Tom Clark argues with the theologian John Haught. He starts out with some common ground – or perhaps not.

As much as their worldviews differ, both naturalists and anti-naturalists share a common objective: getting the nature of reality right according to their best lights.

I don’t really think that’s true – at least not of anti-naturalists of the type discussed in the article. I thought that as soon as I read it, then as I read the rest of the article I found places where Clark makes points that are (at least) in tension with it. It seemed to me as soon as I read it, and then thought about it, that anti-naturalists are motivated in their anti-naturalism by … Read the rest

A Texas appeals court rules that the state CPS acted too hastily in removing all the children from the FLDS ranch.

In the decision, the 3rd Court ruled that CPS failed to provide any evidence that the children were in imminent danger. It said state acted hastily in removing them from their families. The agency had argued that the children on the ranch were either abused or at risk of abuse. The Texas Family Code allows a judge to consider whether the “household” to which a child would be returned includes a person who has sexually abused another child. Child welfare officials alleged that the polygamist sect’s practice of marrying underage girls to older men places all its children at

Free speech? Wozzat?

A teenager is facing prosecution for using the word “cult” to describe the Church of Scientology. The unnamed 15-year-old was served the summons by City of London police…Officers confiscated a placard with the word “cult” on it from the youth, who is under 18, and a case file has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Uh – right. Because that’s obviously a crime. Saying Scientology is a cult is self-evidently a crime. Uh…what? In what universe?

Demonstrators from the anti-Scientology group, Anonymous, who were outside the church’s £23m headquarters near St Paul’s cathedral, were banned by police from describing Scientology as a cult by police because it was “abusive and insulting”…A policewoman later read him section

Ali Al-Ahmed points out an anomaly.

The procession of the Olympic torch drew protests from Paris to San Francisco over China’s treatment of the Tibetan people, but no one has protested another tragedy that is afflicting millions of women in Saudi Arabia, Iran and other Muslim countries. Many Muslim women dare not even dream of the Olympics because their countries ban female sports altogether or severely restrict the athletic activities of the “weaker sex.”…[T]he slogan of the 29th Olympic Games is “One World, One Dream.” This dream, however, will not be realized by women in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries that ban women from sports domestically and internationally. The International Olympic Committee charter states that “any form of