If man evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?

Take a closer look. Scan-ti-bodies? Scanty Bodies.

Checkout the Freakonomics folks over on The New York Times.

Earlier this semester, Soni started a weekly “Souljourn” to explore that religious diversity, bringing students of different faiths to churches of different faiths, from Hare Krishna to Tao to Pentecostal.

On Sunday about 10 a.m., four Wiccans, a Buddhist, a Sufi and an agnostic filed up the rickety stairs to the balcony of the Virgin Mary Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Hundreds of congregants filled the pews, many men wearing suit coats, women wrapped in gauzy white scarves. They chanted joyously with the choir in Amharic, tended restless children and clapped the deep detonations of the kubaro drum.

Only 23 and 24 percent of former Catholics and Protestants, respectively, became unaffiliated because they thought science disproves religion. By contrast, 55 and 53 percent of former Catholics and Protestants, respectively, became unaffiliated because they believe that religious people are hypocritical, judgmental or insincere. The unaffiliated account for 16 percent of the adult population, even though only 7 percent of the population was raised without religion.

“The study shows the continued rise of the spiritual-but-not-religious category,” said Stephen Prothero, who teaches in the department of religion at Boston University and is the author of “Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – and Doesn’t.”

The Pew site is a goldmine of information. It’s well worth a few hours of browsing!

Nearly a year later, Mr. Obama has yet to set foot in an American mosque. And he still has not met with Muslim and Arab-American leaders. But less publicly, his administration has reached out to this politically isolated constituency in a sustained and widening effort that has left even skeptics surprised.

You can see a clip from part one here.

Should Comedy Central have “caved” and censored the show? I don’t think so. Here’s Comedy Central’s thinking on it:

The network may have felt it had no choice after revolutionmuslim.com, the website of a fringe group, delivered a grim warning about the previous week’s episode, which seemed to depict Muhammad dressed as a bear. “We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably windup like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show,” the posting said. A photo of Van Gogh’s body lying in the street was included with the posting. “This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.”

Here’s a very brief account of what happened to Van Gogh (yes, he was related to that Van Gogh) in 2004.

The indictment says that Socrates is a doer of evil, who corrupts the youth; and who does not believe in the gods of the state, but has other new divinities of his own. (Apology 24b)

The charges against Socrates were bogus. The case in Saudi Arabia might have more merit.

Ali Hussain Sibat of Lebanon (has been) convicted of sorcery and sentenced to death. His head is to be chopped off by an executioner wielding a long, curved sword.His crime: manipulating spirits, predicting the future, concocting potions and conjuring spells on a call-in television show called “The Hidden” on a Lebanese channel, Scheherazade. It was, in effect, a Middle Eastern psychic hot line.

Detail here.

[a] man who claims he returned to his Catholic roots after divorcing a Jewish woman was granted permission to take his 3-year-old daughter to Catholic church, despite his ex-wife’s wishes.Joseph Reyes, who baptized his 3-year-old daughter without her mother’s permission, faced jail time after a Cook County judge granted his ex a temporary restraining order barring him from exposing the child to any religion other than Judaism. (empahsis mine)

I don’t know what’s worse: the particulars of the case or the name someone gave to the url over at The Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/13/joseph-reyes-can-take-jew_n_536311.html
(emphasis mine).

Are you telling me this is descriptive of the story’s content? I think not.

Lifelong theists (“I have always believed in God”) are disproportionately from lower socio-economic groups while lifelong atheists (“I have never believed in God”) are disproportionately from higher socio-economic groups.

But then the surprise:

Converts to theism (“I believe in God now but have not always done so”) are disproportionately from upper and upper-middle-class social groups while converts to atheism (“I used to believe in God but I no longer do so”) are disproportionately from lower social groups. Since education strongly correlates with social standing, the study came across similar findings when education was examined.