ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 256

Missouri City Councilman Shuts Down Christian Bigot During Debate Over Equality

By Hemant Mehta

Last Monday, the St. Joseph City Council voted 8-1 to pass a non-discrimination ordinance that, among other things, will protect those who are LGBTQ when it comes to employment, public accommodation, and housing. It’s a long overdue measure. But like so many of these bills, there was opposition from some Christians, even though religious organizations were exempt from this particular law.

One of the critics, Pastor Jacob McMillian of Journey Baptist Church, showed up to the meeting and pleaded his case before the vote. He didn’t think private property owners should have to abide by this ordinance if they held anti-LGBTQ religious beliefs. (In his world, Christian landlords would be allowed to deny housing to same-sex couples.)

How did he make his case? By equating homosexuality with pedophilia.

McMillian pointed to the wording of the ordinance where the definition of “sexual orientation” included a clause saying it didn’t apply to “sexual preference or practice between an adult and minor.” (Obviously.) He wanted to know why that exemption was needed, because what if a pedophile claimed he was just “born that way”?

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Why ‘BPA Free’ May Not Mean a Plastic Product Is Safe

By Maya Wei-Haas

The study started as an accident. Geneticist Patricia Hunt of Washington State University and her team were investigating the reproductive effects of BPA in mice. Housed in BPA-free plastic cages, the test group got doses of BPA through a dropper; the control group didn’t.

Everything seemed rosy—until it wasn’t.

“Our control data just started to get really wonky,” Hunt says. The differences between it and the test group vanished, and many control mice started showing genetic issues. Though initially confused, the team discovered that some of the plastic caging was damaged and was leaching bisphenol S, or BPS—an alternative to the now infamous plastic component BPA.

It was like déjà vu, Hunt says. Twenty years ago, she’d had the same issue with BPA in polycarbonate mouse cages. Now her study of the effects of several BPA alternatives, prompted by the latest accidental findings, suggests that these replacements impact reproduction in mice in much the same way.

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As nonbeliever ranks grow, will their political clout?

By The Okalhoman Editorial Board

With less than two months until the midterm election, one group is busy trying to motivate people based on their religious preference.

This is standard stuff in American politics: White evangelical churches have used various means to get out the vote over the years — usually in favor of conservative Republican candidates. Black churches pushed voter activity as well — usually in favor of liberal Democrats.

The new kid on this block doesn’t have a church on the street. It’s a coalition of secular organizations trying to rally support from those who don’t believe in God and/or don’t affiliate with organized religion. If the coalition succeeds, Democrats will likely do better than they’re already expected to do in this time of anti-Donald Trump fervor.

The Wall Street Journal this week reported on statistics gathered by the Public Religion Research Institute. The stats show that the share of American adults with no religious identity (or “nones”) rose to 24 percent in 2016, the year Trump was elected and the latest for which figures are available.

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Atheist Community of Tulsa counter-protesting aggressive anti-abortion group tactics

By Tyler Butler

It has been a week of demonstrations on the sidewalk of East Central High School, but today’s message is a bit more tolerable to parents than in days past.

“A couple of days ago, and the last two days, has been really negative. These kids don’t need that. So, thank you for being here,” said one member of the school staff to the Atheist Community of Tulsa.

For the last few days, an anti-abortion group calling themselves the Abolitionist Society of Tulsa has held signs outside of the school with pictures of bloody fetuses, pictures we can’t even show you. Parents say the group approached kids with those messages and pamphlets.

“They had a loudspeaker, and they were preaching things that were just not nice,” said Rebecca Kendall, a parent at the school.

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Arizona Asked a Young Earth Creationist to Review Evolution Teaching Standards

By David G. McAfee

A Young Earth Creationist who says he was called by God to “teach from the Biblical creation perspective” is part of a team in charge of reviewing Arizona’s science standards for teaching evolution. To the surprise of absolutely no one, it’s not going well.

Joseph Kezele, the president of the Arizona Origin Science Association, was appointed by State Superintendent Diane Douglass to serve on the committee last month. They are working to revise curriculum for science — and things were already dire when we first reported on the science standards back in May.

Now it has been confirmed by the Phoenix New Times that Kezele, who makes Creationist videos and teaches biology at a Christian school in Phoenix, is part of a small group who review and amends the new standards.

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AHA Warn TN School of Teacher Violating Church/State Separation

By Ed Brayton

The Appignani Humanist Legal Center, part of the American Humanist Association, has sent a letter warning a school in Tennessee that it better stop a science teacher from teaching creationism or face a federal lawsuit. The school is Cascade Middle School of the Bedford County School District in Shelbyville, TN.

Monica Miller, AHA senior counsel, writes, “Children are urged to reject the scientifically accepted view of evolution in this class, merely because it conflicts with bible interpretation.” The teacher “recently played a video called ‘The Theory of Genesis: How Old is the World?’” in class, disputing the scientific consensus on the age of the world and instead promoting a “young earth” view. The letter also details that the teacher has played other videos with Christian overtones, mentions “the great flood” almost daily, and frequently tells the class that “God” is responsible for natural phenomena.

“The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment strictly forbids public school teachers from advancing religious views and presenting Christian mythology as scientific fact in the public school classrooms,” says Miller. “The teacher here is not merely sharing his personal religious views with students during class time, which alone would be inappropriate, but is aggressively injecting those views into the actual curriculum, making this an egregious constitutional violation.”

The American Humanist Association’s letter demands that appropriate actions are taken to immediately stop Christian proselytizing and coercion at Bedford County Schools and at Cascade Middle School specifically.

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Florida Legislator Who Thanked God For Slavery Is Under Investigation Again

By Matthew Facciani

Kim Daniels (D) is state representative in Florida who gained infamy by stating “if it wasn’t for slavery, I might be somewhere in Africa worshipping a tree.” Daniels also was the sponsor of a Florida bill that would force every Florida school to display “In God We Trust” signs.  Daniels clearly doesn’t care about the separation of Church and State because she also has said she was elected so she is “able to write legislation so that His kingdom could come and manifest itself like never before.”

Additionally, Daniels had some awful anti-Semitic comments when she said: “You can talk about the Holocaust, but the Jews own everything.”

Wow.

What you might not know about Daniels is that she has been under regular investigation for misuse of finances.

In 2015, the Florida Elections Committee found probable cause that she used campaign funds to promote one of her religious books. After that, the Florida Ethics Commission again found probable cause that Daniels failed to accurately report her finances. Daniels did not report over a million dollars in assets from properties owned by her churches. She later reached a settlement for that before it went to court.

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Growth of secular youth is frightening GOP, says ex-Obama strategist

By Julia Manchester

Former Obama strategist Joel Benenson on Wednesday said that the emergence of secular, young people in politics is frightening to Republicans and conservatives.

“These generations are more diverse. They are more tolerant of others. They come to the table with a set of values that are not rooted in a religious foundation in their household,” Benenson said to Hill.TV’s Joe Concha on “What America’s Thinking.”

“They are closer to liberation theology than they are to white, evangelical philosophy. But their approach to life is to be accepting of others,” he continued.

He said the younger generation of voters “drove the discussion” in their households.

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Maryland Taxpayers Are Paying Millions to Religious Schools Without Oversight

By David G. McAfee

Millions of taxpayer dollars in Maryland go to “church-exempt” schools (private schools run by churches) that get little to no government oversight, and a local news investigation revealed a multitude of problems at one school in particular. Reporter Chris Papst was tipped off by a social worker who realized students who supposedly graduated from New Spiritual Foundation Christian Academy didn’t seem to know “basic words.”

WBFF’s “Project Baltimore” noted that there are 534 church-exempt schools in Maryland, and when you see what’s happening in this one building, you have to wonder how widespread the problems are with the rest of these schools.

The school’s website suggests students obtain a quality education, and there are plenty of pictures of happy graduates, but the news team revealed a very different story when speaking with graduates. What’s more is that, before they began digging, state officials had no idea the depths of the problems.

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Hole in Sun’s Atmosphere Amps Up Northern Lights

By Mike Wall

The northern lights just got a boost thanks to a big hole in the sun’s atmosphere, and there could be something of a repeat showing tonight.

A moderate geomagnetic storm made flickering auroras visible to skywatchers as far south as Minnesota and Wisconsin early this morning (Sept. 11), according to Spaceweather.com.

That storm was triggered by an especially potent and fast-moving burst of solar wind — the stream of charged particles flowing constantly from the sun — which escaped through a gaping hole in the sun’s outer atmosphere, known as the corona.

The northern and southern lights result when such particles slam into molecules high up in Earth’s atmosphere, generating a glow. Earth’s magnetic field channels these particles toward the planet’s poles, which explains why the auroras are usually restricted to high latitudes. But special circumstances — such as coronal holes and giant explosions of solar plasma called coronal mass ejections — can extend the intensity and the reach of these dazzling light displays.

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