Both Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry have said that the ten commandments are immoral and bad for the world - but to see some passion from them on this subject, you have to see them interviewed by British M.P. Ann Widdecombe.

Although the interview starts with Hitchens, the best part of the video is the second half with Fry.  Even Ann's finishing statement helps underline it with her lame comments about the Ten Commandments being "eternal moral truths".  The main point of Hitchens and Fry was that these leave out important things like banning slavery.

In a recent address to Scottish bishops, Pope Benedict said: "You can be proud of the contribution made by Scotland's Catholic schools in overcoming sectarianism and building good relations between communities. Faith schools are a powerful force for social cohesion, and when the occasion arises, you do well to underline this point."  Now we know that the Pope is not capable of rational thinking but he seems not to understand simple cause and effect.  How can teaching a Religion reduce conflicts in society?  If some people think Jesus was God and others think he was merely a prophet, how can that foster social cohesion?  At a minimum, Catholics are teaching their kids that a large number of people around them are wrong.  That's hardly teaching cohesion.

The western world is still trying to understand how such a relatively modern country as Iran can be run by a theocracy yet try to pretend to be a democracy.  Their president is a puppet under the control of the Ayatollahs but what they don’t seem to understand is that this is very obvious to the world.  The good news is that they have a reasonably good education system with a large number of students.  By its very nature, a good education encourages independent thinking so naturally the students rebel against their farcical Government.

The Ayatollahs have had 2 hanged recently and plan to hang some more before Feb 11.  See Amnesty International's site.