Another Deconversion - Jon Steingard, Star of Christian Rock

Jon Steingard, ex-Christian Atheist.

Jon Steingard, Star of Christian Rock, Admits on Instagram He’s Lost His Faith | Terry Firma | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Jon Steingard is the latest in a long list of former evangelical Christians who realised their faith was vacuous when they began to examine it. He is now an Atheist and has told his followers so on Instagram.

He joined the Christian rock group Hawk Nelson in 2004 but had become increasing uncomfortable performing on stage to praise God because of his growing doubts about the existence of a god and the authenticity of the Bible. At last, unable to live with the dishonesty and pretense any longer, he 'confessed' his deconversion in an Instagram message to his followers.

Creationism News - Another Gap Closing!

Amino Acid Chirality chirality with hands from http://www.nai.arc.nasa.gov/ A "chiral" molecule is one that is not superposable with its mirror image. Like left and right hands that have a thumb, fingers in the same order, but are mirror images and not the same, chiral molecules have the same things attached in the same order, but are mirror images and not the same. Although most amino acids can exist in both left and right handed forms, Life on Earth is made of left handed amino acids, almost exclusively.

Source: Wikipedia

Cosmic rays may have left indelible imprint on early life, Stanford physicist says

One of the creationist 'gap' arguments you see pulled out of the toy box and dusted off once in a while is the so-called 'chirality' or handedness problem. The reason it's used so infrequently is probably because so few creationists have the capacity to understand what the term 'chirality' means. The 'problem' is to explain why all amino acids (and so biological proteins) and sugars are composed only of one enantiomere, 'L' in the case of amino acids and 'D' in the case of sugars.

Like so many creationist presuppositional 'gap' arguments, the answer is that the presupposed god did it. No evidence need ever be offered of the existence of this god nor any explanation of how or why it did whatever it is claimed to have done. 'Magic' and 'mystery' satisfy a creationist.

But now this creationist-satisfying gap might have closed according to a paper published in The Astrophysics Journal Letters by two STanford University physicists, Noemie Globus and Roger D. Blandford.

Taylor Kubota of Stanford News Service explains:

Covidiots - Georgia's Christian Slow Learners

Catoosa Baptist Tabernacle Christians ignoring social distancing advice and spreading Covid-19 anmongst themselves.

After Reopening in April, Georgia Church Closes Again Following Virus Outbreak | Beth Stoneburner | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

After several weeks of campaigning and complaints that they were being denied their constitutional right not to take part in the nation-wide attempt to limit the spread of Covid-19 by staying at home instead of going to church, Georgia's Christian Covidiots finally got their way when Republican governor Brian Kemp finally caved into demands and lifted the ban on gatherings.

Catoosa Baptist Tabernacle, in Ringgold,promptly opened its doors for personal services and, as this photo shows, ignored the advice on social distancing, even allowing children to be put at risk. However, only about 25% of the normal congregation were foolish enough to attend.

Malevolent Designer News - Dental Caries!

With powerful microscopy, researchers were able to visualize the structure of a tooth decay-causing biofilm growing on toddlers’ teeth. The organism primarily responsible for cavities, Streptococcus mutans, labeled in green, shields itself under layers of other bacteria, enabling it stick stubbornly to the enamel.

Image credit: Dongyeop Kim

Cavity-causing bacteria assemble an army of protective microbes on human teeth | Penn Today

Next time your dentist tells you you need some work done to stop your teeth rotting away, or to prevent painful abscesses forming in your gums, you know who to thank for it.

According to creationists it was the work of a brilliant intelligent [sic] designer who designed the bacterium,Streptococcus mutans to create the caries. Scientists have now worked out how this brilliant design works, according to an open access paper published a couple of days ago in PNAS.

According to Penn Today, the University of Pennsylvania news magazine:

Covidiots - Magic Cure Pastor Dies of Covid-19

Pastor Frankline Ndifor, "Prophet and faith-healer"

Panic Grips Faithful After Cameroon COVID Pastor Dies | Voice of America - English

Sad news from Cameroon that another victim of religion has died of Covid-19. Pastor Frankline Ndifor, a candidate in Cameroon's last presidential election, head of the Kingship International Ministries Church and popular purveyor of magic faith 'healing', died at his home in Douala a week after contracting the Covid-19 virus, probably when laying his magic hands on another victim.

According to this report in Voice of America, by Moki Edwin Kindzeka, his death has provoked panic in his congregation, many of whom had fallen for his bogus claims and regarded him as a prophet.

Malevolent Designer - God Hates Millipedes

The photo of the American centipede shared on Twitter. The fungi can be seen in the small red circles towards the top.

Credit: Derek Hennen.

New bizarre species discovered on… Twitter - University of Copenhagen

Discoveries like this present intelligent [sic] design creationists with two choices.

They can either accept that their putative designer creates things because it hates some of its creation and behaves like a malevolent influence in the World who actively seeks to increase suffering in ever-more inventive ways, or things like this evolve naturally while their god just sits back and allows it to happen.

Neither of these choices leave their designer resembling an omnibenevolent god who wishes to minimise the amount of suffering or who loves its creation.

Malevolent Designer News - Covid-19 Devastating Church Congregations

Raul Luis Lopez’s funeral, at the house in Queens where the delivery worker lived, is the first Reverend Fabian Arias has presided over in a private home.

These Two New York City Churches Lost a Hundred Members to COVID | Terry Firma | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Despite the regular claims by religious fruitloops that they are magically immune to Covid-19, having been protected with magic spells or potions and having been 'washed in the blood of Christ' [sic], and even claims that Covid-19 is God's punishment on specific people like Atheists, pro-choice 'liberals' and other members of the conservative Christian demonology, as this CNN article shows, Christians are being hit at least as badly as others and probably more so. (Cue: the 'no true Scotsmen' fallacy - "well, they're not true Christians!")

It is also clear from this report, that racial/ethnic minorities are being hit disproportionately, just as we are finding in the UK where black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) groups have been hit twice as hard as the white population.

Covidiots - India's Fools' Gold

'Saint' Sobhan Sarker, aka 1008 Viraktanand Saraswati, aka Suryabhan Tiwari
Looked 'beneath the Earth' and saw a thousand tons of magic gold!

Police Book 4,100 Who Crowded Godman’s Funeral in India Despite COVID Rules | Terry Firma | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Covidiocy appears to be a characteristic of most religions, including Hinduism, if these Hindu Covidiots are anything to go by.

Despite the nationwide lockdown as India battles against Covid-19, thousands of people forced their way past police lines to attend the funeral in Kanpur last Wednesday, of self-styled Godman, Sobhan Saker, aka 1008 Viraktanand Saraswati, aka Suryabhan Tiwari. 4,100 have been charged with lockdown violations. Sakar was regarded by his followers as a sadhu or saint. He claimed he could see "beyond the sky and beneath the Earth".

Mormons for Child Abuse

Fundamentalist Mormons demonstrating in support of polygamy (and the right of their men to abuse women and children).

Utah decriminalises polygamy. Opponents are outraged | Barry Duke

According to this report by CNN, the state of Utah has reduced to penalty for polygamy from being a third degree felony punishable with up to 5 years in prison and a $5,000 fine to that of a misdemeanor on the same scale as a traffic offence.

Polygamy, allowing a man to have several wives, had once been a central tenet of Mormonism and the practice that led to their moving to Utah to found their own colonies, free from the persecution of the mostly Christian states which outlawed the practice. It was the issue that kept Utah out of the Union until, in the nick of time, God revealed to the leaders of the church that marriage was now the union of one man with one woman, for life, just as it was in the other states.

Malevolent Designer News - How Malaria was Designed to Maximise the Harm

The malaria parasites growing inside this infected red blood cell (blue) will eventually burst out in unison with millions of other parasites lurking in red blood cells around them. This feat of timing is coordinated by the parasite’s internal clock.

NIH.

Malaria Parasite Ticks to its Own Internal Clock | Duke Today

A paper published a couple of days ago in Nature explains just how meticulously, creationism's intelligent [sic] designer has designed the malaria-causing parasite, Plasmodium falciparum to maximise its ability to harm and kill people - if you believe that superstition that is.

So successful has its design been that it randomly kills a child every two minutes.

Unkind Monster Problem for Creationists

A reconstruction of the Tully Monster as it would have looked 300 million years ago, swimming in the Carboniferous seas. Notice the jointed proboscis, the multiple rows of teeth, and the dorsal eye bar.

Illustration by Sean McMahon / Yale University

Solving the mystery of the Tully Monster | YaleNews

The natural world can be so unkind to Creationists sometimes.

The case of the so-called Tully Monster, Tullimonstrum gregarium which has puzzled taxonomists for years might have been solved, according to a paper published today on Nature, which seems to end the debate, coming out firmly on the side of it being a vertebrate.

This is based on A combination of new evidence and modern approaches to phylogenetic analysis by a team from Yale led by Victoria E. McCoy of the Department of Geology and Geophysics.

Fossils of Tullimonstrum gregarium are found in the Mazon Creek fossil beds which have been dated to 309 million yeas ago. It had been variously classified as a molluscs, an arthropod, a conodont, a worm, and a vertebrate. About the only thing that could be agreed on was that it was a soft-bodied bilaterium.

Human Remains From 40,000 Years Before Creationists Say God Created Earth!

Stone artefacts found at Bacho Kiro cave in Bulgaria

Longer overlap for modern humans and Neanderthals - BBC News

A couple of papers published a few days ago, here and here, show that modern (Homo sapiens) humans entered Eurasia at least 46,000 years ago. This is some 2,000 years earlier than previous finds suggest and mean that moderns had much longer to interact with their cousin species, the Neanderthals, H. neanderthalensis, before the latter went extinct.

Human remains, found in a the floor of a Bacho Kiro cave in northern Bulgaria, including multiple bone fragments, and a tooth, have been dated to between 46,000 and 43,000 years old. Analysis of the DNA recovered by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, shows that they were the remains of H. sapiens. This places them within the IUP.

Evolution News - Another Beneficial Mutation

Cape honey bee workers laying parasitic eggs on a queen cell.

Photo credit: Benjamin Oldroyd

Virgin birth has scientists buzzing - The University of Sydney

I have often commented in this blog about how science without any effort or intent, casually refutes creationism by falsifying another of it's articles of faith, or sacred dogmas.

This paper on parthenogenic bees is yet another of these, as was the recent one on the transitional plant fossil. It illustrates how a mutation can be highly beneficial in the right environment. Creationist dogma says it can't be, of course, because all mutations are harmful and increase 'genetic entropy' - an argument made popular by Michael J Behe in his failed attempt to show that evolution is consistent with the Christian notion of 'the fall' because all evolution is really 'devolution' [sic].

Yet here we have a mutation in a subspecies of honeybee - the Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis) which is highly advantageous, enabling this subspecies to parasitise other honeybee colonies, to the extent that they present a serious threat to other honeybee populations.

Covidiots - Alveda King - It's All About New York

Dr Alveda King

Alveda King: New York Has COVID Problems Because It’s “The Home of Abortion” | Beth Stoneburner | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

To be a dedicated American Covidiot it's essential to forget one thing - that unimportant place called "The Rest of the World".

Dr Alveda King, niece of the late Martin Luther King, has decided that the Covid-19 pandemic is all because abortions are legal in New York. Her god has decided to kill millions of people worldwide in places like China, India, Europe, Africa and South America to teach New Yorker a lesson - not Chinese, Indians, Brits, Italians or Spanish, but New Yorkers!

Covidiots - American Fundies Dying To Be Martyrs.

Sierra County Sheriff Glenn Hamilton

New Mexico Sheriff “Deputizes” 20 Christians, Exempting Them from Lockdown Order | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Two more stories of wackadoodle Christians demanding the right to catch Covid-19 in church today.

The first is from New Mexico where Sierra County Sheriff Glenn Hamilton has sworn in 20 Christians as "deputies", so exempting them from the state-wide ban on gatherings. He was exploiting an exemption from the ban on gatherings for law-enforcement officers.

Catholic Abuse News - Pell Knew About Child Sex Abuse

Cardinal George Pell speaking to the media at the in Rome in 2016 after giving evidence via video-link to Australia’s royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

Photograph: Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images

George Pell: cardinal was aware of children being sexually abused, royal commission report finds | Australia news | The Guardian

According to this report in today's Guardian, The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, has released previously redacted sections of their report which show that Cardinal Pell knew of instances of child abuse.

Pell was recently acquitted by the Australian High Court following his conviction and imprisonment for the sexual abuse of two choir boys, despite his defence lawyer arguing for leniency in the original sentence, on the grounds that the sex was 'vanilla sex' where penetration was brief and didn't result in ejaculation.

Winning With Science

Towards antibodies against COVID-19

What is noticeable more than anything during the current Covid-19 pandemic is the contrast between science and religion in how they see their responsibilities to the world at large.

On the one hand, we have religious leaders treating the whole thing as a get-rich-quick opportunity, selling magic spells and quack snake-oil cures to those gullible enough to fall for the scams and others campaigning to end the social distancing measures so they can continue to fleece their congregations.

On the other hand, we have hundreds of scientific research programs like this one, aimed at producing treatments and, in the long run, cures in the form of vaccines, whilst creationists continue to decry science as 'scientism' in an attempt to reduce it to the status of creationism as though it's also an evidence-free superstition.

This research program for example, has produced what could be a valuable treatment for people who already have the virus. It is an antibody that binds to and neutralises the 'spike' proteins that enable the virus to bind to the surface of a cell before inserting it's contents into it. If this treatment proves effective, it will prevent the virus infecting new cells and so damaging the tissues and producing more copies of itself.

Antibodies like this supplement the body's own defences but are relatively short lived because they don't stimulate the body to produce its own antibodies, unlike a vaccine which does just that. Hence they are useful as treatments but not prophylactics.

This is just one example of the multi-pronged attack on the Covid-19 virus being launched by medical science.

Apart from scamming their credulous dupes, what have religions been doing? In particular, what has the creation industry, which tells anyone who'll listen that it's definitely a science, not religion is disguise, been doing? Where are the creation 'science' laboratories in all this and what results have they produced?

None at all, of course. Although they will undoubtedly rush in to claim the credit for their god when we, as we will, have the cure and tha pandemic recedes into history. Hopefully, history will remember how it was science that produced the goods, whilst religions just used the opportunity to fleece the gullible and stupid and was quite prepared to spread the virus in pursuit of greater profits.

Covidiots - Russian Orthodox Fruitloops

Patriarch Kirill, in the white headdress, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, at a procession in Moscow last month. Experts say his reluctance to enforce orders against church gatherings has led to an explosion of coronavirus cases in monasteries and convents.

Photo credit: Patriarchal Press Service, via Reuters

A ‘Breakdown of Trust’: Pandemic Corrodes Church-State Ties in Russia - The New York Times

It might be some comfort to Americans that they are not the only people whose lives are being put at risk by religious nutjobs and fauds more interested in keeping their income stream flowing than in ensuring the health and safety of their families and society at large. Russian Orthodox Christian nutjobs are at it too.

According to this report in the New York Times:

A physics student at Moscow State University, Dmitri Pelipenko turned away from science in 2018 to devote himself to God, enrolling as a novice monk at Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, the spiritual center of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Malevolent Design - Covid-19 Mutating

A colorized scanning electron micrograph of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Photo credit: NIAID

Mutations in SARS-CoV-2 offer insights into virus evolution

As I've remarked before, if you've fallen for the intelligent [sic] design hoax, you need to be able to explain why evolution is the only explanation for the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) that doesn't leave your putative creator looking like a malevolent, anthropophobic, genocidal psychopath.

That problem just got worse with publication by the University College, London (UCL) Genetics Institute that they have discovered close to 200 recurrent genetic mutations in the virus. They found these by examining the genomes of the virus recovered from 7,500 patients. Covid-19 looks for all the world like it's evolving, or, in ID hoax believers terms, being intelligent redesigned.

Coviots - Christian Pastors and Their Dupes Are Dying of the 'Phantom Plague'

Services at Life Tabernacle Church in the suburb of Baton Rouge, La., are continuing despite the governor’s order banning large gatherings to fight the spread of the coronavirus. On Sunday, 1,265 congregants attended morning services at the church, the pastor said.

Photo credit: Woody Jenkins / Central City News

'A phantom plague': America's Bible Belt played down the pandemic and even cashed in. Now dozens of pastors are dead | The Independent.

It is tempting to talk about Darwin Awards and score points about these sad deaths, but I need to keep reminding myself of the basic Humanism in John Donne's "No Man Is An Island" - "Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee."

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each person's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Let's not forget that, no matter how stupid they were; no matter how brainwashed they had been to believe superstitious nonsense and carefully cultivated paranoias, these were still people; fooled by frauds and lied to by cheats who took advantage of their credulity, certainly, but still people.

If any good is to come of this tragic pandemic, it is that their sad deaths should remind us of the danger religion poses to humanity when it induces stupidity on this scale, puts money above people, and exploits the stupid and gullible to serve the naked greed and avarice of the frauds who promulgate it.

Evolution News - Yet Another Transitional Species

In this image of one of the new ancient species’ reproductive structures, elliptical impressions of sporangia can be seen in one row, while on the right, another row displays preserved carbonized spore masses.

Image credit: Andrew Leslie

New ancient plant captures snapshot of evolution | Stanford University.

What with their problem explaining why evolution is the only explanation for Covid-19 that doesn't leave their putative designer god looking like a malevolent, genocidal psychopath, the last thing creationists needed was another one of those annoying transitional species that so bedevil their precious dogma.

But here we are, with another one, announced just yesterday. This time an extinct plant showing evidence of transition from spores to seeds - an essential step in the evolution of the flowering plants, or angiosperms.

And once again without any effort or intent, science has again refuted creationism with evidence.

One of the major advances in plant evolution was when the gymnosperms (cone-bearing) and angiosperms (flowering) plants broke free from the constraints of the reproductive methods used by the ferns and club mosses, which required moist conditions to allow their motile male gametes to reach the sedentary female gametes.

IDiot Designer Blunder - He Got The Wrong Species!

Scientists were inspired by antibodies produced by this llama, named Winter, to develop their antibody against SARS-CoV-2. Winter is four years old and still living on a farm in the Belgian countryside operated by Ghent University’s Vlaams Institute for Biotechnology.

Photo credit: Tim Coppens.

Antibodies from Llamas Could Help in Fight Against COVID-19 - UT News

You'd expect an intelligent designer to know what it's doing, wouldn't you?

Not so creationism's intelligent (sic) designer, it seems. It's only gone and given a species that doesn't even suffer from Covid-19 the ability to create immunity to it!

Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, Texas, USA and the National Institutes of Health and Ghent University in Belgium have discovered that a llama produces two natural antibodies when vaccinated with Covid-19 'spike' proteins, that, when linked together:

...binds tightly to a key protein on the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. This protein, called the spike protein, allows the virus to break into host cells. Initial tests indicate that the antibody blocks viruses that display this spike protein from infecting cells in culture.

As the University of Austin press release explains:

When llamas’ immune systems detect foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses, these animals (and other camelids such as alpacas) produce two types of antibodies: one that is similar to human antibodies and another that’s only about a quarter of the size. These smaller ones, called single-domain antibodies or nanobodies, can be nebulized and used in an inhaler.

Covidiots - Covid-19 Problems for Theists.

The Covid-19 pandemic currently devastating economies and killing people by the tens of thousands is a major problem for religions, especially the Abrahamic religions who believe everything is created by a god who personally supervises and controls events, making things happen, or not happen, according to its will and plan.

For example:

1. The question of how the virus arose. All the Abrahamic religions hold that there is a single creator god who alone is responsible for its creation. The entire intelligent (sic) design industry, popular with both Christian and Islamic fundamentalists, and probably with the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects, depends on the belief that everything is intelligently designed by an omniscient, omnipotent creator - who just happens to be similar in all respects to 'the one true God'.
   
   This god, so it is assumed, knows exactly what its creations will do. They will do precisely what it designed them to do, nothing more and nothing less, hence it deigned the Covid-19 virus to behave in exactly the way it is behaving - killing indiscriminately the believers and non-believers alike, and differentially selecting the elderly and sick to kill.
   
   The problem for these fundamentalists is that by any measure, this portrays their supposedly loving creator as a malevolent, anthropophilic, genocidal psychopath, and leaves the detested scientific explanation - mindless, unplanned and amoral evolution - as the only explanation that doesn't present their god in such an appalling light.

Covidiots - Followers of Bishop Climate Irungu Wiseman

Coronavirus: London church selling ‘plague protection kits' for £90 consisting of oil and red yarn | The Independent

Perhaps Americans can feel a little less embarrassed by the antics of their religious fundamentalist when they learn that we in the UK are plagued with them too. This example is from Camberwell in London where 'Bishop' Climate Irungu Wiseman of the Kingdom Church is cashing in on the Covid-19 pandemic emergency by selling a quack 'cure' for £91 for a 'kit'.

The kit consists of a bottle of 'Divine Plague Protection Oil' and a length of red yarn. 'Bishop' Wideman, who runs Bishop Climate Ministries claims:

It is by faith that you can be saved from every pandemic by covering yourself with the Divine Cleansing Oil and wearing the Scarlet Yarn on your body. That is why I want to encourage you, if you haven’t done so already, to get your Divine Plague Protection Kit today! Available to order online and ship to you right away.... That is why the Lord has instructed me to prepare special oil that has been mixed with cedar wood, hyssop, and prayer. Yes this special oil has sat upon the altar for 7 days. It’s called Divine Cleansing protection Oil. As you use this oil, along with a special scarlet yarn, every plague and any other deadly thing will pass over you. Just like the children of Israel were spared from death, just like Rahab and her family were saved from destruction, the same will happen for you.

Malevolent Design - Does 'God' Hate Honey Bees More Than Humans?

Honey bees

Photo credit: Newcasle University

Emergence of deadly honey bee disease revealed - Press Office - Newcastle University

If you buy into the creationist hoax of intelligent (sic) design, you must wonder why the putative designer is being so hateful at the moment. Not only do you need to explain it's apparent malevolent, genocidal mendacity in designing the Covid-19 virus to indiscriminately kill people, but we now hear that it's apparently designed another nasty little virus.

This one is a virus that is spreading quickly in the UK and which kills honey bees, often wiping out the entire hive, as though the Varroa destructor mite wasn't doing it quickly enough. It's as though this putative intelligent (sic) designer hates honey bees almost as much as it hates humans.

More Evidence of Americans Losing Faith

This Chart Shows How Quickly Americans Are Abandoning Organized Religion | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

More evidence, if any were needed of the steep and accelerating decline in religiosity in the USA as more and more Americans turn their backs on organised religion.

This evidence comes in the form of a report released yesterday, by Adjunct Fellow Lyman Stone for the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, which should set alarm bells ringing in the ears of those whose livelihood depends on Americans continuing to go to church and support them with money. This chart, based on data from multiple sources and methodologies shows how all the measures of religiosity show the same thing - American religiosity has fallen off a cliff edge and is plummeting downwards at an accelerating rate.

Thank You For Being Humankind Again!

It's with great pleasure that I can report another donation to Oxfam from money I get for advertising Amazon products on this blog. This time a donation of £100.02. This sum has been slowly accumulating in my account with Amazon and finally triggered a payment by crossing the £100 threshold (just!).

This time I have donated the money to Oxfam's Coronavirus Emergency appeal. I produce all relevant receipts here because in previous years these donations have produced a near-hysterical response from fundamentalist Christians and online scammers which Oxfam GB needed to become involved with, to verify that all donations had been paid as reported.

It seems that professed Christianity is no barrier to bearing false witness nor trying to prevent charitable donations aimed at bringing famine relief to those less fortunate than ourselves, so I hereby give Oxfam GB permission to reveal all details of my contributions to Oxfam, other than details of my name and address, should anyone wish to verify this donation.

Should you wish to support me in this small fundraising effort, please buy products from Amazon through this blog. On a laptop, scroll down to the Oxfam search tool and search there. This will then record the search against my account. The other way is to click on the Amazon ads for books and other products. Basically, clicking any ad bearing the Amazon logo will be recorded against my account.

Regrettably, Amazon are unable or unwilling to make these commission payments directly to a nominated charity.

Of course, you can always make a donation directly to Oxfam, here.

From Oxfam's website:

Covidiots - Magi Spell

Covidiots ignore social distancing and put their children at risk in support of Pastor Tony Spell's bid for martyrdom and in defence of Christian privilege.

Phone lines at Central police are 'tied up' by calls from Tony Spell supporters, officials say | Coronavirus | theadvocate.com

As part of Pastor Tony Spell's campaign for martyrdom and the right to spread the Covid-19 virus as widely as possible in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA, supporters have now blocked the local police departments phone system after his mother, Magi Spell, published their phone number on her Facebook page and asked people to ring it.

Supporters are also demonstrating outside the Louisiana governors house demanding a lifting of the house arrest order intended to prevent Spell from holding church services in defiance of the social distancing order forbidding gatherings of more than ten people.

How Christians Lie To US - False Prophets are Still Right!

Pastor Jeremiah Johnson "The Holy Spirit spoke to me and said..."

Self-Described “Prophet”: Even When My Predictions Are Wrong, They’re Still True | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Q. When is a false prophet not a false prophet?

A. When he makes a false prophecy, obviously!

Pastor Jeremiah Johnson, of Behold the Man Ministries in Lakeland, Florida, is a Trump-supporting evangelical, preaching the 'prosperity gospel', and self-proclaimed prophet who recently declared that Dr Anthony Fauci had been sent by Satan to thwart Donald Trump.

He also prophesied that a businessman would become a millionaire based on what he said was a "sign from God".

The problem was, the man went bankrupt shortly afterwards.

Americans Losing Faith

Americans losing grip on most basic tenets of Christian faith: survey - The Christian Post

I wish could claim credit for it with my book, "Ten Reasons To Lose Faith: And Why You Are Better Off Without it" but Americans are rapidly losing faith in the Christian god, as the result of this recent survey shows. The survey was conducted by researcher George Barna for the recently-founded Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University.

The result must have come as a shock to them.

Covidiots - Pastor Tony Spell's Desire for Martyrdom

Pastor Tony Spell, "Wanna be a martyr!"

Despite House Arrest Order, the COVID-19-Defying Pastor Preached at Church Today | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Covid-19 is a godsend for disingenuous Pastor Tony Spell, in his desperate search for martyrdom. The social distancing measures needed to slow down the spread of the lethal virus to prevent health services from being overwhelmed, has provided him with just the excuse he needs to get himself arrested and imprisoned so he can play the victim card for all it's worth.

As reported yesterday, he is subject to a court order forbidding him to leave his own home because he refused to comply with Louisiana state orders banning gatherings of more than 10 people - including in places of worship. He has been fitted with an ankle monitor device to ensure his compliance.

Covidiots - Kenneth Copeland Has Killed Covid-19 - Again

Kenneth Copeland, "Coronavirus is over"

Scamvangelist, Taking Credit for California Heat Wave, Declares COVID-19 “OVER!” | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Earlier this month, while he was killing Covid-19 by blowing on it and casting magic spells at it, mega-rich Christian televangelist Kenneth Copeland also called on God to cause a heatwave at Easter to kill the Virus in New York (as though his magic wasn't going to be enough).

He declared:

All God needs to do to deliver us is a heatwave, a supernatural heatwave. You know, usually you get what they call the Easter spell. When you think everything is warming up and all of a sudden you get a cold front. Well now, this year it’s going to be a[n] Easter heatwave, It’s going to get so hot in New York City. It’s going to get so hot and muggy, glory to God! It’s going to hit that place and it’s going to burn that virus. It’s going to, you know what it’s like in New York City at 85 or 90 degrees. It’s going to get however hot it has to get there to kill that thing right now all over this nation and the rest of the world where it’s needed.

Covidiots - Pastor Tony Spell under House Arrest

Pastor Tony Spell
"Give me your stimulus checks!"

COVID-19-Defying Pastor Tony Spell Placed Under House Arrest | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Readers may recall how pastor Tony Spell managed to exceed the normal abysmal standards of fundamentalist Christian evangelist greed by demanding that unemployed people should send him their stimulus checks. He has been placed under house arrest for refusing to assure a judge that he would not encourage people to gather together in his church by holding open services.

He had been arrested and charged “aggravated assault with a deadly weapon". He is now deemed to be too much of a threat to society to be allowed to leave his house.

Covidiots - Intelligent Design Creationists

Scientists Are Tired of Explaining Why The COVID-19 Virus Was Not Made in a Lab

News that scientists have established beyond reasonable doubt that the Covid-19 virus, also known as SARS-CoV-2 was the result of natural mutation in an animal host and not the result of a laboratory experiment that 'escaped' is terrible news for intelligent (sic) design creationists who now have to explain one simple thing:

Why is this evolutionary explanation the only explanation for Covod-19 that doesn't leave their putative creator god looking like a malevolent, genocidal, anthropophobic psychopath?

Covidiots - Kenneth Copeland's Credulous Dupes

Kenneth Copeland, Top televangelist scam artist

Scamvangelist Praises Donors for Buying Him the World’s “Finest” Private Jet | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

Kenneth Copeland is the sort of American Christian televangelist whom Europeans look at and ask themselves, "What is wrong with these people?"

He is also obscenely rich because people give him lots of money, believing this will buy them special favour with God who wants them to help make Kenneth Copeland obscenely rich - because Kenneth Copeland says God told him he does.

Multi-millionaire televangelist Kenneth Copeland tells his "partners" (i.e. donors) that they deserve all the credit for buying him one of the finest private jets in the world. pic.twitter.com/4mY4ndzFDQ

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) April 24, 2020

For example, after his recent 'success' at ridding America of the Covid-19 virus with some magic spells, his followers gave him enough money to buy himself 'the world's finest jet' - the Gulfstream V - so he can travel in safety and not have to travel in as 'long tube full of demons'.

True to form, and as though to distance himself from the obvious greed he displays, he blamed his 'partners', i.e., the dupes he scammed for donating enough money.

According to this report in the Independent:

American televangelist Kenneth Copeland, recently claimed that the coronavirus pandemic will be “over much sooner you think” because “Christian people all over this country praying have overwhelmed it,” has summoned the “wind of God” to destroy the novel coronavirus during a recent sermon.

Before blowing at the camera, he said: ”I blow the wind of God on you. You are destroyed forever, and you’ll never be back. Thank you, God. Let it happen. Cause it to happen.”

Leading a chant surrounded by members of his church and preaching to an empty room, he called out: “Wind, almighty, strong, south wind, Heat: Burn this thing, in the name of Jesus. I say, you bow your knees. You fall on your face.”

According to the same report, after he had "executed judgment" on the virus he declared the virus ”finished” and “over” and made the US ”healed and well again.” and told his audience that they would be cured by touching their TV screens!

He also told Americans that it was "vital" they keep paying their tithes, even when out of work.

At the time of writing (26 April, 2020), there have been 959,000 cases of Covid-19 in the USA with 54,161 deaths. The USA is accounting for almost 32% of the 2.9 million cases worldwide. American evangelist are campaigning to have restrictions of social gatherings to be lifted so Christians can again crowd together in church to sing and shout and spread virus particles, 'safe' in the knowledge that their collective magic spells have driven the virus away.

According to Celebrity Net Worth Copeland is worth at least $300 million and maybe as much as $750 million or even over $1 billion. He lives in a $6.3 million lakefront mansion and has now appealed to his 'partners' to donate $17-$20 million so he can upgrade his private runway and hanger for his brand new Gulfstream V private jet.

Kenneth Copeland purports to follow Jesus, who, according to the Bible, told his followers to sell their possessions and give to the poor.

Covidiot News - Christian Loon Feels Entitled to Infect Others

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel

Mat Staver: Church Lockdowns Are “Targeting” Christians Like Nazis Targeted Jews | Beth Stoneburner | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

According to Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel, an extreme right-wing Christian libertarian organization, requiring Christians not to gather together in church, where the Covid-19 virus can be more easily spread, is equivalent to the Holocaust!

Liberty Counsel is representing Tampa, Florida-based evangelist Rodney Howard-Browne, ​who was arrested for defying a local stay-at-home order, and others who have run into that kind of trouble. In a hysterical reaction to the social distancing measures aimed at slowing the spread of the virus so health services can cope with the demand, Staver claimed:

Covidiot News - Israeli Health Minister Gets Covid-19

Yaakov Litzman, Israeli Health Minister
"I am sure that the messiah will come by Passover and save us..."

Israeli health minister's cure for COVID-19? The Messiah - Israel News - Haaretz.com

It's sometime tempting to believe in the wackadoodle notion of Karma!

The ultra-orthodox Israeli Health Minister, Yaakov Litzman, who reportedly claimed God would protect Israel from Covid-19, and who flouted his own Health Department's advice on social distancing, announced earlier this month that he and his unfortunate wife Chava, had both tested positive for the virus. Thankfully, according to this report in The Times of Israel, they have both since made full recoveries.

Human Evolution News - Icelanders' Neanderthal Ancestors

Models of male and female Neanderthals in the Neanderthal Museum, Mettmann, Germany.

Photo: UNiesert / Frank Vincentz (assembly: Abuk Sabuk) /
Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0 / GFDL

Icelandic DNA puzzle gives new knowledge about Neanderthals

A new study into the Neanderthal component in the genomes of modern Icelanders has raised a couple of interesting questions:

1. Did anatomically modern humans breed with Neanderthals and Denisovans when they first entered Eurasia from Africa?
2. Or had Neanderthals and Denisovans interbred before hand so denisovan DNA was widespread in the Neanderthal population moderns interbred with.

This question is raised by the finding from examining the genomes of 27,566 Icelanders whose genome is in the deCODE database.

Covid-19 Stupidity and Magical Thinking

The late Bishop Gerald O. Glenn
Told packed church "God is larger than this dreaded virus"!

A COVID-Denying Pastor Died of COVID-19. Now His Family Has the Virus, Too. | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos

The sad death of Bishop Gerald O. Glenn of the New Deliverance Evangelistic Church of Richmond Virginia from the Covid-19 virus and news that his entire family have now caught the deadly virus is a reminder that these unfortunate people are victims as much of the religion virus as they are of the Covid-19 virus.

A week before he died, Bishop Gerald O. Glenn preached to a packed church and boasted that "God is larger than this dreaded virus", in defiance of public advice to limit the size of public gatherings and to cancel church services.

Covid-19 Scam - Not Just the Christians

Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky

Charity Run by Ultra-Orthodox Leader Promises Coronavirus Cure to Large Donors | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos.

It's not just the American fundamentalist Christians who have spotted a good money-making opportunity in the Covid-19 pandemic. An ultra-orthodox Jewish group in Israel has dipped its bread in the gravy bowl too. In return for a monthly payment of NIS 100 for 30 months, donors will receive a silver amulet which, it is claimed, will give protection to the household from all illnesses.

It is not clear at this time whether the protection only comes into effect after all 30 payments have been made or whether it strats with the first payment and is withdrawn if the donor defaults.

Run by Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, a leading Haredi Rabbi, a charity called Kupat Ha’ir (City Fund), set up with the noble aim of bringing relief to families suffering from illness, and based in the Covid-19 hotspot of B’nei Brak, has promised: