There may be no one with a deeper understanding of the role of the U.S. judicial system in church-state separation and the equal status of nonbelievers, particularly in regards to the Supreme Court, than our board chair Eddie Tabash. And he’s declaring a four-alarm, all-hands-on-deck, DEFCON-1, separate-the-saucer-section emergency over the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh:
We church/state separationists are the magnanimous ones in this struggle. We strive for the full legal equality of everyone, regardless of viewpoint on matters of religion. Our opponents want an America that provides special privileges for only the religious. The danger that a new Court majority will permit government to favor religion over atheism is the most imminent threat to a constitutional system that has up to now benevolently protected everyone’s freedom of conscience.
Former International Humanist and Ethical Union director Babu Gogineni of India and women’s rights activist Gulalai Ismail of Pakistan are being charged with blasphemy, which of course now puts their lives at risk. Ismail, by the way, has been a speaker at CFI’s Women in Secularism conference.
Meanwhile, Ismail, along with Leo Igwe and other humanist leaders coming to an IHEU conference are having visas stalled or denied by New Zealand authorities.
In a lengthy profile in the Washington Post, Stephanie McCrummen reports on the mental and ethical gymnastics of a Baptist congregation in Luverne, Alabama as they justify their love of Trump. One vignette:
[Sheila Butler] thought an all-out race war was now in the realm of possibility. And that was where she had feared things were heading, right up until election night, when she and Linda [Jones] and everyone they knew were praying for God to save them. And God sent them Donald Trump.
“I believe God put him there,” Sheila said. “He put a sinner in there.”
God was using Trump just like he had used the Apostle Paul, she said.
“Paul had murdered Christians and he went on to minister to many, many people,” Sheila said. “I think he’s being molded by God for the role. I think he’s the right man for the right time. It’s about the survival of the Christian nation.”
“We are in mortal danger,” Linda said.
“We are in a religious war,” Sheila said.
Linda nodded.
“We may have to fight and die for our faith,” Sheila said. “I hope it doesn’t come to that, but if it does, we will.”
At his Skeptical Inquirer online column The Well-Known Skeptic, Rob Palmer reports back from the very first SpeedyCamp, a shorter version of SkeptiCamp put on by NYC Skeptics.
At the 49th anniversary of the Moon landing, Elizabeth Svoboda at the Post attempts to understand those who are certain it’s all a hoax:
While people’s attraction to conspiracy theories might seem illogical, it stems from a very logical desire to make sense of the world. Assigning meaning to what happens has helped humans to thrive as a species, and conspiracy theories are internally cohesive stories that “help us to understand the unknown whenever things happen that are fearful or unexpected,” said Jan-Willem van Prooijen, a social psychologist at Vrije University in Amsterdam. For some believers, the sense of comfort and clarity such stories bring can override the question of their truth value.
Karen Matthews at Religion News Service looks into the state of affairs with ultra-Orthodox schools in New York, and you will not be surprised to learn that the education the students are getting is not exactly comprehensive. A group called Young Advocates for Fair Education is trying to get the state to step in.
The Economist‘s Erasmus column laments the state of splintering religious micro-communities in the UK:
A Babel-like array of introverted faith groups and a secular majority struggle to co-exist, without knowing or even wanting to know much about one another.
Trinidad and Tobago looked to be on the brink of scrapping its colonial-era prohibitions against homosexuality, but you’ll never ever guess who’s standing in the way of progress:
Religious leaders representing the 90 percent of Trinidad and Tobago’s population that is Christian, Hindu or Muslim held a news conference to ask the government to uphold traditional marriage.
A man shoots up a Mormon church in Fallon, Nevada, killing one man and injuring another. Ted Walch at Deseret News provides moment to moment accounts from those who were there.
In India, “cow protection laws” are not only making life difficult for the Muslim minority, but antipathy against them from zealous Hindus is manifesting even in physical attacks or even arrest by police.
A couple in Illinois, Randy and Katherine Swopes, locked their 10-year-old daughter in a basement at night for about a year (making her use a training toilet and shower from a bucket), and say they did it because she was possessed by a demon. (They’ve been arrested and charged.) I think the only demons in this story are Randy and Katherine Swopes.
More charges of sexual abuse have surfaced against DC’s Cardinal Theodore McCarrick after his suspension by the Vatican.
WhatsApp is rolling out changes to its service, mainly limits on forwarding messages, meant to curb the rapid spread of misinformation, some of which is getting people killed.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen says of last year’s murderous march by Nazis in Charlottesville, “It’s not that one side is right and one side is wrong.” Wow, I feel more homeland-secure than ever.
But hey, if you’re really upset with Trump, my friend Brian Hogg has an app that makes Trump apologize to you! Presenting “Sorry,Haters!”
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum, you know?
Lifehack: Going to give birth soon? Make sure to have your baby in a Chik-fil-A and you and your kid will be set for life.
Quote of the Day
Buzz Aldrin, of course! He tweets:
I was on the Moon!
Yes! Yes you were! THAT’S SO COOL.
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