Physicist [Lawrence Krauss] walks out of gender-segregated debate at London university

University apologizes profusely for "Jesus Stomp"

Egypt issues arrest warrant for TV satirist

How sad that they removed the exercise. I had a similar exercise in a class (this is decades ago) where we did the same thing with an image of the flag. Some people stepped on it, a lot didnt. It didn't matter if you did or did not, the point was to make you think about the power of symbols.

The fact that this was so upsetting that it led to this, to me, shows some (or a) overly sensitive student who couldn't see the forest through the trees.

Haha I'm still dying. Both very good

I'd say the class exercise was a great success! But for more examples of people missing the point, just count all the article comments declaring how the teacher would've been too scared to have students write the name Mohammed instead of Jesus.
From follow-up stories it is clear that the kid was suspended for his behavior in class after the exercise, getting worked up into a frenzy, nothing to do with failing to complete the exercise.

2nd child of Pa. couple dies after only praying

Dawkins named the World's 'top thinker'

http://m.guardian.co.uk/books/booksb...ed-top-thinker

he's no Slavoj Žižek

Not an article but a discussion on Reddit between a Jew (actually atheist, but arguing from the Jewish perspective) vs a creationist Christian. It'd be great to see something like this take place here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Dman82_vs_ld...rty_greetings/

My eyes tend to glaze over after long discussions, but it's not too bad so far and kind of interesting.

e.g. Discussion of so-called prophecies for Christianity (and a link was provided by the Christian). I'm pretty sure I have seen that link before but never really looked into it in detail. This time I looked up some random "prophecies", and even after taking into account my bias, I was astounded at the acrobatics necessary to consider any of the ones I looked up as being "prophetic". Basically, any story or event that happened to a character in the OT that had the remotest similarity to a Jesus-story is called prophecy, regardless of whether the OT story is even discussing the messiah. The Jewish poster basically demolishes the list as well.

Fascinating discussion going on there and if the Jewish poster's translations are correct then it shows some incredible changes that have been made to try to make it appear as though the OT prophecies have been fulfilled. This probably deserves a thread of it's own for discussion but I don't wanna steal your thunder on this one so it's your call

If you can think of an appropriate title / topic, please go ahead! I browsed a couple of old prophesy-oriented threads from a couple of years back and they never get anywhere. I would be interested to hear about what the current regular theists think about prophecy.

This is just the kind of thread that should be started, honestly. I put a lot of weight in the messianic prophecies, and even now I am wading through a series of texts by a messianic Jew which debunks much of the anti-missionary positions on Christ. I suppose it would give me an unfair advantage, as I obtained these books from my cousin, who relishes nothing more than to debate these things -- being a messianic Jew preacher. But anyway, these prophecies are what first caught my attention over 20 years ago as a young man. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I haven't followed the Reddit discussion since it began, so if you want to be the one to make a new thread, go ahead. After all, it sounds like you would be better able to provide a some background on the topic than I would.

The Gospel According to Bart Ehrman


I felt like this was a particularly fair treatment, especially coming out of The Christian Post.

I was also unaware that Ehrman's main beef with Christianity was philosophical, and not necessarily based on textual criticism of the gospels.

Quam Dilecta

I originally read this in a book I have called "God and the Philosophers," or something like that. Basically, this sums up the latter and meaty part of the article:

Pleaseeeeeeeeee make a thread about this.

Let me know if you don't intend to so I can start it myself.

I read the article and was underwhelmed, but I'm feeling lazy this morning so if you're going to make a thread I'll wait to try and articulate why

Do Gays Really Hate Christians?

"Love the Christian, hate the Christianity"

(from comments section)

I like that. I love you but i hate your Christianity. Wonder how that would go over.

Video Claims to Show Imam on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount Calling for Caliphate and Destruction of the U.S., France, Britain, Rome

Taliban-style edict for women spreads alarm in Afghan district

http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/2554045
A Dubai court has sentenced a Norwegian woman to 16 months in jail for having sex outside of marriage after she reported being raped,