100 Treatises

Secularism and Religion Newswire

Recent secularism/religion news, analysis and commentary from around the internet

Trouble in paradise: Maldives and Islamic extremism. Amal Jayasinghe, AFP.

At the Maldives’ National Museum, smashed Buddhist statues are testament to the rise of Islamic extremism and Taliban-style intolerance in a country famous as a laid-back holiday destination.

On Tuesday, as protesters backed by mutinous police toppled president Mohamed Nasheed, a handful of men stormed the Chinese-built museum and destroyed its display of priceless artefacts from the nation’s pre-Islamic era.

“They have effectively erased all evidence of our Buddhist past,” a senior museum official told AFP at the now shuttered building in the capital Male, asking not to be named out of fear for his own safety.

“We lost all our 12th century statues. They were made of coral stone and limestone. They are very brittle and there is no way we can restore them,” he explained.

“I wept when I heard that the entire display had gone. We are good Muslims and we treated these statues only as part of our heritage. It is not against Islam to display these exhibits,” he said.

=========

Unorthodox: a woman’s journey from repression to freedom. Sarah Weir, Yahoo News.

At 17, Feldman’s grandparents pushed her into an arranged marriage with a virtual stranger, but she had never even heard the word “sex” spoken or learned about the very basics of human reproduction. Once married, she was expected to shave her head and wear a wig—something she rebelled against after a year because she found it so depressing. Seven years later, despite the fact she knew she would be hated as a pariah, she abandoned her community and started life over.

You might be surprised that Feldman didn’t grow up in a far away country with repressive laws against women, but in an ultra-conservative Jewish enclave in New York City. “They’ve passed more laws from out of nowhere, limiting women—there’s a rule that women can’t be on the street after a certain hour,” Feldman told the New York Post describing the Hasidic Satmar community in which she was raised. “We all hear these stories about Muslim extremists; how is this any better? This is just another example of extreme fundamentalism.”

=======

Gingrich blasts Obama’s birth control policy as “outrageous assault on religion.” Amy Bingham, ABC News.

The letters came in response to a Jan. 20 announcement that Catholic hospitals where the majority of employees are not Catholic will be required under the new law to provide free contraception.

“The fact is what you’re saying is there cannot be a genuine Catholic hospital,” said Gingrich, who converted to Catholicism in 2009. “It will have to be subordinated to a secular government.”

Gingrich, also appearing today on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” added that the policy proved that the Obama administration was at “war” with the Catholic church and launching “the most outrageous assault on religious freedom in American history.”

The former House speaker said policies such as this prove that Obama is “so unacceptable” that he will support his rival Mitt Romney in the general election if the former Massachusetts governor is the Republican nominee.

“I believe President Obama is such a direct threat to the future of this country that I will support the Republican nominee because I believe that President Obama is a disaster,” Gingrich said.

=======

Jury finds Afghan family guilty in honor killings. AP.

The jury took 15 hours to find Mohammad Shafia, 58; his wifeTooba Yahya, 42; and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in a case that shocked and riveted Canadians from coast to coast. First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

After the verdict was read, the three defendants again declared their innocence in the killings of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar 17, and Geeti, 13, as well as Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, Shafia’s childless first wife in a polygamous marriage.

Their bodies were found June 30, 2009, in a car submerged in a canal in Kingston, Ontario, where the family had stopped for the night on their way home to Montreal from Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Prosecutors said the defendants allegedly killed the three teenage sisters because they dishonored the family by defying its disciplinarian rules on dress, dating, socializing and going online. Shafia’s first wife was living with him and his second wife. The polygamous relationship, if revealed, could have resulted in their deportation.

========

Rhode Island city enraged over school prayer lawsuit. Abby Goodnough, NY Times.

A federal judge ruled this month that the prayer’s presence at Cranston High School West was unconstitutional, concluding that it violated the principle of government neutrality in religion. In the weeks since, residents have crowded school board meetings to demand an appeal, Jessica has received online threats and the police have escorted her at school, and Cranston, a dense city of 80,000 just south of Providence, has throbbed with raw emotion.

State Representative Peter G. Palumbo, a Democrat from Cranston, called Jessica “an evil little thing” on a popular talk radio show. Three separate florists refused to deliver her roses sent from a national atheist group. The group, theFreedom From Religion Foundation, has filed a complaint with the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights.

“I was amazed,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the foundation, which is based in Wisconsin and has given Jessica $13,000 from support and scholarship funds. “We haven’t seen a case like this in a long time, with this level of revilement and ostracism and stigmatizing.”

=======

Political Islam without oil. Thomas Friedman, New York Times.

Islamist movements have long dominated Iran and Saudi Arabia. Both the ayatollahs in Iran and the Wahhabi Salafists in Saudi Arabia, though, were able to have their ideology and the fruits of modernity, too, because they had vast oil wealth to buy off any contradictions. Saudi Arabia could underutilize its women and impose strict religious mores on its society, banks and schools. Iran’s clerics could snub the world, pursue nuclearization and impose heavy political and religious restrictions. And both could still offer their people improved living standards, because they had oil.

Egypt’s Islamist parties will not have that luxury. They will have to open up to the world, and they seem to be realizing that. Egypt is a net importer of oil. It also imports 40 percent of its food. And tourism constitutes one-tenth of its gross domestic product. With unemployment rampant and the Egyptian pound eroding, Egypt will probably need assistance from the International Monetary Fund, a major injection of foreign investment and a big upgrade in modern education to provide jobs for all those youths who organized last year’s rebellion. Egypt needs to be integrated with the world.

========

Why Islamism is winning. John Owen, NY Times.

Today, rural and urban Arabs with widely varying cultures and histories are showing that they share more than a deep frustration with despots and a demand for dignity. Most, whether moderate or radical, or living in a monarchy or a republic, share a common inherited language of dissent: Islamism.

Political Islam, especially the strict version practiced by Salafists in Egypt, is thriving largely because it is tapping into ideological roots that were laid down long before the revolts began. Invented in the 1920s by the Muslim Brotherhood, kept alive by their many affiliates and offshoots, boosted by the failures of Nasserism and Baathism, allegedly bankrolled by Saudi and Qatari money, and inspired by the defiant example of revolutionary Iran, Islamism has for years provided a coherent narrative about what ails Muslim societies and where the cure lies. Far from rendering Islamism unnecessary, as some experts forecast, the Arab Spring has increased its credibility; Islamists, after all, have long condemned these corrupt regimes as destined to fail.

=======

Child sacrificed, liver offered to gods: Indian police. AFP.

The girl was murdered in a jungle district of Chhattisgarh that is a stronghold of rebel Maoists who have tapped into disaffection among local tribal groups.

Human sacrifices occasionally make headlines in deeply religious and superstitious India, and usually occur in poor areas where some people revere practitioners of black magic.

Two suspected child sacrifices were reported in Chhattisgarh in 2010, while in the same year the decapitated body of a factory worker was found in a temple in the eastern state of West Bengal.

The victims are often ritually killed by witchdoctors to appease gods, spirits or deities.

=======

Afghan girl tortured after refusing prostitution. Hamid Shalizi, Reuters.

Despite progress in women’s rights and freedom since the fall of the Taliban 10 years ago, women throughout the country are still at risk of abduction, rape, forced marriage and being traded as commodity.

However it can be hard for women to escape violent situations at home, because of huge social and sometimes legal pressure to stay in marriages.

Running away from an abusive husband or a forced marriage are considered “moral crimes,” for which women are currently imprisoned in Afghanistan.

Some rape victims have also been imprisoned, because sex outside marriage, even when the woman is forced, is considered adultery, another “moral crime.”

========

Girl’s plight deepens Israel debate on zealot Jews. Dan Williams, Reuters.

Naama Margolese, 8, told Channel Two television she was terrified of walking to her moderate Orthodox school because of passersby who want her “to dress like a Haredi” – the Hebrew term for the ascetic, black-coated Jews who are in “awe” of God.

“I’m afraid I might get hurt or something,” the girl said.

Margolese’s mother Hadassa, an American immigrant who wore a headscarf and skirt in deference to religious Jewish tradition, said the sidewalk abuse could include spitting, curses like “whores” and “bastards” and calls to “clear out of here.”

“If that’s what happens now, and they (authorities) don’t do anything, what will happen in another few years?” she told Israel’s Army Radio on Sunday. “This is a terrorist group.”

Returning to Beit Shemesh on Sunday, a Channel Two crew was mobbed by ultra-Orthodox Jews who stoned their car, wounded a reporter and stole equipment, police said. The crew was rescued by police, who said they were questioning suspected assailants.

Separately, police said they had arrested a Beit Shemesh man for spitting at a woman, and that he could face assault charges.

In the report broadcast on Friday, Channel Two showed a Beit Shemesh street sign instructing women to keep to one side, away from a synagogue. A few ultra-Orthodox men who agreed to be interviewed sought to justify their forcible occlusion of women.

=========

Islamists kill dozens in Nigeria Christmas bombs. Felix Onuah, Reuters.

Islamist militants set off bombs across inNigeria on Christmas Day – three targeting churches including one that killed at least 27 people – raising fears that they are trying to ignite sectarian civil war.

The Boko Haram Islamist sect, which aims to impose sharia law across the country, claimed responsibility for the three churchbombs, the second Christmas in a row the group has caused mass carnage with deadly bombings of churches. Security forces also blamed the sect for two other blasts in the north.

St Theresa’s Catholic Church in Madala, a satellite town about 40 km (25 miles) from the center of the capital Abuja, was packed when the bomb exploded just outside.

“We were in the church with my family when we heard the explosion. I just ran out,” Timothy Onyekwere told Reuters. “Now I don’t even know where my children or my wife are. I don’t know how many were killed but there were many dead.”

===========

Good minus God. Louise Antony, NY Times.

To say that morality depends on the existence of God is to say that none of these specific moral judgments is true unless God exists.  That seems to me to be a remarkable claim.  If God turned out not to exist — then slavery would be O.K.?  There’d be nothing wrong with torture?  The pain of another human being would mean nothing?

Think now about our personal relations — how we love our parents, our children, our life partners, our friends.  To say that the moral worth of these individuals depends on the existence of God is to say that these people are, in themselves, worth nothing — that the concern we feel for their well being has no more ethical significance than the concern some people feel for their boats or their cars.  It is to say that the historical connections we value, the traits of character and personality that we love — all count for nothing in themselves.  Other people warrant our concern only because they are valued by someone else — in this case, God.  (Imagine telling a child: “You are not inherently lovable.  I love you only because I love your father, and it is my duty to love anything he loves.”)

What could make anyone think such things?  Ironically, I think the answer is: the same picture of morality that lies behind atheistic nihilism.  It’s the view that the only kind of “obligation” there could possibly be is the kind that is disciplined by promise of reward or threat of punishment.  Such a view cannot find or comprehend any value inherent in the nature of things, value that could warrant particular attitudes and behavior on the part of anyone who can apprehend it.

===========

Michigan residents receive letter calling Christmas lights “pagan.” Olivia Katrandjian, ABC News.

On Wednesday night, residents of Vintage Drive found a letter attached to their mailboxes suggesting that anyone with Christmas lights or decorations should re-think their beliefs, becauseChristmas displays honor the “Pagan Sun-God” and do not pertain to the birth of Jesus, according to ABC News affiliate WZZM.

The letters start out on a friendly note, with “Hi Neighbor, you have a nice display of lights.” But the self-described “love note” quickly changes tone, explaining how the “pagan tradition” of putting up lights began.

“I laughed because I think it’s ridiculous that people would get upset over Christmas lights,” saidDanette Hoekman, who received the letter.

Besides speaking against holiday lights, the note claimed that the use of mistletoe, wreaths and yule-logs were in no way representative of Christmas.

==========

Saudi Arabia executes woman convicted of “sorcery.” AP.

Saudi authorities have executed a woman convicted of practicing magic and sorcery.

The Saudi Interior Ministry says in a statement the execution took place Monday, but gave no details on the woman’s crime.

The London-based al-Hayat daily, however, quoted Abdullah al-Mohsen, chief of the religious police who arrested the woman, as saying she had tricked people into thinking she could treat illnesses, charging them $800 per session.

============

Gay marriage in Nigeria: until death do us part. The Economist.

A CONTROVERSIAL bill criminalising gay marriage in Nigeria may hinder the efforts of groups providing help to those most at risk of HIV/AIDS. The proposed law would punish same-sex relationships with up to 14 years in prison and outlaw the “public show of same-sex amorous relationships directly or indirectly.” Those who facilitate or witness gay unions could end up behind bars for ten years. The bill still has to be ratified by the house of representatives and President Goodluck Jonathan before it becomes law but it is already causing a stir in Nigeria.

Critics say the bill scores easy political points: most Nigerians oppose homosexuality and many see it as “unAfrican”. Bashing gays is one thing that opposing parties in Nigeria’s Christian south and its Muslim north can agree on. In a debate about the new bill, one senator said of gays, “such elements in society should be killed.” Another described homosexuality as a mental illness. Religion is generally seen as the cause of the country’s homophobia: in parts of the north where sharia law has been enforced, gays can face death by stoning.

=============

Australian sentenced to 500 lashes in Saudi Arabia. AP.

An Australian man has been sentenced to 500 lashes and a year in a Saudi Arabian jail after being convicted of blasphemy, officials said Wednesday.

The 45-year-old man, identified by family members as Mansor Almaribe of southern Victoria state, was detained in the holy city of Medina last month while making the Muslim pilgrimage of hajj. Family members told Australian media that Saudi officials accused him of insulting the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, a violation of Saudi Arabia’s strict blasphemy laws.

============

Top Israeli rabbi: gender segregated buses not Jewish. Amy Teibel, AP.

Radical activists have segregated buses, cowed advertisers into removing images of women from posters on the streets of cities with large ultra-Orthodox Jewish populations, shunted women onto separate sidewalks and walked out of military events where women have sung. Some women have taken to dressing head-to-toe, in the fashion of Islamist fundamentalists, a practice that Amar also said was elective.

These ultra-devout are on a campaign to keep secular values from breaching the walls of their insular community. But Israel’s secular majority is aghast at what they call on assault on the country’s human rights.

========

Saudi report: women driving spurs premarital sex. AP.

A report given to a high-level advisory group in Saudi Arabia claims that allowing women in the kingdom to drive could encourage premarital sex, a rights activistsaid Saturday.

===========

Jailed Afghan woman freed but urged to marry rapist. Alissa Rubin, NY Times.

The problem for Gulnaz and the other women in the film is the deeply held belief that women uphold their family’s honor. Thus any attempt to expose abuse is so humiliating to the family that a woman who speaks out often becomes a pariah among her relatives, ending up isolated as well as abused.

Gulnaz’s case shows the power of cultural norms. On the one hand, the public campaign for the woman prompted the pardon, which ensures that she will be able to bring up her daughter outside prison. On the other hand, the fact that the only imaginable solution to the situation of a woman with an illegitimate child is to have her marry the father — even if he is a rapist — is testament to the rigid belief here that a woman is respectable only if she is embedded within a family.

Ms. Malpas said that Gulnaz talked to her about why she felt that she had to give in to requests that she marry the man who raped her, even though she did not want to, explaining that not only would she be an outcast if she did not, but so would her daughter, and she would bring shame on her family.

“Gulnaz said, ‘My rapist has destroyed my future,’ ” Ms. Malpas said, recounting their conversation. “ ‘No one will marry me after what he has done to me. So I must marry my rapist for my child’s sake. I don’t want people to call her a bastard and abuse my brothers. My brothers won’t have honor in our society until he marries me.’ ”

But, mindful of her safety, Gulnaz also said that if she were to marry her rapist she would demand that he make one of his sisters marry one of her brothers, Ms. Motley, the lawyer, said.

This practice, known as “baad,” is a tribal way of settling disputes. But in this case it would also be an insurance policy for Gulnaz since her rapist would hesitate to hurt her because his sister would be at the mercy of Gulnaz’s brother.

Both Ms. Malpas and Ms. Motley said that a shelter had been found for Gulnaz and that they hoped she would go there. But whether such a Western option can prevail over Afghan custom — and whether Gulnaz will choose it — is far from clear.

==========

Detroit prayer event puts Muslim community on edge. Jeff Karoub, AP.

The gathering in Detroit at Ford Field, the stadium where theDetroit Lions play, starts Friday evening and is designed to tackle issues such as the economy, racial strife, same-sex relationships and abortion. But the decade-old organization known as TheCallhas said Detroit is a “microcosm of our national crisis” in all areas, including “the rising tide of the Islamic movement.”

Leaders of TheCall believe a satanic spirit is shaping all parts of U.S. society, and it must be challenged through intensive Christian prayer and fasting. Such a demonic spirit has taken hold of specific areas, Detroit among them, organizers say. In the months ahead of their rallies, teams of local organizers often travel their communities performing a ritual called “divorcing Baal,” the name of a demon spirit, to drive out the devil from each location.

=============

Pastor’s corporal punishment advice scrutinized after child deaths. Zachary Roth, Yahoo News.

In recent years, several children have died after enduring extreme forms of corporal punishment from parents who had absorbed the controversial child-rearing advice of Tennessee pastor Michael Pearl. Now, the New York Times reports, Pearl himself is under fire.

In their self-published book, To Train Up a Child, Pearl, 66, and his wife Debi, 60, recommend the systematic use of “the rod” to teach young children to submit to authority. They offer instructions on how to use a switch for hitting children as young as six months, and describe how to use other implements, including a quarter-inch flexible plumbing line. Older children, the Pearls say, should be hit with a belt, wooden spoon or willow switch, hard enough to sting. Michael Pearl has said the methods are based on “the same principles the Amish use to train their stubborn mules.”

=============

French weekly firebombed after it portrays Muhammad. Brian Love, Reuters.

A firebomb attack gutted the headquarters of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday after it put an image of the Prophet Mohammad on its cover.

This week’s edition shows a cartoon of Mohammad and a speech bubble with the words: “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter.” It has the headline “Charia Hebdo,” in a reference to Muslim sharia law, and says Mohammad guest-edited the issue.

==========

Group of women defy tradition, join priesthood. WCCO Minneapolis.

A group of women are hoping to bring change to the Roman Catholic church by joining the ministry.

=========

Why the world will end (again) on Friday. Stephanie Pappas, Live Science.

Judgment Day didn’t bring the promised earthquakes and Rapture, but Camping now says May 21 marked a spiritual Judgment Day and that the world will still end “quietly” on Friday. It may seem odd that Camping’s faith remains strong, but apocalypse experts say that doomsday prophets have often built their entire lives around their end-of-the-world views, and that worldview is hard to shake. For an elderly preacher like Camping, who suffered a stroke in June, apocalypse beliefs may also reflect his struggle with his own mortality.

==========

Riots erupt as Christians protest in Cairo, 1 dead. AP.

Riots erupted in Cairo Sunday night as Christians protesting a recent attack on a church came under assault by thugs who rained stones down on them and fired pellets. Two soldiers were killed in the melee, according to state television, and a number of military vehicles were burning on a scenic street along the Nile.

============

Romney’s Mormonism in focus at political meeting. Patricia Zengerle, Reuters.

Romney was followed to the stage by Bryan Fischer, a director of the American Family Association, known for inflammatory remarks against homosexuality and “non-Christian religions,” which he has said include Mormonism.

“The next president of the United States needs to be a man … of sincere authentic genuine Christian faith,” he said, in a jab at Romney.

Fischer said the next U.S. president must deny evolution, stop government assistance for the poor, veto any increase in the debt ceiling and “treat homosexual behavior not as a political cause at all, but as a threat to public health.”

He called Islam the greatest long-term threat to U.S. liberty. “Every single mosque in America is a potential recruiting or training cell for Islamic terror,” Fischer said.

===========

Radical Jews suspected of burning mosque in Israel. Amy Teibel, AP.

Arsonists torched a mosque in an Arab village in northern Israel Monday, setting off protests by residents who clashed with police. Graffiti sprayed at the site suggested Jewish radicals, suspected in other recent mosque fires, were involved.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said carpet was burned inside the mosque in Tuba-Zangria and interior walls were damaged. Copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, were also burned, Israeli media reported.

Israel’s prime minister, president and other politicians condemned the attack, as did Jewish religious leaders.

The words “price tag” were spray painted on the mosque, Rosenfeldadded — a reference to a Jewish settler practice of attacking Palestinians or the Israeli military in retaliation for government operations or attacks against Jewish settlements.

===========

Saudi king overturns verdict against woman driver. Abdullah al-Shihri, AP.

Saudi King Abdullah has overturned a court ruling sentencing a Saudi woman to be lashed 10 times for defying the kingdom’s ban on female drivers, a government official said Wednesday.

The official declined to elaborate on the monarch’s decision, and spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

A Saudi court on Tuesday found Shaima Jastaina guilty of violating the driving ban, and sentenced her to 10 lashes. The verdict took Saudi women by surprise, coming just a day after King Abdullahpromised to protect women’s rights and decreed that women would be allowed to participate in municipal elections in 2015. Abdullah also promised to appoint women to a currently all-male advisory body known as the Shura Council.

============

Saudi woman sentenced to 10 lashes for driving car. Maggie Michael, AP.

A Saudi woman was sentenced Tuesday to be lashed 10 times with a whip for defying the kingdom’s prohibition on female drivers, the first time a legal punishment has been handed down for a violation of the longtime ban in the ultraconservative Muslim nation.

Normally, police just stop female drivers, question them and let them go after they sign a pledge not to drive again. But dozens of women have continued to take to the roads since June in a campaign to break the taboo.

Making Tuesday’s sentence all the more upsetting to activists is that it came just two days after King Abdullah promised to protect women’s rights and decreed that women would be allowed to participate in municipal elections in 2015. Abdullah also promised to appoint women to a currently all-male advisory body known as the Shura Council.

=============

Saudi king allows women to vote in local elections. Abdullah al-Shihri, AP.

Saudi King Abdullah announced Sunday that the nation’s women will gain the right to vote and run as candidates in local elections to be held in 2015 in a major advancement for the rights of women in the deeply conservative Muslim kingdom.

In an annual speech before his advisory assembly, or Shura Council, the Saudi monarch said he ordered the step after consulting with the nation’s top religious clerics, whose advice carries great weight in the kingdom.

“We refuse to marginalize the role of women in Saudi society and in every aspect, within the rules of Sharia,” Abdullah said, referring to the Islamic law that governs many aspects of life in the kingdom.

============

Malaysian resort forced to scrap Miss Bikini night. Sean Yoong, AP.

Malaysia is known for conservative policies for issues related to sexual morality. Unmarried Muslim couples caught alone together in hotel rooms and other private places can be jailed for an offense described as “close proximity.” Muslim women who become pregnant without getting married can also be imprisoned for up to two years in some states.

============

Belief in God boils down to a gut feeling. Stephanie Pappas, Live Science.

Shenhav and his colleagues investigated that question in a series of studies. In the first, 882 American adults answered online surveys about their belief in God. Next, the participants took a three-question math test with questions such as, “A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?”

The intuitive answer to that question is 10 cents, since most people’s first impulse is to knock $1 off the total. But people who use “reflective” reasoning to question their first impulse are more likely to get the correct answer: 5 cents.

Sure enough, people who went with their intuition on the math test were found to be one-and-a-half times more likely to believe in God than those who got all the answers right. The results held even when taking factors such as education and income into account.

===========

Pope laments “amnesia” about God during Spain trip. Nicole Winfield, AP.

Benedict’s main priority as pope has been to try to reawaken Christianity in places like Spain. He has traveled here three times as pope — an indication that he views it as a key battleground in his bid to remind Europe of its Christian heritage and the need for God to retake a place in daily life.

Like in much of Europe, the church in Spain has seen its influence wane in recent decades: its stance on women, equality, gay rights and abortion have alienated an increasingly educated and sophisticated middle class.

But Spain’s religious apathy also stems from the memories of its 1936-1939 civil war and aftermath, when the church was tightly linked to Franco’s repressive government, which ended in 1978.

Franco’s military revolt pitted Spain’s conservative aristocracy, some of its army and church against a left-leaning democratically elected Republican government.

========

Texas jury sentences Warren Jeffs to life. Jim Forsyth, Reuters.

The sentencing came a day after Jeffs was heard on audio recordings telling groups of young teen girls that they would be “rejected by God” if they refused his sexual advances.

Jeffs’ conviction stems from a highly publicized raid on the sect’s Yearning For Zion compound in Eldorado, Texas, in which authorities took temporary custody of some 400 children. They later returned them to their families after an investigation and DNA tests.

Some legal experts have said that because the raid was triggered by a false report, the evidence gathered there could be disallowed.

But Judge Barbara Walther, who has presided over the case in her San Angelo courtroom since the raid, allowed evidence prosecutors said proved Jeffs abused his position in power to have sex with girls as young as 12.

==========

Perry: turn to God for answers to nation’s woes. April Castro, AP.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry asked Christians to turn to God for answers to the nation’s troubles as he held court Saturday over a national prayer rally attended by thousands of evangelical conservatives, an important constituency should the Republican seek the GOP presidential nomination.

“Father, our heart breaks for America,” Perry told about 30,000 people gathered at Reliant Stadium. “We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government and, as a nation, we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us.”

===========

Herman Cain: Communities have right to ban mosques. Bruce Schreiner, AP.

Cain said his view doesn’t amount to religious discrimination because he says Muslims are trying to inject Shariah law into the U.S.

Shariah is a set of core principles that most Muslims recognize and a series of rulings from religious scholars. It covers many areas of life and different sects have different versions and interpretations of the code.

Asked if his view could lead any community to stand up in opposition to a proposed mosque, Cain replied, “They could say that.” He pointed to opposition to the planned mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn., as an example.

“Let’s go back to the fundamental issue that the people are basically saying that they are objecting to,” Cain said. “They are objecting to the fact that Islam is both religion and (a) set of laws, Shariah law. That’s the difference between any one of our other traditional religions where it’s just about religious purposes.

“The people in the community know best. And I happen to side with the people in the community.”

Cain’s comments were denounced as “unconstitutional and un-American” by a spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.

====================

Did a Jerusalem court really sentence a dog to death by stoning? Eoin O’Carroll, Christian Science Monitor.

Here’s how the BBC reported it: A pooch made its way into a beth din in Jerusalem‘s ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim. One of the judges, believing the dog to be the reincarnation of a now-deceased lawyer whom the court had cursed some two decades earlier, sentenced the dog to death by stoning, and ordered that the sentence be carried out by children. The dog escaped before the sentence could be carried out. Dog-lovers have filed a complaint against the court.

This story has it all. Religious zealots! Animal rights activists! Blood libel! Children! Ingredients that tend to nourish the more primitive regions of our minds and starve the rest. Best of all, it runs under 200 words and stars a dog.

The story’s only deficiency is that it comes up short in the being-factually-true department.

As it turns out, the BBC, along with Agence France Presse, Time Magazine, and a handful other news outlets got the story from Ynet, the website for Yediot Ahronot, Israel‘s second-largest newspaper. Ynet’s story says that the head of the court denied that such an incident had taken place, a detail that was left out of the original BBC, Time, and AFP stories. The paper is also alone in noting that there was no official ruling, just a rabbi telling kids to throw rocks at a dog.

Ynet didn’t do any original reporting. They got the story from this in Behadrei Hadarim, a small Hebrew-language news outlet for Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community. The Bhadrei Hadarim’s reports that it got the story from someone who was present, but it doesn’t bother to give that person’s name.

Israel’s third-largest paper, which doesn’t have an English edition, also ran the story. They subsequently ran an apology, noting what the court said actually happened: A dog walked into a courtroom, and someone called the dogcatcher.

===============

New Australian law to make Muslims lift veils. Rod McGuirk, AP.

A vigorous debate that the proposal has triggered reflects the cultural clashes being ignited by the growing influx of Muslim immigrants and the unease that visible symbols of Islam are causing in predominantly white Christian Australia since 1973 when the government relaxed its immigration policy.

Under the law proposed by the government of New South Wales, which includes Sydney, a woman who defies police by refusing to remove her face veil could be sentenced to a year in prison and fined 5,500 Australian dollars ($5,900).

=================

Evangelicals and the gay moral revolution. R. Albert Mohler, Wall Street Journal.

In this most awkward cultural predicament, evangelicals must be excruciatingly clear that we do not speak about the sinfulness of homosexuality as if we have no sin. As a matter of fact, it is precisely because we have come to know ourselves as sinners and of our need for a savior that we have come to faith in Jesus Christ. Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and the forgiveness of their sins.

==================

An Israeli algorithm sheds light on the Bible. Matti Friedman, AP.

Software developed by an Israeli team is giving intriguing new hints about what researchers believe to be the multiple hands that wrote the Bible.

The new software analyzes style and word choices to distinguish parts of a single text written by different authors, and when applied to the Bible its algorithm teased out distinct writerly voices in the holy book.

The program, part of a sub-field of artificial intelligence studies known as authorship attribution, has a range of potential applications — from helping law enforcement to developing new computer programs for writers. But the Bible provided a tempting test case for the algorithm’s creators.

====================

Muslim woman sues Abercrombie and Fitch over hijab. Jason Dearen, AP.

A former stockroom worker for Abercrombie & Fitch Co. sued the clothing retailer in federal court Monday, saying she was illegally fired after refusing to remove her Muslim headscarf while on the job.

Hani Khan said a manager at the company’s Hollister Co. store at the Hillsdale Mall in San Mateo hired her while she was wearing her hijab. The manager said it was OK to wear it as long as it was in company colors, Khan said.

Four months later, the 20-year-old says a district manager and human resources manager asked if she could remove the hijab while working, and she was suspended and then fired for refusing to do so.

=======================

Lessons from Mormon TV denial of Playboy channel. Bill Baker, Christian Science Monitor.

Last week, KSL-TV, the Mormon-owned NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City, decided not to carry “The Playboy Club,” a slick prime-time drama about the 1960s nightclub run by Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner. KSL says the decision isn’t about the show’s content, which is likely to be no racier than the usual network fare, but is instead about branding. Playboy’s values and KSL’s values are opposed, they say, and they want everybody to know it.

====================

Saudi women drivers put pedal to the metal in protest ban. Lara Setrakian, ABC News.

Fueled by social media and recent uprisings in the Arab world, women inSaudi Arabia took to the capital’s streets today in their cars to protest the ban on female drivers.

Areej Khan, one of thousands of women who say they’ve had enough, drove for 25 minutes. Her campaign “We the Women” pasted the city of Jeddah with signs calling for the right to drive: “It’s Not Only for Men” and “Driving Is Not Against My Religion” and “I Don’t Like the Backseat.”

=====================

Jewish court sentences dog to death by stoning. AFP.

A Jerusalem rabbinical court condemned to death by stoning a dog it suspects is the reincarnation of a secular lawyer who insulted the court’s judges 20 years ago, Ynet website reported Friday.

According to Ynet, the large dog made its way into the Monetary Affairs Court in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, frightening judges and plaintiffs.

Despite attempts to drive the dog out of the court, the hound refused to leave the premises.

One of the sitting judges then recalled a curse the court had passed down upon a secular lawyer who had insulted the judges two decades previously.

====================

Lebanon: Lady Gaga’s newest album seized as potentially offensive to Christians. Roula Hajjar, LA Times.

Shaky Lebanon’s 17 offically recognized religious groups include Muslims, Druze and various Christian denominations. They’re all pretty thin-skinned when it comes to religious references — and the law errs on the side of banning anything potentially inflammatory. Music that refers to religious figures or Israel is directly censored by the Lebanese General Security in a joint effort with the Ministry of Information.

Any decision to ban the album would be in accordance with Article 75 of the 1962 Lebanese Law for distribution of print media, which states that, “Distributors are prohibited from circulating media that diverges from public decency and morality, or is at odds with nationalistic or religious beliefs.”

======================

Iranian women’s soccer team forfeits 2012 qualifier over headscarves. Brooks Peck, Yahoo News.

The Iranian women’s soccer team was in tears after being forced to forfeit a 2012 London Olympics qualifying match this past weekend because it showed up to play in hajibs. FIFA banned the Islamic head scarf in 2007, saying that it could cause choking injuries — the same reason it gave for recently banning snoods (neck warmers). FIFA also has strict rules against any religious statements in team uniforms.

====================

In France, a Muslim offensive against evolution. Stephanie Le Bars, Le Monde.

Haroun Yahya, the pseudonym of Adnan Oktar, never presents himself in person, speaking either by video or through zealous representatives armed with grandiloquent tracts distributed for free. In France, he had already made himself known in 2007 when he attempted to introduce thousands of copies of hisAtlas de la Création into French schools. His work purports to scientifically demonstrate “the frauds and dictatorship” of the evolution of the species theory.

But since January, the 55-year-old with a well-trimmed beard has launched a new campaign that is clearly targeting the Muslim faithful. Dressed in a traditional black robe decorated with rhinestones and a white veil that she wears “only” when she comes to the mosque, Maroua admits that she has always wondered about “the dinosaurs and the origin of man…but at school, it cannot be refuted: we’re taught that man descended from monkeys. At home and in the Koran, [we’re taught] that we descended from Adam and Eve, and that God created all living beings.”

=================

Thailand wants to ban tourists from getting Buddha tatoos. Frances Romero, Time.

In the same way that Muslims don’t want the image of Muhammad to appear anywhere, Thai officials are looking to ban tourists from getting tattoos of Buddha.

Although it isn’t yet illegal in Thailand, a mostly Buddhist country, for tourists to ink the enlightened one on their bodies, Culture Minister Niphit Intharasombat said in a statement that his office has received complaints from residents that the practice is growing rampant and is disrespectful and insensitive.

=================

Pope denounces “disintegration” of Europe families. Nicole Winfield, AP.

Pope Benedict XVI denounced the “disintegration” of family life in Europe on Sunday and called for couples to make a commitment to marry and have children, not just live together, as he reaffirmed traditional Catholic family values during his second and final day in Croatia.

===================

Valedictorian fights judge’s ban on graduation prayer. Jim Forsyth, Reuters.

The valedictorian of a high school in a San Antonio suburb where a judge has banned formal prayers at graduation ceremonies on Saturday is fighting for an opportunity to lead the crowd in prayer.

On Thursday, the North Texas-based Liberty Institute, a nonprofit that describes itself as seeking to limit government and promote Judeo-Christian values, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the valedictorian of Castroville’s Medina Valley High School, Angela Hildenbrand.

“After all that I’ve been taught about the freedoms of speech, expression and religion in our country, I am disappointed that my liberties are being infringed upon by this court’s ruling to censor my speech,” Hildenbrand said at a press conference at the Alamo.

=====================

Egyptians decry “virginity tests” on protestors. Maggie Michael, AP.

Activists and bloggers are pressing Egypt’s military rulers to investigate accusations of serious abuses against protesters, including claims that soldiers subjected female detainees to so-called “virginity tests.”

===================

Atheists have the best sex lives, claims psychologist. Susan Donaldson James, ABC News.

====================

Preacher says world will actually end in October. Garance Burke, AP.

A California preacher who foretold of the world’s end only to see the appointed day pass with no extraordinarily cataclysmic event has revised his apocalyptic prophecy, saying he was off by five months and the Earth actually will be obliterated on Oct. 21.

Harold Camping, who predicted that 200 million Christians would be taken to heaven Saturday before catastrophe struck the planet, apologized Monday evening for not having the dates “worked out as accurately as I could have.”

=================

Study: homosexuality, celibacy didn’t cause abuse. Rachel Zoll, AP.

Researchers commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to analyze the pattern of clergy sex abuse have concluded that homosexuality, celibacy and an all-male priesthood did not cause the scandal.

The study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York instead said that the problem was largely the result of poor seminary training and insufficient emotional support for men ordained in the 1940s and 1950s, who were not able to withstand the social upheaval they confronted as pastors in the 1960s. Crime and other deviant behavior increased overall in the United States during this period, when the rate of abuse by priests was climbing.

===================

Stephen Hawking says afterlife is a fairy story. Liz Goodwin, Yahoo News.

I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

===================

Presbyterian church votes to allow gay ordination. Mitchell Landsberg, LA Times.

With the vote of its regional organization in Minnesota, the Presbyterian Church USA became the fourth mainline Protestant church to allow gay ordination, following the Episcopal and Evangelical Lutheran churches and the United Church of Christ. The Minnesota vote was closely followed by one in Los Angeles.

====================

87-year old Nigerian faith healer has 86 wives. Robyn Dixon, LA Times.

All told, the 87-year-old has married 107 women, which, even in a society with a tradition of polygamy, is on the high side. The Nigerian government is not amused. Neither are Islamic authorities in the state.

==================

Fanatics’ fury at Muslim playgirl. Allan Hall, The Sun.

A Muslim actress has caused a storm by posing naked for Playboy. Sila Sahin has been branded a “whore” and a “western slut” after appearing topless on the cover of the German edition of the men’s magazine.

====================

Islamic scholars criticize bin Laden’s sea burial. Hamza Hendawi, AP.

Although there appears to be some room for debate over the burial — as with many issues within the faith — a wide range of senior Islamic scholars interpreted it as a humiliating disregard for the standard Muslim practice of placing the body in a grave with the head pointed toward the holy city of Mecca.

======================

Sword fight erupts at NYC Sikh temple; 7 charged. AP.

A brawl involving cricket bats and small swords at a Sikh temple in New York City has led to riot and assault charges against seven people. Police say the defendants interrupted prayer services at the Baba Makhan Shah Lubana Sikh Center in Queens on Sunday. They were arraigned Monday.

====================

Evangelical group sees NYC as incubator to plant churches. John Leland, New York Times.

Some people come to New York to be artists, bankers, architects, socialites. These men had come to start churches.

====================

Malaysia sends 66 teen boys to anti-gay counseling. AP.

Malaysian authorities have sent 66 Muslim schoolboys identified by teachers as effeminate to a four-day camp where they will receive counseling on masculine behavior to discourage them from being gay, an official said Tuesday. Gay rights advocates decried the measure as a symptom of widespread homophobia in this Muslim-majority country where gay sex is illegal.

===================

Philippine priest in ancient battle with “demons.” Jason Gutierrez, AFP.

Syquia believes he is in the frontline of the battle between good and evil on earth. ”There is a great dramatic increase of possessions right now,” said the 44-year-old priest. “More and more the demons are gaining a foothold into this society.” While non-believers often joke about the devil, and demonic possessions are trivialised by Hollywood, Syquia insisted the torment suffered by those he had healed was real.

==================