Jedi Knight intends to sue for religious discrimination

A 31 year old Jedi has received an apology from the manager of his local Jobcentre after being asked to ‘dehood’ on a recent visit. However, Chris Jarvis does not believe this goes far enough and is now planning to sue for discrimination after feeling neither his religion nor beliefs had been treated with respect. Jedi-ism is supposedly our fourth most popular religion according to the national census, however the Equality and Human Rights Commision (EHRC) does not include Jediism as a religion on the grounds that it is not “heartfelt”. This could prove to be an interesting debate. Tesco, now seemingly having elevated itself to the status of Debretts on dress code, has commented that “We would ask Jedis to remove hoods. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Luke Skywalker all went hoodless without going to the Dark Side.”
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Can Science Answer Moral Questions?

In his recent TED talk Sam Harris argues that science can and should be used to answer moral questions. He talks about the relationship between science and human values. Usually it is thought that science can help us understand what we value but never tells us what we ought to value in the first place.
It is often said that science deals with facts and facts and values seem to belong to different spheres. Sam Harris argues this is untrue. He believes that values are a certain kind of fact. If questions affect human wellbeing then they do have answers whether or not we can find them, by admitting there are right and wrong answers that affect how humans florish will change the way we talk about morality.
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Have a look at the discussion underneath the TED talk as well.

Love and Religion

According to a recent survey having a rival in love is likely to make you feel more religious. According to Yexin Jessica Li, Arizona State University, the statistics seem to suggest that people vary in religiosity depending on the perceived mating market.
Click here for the link to the article.

Muslim academics and students are turning against Darwin’s theory

Nidhal Guessoum, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the American University of Sharjah, in the UAE, told a science conference on Saturday that in many places students and academics believed they had to make a ‘binary choice” between evolution and creationism. He went on to argue that teachers from high schools through to university are misrepresenting the facts and theories of evolution by mixing it up with religious ideology.
click here for the article in the Times

The Oprah Religion

Oprah Winfrey has announced her retirement from the tv chat show arena. Heralded as the mother of shows like Jerry Springer, Jeremy Kyle, Vanessa and even Richard and Judy, Oprah was a phenomenon that changed the world of tv ‘entertainment’. Sarah Churchill, in an interview with Steve Hewlett, discusses whether for some people the Oprah show took the place of religion. Sarah points out that there were elements of confession, worship (albeit of celebrities), morality, and ‘working through’ all contained within her show. Is this what accounted for her cultish following?
click here for the link to the Radio 4 interview - The Media Show

Hip Hop Creation

A hip hop musical introduction to creation and evolution- it describes the main events of the creation and then sets out the theory of evolution and the notion of the Big Bang.
Well - at least it’s different!
Click here for the link..

Darwin’s Influence on Literature

The Newsnight panel discuss Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’.
This contains an interesting debate between Rev Richard Coles, Margaret Atwood, Ruth Padel and Richard Dawkins about why people still resist the theory of evolution.
Is it human behavior, is it the threat to religious authority or scriptural authority, is it due to an emotional barrier?
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How to read your text book

Are you struggling to make sense your text book? Watch this!
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Philosophers Football Match

If you haven’t come across this before it’s a pretty funny introduction to the major philosophers of our time.
click here for the link to the Monty Python Sketch

Darwin vs Dawkins is a phenomenon of our times

Darwin shook the status quo but never went as far as publicly denying God. According to James Secord, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, “It is easy to make Darwin out to be like Richard Dawkins, and to see Darwin as an acid that eats through our belief and faith, but Darwin didn’t see it like that”.  read more...»