Efforts to Overturn Indonesia’s Blasphemy Law Fail

Indonesia’s High Court recently upheld the country’s controversial Blasphemy Law saying that it is still needed to maintain public order among religious groups.

“If the Blasphemy Law was scrapped before a new law was enacted … it was feared that misuses and contempt of religion would occur and trigger conflicts in society,” explained court justice Akil Mochtar, one of eight judges who upheld the law Monday.

Of the eight only one justice voted against the 1965 law, which permits the ruling government to ban religious groups that “distort” or “misrepresent” any of the country’s six official religions – Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism.

Justice Indrati, who voted against the Law and is the only woman on the Constitutional Court, stated in her dissenting opinion that the Blasphemy Law was badly flawed in many areas related to human rights and emphasised the “arbitrary actions” often elicited in the law’s execution.

Muslim countries with similar laws often experience situations where members of the majority religions too easily persecute religious minorities and unorthodox sects. The law leads to discrimination, harassment, and violence against these minorities, argue rights groups fighting against the constitutionality of the Blasphemy Law.

Those convicted of heresy could find themselves serving jail time of around 5 years, says the Christian Post.

(For the full article, please go to http://christianpost.com).

Zimbabwean Students Struggling to Survive

A recent news report by women in Zimbabwe’s Student Christian Movement say that poverty is so bad that many fellow students are resorting to prostitution to survive.

The power sharing group between Zanu-PF and the MDC has not brought the long hoped-for relief to students who are finding every-day life a battle to survive.
Zimbabwe’s economic travails are well known world-wide, where many are starving and millions have fled the country in the wake of inflation that hit 231 million percent at one point.

"The only thing I can say is that there is food on the shelves and we can have our workshops as the Student Christian Movement of Zimbabwe without being intimidated," says Matsiliso Moyo, a recent teaching graduate. "But to those students who are still at college, things are not so rosy. They are expected to pay tuition fees which are six times their parents' salaries."

Moyo's testimony is part of a collection published recently by the SCMZ. The booklet titled Students' Experiences in Times of Governance Crisis contains descriptions of arrests and intimidation by state security agents and stories of students struggling through their studies on tiny budgets.

Melissa Green shares how she and others have turned to sex for money with older men in order to supplement their limited funds. "It's quite a painful experience to see beautiful girls selling their bodies as a means of survival." Green laments in her contribution.

Green goes onto lament "That's the only way we can survive because most of us come from disadvantaged backgrounds. I used to do it myself, but thank God for SCMZ and my Christian background, I can't do that anymore," says the Ecumenical News International.

(For the full story, please go to http://www.christiancentury.org).

Bruising Religious Battles Now Staining the Haitian Revival

After the initial devastating events in their country, many Haitians of all faiths responded by turning their refugee camps into 24 hours religious revival centers. This religious fervor was marked by remarkable unity between people of different denominational backgrounds as they all became part of a sustained relief effort.

However, in the last few months the relationship between different believers has regressed into a battle for the Haitian soul. Not only are different Christian denominations battling to win the most believers, but they are also apportioning blame for the quake on whomever they disagree with most. Protestants battle and condemn Catholics while both are taking on followers of Vodou (the ancestral religion of Haiti).

Recently, Mario Joseph, a Haitian human rights lawyer, went before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights seeking investigation into attacks against Vodouists after incidents of stoning by Evangelical pastors in the Cité Soleil slum.

``In other zones of the country,'' he informed the commission, ``particularly in the commune of Verrettes in the Artibonite, literal witch hunts have been launched against priests and practitioners of this religion.''

Some believe that statements like that of the controversial conservative religious leader, Pat Robertson, have fueled this kind of animosity between denominations, and certainly between religions. Only a day after the quake, Robertson stated on National television his belief that Haiti’s pact with Satan was to blame for the earthquake.

(To read the full story, go to http://miamiherald.com).
(Image is of a cross from Haiti).

Is There Really a Missing Link Out There?

The recent landmark discovery of two fossils in South Africa has predictably re-opened debates between evolutionists and creationists. Two articles published in the journal ‘Science’ make the very bold statement that these fossils are actually members of a new species that “might help reveal the ancestor” of the genus Homo. While newspaper headlines have been quick to trumpet this find as the long-awaited “missing link,” both scientists and creationists can agree on one thing at least: That this probably is not it because there really is no such thing!

While we can easily understand why creationists would espouse such thinking, many readers may be confused as to why evolutionists might be agreeing with them (on this one issue at least!). Well, first of all because the scientists behind this fossil find – now named as Australopithecus sediba – make no such claim for it, and secondly because most evolutionists now reject the term “missing link” because it implies a chain in evolution rather than the more widely accepted tree model.

The story of Australopithecus sediba is by now, well known to most South Africans. Paleoanthropologist Lee R. Berger of the University of Witwatersrand was out on a fossil-find with his then nine-year old son, Matthew, who first stumbled upon a piece of skeleton. Matthew’s find interested Berger enough to lead numerous official expeditions into the area where they eventually uncovered two ancient skeletons in remarkable condition.

During a press conference last Thursday, Professor Berger stated that, “They (the fossils), ladies and gentlemen, are potentially a Rosetta stone into the past."
However, others are casting doubts about the discovery, saying that they might not even prove to be a new species as has been claimed in the scientific papers.
"The origins of the genus Homo remain as murky as ever," commented Dr. Daniel E. Lieberman, professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard.

Berger's research team is presently looking for preserved proteins in the skeletons, which they hope might contain dried brain remnant. If the brain yields soft tissue, there is a small chance the researchers could find DNA that might eventually uncover the genetic code for Sediba.

"We shall wait and see," said Berger.

The lead scientist said the newly described fossils date between 1.95 million and 1.78 million years in age, says the Christian Post.

(For the full article, please go to http://christianpost.com).
(Photo: University of the Witwatersrand / Brett Eloff)

Turin Shroud Remains ‘Shrouded’ in Mystery

The Turin Shroud is perhaps the most controversial religious artifact in the modern world. The cloth that so many believe actually wrapped Jesus’ body and somehow became imprinted with his image has long intrigued both believers and skeptics. Now having gone on public display for the first time in over ten years, the arguments around its authenticity look set to continue.

The Turin Shroud is woven from herringbone cloth, and is discoloured with human blood while also marked by the mysterious imprint of a crucified man. This imprint is not easily noticeable and was only picked up at the end of the 19th century in an amateur photograph. Many people firmly believe that this imprint was the outline of the crucified Christ.

However, in 1988 it seemed that science had closed the issue once and for all. Carbon dating experts from universities in Zurich, Arizona and Oxford proved in testing that the shroud originated from the 14th century and not from the time of Christ. Yet, many are still arguing that this process of testing was inherently flawed.

The historian, Ian Wilson, an author of many books on this subject, still asserts the shroud could well be genuine.

"Through no fault of the labs the 1988 sample was taken from the most inadvisable place - the top left hand corner," he says. "Before 1840 the normal process of display was to have the cloth loose and held up by at least three bishops so the corners would have been contaminated. A further problem was that the shroud was in a serious fire in 1532 and smoke introduces a lot of contaminants. All of these factors are ways that the carbon dating could have been skewed as it's not infallible," he states.

Interestingly enough, there are other intriguing details of the shroud that have yet to be explained. For example the type of weave used was definitely more first century than medieval. Also, there are puncture wounds in the skull (of the imprint) which would be consistent with a crown of thorns worn by Christ. There is real human blood staining the shroud, and whereas every artist in the 14th century depicted Christ crucified through the palms, the shroud indicated it was through the wrist, which we now know as the only plausible way a body could have remained on the cross. Finally, the ‘negative’ image left by the body is a technique that has yet to be reliably replicated by modern scientific procedures. All these issues throw into question whether the shroud really was a clever 14th century hoax.

The Catholic Church has never been willing to take a firm position on the shroud’s authenticity. However, many scientists are quite willing to be very certain indeed. Professor Gordon Cook, at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, rejects the idea that the carbon dating process was in any way flawed. He firmly believes that the shroud is indeed a 14th century product.

"Pre-treatment methods should get rid of the contamination," says Dr Cook, a professor of environmental geochemistry and a carbon dating expert. "The measurements were done by three really good radiocarbon labs so I've no doubt what they measured is the correct age."

The only question that does remain in his mind is whether the sample contained repairs rather than original material. If the dating was done on a repaired piece of the cloth, it could explain why carbon dating put it at the 14th century, the BBC news says.

(To read the full story, go to http://news.bbc.co.uk)

Obituary: Renowned Professor, Anthony Flew Dies

The renowned rationalist philosopher, Professor Anthony Flew died on April 8 aged 87. Flew had spent much of his life emphatically denying the existence of God until 6 years ago when he radically changed his views.

Professor Flew had always called himself a "negative atheist", arguing that "theological propositions can neither be verified nor falsified by experience", a position he explained in his renowned work Theology and Falsification (1950). Flew asserted that any philosophical debate about the Divine should have atheism as its starting point, placing the burden of proof firmly on believers.

"We reject all transcendent supernatural systems, not because we've examined or could have examined each in turn, but because it does not seem to us that there is any good evidence in reason to postulate anything behind or beyond this natural universe," he explained. A central aspect of his thinking was the Socratean concept of "follow the evidence, wherever it leads".

It came as a massive shock to his fellow atheists, when in 2004; Flew revealed that he now believed in the possibility of a God after all. What was even worse is that Flew appeared to have abandoned Plato for Aristotle, since it was two of Aquinas's renowned five proofs for the existence of God – the arguments from design and for a prime mover – that had apparently been the final straw in his move to belief in a Creator.

In defending his new position, Flew argued that research into DNA had "shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved". Whereas, he still accepted Darwinian evolution, it still could not explain the beginnings of life in his opinion.

"I have been persuaded that it is simply out of the question that the first living matter evolved out of dead matter and then developed into an extraordinarily complicated creature," he said.

Flew felt strongly enough about his new convictions to make a video of his conversion entitled 'Has Science Discovered God?' and seemed to want to redeem himself for past mistakes: "As people have certainly been influenced by me, I want to try and correct the enormous damage I may have done," he said.

However, Christians and other believers were soon to be disappointed as they realized that Flew’s change of belief did not embrace notions such as the afterlife, or even good or evil. Flew’s theology was firmly minimalist and very different from what he termed "the monstrous oriental despots of the religions of Christianity and Islam."

Flew remained to his death a committed ‘Deist’ and so did not believe the Creator was intimately involved with creation at all. God may have called his creation into existence, then, but why did he bother? To that question, it seemed, Flew had no theories, the Telegraph says.

(To read the full story, go to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries).

Ritual Child Sacrifices in Uganda

Recently, the body of 8 year old Caroline Aya was found a short walk away from her house in Jinja, Uganda – her tongue cut out. Police believe that she was used as a sacrifice in a ritual killing, believed to bring wealth or health.

Caroline’s father, Balluonzima Chris, said that: "If it is a sickness you try to treat it, and if they die that is one thing, but when you slaughter a person like a goat, that is not easy."

Of late Uganda has seen a drastic rise in human sacrifices where body parts, most often facial features or genitals are cut off and used ceremonially. Children make up over half the statistics of people killed in ritual murders, and the situation is becoming so dire that the U.S. recently donated $500,000 to train 2,000 Ugandan police in investigating offences related to human trafficking, which includes ritual killings.

Ugandan police have since established an Anti-Human Sacrifice Taskforce. Other countries such as India, Indonesia, South Africa, Gabon and Tanzania also struggle with humans being used in ritual killings as sacrifices. However, the drastic rise in Uganda of late seems to come from a desire for riches and the belief that drugs made from human organs can bring wealth. Some experts believe that this situation is being fueled by the popularity of violent Nigerian films which share common story lines: someone gaining riches after sacrificing a human.

However, the rise in human sacrifices in Uganda appears to come from a desire for wealth and a belief that drugs made from human organs can bring riches, according to task force head Moses Binoga. They may be fueled by a spate of violent Nigerian films that are growing in popularity, and showcase a common story line: A family reaping riches after sacrificing a human.

The situation is compounded by the fact that of around 30 people charged with ritual killing last year, not one has yet been convicted. The last conviction was in 200, says the Associated Press.

(Read the full story at http://www.google.com/hostednews)