Nobody Knows What Happens
The Morning Heresy with Paul the Morning Heretic
June 27, 2017
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
As our legal director Nick Little put it, SCOTUS "detonated a massive breach in the wall of separation between church and state" with its decision in the Trinity Lutheran case, a decision that will have really bad consequences as religious institutions get the green light to go diving for public dollars. Tara Isabella Burton at Vox looks at the implications, including a reference to our lawsuit in Florida over prison ministries looking for taxpayer funding. Betsy DeVos is probably really excited.
Quick, Numerous, Clicky
The Morning Heresy with Paul the Morning Heretic
June 26, 2017
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
We're just now hearing about the SCOTUS decision on Trinity Lutheran. We'll have a response shortly.
Last week, we responded to the news that Turkey would nix evolution from its school curricula, contrasting the claim of evolution's alleged "complexity" as a subject with our own TIES program...
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Didn’t See That Coming
The Morning Heresy with Paul the Morning Heretic
June 23, 2017
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
You know, things are so crazy lately around the world, that everything going off the rails has become the new normal. I mean, look at the Senate's health care bill! It's just one space alien short of To Serve Man! (Except of course women are among its prime victims.) I feel like there must be some newer, more novel catastrophe that needs to occur to really shake us out of our stupor...
...what's that? ... What if an important, populous country, with a rich history that spans the cultures of east and west, decided to stop teaching evolution to all of its students? Well, yes, that'd certainly qualify as a novel and really tragic catastrophe. ... Hmmm? ... oh I see. You're saying this has in fact happened...
Broom Balancing on the Equinox
A Skeptic Reads the Newspaper with Benjamin Radford
June 22, 2017
We are just past the 2017 summer solstice and amid the celebrations, pagan rituals, and Stonehenge treks, there were many who performed a trick seemingly unique to that day.
Blame the Peanut Butter Sandwich
The Morning Heresy with Paul the Morning Heretic
June 22, 2017
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Good morning. Here's some Grade-A crap from the top court of the EU:
The highest court of the European Union ruled Wednesday that courts can consider whether a vaccination led to someone developing an illness even when there is no scientific proof.
Paul Offit says:
Using [the court's] criteria, you could reasonably make the case that someone should be compensated for developing leukemia after eating a peanut butter sandwich.
Eggs and Lusty Thoughts
The Morning Heresy with Paul the Morning Heretic
June 21, 2017
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Here is a mild example of what happens when religious service providers, like child care facilities, aren't subject to the same rules as everyone else. A 4-year-old girl at the Zion Lutheran Learning Center was hog-tied by her caretakers. Sarah Fenske at the Riverfront Times in St. Louis reports:
The little girl had been running around when she was supposed to be napping, and so Mr. Josh had bound her legs together with duct tape. She would be untied, another teacher told her, once she behaved.
This Seething Moment
The Morning Heresy with Paul the Morning Heretic
June 20, 2017
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
The Supreme Court struck down a law prohibiting trademarks deemed offensive, finding in favor of a rock band called The Slants, and the decision is assumed to bolster the case of the Washington Redskins who are in a separate legal fight over their trademark. Justice Kennedy:
A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.
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Barker’s Nerve and Bone Liniment
Investigative Briefs with Joe Nickell
June 19, 2017
Barker’s Nerve and Bone Liniment was a proprietary medicine introduced by Thomas Barker in Philadelphia in 1859. It was intended for both man and beast.
He Gets Sweaty and Swallows a Lot
The Morning Heresy with Paul the Morning Heretic
June 19, 2017
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
Darwin Martinez Torres, 22, of Sterling, Virginia is charged with the murder of 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen. Torres allegedly confronted Nabra and a group of her friends outside an IHOP, all of whom fled to a mosque except for Nabra whose body was found yesterday afternoon.
In London, a man plows into a group of Muslims leaving a mosque, killing one and injuring 10 others. When the driver tried to escape on foot, he was tackled by another man who reports that the driver said, "I want to kill more people, I want to kill more Muslims."
A Pinch, if Not a Dash
The Morning Heresy with Paul the Morning Heretic
June 16, 2017
The Morning Heresy is your daily digest of news and links relevant to the secular and skeptic communities.
They got him. Lyle Jeffs of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and brother of incarcerated leader (and child rapist) Warren Jeffs, has been found and arrested in South Dakota. He escaped custody last year as he faced conspiracy charges for money laundering.
