A Utah man who has admitted to child molestation said the Bible allowed him to do so.

Timothy Butler, 54, is accused of molesting two children and providing them “harmful materials” between 2008 and 2011, Good4Utah reports. One of the alleged victims was a then-5-year-old girl.

According to the Standard Examiner, Butler allegedly watched pornography with the child present. His charges include two counts of sodomy of a child and two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, which are felonies. He also faces charges of drug possession.

Butler told the judge that “the Bible did not set limits on the ages between two partners, and that God will set the truth free.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/utah-man-justifies-child-molestation-the-bible-did-not-set-limits-on-the-ages-between-two-partners/

The scandals of recent years have destroyed popular support for the church in Ireland, with many Irish people ignoring the hierarchy's guidance on social issues.
http://www.npr.org/2015/08/26/434821443/after-scandals-ireland-is-no-longer-the-most-catholic-country-in-the-world

We laughed, we cried, we felt a thousand emotions. And when the dust finally settled, we were left with the usual pile of dead anti-science copycat bills, often from the usual players. We're looking at you, Missouri and Oklahoma.

The tally was nearly identical to 2014's. Four bills targeted evolution, one climate science, two unspecified "scientific controversies," and one adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

Small surprise: The fifth attempt to repeal the so-called Louisiana Science Education Act died in committee. Kudos to Friend of Darwin winner and student activist Zack Kopplin and Louisiana state senator Karen Carter Peterson for tilting at this particular windmill.

No fewer than four Darwin Day resolutions were introduced in 2015, in the House of Representatives and (for the first time) in the Senate as well as in Arizona and Pennsylvania. None have passed.

http://ncse.com/evolution/anti-evolution-anti-climate-science-legislation-scorecard

By Seth Andrews, Broken Arrow | 24 comments

Elizabeth Franklin offered a tragically oversimplified (and hugely misinformed) "solution" to mental and physical illness ("The Bible way," Aug. 19).

While it's true that ulcers, heart attacks, etc., can be triggered by stress, it's a long leap to declare that pursuing "the mind of Christ" will alleviate the problems, especially as Christianity teaches that our Earthly maladies are the product of an inherited sin nature, disobedience, a lack of faith, or an attack by a sinister Satanic force.

Someone with heart trouble might, indeed, be stressed, or he might have a blocked artery or inherited heart disease and require medical intervention. Someone with an ulcer might be stressed, or he might have H. pylori. Instead of naming and claiming a happy-clappy verse from an anonymously written magic book (which declares that humans are born broken, to blame and only redeemed by an invisible other), he would be better served with a heart scan and the intervention of trained medical personnel.

Positioning the Bible as a source of peace and goodness (Franklin quotes 2 Timothy 1 ) is problematic, as the Bible reveals enough Yahweh-induced blood lust, bigotry, misogyny, racism and hellfire to palpitate anyone's heart. And we haven't yet mentioned that ultimate de-stresser ... eternal hell.

We need better books, better resources and better ideas, and those suffering from illness deserve more than a "Yea, Jesus!" pep rally as they navigate through their complex physical and mental challenges.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/opinion/letters/letter-to-the-editor-health-concerns-best-handled-by-medical/article_792039bd-9567-5de7-a99c-fd799f920045.html

Young children who are exposed to religion have a hard time differentiating between fact and fiction, according to a new study published in the July issue of Cognitive Science.

Researchers presented 5- and 6-year-old children from both public and parochial schools with three different types of stories -- religious, fantastical and realistic –- in an effort to gauge how well they could identify narratives with impossible elements as fictional.

The study found that, of the 66 participants, children who went to church or were enrolled in a parochial school were significantly less able than secular children to identify supernatural elements, such as talking animals, as fictional.

By relating seemingly impossible religious events achieved through divine intervention (e.g., Jesus transforming water into wine) to fictional narratives, religious children would more heavily rely on religion to justify their false categorizations.

“In both studies, [children exposed to religion] were less likely to judge the characters in the fantastical stories as pretend, and in line with this equivocation, they made more appeals to reality and fewer appeals to impossibility than did secular children,” the study concluded.

Refuting previous hypotheses claiming that children are “born believers,” the authors suggest that “religious teaching, especially exposure to miracle stories, leads children to a more generic receptivity toward the impossible, that is, a more wide-ranging acceptance that the impossible can happen in defiance of ordinary causal relations.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/21/children-religion-fact-fiction_n_5607009.html

The Huffington Post has come under fire for blog posts on it’s new Arabic-language site that detractors claim are homophobic and anti-atheist.

BuzzFeed drew attention to one Huffington Post Arabi blog post last week that lambasted the Egyptian government for “allowing a press conference for gays in the heart of Cairo” and for allowing atheists to appear on television.

In another post, the author begs Muslims youth to “stop adopting such sick behaviors that come to destroy our traditions and the basics of human cultural identity.” That sick behavior? Taking a selfie.

It’s certainly a different tone for a website typically known for its liberal bent. One Huffington Post higher-up told BuzzFeed that the anti-selfie blog post in particular does not “reflect HuffPost’s global editorial viewpoint, nor the viewpoint of our HuffPost Arabi editors.”

Meanwhile, the anti-gay post has been replaced with the following message in English and Arabic: “This blog should not have been published as it contradicts the Huffington Post’s editorial positions and guidelines which are based on encouraging positive dialogue and mutual respect. It has therefore been taken down.”

http://www.mediaite.com/online/huffington-posts-new-arabic-site-under-fire-for-anti-gay-anti-atheist-post/

Africa will mark one year without polio on Tuesday. The last case was in Somalia in 2014.

But last week, a polio vaccination campaign in Kenya faced an unlikely opponent: The country's Conference of Catholic Bishops declared a boycott of the World Health Organization's vaccination campaign, saying they needed to "test" whether ingredients contain a derivative of estrogen. Dr. Wahome Ngare of the Kenyan Catholic Doctor's Association alleged that the presence of the female hormone could sterilize children.

http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/08/09/430347033/catholic-bishops-in-kenya-call-for-a-boycott-of-polio-vaccines