eChurch Blog

I’m putting this one on as for me it simply has the WOW factor:

A Swedish man who was arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen said Wednesday he was only doing it as a hobby.

Richard Handl told The Associated Press that he had the radioactive elements radium, americium and uranium in his apartment in southern Sweden when police showed up and arrested him on charges of unauthorized possession of nuclear material.

The 31-year-old Handl said he had tried for months to set up a nuclear reactor at home and kept a blog about his experiments, describing how he created a small meltdown on his stove.

Only later did he realize it might not be legal and sent a question to Sweden’s Radiation Authority, which answered by sending the police.

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Hat-tip to Kevin Brown on Twitter

The Egyptian daily Al Masry Al Youm reported on Monday that the US Congress had passed a bill assigning a special envoy for minority affairs in the Middle East and Asia, allocating an annual budget of one million US dollars to support the rights of religious minorities in the region.

The position, aimed at ‘promoting and protecting religious freedoms’ in the Middle East, is set out in a bill introduced on 22June by Democratic Senator Carl Levin and Republican Roy Blunt. In a statement published on Senator Levin’s official Senate website, the US politician remarks:

‘It is profoundly in the interests of the United States to promote freedom of worship and the rights of religious minorities around the world, and especially in nations where those freedoms are under threat… [S]uch violence is a threat to regional stability in a part of the world where U.S. interests are great. Moreover, our support for these universal human values affirms the principles upon which our own nation was founded.’

Senator Blunt is also quoted expressing hope that those Middle Eastern countries currently in the midst of political upheaval ‘will look to the United States as a model of religious tolerance and freedom’.

According to Al Masry Al Youm, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party criticised the appointment:

‘“The US is trying to interfere in the region’s internal affairs again, now that the old regimes, its former allies, are toppled,” said the party’s vice president Rafiq Habib.’

Read all

A pastor in Iran found guilty of leaving Islam awaits the outcome of a judicial investigation into his spiritual background to see if he will be executed or, if possible, forced to become a Muslim, according to Christian groups with ties in Iran.

The court-ordered investigation will take place sometime this fall to determine whether Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, 34, was a Muslim as a teenager before he became a Christian at 19.

On Sept. 22, 2010, a regional court sentenced Nadarkhani, who leads a 400-strong house church movement in Rasht, to death by hanging for “convert(ing) to Christianity” and “encourag(ing) other Muslims to convert to Christianity.” Nadarkhani’s lawyer appealed the verdict to the Iranian Supreme Court, in part because the pastor said he had never actually been a Muslim and therefore could not be found guilty of abandoning the religion.

The court issued a written response to the appeal on June 12, upholding the death penalty but ordering the investigation.

The response to the appeal, which took a month to reach Christian and human rights groups outside of Iran, reads in part, “According to Part 2 of Article 265 of the Islamic Republic Criminal Law, this case was received by and must be returned to the state court of Gilan Section 11, and further investigated to prove that from puberty (15 years) to 19 he was not Muslim by his acquaintances, relatives, local elders, and Muslims he frequented. He must repent [of] his Christian faith if this is the case. No research has been done to prove this; if it can be proved that he was a practicing Muslim as an adult and has not repented, the execution will be carried out.”

Even if the investigation releases him from the charge of apostasy, it is likely the charge of evangelizing Muslims will still carry a lengthy prison sentence, sources said.

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I have never proceeded from any ‘Genus supremum’ of the actual infinite. Quite the contrary, I have rigorously proved that there is absolutely no “Genus supremum’ of the actual infinite. What surpasses all that is finite and transfinite is no ‘Genus’; it is the single, completely individual unity in which everything is included, which includes the Absolute, incomprehensible to the human understanding. This is the Actus Purissimus, which by many is called God.

Georg Cantor

SOURCE

I thought the concept of God having his own blog quite funny:

UPDATE: Pretty pleased with what I’ve come up with in just six days. Going to take tomorrow off. Feel free to check out what I’ve done so far. Suggestions and criticism (constructive, please!) more than welcome. God out.

Check out the comments that come with this. I think this was my fav:

Adam was obviously created somewhere else and then just put here. So, until I see some paperwork proving otherwise, I question the legitimacy of his dominion over any of this.

Heh.

OK, I’m gonna have a bit of moan, feel free to contradict me.

I’m a little tired of the oft repeated argument used by UK Christians in response to perceived rough treatment by the world. It goes something like this:

I bet you wouldn’t dare treat Muslims like you treat us Christians would ya?

I believe this argument is flawed on two fronts.

The first is that this is an argument that stereotypes, generalises and promotes the idea, that in the same given situation, the Muslim response would be one of violence and/or intimidation.

The second flaw is that this actually serves to endorse the use – and idea – of violence and/or intimidation in response to perceived – or real – religious persecution or offense.

I am advocating these arguments in relation to the UK alone.

One detonated outside the Syrian Catholic church and two more were disarmed by security forces outside the Christian Anglican church and the Mar Gourgis church, in downtown Kirkuk:

Details here, here and here.

I’m saying nothing for once, let me know your thoughts:

A midwife is suing hospital bosses for making her wear scrub trousers rather than a dress in the operating theatre.

Devout Christian Hannah Adewole complains that wearing trousers goes against her religious beliefs.

Mrs Adewole, 45, cites a command in the Bible that women should not wear men’s clothing.

She says that she was banned from wearing scrub dresses in theatre but pointed out that Muslim midwives are allowed to vary official uniform with their own hijabs and tops.

After being ejected from the high dependency unit, she told a tribunal: ‘A Muslim midwife would not have been treated in such a disrespectful manner.’

She is suing Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust for religious discrimination and harassment.

She is claiming that she is being treated less favourably than her Muslim colleagues.

[....]

She told the tribunal she considers wearing dresses rather than trousers ‘a mandatory requirement in order to adhere to the scriptures’.

In the Bible, Deuteronomy 22:5 (New International Version) states: ‘A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does.’

As a midwife at City University London, Mrs Adewole was ordered to wear scrub trousers to prevent infection.

When she refused, she was moved from the labour ward to post-natal care until the end of her course.

….read all

On a more serious note, three car bombs this morning outside churches in Kirkuk, northern Iraq.

This is a bit of a random blog post as I’m bored.

On Twitter the other day I noted someone describing ‘boredom’ as ‘rage spread thin’. I must say this rather resonates with me.

Anyway, I posted the following for discussion over on the Premier forum:

Nowadays I don’t normally post on ‘Christians outraged’ type stories, but I will in this instance, as I found the contentions and counter-contentions rather entertaining intriguing.

The story revolves around a newly opened nightclub in Wakefield named, ‘Religion’. Apparently they have themed nights like ‘Ressurection’, ‘Salvation’, ‘Mass’, and so on, with similarly themed cocktails.

We have the standard arguments put forth such as, ‘you wouldn’t do this with Muslims’ and it’s insensitive, offensive and bordering on religious hatred etc.

But also in the article are some interesting points. The Bishop of Wakefield, Stephen Platten said:

“Religion is about taking life seriously.”

And the Dean of Wakefield, Jonathan Greener said:

“….it could be argued that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”

I think the comments from the company that owns the nightclub are particularly entertaining:

“The definition of the word religion is a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion, which is what partygoers in the city are doing.

“We chose the term Resurrection for a Friday night, because the night-time economy’s suffering and we’re hoping to revive and revitalise it, as its definition suggests.

“The same is true of Salvation, and the word Mass was chosen because it’s a massive Monday night of massive music.”

Uh-huh. Not sure why they’ve taken this line, but give them their due, they knew this would be good for publicity.

Anyway, the article ends with an interesting quote from Sean Gabb, director of the Libertarian Alliance:

The right of these people to commit blasphemy,” he said, “rests on the same grounds as a Christian’s right to profess his faith.”

In my mind he has a point. We can’t demand freedom to express our faith whilst demanding censorship of others.

Where I worry about myself at times, is in the fact that incidences like this don’t cause me to feel outraged or offended or anything really. Am I alone in this?

Perhaps I’m simply an irreverent Christian who needs to repent.