year history, the Evangelical Covenant Church has voted to remove a congregation from its roster over its position on LGBTQ inclusion. The vote to expel the First Covenant Church, a prominent and historic Minneapolis congregation, for being “out of harmony on human sexuality,” took place at …

Trump administration delays implementation of ‘conscience protection’ rule

By Tal Axelrod The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is delaying the implementation of its “conscience protection” rule until November to give the administration more time to deal with a lawsuit over the policy. HHS announced in a court filing Saturday that the rule, which was originally scheduled to take effect July 22, …