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03 Mar 2011 13:33

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Culture: BYU forward Brandon Davies suspended for… consensual sex?

  • The showers only run cold: Brigham Young University, named after the Mormon leader of yesteryear, has a basketball team, and a rather good one. They also, however, have a student honor code that states you can’t have premarital sex. Which lead to the deeply peculiar (especially within the “win-at-all-costs” realm of collegiate athletics) revelation that BYU pivot Brandon Davies had been suspended from the team yesterday for having consensual sex with his girlfriend. Obviously, as long as they’re not violent or forced over non-believers, religious tenets are anybody’s personal right. But there’s a decent chance not all of those players are Mormon, and from the view of a secular player sitting on that bench, it must be frustrating to have your season disrupted by this. source

07 Feb 2011 13:18

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Politics: Tony Blair has his say on Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood

  • It is founded on a different view of the relationship between religion and public policy than most people in secular societies would want.
  • Former British PM Tony Blair • The oft-maligned former leader speaking about the Muslim Brotherhood, whose likely involvement in forming a new Egyptian government is causing some angst for advocates of secularism. Blair suggested the Brotherhood was not extremist like some groups in other countries, but that while religion had an important place in society, he “wouldn’t want to live in even a democratic theocracy.” Can you even call something democracy if one entity officially has omnipotent control over the people?  source

06 Nov 2010 12:17

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World: Pope Benedict to Spain: Your secularism is bad news, guys

  • The clash between faith and modernity is happening again, and it is very strong today. … Spain saw in the 1930s the birth of a strong and aggressive anti-clericalism.
  • Pope Benedict XVI • Seeming to suggest that Spain’s growing secularism will bring rise to the kind of fascism that led to the Spanish Civil War. See, Spain (currently ruled by Socialists) has done a few things that the Catholic Church doesn’t like, including getting rid of religious education in schools and legalizing abortion. The pope suggests a “meeting between faith and secularism and not a confrontation.” Perhaps we’re cynical, but does anyone see this as the Pope’s attempt to scare people back towards religion in Spain? source