Scientology faces criminal charges in Belgium
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- Created on Sunday, 30 December 2012 07:02
- Published on Sunday, 30 December 2012 07:02
- Written by John Draper
- Hits: 997
Belgium's federal public prosecutors have decided to prosecute the Church of Scientology in Belgium and several of its high-ranking members. The organisation and several of its members face charges in connection with extortion, fraud, illegal practice of medicine and violations of privacy legislation. They also want the Scientology to be condemned as a criminal organisation. I have a hard time with the idea that Scientology is a Church - the only way that they can be called a Church is if that label is applied to any group who believes weird things. They are classified as a religion in the United States, Italy, Spain and Australia, but not recognised as a church in France, Germany, Belgium, Britain while several other countries are not sure. (Wikipedia List here) Belgium is not the first country to have criminal proceedings against Scientology.
Read more: Scientology faces criminal charges in Belgium
The Egyptian Constitution
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- Created on Friday, 28 December 2012 06:32
- Published on Friday, 28 December 2012 06:37
- Written by John Draper
- Hits: 925
Egyptians threw out a dictator but it's "out of the frying pan into the fire". The majority of Egyptians are both Muslim and poorly educated. They know enough to understand voting for a constitution but not enough to truly understand that the "state" needs to be independent of religion. Despite the Muslim majority (94%), only 63.8% voted in favour of the constitution which was strongly Islamic. Note that only 35% participated in the vote so it's hardly a ringing endorsement. Of those who did vote, about 36% voted against Islam or were smart enough to understand the need for a secular constitution. But now Egyptians are stuck with it and they face the prospect of becoming a theocracy like Iran. Their religious leaders will effectively have more power than their elected president and legislature. Once the less educated realise what they have done, some may join the opposition in the streets so Egypt can expect turmoil for decades.
Canadians and Religion
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- Created on Wednesday, 26 December 2012 06:59
- Published on Wednesday, 26 December 2012 06:59
- Written by John Draper
- Hits: 747
A new survey shows that Canadians are more spiritual than they are religious, that they attend services when they don't actually believe and that the older they are, the more religious they are. The data was collected for a survey done for the National Post - their full article is here. I have re-arranged the data to make clearer the differences between religion, spirituality and belief in God. The first thing to notice is that older people are more religious and more likely to attend a service than younger people. Is this because they get more religious as they get older or because the trend is away from religion? Other data suggests it's because religion is losing its appeal. But spirituality is popular and people do like to attend a service at least occasionally - even if they don't believe (Christmas carols are great!).
Canadians do not want Catholic Schools
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- Created on Monday, 24 December 2012 07:12
- Published on Monday, 24 December 2012 07:12
- Written by John Draper
- Hits: 826
To be more precise, despite the existence of "separate schools" in most provinces that are run by Catholics and teach Catholic doctrines, Canadians disagree that "Publicly funded schools should be allowed to teach one religious doctrine over all others". A poll published by the National Post shows that across Canada 60% disagree with this statement.
Christmas Myth-Making
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- Created on Sunday, 23 December 2012 06:48
- Published on Sunday, 23 December 2012 06:48
- Written by William Hopper
- Hits: 3501
Each December we head to the mall to buy our annual Christmas decorations. This fine yuletide tradition is usually followed closely by yet another great tradition: the annual debate about what (if anything) trees, holly, or mistletoe have to do with the birth of Jesus or the Jewish Festival of Lights. The answer, usually, is nothing at all. Like many revered Judeo-Christian traditions, most of these were borrowed from others. The following brief synopsis of the origins of Christmas customs is offered in an attempt to shed light on some of the more-obscure references.
Gospels historically wrong
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- Created on Thursday, 20 December 2012 06:47
- Published on Thursday, 20 December 2012 06:51
- Written by John Draper
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The Bible was not written by eye-witnesses and it shows. If you want to believe it is a symbolic description of an inspirational figure - then OK; if you want to believe it is a compendium of beliefs of early Christians - then OK; but don't think of it as an accurate literal story because it is not. Many of the stories are very similar to other myths circulating at the time such as Mithras, Horus, and Bacchus. Some of it was written to try to convince the Jews that Jesus fulfilled messiah prophecies (especially Matthew's). There were many Gospels written but only 4 have made it through the filter of the Council of Nicea - the others were burned and banned. Even so, the 4 do not agree with each other. Some contradictions are listed here but others were simply bad history.
Global Religious Affiliation
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- Created on Saturday, 22 December 2012 06:08
- Published on Saturday, 22 December 2012 06:08
- Written by John Draper
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Pew has released another report on worldwide religious affiliation but they are using a different way of describing people with no religion. This must be true because the numbers for their article "Rise of the nones" said 20% of Americans are not affiliated with a religion but now they are saying it's only 16%! It seems that the only thing you can trust in these reports is trend information or comparisons between groups or countries. The latest report does not talk about trends - it compares countries. Keeping in mind that the absolute numbers may be in question - especially for the "nones", the results are still quite interesting.
Atheists in Muslim countries
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- Created on Tuesday, 18 December 2012 06:26
- Published on Tuesday, 18 December 2012 06:35
- Written by John Draper
- Hits: 1117
Some Muslim countries treat atheism about the same as being a traitor. Most treat it as unacceptable behaviour. Sharia law assumes people are born into their parents' religion so if you are born to Muslim parents but are able to think for yourself and reject Islam, you are committing a hudud crime against God, like adultery and drinking alcohol. Potential sanctions can be severe: eight states, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Sudan have the death penalty on their statute books for such offences. The Economist recently published what amounts to a summary of the situation in the Muslim world. And it's not pretty. There are few options for atheists and there's little pretense of tolerance or freedom of religion.
