I bought Sam Harris’s book, ‘The End Of Faith‘ at Heathrow to annoy any fundamentalist religious terrorists I might have found myself sitting beside on the flight to the US. If the plane was going down, their last minutes would be spent enraged by the infidel, I thought.
I believe in the fact of evolution. I even believe in it with passionate conviction. To some, this may superficially look like faith. But the evidence that makes me believe in evolution is not only overwhelmingly strong; it is freely available to anyone who takes the trouble to read up on it. Anyone can study the same evidence that I have and presumably come to the same conclusion. But if you have a belief that is based solely on faith, I can’t examine your reasons. You can retreat behind the private wall of faith where I can’t reach you
This from the Catholic Church:
Leading UK Catholics and members of Opus Dei have formed a group to respond to the negative impact the Da Vinci Code film is expected to bring.
The Da Vinci Code Response Group, which also includes a Benedictine abbot and two priests, has condemned Dan Brown’s book as “fiction trading as fact”.
Since they can’t stop a man thinking, they take it out on his hide instead.
Freaky young-earth creatonists AnswersInGenesis, organisers of the notorious meeting at Emmanuel College, Gateshead, pop up on my referrer list. Specifically:
11 0.66%: mail.answersingenesis.org
which means that someone at AiG is reading an email with a link to this website in it.
An indication, if it were needed, that the new law on religious hatred is a deliberate attempt to win back the Muslim vote:
Cardinal Murphy O’Conner, as reported previously on cloudsoup, criticised the conflict in Iraq on grounds of cost. At the time we pointed out the huge misspend of money caused by the Catholic Church’s having to recompense the victims of its child-abusing priests.
That is also why the reaction of faith is or should be always one of passionate engagement with the lives that are left, a response that asks not for understanding but for ways of changing the situation
Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, on the Tsunami
Intriguingly, non-Christians are far more likely to give than Christians: one in three non-Christians donate money, as opposed to one in eight Christians.
Stephen Pollard, citing the British Social Attitudes Survey
The BBC continues its irritating habit of reporting events before they happen - budget statements, for example, or speeches - by describing in advance Cardinal Murphy O’Connor’s Christmas Midnight Mass address.
Cardinal M O’C is going to ‘query’ the cost of the war in Iraq. According to the BBC the cardinal will continue the Catholic Church’s historic tradition of appeasing fascism by saying:
