To ban or not to ban? - By Sanal Edamaruku
The French Government wants to ban the burqa, the Islamic full-body cloak that covers women from top to bottom and allows them only to look out through a mesh screen over their eyes. "In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity," president Nicolas Sarkozy said in his address to a joint session of both the houses of parliament in the Chateau of Versailles to extended applause. "The burqa is not a religious sign, it's a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement — I want to say it solemnly," he said. "It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic."
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Turin Shroud: Made in the image of the creator - Leonardo da Vinci
The mysterious Turin Shroud, for centuries believed to be the crucified Jesus’ burial cloth bearing his face impression after he was wrapped into it, may have been created by Leonardo da Vinci using his own face. A new study by Lillian Schwartz of the School of Visual Arts in New York demonstrates with computer scans that the face on the Shroud has exactly the same dimensions as that of da Vinci. The Renaissance artist may have created the artifact by using pioneering photographic techniques and a sculpture of his own head.
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Turkey bids farewell to a secular icon
Turkan Saylan, famous secularist and women’s rights champion who changed the life of thousands of poor young girls in rural Turkey by supporting their education, has died on 18th May in the age of 74. Her funeral in Istanbul was attended by thousands of people from all backgrounds and wages of life, many among them women, who mourned for their mother and benefactress. “You, my dear daughter, stop asking yourself, ‘Why am I born a girl?’ and aim at becoming the best you can be,” said Saylan’s letter to the girls of Turkey that was read at her funeral. She had written it short before her death for a yet unpublished book.
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This February 12 marks the 200th Birth Anniversary
of Charles Darwin
This February 12 marks the 200th Birth Anniversary of Charles Darwin. With his Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, introduced a 150 years ago in his revolutionary work On the Origin of Species, he deflated established religious world views and opened our eyes to reality. He liberated our mind and changed forever the way we view the world and ourselves. His ingenious idea, hardened by an overwhelming multitude of proofs, gave us the key to understand all life on earth in its complexity and diversity - and all possible life on any planet.
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Saint Exportable - By Sanal Edamaruku
There is far more behind the canonization of an unknown village girl from Kerala than meets the eye. Saint Alphonsa may be the Vatican's last hope to escape a great financial crunch. To continue running the large multi national network of its institutions profitably, the Roman Catholic Church needs God's slaves, the nuns. But their numbers are world wide dramatically declining. The Vatican hopes, the canonization of Alphonsa could turn the tide.
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Atheism goes mainstream – by bus
Ariane Sherine
Come January, and London buses will carry a comforting message all across the city: “There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Atheists have decided to counter Christian slogans with reassuring atheist adverts. The idea came up in June, proposed by TV comedy writer Ariane Sherine in her blog. After a slow start, the atheist ad campaign caught enormous wind, when Prof. Richard Dawkins, Britain’s most prominent rationalist, announced his personal financial support. He pledged to match incoming donations up to £5,500 – that is the charge for running the ad for one whole month on 30 of London’s extra long “bendy buses”. Since then, the funding Web site http://www.justgiving.com/atheistbus is swamped with donors. Donations pouring in have long crossed £140,000. The British Humanists, who are organizing the ad campaign, are overwhelmed about its unexpected success and plan to extend it to other cities like Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.
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Science : When people feel helpless, superstition flourishes
If people feel that they lost control they become desperate to make sense of the situation. They perceive patterns that don’t exist and rather grab for any fast and simple explanation - however absurd - than considering that there could be none. This is the result of a study, published in the latest issue of the magazine Science, that sheds new light on the psychology of superstition, urban legends and conspiracy theories.
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