Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
Two Catholic Related news items caught my eye today …
There is a news report here, that the number of Catholic priests accused of child sexual abuse and the number of victims rose significantly in 2010 …
The bishops’ report said there were 426 victims last year, up from 398 in 2009, while the number of priests accused went up from 286 to 345. Those numbers are down from highs of 889 victims and 622 offending clergy members in 2004.
A question some often ask is “Why do rational sane people believe utterly irrational things?”. However, a far more interesting question to ask is to wonder why skeptics and non-believers exist. Think about it now, every culture we know has embraced some form of belief in the supernatural, so why do we have non-believers? There … Read more
The Google logo declares that today is the day. Exactly 50 years ago on 12th April 1961 he became the first human to journey into outer space when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth.
To help with a bit of an insight, his elder daughter Elena gave her first ever interview about her father to Andrea Rose of the British Council. This is the complete transcript. Here are a couple of surprising details …
Bill O’Reilly (of Fox News) is running a poll (No don’t panic, I’ve not gone over to the dark side of the force, so hang in with me here). Its a poll all about Glenn Beck and asks if you will miss him on Fox News now that he is departing. Well lets think about … Read more
Christopher Hitchers latest Slate article goes into my “Must read” category. In it he distills his thoughts on both the burning of the Quran by Pastor Stupid in Florida, and the utterly insane (but predictable) reaction within some quarters of the Islamic world. To make it easy, I’ve distilled out a few key points … … Read more
Just when the thought crosses your mind that “Nobody could possible be ‘that’ stupid”, somebody comes along to prove you wrong. Today’s example is all about an Italian history professor, Roberto De Mattei, who has made the claim that … “The collapse of the Roman Empire and the arrival of the Barbarians was due to … Read more