Announcement of 8 Earth-like planets – 2 are very earth like

Hey now this is cool, the discovery of eight very earth-like planets has been announced So what are the details? Astronomers announced today that they have found eight new planets in the “Goldilocks” zone of their stars, orbiting at a distance where liquid water can exist on the planet’s surface. This doubles the number of … Read more

The long reach of reason – Steven Pinker and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein

Now this is interesting, it’s a TED talk, but in a format I’ve never seen before – they have animated it, and also it is a duo, not a single individual. The TED site describes it as follows … In a time when irrationality seems to rule both politics and culture, has reasoned thinking finally … Read more

Catholic Church refuses to divest schools or respect human rights in Ireland

Atheist Ireland reports on the latest developments … It is increasingly clear that the Catholic Church will not divest any schools to other patron bodies unless they are forced to do so. In fact they have reinforced their position of opposing human rights standards in education, by rejecting the Toledo Guiding Principles. Even Prof John Coolahan … Read more

Claim: “Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God.”

Much to the surprise of many, there was a recent article over on the Wall Street Journal entitled. “Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God.” (sorry, but the WSJ article is behind a paywall, but a summary of it can be found here). This of course is not the only instance of such a claim, but rather is … Read more

Letting go of religious hatred – escaping into a better world

At a deep psychological level people tend to flow with the cultural tide, and so we have the observation that the religious belief people embrace tells us a great deal about their geographical location and the micro-cultures they inhabit, and not much else. Those born into a Sunni family will generally tend to be Sunni … Read more