ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 55

No, These Asteroids Are Not Predicted To Collide With Earth This Year

By Eric Mack There are videos on YouTube and being shared across social media warning of upcoming asteroid impacts with the Earth, and yet scientists don’t seem so concerned. Asteroid 2018 VP1 is the unusual case of an asteroid that could come closer to Earth than the moon and perhaps even closer than many of our …

Falwell’s use of yacht comes under scrutiny

By Maggie Severns and Brandon Ambrosino Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. has repeatedly used a 164-foot yacht owned by NASCAR mogul Rick Hendrick for family vacations after the university committed to a lucrative sponsorship deal with Hendrick Motorsports, according to former and current Liberty employees and social media posts by the Falwell family. It …

Trump: I Spoke to God About the Economy and He Trusts Me To Rebuild It

By Beth Stoneburner During a small rally in Minnesota this week, Donald Trump claimed that God spoke to him about the state of our economy and how everything is going to be just fine. Strangely enough, the way God speaks sounds very similar to Trump. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. The Christian Post summarizes his statement: He then …

Rep. Rashida Tlaib joins Congressional Freethought Caucus

By Aysha Khan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, one of the first Muslim women in Congress, has joined the Congressional Freethought Caucus. Launched in 2018, the caucus seeks to promote secular government, separation of church and state, freedom of conscience and policy “based on reason, science, and moral values,” and to oppose discrimination against nonreligious people, or …

COVID-19 has the potential to be as deadly as the 1918 flu

By Yasemin Saplakoglu The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to become more deadly than the 1918 flu pandemic, a new study suggests. Remembered as the deadliest pandemic in recent history, the 1918 influenza pandemic infected one-third of the world’s population and killed at least 50 million people, 675,000 of them in the U.S., according to the Centers for …

The Democratic Party’s 2020 Platform is a Historic Change for Secular Americans

By Sarah Levin After releasing its final draft last month, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has now officially approved its 2020 platform. Thanks to Secular Democrats of America’s advocacy, the platform acknowledges the non-religious, commits to ending broad religious exemptions, and recognizes the paramount importance of separation between church and state. Take a look at these passages (which go …

Her American father was shot in a blasphemy trial in Pakistan. Now she’s fighting for justice.

By Aysha Khan Mashal Naseem thought she knew pain two years ago, the day she received the news her father had been imprisoned on blasphemy charges after being lured to Pakistan, where such crimes of conscience have landed people on death row. But late last month, she understood what true agony felt like. On July …

Vatican agrees to weakened restitution for West Virginia bishop accused of sexual and financial misdeeds

By Michelle Boorstein The Vatican has approved much-reduced reparations, including an apology letter that takes no direct responsibility, for a former West Virginia bishop accused of misusing millions in church money and sexually harassing fellow clerics. Bishop Michael J. Bransfield stepped down in September 2018 as leader of the Wheeling-Charleston diocese amid allegations that he …

How NASA is dealing with the ‘dent’ in Earth’s magnetic field

By Stephanie Pappas Earth is an enormous magnet, its iron-rich core creating a shield of magnetic field that envelopes the planet —— well, almost. A “dent” in this magnetic field known as the South Atlantic Anomaly allows charged particles from the sun to dip closer to the planet in an area over South America and the Southern Atlantic …

Christian Network TBN Cancels Scamvangelist Kenneth Copeland’s TV Show

By Hemant Mehta Here’s an interesting development I missed earlier this month: Televangelist Kenneth Copeland is getting the boot from Trinity Broadcasting Network, one of the (if not the) largest Christian television stations in the world. While the announcement on the website is dated August 3, Copeland didn’t announce it on Facebook until yesterday. It’s not the first skirmish he’s …