Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica, talks about his quest to make all knowledge computational -- able to be searched, processed and manipulated. His new search engine, Wolfram Alpha, has no lesser goal than to model and explain the physics underlying the universe.
A grieving widow has won a Supreme Court injunction to save her dead husband's sperm after a Brisbane IVF clinic informed her it would be destroyed.
Kate Bazley launched the action after the Wesley Monash clinic told her it was against their policy to provide IVF treatment to a single woman.
Few forces in the world are as potent as religion: it comforts people in their suffering and inspires them to both magnificent and terrible deeds...
Quantum Theory accounts for the anomalous behaviours of light and atoms. It's astonishingly accurate but notoriously difficult to grasp. But Deepak Chopra, who once qualified as a doctor, has ceased upon quantum jargon and applied it to healing. He claims that disease can be cause and cured by a shift in consciousness.
"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes," Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Women in the Islamic Republic are required by law to cover from head to toe, but many, especially the young, ignore some of the more strict codes and wear tight coats and scarves pulled back that show much of the hair. "What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?" Sedighi asked during a prayer sermon last week. "There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam's moral codes." Seismologists have warned for at least two decades that it is likely the sprawling capital will be struck by a catastrophic quake in the near future. Some experts have even suggested Iran should move its capital to a less seismically active location. Tehran straddles scores of fault lines, including one more than 50 miles long, though it has not suffered a major quake since 1830.
It must be noted, also, that all the letters from diocese to Ratzinger and from Ratzinger to diocese were concerned only with one question: Can this hurt Holy Mother Church?
In the Canadian province of Quebec a furious public debate has erupted over Muslim women who wear the niqab - face veil.
Out of over 200,000 Muslims in Montreal in Quebec, only a few dozen women wear the niqab, but under a proposed new legislation they could be barred from receiving public services.
Al Jazeera's Rob Reynolds reports from Montreal where the debate has divided the Muslim community. (18 April 2010)
Tarek Fatah: Burn your burka
Defenders of the burka contend that the wearing of a face-mask by Muslim women is protected by our Charter's right to religious freedom. But such arguments are premised on the myth that a face-mask for women is a necessary part of religiously prescribed Islamic attire.
First Lending Team to surpass $1 million in loans
Pete is the team captain of the Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Freethinkers, Secular Humanists and the Non-Religious Lending Team. Last year, his team became the first Kiva Lending Team to reach $1 million in loans. We had the honor of interviewing Pete about his teams' accomplishments.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said
"Many psychologists and psychiatrists have demonstrated that there is no relation between celibacy and pedophilia. But many others have demonstrated, I have been told recently, that there is a relation between homosexuality and pedophilia. That is true," said Bertone. "That is the problem."
His comments drew angry reactions from Chile's gay rights advocates.
"Neither Bertone nor the Vatican has the moral authority to give lessons on sexuality," said Rolando Jimenez, president of the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation in Chile.
Jimenez also said no reputable study exists to support the cardinal's claims.
"This is a perverse strategy by the Vatican to shirk its own ethical and legal responsibility by making a spurious and disgusting connection," he said.
At least one of the highest-profile pedophiles in the Chilean church victimized young girls, including a teenager who became pregnant."
RICHARD DAWKINS, the atheist campaigner, is planning a legal ambush to have the Pope arrested during his state visit to Britain "for crimes against humanity".
Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.
Walk into a church on a Sunday and you might find that a few of the people in the pews are atheists - there because they like the old hymns or the comforting murmur of the liturgy or because their spouses insist. Or because, at some level, they're still pretending they believe. They are spectators, in other words, not participants.
But what about the person leading the service? How likely is it that a member of the clergy might be an atheist as well - delivering the sermon and choosing the Bible passages, and afterward paying house calls to offer spiritual counsel to those in trouble and doubt, all without believing in God?
Daniel Dennett decided to find out. A leading philosopher of consciousness, a Tufts University professor, and a famously outspoken atheist, Dennett has for years been curious about the phenomenon of nonbelieving clergy. And now, working with a researcher and clinical social worker named Linda LaScola, he has embarked on a project to find and publicize their stories.
As NSW finally introduces ethics classes as an alternative to scripture classes in public schools, the federal government is headed in the opposite direction.
Kevin Rudd announced last week another $42 million, on top of the initial $165 million, for the national school chaplaincy program that employs religious operatives to work in public schools.
THE Anglican Archbishop of Sydney has privately lobbied the Premier, Kristina Keneally, against the permanent introduction of secular ethics classes in public schools, saying they would jeopardise the future of religious education.The Anglican and Catholic Archdioceses in Sydney are lobbying the New South Wales Government against the introduction of ethics classes in public schools. Later this year there will be a trial of ethics courses for students who opt out of special religious education.
Currently those students spend the half hour watching videos, colouring in or reading. But church groups fear that the ethics class will lead to a drop in the number of students learning about religion.
There's no doubt that in an ethics class there is a solid view that you're better off living an examined life than just operating as a matter of habit.
But what it allows basically is for children who might have come from a background at home where they have their own distinctive values and principles, whether they be derived from religion or culture, to give voice to those, to encounter others and to explore what it might mean in practice. So it's not about shoving down the throats of children a particular view which is just derived from one single spot. It's more open than that.
But it's you know, it's a got venerable tradition going back at least as far as people like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in the Greek world.
The Secular Party holds that religious beliefs impose and give rise to an increasing intrusion on civil liberties and provide an unwelcome source of social disharmony. We seek to rigorously uphold the internationally recognised Rights of the Child. These imply that children should be free to develop to their full potential their capacity for freedom of thought. This necessitates protecting children from religious indoctrination. This involves instructing them with moral values based on universal principles, free from the corrupting influence of religious dogma.
An absence of faith invites an inward focus and undermines human relationships, Dr Jensen said in his Easter address at St Andrew's Cathedral on Sunday morning.
"I have emphasised human loneliness this Easter because that is what expert observers of our society are saying is a real problem," Dr Jensen said.
"It is what we would expect to occur given the secularist philosophy we have embraced.
"This philosophy emphasises the individual and individual rights, it invites us to invent our own lives and it undervalues commitment to other human beings.
"It is a recipe for loneliness and the path to a very lonely old age."
As it has been a concern of mine for a long time now: I'd like to ask is there any reason why we are still allowing religious people into public schools for the purposes of promoting their religion? I would have thought this would have ceased a long time ago.
But the five-year-old was the only child in her year to be excused from the lesson and so was forced to sit alone outside the classroom while it proceeded. The little girl was so distressed that her mother - let's call her Karen - reluctantly gave permission for her to attend Anglican scripture. But the decision doesn't feel right and she's still not sure that it is. What should she do?
Mr. Ron Williams expected his children to enjoy a public education in a secular state school.
His family experience, since 2006, has shown that the federally-funded National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP) has intervened, creating a non-secular pro-Christian culture in the state schools his children attended.
Because of Texas' massive presence in the textbook market nationwide, the state board's idiosyncratic view of history is likely to show up in what's taught in schools across the USA for the next decade.
Among the other changes in the current draft: Downgrading the place of Thomas Jefferson among the Founders because of board members' dislike of his support for separation of church and state.
Alaska Natives are accusing the Catholic Church of using their remote villages as a "dumping ground" for child-molesting priests-and blaming the president of Seattle University for letting it happen.
One spring afternoon in 1977, 15-year-old Rachel Mike tried to kill herself for the third time. An Alaska Native, Rachel was living in a tiny town called Stebbins on a remote island called St. Michael. She lived in a house with three bedrooms and nine siblings. Rachel was a drinker, depressed, and starving. "When my parents were drinking, we didn't eat right," she says. "I just wanted to get away from the drinking."
Bernando Álvarez said that there are 13 year olds who are wanting to be abused, and 'if you are careless they will provoke you'
There is outrage in parts of Spanish society following declarations made over Christmas from the Bishop of Tenerife, Bernardo Álvarez.
His comments were that there are youngsters who want to be abused, and he compared that abuse to homosexuality, describing them both as prejudicial to society. He said that on occasions the abuse happened because the there are children who consent to it.
'There are 13 year old adolescents who are under age and who are perfectly in agreement with, and what's more wanting it, and if you are careless they will even provoke you', he said.
... every lemon meringue pie, every velvety wrinkle in the Pope's cassock, all just taunting and teasing and tantalizing you, begging you to stick your penis in them.
That is not to say that Christians do not attack Atheism, but let us remember the creed of Atheism seeks to rid the world of Christianity. Christianity (at least practiced as it is supposed to be) is respectful of other peoples beliefs. Christianity respects Atheism and the rights of those who practice it to hold their beliefs. Christianity believes in individual morality. While it appears Atheists do not extend this same right to Christians.
Cardinals claim opposition to gay marriage, abortion fuelling 'hate' campaign.
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican heatedly defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, claiming accusations that he helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests are part of an anti-Catholic "hate" campaign targeting the Pope for his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.
Vatican Radio broadcast comments by two senior cardinals explaining "the motive for these attacks" on the Pope and the Vatican newspaper chipped in with spirited comments from another top cardinal.
"The pope defends life and the family, based on marriage between a man and a woman, in a world in which powerful lobbies would like to impose a completely different" agenda, Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, head of the disciplinary commission for Holy See officials, said on the radio.
A TINY school campus in Bendigo run by the controversial Exclusive Brethren religious sect is receiving $1.2 million in federal funding to upgrade its library, despite having just 11 primary students last year.
Documents also show that the Exclusive Brethren-run Glenvale School's Swan Hill campus - which has just 16 primary students - received $800,000 for a hall under the schools building program.
Honor Thy Father: The Inside Story of the Young Muslim Woman "Honor-Killed" by Her Father Because He Believed She'd Become Too Americanized
When I was a child, Ireland was a Catholic theocracy. If a bishop came walking down the street, people would move to make a path for him. If a bishop attended a national sporting event, the team would kneel to kiss his ring. If someone made a mistake, instead of saying, "Nobody's perfect," we said, "Ah sure, it could happen to a bishop."
Benedict's apology states that his concern is "above all, to bring healing to the victims." Yet he denies them the one thing that might bring them healing -- a full confession from the Vatican that it has covered up abuse and is now trying to cover up the cover up. Astonishingly, he invites Catholics "to offer up your fasting, your prayer, your reading of Scripture and your works of mercy in order to obtain the grace of healing and renewal for the Church in Ireland." Even more astonishing, he suggests that Ireland's victims can find healing by getting closer to the church...
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican heatedly defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday, claiming accusations that he helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests are part of an anti-Catholic "hate" campaign targeting the pope for his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.
Vatican Radio broadcast comments by two senior cardinals explaining "the motive for these attacks" on the pope and the Vatican newspaper chipped in with spirited comments from another top cardinal.
Dear Catholic Bishop Anthony Fisher,
I find it curious that you chose the solemn Christian festival of Good Friday to launch your attack against what you see as a recent surge in atheism. Rather than speak of how God morphed himself into a human being only to have himself grotesquely slaughtered on a dirty, dusty piece of Palestine as a way of demonstrating his forgiveness or atonement of our sins, (sorry, the New Testament doesn't make it clear which of the two) you took this moment to lecture your congregation on your claim that "atheism is not a rational philosophy."
Extremist Muslims in Europe demand that their creed be accepted and accommodated -- they want "freedom" to observe their customs via mosques, minarets, halal food, burquas, veils, sharia law, and charming rituals like public stoning, honor killings, and exhortations for global jihad.
Do Extremist Muslims realize how hugely hypocritical their requests are? In Saudi Arabia - birthplace & centre of Islam - there are stringent restrictions on all other faiths.
Perhaps Muslims need help understanding how two-faced they appear? To assist them, I've compiled a few proposals that enable Saudi Arabia and Europe to enjoy equal levels of religious tolerance.
On October 3rd of 2007 in Birmingham, Alabama, Professor Richard Dawkins and his Oxford University colleague Professor John Lennox engaged in a lively debate over what is arguably the most critical question of our time: the existence of God. The debate centered on Dawkins' views as expressed in his best-seller, The God Delusion, and their validity over and against the Christian faith. Both presenters agreed to the format and topics of discussion.
As a part of Easter messages in Australia, atheists have copped an earful.
My first thoughts, aside from a mild irritation brought on by the sheer silliness of the claims, were that this was a beautiful thing. Yes.
Dozens of bodies lined the dusty streets of three Christian villages in northern Nigeria yesterday. Other victims of Sunday morning's Muslim rampage were jammed into a local morgue, the limbs of slaughtered children tangled in a grotesque mess.
One toddler appeared fixed in the protective but hopeless embrace of an older child, possibly his brother. Another had been scalped. Most had severed hands and feet.
ROME - A senior Vatican priest speaking at a Good Friday service compared the uproar over sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church - which have included reports about Pope Benedict XVI's oversight role in two cases - to the persecution of the Jews, sharply raising the volume in the Vatican's counterattack.
A leading advocate for sex abuse victims in the United States, David Clohessy, called comparing criticism of the church to persecution of the Jews "breathtakingly callous and misguided."
"Men who deliberately and consistently hide child sex crime are in no way victims," he said. "And to conflate public scrutiny with horrific violence is about as wrong as wrong can be."
Conservative Christians like to complain that pornography and perhaps any sexually explicit material is harmful -- for example, by making sex crimes more likely. Extensive research has not only failed to find any link between access to and use of pornography with sex crimes, but what correlations have been found are just the opposite: more pornography may reduce the numbers of sex crimes.
Atheology
How many times have you been bothered on your own doorstep by unsolicited visits from the likes of Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons, etc? How often have you been accosted in the street by the zealots of various religious denominations, all of them eager to thrust meaningless propaganda leaflets into your hand?
The Australian way of life is the envy of many outsiders because its foundations are built on Christian teachings, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell says.
In his Easter message, Cardinal Pell called on Australians of faith and no faith to give thanks for these influences and for the work of Christian agencies and communities that "pump the waters of life into the wider society".
"We are not like ancient Roman society where up to 40 per cent were slaves, where women had almost no rights, where infanticide, especially of young girls, was common and where men and women gladiators fought one another to death as a spectator sport," he said.
There is one very interesting paragraph from the judgement, and one which I expect will be republished in blogs around the world. The comment refers to the initial ruling by Justice Eady in regards to the meaning of what Singh had written [my bolding]:
'Once the allegation that there is 'not a jot of evidence' to support the claims is properly characterised as a value judgment, the word 'happily', even if synonymous with 'knowingly', loses its sting. But we respectfully doubt whether the judge was justified in any event in attributing to the word any significance beyond, say, 'blithely'. The natural meaning of the passage, in other words, was not that the BCA was promoting what it knew to be bogus treatments but that it was promoting what Dr Singh contended were bogus treatments without regard to the want of reliable evidence of their efficacy – a meaning which takes one back to the assertion that there was not a jot of evidence for the BCA's claims.' [para 30]
While the Roman Catholic sexual abuse scandal unfolds in Europe, the Catholic Church in the U.S. is under renewed scrutiny.
In the wake of its own scandal almost a decade ago, the U.S. church says it has reformed its policies for handling sexual abuse allegations and will remove from ministry every priest who is credibly accused of abuse.
Cardinal Pell tipped to tackle Church's sexual abuse scandal
IRISH and British media, and Catholic Church officials, are speculating that Australia's Cardinal George Pell will be sent to clean up the mess over church abuse in Ireland.
In his pastoral letter to the Irish people, the Pope wrote: "I intend to hold an apostolic visitation of certain dioceses in Ireland, as well as seminaries and religious congregations."
The Belfast Telegraph and British newspaper The Independent reported Cardinal Pell could be called on for help during the abuse scandal.
But a spokesman for Cardinal Pell said he had not heard anything about the visitation teams to Ireland.
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