ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 51

Sudan Ends 30 Years of Islamic Law by Separating Religion, State

By Mohammed Alamin Sudan’s transitional government agreed to separate religion from the state, ending 30 years of Islamic rule in the North African nation. Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and Abdel-Aziz al-Hilu, a leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North rebel group, signed a declaration in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday adopting the …

John MacArthur claimed there is ‘no pandemic.’ He was politicizing science, experts say

By Yonat Shimron This past Sunday (Aug. 30) John MacArthur, the senior pastor of Los Angeles’ Grace Community Church, made a startling statement. “There is no pandemic,” he said. His proof? A recent Centers for Disease Control report that only 6% of U.S. deaths attributed to COVID-19 listed the virus as the only cause of death; the …

How Jerry Falwell Jr. mixed his personal finances with his university’s

By Aram Roston and Joshua Schneyer After parting ways with President Jerry Falwell Jr in the wake of personal scandals, Liberty University has hired a firm to investigate “all facets” of Falwell’s tenure, including the school’s financial and real estate operations. There may be much to untangle. Falwell, who took over as president of Liberty …

Could plants help us find dead bodies? Forensic botanists want to know

By Cell Press Search teams looking for human remains are often slowed by painstaking on-foot pursuits or aerial searches that are obscured by forest cover. In a Science & Society article appearing September 3 in the journal Trends in Plant Science, the authors discuss utilizing tree cover in body recovery missions to our advantage, by detecting …

Charges dropped against former Village Church children’s minister Matt Tonne

By Emily McFarlan Miller Criminal charges have been dropped against a former associate children’s minister at The Village Church, a Dallas-area evangelical megachurch. Matt Tonne was indicted for indecency with a child involving sexual contact in January 2019 and has denied the charges against him. The Dallas County District Attorney’s Office moved to dismiss the charges against …

Maryland Men Presenting Themselves as Pastors Charged in $28M Scheme

By Michael Kunzelman Three Maryland men presenting themselves as pastors targeted church members and other investors in a Ponzi scheme that defrauded victims out of more than $28 million, according to a federal indictment unsealed Friday. Instead of providing customers with high rates of return and helping with charitable religious causes, the three men used …

American Christianity’s White-Supremacy Problem

By Michael Luo Early on in “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” the first of three autobiographies Douglass wrote over his lifetime, he recounts what happened—or, perhaps more accurately, what didn’t happen—after his master, Thomas Auld, became a Christian believer at a Methodist camp meeting. Douglass had harbored the hope that Auld’s conversion, in …

Astronomers say they’ve detected the most massive merger of two black holes ever discovered

By Loren Grush Astronomers may have detected the most massive collision of two black holes ever discovered, a chaotic merger that occurred some 7 billion years ago, the signs of which have only just reached us. The cataclysmic event offered researchers a front-row seat to the birth of one of the Universe’s most elusive objects. …

Charlie Hebdo Republishes Cartoons That Prompted Deadly 2015 Attack

By Norimitsu Onishi The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has republished the same cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad and Islam that prompted a deadly attack on the magazine in 2015, an act that will be seen by some as a commitment to free speech and by others as reckless provocation. The publication coincides with the start on Wednesday of the …

Same-sex marriage: Religious ceremonies to start in NI

By BBC News The first same-sex religious marriages can be arranged in Northern Ireland from Tuesday. It follows legislation introduced by the Northern Ireland Office in July. There are, however, exemptions and protections for religious bodies that do not wish to conduct same-sex marriages. Same-sex marriage has been legally recognised in NI since January but did not extend …