15th Jul 2007 : Was the Nazi Party Based on an Atheist, Anti-Christian Ideology?

15th Jul 2007 : More than 500 people allegedly abused by Los Angeles Catholic priests are to receive a record-breaking compensation pay-out, their main lawyer says.

14th Jul 2007 : One might easily picture Dawkins as a puritanical preacher, prowling and peering into living rooms to make sure no one is up to sin, such as teaching religious faith to their children. That's "child abuse".

14th Jul 2007 : Deep in the Congolese jungle is a band of apes that, according to local legend, kill lions, catch fish and even howl at the moon. Local hunters speak of massive creatures that seem to be some sort of hybrid between a chimp and a gorilla.

14th Jul 2007 : In Pakistan, the bloody battle between the government and the Taliban wannabes holed up in the Lal Masjid "Red Mosque" is over, with hundreds dead, including Maulana Abdul Ghazi, one of the two brothers who mobilized radical students to push for Islamic revolution. But the aftermath is tense. Will President Musharraf's decision to crack down inflame tensions between the fundamentalists and the state, or convince the jihadis that martyrdom is overrated? The importance of the question can hardly be overstated. Pakistan has the bomb.

14th Jul 2007 : It's uncommonly generous of Michael Gerson[" What Atheists Can't Answer," op-ed, July 13] to refer to me as "intellectually courageous and unfailingly kind," since (a) this might be taken as proof that he hardly knows me and (b) it was he who was so kind when I once rang him to check a scurrilous peacenik rumor that he was a secret convert from Judaism to Christian fundamentalism.

13th Jul 2007 : Sam recently spoke at the 2007 Aspen Ideas Festival.

13th Jul 2007 : The sight of a Hindu clergyman saying the US senate's traditional morning prayer was too much for members of a Christian group, who yesterday tried to shout him down before being arrested.

13th Jul 2007 : Scientists say they have seen one of the fastest evolutionary changes ever observed in a species of butterfly.

13th Jul 2007 : Hertsmere Council has approved the erection of an "eruv" around the whole town of Borehamwood. The eruv is supposed to "allow" Jews to perform tasks otherwise prohibited on the "Sabbath". The plan will see 76 six-metre high poles, joined by wire, put up at 34 points around the town. However, the scheme was questioned by the National Secular Society.

13th Jul 2007 : IN A BRIEF ceremony in the East Room of the White House on June 2, President Bush vetoed legislation permitting federally funded embryonic stem cell research, declaring, "Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical."

12th Jul 2007 : Christopher Hitchens on his case against religion, his faith in mankind, and his new bestselling book, God Is Not Great.

12th Jul 2007 : Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona's testimony has once again highlighted the extent to which the Bush administration suppresses and manipulates science to fit their narrow ideological view. Whether it's stem cell research, global warming, the Plan B contraceptive, or abstinence-only education, they consistently put appeasing their extremist, fringe base over the interests of the country at large. CNN's Christine Romans details the many battles in Bush's War on Science.

11th Jul 2007 : Looking for God? Well this is where best to find Him in America.

11th Jul 2007 : In his Skeptic article entitled "Why Richard Dawkins is Wrong About Religion" (initially published online in eSkeptic, July 4th 2007), David Sloan Wilson writes:

When Dawkins' The God Delusion was published I naturally assumed that he was basing his critique of religion on the scientific study of religion from an evolutionary perspective. I regret to report otherwise.

11th Jul 2007 : Theologian Douglas Wilson and atheist Christopher Hitchens, authors whose books are already part of a larger debate on whether religion is pernicious, agreed to discuss their views on whether Christianity itself has benefited the world. Below is their exchange, one in a series that will appear on our website over the course of this month.

11th Jul 2007 : The Metropolitan Police is offering a £20,000 reward for information which would bring to justice anyone involved in female genital mutilation.

10th Jul 2007 : UKTV documentary on Charles Darwin.

10th Jul 2007 : You may have been looking at this illusion your entire life, but you haven't been able to "see" it! This short video shows you the best optical illusion in the world!

10th Jul 2007 : Riled religious respondents should study epistemology and the disappearance of fairy beliefs, and also apply some sound ethics.

10th Jul 2007 : Some 380 million years ago, a few pioneering vertebrates first made the leap from water to land. And today, tens of millions of their human descendants seek summer amusement by leaping the other way.

9th Jul 2007 :

9th Jul 2007 : As I stated at a Manchester festival debate on Saturday, religion is the lunatic fringe of human thought - scores are murdered daily in the name of faith.

9th Jul 2007 : Johns Hopkins researchers have added to the growing mound of evidence that many of the genetic bits and pieces that drive evolutionary changes do not confer any advantages or disadvantages to humans or other animals.

9th Jul 2007 :

9th Jul 2007 : In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Hitchens discusses his new best-selling book God Is Not Great, which is his contribution to the recent slate of best-selling atheist titles. He also explores various strategies for challenging religiosity in our society, the immorality of the Bible, how religion is bad for one's health, his many recent public debates with believers, and what he calls the war between the West and Islamism. He also comments on the relationship between atheism and intelligence, atheism and great literature, and the need for a "New Enlightenment."

9th Jul 2007 : Doctors are not immune to religious mania.

9th Jul 2007 :

9th Jul 2007 : Three years ago in The Atlantic, the Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel wrote a critique of genetic engineering titled "The Case Against Perfection."

9th Jul 2007 : Tensions were rising Sunday inside and outside the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, here, under siege by security forces now for six days over its militant leadership.

8th Jul 2007 : Hannity does another editing hatchet job on his guest.

8th Jul 2007 : This video is one of the most effective criticisms of Ham's horrible little monument to ignorance in Kentucky — it's a geological tour of the rocks the "museum" is built upon. It seems the creationists chose to build on some beautifully fossil-rich Ordovician layers.

8th Jul 2007 : SAIMA KHAN wants to die a martyr. Life is transient, she told her father in a telephone call last week, and the real glory is to sacrifice it for Allah. Her statement would be alarming at any age, but Saima is only 10.

8th Jul 2007 : COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa, July 3 — Dell Collins teaches an adult Sunday school class at his evangelical church in central Iowa, and he recently took his students through a series of lessons on the Book of James and its repeated exhortations to put faith into action.

8th Jul 2007 : FORGET genetic engineering. The new idea is synthetic biology, an effort by engineers to rewire the genetic circuitry of living organisms.

7th Jul 2007 : If rats benefit from the kindness of strangers they are more likely to assist an unfamiliar rat in future. In doing so, they provide the first evidence of an unusual form of altruism that appears to violate evolutionary theory.

7th Jul 2007 : Atheists are on the march. The idea of God is under fire. The practice of religion is being condemned as a major source of evil in the world. The latest assault comes in a book entitled God Is Not Great by polemical writer Christopher Hitchens.

7th Jul 2007 : A panel of scientists convened by the country's leading scientific advisory group says the hunt for extraterrestrial life should be greatly expanded to include what they call "weird life": organisms that lack DNA or other molecules found in life as we know it.

6th Jul 2007 : Like a holy ghost, parental religion returns to haunt. As age wearies, the solemn vow to resist everything your parents ever stood for crumbles.

6th Jul 2007 : Dr. Jon D. Miller of Northwestern says scientific illiteracy undermines citizens' ability to take part in the democratic process.

6th Jul 2007 : Daniel Dennett gives his thoughts on philosophy, science and religion.

6th Jul 2007 : This week, two very different Brits had their say about the latest terrorist plots in their country. Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the nation that "we have got to separate those great moderate members of our community from a few extremists who wish to practice violence and inflict maximum loss of life in the interests of a perversion of their religion." By contrast, a former jihadist from Manchester wrote that the "real engine of our violence" is "Islamic theology." Months ago, this young man informed me that as a militant he raised most of his war chest not from obscenely rich Saudis, but from middle-class Muslim dentists living in the United Kingdom. There's sobering lesson here for the new prime minister.

5th Jul 2007 : Science Daily — Functional MRI scans have revealed a "biologically embedded" basis for altruistic behavior, with several characteristic regions of the brain being activated when players of a game called "Prisoner's Dilemma" decide to trust each other and cooperate, rather than betray each other for immediate gain, say researchers from Emory University. They report on their study in the July 18 issue of the journal Neuron, published by Cell Press.

5th Jul 2007 : OTTAWA — Canadians may not be as religious as Americans, but a new poll suggests they are not prepared to rule out God's essential role in creation.

5th Jul 2007 : I recently had a conversation with a friend who identifies himself as an Atheist. He took a few stabs and guesses at the origin of the universe and the origin of life that were not too far off from pre-existing theories.

4th Jul 2007 : I knew something was up when I couldn't get a cab. Then there were sirens and helicopters whirring overhead.

3rd Jul 2007 : Why on earth do people keep saying, "There but for the grace of God …"? If matters had been very slightly different over the past weekend, the streets of London and the airport check-in area in Glasgow, Scotland, would have been strewn with charred body parts. And this would have been, according to the would-be perpetrators, because of the grace of God. Whatever our own private theology or theodicy, we might at least agree to take this vile belief seriously.

3rd Jul 2007 : On the face of it, the Bishop of Carlisle and the young man who staggered blazing from that Jeep at Glasgow Airport on Saturday afternoon don't have a lot in common. The Right Reverend Graham Dow is a grey-haired man with a twinkling smile, rarely armed with anything more lethal than a crozier.

1st Jul 2007 : 'Intelligent Design' (ID) is a new form of creationism that emerged after legal decisions in the 1980s hampered the inclusion of 'creation science' in the public school curriculum. In the 20 years since ID appeared, there has been no evidence of it being used to solve problems in biology. Although the scientific/scholarly part of ID has been a failure, the 'cultural renewal' part of ID has been a success, as supporters of ID seek 'restoration' of a theistic sensibility in American culture to replace what they consider an overemphasis on secularism. Eugenie C. Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, tackles the issue of evolution and science in the classroom.

1st Jul 2007 : The floods that have devastated swathes of the country are God's judgment on the immorality and greed of modern society, according to senior Church of England bishops.