The Bible's history and literature will be required to be taught in public schools in Texas under a new law that has been clarified by the state attorney general to mean exactly what it says.

"This is a huge victory for the people of Texas and, I think, for people across the country for academic freedom," said Jonathan Saenz, a lawyer for Liberty Legal. "There are 1,300 references to the Bible in the works of Shakespeare alone. Over 60 percent of the allusions studied in [advanced placement] English come from the Bible. Students are going to be better academically and culturally when they hear about the Bible."

The decision is a result of work by the state legislature as well as an opinion from Greg Abbott, the state's attorney general, in a letter to Education Commissioner Robert Scott. House Bill 1287 was approved by state lawmakers in the spring of 2008, and it was signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry. It states all school districts must offer the course as an elective at the high school level by the 2009-2010 school year.

Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, the author of the plan, said if 15 or more students express interest in the course, districts must provide it.

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Courtesy World Net Daily

So let us ask the question that should be on the mind of every thinking person in the world at this moment: If John McCain becomes the 44th president of the United States, what are the odds that a blood clot or falling object will make Sarah Palin the 45th?

The actuarial tables on the Social Security Administration website suggest that there is a better than 10% chance that McCain will die during his first term in office. Needless to say, the Reaper's scything only grows more insistent thereafter. Should President McCain survive his first term and get elected to a second, there is a 27% chance that Palin will become the first female U.S. president by 2015. If we take into account McCain's medical history and the pressures of the presidency, the odds probably increase considerably that this bright-eyed Alaskan will become the most powerful woman in history.

As many people have noted, placing Palin on the ticket has made these final months of the already overlong 2008 campaign much more interesting. Is Palin remotely qualified to be president of the United States? No. But that's precisely what is so interesting. McCain not only has thrown all sensible concerns about good governance aside merely to pander to a sliver of female and masses of conservative Christian voters, he has turned this period of American history into an episode of high-stakes reality television: Don't look now, but our cousin Sarah just became leader of the free world! Tune in next week and watch her get sassy with Pakistan!

Americans have an unhealthy desire to see average people promoted to positions of great authority. No one wants an average neurosurgeon or even an average carpenter, but when it comes time to vest a man or woman with more power and responsibility than any person has held in human history, Americans say they want a regular guy, someone just like themselves. President Bush kept his edge on the "Who would you like to have a beer with?" poll question in 2004, and won reelection.

Zoloft works better than God,” a Catholic priest once told me during a conversation about depression. This is not the kind of man to give up on faith; our talks always finish with his reminders to pray. But in matters of body, and in matters of mind more and more, he and many others sense the right thing to do—religiously—is to consult a scientist.

In recent years, such common sense has given rise to a new paradigm in the study of human religiosity, one founded in a laboratory understanding of biology and the human mind. Together, these researchers are attempting to “biologize” religion, recalling E.O. Wilson’s notorious call for inquiry into human values “to be removed temporarily from the hands of philosophers and biologized.” And, like Wilson’s, their efforts have been fraught with controversy.

Driven by a growing confidence in cognitive science, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and genetics, the wider public has begun to embrace truly scientific (as well as pseudo-scientific) explanations of religious beliefs and practices. This idea takes root in an era that led the first President Bush to declare the 1990s “the decade of the brain,” one in which mental illnesses are treated increasingly through psychiatric drugs rather than analysis or spiritual practice alone.

Popular magazines, from Newsweek and Time to the New York Times Magazine, have paraded the research around with catchy labels like “the God spot,” “the God gene,” and “Darwin’s God.” People with a variety of religious perspectives, from Western Buddhists to evangelical Christians to the anti-religious, have explored and discussed biological accounts of belief, each bringing to it their sometimes contradictory assumptions and interpretations. Biologizing is a research project, but it is also a manifestation of a public desire to understand religiosity in the terms of science.

Excavations at Kfar HaHoresh, in the north of Israel, led by Prof. Nigel Goring-Morris of Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology, have revealed a prehistoric funerary precinct dating back to 6,750-8,500 BC. This funerary has grave goods including phallic figurines and sea shells from the Mediterranean and Red Seas, along with other items from Syria, Cyprus and Anatolia.

While fertility symbols during this period are often associated with female imagery, at Kfar HaHoresh only phallic figurines have been found to date, including one placed as a foundation deposit in the wall of the precinct.

Burials at the site now total at least 65 individuals, and display an unusual demographic profile – with an emphasis on young adult males. Graves occur under or associated with lime-plaster surfaced L-shaped walled structures, and are varied in nature from single articulated burials through multiple secondary burials with up to 17 individuals. Bones in one had been intentionally re-arranged in what appears to be a depiction.

John McCain's vice-presidential pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is an evangelical Protestant with a strong record of opposition to abortion and an openness to teaching creationism in the public schools.

Palin is the mother of five children, one of whom was born with Down Syndrome. She learned that her son had Down Syndrome when she was four months pregnant, and she told the Associated Press in May that she never considered ending the pregnancy. "We've both been very vocal about being pro-life," she said in the AP interview. "We understand that every innocent life has wonderful potential." Palin also said of her son, whose name is Trig Paxon Van Palin, "I'm looking at him right now, and I see perfection. Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?"

In November of 2006, the Anchorage Daily News described Palin's positions on social issues in a story wrapping up the governor's race:

"A significant part of Palin's base of support lies among social and Christian conservatives. Her positions on social issues emerged slowly during the campaign: on abortion (should be banned for anything other than saving the life of the mother), stem cell research (opposed), physician-assisted suicide (opposed), creationism (should be discussed in schools), state health benefits for same-sex partners (opposed, and supports a constitutional amendment to bar them)."

And in October of 2006, the Anchorage Daily News reported that Palin said the following about creationism at a debate:

"Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information....Healthy debate is so important and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. And you know, I say this too as the daughter of a science teacher. Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject -- creationism and evolution. It's been a healthy foundation for me. But don't be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides."

ROME, Aug 29 (Reuters) - "Christianophobia" is a growing problem around the world and it must be fought with the same determination as anti-Semitism or Islamophobia, the Vatican said on Friday.
Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's foreign minister, spoke in the wake of attacks against Christians in India that have left at least 13 people dead this week.
Mamberti, addressing a conference in northern Italy, said religious freedom was a vital part of international relations and human dignity.
"In order to promote this dignity in an integral way, so-called 'Christianophobia' should be combated as decisively as 'Islamophobia' and anti-Semitism," he said.
This week in eastern India, thousands of people, most of them Christians, have sought shelter in makeshift government camps, driven from their homes by religious violence.
Hindu mobs burnt more than a dozen churches and attacked Christians after a Hindu leader was killed.
Mamberti said the events in India made the issue of religious liberty today all the more pressing.
While Hindu groups accuse Christian priests of bribing poor tribes and low-caste Hindus to change their faith, the Christians say lower-caste Hindus convert willingly to escape a complex caste system.

In Japan there is concern that the temple - traditional place of worship for Buddhists across the country - is under threat, particularly in rural areas where the population is aging and the younger generation are leaving for big cities, as Chris Hogg discovered

Shinkyo Toyoma has three sons and they are all mad keen on judo.

The eldest is 18, a big lad, and he is grimacing at me. No teenager likes to be shown off to guests.

Mr Toyoma takes no notice. He is proud of his three boys. But he is also worried about them.

One day one of them is going to have to take over the family business and none of them is keen.

He tells me that, when he was 18, he did not want to inherit the family firm either.

He rebelled at first but then, as now, there was a lot of expectation in the small community where they live that he would follow his father's example.

(July 14th, 2008) When Army Specialist Jeremy Hall declined to participate in a Christian prayer ceremony to commemorate Thanksgiving in November 2006 he said he was alienated by his staff sergeant and subjected to vicious personal attacks for stating that he did not believe in God.

Determined to find soldiers who were also atheists, Hall organized a meeting for freethinkers at Combat Operations Base Speicher, Iraq. He said he received permission from the Army chaplain stationed at Speicher to post flyers to publicize the gathering.

But just minutes after the soldiers convened their first meeting last July, Army Maj. Freddy Welborn burst into a room where the soldiers gathered, broke up the atheist meeting and allegedly threatened to block Hall’s reenlistment in the Army and have charged brought against him for violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Fearing that higher ranking Army officials would not come to his defense, Hall contacted the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a watchdog group whose core mission is to force the military to adhere to the constitutional provision mandating the separation of church and state.

So Hall and MRFF filed a lawsuit last September against the Pentagon, Welborn, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, for allegedly violating the soldier’s First Amendment rights and for permitting a pattern of fundamentalist Christianity to permeate throughout the military. The complaint was amended in March to include new allegations alleging that Hall's promotion in the Army was withdrawn because of he sued the military.

Last week, the Justice Department filed a response to the lawsuit—a massive document exceeding 300 pages that essentially says the lawsuit should be dismissed because Hall “failed to exhaust intramilitary remedies, and assert claims that are nonjusticiable.”

The Democratic National Convention kicked off yesterday, and I couldn’t help but notice the opening invocation. Polly Baca, a former Colorado state senator, led off with a prayer that mentioned Jesus Christ and ended with her crossing herself “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

That’s how Roman Catholics pray. Others do things differently – and, of course, some people don’t pray at all. It surprised me to see such a sectarian invocation before what was surely a very diverse audience.
There’s been a lot of talk about the increased religiosity at the Democratic Convention. Over at the Religion Clause Blog, Howard M. Friedman raises some provocative questions about whether the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause applies to political parties. Are they government entities or private associations?

Don Byrd at the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty’s blog is also looking at the issue, laying down a series of recommendations for how both parties ought to deal with religion.
But the most interesting reaction came from Focus on the Family’s Tom Minnery. For years, Minnery and other FOF honchos have carped that the Democrats are too secular, that the party lacks an outreach to religious voters and that it is even hostile to faith.
Now that the Democrats are adding a hefty dose of religion to their plate, how does Minnery react? He attacks the party for adopting a “gloss of prayer and God-talk” and criticizes it for including non-Christian faiths!

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Courtesy Americans United

NEW DELHI — The remote, destitute state of Orissa, marred for years by Hindu-versus-Christian violence, erupted in a retaliatory killing on Monday after the murder of a Hindu leader led a mob to burn small Christian churches, prayer halls and an orphanage that had housed 21 children.

The police said a woman’s body, charred beyond recognition, was found inside the church orphanage. The church’s pastor, whom the police did not identify and who was injured in the fire, told the authorities that the body was that of a nun working there. No children were injured.

The attack on the orphanage on Monday, in an isolated district called Bargarh, came after the killing Saturday of a Hindu leader who had been associated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council, and who was leading a drive to wean local villagers from Christianity. Radical Hindu groups like the council are vehemently opposed to conversions to Christianity, which in India tend to focus on traditionally downtrodden lower-caste and indigenous groups, and have lately taken to conducting mass ceremonies to convert them back to Hinduism.

The Hindu leader who was killed, Laxmanananda Saraswati, was among five people slain by unidentified armed men who stormed a Hindu school in the nearby district of Kandhamal. The police blamed Maoist insurgents who prevail in the area. Mr. Saraswati’s followers, however, blamed Christians, and called for a statewide strike on Monday. The state government ordered all schools closed.