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<\/a><\/p>\nCourt forbids mom from taking her daughter to church. Beware contributions with a pre-checked box.\u00a0 And the bias of Nature<\/em> (the journal, not the creation).<\/p>\n A court has forbidden a mother<\/a> to take her 12-year-old daughter to church or to expose her to teachings from the Bible.<\/p>\n In a custody ruling, a district court in Maine gave the child\u2019s father exclusive rights over her religious upbringing.\u00a0 Though the mother had been given custody in the divorce proceeding, the father brought in an expert who testified that hearing about demons and eternal punishment is psychologically harmful and that the church they attended\u2013the evangelical mega-church Calvary Chapel<\/a>\u2013is a cult.\u00a0 The judge agreed with those characterizations and issued his ruling.\u00a0 The mother has appealed to the Maine Supreme Court, which recently heard the case, Bickford v. Bradeen,<\/em>\u00a0but has not yet released its decision.<\/p>\n Here are details from Liberty Counsel<\/a>, which is representing the mother:<\/p>\n According to the custody order, issued by Maine District Judge Jennifer Nofsinger, the father took issue with his daughter attending Calvary Chapel Church in Portland because it teaches the Bible \u201cverse by verse, chapter by chapter,\u201d including teaching on the Bible\u2019s descriptions of hell, demons, and spiritual warfare. He hired California sociology professor, Dr. Janja Lalich, an \u201cexpert on cults,\u201d to help convince Judge Nofsinger to stop his daughter attending this church. Dr. Lalich told the judge that cults usually have a charismatic, authoritarian leader who teaches about a \u201ctranscendent belief system\u201d that offers answers, and \u201cpromises some sort of salvation.\u201d She further testified that she had \u201cstudied\u201d Calvary Chapel Church and found that the church\u2019s pastor was a \u201ccharismatic\u201d speaker, spoke \u201cauthoritatively\u201d in his messages, and that he asserted his messages were objective truth. Because of this, Dr. Lalich perceived the church to be a \u201ccultic\u201d organization.\u201d Despite not being a psychologist, Dr. Lalich testified it was \u201cevident\u201d that the church posed a potential for psychological harm to the girl.<\/p>\n Relying on both this interpretation and the \u201cexpert\u201d testimony, the court order states that this church is \u201cpsychologically detrimental\u201d to the girl. The court decided the remedy was giving the father the sole authority to make \u201cfinal decisions\u201d regarding the girl\u2019s religious instruction even during the mother\u2019s custodial time.<\/p>\n In the appeal, Liberty Counsel stated the decision makes a dogmatic assertion without any proof that the Christian religion is \u201cpsychologically harmful.\u201d In so doing, the order adopts a \u201checkler\u2019s veto<\/a>\u201d over the mother\u2019s fundamental religious rights to take her daughter to church.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Comments the head of the Liberty Counsel Matt Staver, \u201cThe breadth of this court order is breathtaking because it even prohibits contact with the Bible, religious literature, or religious philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n This issue is not just Calvary Chapel.\u00a0 The complaints against it\u2013that it teaches the Bible, that it believes in devils and eternal punishment, that it has a \u201ctranscendent belief system,\u201d that it \u201cpromises some sort of salvation,\u201d that it has a minister with authority, that it claims that its teachings are \u201cobjective truth\u201d\u2013would apply to any orthodox Christian church.<\/p>\n HT:\u00a0 Steve Bauer<\/p>\n As the end of the year approaches, we are always deluged with fund-raising requests, usually for a good cause.\u00a0 \u00a0And as we move into 2026, the year of the midterm elections, we will be hearing from a lot of political campaigns trying to raise money.<\/p>\n Often, we may feel moved to donate a few bucks.\u00a0 Sometimes, though, your one-time gift might be transformed without your knowledge into a regular monthly or weekly contribution that never ends.<\/p>\n You need to be aware of a particular tactic used by a number of politicians and political action committees.\u00a0 You fill out the contribution form and probably don\u2019t notice that it includes a box to check if you want to make your donation a recurring gift.\u00a0 The thing is, the box is already checked!\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>You have to uncheck<\/em> it, if you want your contribution to be a one-time donation.\u00a0 Otherwise, your credit card will be billed over and over, for weeks and months and years, until you finally notice and contact the fundraiser.\u00a0 A $10 gift thus can turn into thousands of dollars without the giver\u2019s knowledge or intention.<\/p>\n I came across a story about a local election<\/a> in which one of the candidates\u2013who has run for multiple offices over the years and raises money from all over the nation by running \u201cissue ads\u201d that don\u2019t even state his name\u2013has been pulling this scam.<\/p>\n This has been going on a long time.\u00a0 I found an article from 2023<\/a> on how this approach has been operating nation-wide.\u00a0 There is even a name for it:\u00a0 the \u201cdark default.\u201d\u00a0 we found was that about half of the top Republicans had this pre-checked checkbox on their web page that if you didn\u2019t notice it, then your donation would repeat every week.<\/p>\n The article quoted a marketing professor who researched the practice:\u00a0 \u201cWhat we found was that about half of the top Republicans had this pre-checked checkbox on their web page that if you didn\u2019t notice it, then your donation would repeat every week.\u201d\u00a0 Republican politicians, he said, tend to do this more than Democrats.\u00a0 In fact, President Trump\u2019s 2020 campaign<\/a> returned $12.8 million to donors that had been raised in this way.<\/p>\n This makes me wonder if non-profit charities\u2013particularly, Christian ministries\u2013use this same tactic.\u00a0 I searched the internet and found no evidence of this happening.<\/p>\n Still, be on the lookout for pre-checked boxes.<\/p>\n The journal Nature<\/em>, along with its portfolio of related publications, is considered the leading academic journal of the scientific profession.<\/p>\n In recent years, though, it has left its scientific focus to become increasingly political.<\/a>\u00a0 Nature endorsed Kamala Harris because she supports abortion, pushes DEI initiatives, and has been shown to impose its political ideology in accepting or rejecting articles.<\/p>\n Now a scientist who has worked with Nature<\/em> as a peer-reviewer has cut ties with the journal because of its ideological bias and preoccupation.\u00a0 Chemist Anna Krylov of the University of Southern California has gone public with her action in her Free Press<\/em> article Why I Cut Ties with Science\u2019s Top Publisher<\/a>.<\/p>\n She writes,<\/p>\n In an\u00a0October 8 editorial<\/a>,\u00a0Nature Reviews Psychology<\/em>, one of the publishing group\u2019s journals, urged scientists to counteract Trump administration efforts by voluntarily demonstrating their \u201ccommitment to DEI.\u201d How? By confirming \u201cthat they made efforts to cite publications from a diverse group of researchers.\u201d In other words, authors are urged to practice \u201ccitation justice,\u201d or to socially engineer their manuscripts\u2019 bibliographies to promote scientists of favored identity groups, even if their work lacks the requisite merit or relevance. Choosing a study based on who wrote it rather than what it demonstrates is not science\u2014it is propaganda in footnote form.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is called \u201ccitation justice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As part of the practice of citation justice, Nature\u00a0<\/em>Portfolio encourages authors to include a diversity statement in their papers. A\u00a0sample that it provides<\/a>\u00a0should alarm any serious scientist:<\/p>\nCourt Forbids Mom from Taking Her Daughter to Church<\/h4>\n
Beware Contributions with a Pre-Checked Box<\/h4>\n
The Bias of Nature<\/em> (the Journal, not the Creation)<\/h4>\n
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