Muslim extremists in Somalia are taking to the streets to address the latest threat to Islam under Sharia law: bras. The men from Al Shabaab have been whipping women found to be wearing the “deceptive” garments.
Continue reading “Somalia Extremists Crackdown on “UnIslamic” Use of Bras”
Category: Religion
There is an interesting potential contract case brewing in New York and other cities with large Orthodox Jewish populations. Various buildings in New York cater to Orthodox residents in offering such things as Shabbos elevators, which stop on every floor from Friday evening to Saturday evening so that residents do not have to push floor buttons. Talmudic rules prohibit the use of electrical devices. However, a group of powerful rabbis have now issued a new judgment on the use of Shabbos elevators that they may indeed be a prohibited practice — even if you simply step into one.
Continue reading “My Way or the Yahweh: Rabbis Ground Shabbos Elevators With New Religious Interpretation”
In light of the recent disclosure that President Obama was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize just 12 days after taking office and was initially opposed from the majority of the Committee (here), there is some interest on who was stepped over for the honor. The most striking “loser” in the competition was Dr. Sima Samar, an amazingly brave Afghan woman who has risked her life to fight for the rights of women and girls in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Continue reading “Meet Dr. Sima Samar — The Person Obama Beat Out for the Nobel Prize”
President BarackN Obama, the world’s newest Nobel peace laureate, is again expanding on the policies of former President George Bush and fighting to conceal evidence of U.S. torture and abuse. As did the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration is seeking to change the law after courts rejected its absurd argument that the President can withhold photos of detainee abuse simply because they are embarrassing to the United States. Democrats in Congress are assisting in the effort to try to stop the Supreme Court from considering the issue by preempting the litigation.
Here is this week’s column from Roll Call. It explores the interesting selection of cases this term for the Supreme Court. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s colleagues could not have selected cases more carefully to address areas of uncertainty from her confirmation hearing. Whether by accident or design, this docket is front-loaded with cases that will force Sotomayor to show her true colors in the first few months of her tenure as an associate justice.
Continue reading “Simply Sonia: Sotomayor’s Colleagues Pick Docket Virtually Tailored To Force Her To Choose Sides”
This week, the Catoosa County School Board in Ringgold, Georgia will meet on controversy over the cheerleaders of Georgia’s Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School who use Biblical verses as part of their displays to root for the football team to “commit to the Lord” and “take courage and do it.”
Continue reading “Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goal Post of Life: School Board to Meet on Christian Cheerleader Controversy”
Texas parents are complaining that a program to distribute free Gideon Bibles at schools may have backfired. So many Bibles were distributed to students in Plano and Frisco that students reportedly began to use them as weapons, sold them, or even uses the pages to roll joints. In one particularly disturbing account, a Jewish boy was attacked by Christian students throwing the bibles at him.
Continue reading “Bible Battles: Students Use Free Gideon Bibles in Texas Schools to Beat Jewish Students and Roll Joints”
There is an interesting potential torts case out of Arizona where two people died and 19 people were injured as part of a “sweatbox” ceremony reportedly led by James Arthur Ray, author of the best-selling book “Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want.”
Continue reading “Spiritual Searing: Two Die and Nineteen Injured in New Age “Sweatbox” Ceremony”
We have another case of a child dying from a relatively minor condition while surrounded by praying adults. Kent Schaible, 2, died of bacterial pneumonia because the parents Herbert and Catherine Schaible believed in faith-healing and declined to get medical attention for the child in Philadelphia. This is strikingly similar to the case of Leilani and Dale Neumann in Wisconsin who were recently given light sentences in such a faith-based case. As shown below, difficult questions are raised by the disparate treatment given parents who neglect children for religious as opposed to non-religious reasons. Continue reading “The Good Faith Defense: Parents Given More Lenient Treatment When Children Die in Faith-Based Neglect”
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair used a speech at Georgetown University to warn of the threat against the West that is growing at alarming rate. No, he wasn’t talking about terrorism, the recession, or even Swine Flu. He was talking about atheists and the menace they present to the world. Not since leaders tackled the dangers of witches in our midst has a politician sounded such an alarm. This politician happens to be the leading contender for the first “president of Europe.”
Continue reading “The Blair Witch Project: Former Prime Minister Warns of Atheists Among Us”
In Raleigh, James Nichols says he wants to find God but he can’t find him in North Carolina. The convicted sex-offender was arrested when he tried to attend church because he is not allowed to be present on any property where children are present, such as in the church’s daycare center. It is only the latest in a series of cases that pit the freedom of religion against sex offender laws.
Continue reading “Finding Jesus in All the Wrong Places: Man Barred From Church Under North Carolina’s Sex Offender Laws”
As if by divine intervention, the debate over the separation of church and state was answered today — even as the Supreme Court took up the case of Salazar v. Buono ( 08-472). This picture clearly shows Jesus giving the Constitution to the drafters — resolving any suggestion that the original framers envisioned a separation. It came directly from Jesus and should moot the case heard by the Court today.
Continue reading “The Case Against the Separation of Church and State”
And I thought John Ricci was damned. Police accuse China Graham of Ellwood City of laying hands on the faithful in the First Presbyterian Church in New Brighton, PA . . . well at least their valuables. She is accused of first using a stolen check for a donation and then grabbing a wallet from a women who left her purse in the pew when she went for communion.
We recently saw the outrage among fundamentalists when questions were raised whether a creationist can be a good mayor at St. Petersburg, here. Now Albuquerque City Councilor Don Harris is mailing voters to warn them that his opponent is . . . wait for it . . . an atheist. It appears that atheists cannot be good city council members since one cannot fill a pothole if your soul is empty of the Lord. The Godless office seeker, David Barbour, is shown on the right.
Continue reading “Keeping Albuquerque Atheist Free: City Council Member Runs On The Lack of Faith of His Opponent”
The Obama administration has shocked many in the civil liberties community with the tacit endorsement of limitations of free speech in the United Nations. We have been following the international trend (here and here and here and here) to criminalize criticism of religions, including this prior column. The Administration has joined the UN Human Rights Council and has agreed to create a “new” standard balancing speech and respect for religion. These new standards are merely thinly disguised blasphemy laws that are spreading throughout the world, including the West.