Old Dead Gods - No-One Mourns for the Old Dead Gods of Arabia

Old Dead Gods

No-One Mourns for the Old Dead Gods of Arabia

Mustatil ('rectangles") in the heart of Al-Nafūd Desert, Northern Saudi Arabia, are the remains of religious buildings from 7,000 years ago

Source

Enigmatic ruins across Arabia hosted ancient ritual sacrifices

Long before a clan of camel herders and traders along the western edge of Arabia were forced by tribal loyalty to follow a new, charismatic 'Prophet of Allah", and long before a tribe of Canaanite hill farmers in the hill of southern Syria adopted the god Yahweh from the local pantheon as their own, and created a mythical history to give them a unique identity and justify their land-theft, genocide and territorial expansion, scattered bands of early pastoralists had banded together to build hundreds of massive monuments for religious rituals in the Al-Nafūd Desert in the north of Arabia, close to the Western end of the 'fertile crescent'.

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Detail of north-west (preserved) interlocking cells of associated feature IDIHA-F-0011149.

Kennedy, M. et. al (2023)

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The four I-type platforms located west of IDIHA-F-0011081, photo orientated west.

Kennedy, M. et. al (2023)

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The main (central) chamber of mustatil IDIHA-F-0011081 with three up-right stones (A-C). Flat stones in centre of image acted as support for primary up-right stone in the rear. The blocked doorway is visible in the left of the photo.

Kennedy, M. et. al (2023)

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Transverse grooved hammer stone found upside down and in situ in Phase 1.

Kennedy, M. et. al (2023)

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Bos sp. horn (#0032) recovered from Phase 4A, note the positioning in relation to up-right stone A.

Kennedy, M. et. al (2023)

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Horns found on a collapsed “bench” in Phase 4B. Left to right, large cattle horns/sheaths (#0043) and (#0033), goat horn sheath (#0047), goat (#0041), and cattle horn (#0040).

Kennedy, M. et. al (2023)

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Spatial relationships between the main and secondary chamber.

Kennedy, M. et. al (2023)

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Riverstone surface associated with courtyard, further pebbles were set within the doorway.

Kennedy, M. et. al (2023)

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Two mustatil at site IDIHA-0030862 in Khaybar County orientated (base) towards a body of standing water, photo orientated west.

Kennedy, M. et. al (2023)

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Three mustatil at site IDIHA-0030914, orientated (base) towards a small seasonal wadi in Khaybar County, photo orientated south-west.

Kennedy, M. et. al (2023)

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Mustatil IDIHA-F-0011081 orientated (head) towards a playa located to the east, photo orientated east.

Kennedy, M. et. al (2023)

These structures were only discovered in 2016 by satellite imagery. Now known by the local people as Mustatil ('rectangles")., they were constructed some 7000 years ago, before the Pyramids of Egypt or Stonehenge in southern England and are probably the oldest man-made stone structures on Earth. The organisation and manpower required to build these structures suggests some unifying idea across a large area to give a commonality of purpose to scattered tribes, pointing to a single religion with maybe an accepted central religious authority associated with the site in northern Arabia where these structures were created.

They are also associated with elaborate rock-carvings of strange geometric shapes and patters, which were probably originally painted.

As with the Pyramids and the Bronze Age structures of Stonehenge and Silbury Hill, in Wiltshire, UK, they suggest an organised state with an economy strong enough to provide a surplus wealth and food production sufficient to finance these constructions and feed the workers.

And yet, because they left no records, like the religion that inspired the building of Knossos in Minoan Create, we have no idea what that religion was or why it was able to inspire the creation of these structures for the rituals that were performed there, and why the people living there considered it necessary and worth all the effort!

Clearly, the god(s) (and it was probably a pantheon of gods, like the neighbouring Mesopotamians had later) had massive imaginary powers, giving the priesthood enormous powers of command and control, and elaborate rituals were considered necessary to appease or thank them. Yet we have no idea what those imaginary powers were, and whatever they were believed to have done, or not done in response to the rituals continued to be done or not done when the rituals ceased, their last believer died, and the monuments crumbled.

Rosa's Laws of Religion:

The First Law of Theodynamics:
Gods can be created out of nothing and will disappear without trace.

This is a phenomenon that has been repeated time and again throughout human history as religions have come and gone together with their imaginary gods. No one now mourns at the graveside of these old dead gods.

No-one believes in Mars, Ra, Wodan, Thor or Saturn, and no-one says the rituals that were once essential to keep the seasons coming and going, the crops growing or the Nile flooding, and yet the seasons continue to come and go, the crops grow and the Nile still floods at the right time.

The prayers and rituals that once influenced these old gods are no longer needed, and the natural occurrences that were once 'obviously' caused or created by them are now just as 'obviously' caused or created by different gods in response to different prayers and rituals. And they will still occur when the current batch of gods have been consigned to the graveyard of the gods along with all the others.

What started me thinking in that line, was a recent article concerning the Arabian monuments in The Conversation by Melissa Kennedy, and Hugh Thomas, Lecturers in Archaeology at the University of Sydney. Their article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency. The original can be read here

Published: March 15, 2023 7.03pm GMT

Enigmatic ruins across Arabia hosted ancient ritual sacrifices

A group of three mustatil and later Bronze Age funerary pendants on a rocky outcrop, southeast of AlUla County.

Source: AAKSA / The Royal Commission for AlUla,
Author provided

Melissa Kennedy, University of Sydney and Hugh Thomas, University of Sydney

Over the past five years, archaeologists have identified more than 1,600 monumental stone structures dotted across a swathe of Saudi Arabia larger than Italy. The purpose of these ancient stone buildings, dating back more than 7,000 years, has been a puzzle for researchers.

Our excavations and surveys reveal these were ritual structures, constructed by ancient herders and hunters who gathered to sacrifice animals to an unknown deity – perhaps in response to ancient climate change. The study is published in PLOS ONE today.

Desert discoveries

In the 1970s, the first archaeological surveys of northwest Saudi Arabia identified an ancient and mysterious rectangular structure. The sandstone walls of the structure were 95m long, and although it was determined to be unique, no further study of this unusual site was undertaken.

Over the following decades, airline passengers would see similar large “rectangles” dotted across the country. However, it was not until 2018 that one was excavated.

The main architectural features of a mustatil.

Credit: AAKSA /
The Royal Commission for AlUla,
Author provided

These structures are now known as mustatils (Arabic for rectangle). We have been studying them for the past five years as part of a larger archaeological study sponsored by the Saudi Royal Commission for AlUla.

The smallest mustatils are around 20m long, while the largest are over 600m. Previous work by our team determined that all mustatils follow a similar architectural plan. Two thick ends were connected by between two to five long walls, creating up to four courtyards.

Access to the mustatil was through a narrow entrance in the base. There would then have been a long walk, perhaps in the form of a procession, to the “head”, where the main ritual activity took place.

Previous studies determined that the mustatils are at least 7,000 years old, dating to the end of the Neolithic period.

Cattle remains

In 2019–2020, we undertook excavations at a mustatil site called IDIHA-0008222. The structure, made from unworked sandstone, measures 140m in length and 20m in width.

Excavations in the head of the mustatil revealed a semi-subterranean chamber. Within this chamber were three large, vertical stones. We have interpreted these as “betyls”, or sacred standing stones which represented unknown ancient deities.

The excavated mustatil at IDIHA-0008222.

Credit: AAKSA / The Royal Commission for AlUla,
Author provided

Surrounding these stones were well-preserved cattle, goat, and gazelle horns. The horns are so well preserved that much of what we find is the horn sheath, made of keratin – the same substance as hair and nails. We found only the upper cranial elements of these animals: the teeth, skulls, and horns. This suggests a clear and specific choice of offerings.

Further analysis suggests the bulk of these remains belonged to male animals and the cattle were aged between 2 and 12 years. Their slaughter would have formed a significant proportion of a community’s wealth, indicating these were high-value offerings.

Human remains

Current evidence suggests that the mustatils were in use between 5300 and 4900 BCE, a time when Arabia was green and humid. However, within a few generations, the ancient inhabitants of Saudi Arabia began to reuse these structures, this time to bury human body parts.

At IDIHA-0008222, a small structure had been built next to the mustatil. Inside were a partial foot, five vertebrae and several long bones.

Their placement suggests soft tissue was still present when they were buried. Forensic anthropologists were able to determine that the remains likely belonged to an individual aged between 30 and 40 years.

Our work at other mustatils has revealed similar deposits of human remains. Were these remains buried in attempt to claim ownership of the structure or some form of later ritual? These questions remain to be answered.

Pointing to water

The mustatils are changing how we view the Neolithic period not just in Arabia but across the Middle East. The sheer size of these structures and the amount of work involved in their construction suggests that multiple communities came together to create them, most probably as a form of group bonding.

Moreover, their widespread distribution across Saudi Arabia suggests the existence of a shared religious belief, one held over a vast and un-paralleled geographic distance. Currently, fewer than ten mustatils have been excavated, so our understanding of these structures is still in its infancy.

Mustatil locations in Saudi Arabia, with the location of site IDIHA-0008222 marked in red.

Credit: Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics, the GIS User Community, USGS, NOAA /
AAKSA / The Royal Commission for AlUla,
Author provided

The key question to be answered is “why were they built?” A survey trip by our team may have, in part, solved this mystery.

While recording these structures after rain, we noted that almost all mustatils pointed towards areas that held water. Perhaps the mustatils were constructed and the animals offered to the god or gods to ensure the continuation of the rains and the fertility of the land.

The possibility remains that the mustatils were built in response to a changing climate, as the region became increasingly arid like it is today.

Two mustatil in Khaybar County pointing to standing water after rain.

Credit: AAKSA / The Royal Commission for AlUla,
Author provided

Our study of the mustatils is ongoing. Our new project at the University of Sydney is focused on understanding why these monumental structures and others were built and what brought about their end.

We hope future excavations and analyses will reveal further insights into the life and death of the mustatils and the people who built them.
Melissa Kennedy, Lecturer in Archaeology, University of Sydney and Hugh Thomas, Lecturer in Archaeology, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Published by The Conversation.
Open access. (CC BY 4.0)

Copyright: © 2023 The authors.
Published by PLoS. Open access. (CC BY 4.0)

The paper referred to in the article is published, open access in the online journal PLOS ONE:

Abstract

Since the 1970s, monumental stone structures now called mustatil have been documented across Saudi Arabia. However, it was not until 2017 that the first intensive and systematic study of this structure type was undertaken, although this study could not determine the precise function of these features. Recent excavations in AlUla have now determined that these structures fulfilled a ritual purpose, with specifically selected elements of both wild and domestic taxa deposited around a betyl. This paper outlines the results of the University of Western Australia’s work at site IDIHA-0008222, a 140 m long mustatil (IDIHA-F-0011081), located 55 km east of AlUla. Work at this site sheds new and important light on the cult, herding and ‘pilgrimage’ in the Late Neolithic of north-west Arabia, with the site revealing one of the earliest chronometrically dated betyls in the Arabian Peninsula and some of the earliest evidence for domestic cattle in northern Arabia.

Kennedy M, Strolin L, McMahon J, Franklin D, Flavel A, Noble J, et al. (2023)
Cult, herding, and ‘pilgrimage’ in the Late Neolithic of north-west Arabia: Excavations at a mustatil east of AlUla.
PLoS ONE 18(3): e0281904. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281904

Copyright: © 2023 The authors.
Published by PLoS. Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

In the words of H.L.Mechen:

Where is the graveyard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds? There was a day when Jupiter was the king of the gods, and any man who doubted his puissance was ipso facto a barbarian and an ignoramus. But where in all the world is there a man who worships Jupiter today? And what of Huitzilopochtli? In one year—and it is no more than five hundred years ago—fifty thousand youths and maidens were slain in sacrifice to him. Today, if he is remembered at all, it is only by some vagrant savage in the depths of the Mexican forest. Huitzilopochtli, like many other gods, had no human father; his mother was a virtuous widow; he was born of an apparently innocent flirtation that she carried on with the sun. When he frowned, his father, the sun, stood still. When he roared with rage, earthquakes engulfed whole cities. When he thirsted he was watered with ten thousand gallons of human blood. But today Huitzilopochtli is as magnificently forgotten as Alien G. Thurman. Once the peer of Allah, Buddha and Wotan, he is now the peer of General Coxey, Richmond P. Hobson, Nan Patterson, Alton B. Parker, Adelina Patti, General Weyler, and Tom Sharkey…

But they have company in oblivion: the hell of dead gods is as crowded as the Presbyterian hell for babies. Damona is there, and Esus, and Drunemeton, and Silvana, and Dervones, and Adsalluta, and Deva, and Belisama, and Axona, and Vintios, and Taranuous, and Sulis, and Cocidius, and Adsmerius, and Dumiatis, and Caletos, and Moccus, and Ollovidius, and Albiorix, and Leucitius, and Vitucadrus, and Ogmios, and Uxellimus, and Borvo, and Grannos, and Mogons. All mighty gods in their day, worshiped by millions, full of demands and impositions, able to bind and loose—all gods of the first class, not dilettanti. Men labored for generations to build vast temples to them—temples with stones as large as hay-wagons. The business of interpreting their whims occupied thousands of priests, wizards, archdeacons, evangelists, haruspices, bishops, archbishops. To doubt them was to die, usually at the stake. Armies took to the field to defend them against infidels: villages were burned, women and children were butchered, cattle were driven off. Yet in the end they all withered and died, and today there is none so poor to do them reverence. Worse, the very tombs in which they lie are lost, and so even a respectful stranger is debarred from paying them the slightest and politest homage.

H.L. Menchen "Memorial Service".

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Thank you for sharing!

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Malevolent Design News - Creationism's Divine Malevolence is Hopelessly Muddled

Malevolent Design News

Creationism's Divine Malevolence is Hopelessly Muddled

Human Coronavirus OC43

Common cold gives children immunity against COVID-19 | Karolinska Institutet Nyheter

Although Creationists can be proud of their divine malevolence's triumph with its SARS-CoV-2 virus and the pandemic it caused, scientists have discovered that it wasn't as clever as Creationists like to imagine.

Apart from having to design the virus to overcome the defences it designed to protect us from the viruses it creates to harm up, if you follow me, it then has to continually modify its design to overcome the defences human medical science devises, such as vaccines (which only work because we have those defences in the first place, no matter how inadequate). It is as though Creationism's supposedly omniscient, omnipotent designer doesn't have a clue about the future and can only respond when it happens.

And, like a true amnesiac, it seems to forget entirely what it designed yesterday, and why it designed it, so it ends up in a pointless and wasteful arms race with itself; continually designing solutions today to the solutions it designed yesterday which it now thinks are new problems to be solved.

And now we learn from a study by researchers at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet that infection by one of its earlier designs, the OC43 corona virus which causes the common cold, produces antibodies that give some protection against its SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus!

Creationism in Crisis - What on Earth was the 'Designer' Thinking?

Creationism in Crisis

What on Earth was the 'Designer' Thinking?

Credit: Lenora Martinez-Nunez

The ‘Rapunzel’ virus: an evolutionary oddity

Figure 2
Intra- and inter-ring interactions. A The primary intra-ring interface between two subunits (green and cyan) within a ring. B Schematic quantifying interactions from a single subunit (α) to illustrate the extensive, cooperative network. Numbers and line widths (not lengths) correspond to quantification of the interactions between α and neighboring subunits as calculated by the PDBePISA server (Supplementary Tables 3 and 4). C Surface representation of two subunits reveals a ball and socket geometry between rings. A single subunit (orange) has two loops (Loop1 and Loop2) that fit into sockets (Socket1 - gray, and Socket2 - white) of a subunit in the ring below it (green). D Surface electrostatics of ring interfaces demonstrate an important role for electrostatics in inter-ring interactions.

Agnello, et. al., (2023), Journal of Biological Chemistry

Creationists would have us believe that there are two forms of life on Earth - that designed by their putative, omnibelevolent, omniscient, omnipotent god and that designed by some magical thing (or is it a process?) called 'sin'. For some mysterious reason, their supposedly omnipotent, omniscient god doesn't have enough power to overcome this 'sin' and is reduced to playing inevitable games with it such as indulging in arms races to defend its creation while 'sin' tries to harm it.

In addition, Creationists believe one of two things:

1. Their god didn't know when he created the mythical founder couple, Adam & Eve, that this would result in this 'sin' thing being created.
2. It did know, but created them anyway, presumably not understanding the consequences.

And of course they believe in the literal truth of the Bible where their god is reported as telling Isaiah that in fact he created evil.:

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

Isiah 47:7

And they also believe that their god created everything on Earth for his special creation, them of course, or more generally, all humans

Not for the first time, Creationism requires its dupes to believe two or more mutually exclusive things simultaneously.
g a
So, with that in mind, imagine being a Creationist and trying to understand what on Earth your magic god was trying to achieve when it created bacteria, then created the phage viruses to parasitise them, described in the research by a team from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester MA, USA.

Their research is published open access in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and described in the magazine for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). It describes a phage virus, P74-26, nicknamed the “Rapunzel bacteriophage”, with an extraordinarily long 'tail' which is capable of parasitising even extremophile bacteria that live in hot springs where temperatures can reach 170^oC. Neither these bacteria nor the phage virus appear to have any benefit to mankind.

The study was to determine the construction and function of the very long 'tail'.

The discovery was of something that the Creationist idol, Michael J Behe would undoubtedly proclaim as 'irreducibly complex', therefore proof that the locally popular god did it.

To make matters worse for Creationists, the study casually and unintentionally refutes one of the lies that their cult leaders fool them with - that the Theory of Evolution (TOE) is being increasingly rejected by mainstream biologists in favour of their childish, magical and supernatural explanation. The scientists who did the study are in no doubt that the 'tail' is a product of an evolutionary process and that the TOE is a perfect model for explaining and understanding the observed facts.

From the ASBMB magazine:

A recent study in the Journal of Biological Chemistry has revealed the secret behind an evolutionary marvel: a bacteriophage with an extremely long tail. This extraordinary tail is part of a bacteriophage that lives in inhospitable hot springs and preys on some of the toughest bacteria on the planet.

Bacteriophages are a group of viruses that infect and replicate in bacteria and are the most common and diverse things on Earth.

The bacteriophage P74-26 has a tail 10 times longer than most other phage tails and is nearly 1 micrometer long, about the width of some spider’s silk.

Angnello, et al.(2023) Journal of Biological Chemistry

Bacteriophages, or phages for short, are everywhere that bacteria are, including the dirt and water around you and in your own body’s microbial ecosystem as well.

Each phage tail is made up of many small building blocks that come together to form a long tube. Our research finds that these building blocks can change shape, or conformation, as they come together. This shape-changing behavior is important in allowing the building blocks to fit together and form the correct structure of the tail tube.

We used a technique called cryo-electron microscopy, which is a huge microscope that allows us to take thousands of images and short movies at a very high magnification. By taking lots of pictures of the phage’s tail tubes and stacking them together, we were able to figure out exactly how the building blocks fit together.

Bacteriophages are gaining ever-growing interest as an alternative to antibiotics for treating bacterial infections. By studying phage assembly, we can better understand how these viruses interact with bacteria, which could lead to the development of more effective phage-based therapies. … I believe that studying unique, interesting things can lead to findings and applications that we can’t even yet imagine.

Emily Agnello, first author
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School
Worcester, MA, USA.

Unlike many of the viruses that infect humans and animals that contain only one compartment, phages consist of a tail attached to a spiky, prismlike protein shell that contains their DNA.

Phage tails, like hairstyles, vary in length and style; some are long and bouncy while others are short and stiff. While most phages have short, microscopic tails, the “Rapunzel bacteriophage” P74-26 has a tail 10 times longer than most and is nearly 1 micrometer long, about the width of some spider’s silk. The “Rapunzel” moniker is derived from the fairy tale in which a girl with extremely long hair was locked in a tower by an evil witch.

Brian Kelch, an associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biotechnology at UMass Chan who supervised the work, described P74-26 as having a “monster of a tail.”

transmission electron micrograph of multiple bacteriophages attached to a bacterial cell wall; the magnification is approximately 200,000.

Professor Graham Beards, (Wikimedia Commons)

Compared with most phages, P74-26 uses half the number of building blocks to form stacking rings that make up the tail.

Phage tails are important for puncturing bacteria, which are coated in a dense, viscous substance. P74-26’s long tail allows it to invade and infect the toughest bacteria. Not only does P74-26 have an extremely long tail, but it is also the most stable phage, allowing it to exist in and infect bacteria that live in hot springs that can reach over 170° F. Researchers have been studying P74-26 to find out why and how it can exist in such extreme environments.

To work with a phage that thrives in such high temperatures, Agnello had to adjust the conditions of her experiments to coax the phage tail to assemble itself in a test tube. Kelch said Agnello created a system with which she could induce rapid tail self-assembly.

I like to think about these phage building blocks as kind of like Legos. The Lego has studs on one side and the holes or sockets on the other. Imagine a Lego where the sockets start off closed. But as you start to build with the Legos, the sockets begin to open up to allow the studs on other Legos to build a larger assembly. This movement is an important way that these phage building blocks self-regulate their assembly.

We think what has happened is that some ancient virus fused its building blocks into one protein. Imagine two small Lego bricks are fused into one large brick with no seams. This long tail is built with larger, sturdier building blocks. We think that could be stabilizing the tail at high temperatures.

Brian A. Kelch, corresponding author
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology
University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School
Worcester, MA, USA

The researchers used high-power imaging techniques as well as computer simulations and found that the building blocks of the tail lean on each other to stabilize themselves.

They found P74-26 uses a “ball and socket” mechanism to sturdy itself. In addition, the tail is formed from vertically stacking rings of molecules that make a hollow canal.

Kelch pointed out that, compared with most phages, P74-26 uses half the number of building blocks to form stacking rings that make up the tail.

The researchers now plan to use genetic manipulation to alter the length of the phage tail and see how that changes its behavior.

Phages occupy almost every corner of the globe and are important to a variety of industries like healthcare, environmental conservation and food safety. In fact, long-tailed phages like P74-26 have been used in preliminary clinical trials to treat certain bacterial infections.

Copyright: © 2023 The authors.
Published by Elsevier Inc. Open access. (CC BY 4.0)

More technical detail is given in the teams open access paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry:

Abstract

Tail tube assembly is an essential step in the lifecycle of long-tailed bacteriophages. Limited structural and biophysical information has impeded an understanding of assembly and stability of their long, flexible tail tubes. The hyperthermophilic phage P74-26 is particularly intriguing as it has the longest tail of any known virus (nearly 1 μm) and is the most thermostable known phage. Here, we use structures of the P74-26 tail tube along with an in vitro system for studying tube assembly kinetics to propose the first molecular model for the tail tube assembly of long-tailed phages. Our high resolution cryo-EM structure provides insight into how the P74-26 phage assembles through flexible loops that fit into neighboring rings through tight “ball-and-socket”-like interactions. Guided by this structure, and in combination with mutational, light scattering, and molecular dynamics simulations data, we propose a model for the assembly of conserved tube-like structures across phage and other entities possessing Tail Tube-like proteins. We propose that formation of a full ring promotes the adoption of a tube elongation-competent conformation among the flexible loops and their corresponding sockets, which is further stabilized by an adjacent ring. Tail assembly is controlled by the cooperative interaction of dynamic intra- and inter-ring contacts. Given the structural conservation among tail tube proteins and tail-like structures, our model can explain the mechanism of high-fidelity assembly of long, stable tubes.

Agnello, Emily; Pajak, Joshua; Liu, Xingchen; Kelch, Brian A.
Conformational dynamics control assembly of an extremely long bacteriophage tail tube
Journal of Biological Chemistry; (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.jbc.2023.103021

Copyright: © 2023 The authors.
Published by Elsevier Inc. Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

So, from a Creationist point of view, a massively complex solution to the problem of how to get through the defences of a bacterium that was designed to protect it from viruses in order to kill bacteria that, because they inhabit such extreme conditions, are or complete indifference to humans, being neither harmful nor harmless.

Creationists also argue that bacteria and viruses were created by 'sin' in some unexplained magical process, so this 'sin' thing is designing parasites to attack the parasites it creates!

It takes some special mental gymnastics to believe these organisms and the relationships between them are the result of an intelligent design process and not the result of a mindless, utilitarian natural process in which neither magic nor magicians was involved.

Climate Emergency News - Large-Scale Failure of Entire Bird Population to Breed

Climate Emergency News
Large-Scale Failure of Entire Bird Population to Breed

Dronning Maud Land (Queen Maud Land), Antarctica

Extreme snowstorms lead to large-scale seabird breeding failures in Antarctica: Current Biology

Map of Antarctica showing Dronning Maud Land

South Polar skua, Stercorarius maccormicki, with nest

According to a survey published, open access, yesterday in the Cell Press journal, Current Biology almost the entire breeding population of three seabirds failed to breed on important breeding grounds in Antarctica, due to unseasonably high snowfall in the Antarctic 'Summer' (December 2020-January 2022) when breeding normally takes place. The unusual weather is almost certainly due to man-made climate change.

The researchers found not a single nest of the South Polar skua, and only a handful of the nests of the Antarctic petrel, Thalassoica antarctica, and Snow petrel, Pagodroma nivea, on the main breeding ground of Dronning Maud Land (Queen Maud Land) in the Norwegian-administered sector of Antarctica.

According to information from Cell Press:

Unintelligent Malevolence - The Ludicrous Complexity of Ams Races Between Parasites and Hosts

Unintelligent Malevolence

The Ludicrous Complexity of Arms Races Between Parasites and Hosts

Researchers from Penn Vet observed, for the first time, an intestinal pyogranuloma, formed in response to Yersinia infection. The organized grouping of cells includes monocytes (in green), neutrophils (in magenta), and Yersinia bacteria (in white), and depends on monocytes to form and to control infection, the team found.

Image: The Brodsky Laboratory

Peyer's Patches - organized lymphoid nodules commonly found in the small intestines.

By User:Plainpaper - File:Peyer's_patch.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

The immune system does battle in the intestines to keep bacteria in check | Penn Today

Hard though it is to imagine any intelligent adult holding to such beliefs, Creationists believe that parasites were intelligently designed to make us sick and the same designer gave us an immune system to help stop parasites doing what it designed them to do. It then indulged in a pointless arms race with itself to try to make sure both parasites and our immune system did what they were designed to do.

It's as though the creator is some hate-filled but incompetent, schizophrenic amnesiac, intent on harming us one day and protecting us the next, but not remembering what it was trying to do yesterday and treating its solutions to problems yesterday as problems to be solved today, and no real idea about the basic principles of design.

Now researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet) have discovered how this arms race has resulted in a continuous battle in or intestines between our immune system and bacteria if the Yersina genus which includes the plague organism, Y. pestis.

The setting for creationism's putative designer's ludicrous battle with itself is the host's intestines where the Yersinia organisms, which are designed to overcome the body's first line of defences, set up colonies in the lymph system. The lymph system's purpose is to protect us from these sorts of infections but the pathogens have been designed to use the system against us!

The body's response is to then try to seal in these colonies with a collection of immune cells to form a granuloma, sustained by monocytes.

The problem is this solution doesn't always work as designed and the granulomas break down when the monocytes fail to sustain them. The infection can ten enter the blood stream and cause serious illness.

The research and its significance is described in a news release from Penn Vet:

Yersinia bacteria cause a variety of human and animal diseases, the most notorious being the plague, caused by Yersinia pestis. A relative, Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, causes gastrointestinal illness and is less deadly, but naturally infects both mice and humans, making it a useful model for studying its interactions with the immune system.

These two pathogens, as well as a third close cousin, Y. enterocolitica, which affects swine and can cause food-borne illness if people consume infected meat, have many traits in common, particularly their knack for interfering with the immune system’s ability to respond to infection.

The plague pathogen is blood-borne and transmitted by infected fleas. Infection with the other two depends on ingestion. Yet the focus of much of the work in the field had been on interactions of Yersinia with lymphoid tissues, rather than the intestine. A new study of Y. pseudotuberculosis led by a team from Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine and published in Nature Microbiology demonstrates that, in response to infection, the host immune system forms small, walled-off lesions in the intestines called granulomas. It’s the first time these organized collections of immune cells have been found in the intestines in response to Yersinia infections.

The team went on to show that monocytes, a type of immune cell, sustain these granulomas. Without them, the granulomas deteriorated, allowing the mice to be overtaken by Yersinia.

Our data reveal a previously unappreciated site where Yersinia can colonize and the immune system is engaged. These granulomas form in order to control the bacterial infection in the intestines. And we show that if they don’t form or fail to be maintained, the bacteria are able to overcome the control of the immune system and cause greater systemic infection.

In all three Yersinia infections, a hallmark is that they colonize lymphoid tissues and are able to escape immune control and replicate, cause disease, and spread.

Because it’s an orally acquired pathogen, we were interested in how the bacteria behaved in the intestines. Daniel [Sorobetea, first-author] made this initial observation that, following Yersinia pseudotuberculosis infection, there were macroscopically visible lesions all along the length of the gut that had never been described before.

We hypothesize that it’s a general role for the monocytes in other tissues as well.

Previous to this study we knew of Peyer’s patches to be the primary site where the body interacts with the outside environment through the mucosal tissue of the intestines.

These therapies have caused an explosion of excitement in the cancer field, the idea of reinvigorating the immune system. Conceptually we can also think about how to coax the immune system to be reinvigorated to attack pathogens in these settings of chronic infection as well.

Professor Igor E. Brodsky, senior author
Robert R. Marshak Professor and chair of the Department of Pathobiology
University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.
Pennsylvania, USA.

The findings have implications for developing new therapies that leverage the host immune system, Brodsky says. A drug that harnessed the power of immune cells to not only keep Yersinia in check but to overcome its defenses, they say, could potentially eliminate the pathogen altogether.

A novel battlefield


Y. pestis, Y. pseudotuberculosis, and Y. enterocolitica share a keen ability to evade immune detection.

Earlier studies had shown that Yersinia prompted the formation of granulomas in the lymph nodes and spleen but had never observed them in the intestines until Daniel Sorobetea, a research fellow in Brodsky’s group, took a closer look at the intestines of mice infected with Y. pseudotuberculosis.

The research team, including Sorobetea and later Rina Matsuda, a doctoral student in the lab, saw that these same lesions were present when mice were infected with Y. enterocolitica, forming within five days after an infection.

A biopsy of the intestinal tissues confirmed that the lesions were a type of granuloma, known as a pyogranuloma, composed of a variety of immune cells, including monocytes and neutrophils, another type of white blood cell that is part of the body's front line in fighting bacteria and viruses.

Granulomas form in other diseases that involve chronic infection, including tuberculosis, for which Y. pseudotuberculosis is named. Somewhat paradoxically, these granulomas—while key in controlling infection by walling off the infectious agent—also sustain a population of the pathogen within those walls.

The team wanted to understand how these granulomas were both formed and maintained, working with mice lacking monocytes as well as animals treated with an antibody that depletes monocytes. In the animals lacking monocytes “these granulomas, with their distinct architecture, wouldn’t form,” Brodsky says.

Instead, a more disorganized and necrotic abscess developed, neutrophils failed to be activated, and the mice were less able to control the invading bacteria. These animals experienced higher levels of bacteria in their intestines and succumbed to their infections.

Groundwork for the future

The researchers believe the monocytes are responsible for recruiting neutrophils to the site of infection and thus launching the formation of the granuloma, helping to control the bacteria. This leading role for monocytes may exist beyond the intestines, the researchers believe.

But the discoveries also point to the intestines as a key site of engagement between the immune system and Yersinia.

Peyer’s patches are small areas of lymphoid tissue present in the intestines that serve to regulate the microbiome and fend off infection.

In future work, Brodsky and colleagues hope to continue to piece together the mechanism by which monocytes and neutrophils contain the bacteria, an effort they’re pursing in collaboration with Sunny Shin’s lab in the Perelman School of Medicine’s microbiology department.

A deeper understanding of the molecular pathways that regulate this immune response could one day offer inroads into host-directed immune therapies, by which a drug could tip the scales in favor of the host immune system, unleashing its might to fully eradicate the bacteria rather than simply corralling them in granulomas.

Regrettably, the team's research paper in Nature Microbiology is behind a paywall:

Abstract Granulomas are organized immune cell aggregates formed in response to chronic infection or antigen persistence. The bacterial pathogen Yersinia pseudotuberculosis (Yp) blocks innate inflammatory signalling and immune defence, inducing neutrophil-rich pyogranulomas (PGs) within lymphoid tissues. Here we uncover that Yp also triggers PG formation within the murine intestinal mucosa. Mice lacking circulating monocytes fail to form defined PGs, have defects in neutrophil activation and succumb to Yp infection. Yersinia lacking virulence factors that target actin polymerization to block phagocytosis and reactive oxygen burst do not induce PGs, indicating that intestinal PGs form in response to Yp disruption of cytoskeletal dynamics. Notably, mutation of the virulence factor YopH restores PG formation and control of Yp in mice lacking circulating monocytes, demonstrating that monocytes override YopH-dependent blockade of innate immune defence. This work reveals an unappreciated site of Yersinia intestinal invasion and defines host and pathogen drivers of intestinal granuloma formation.

Sorobetea, Daniel; Matsuda, Rina; Peterson, Stefan T.; Grayczyk, James P.; Rao, Indira; Krespan, Elise; Lanza, Matthew; Assenmacher, Charles-Antoine; Mack, Matthias; Beiting, Daniel P.; Radaelli, Enrico; Brodsky, Igor E.
Inflammatory monocytes promote granuloma control of Yersinia infection
Nature Microbiology (2023); DOI: 10.1038/s41564-023-01338-6

© 2023 Springer Nature Ltd.
Reprinted under the terms of s60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

I doubt that any Creationist would have the courage to read this far, but this offer is open to any who do: Please explain how this system can be regarded as the work of an omnibenevolent, omniscience, intelligent designer and not the work of either an incompetent malevolence or the result of amoral, utilitarian natural processes operating without a plan.

Hypocrisy News - How Piety is Used to Self-Licence Exemptions For Religious Sex Workers and Their Clients

Hypocrisy News

How Piety is Used to Self-Licence Exemptions For Religious Sex Workers and Their Clients

Uncovering the secret religious and spiritual lives of sex workers

The psychological phenomenon of self-licencing or awarding themselves exemptions from the standards they demand others live by, is a characteristic of the pious, and often the reason for the public display of it.

It's as though the pious see their piety as building up credit they can draw on later to provide themselves with a little relaxation of the rules without running the risk of adverse judgement later. Then, of course, there is the useful Christian notion of forgiveness through confession, in effect having your sin counter zeroed by confession and penance.

In this article from The Conversation, Daisy Matthews, a PhD candidate in Sociology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK and Jane Pilcher, Associate Professor of Sociology, Nottingham Trent University, explore the extent to which piety is used by sex workers and their clients to free themselves from any feelings of guilt or responsibility for acts which are condemned as sinful by their respective religions. There is a noticeable flexibility of belief where arbitrary lines are drawn and, so long as they are not crossed, anything else is permitted within the religion.

The practices are not restricted to Christians of one denomination or another but extends to Muslims, Jews, and others.

The article, part of the Insight series, is reprinted under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency. The original can be read here.

Published: March 10, 2023 3.57pm GMT

Uncovering the secret religious and spiritual lives of sex workers

Shutterstock.

Daisy Matthews, Nottingham Trent University and Jane Pilcher, Nottingham Trent University

Tanya* is telling me just how important her Methodist Christianity is to her. We’re chatting over a video call, and I can see Tanya’s living room in the background. This also happens to be her workspace because Tanya, who is 50, is a full-time phone and cam sex worker. For Tanya, earning her living through sex work does not conflict with her religious beliefs at all. Tanya tells me that she had a client who talked to her about his enjoyment of wearing women’s clothing. He confided in her because they both shared the same religious identity.

He [the client] started talking more and more … he said I listen … he told me he goes to church every Sunday and was a church elder and he opened up. I also said to him … that I used to go to Sunday school every week and so we connected … because I am not going OMG when he told me. And he asked me if I still go to chapel now, and I said no but I still pray and believe in God, and he said that’s nice.

Tanya reassured her client that there was “no need to feel guilty”, that what they were doing wasn’t “wrong”. She even told him: “I bet there are other people in the church who do it”.

Tanya was one of 11 sex workers I spoke to who all had spiritual and religious beliefs. I wanted to discover how these two seemingly opposite life choices could interconnect and coexist. I discovered people like Tanya, who spoke to their clients about God and religion, but I also spoke to women who used religion as a kink to arouse their clients or as a tactic to earn more money or, in some cases, protect themselves when they felt threatened.

I found out that rather than being incompatible, religion and spirituality can create unique connections and meaningful experiences for both sex worker and client. Tanya’s story shows how sex work experiences are not one dimensional, and are not only about selling sex for money. They can hold multiple meanings. As the journalist Melissa Gira Grant suggests in her book, sex work is a role where social skills and empathy are regularly performed.

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This article is part of Conversation Insights
The Insights team generates long-form journalism derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.

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My PhD research attempts to shine a light on the realities of the everyday lives of religious sex workers, which include positive experiences as well as distressing ones. I spoke with sex workers who were Christian, Catholic, Muslim, Norse Pagan and spiritual. All the women were over the age of 18 and were consensual sex workers.

Religion, sin and ‘morality’

So, what do different religions say about sex work? Research by independent scholar Benedikta Fones, suggests that in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament representations of sex workers are typically negative. That perhaps doesn’t come as too much of a surprise. The stereotypical “religious” view of sex before marriage is that it is immoral, so why should sex work be any different? Fones argues that these religious ideas, about sex work being “unacceptable”, then spread into wider culture.

Research shows that sex work is generally considered an immoral act within Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

That said, there are some religious organisations or charities that do provide essential support for some sex workers. But there are also “saviour charities”, whose existence gives further insight into the complex relationship between sex work and religion.

Adam and Eve expelled from the Garden of Eden on a stained glass window in the cathedral of Brussels, Belgium.

Credit: Shutterstock/Jorisvo

As the sociologist Gemma Ahearne has written, some religiously motivated groups aim to stop people working in the sex industry and aim to eradicate sex work entirely.

And it’s not just religious doctrines which find sex work to be immoral – some religious sex workers do too, as a research project in Thailand discovered in 2015. But the women I spoke with rejected that narrative of religious condemnation. For them, religion and sex work can co-exist and both were a meaningful part of their lives.

Using religion to earn more

One of my first discoveries was how some sex workers use religion to earn more money. One example of this was how one sex worker had decided to capitalise on her Muslim heritage to boost her “brand”.

Zahra and Islam

Zahra is a 26-year-old British Muslim. Zahra was inspired by other women who use the hijab when sex working. From this, she created her alter ego, where she wore the hijab when she made online sexual content and when working as an escort. She said:

On Twitter … I networked with this one girl, she wears a hijab, not in her real life but using it to make more money and mix it up and she is like earning 150k, she’s up there with celebrities and stuff and so, yeah I decided I would have an alter ego, my “hoejabi”, that’s what I called it and I made content wearing a head scarf and like that and I had jobs coming through from that.

So Zahra utilised the hijab and, in her own words, “made a lot of money from it”.

However, this coexistence of identities – as sex worker and religious person – is not simple, and must be managed by a process of constant internal negotiation. Zahra spoke to me at length about the requests she has had from clients which she turned down, because to agree with them would have challenged her religious values and morals.

She added: “I have had clients go, ‘can you sit on the Qur’an and cum or can I bring a Qur’an and ride it whilst saying this and that’, and I say no. That is too extreme for me.”

So although Zahra uses her religion to earn more money by sexualising Islamic symbols like the hijab, she is still a Muslim woman. She believes in Allah in her private life. She set boundaries within her work to ensure that she doesn’t go against her own religious beliefs.

But sexualising religion in this way can come with risks. In 2015, the former porn actor Mia Khalifa starred in a porn film while she was wearing the hijab. She received death threats as a result and was strongly criticised by some people in Muslim communities. Some claimed she was letting down the Islamic faith (although Khalifa herself was raised Catholic).

But despite – or perhaps because of – the controversy around her film, Khalifa became one of the most searched-for stars on the adult movie site Porn Hub.

Being a Muslim and sex worker may be risky - but for Zahra, it was empowering and positive. And she is not alone. There is a Muslim group called Muslims for Full Decrim whose members are also current and former sex workers who support the decriminalisation of the sex industry. Clearly, religious communities like Islam are diverse and this is reflected in how people feel about their religion and sex work.

Maya, yoga and spirituality

Another sex worker I met used elements of her spiritual life to increase interest from clients. Maya, a 25-year-old British woman showed me her bedroom over a video-call. Maya, like Tanya, is a cam sex worker, so her bedroom is also her workspace. But Maya’s bedroom is also the space where she practises yoga. She told me that she performed yoga on camera for her clients:

Good spiritual link, customers have said they find it relaxing to watch. Yeah, I don’t know why I didn’t mention that! I think it’s even like, called a subculture … I sent a video of myself into the site proving I can do it [yoga], you add it to your list of specialities so people can find you for specifically doing that.

For Maya, yoga can be relaxing and a way to connect with her spiritual identity. But it is also a way to make money and it shows how religion and spirituality are becoming more diverse and less bound by traditional religious rules and doctrines. Maya was managing her beliefs flexibly. This was also true for Zahra.

Woman practising yoga in a studio.

Credit: Shutterstock/Luna Vandoorne

Maya’s and Zahra’s stories show the evident demand from some clients for religion when they are paying for sex. Zahra and Maya sexualise their religion and spirituality when sex working – meeting the desires of clients who get off on that.

Khan, a trans Norse Pagan

But there were other women I met who needed religion to help them belong. Khan, a 41-year-old transgender woman, was raised Christian but now has a Norse Pagan religious identity. She told me how she changed her religious path because she felt conflicted between her gender identity, sex work identity and, specifically, her Christian identity.

She said that being a transgender woman created challenges to being a Christian and that Christianity would not accept her occupation as an escort.

I don’t think there is a way to reconcile the sex work with Christianity.

It is these kinds of religious ideas about the immorality of sex work that meant Khan looked for and found a religion – Norse Paganism – which better suited her feelings and identities. Norse Pagan practices are diverse and people engage with the religion differently. An introduction to Norse Paganism on spiritualityheath.com states that it “is an inclusive spiritual practice, open to all who are moved toward it”.

The inclusivity offered by this religion seems to enable people with diverse and marginalised identities to feel accepted within it – in other words, it is a religious community free from judgement. For Khan, it was a welcoming religion. It helped her to overcome the challenges she had experienced as a transgender woman sex worker within the Christian faith.

Khan’s story supports the idea that religious beliefs are becoming more fluid and that people are able to tailor religion to better align with their “self”.

But, as Tanya’s story showed, there are Christian sex workers who do not feel conflicted in the way that Khan did. Religious beliefs – even those within mainstream religions like Islam and Christianity – are diverse and one size does not fit all.

Enhancing sexual pleasure

Another topic I was keen to examine was whether sex workers themselves experience sexual pleasure while working. This point is seldom addressed. But according to a number of the women I interviewed, they not only enjoyed sex with some of their clients, but religion and spirituality sometimes increased that pleasure and led to more of a connection.

Amy and spiritual vibes

Take Amy, for example. Amy is a 23-year-old American porn actor who has a spiritual identity. Our interview lasted nearly three hours. She explained to me how being a sex worker and being spiritual were not at “odds with each other”. She described how they are two separate things within her life. However, she also told me that sometimes her sexual encounters (for example, when she is creating pornography) can be a spiritual experience.

Sex can still be spiritual for me … And even if you don’t have, like, a connection with the person and you’re not gonna see them again or don’t care about them, or whatever, you can still enjoy … the moment.

Amy told me that sex could “turn her brain off” and “that’s kind of like a spiritual experience”. Amy’s spirituality concerns “high vibes”, which are positive qualities such as love, and “low vibes” associated with negative qualities such as hatred. So for Amy, although sex work and spirituality are separate, there was also a blurring of lines between them, and some sexual experiences when making porn gave her “high vibes”.

LRE, astrology

Another sex worker I spoke to said that the sex part of her work could become especially enjoyable when she and her client connected over a shared love of astrology and star signs.

Zodiac signs on ancient Torre dell'Orologio clock in St Mark’s Square, Venice, Italy.

Credit: Shutterstock/Viacheslav Lopatin

LRE is a 22-year-old British woman who works part-time as an escort and sexual content creator. Like Amy, LRE’s spiritual identity could sometimes enhance her sexual pleasure with clients.

Oh, he was a Sagittarius [client]… we did bits and then halfway through he was like, what star sign are you? I was like, ‘you are my new favourite person ever’ … he was like laughing and smiling and I was like ‘no seriously, I love that you asked me that’ … and I thought … this is why there is such sexual chemistry.

Although the stories of Amy and LRE have some things in common, their spiritual identities were present in their sex work in different ways. In Amy’s case, her spiritual identity was not necessarily known to the fellow porn actor she had sex with. But for LRE, her spiritual identity was known and openly discussed with her client.

Belief as a coping strategy

Despite the many empowering and sex-positive stories I heard, there was sometimes a reminder that not all sex worker experiences are positive.

Lilly, Christian Orthodox

Lilly is one such example. Lilly was a 25-year-old escort, originally from Romania. She is Christian Orthodox and lives in the UK. She told me how she prays in her head when she is with a client who makes her feel uncomfortable:

If I have a problem or think something is wrong with this guy, I start to pray in my head, and it helps me not to think because if they feel I am scared, they will take advantage. So, when I start to pray, I forget I am scared and go away from those feelings and so, he will be quiet as he doesn’t feel like this.

Safety challenges are an occupational hazard for sex workers. It is important to say, though, that for Lilly at least, feeling unsafe with a client was not a regular occurrence.

Lilly told me that sex work provides her with greater opportunities to earn more compared to other jobs available to her. I did feel concerned that Lilly, at times, was made to feel scared by her clients. But it was also clear to me that, for Lilly, these negative experiences do not outweigh the positive benefits she says she gains from being an escort.

Decriminalisation

One way to keep sex workers like Lilly safer is to decriminalise the sex industry. Those who oppose decriminalisation seem to be under the misconception that all sex workers are coerced, trafficked or exploited. Although this is true for some, it is not true for most and the misconception that all sex workers are victims is itself, as research shows, a result of stigma and lack of knowledge about the industry.

It is also important to differentiate between criminalised, legalised and decriminalised sex industries. Criminalisation of the sex industry makes all sex work-related practices illegal. Legalisation of the sex industry is where sex work is legal under specific state defined conditions.

Protest in London in July 2018.

Credit: Shutterstock/Koca Vehbi

For example, under legalisation laws within the UK (except for Northern Ireland, who have adopted the Nordic Model) sex work practices are predominantly legal. However, some engagements with sex work such as soliciting on the street and working with another sex worker within the same house (as this is considered a brothel) are criminalised.

Decriminalisation is where sex work is stripped of regulations and sex workers can operate freely. I support the decriminalisation of the sex industry globally because it is under these conditions that sex workers can best protect themselves and it is the first step in abolishing stigma. Research has also shown it is the best strategy for harm reduction.

Stigma heightens risks

Although it is not the belief of all sex workers, the women I spoke to argued strongly for the decriminalisation of the sex industry. Stories told to me by Khan and LRE, who are both escorts, are cases in point.

Khan lives and works in a US state where escorting is illegal. So, if she has a violent client, she will tell staff and security at the hotel where she is working that she is on a date that has gone wrong.

… God forbid, something does happen, like there’s staffed or security and I will say I was on a date and this guy went crazy …

Khan is forced to hide her sex work from staff when she is in potential danger due to fear of prosecution. LRE faces similar issues in the UK. She told me how she has to hide her income around her hotel room when she is escorting to reduce the likelihood of theft and violence.

… If you get money, put like £100 in the safe and then anything else, just stash it around the room …

All the women I spoke to informed me they do not report violence from clients or thefts to the police. This is not surprising, given evidence that women, men and transgender sex workers are all at heightened risk of police sexual misconduct in comparison to non-sex workers.

Not ‘just’ sex workers

I think my interviews show that sex workers are not just sex workers – they have complex and multifaceted identities. You absolutely can be a sex worker and be religious or spiritual. But it is not necessarily easy to always get a balance. It is the result of constant and skilful identity management. The stories of women like Tanya, Maya, Zahra, LRE, Amy, Lilly and Khan underline how important it is to recognise the sheer diversity of people who work in this industry.

Although there are negative experiences in the sex industry, the women I spoke to, on the whole, felt empowered by their profession. They saw it as providing great opportunities for earning money and offering them positive experiences.

And, importantly, it didn’t get in the way of their religious and spiritual beliefs. As Zahra told me at the end of our discussion:

…I do believe in God and believe in Allah and in my private life. I believe in it.

So whether it was Tanya consoling a church elder, or Zahra finding a way to utilise her Muslim faith, these women were opening up new discussions about what it means to be a sex worker.

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All names have been changed to protect the identities of those involved.

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For you: more from our Insights series:

• The artist formerly known as Camille – Prince’s lost album ‘comes out’
• ‘It’s like being in a warzone’ – A&E nurses open up about the emotional cost of working on the NHS frontline
• Living with MND: how a form of ‘acceptance therapy’ is helping me make one difficult choice at a time

To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation’s evidence-based news. Subscribe to our newsletter.
Daisy Matthews, PhD candidate in Sociology, exploring the lives of religious and spiritual sex workers, Nottingham Trent University and Jane Pilcher, Associate Professor of Sociology, Nottingham Trent University

This article is reprinted from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Published by The Conversation.
Open access. (CC BY 4.0)

Malevolent Designer News - The Astonishing Success of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus. And it Ain't Over Yet!

Malevolent Designer News

The Astonishing Success of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus.
And it Ain't Over Yet!

Three years into the pandemic, it's clear COVID won't fix itself. Here's what we need to focus on next

With Creationism in headlong retreat under the onslaught from science and improved access to information with the Internet, Creationists at least have something to be proud of.

From their point of view, few designs have been so spectacularly successful as the SARS-CoV-2 virus that is causing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. It is a success unparalleled since the 1918 'Spanish' flu outbreak, caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus, and only bettered, in the Middle Ages, with Yersinia pestis and the Black Death, which wiped out 30-60 percent of the European population and 70-200 million people worldwide.

Although not nearly as successful as the H1N1 influenza A virus, which killed an estimated 17-50 million people and maybe as many as 100 million, and paling into insignificance compared to Yersinia pestis, SARS-CoV-2 has so far turned in a very respectable performance with 6.8 million deaths out of about 681 million people infected, and we need to bear in mind that the majority of those infections will have been vaccinated people who benefit from human medical science.

Without the vaccines, it's anyone's guess how many orders of magnitude the death toll would have been, but low though that 1% death-rate is, compared to the divine malevolence's other pathogens, we need to add in other factors when estimating the malevolent designer's successes with SARS-CoV-2.

• Life expectancy fell sharply between 2020 and 2021, reversing 70 years of almost continuous improvement thanks to medical science.
• There has been severe disruption of health services, especially in poor countries, leading to:
  • a significant increase in stillbirths, perinatal mortality for both mother and child.
  • an increase in postnatal depression.
  • Immunizations programs have been reduced, leading to an increase in malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.
• There has been severe deterioration in mental health services.
• An estimated 65 million people now suffer the debilitating consequences of 'long covid' caused by long-term damage as opposed to the relatively short duration of the primary infection.
• Children's education has been adversely affected due to school closures and staff shortages due to COVID-19.
• The economic disruption and the drastic measures to mitigate the pandemic and support businesses during lock-down, in its early stages, have crippled economies with increased government debt and cuts in spending on essential social services, and reduced government revenues for taxation due to an estimated 0.75% fall in GDP

And it's far from over yet!

In fact there is little sign that the virus is attenuating or that "herd immunity" is sufficient to prevent new waves with new variants. As this article points out, there have been more cases of COVID-19 in Australia in the first three months of 2023, than there were in the whole of 2021 and 2022 combined!. The article is by Michael Toole, Associate Principal Research Fellow, Burnet Institute, and Brendan Crabb, Director and CEO, Burnet Institute in The Conversation points out. It deals mostly with Australia but can be extrapolated to the rest of the world.

Creationism in Crisis - Monkeys Make Tools and Make Fools of Creationists

Creationism in Crisis

Monkeys Make Tools and Make Fools of Creationists

Examples of sharp edged flakes produced unintentionally by long‑tailed macaques.

© Proffitt et al, 2023

Macaca fascicularis aurea using a stone tool.

Image credit: Haslam M, Gumert MD, Biro D, Carvalho S, Malaivijitnond S (2013)
(CC BY 2.5), via Wikimedia Commons.

Surprising similarities found between stone tools of early humans and old world monkeys | Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have discovered that anthropologists could be wrong about when Early hominins began making stone tools because they have discovered that certain Old World monkeys make stone artifacts which bear what were thought to be characteristics of hominin stone tools.

However, rather than being a problem for evolutionary anthropologists, the discovery is a major problem for Creationists.

The problem is a reverse form of the Palley's Watch argument, which, despite being debunked by Darwin in 1859, is never-the-less regularly trotted out by Creationists who argue that man-made objects must have been intelligently designed (so living organisms must have been too [sic]) and man-made stone tools are 'obviously' designed.

However, the 'stone tools' made by Old World monkeys are not designed; they are created accidentally when the monkeys use stone 'hammers' to crack nuts, using an anvil. This often results in the stone 'hammer' chipping to form a cutting edge that was previously thought to be a sure sign of human design!

Incidentally, this finding give a clue to how early hominins could have discovered how to make stone tools, when they realised the sharp edges produced could be used to cut, and careful chipping could be used to make shapes such as hand-axes, spear points, scrapers, etc.

The research and its consequences for evolutionary anthropology is explained in a news release from Max Planck Gesellschaft: