Magic Statistics

PETA Suggests Southern Baptists Boost Congregation Numbers by Feeding the Flock Information About a Vegetarian Diet

The Iranian parliament is set to debate a bill to beef up penalties for “harming mental security”, e.g., using the internet to promote apostasy from Islam.

MPs on Wednesday voted to discuss as a priority the draft bill which seeks to "toughen punishment for harming mental security in society," the ISNA news agency said.

The text lists a wide range of crimes such rape and armed robbery for which the death penalty is already applicable. The crime of apostasy (the act of leaving a religion, in this case Islam) is also already punishable by death.

However, the draft bill also includes "establishing weblogs and sites promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy", which is a new addition to crimes punishable by death.

If the bill becomes law, those offences could be punished by "hanging, amputation of the right hand and then the left foot as well as exile" (not in that order, I presume).

h/t: Dhimmi Watch

Previous related post : Islamic extremists consumed by “apostaphobia”

A young woman I have known for most of her life has moved to Kenya for two years to live and work with local people as a member of an Africa Inland Mission team.  She is stationed in Kalacha, Chalbi Desert, northern Kenya, about 40 miles south of Ethiopia.  She has a lot more gumption than I.

Charmyn is able to blog irregularly and has posted some great photos of her new friends and surroundings.  The blog is named “All that is not given is lost”.  Check it out!

To Sing Like Shakira, Press '1' Now — Science Daily, 2 July

That headline may seem a truism but, in today’s politically charged world of homosexual activism, it’s important that it be verified by scientific research.  An investigation based on what is being called “the world’s largest study of twins” has contradicted the claim that homosexuals are born that way.

Writing in the scientific journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, researchers from Queen Mary’s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, and Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm report that genetics and environmental factors (which are specific to an individual, and may include biological processes such as different hormone exposure in the womb), are important determinants of homosexual behaviour.

Dr Qazi Rahman, study co-author and a leading scientist on human sexual orientation, explains: “This study puts cold water on any concerns that we are looking for a single ‘gay gene’ or a single environmental variable which could be used to ‘select out’ homosexuality - the factors which influence sexual orientation are complex. And we are not simply talking about homosexuality here - heterosexual behaviour is also influenced by a mixture of genetic and environmental factors.

The sample consisted of all identical and same-gender fraternal twins in Sweden aged 20-47: 3826 twin pairs.

The researchers estimate that about 35 percent of the differences in male sexual behaviour are accounted for by genetics, and 65 percent by environmental factors.  Among women, genetics accounted for 18 percent.

Previous related posts:

• About 1.5% of adult Canadians are homosexual or bisexual
• No evidence that homosexuality genetically determined
• Statistics Canada estimates 1.4% of adults homosexual or bisexual

In his silly column on Henry Morgentaler’s Order of Canada award, published yesterday in the National Post, Colby Cosh included this categorical—and wrong—statement about historical views on abortion.

The idea that abortion is morally equivalent to murder is just as absent from the history of the world before the 1960s as is the bold, proud, above-board abortionist.

Douglas Farrow, who teaches Christian thought at McGill University, quickly called him on it, citing the 2nd-century apologist Athenagoras, who wrote:

[T]hose women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder . . .

But that wasn’t the end of it: Mr Cosh refused to acknowledge his error and continued digging himself into a hole.  Commenting on Dr Farrow’s post, he insisted that canon law, Ss. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and English common law did not view abortion as murder—as if the fact that some authorities did not equate abortion with murder means that no authorities did so.

Farrow then rejected Cosh’s simplistic understanding of canon law and the thought of Thomas, and adduced another pre-1960s person who called abortion murder: German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945).

But Cosh couldn’t stop digging.

Perhaps it would be helpful if I concede that a few scattered individuals have doubtless expressed the view that abortion is equivalent to murder (and it has very, very occasionally even been treated that way by the secular authorities of Christian countries!); I just don't think cherry-picking Z-grade second-century apologists is really the most relevant way of conducting the inquiry.

Whereupon Farrow threw in several more witnesses, only one of whom lived in the second century: Tertullian, St Basil, and St Chrysostom.  (One could also add to that list Ss. Jerome and Ambrose.)

As of this writing, Cosh has not replied.  For the sake of his journalistic integrity, he needs to admit he was wrong and, in future, be more careful about making categorical statements.

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• A black Canada Day
• Welcome To C-38istan