ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 40

Why Amy Comey Barrett’s Religion is Fair Game

By John Stoehr On Monday the Senate Democrats the subject of religion. During the first day of Appellate Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings, they focused on health care and how Donald Trump’s third nominee might rule after the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments next month on the Affordable Care Act. Avoiding religion was …

How QAnon uses religion to lure unsuspecting Christians

By Daniel Burke Parker Neff was scrolling through conservative posts on Facebook when he saw an unfamiliar hashtag: #WWG1WGA. Recently retired after serving as a Southern Baptist pastor for more than 20 years, his time was free and curiosity piqued. “I started looking into it online,” Neff said. “Doing some research.” And with that, the …

The Religious Reason Many Americans Refuse to Wear Masks

By Kate Blanchard Even in the most evangelical phase of my life, when I was a college student who occasionally engaged in raising my hands while singing praise songs, I was horrified to know that there were some Christians in the world who thought it was a good idea to handle venomous snakes for the Lord. …

Christian musician Sean Feucht brings COVID worship protest to Nashville, had no permit say health officials

By Bob Smietana Christian musician Sean Feucht brought his worship protest tour to Nashville on Sunday (Oct. 11). Feucht played before a mostly maskless crowd gathered on a public square in front of the Nashville Metropolitan Courthouse. Video of the event shows thousands of tightly packed people jumping and raising their hands as Feucht and his band …

White Christians continue to favor Trump over Biden, but support has slipped

By Gregory A. Smith President Donald Trump continues to be White Christians’ preferred candidate for the November election, but support among voters in three major traditions – White Catholics, White Protestants who are not evangelical and even White evangelical Protestants – has slipped since August, according to a new Pew Research Center poll. Democratic candidate …

CRISPR, the revolutionary genetic ‘scissors,’ honored by Chemistry Nobel

By Jon Cohen This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to two scientists who transformed an obscure bacterial immune mechanism, commonly called CRISPR, into a tool that can simply and cheaply edit the genomes of everything from wheat to mosquitoes to humans. The award went jointly to Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Unit …

Witness The Very Last Scream of Light From a Star Devoured by a Black Hole

By Michelle Starr From the heart of a galaxy 215 million light-years away, a brilliant flash of light flared into the void of space – the last scream of light from a dying star as it veered too close and was pulled apart by a supermassive black hole. It’s the closest such death of a …

Algeria hands activist Yacine Mebarki 10 years jail for ‘inciting atheism’: NGO

By AFP An Algerian court on Thursday handed a key member of the Hirak anti-government protest movement a 10-year prison sentence for “inciting atheism”, a rights group said. Yacine Mebarki was also found guilty of “offending Islam” and fined 10 million dinars ($77,400), Said Salhi, vice president of the Algerian Human Rights League. Salhi said …

Ex-members of religious group mixed on Barrett nomination

By Michelle R. Smith Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s affiliation with the Christian community People of Praise is drawing scrutiny because of what former members and observers describe as its ultraconservative views on women. Her defenders say scrutinizing her beliefs and relationship to the mostly Catholic organization is akin to anti-religious bigotry. But in interviews with …

Protester Harold ‘Heshy’ Tischler taken into custody for inciting a riot during Orthodox Jewish protests against New York’s Covid-19 restrictions

By Alec Snyder, Kristina Sgueglia, Brynn Gingras and Susannah Cullinane Outspoken protester Harold “Heshy” Tischler was taken into custody Sunday evening in connection with an alleged assault during protests against new anti-coronavirus restrictions in an Orthodox Jewish area of Brooklyn, New York police say. Some members of the Orthodox Jewish community protested in the Borough Park neighborhood …