ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 283

When Leaving Your Religion Means Losing Your Children

By Samantha Raphelson

Chavie Weisberger was raised in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Monsey, N.Y., and was forced to marry a man she barely knew when she was 19. The couple had three children, but when she began to question her faith and sexuality, she and her husband divorced – and she almost lost her children.

The case is highlighting how New York courts handle divorce and custody issues for the state’s large ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. While Weisberger’s case was reversed on appeal last August – she has now regained full custody of her children – it brings to light the issues that arise when secular courts decide child custody in the religious community.

People who leave the Hasidic community are often shunned by their family and friends, but they also are often forced to fight for their children, says Lani Santo, executive director of Footsteps, a social services organization that provides social and financial services for those transitioning to a secular lifestyle.

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Sessions cites Bible to defend immigration policies resulting in family separations

By Tal Kopan

Attorney General Jeff Sessions cited the Bible on Thursday in defending the Trump administration’s immigration policies — especially those that result in the separation of families — directing his remarks in particular to “church friends.”

“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes,” Sessions said. “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves. Consistent, fair application of law is in itself a good and moral thing and that protects the weak, it protects the lawful. Our policies that can result in short-term separation of families are not unusual or unjustified.”

The Catholic Church and other religious leaders have voiced strong criticism of policies resulting in family separations and recent moves Sessions has made to restrict asylum.

On Wednesday, the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops criticized the administration, declaring that separating mothers and children at the US border is “immoral.”

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A Huge Dust Storm on Mars Is Threatening NASA’s Opportunity Rover

By Niraj Chokshi

A vast dust storm blanketing about a quarter of the surface of Mars has threatened NASA’s Opportunity rover, plunging the solar-powered vehicle into what the space agency has described as a “dark, perpetual night.”

With its primary energy source obscured, the rover, which sits in the Perseverance Valley of Mars near the center of the storm, appears to have automatically entered a power-saving mode in which it will remain until the sun re-emerges, agency officials said.

“We’re concerned, but we’re hopeful that the storm will clear and the rover will begin to communicate with us,” John Callas, the Opportunity project manager, told reporters on a Wednesday conference call with other NASA officials.

Opportunity is at historically low energy levels. The rover weathered another serious storm in 2007, but the current storm is much worse, having intensified more rapidly and more completely blocking out the sun, NASA said.

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These Are the Most Ancient Frogs Ever Found Preserved in Amber

By George Dvorsky

The extraordinary discovery of four small frogs preserved in amber is providing the earliest evidence of these now-prolific amphibians living in tropical rainforests.

New research published today Scientific Reports shows that frogs—an animal that first emerged some 200 million years ago—were occupying soggy forested regions at least 100 million years ago. This discovery is a big deal because fossils of forest amphibians are rare, and because scientists haven’t been sure when frogs first started to venture into tropical habitats.

“Frogs are common animals to encounter in the wet tropical forests of today, and easily more than a third of the nearly 7,000 species of frogs live in these wet forests,” David C. Blackburn, a co-author of the new study and the associate curator of amphibians and reptiles at the Florida Museum of Natural History, told Gizmodo. “But being small and living in a tropical forest also means that your likelihood of ending up in the fossil record is pretty low.”

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TX Gov. Warns Southern Baptists That People Are Trying to “Silence the Faithful”

By Hemant Mehta

See if this makes any sense to you: At the annual gathering of the Southern Baptist Convention, with an estimated 15,000 attendees representing more than 47,000 churches, with Vice President Mike Pence scheduled to speak to the crowd on behalf of an administration that bows down to the Religion Right and a Congress in which more than 90% of the members are Christians, Texas Governor Greg Abbott told everyone they were being silenced.

In a speech designed to anger the crowd and get them pumped up about midterm elections, Abbott insisted that people are trying to “silence the faithful and remove God from the public square.”

The only way that would be more ironic is if he said it while holding a megaphone.

“Our country was founded on religious liberty, but America is at a time of crisis as some try to silence the faithful and remove God from the public square,” said Governor Abbott. “Texas has faced a great deal of adversity, but we’ve relied on our faith to overcome those challenges, which has brought us closer to God. In the midst of challenges against people of faith, Texans have adopted the attitude, ‘pray as if everything depends on God, but work as if everything depends on Texas.’”

What challenges do people of faith face that the rest of us don’t? (And let’s admit, by faith, he only means Christians, because the GOP has never given a damn about people outside that bubble.)

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Young more religious than old in only two countries in world

By Harriet Sherwood

Young people are more religious than their elders in only two countries – Ghana, and the former Soviet republic of Georgia – according to a global analysis.

In 46 out of 106 countries surveyed by the Washington-based Pew Research Center, people between the ages of 18 and 39 are less likely to say religion is very important to them than adults over the age of 40.

Countries where the age gap is most marked are Poland, Greece, Chile, Romania and Portugal – all predominantly Christian countries, and all with a percentage point difference between the two age groups of 20 or higher.

The US has a 17-point difference, and Ireland a nine-point gap. The UK is among 58 countries in which there is no significant difference between younger and older adults.

In Lebanon, a majority Muslim country but with a large Christian population, there is a 20-point age gap. In Iran, ruled by an Islamic theocracy, there is a nine-point difference.

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The Battle Behind the Periodic Table’s Latest Additions

By Edwin Cartlidge

The mood at Bäckaskog Castle in southern Sweden should have been upbeat when chemists and physicists gathered there for a symposium in May 2016. The meeting, sponsored by the Nobel Foundation, offered researchers a chance to take stock of global efforts to probe the limits of nuclear science, and to celebrate four new elements that they had added to the periodic table a few months earlier. The names of the elements were due to be announced within days, a huge honour for the researchers and countries responsible for the discoveries.

Although many at the meeting were thrilled with how their field was developing — and the headlines it was generating — a significant number were worried. They feared that there were flaws in the process of assessing claims about new elements, and were concerned that reviews of the recent discoveries had fallen short. Some felt there was not enough evidence to justify enshrining the most controversial elements, numbers 115 and 117. The scientific integrity of the periodic table was at stake.

Towards the end of the meeting, one scientist asked for a show of hands on whether or not they should announce the elements’ names as planned. The question exposed the depth of concern among the crowd. Most researchers voted to delay the announcement, says Walter Loveland, a nuclear chemist at Oregon State University in Corvallis. And that triggered a remarkable reaction from some of the Russian scientists who had led efforts that resulted in three of the elements. “They just stomped their feet and walked out,” says Loveland. “I’ve never seen that in a scientific meeting.”

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Mike Pence will address Southern Baptists — just as they’re reckoning with race and sexual misconduct

By Tara Isabella Burton

This year was always going to be a controversial one for the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, which takes place Tuesday and Wednesday in Dallas. From the public outcry surrounding former president Paige Patterson, who was fired from his post as head of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary after making a series of remarks that appeared to justify spousal abuse, to the numerous clashes within the evangelical community centered on the Trump presidency, the 2018 meeting of America’s largest evangelical denomination was already set to be fraught.

Now, Vice President Mike Pence is planning to speak at the event.

Pence will speak on Wednesday, the second day of the conference, the SBC announced on Monday.

“We are excited to announce Vice President Mike Pence will be attending this year’s SBC annual meeting to express appreciation to Southern Baptists for the contributions we make to the moral fabric of our nation,” said current SBC president Steve Gaines.

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The GOP Still Wants to Repeal the Johnson Amendment Through a “Must-Pass” Bill

By Hemant Mehta

Republicans’ attempts to repeal the Johnson Amendment aren’t over yet.

For more than a year now, Donald Trump has promised the Religious Right that he would sign a repeal of the rule, which forbids places of worship from endorsing political candidates if they want to keep their tax exempt status. If he were to rescind it, Christian churches be one step closer to essentially becoming fundraising arms of the Republican Party. We have no idea how much dark money would start flowing to campaigns via churches when that day arrives.

Those efforts began last year, when Trump signed an executive order claiming to repeal the rule… but it had no teeth. It was more of a performance than anything substantive.

Since then, Republicans have attempted to do the job legislatively by putting a repeal into various spending bills… to no avail. The latest attempt was thought to be via the omnibus bill passed by Congress this past March.

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Once climate change skeptic, new NASA chief Bridenstine wants Earth science to remain key agency mission

By Ledyard King

WASHINGTON — Newly installed NASA Administrator James Bridenstine said the agency will — and should — continue to monitor the Earth’s carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming, marking another break from many of the conservative lawmakers with whom he once served.

Two weeks after telling a Senate panel he now believes human activity is the primary source of climate change, the former GOP congressman from Oklahoma told a group of reporters Wednesday that NASA must continue its work on Earth science missions.

“NASA can lead when it comes to studying the Earth and studying the climate. That’s what we have been doing and that’s what we intend to keep doing,” he said. “And there’s no agency on the face of the planet that has the credibility to study and understand so that policy makers can make good decisions than NASA.”

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