ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 307

Parents convicted in faith healing death

By The Associated Press

READING, Pa. (AP) — The parents of a 2-year-old Pennsylvania girl who died of pneumonia have been convicted of involuntary manslaughter after prosecutors said they declined to seek medical care for the child on religious grounds.

Jonathan Foster, 35, and Grace Foster, 34, also were convicted Friday in Berks County court of child endangerment in the November 2016 death of daughter Ella Grace in Upper Tulpehocken Township, The Reading Eagle reported.

The Fosters, who remain free pending sentencing in April, attributed their daughter’s death to “God’s will,” according to a police affidavit. They told authorities that Ella began showing symptoms of a common cold two days before she died, including lethargy and a sore throat, but her breathing eventually became labored, then rapid, and she died in her father’s arms.

The defendants belong to Faith Tabernacle Congregation, which instructs members to avoid doctors and pharmaceutical drugs. Medical personnel testified that the child likely would have survived had she been given treatment.

Continue reading by clicking the name of the source below.

Alabamans Will Decide if the Ten Commandments Can Go Up in Government Buildings

By Hemant Mehta

Alabama is one step closer to amending its constitution to allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all government buildings, including public schools.

Senate Bill 181 just passed in the House on Thursday. It had already passed in the Senate. And it doesn’t need the governor’s signature. It’ll go straight on the November ballot, where voters who nearly sent alleged child molester Roy Moore to Congress will decide if the Commandments can be plastered all over the place. (I guess they’ll ignore the line about adultery.)

The bill doesn’t necessarily violate the law because it calls for the Decalogue to be part of a larger display of historical materials. It also calls for private funds to pay for these monuments. But there’s a good chance some of those displays will downplay everything except the Commandments and the lawsuits will inevitably follow. Keep in mind that the bill singles out the Ten Commandments for display, which could be taken as an endorsement of Christianity.

That’s why it’s interesting that the bill specifically says taxpayer funds can’t be used to defend the Ten Commandments monuments in case there’s a lawsuit. They don’t specify who would pay in those situations… which seems like a rather important question left unanswered.

Continue reading by clicking the name of the source below.

Early birds may have been too hefty to sit on their eggs

By John Pickrell

Birds that lived at the time of the dinosaurs might have been too heavy to sit on clutches of eggs without breaking them, according to an analysis of primitive avian fossils. The findings suggest that incubation might be a defining feature of modern birds, evolving only in the past 100 million years.

Some palaeontologists have criticized the study, in part because the idea flies in the face of evidence that some non-avian dinosaurs closely related to birds sat atop nests on the ground. The accepted view by many researchers was that some dinosaurs were already brooding nests to incubate their eggs, which would suggest that the behaviour evolved long before the proliferation of modern groups of birds, following a mass-extinction event 66 million years ago.

Many fossils of early birds have been discovered in the past three decades — particularly in China — but direct evidence of their reproductive behaviour has been elusive, says palaeontologist Charles Deeming at the University of Lincoln, UK, who led the analysis.

Continue reading by clicking the name of the source below.

This Scary-Looking Fish Has a Parasitic ‘Husband’ Attached to Her for Life

By Laura Geggel

In the deep North Atlantic, a small but ghastly-looking female anglerfish floats in the inky-black waters, eerily lit by her wispy, glowing fishing lure and the specks of light illuminating her long fin rays.

Her ghostly glow reveals she isn’t alone. Attached to her underside, her tiny “husband” — a parasitic mate that had fused himself to her belly — wafts in the water.

German researchers Kirsten and Joachim Jakobsen filmed this extraordinary scene with the Lula 1000, a deep-sea submersible diving off the coast of São Jorge Island in the Azores, about 850 miles (1,360 kilometers) west of Portugal.

Until now, researchers had never seen this species of anglerfish (Caulophryne jordani) alive. But the 25-minute-long video, taken at about 2,600 feet (800 meters) underwater, changes that.

“This is a unique and never-before-seen thing,” Ted Pietsch, a professor emeritus of aquatic and fishery sciences and curator emeritus of fishes at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington, said in a statement.

Continue reading by clicking the name of the source below.

Don’t give Iowa tax dollars to schools that discriminate, LGBTQ advocates say

By Mackenzie Ryan

Iowa tax dollars could go to schools that deny admission to gay and lesbian students if lawmakers move forward with legislation allowing education savings accounts for K-12 students, according to LGBTQ advocates.

Iowa lawmakers are considering Senate Study Bill 3206, which would allow students enrolling in private schools to be eligible for about $4,000 a year in state money.

Proponents of the school choice legislation say it would likely help families who don’t qualify for financial assistance, but who can’t afford private school tuition.

The Iowa Catholic Conference, the Iowa Association of Christian Schools and the Family Leader, a conservative Christian advocacy group, are among those backing the measure.

But One Iowa Action, a group that works to advance the rights of LGBTQ Iowans, says tax dollars should not support schools that discriminate against students based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Continue reading by clicking the name of the source below.

Christian Group: Don’t Say We Support Gay Conversion Therapy (Even Though We Do)

By Hemant Mehta

During John Oliver‘s fantastic segment on Last Week Tonight about Mike Pence, he noted Pence’s belief that sexual orientation is a choice.

Pence is rumored to be a believer in “gay conversion therapy,” an ineffective and cruel way to supposedly turn gay people straight. Even though that’s not how being gay works, the method is still championed by many evangelical Christians. Pence himself alluded to it in his first campaign for congress when he said, “Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.”

Since that time, Pence has denied supporting conversion therapy. He openly rejected the idea that electrical shocks — one of the tools people have used for the therapy — help turn gay people straight. That’s good… but it doesn’t go far enough. The question John Oliver really wanted to know was whether Pence believes people choose to be gay. Because if it’s a choice, then Pence presumably believes it can be reversed.

We may not get an answer to that question anytime soon. However, even if Pence won’t talk about it, he still supports the evangelical group Focus on the Family and its founder and former leader James Dobson, who absolutely supports conversion therapy. Dobson even wrote in one of his books, “Focus on the Family promotes the truth that homosexuality is preventable and treatable.”

Continue reading by clicking the name of the source below.

Supreme Court Warily Eyes California Law Involving Abortion and Free Speech

By Adam Liptak

WASHINGTON — A California law that requires “crisis pregnancy centers” to provide information about abortion met a skeptical reception at Supreme Court arguments on Tuesday.

The centers, which are often affiliated with religious groups, seek to persuade women to carry their pregnancies to term or to offer their offspring for adoption. The law requires centers licensed by the state to post notices that free or low-cost abortion, contraception and prenatal care are available to low-income women through public programs, and to provide the phone number for more information.

Justices across the ideological spectrum said they suspected that the law had singled out centers run by opponents of abortion. Justice Elena Kagan said she was concerned that the law had been “gerrymandered” to address only some providers, something she said would pose a serious First Amendment problem.

Continue reading by clicking the name of the source below.

Why Evangelicals—Still!—Support Trump

By Katha Pollitt

Say what you will about the terrible, terrifying Trump years, one good thing has already come out of them: the discrediting of evangelical Christianity. For decades, believers have boasted of their superior virtue, especially in matters of sex and marriage and parenting and social propriety. They’ve blasted premarital and extramarital sex, LGBTQ people, divorce, pornography, sex work, foul language, crude behavior, and not being a Christian—as they define “Christian”—blaming these things for everything from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina. They never get tired of going after Bill Clinton for his infidelities and Hillary Clinton for “enabling” them. (How frustrating it must have been for them that Barack Obama, the Muslim Kenyan communist, spent eight years in the White House with nary a whiff of scandal!) Now they’ve sold their souls to Donald Trump, who has partaken freely of practically every vice and depravity known to man. Urged on by their leaders, 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump—more than voted for George W. Bush, an actual evangelical—and now everyone is laughing at them. It’s about time.

In the latest issue of The Atlantic, Michael Gerson, a former Bush speechwriter and current Washington Post columnist, mourns the loss of evangelical credibility in an angry, eloquent essay, “The Last Temptation.” As Gerson writes: “The moral convictions of many evangelical leaders have become a function of their partisan identification. This is not mere gullibility; it is utter corruption.” An evangelical himself, Gerson excoriates those leaders who make outlandish excuses for Trump’s behavior (my personal favorite: James Dobson’s explanation that the president is a “baby Christian”). Evangelicals, he says, have been driven to a kind of paranoia by their loss of cultural hegemony: They fall into absurd and unnecessary battles over school prayer and creationism, and losing those battles has made them seem—or actually be—“negative, censorious, and oppositional.”

Continue reading by clicking the name of the source below.

Tennessee lawmakers pass bill requiring public schools to post ‘In God We Trust’ motto

By Holly Meyer

A bill requiring Tennessee schools to prominently display the national “In God We Trust” motto is headed to the governor for his signature.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Susan Lynn, R-Mt. Juliet, overwhelmingly passed the state House on Monday with 81 of the 99 members voting in favor of it. Before the vote, the Republican lawmaker spoke from the House floor about the prominence of the phrase.

“Our national motto is on our money. It’s on our license plates. It’s part of our national anthem,” Lynn said. “Our national motto and founding documents are the cornerstone of freedom and we should teach our children about these things.”

The bill requires schools display the motto in a prominent location where students are likely to see it, like a school entryway, cafeteria or common area. It offers more freedom on what form it takes, suggesting that it could be a mounted plaque or student artwork. 

Continue reading by clicking the name of the source below.

Good News! Congress’ Latest Spending Bill Won’t Repeal the Johnson Amendment

By Hemant Mehta

Another bullet has been dodged. Once again, Donald Trump will fail in his effort to repeal the Johnson Amendment.

For more than a year now, Trump has promised the Religious Right that he would sign a repeal of the rule forbidding places of worship from endorsing political candidates if they want to keep their tax exempt status. If he were to rescind that rule, 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.

Trump even signed an executive order last May 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 that will be voted in the House and Senate on by Friday.

Continue reading by clicking the name of the source below.