Sometimes the level of disgustingness can still surprise and disconcert and sicken.

Faith groups are to be given a central role in shaping government policies, a senior minister has vowed. John Denham, the communities secretary, said the values of Christians, Muslims and other religions were essential in building a “progressive society”. He attacked secularists who have called for religion to be kept out of public life. Mr Denham revealed that a new panel of religious experts has been set up to advise the Government on making public policy decisions.

What is a ‘communities secretary’ and why does the UK government think it’s a good thing to have one? Why does New Labour have such a chronic frozen painful hard-on … Read the rest

You know how people like Armstrong and Eagleton and – well most of the ‘we hate the new atheists’ crowd are always saying that the ‘new’ atheists are clueless and naïve and stupid and wrong to talk about that literal God that is a person who lives in the sky and answers prayers that nobody believes in and that according to Armstrong most people always did not believe in? You know, right? Well somebody forgot to tell philosophers, apparently, because the ones who wrote essays for Philosophers Without Gods talk about that literal God. They don’t talk about the God that is the ground of being, or the God that is a sign for something beyond whatever – they talk … Read the rest

Meanwhile Nigeria has a different child abuse problem. Small children are accused of being witches and if they’re lucky turn up at the CRARN center scarred and emaciated. Nwanakwo, age 9, had acid poured down his throat by his father after a pastor at a prayer meeting told him he was a witch. Sam Ikpe-Itauma, president of the Child’s Right and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN) in Akwa Ibom State bids him a sad and angry good-bye.… Read the rest

Apparently the British government after World War II deported a lot of children to Australia without their parents’ permission. I did not know this.

On arrival in Australia, the policy was to separate brothers and sisters. And many of the young children ended up in what felt like labour camps, where they were physically, psychologically and often sexually abused.

Did they indeed – well doesn’t that sound familiar.

In testimony before a British parliamentary committee in the late 1990s, one boy spoke of the criminal abuse he was subjected at the hands of Catholic priests at Tardun in Western Australia. A number of Christian brothers competed between themselves to see who could rape him 100 times first, the boy said.

Theistic moral reasoning.

Suppose the Nazis are out looking for Jews, and they ask you where some Jews are, and you know – what do you do? Do you lie, or do you say ‘yes, I know, they’re in the cellar at number 22 Goethestrasse’? Well let’s think about it, says Bodie Hodge of Answers in Genesis. Jesus said (Mark 12:28-31) that the first commandment is to love God and the second is to love your neighbor, so the first trumps the second (because Jesus said so Mark 12:28-31).

Jesus tells us that all the commandments can be summed up into these two statements. But of these two, the first is to love the LORD your God with all