Promoting Science and Critical Thinking
The Independent has a moving tribute to Leila Alaoui, the talented young photographer, who was shot dead by four heavily-armed thugs in an al-Qaeda attack on a popular café in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso … Scores of women were among the crowd saying goodbye to an artist and human rights campaigner whose death has sent shockwaves … Read more
Who is Ashraf Fayadh and what has happened? He is a 35-year-old Palestinian poet who has been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia. His “crime” is apostasy – renouncing one’s faith. Human Rights watch has the details … A Saudi court sentenced a Palestinian man to death for apostasy on November 17, 2015, for alleged blasphemous statements … Read more
There is a verse within the bible that reads … they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; – Mark 16:18 … and rather astonishingly there is a strand of religious belief that picks this up, quite literally, and runs with it as a … Read more
Kashif N. Chaudhry, a member of the fringe Ahmadiyya sect, writes in the Huffington Post to defend the idea that the Quran does not specifically endorse the idea of putting people to death for Apostasy. He makes a reasonable argument for this stance, and the fact that this is a non-violent stance is of course … Read more
News has been circulating in the media that Meriam Ibrahim, the woman under sentence of death in Sudan for marrying a Christian, is to be released. For example … BBC here Guardian here Sadly this is not true, her lawyer has advised Channel 4 as follows … Ms Ibrahim’s lawyer Elshareef Ali Elshareef Mohammed told Channel 4 … Read more
I blogged about the “Death is not Final” debate a few days ago, but until now all you had were my notes. Now, here is the actual debate itself … What strikes me as an interesting discovery is that both of those for the motion, Dr. Eben Alexander (Neurosurgeon & Author, Proof of Heaven), and … Read more