Turkey has made international headlines by deciding that the theory of natural selection may no longer be taught in the nation’s schools. Numan Kurtulmus, the country’s deputy prime minister, an economics professor and an influential member of the nation’s leading political party, called the well-established theory “outdated and rotten.” Furthermore, he expressed the idea that schoolchildren do not have the critical thinking skills to handle such an idea that challenges their deeply cherished religious worldview.

Baptist Pastor Keith Gomez, who heads the Northwest Bible Baptist Church in Elgin, Illinois, has stated that slavery allowed Africans to escape their continent and become civilized. “If it wasn’t for slavery, those folks would still be in Africa with a bone in their nose . . . fighting lions . . . That ain’t a prejudice. That is factual and historical,” he claimed.

Both leaders hate and fear the mainstream media. Both men consistently scare and infuriate Jews. (Farrakhan has praised Trump for supposedly refusing to take large sums of money from Jews.) Both men are hyper-masculine patriarchs that use traditional religion to bolster their views. Both men hate affirmative action. Both men buy into and promote paranoid conspiracy theories. Both men are applauded and embraced by White separatists.

Ankh is tired of waiting for Jesus to return. He says that his family has believed that we have been living in the last days for four generations. He says that he is the fourth generation, and the madness stops here. He says that Black Christian and Muslim leaders should be “ashamed” of themselves for continually teaching Black people that Jesus will return or that Allah will save them. He says that if there is a God, it must be the “spirit” that dwells within each and every one of us.

Paranormal and pseudo-scientific beliefs are common throughout the world. Some of these ideas are rooted in culture and/or race. Among Black people, some of these notions have particular appeal. In Africa, Brazil and other parts of the world, voodoo or juju is practiced. In 1989, Isaiah Oke wrote the book Blood Secrets. He claimed to have been the biggest juju priest in Nigeria. He was initiated into the religion at the age of 13. His rites allegedly involved the drinking of blood and ritual murder. The book was published by Prometheus, a leading publisher of books on skepticism and humanism. However, Oke contended that the paranormal events he oversaw and witnessed were real.

Humanist writer Karen Garst has come out with the same kind of book by and for nonreligious women; and it does not disappoint. There is much to recommend here. However, Sylvia Benner’s “Of faith, feminism and master narratives” is especially noteworthy. Benner contends that “. . .third wave feminism . . . has no aspirational characters to offer for women (and certainly not for men.)”

David Mills’ book Atheist Universe, helps to demolish the strongest arguments that theists advance to support the extraordinary claim that God exists. For example, Dorion Sagan, son of Carl Sagan, writes in the foreword that: “…the discoveries by astrophysicists of hydrogen, carbon and other chemical elements in and around the stars shows that the ingredients of life exist throughout the universe. . . ” In other words, because the stuff of which life is made is so plentiful throughout the universe, the existence of life does not seem nearly as improbable as it once did.

Bad weather also hit other parts of the U.S. Storm Stella unexpectedly hit many parts of the country. Thousands of flights were canceled. Avalanches occurred in Pennsylvania. Some states were buried in snow and there were reports of several traffic accidents. Farrakhan claims to have predicted most of the mayhem. (Since 1930, the NOI has been predicting the “coming destruction of America.” Similarly, since WWI, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have maintained that “we are living in the final days.”)

Disney’s film Beauty and the Beast will star their first gay character. Not surprisingly, conservative Christians are not happy about it. Famous evangelist Billy Graham’s son, Franklin Graham, has called on Christians to boycott the film. The conservative Christian Website LifeSitenews.com started an online petition calling for a boycott of the film that has garnered 110,000 signatures.

At least up until the 1980s, they claimed that Whites belonged to a race of devils. (They are the ones that coined the term “blue-eyed devils.” And does any theist really love devils?) They still insist that Whites stink, and that they have “stringy, dog-like hair.” They insist upon separation of the races and no interracial dating or marriage. Whites are generally not allowed to join their group, and certainly are not permitted to lead it.

Conservative Christians have warmly embraced Donald Trump. Progressive humanists, not so much. That is because President Trump represents practically everything that progressive humanists oppose and practically nothing that they endorse.

That religious conservatives are the biggest hypocrites on the planet should come as no surprise to anyone that pays attention to what they say and do. However, they are not merely hypocritical. They are increasingly powerful and downright dangerous!

In my previous article, I discussed examples of what should count as strong evidence against theism or biblical inerrancy. Now I will take a look at what would count as strong evidence to back up the extraordinary claims that God exists and that the Bible is inerrant.

This year (2017), for the first time, Bob Jones University closed in honor of the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. The University’s long history of anti-Black racism is well-known, so this must be considered as at least a small step forward. (They did not even accept Blacks to the school until the 1970s and banned interracial dating until at least the year 2000.)

Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan has once again praised President-elect Donald Trump. Speaking to a gathering at the State of the Black World Conference in New Jersey, the sinister minister proclaimed, “The white man is going to push. He’s putting in place the very thing that will limit the freedom of others. That’s what you need,” he added, implying that Trump will make conditions so harsh for Blacks in America that they will embrace Farrakhan’s separatist worldview.

The phrase “Black Power” came to mean different things to different people. For some it meant the necessity to use violent means to end oppression. To others it meant Black economic and political empowerment. To others it meant Black self- empowerment through the development of pride, the learning of history and the raising of consciousness. To some it meant all three and more.

Ten years ago Dennett came out with this bestseller. He was primarily concerned with demolishing two ideas that seemingly cast a spell among most human beings. The first spell is the taboo that forbids investigation into religion. The second spell is religion per se, or more to the point, the idea that such an examination into religion could sweep it away, along with its positive attributes, thus leaving the world worse than it is.

Everyone is a hypocrite. We all say one thing and do the opposite. However, it is one thing to teach your children not to smoke while smoking yourself. After all, that is just looking out for your child’s best interests. However, it is something else entirely to criticize people for supporting murderous regimes while you support murderous regimes in the name of democracy, liberty, patriotism, and so on.