We hear so much about ‘militant’ atheists and yet it is theists who like to bully people. A science teacher in North Carolina has been suspended for saying caustic’ things about her students at Facebook. The students have been bullying her.

Parents said the situation escalated after a student put a postcard of Jesus on Hussain’s desk that the teacher threw in the trash. Parents also said Hussain sent to the office students who, during a lesson about evolution, asked about the role of God in creation. On her Facebook page, Hussain wrote about students spreading rumors that she was a Jesus hater. She complained about her students wearing Jesus T-shirts and singing “Jesus Loves Me.” She objected to

Meanwhile, in Scotland…

A study of schoolchildren has found that most of those questioned thought violence towards women was acceptable if there was a reason behind it. The majority of the pupils said it was justified if the woman had an affair, or if she was late in making the tea.

Or anything in between, no doubt.… Read the rest

The Catholic church in Ireland is all heart – like Mr Collins, it graciously consents to do what it is obliged to do.

The Primate of All-Ireland Cardinal Seán Brady said this afternoon that were the remit of the Murphy Commission to be extended to other Catholic dioceses in Ireland, the Catholic Church “will co-operate fully with that inquiry.”

Is that not kind? Is that not generous? Is it not affable and condescending and truly gracious? The Catholic church will co-operate fully with an inquiry into its long habit of letting its priests molest children while it keeps the whole thing secret. I’m totally impressed.

The pontiff also noted “the more general crisis of faith affecting the Church,” the

The Templeton Foundation is having more and more success at getting its message under the radar. The Times Higher for instance tells us about an upcoming lecture which will include some things we have grown familiar with in recent months.

It is often assumed that religion and science have always been locked in a life-and-death struggle…Such views would have startled the scholars, including some of the greatest names in British science, who founded what became the Royal Society 350 years ago. In a Faraday Institute public lecture, to be delivered in Cambridge this week, Peter Harrison, Andreas Idreos professor of science and religion at the University of Oxford, will challenge such arguments about the impossibility of being both scientific and

A guy called Joseph Mayton at Comment is Free tells us about the ‘reform-minded younger generation’ in the Muslim Brotherhood.

In many ways, these young people have created a new identity and image of the Brotherhood, both in Egypt and abroad. No longer do knowledgeable people view its members as the stereotypical bearded Islamists. Instead, they see members who talk of their desire for democracy and greater freedoms, not to mention their love for American films. The first time I met a group of the MB’s young bloggers a few years ago, they talked for 10 minutes on the upcoming Charlize Theron and Tom Cruise films.

Aw, gee, really? Isn’t that sweet? Some ‘MB’ bloggers are interested in movies … Read the rest

That curate in Kent is standing by what he said – he’s not backing down just because a lot of boring politically correct rightsy types are pissed off. He’s got principle. He really thinks women should be submissive to men.

Two weeks ago the curate delivered a controversial sermon at St Nicholas’s Church in Sevenoaks in which he triggered outrage by partly blaming the high divorce rate on women no longer submitting to their husbands…During yesterday’s sermon Mr Oden said he wished to make it clear that he did not believe women were “weaker intellectually” but that it was “an eternal principle that women are physically weaker than men”.

Well, it’s not the case that all women are physically weaker … Read the rest

So the pope is doing the ostentatious hand-washing thing – though of course it would be impolite to murmur anything about Pontius Pilate.

Pope Benedict XVI will today complete his interrogation of Ireland’s 24 bishops before pontificating on one of the most shocking clerical scandals of recent times: the extensive sexual abuse of children by Irish priests and the pervasive campaign to conceal it…The Pope has said he is “disturbed and distressed” by the abuse in Ireland and shares the “outrage, betrayal and shame” felt by the Irish people…Observers note that widespread abuse of children by priests is not unique to Ireland.

To put it mildly. But what fewer observers seem to be noting is the absurdity of the pope’s … Read the rest

Gary Rosen, the chief external affairs officer of the Templeton Foundation, reviews Timothy Ferris’s The Science of Liberty in The New York Times.

Nor is it clear, as Ferris would have it, that science furnishes the ideal template for liberal democracy. Science, he notes, is antiauthoritarian, self-correcting, meritocratic and collaborative…But crucial distinctions are lost in these comparisons. The scientific community may be open to everyone, in principle, but it has steep and familiar barriers to entry…[M]odern science is, in the most admirable sense, an aristocracy — a selection and sorting of the best minds as they interact within institutions designed to achieve certain rarefied ends. Experiment, equality and freedom of expression are essential to this work, but it is