Welcome to Heather’s Homilies
Atheists are Becoming More Popular!
In 2014 Pew Research did a survey about the way different religious groups within the US feel about each other. Within religious groups, there was also analysis by political affiliation. I wrote about it at the time, lamenting the low opinion most USIans have of...
More Delusions About Religion: A Follow-Up
Back in August last year, I wrote the post 'More Delusions About Religion'. It was my response to a Letter to the Editor that a Chris McColl had sent to his local newspaper in Australia. I saw the letter because George Takei posted it on his Facebook page. Yesterday,...
Beautiful New Zealand X: New Zealand Ascending
A new time lapse film by Martin Heck of Timestorm Films came out this week. 'New Zealand Ascending' It took sixteen weeks of production time and 185,000 photos to make a film of less than seven minutes. The result, as always is beautiful. New's Zealand's Māori name is...
Trump’s Immigration and Refugee Executive Order is Being Used to Recruit Islamist Terrorists
Donald Trump spent his election campaign making statements like this one from a 7 December 2015 press release. Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is...
Simon’s Cat: Valentine’s Day with Extras
Valentine's Day was yesterday in New Zealand, and I was going to post these then, but I was having a Bad Day so it didn't get done. I was having a Bad Day before I even remembered it was Valentine's Day, but that made it worse of course. I'm quite sure many more...
Widespread Child Sexual Abuse in Australia’s Catholic Church
The Australian government set up the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2013. There were ongoing revelations in the media of institutions moving alleged abusers moving from school to school rather than reporting them to the police....
Cool Spy Animals
As so often, it was reader and science communicator Amy Carparelli (@AmyAmylou1993 on Twitter) who brought this to my attention. John Nolan is making animatronic animals at his studio in London for use as spy animals. They're for use in the filming of an upcoming...
The Authoritarian Left and Misdirected Animosity in the Atheist Community
The worldwide atheist community is growing every day. In northern Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand this trend has been obvious for some time. The 2015 Pew Research Center Report 'The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections 2010-2050'...
Doomsday Clock Moves Closer to Midnight
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists made this significant and serious move last week. However, there's so much going on at the moment I didn't find time to write about it. Then, the first thing I saw on CNN today was: Breaking News: Trump Administration Puts Iran on...
Why Trump’s Refugee Ban is Stupid
In short, it's stupid because refugees are the safest of all immigrants to the country and it creates animosity where relationships most need development. Once again, Trump is building walls where he should be building bridges. Trump's Executive Order During the...
Jim Bakker: “Trump’s Critics Look Demon-Possessed”
Televangelist Jim Bakker has had a chequered history. His career started with the dreadful Pat Robertson, and he had a lot to do with making him so popular. Originally, he was a strong proponent of the prosperity gospel and at one point was said to be receiving US$1...
Trump Formally Withdraws the United States from TPP
On Monday, Donald Trump signed three memoranda. https://youtu.be/VyjvONhQTbs As a result of the first, the US is no longer part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The second imposes a freeze on hiring federal employees, except for the military. The third order...