religion

I am an atheist – not an agnostic but a rabid, dogmatic, anti-believer. It is for this very reason that one of the newspapers that I regularly read, online, is the Christian Science Monitor. In a country where money is tantamount to a religion, where corporations vote twice to fund both the GOP and the Democrats to ensure their interests are ‘marketed’ to the voters, the CSMonitor often provides a secular balance to the belief in free markets as the saviour of all. The CSMonitor was founded by a Mary Baker Eddy in 1908 – before women had the vote. After being hounded by Joseph Pulitzer’s (who later endowed the Pulitzer prize) New York World as being unfit to manage her own affairs at 86, she decided to form a newspaper that would injur no ‘man’ and be a truly independent voice not controlled by “commercial and political monopolists.” The…

When the body of Czar Nicholas II was discovered, a blood sample was taken from the Queen’s husband, Prince Phillip, (being one of the closest living relatives) to authenticate the find. Maculate concept: It is possible that the recently discovered Ossuary once contained Jesus’ brother’s bones. Imagine that DNA from James’ remains could be retrieved from the box. Imagine also that this DNA could be used to authenticate one or more of the morbid collection of religious relics claiming to be Jesus’ toe-nail clippings or whatever. In fact a positive result would somewhat authenticate both the Ossuary and the relic(s), since it would be somewhat co-incidental that two fakes would contain remains of relatives. Imagine further that an intact cell from an authenticated relic could be used to create a clone. Then a lot of people like these would be dissappointed because, according to recent research, Jesus was short and…