Spanish Nun Questions Mary’s Virginity

What is the price one pays when one suggests that sex is a necessary precursor to having a baby? Death threats! What follows is apparently deserving of the death sentence, according to the NYPost:

“I think Mary was in love with Joseph and that they were a normal couple – and having sex is a normal thing,” Caram told the Chester in Love Show, according to the Guardian. “It’s hard to believe and hard to take in. We’ve ended up with the rules we’ve invented without getting to the true message.”
According to the article, these sort of free-thinking questions also require an apology or, at least, that is what Sister Caram felt compelled to do. The take-away: It is apparently the safer practice to proclaim that Mary got pregnant without having sex.

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What the Bible actually says about abortion.

Here's a fascinating post from a quirky and thoughtful website called "Bible Funmentionables." In this particular post, Michael Morris puts on his news reporter hat and simply asks what "God" had to say about abortion.

But many of the same people who give God a pass for allowing so many embryos to die, would like us to believe that God is punishing us for not making all abortions stop. Setting aside the fact that making abortions illegal does not cause them to stop, let’s examine what the Bible says DIRECTLY about abortion.

Spoiler alert: "It’s clear that if pro-lifers want to bring the Bible into the debate, the Bible is NOT on their side." The evidence presented at Bible Funmentionables includes passages like this:

If his soul is not filled with good, and he does not receive proper burial, I say that an aborted birth is better than he. —Ecclesiastes 6:3

I'd encourage a visit to this post to prepare you for the next time a Bible thumper tells you that the Bible prohibits abortion.  You will be prepared to intelligently discuss the issue by citing chapter and verse.

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God gives up on Human Project

“I feel like I’ve kind of hit a wall with humanity and this is probably as far as it can go, but I have some exciting new ideas for rocks and birds that I’m really looking forward to exploring,” said The Creator of All Things, adding that He felt human beings had “pretty much run their course” at this point before explaining His intention to give promising rocks such as sandstone and gneiss the consideration they deserve and finally furnish birds with the longer beaks He previously did not have the opportunity to bring into being.

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Protecting Freedom of Thought and Religion

President Obama has signed a new law giving protection to atheists. As reported by Patheos: For the first time, atheists and other nonreligious persons are explicitly named as a class protected by the law. President Barack Obama has signed into law the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act. The new law protects atheists, humanists, and other freethinkers around the world from religious persecution. Congress passed the international religious freedom bill protecting atheists, humanists, and other non-theists last week with overwhelming bipartisan support, and Obama signed the legislation into law last Friday, Dec. 16. The new law explicitly protects atheists, humanists, and other non-theists, and upgrades the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act. In particular, the new law states:

The freedom of thought, conscience, and religion is understood to protect theistic and non-theistic beliefs as well as the right not to profess or practice any religion.

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What Deuteronomy says about a wife coming to the aid of her husband who is being attacked by another man

I hadn't heard this one before. How absolutely insane. Here is the verse from the Skeptics' Annotated Bible:

25:11 When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: 25:12 Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her.

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