ABC Nightline: U.S. Military Weapons Inscribed With Secret 'Jesus' Bible Codes

January 18, 2010 on ABC News with Brian Ross -

via http://www.AtheistMedia.com

CBS Report on Televangelists: Kenneth Copeland

A CBS report on televangelist Kenneth Oopeland and the potential Senate investigation lead by Chuck Grassley into their finances:
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/01/...

UFO - UK Mass Disclosure

SHARIA LAW: 90 lashes for a 13 year old Muslim girl in Saudi Arabia

90 lashes for a Muslim girl in Saudi Arabia for taking phone to school.

Jesus Rifles De-Scriptured

Aired on The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, January 21, 2010.

Hardball: Christopher Hitchens vs Ken Blackwell on the US Being a Christian Nation

From Hardball April 8, 2009.

Blasphemy Challenge in the news

The Blasphemy Challenge and the Rational Response Squad are explored.

Male fish changing to female

Atheists Discuss Religion on ABC News

The Atheists Spreading the Word

Documentary about atheism, aired on CBC's The National, October 5, 2007

What's next for Scientology?

Fined for fraud in France, embarrassed on 'Nightline', and dumped by a Hollywood director—what’s next for Scientology?

Oscar-winning writer-director Paul Haggis finally quit Scientology after 32 years slamming it for anti-gay bigotry. Then a French court capped off the week by ordering the church to pay a $900,000 fine for defrauding its members. Watch Scientology spokesperson Tommy Davis, son of actress Anne Archer, prematurely end his Nightline interview.

Church of Scientology under fire

Evangelical Church welcomes gay Christians

By ERIC GORSKI, AP Religion Writer Eric Gorski, Ap Religion Writer – Sun Dec 20, 12:59 am ET

DENVER – The auditorium lights turned low, the service begins with the familiar rhythms of church: children singing, hugs and handshakes of greeting, a plea for donations to fix the boiler.

Then the 55-year-old pastor with spiked gray hair and blue jeans launches into his weekly welcome, a poem-like litany that includes the line "queer or straight here, there's no hate here."

The Rev. Mark Tidd initially used the word "gay." But he changed it to "queer" because it's the preferred term of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people invited to participate fully at Highlands Church.

Tidd is an outlaw pastor of sorts. His community, less than a year old, is an evangelical Christian church guided both by the Apostle's Creed and the belief that gay people can embrace their sexual orientation as God-given and seek fulfillment in committed same-sex relationships.

Disagreements over homosexuality and the Bible have divided mainline Protestant churches for years. In evangelical churches, though, the majority view has held firm — the Bible clearly condemns homosexual acts. The common refrain at evangelical churches: "love the sinner, hate the sin."

But with younger evangelicals and broader society showing greater acceptance of homosexuality, many evangelical churches can expect, at the least, a deeper exploration of the issue.

"Highlands Church represents a breakout position, where you have a gay-affirming stance that moves beyond the traditional kind of liberal-conservative divide," said Mark Achtemeier, an associate professor at University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, which is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). "I'm finding lots of moderate conservatives just think there's something wrong with a default position of excluding gays from the life of the church."

David Dockery, president of Union University, a Southern Baptist school in Jackson, Tenn., believes Highlands is — and is likely to remain — outside of the mainstream of evangelical churches.

"I don't think it can be taken for granted anymore that the traditional evangelical view will be adopted by the coming generations given the changes and shifts in our culture," Dockery said.

That makes it all the more important, he says, for evangelical leaders to clearly teach the traditional views on homosexuality.

The people of Highlands Church — those who stood with their renegade pastor and others who left feeling betrayed — have learned that taking an uncommon road comes at a cost.

READ MORE

Smacking Down a Creationist Fool

DonExodus2 on Youtube brings down the lies of Casey Luskin on that moron-enabling network Fox News.

Mona Lisa smile secrets revealed

The painting's smile has kept art lovers guessing

The smile on the face of the Mona Lisa is so enigmatic that it disappears when it is looked at directly, says a US scientist.

Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University said the smile only became apparent when the viewer looked at other parts of the painting.

The Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo da Vinci in the 1500s, has intrigued art lovers for five centuries because of its subject's mysterious smile.

The theory has been presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) annual meeting in Denver, Colorado, this week.

The smile disappeared when it was looked at because of the way the human eye processes visual information, said Prof Livingstone.

The eye uses two types of vision, foveal and peripheral.

Foveal, or direct vision, is excellent at picking up detail but is less suited to picking up shadows.

"The elusive quality of the Mona Lisa's smile can be explained by the fact that her smile is almost entirely in low spatial frequencies, and so is seen best by your peripheral vision," Prof Livingstone said.

The more a person stares fixedly ahead, the less useful is their peripheral vision.

Prof Livingstone said the best example of this effect was if someone was to stare at a letter on a page of print.

Concentrating on one letter made it difficult to pick out other letters even a short distance away, Prof Livingstone said.

She said the same principle was used by da Vinci on the painting. The smile only became apparent if a viewer looked at her eyes or elsewhere on her face.

'Fundamental truths'

Da Vinci's painting, possibly the most famous portrait of all time, is housed at the Louvre in Paris.


Prof Livingstone also used French painter Monet's Impression: Sunrise, which features a dazzling orange sun in a blue sky, to show how artists had understood human sight.


"I'm demystifying the procedures that some artists have known about for years, but not debunking their art in any way," she said.


"These artists - the Impressionists, Da Vinci, Chuck Close, and Robert Silvers, for example-discovered fundamental truths that scientists are only now unravelling."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2775817.stm

Unholy row over New Zealand Mary and Joseph billboard

The billboard is intended to challenge the stereotypes of the Christmas conception story, but it has been described as offensive to Christians.

An unholy row has broken out in New Zealand over a church billboard aimed at "challenging stereotypes" about the birth of Jesus Christ.

A dejected-looking Joseph lies in bed next to Mary under the caption, "Poor Joseph. God was a hard act to follow".

St Matthew-in-the-City Church in Auckland, which erected the billboard, said it had intended to provoke debate.

But the Catholic Church, among others, has condemned it as "inappropriate" and "disrespectful".

Within hours of its unveiling, the billboard had been defaced with brown paint.

The church's vicar, Archdeacon Glynn Cardy, said the aim of the billboard had been to lampoon the literal interpretation of the Christmas conception story.

The billboard was defaced within hours of its unveiling

"What we're trying to do is to get people to think more about what Christmas is all about," he told the New Zealand Press Association (NZPA).

"Is it about a spiritual male God sending down sperm so a child would be born, or is it about the power of love in our midst as seen in Jesus?"

He told NZPA that the church had received e-mails and phone calls about the controversial image.

"About 50% said they loved it, and about 50% said it was terribly offensive," he said. "But that's out of about 20 responses - this is New Zealand."

But Lyndsay Freer, spokeswoman for the Catholic Diocese of Auckland, said the poster was offensive to Christians.

"Our Christian tradition of 2,000 years is that Mary remains a virgin and that Jesus is the son of God, not Joseph," she told the New Zealand Herald. "Such a poster is inappropriate and disrespectful."

The family values group Family First said any debate about the Virgin birth should be held inside the church.

"To confront children and families with the concept as a street billboard is completely irresponsible and unnecessary," Family First director Bob McCroskrie told the news website stuff.co.nz.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8417963.stm

Vatican Conference on Extraterrestrial Life

2009 Dec 02:-'Sweeps' with Gareth of 4FM Dublin... talking about the Bulgarian Scientists claiming UFO's/ET's are Here NOW, and studying World Wide 'Crop Circles' for their symbolism/significance. Have a listen/get informed/enjoy/'Sweeps'

click here to listien

2009 Nov 12:- 'Sweeps' Talks on Dublin Radio 4FM With Gareth about the 'Vactican UFO/ET Conference and what this means-will make you all start thinking about 'UFO Disclosure' and how the ET presence has been Hidden from the World's People by ALL the Social Institutions.

Click here to Listien mp3

http://www.irishufology.net/

Irish bishop resigns over child sex abuse

VATICAN CITY (AFP) - – Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday accepted the resignation of Limerick Bishop Donal Murray over Ireland's child sex abuse scandal, the Vatican announced.

Murray was named in a report last month that concluded that top prelates concealed clerical abuse and failed to inform police of offences over a period of more than three decades.

The prelate, speaking shortly after the Vatican announcement, "humbly" apologized for his role in the scandal but said even his resignation "cannot undo the pain" of those who suffered.

Other senior church officials, including four archbishops cited in the report, face growing pressure to resign.

One priest admitted to sexually abusing over 100 children, while another confessed that he had abused children on a fortnightly basis over 25 years.

Murray told his congregation in Limerick, southwest Ireland, that he had asked to quit because he believed his "presence will create difficulties for some of the survivors."

According to a statement released by his office, Murray said: "I know full well that my resignation cannot undo the pain that survivors of abuse have suffered in the past and continue to suffer each day. I humbly apologise once again to all who were abused as little children."

He added: "To all survivors of abuse, I repeat that my primary concern is to assist in every way that I can on their journey towards finding closure and serenity.

"A bishop is meant to be a person who seeks to lead and inspire all the people of the diocese in living as a community united in the truth and love of Christ," he told the congregation.

The pope met last week with Ireland's two most senior Roman Catholic churchmen, primate of all-Ireland Cardinal Sean Brady and Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the participants did not discuss whether any of those implicated in the scandal should resign.

But Martin told reporters afterward: "We will need a very significant reorganization of the Church in Ireland."

The pope apologised for the abuse, saying he "shares the outrage, betrayal and shame felt by so many of the faithful in Ireland (over) these heinous crimes".

The Vatican statement last Friday said the Church "will continue to follow this grave matter with the closest attention in order to understand better how these shameful events came to pass and how best to develop effective and secure strategies to prevent any recurrence."

http://ph.news.yahoo.com/afp/20091217/twl-vatican-pope-ireland-children-abuse-4bdc673.html

Bill Maher - Bye Jerry Falwell

On Real Time with Bill Maher in Bill's closing segment Bill says the appropriate goodbye to Jerry Falwell.

Christopher Hitchens on Rev. Jerry Falwell's death

Christopher Hitchens on the Anderson Cooper 360 show talking about Reverend Jerry Falwell and his death of the previous day. Recorded on 15-May-2007.



Christopher Eric Hitchens (born April 13, 1949, in Portsmouth, England) is an Anglo-American author, journalist and literary critic. Currently living in Washington, D.C., he has been a columnist at Vanity Fair, The Nation, Slate and Free Inquiry; additionally, he is an occasional contributor to other publications and has appeared regularly in the Wall Street Journal. His brother is British journalist Peter Hitchens.

Hitchens is known for his iconoclasm, anti-clericalism, atheism, antitheism, anti-fascism and anti-monarchism. He is also noted for his acerbic wit and his noisy departure from the Anglo-American political left. He was formerly a Trotskyist and a fixture in the left wing publications of Britain and America. But a series of disagreements beginning in the early 1990s led to his resignation from The Nation shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks. He is also known for his ardent admiration of George Orwell and Thomas Jefferson, and his iconoclastic criticism of Mother Teresa.

While Hitchens' idiosyncratic ideas and positions preclude easy classification, he is a vociferous critic of what he describes as "fascism with an Islamic face," and his critics have been known to describe him as a "neoconservative". Hitchens, however, refuses to embrace this designation. In 2004, Hitchens stated that neoconservative support for US intervention in Bosnia and Iraq convinced him that he was "on the same side as the neo-conservatives" when it came to contemporary foreign policy issues. He has also been known to refer to his association with "temporary neocon allies".

Hitchens no longer considers himself a Trotskyist or a socialist; yet he maintains that his political views have not changed significantly. He points out that, throughout his career, he has been both an atheist and an antitheist, and that he has always remained a believer in the Enlightenment values of secularism, humanism and reason. Hitchens has launched a detailed attack on Religion in his book god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. He has also stated that, while he "was very much in rebellion against the state" during his youth, he is now "much more inclined to stress... issues of individual liberty."

Hitchens became a United States citizen on his fifty-eighth birthday, April 13, 2007.