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Prayer room battles hot up at Columbia University in New York

October 30, 2018 By Barry Duke

While Muslims are complaining that the four prayer rooms allotted to them at the university are inadequate, Hindus are griping that they don’t have one at all. Spearheading a demand for a “permanent and dedicated” prayer room at the Anglican institution, Rajan Zed,above, President of the Universal Society of Hinduism, said that such a space would be a step a positive direction given the of presence of a substantial number of Hindu students at Columbia. It was, he said, important… Read more

Is this the dumbest Halloween idea ever floated?

October 30, 2018 By Barry Duke

17 Comments

Halloween unleashes some very scary apparitions – personified, in the main, by hellfire-and-brimstone Christian fundamentalists bellowing dire warnings about folk dipping their toes in dangerous demonic waters. Evangelist and foe of Satan John Ramirez is one: But Sam or Samantha need not attend Halloween gatherings dressed as ghouls, vampires, zombies, witches and wizards and the like. Nope, according the Church of England’s National Children and Youth Adviser Mary Hawes, kids can safely partake in the revelry dressed as angels – winged little… Read more

Tuam mass grave scandal: nuns should not fund exhumation costs

October 29, 2018 By Barry Duke

21 Comments

Just when you thought that Catholic League President Bill Donohue could sink no lower, along comes the cretin with a statement describing the mass grave found at Ireland’s former Bon Secours Mother and Baby home at Tuam as a ‘hoax’ – and insists that that nuns should not be ask to contribute towards the cost of exhuming the bodies of babies dumped in the institution’s sewage system. Worse, he denigrates Catherine Corless, the historian whose work helped expose the scandal, by calling… Read more

Op-ed: It’s all about the hairdo

October 28, 2018 By Ophelia Benson

4 Comments

This, again. Not in Pakistan or Nigeria or Russia but here in the United States, which prides itself – or used to – on its openness to the world, its tolerance, its generosity. That was always laced with irony, of course, given the dire facts of slavery, usurpation and genocide of the native populations, Jim Crow laws, waves of anti-immigrant hostility, but it was at least an ideal. Now? We seem to be all about the eye-bulging rage and hatred… Read more

Obnoxious Christian site under threat: LifeSite needs money & prayers

October 28, 2018 By Barry Duke

8 Comments

LifeSite is the go-to site if your want to get reports of the zany things being done and said by right-wing lunatics. I visit it every day to seek out items that might be of interest to Freethinker readers. I find it a valuable resource – but not to the extent that I would donate to an urgent appeal it issued yesterday. I have better things to do with my money. When I visited LifeSite today, I discovered it was… Read more

Ireland’s vote on blasphemy further removes it from its Catholic roots

October 28, 2018 By Barry Duke

4 Comments

A ‘medieval’ crime that was ‘crowbarred’ into Ireland’s statute books will now be scrapped, thanks to a weekend referendum which saw around 70 percent voting to eliminate the criminal offence of blasphemy. Among the many celebrating the result was chairperson of Atheist Ireland Michael Nugent. In a post on the group’s website today, Nugent wrote: The people of Ireland have finally removed the medieval crime of blasphemy from our constitution, after a decade of campaigning by Atheist Ireland to have… Read more

Christian bigot torched LGBT library books to protest Iowa Pride event

October 27, 2018 By Barry Duke

12 Comments

Iowa’s Paul Dorr is a thoroughly nasty piece of work – a right-wing Christian extremist whose intolerance recently led him to set fire to four books aimed at young members of the LGBT community and their parents. What made his act even more abhorrent was the fact that the books weren’t his to burn. They were the property of the Orange City Public Library which is now exploring legal options to deal with his act of vandalism – an act… Read more

Ex-Catholic Irish singer turns to Islam and changes her name

October 27, 2018 By Barry Duke

10 Comments

Sinéad O’Connor, who has been treated for mental health problems in the past, has converted to Islam. The Irish pop singer is reported in the Independent, which has posted a video of her conversion, as saying that her move was: The natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s journey. All scripture study leads to Islam. Which makes all other scriptures redundant. Clearly, the treatment she underwent didn’t quite work. The Guardian reports that she made the announcement on Twitter this week…. Read more

Prophet Mohammed cannot be called a paedophile says ECHR

October 26, 2018 By Barry Duke

42 Comments

A few years back Austrian citizen Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was convicted for ‘denigrating the teachings of a legally recognised religion’ by suggesting that Mohammed was a ‘paedophile’. She was stung with a fine of €480 ($546). The case , in which Sabaditsch-Wolff, above, claimed she was contributing to public debate, wound up in the European Court of Human Rights, which yesterday roundly rejected her defence. The Strasbourg-based ECHR ruled that Austrian courts had carefully balanced the applicant’s: Right to freedom of… Read more

Vicar abused teen who wanted to deepen her faith in Christianity

October 26, 2018 By Barry Duke

5 Comments

When a ‘vulnerable’ teenage girl in Lancashire, UK, developed an interest in the church and expressed the wish to deepen her faith and interest in Christianity, she soon became the victim of sexual abuse. Her abuser was a married Church of England vicar – Simon Marsh, 59 – who is now looking for an alternative vocation. March was sacked from his role of vicar of St Michael and All Angels Church in Bramhall, Stockport, after a hearing of the Bishop’s… Read more