The same-sex law passed in the UK recently exempted religious institutions from having to perform such marriages. But now a couple is testing that provision by taking the church to court.
Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, 42, and his partner, Tony, 49 — millionaires who run a surrogacy company in Britain and the U.S. — have been a high-profile couple since 1999 when they became the first gay couple to be named on the birth certificate of their child. [Read more…]
Troy University, a public university in Alabama, has just opened a new dorm that will accommodate students who are seeking a “faith-based collegiate experience”.
The new facility gives preference to students who maintain an active spiritual lifestyle and are actively engaged in a campus faith-based organization.
Residents are required to engage at least semi-annually in a community-service or service-learning project that is tied to a church, such as food or clothing drive. [Read more…]
I recently heard about Camp Quest, a nationwide network of summer camps for children where, in addition to the usual summer outdoor fun activities, they also learn science and humanist values and critical thinking. It is a wonderful opportunity for parents and children with scientific, secular, and atheist outlooks to have a good time with like-minded people, as a counter to the large number of religion-based camps. There are already 17 such weeklong camps nationwide and the growth has been fairly rapid. [Read more…]
It’s true, he did. (Mark 11:12-14, 20-22)
Mr. Deity explains to Jesus why he was so ticked off about the figs.
This interview with Reza Aslan about his new book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth has been all over the internet but I got to watch it only today. The scholar of religions amazingly keeps his cool with what has to be one of the most obtuse interviewers I have ever seen. Even though he ends up explaining basic things about the nature of academic studies to Lauren Green like she was a child, she still does not seem to get it. [Read more…]
The outspoken archbishop, Nobel prize winner, and human rights activist Desmond Tutu made the following remarks recently.
South Africa’s iconic retired archbishop, Desmond Tutu, said on Friday that if he had his pick, he’d go to hell before heading to a heaven that condemned homosexuality as sin. [Read more…]
Inspired by the work of Daniel Dennett and Linda LaScola who studied the situation of Christian clergy who become atheists and created the Clergy Project, a support group that enables these late unbelievers to secretly share their experience with others going through the same transition, Paul Shrell-Fox, a clinical psychologist and researcher at Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, realized that there must be rabbis in the same boat. So he put out a call for them, and finds that their experience is similar to that of disbelieving clergy. [Read more…]
Opponents of same-sex marriage argue that it is wrong to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. But Hannah Ridge writes that that major authority on the usage of words, the Oxford English Dictionary, has announced that is going to do just that and include same-sex marriage in future definitions. A major French dictionary is doing the same. [Read more…]
It used to be that Protestants and Catholics were at loggerheads over various doctrinal issues. It is hard to imagine that in the early days of the American republic there was deep hostility towards and prejudice against Catholics, with some even arguing against them receiving full citizenship because their allegiance to the pope made their loyalty to the new nation suspect. [Read more…]
A US District Court judge has ordered a North Carolina county government to stop having an opening prayer at its official meetings.
These prayers were not the usual generic appeals to a higher power. They were pretty much over the top in terms of its overt Christianity, referring to the virgin birth, the resurrection, and that salvation was only through Jesus.
Recall that the US Supreme court has already agreed to hear a case during its 2013-2014 term about the constitutionality of opening prayers at the Greece, NY city council meetings. I discussed the history of such opening prayers, the defining 1983 case Marsh v. Chambers, and the case of Greece here.