Yesterday’s Guardian (UK) had a short piece on a talk by Martin Rees, head of the Royal Society, and part of it was: In an apparent swipe at colleagues such as Richard Dawkins and Lewis Wolpert who have launched blistering attacks on religion, Lord Rees said he felt it was “not helpful” to cast religion … Practising, but non-believing Christian?

My curiosity got the better of me and I went to see the Da Vinci Code last night. I hadn’t planned to go because the critics have been near universal in saying how horrible they thought it was. I’m glad I didn’t listen to them. It was a fantastic movie. Sure it was standard Hollywood … Da Vinci Code

It has been tradition at Russell County High School in Kentucky for graduating seniors to elect a “graduation chaplain” who delivers a Christian prayer at the graduation ceremony. This year, a Muslim student filed a lawsuit and a judge issued an injunction to prevent it. As the principal began his opening remarks, 200 students stood … Russell County High School students demonstrate their faith

The freakometer reached category 6 with the announcement on Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) that Pat Robertson can leg-press 2,000 pounds. The site claims that Robertson’s superhuman strength in “keeping his energy high and his vitality soaring is his age-defying protein shake.” The recipe for this magical potion is available for download on the site. Has … Pat “Superman” Robertson

According to a Freedom from Religion Foundation news release (awareness of which came my way via Daylight Atheism), the FFRF “filed a lawsuit yesterday in federal court, challenging the pervasive integration of ‘spirituality’ into health care by the Department of Veteran Affairs.” The complaint cites a number of practices at certain VA Health Centers, practices … FFRF sues over integration of spirituality into VA health care

Janet Reitman has written an excellent article for Rolling Stone magazine called “Inside Scientology.” She began with no cooperation from the Church of Scientology (not an unusual state of affairs), but then was given access to Scientology leadership, tours of facilities, and was able to interview current Scientologists. My first reaction on hearing about this … Inside Scientology

Antony Flew was supposed to have received the “Phillip E. Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth” from Biola University yesterday. Presumably it went as planned, though I can only find the “Former Atheist to Receive Award at Biola” announcement on Biola’s web site. Flew was a well-known philosophical atheist (and complete political Neanderthal) of the … Antony Flew receives award from Biola

Reported by the NCSE: the Playboy Foundation has just awarded Case Western Reserve University’s Patricia Princehouse one of eight 2006 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Awards for her role in some of the recent defeats of the intelligent design movement, especially in Ohio. I am glad for Princehouse, but I am also guessing this will … Patricia Princehouse receives Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award

It’s finals week, and I’m trying to postpone grading exams and papers until I can’t avoid it. So, trying to waste half an hour on something not involving physics, I stumbled on the web site for Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity. This, evidently, is a new organization of MD-types who think there’s something wrong … Belief among applied scientists