15th May 2008 : Day to Day, May 15, 2008 · A developer wants to build what would be the country's largest Bible-based theme park in Tennessee, depicting scenes such as the parting of the Red Sea. But the plan has created a deep divide among locals.

15th May 2008 :
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Controversial Turkish Islamic author Adnan Oktar was sentenced to three years in prison on Friday for creating an illegal organization for personal gain, state-run Anatolian news agency said.

14th May 2008 : When zoologist Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene was published 20 years ago, it practically snuffed out many readers' belief in God and in their own importance, for it described in stunning and terrifying detail a world where all life was merely the conveyor belt for the gene. Its mission: to replicate itself. DNA was the fundamental and irreducible unit of life that spun itself endlessly into the incredible diversity of flora and fauna. Everything we hold most dear--acts of love, altruism, the painterly beauty of the peacock's tail, the birth of a newborn--could, according to Dawkins, be explained by the gene's attempt to survive, and to hitch a ride on the fittest organism possible, the one most likely to mate and reproduce. Darwinian natural selection was Dawkins' ruling theme. The gene looked like the most purely selfish entity one could imagine, but it was more like the Terminator--just programmed to survive.

14th May 2008 : On February 10, 1999, The Guardian-Dillons Debate at the Westminster Central Hall in London featured Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker in an event chaired by Tim Radford, Science Editor of The Guardian. Sold out weeks in advance, the evening attracted 2,300 attendees, with hundreds waiting outside. It was one of the toughest tickets in London in years.

14th May 2008 : If you're wondering what all the buzz has been about the past few days over a NASA discovery, then wait no longer. No, it's not aliens or an incoming asteroid. Instead, it's still very cool: astronomers have found the youngest supernova in the Milky Way.

First, before I explain, here's the photo of the newest galactic family member:

14th May 2008 : Geelong dentist Paul Gardner wanted to do more than treat his patient's teeth. He wanted to save her soul.

The Christian convert told a schizophrenic patient in 2006 that she was oppressed by "spirits of fear" and should go to his church for "spiritual healing".

During a dental examination and clean, Dr Gardner told the woman his spiritual adviser could help her get off medication.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal today found Dr Gardner guilty of professional misconduct and fined him $10,000.

13th May 2008 :
My colleague Rev. Lee Simpson called to me from her office one morning late last winter. "Did you hear William Thorsell on the radio last night?" she asked.

Thorsell runs the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Lee, The Observer's operations director, had heard Thorsell on CBC's weekday drive-home show plugging a new visiting exhibit about the life and work of Charles Darwin. In the course of the interview, Thorsell mentioned that the museum had been unable to secure any corporate sponsorship for the exhibit, which was highly unusual. Follow-up news stories painted an even starker picture: major corporate sponsors had shunned "Darwin and the Evolution Revolution" everywhere else it had been mounted — in New York, where it originated, in Chicago, in Boston. The consensus was that Darwin and evolution were "too hot to handle."

13th May 2008 : VATICAN CITY - Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican's chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.

13th May 2008 :

13th May 2008 : Over a year ago I visited an organisation called the Biologic Institute, then a shadowy outfit devoted to the search for scientific evidence for Intelligent Design.

12th May 2008 :

12th May 2008 : "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." So said Albert Einstein, and his famous aphorism has been the source of endless debate between believers and non-believers wanting to claim the greatest scientist of the 20th century as their own.

11th May 2008 : As I've mentioned many times (for example, here) at 3QD, Richard Dawkins has been one of my greatest intellectual heroes since I first read The Selfish Gene and then The Blind Watchmaker in college. I was recently fortunate enough to spend some time with Richard in New York City. When about to meet someone whom one holds in as high esteem as I do Richard, one is often a bit apprehensive that the flesh-and-blood person behind the works that one has so admired might not live up to the inflated demigod of one's imagination, and so I was a bit nervous as I walked over to Richard's hotel to pick him up.

11th May 2008 :

11th May 2008 : Weekend Edition Sunday, May 11, 2008. I believe evolution. It's easy. It's my life. I'm a paleoanthropologist. I study fossils of humans, apes and monkeys, and I teach college students about their place in nature.

Of course I believe evolution.

But that is different from believing in evolution.

To believe in something takes faith, trust, effort, strength. I need none of these things to believe evolution. It just is. My health is better because of medical research based on evolution. My genetic code is practically the same as a chimpanzee's. My bipedal feet walk on an earth full of fossil missing links. And when my feet tire, those fossils fuel my car.

11th May 2008 : The Church plans to hire independent 'peace-makers' to handle infighting between ministers and parishioners

10th May 2008 :

10th May 2008 : Which is better, giving more food to a few hungry people or letting some food go to waste so that everyone gets a share" A study appearing in Science finds that most people choose the latter, and that the brain responds in unique ways to inefficiency and inequity.

9th May 2008 :

9th May 2008 : BBC Radio 4, 'Today', Friday 9th May 2008,
Richard Dawkins interviewed by John Humphrys on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor

9th May 2008 : LOS ANGELES — California has awarded $271 million in grants to build 12 stem cell research centers in the state, even as one of the political rationales for the building program might soon disappear.

8th May 2008 : Church attendance in Britain is declining so fast that the number of regular churchgoers will be fewer than those attending mosques within a generation, research published today suggests.

8th May 2008 :

8th May 2008 : In this lecture I want to give a personal perspective on Faith in Britain today. And I do so with humility because everything I have, indeed everything I am, comes from how others have lived out their faith in Britain. No one generates their own faith: it always comes to us through the goodness, example and insight of others: that is the meaning of tradition and the roots of this tradition lie in the goodness, example and insight of our Lord Jesus, God's Word made flesh, the Jewish tradition on which he draws and the Christian tradition which he creates by his risen presence.

7th May 2008 : In this excerpt from his new book, Matt Taibbi shares his experiences at a Hagee's boot camp for new converts.

6th May 2008 : He may not have been thinking about it at the time, but Pope Benedict, in the course of his recent U.S. visit may have dealt a knockout blow to the liberal American Catholicism that has challenged Rome since the early 1960s. He did so by speaking frankly and forcefully of his "deep shame" during his meeting with victims of the Church's sex-abuse scandal. By demonstrating that he "gets" this most visceral of issues, the pontiff may have successfully mollified a good many alienated believers — and in the process, neutralized the last great rallying point for what was once a feisty and optimistic style of progressivism.

6th May 2008 : The devil made Dr. William Bradshaw do it.

The retired minister and academic from St. Louis, Mo., recently released Sinister Among Us, a suspense novel about the president of a small American Midwest college who uncovers a group of Satanists at the centre of the school's problems.

6th May 2008 : It was only when Rachel Underhill was lying in a hospital bed, haemorrhaging, that she first realised the way of the Watchtower might not be for her.

5th May 2008 :

2nd May 2008 : The story of the man who re-grew a finger using "pixie-dust" has captured the imagination of many this week.

2nd May 2008 : Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji are two of the most prominent and outspoken critics of what they and others see as "mainstream Islam." Brilliant, dynamic women — the overused word "charismatic" is not inappropriate for either one — they have each rebelled against a Muslim upbringing to become public figures with large and devoted followings. Both are successful authors: Ms. Hirsi Ali's autobiography, "Infidel," was a New York Times best seller; Ms. Manji's combination memoir-polemic, "The Trouble With Islam Today," has been published in almost 30 countries. They are firm and unyielding in their support for the West, feminism, reason, freedom — and they have paid a price: both have been targets of death threats and have required protection; in Ms. Hirsi Ali's case, around-the-clock protection.

29th Apr 2008 : New York, NY, April 29, 2008 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today issued the following statement regarding the controversial film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

29th Apr 2008 : Pat Condell rose to internet stardom in 2007 with a series of topical rants, posted to popular video-sharing websites. With topics usually centering on religion, politics, and current events, each of Pat's videos quickly caused a stir and racked up tens of thousands of views.

RichardDawkins.net has now compiled the first 35 of Pat Condell's videos onto this DVD collection, with an exclusive introduction by Pat. Enjoy this newly remastered collection, totalling 3 hours of video.

28th Apr 2008 : A 17-year-old Iraqi girl was murdered by her father in an honour killing after falling in love with a British soldier she met while working on an aid programme in Basra, it has been claimed.

Rand Abdel-Qader was stamped upon, suffocated and stabbed by her father, then given an unceremonious burial to emphasise her disgrace. Police released her father without charge two hours after his arrest.

28th Apr 2008 : Humans alone practice religion because they're the only creatures to have evolved imagination.

That's the argument of anthropologist Maurice Bloch of the London School of Economics. Bloch challenges the popular notion that religion evolved and spread because it promoted social bonding, as has been argued by some anthropologists.

25th Apr 2008 : The Mount Vernon public-school science teacher who won't remove his personal Bible from the top of his desk also is accused of conducting a religious "healing session" during school and burning crosses onto students' arms.

25th Apr 2008 : WASHINGTON (AP) -- Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests.

25th Apr 2008 : NEW YORK (AFP) - Beatle John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono is suing two companies over the rights to videos of her late husband, one of which shows Lennon smoking marijuana, composing songs and wondering if he should drug Richard Nixon.

25th Apr 2008 : A US federal court has granted permission for a teenager to wear a t-shirt with the slogan "Be Happy, Not Gay" during a Christian day of action held in response to a gay rights protest.

25th Apr 2008 : For all its appearance as a ferocious predator, Tyrannosaurus rex was just an overgrown chicken, researchers have found.

24th Apr 2008 :

23rd Apr 2008 : Since the publication of Sam Harris' The End of Faith in 2005, the English speaking world has seen a spate of books on atheism, most notoriously perhaps Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (2006). The publication of Christopher Hitchens' God is not Great (2007), Sam Harris' The End of Faith (2005) and Michel Onfray's 'Atheist Manfesto' (2007), among others, have added and expanded the debate. However, despite the popular success of these publications, the 'new atheists' have had a mixed reception, not only among the religious (as is to be expected) but also among fellow atheists and agnostics, who have often accused them of oversimplifying the issues.

23rd Apr 2008 : KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

23rd Apr 2008 : The first generation of World Wide Web capabilities rapidly transformed retailing and information search. More recent attributes such as blogging, tagging and social networking, dubbed Web 2.0, have just as quickly expanded people's ability not just to consume online information but to publish it, edit it and collaborate about it—forcing such old-line institutions as journalism, marketing and even politicking to adopt whole new ways of thinking and operating.

23rd Apr 2008 : NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge ordered a public school system to stop allowing in-school Bible giveaways, saying the practice violates the First Amendment separation of church and state.

"Distribution of Bibles is a religious activity without a secular purpose" and amounts to school board promotion of Christianity, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier ruled in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana against the Tangipahoa Parish School Board.

22nd Apr 2008 : Prof Daniel Dennett and Lord Winston present their arguments ahead of tonight's public debate

22nd Apr 2008 : In response to Richard's article 'Gods and Earthlings'

21st Apr 2008 :

21st Apr 2008 :

21st Apr 2008 : SPEAKERS at a Doha conference on Mecca's importance said that the holy city, not Greenwich, should become the reference point for world time, reigniting an old controversy that started some four decades ago.

20th Apr 2008 : On 18th April, the day Ben Stein's infamous film was released, Michael Shermer received the following letter from a Jew, whose identity I shall conceal as "David J".

20th Apr 2008 :

19th Apr 2008 :
HOUSTON (KTRK) -- The founder of a Christian school is confronted after 13 Undercover catches him soliciting sex from a parent, who's trying to get her daughter a high school diploma.

18th Apr 2008 : If we were visited by aliens from a distant planet, would we fall on our knees and worship them as gods? The difficulty of getting here from even our nearest neighbor, the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, constitutes a filter through which only beings with a technology so advanced as to be god-like (from our point of view) could pass.

16th Apr 2008 : Having ruffled feathers in the scientific community, the filmmakers behind a documentary questioning evolution theory have now incurred the wrath of one of the most powerful figures in the popular music business, Yoko Ono, and have generated a blogosphere mini-drama in the process.

15th Apr 2008 :

15th Apr 2008 : A senior Anglican education official in NSW has declared that people who believe in the Bible should not expect to be allowed to take same-sex partners to school balls because Christianity frowns on homosexuality.

14th Apr 2008 : (From Chapter 9 of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins)

14th Apr 2008 : Man the lifeboats. The idiots are winning. Last week I watched, open-mouthed, a Newsnight piece on the spread of "Brain Gym" in British schools. I'd read about Brain Gym before - a few years back, in Ben Goldacre's excellent Bad Science column for this newspaper - but seeing it in action really twisted my rage dial.

13th Apr 2008 : And so the stellar casting in Doctor Who continues with the news that Professor Richard Dawkins, biologist and bestselling author of The God Delusion, is to appear in the current series as himself. On Outpost Gallifrey, the definitive Doctor Who website, I read that Russell T Davies, the show's executive producer, and all the crew were delighted to see Dawkins. "People were falling at his feet," says Davies. "We've had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins that people were worshipping."

13th Apr 2008 : Why There Almost Certainly Is a God: Doubting Dawkins by Keith Ward

13th Apr 2008 : With all the sophisticated sophistry besieging mass audiences today, there is a need for the study of rhetoric now more than ever before. This is especially the case when it comes to the contemporary assault on science known as manufactured controversy: when significant disagreement doesn't exist inside the scientific community, but is successfully invented for a public audience to achieve specific political ends.

11th Apr 2008 : When the Pope visits the United States next week, he will likely make the case that religion is a force for peace in the world. But a few of his fellow religious leaders are better known for preaching messages of hatred and violence.

11th Apr 2008 : But, after being on the receiving end of a week's worth of public criticism, Davis called Sherman yesterday to apologize.

11th Apr 2008 : David Bolinsky copied me in on this eMail, and I asked his permission to reproduce it on our website. David is the medical illustrator chiefly responsible for The Inner Life of the Cell, the magnificent animation of the internal workings of a cell that was ripped off, first by William Dembski, and then by the makers of 'Expelled', as the following eMail explains.

Richard Dawkins

11th Apr 2008 : Scientists take drugs to boost brain power: study
Twenty percent of scientists admit to using performance-enhancing prescription drugs for non-medical reasons, according to a survey released Wednesday by Nature, Britain's top science journal.

The overwhelming majority of these med-taking brainiacs said they indulged in order to "improve concentration," and 60 percent said they did so on a daily or weekly basis.

9th Apr 2008 : Not Even Fox Likes It.

9th Apr 2008 : On April 9, 2008, XVIVO, the animation company which produced an award-winning animation of "The Inner Life of the Cell," charged producers of a forthcoming "intelligent design" film with copyright infringement. In a letter to Logan Craft, chairman of Premise Media Corp., the producer of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (featuring Ben Stein), XVIVO claimed that a segment of Expelled portraying the complexity of the cell is patterned upon segments of their well-known animation, produced on behalf of Harvard University.

9th Apr 2008 : (CNN) -- Sweet Jesus! What has gotten into the Democratic Party when it comes to issues of faith?

On Sunday, CNN will broadcast the Compassion Forum, an event hosted by CNN's Campbell Brown and Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham. It will explore issues of faith and morality with Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

9th Apr 2008 : Germany's Roman Catholic Church has acknowledged the extent of its involvement in the use of forced labour during World War II.

A 700-page report says 1,000 prisoners of war and some 5,000 civilians were forced to work for the Nazis in support of the German war effort.

8th Apr 2008 : Richard Dawkins was joined by his wife Lalla Ward at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival to talk about the books that inspire him and shape his thinking.

8th Apr 2008 : "Christopher and Peter Hitchens, throughout a long estrangement and recent reconciliation, have clashed in print on many issues. On April 3, 2008, the Hauenstein Center, with support from the Center for Inquiry and the Interfaith Dialogue Association, will bring the two together on a stage for the first time to debate numerous issues, from the Bible to the bomb."

8th Apr 2008 :

8th Apr 2008 : The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday gave a partisan passing grade to the bill critics say is designed to challenge the teaching of evolution in Florida classrooms.

8th Apr 2008 :

7th Apr 2008 : The number of school students in Britain who believe in creationism is becoming a growing concern for science teachers, according to Professor Richard Dawkins.

6th Apr 2008 : Nearly 150 years after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, evolution has been widely accepted by scientists -- and, except for a few religious dogmatic types, the public -- as the blueprint for the engine of life.

6th Apr 2008 : By Cole MoretonHe is the creator of galaxies, saviour of Saturday night telly and the most influential gay man in Britain, but Russell T Davies can still shriek like a starstruck fanboy. "Richard Dawkins!"

4th Apr 2008 : GOD does not exist, people who believe the earth is 6000 years old are "loonies and idiots" and teaching children to fear the fires of hell is plain evil.

4th Apr 2008 : Author of The God Delusion appears despite sore throat.

An outspoken atheist said he was more worried about a sore throat than protests against his appearance in Inverness yesterday.

3rd Apr 2008 :

3rd Apr 2008 : Author and pastor David Robertson said he was concerned the event, hosted by the UHI Millennium Institution (UHI) in Inverness, would not be balanced.

Prof Dawkins, a specialist in evolutionary biology, will speak on the theme of Science and The God Delusion.

2nd Apr 2008 :
From Rochdale to Bideford, the practice of saying prayers at local council meetings is under attack. In Rochdale, councillor Robin Parker announced that when he took over as mayor he would dispense with the prayers, making the point that they are often followed pretty boisterous argument once the substantive business gets under way.

2nd Apr 2008 :
Comedian Ben Elton has accused the BBC of prohibiting jokes about imams and said the corporation was too "scared" to allow gags about Islam.

He told Third Way, a Christian culture magazine: "I think it all starts with people nodding whenever anyone says, 'As a person of faith ...'

2nd Apr 2008 :

1st Apr 2008 : Two followers of a fundamentalist Christian church that favours faith healing over conventional medicine are to be prosecuted for manslaughter after their daughter died of a treatable infection.

Carl and Raylene Worthington were indicted by a grand jury in Oregon's Clackamas county following the death of their 15-month-old daughter Ava in March.

1st Apr 2008 :
WASHINGTON -- If a city allows a monument with the Ten Commandments to be erected in a public park, must it also allow other religions and groups to display monuments of their choosing? The Supreme Court agreed Monday to take up that question in an unusual dispute over the reach of the 1st Amendment and freedom of speech.

1st Apr 2008 : Last week, irked by what I saw as the use of wild exaggeration by church leaders in the embryology Bill debate, I challenged one of them - the Bishop of Durham - to justify one of his more outrageous claims. Tom Wright had accused the "militantly atheist and secularist lobby" behind the Bill (a Bill, as it happens, supported and sponsored by many practising Christians) of believing "that we have the right to kill unborn children and surplus old people."

31st Mar 2008 : VATICAN CITY - Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said Sunday.

"For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.

30th Mar 2008 : Video-hosting site LiveLeak pulled the controversial anti-Quran film Fitna Friday afternoon, citing a barrage of threats.

29th Mar 2008 : The argument goes like this: There weren't actually any dinosaurs. They didn't exist. Couldn't have. Archeological science puts the age of the oldest dinosaur at about 250 million years; the Earth itself, 4.5 billion. Yet, according to the writings in The Holy Bible, the Earth was created only about 6,000 years ago. That's a discrepancy of about 4,499,994,000 years, give or take, putting the creation of the Earth well after the supposed dinosaurs allegedly lived. Therefore, the theory goes, they didn't exist.

28th Mar 2008 : Some of you know that the producers of Expelled had a conference call this afternoon…a carefully controlled, closed environment in which they would spout their nonsense and only take questions by email. I listened to it for a while, and yeah, it was the usual run-around. However, I dialed in a few minutes early, and got to listen to a tiresome five minutes of Leslie and Paul chatting away, during which time they mentioned the secret code (DUNH DUNH DUNNNNH!) for the two way calls. I know. Sloppy, unprofessional, and stupid, but that's the way they work.

28th Mar 2008 :
IOWA CITY, Iowa - County officials have given their informal OK for ghost hunters to check out a one-time Iowa insane asylum to see if any spirits are lurking about.

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors took the initial action on the request from the Johnson County Historical Society, which gives tours of the 153-year-old building.

28th Mar 2008 : It is hard not to notice the bells that ring on Sunday morning. But at churches, synagogues and mosques around the globe there are some for whom that religion is lost. This group is part of America's atheist minority.

While Christians, Muslims and American Jews can celebrate their beliefs, and fellowship in the company of others in churches, mosques and synagogues, where can non-believers find a spiritual home?

26th Mar 2008 :
I was delighted to read that PZ Myers' expulsion from a screening of pro-ID documentary Expelled has been the biggest story in the blogosphere over the past few days. You'll see that the press release is actually from the makers of Expelled, trying to twist the publicity their own way, but it's still great news, and a look at BlogPulse, which tracks the popularity of items in the blogosphere, shows that PZ's original post on the matter is currently the fourth most popular blog post in the world.

26th Mar 2008 :

26th Mar 2008 : Today, Marth 26th, 2008, is Richard Dawkins' 67th birthday! Happy Birthday Richard!

Please use the comments below to send him your birthday wishes.

26th Mar 2008 : WESTON, Wis. — An 11-year-old girl died after her parents prayed for healing rather than seek medical help for a treatable form of diabetes, police said Tuesday.

25th Mar 2008 : Since I was one of the group who watched Expelled at the Mall of America last week with Richard Dawkins and (not!) PZ Myers, I thought I should do my part to expose the movie for what it is. Richard and PZ have written responses, and a conversation between them about their experience is now online. I think the best contribution I can make to all of this is to give you as detailed an account of the actual film as I can, so that you don't have to give Mark Mathis any money in order to know what Expelled is all about.

25th Mar 2008 : Traditionally Easter used to be the time when hellfire and stoppage was preached from the platforms of competing teachers' conferences. These days, regrettably, the Churches are getting in on the act. Over the weekend the fabulous Norman pile at Durham surrendered its calm to the far-from-pacific message delivered by its bishop, Tom Wright. Sermonising about the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, currently before Parliament, the bishop criticised the Government for "pushing through, hard and fast, legislation that comes from a militantly atheist and secularist lobby".