NewsTrust - Science and Religion - Most Recent Stories: News (Independent)

God, the Army, and PTSD

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Review - By Tara McKelvey - Nov. 11 (Special Report) - During the Iraq war, however, the great difficulty veterans experienced in getting psychiatric care—greater than before—was not a product of cost-cutting, but of conviction: many Bush administration officials believed that soldiers who supported the war would not face psychological problems, and if they did, they would find comfort in faith. In a resigned tone, one prominent researcher who worked for the VA, and asked that he not be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press, explained that high-ranking officials believed that “Jesus fixes everything.” Benimoff and the others who returned with devastating psychological injuries found a faith-based bureau within the VA. At veterans’ hospitals, chaplains were conducting spirituality assessments of patients.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.2 average - 14 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Scientists in a flap over dinosaur nesting

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

bozemandailychronicle.com - By Gail Schontzler - Aug. 11 (News Report) - The science of the living and the science of the dead clashed Monday at a Museum of the Rockies symposium on dinosaur nesting and whether the creatures brooded on their nests like gigantic chickens. It was all very civilized, but it was hard not to miss a few feathers flying.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Healing Power Of Prayer?

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceDaily - Jun. 21 (News Report) - Health and religion have always been intertwined, most obviously through prayer on behalf of the sick. Does intercessory prayer for sick people actually help heal them? For thousands of years some people have believed so. But new Brandeis University research in the Journal of Religion this month shows that over the last four decades, medical studies of intercessory prayer—the prayer of strangers at a distance—actually say more about the scientists conducting the studies than about the power of prayer to heal.

NewsTrust Rating: 2.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Report: Violence common among Scientology managers

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

seattlepi.com - Jun. 21 (News Report) - The leader of the Church of Scientology struck his subordinates numerous times and set an example for physical violence among the tightly controlled religion's management team, four former high-ranking executives told a newspaper for a story published Sunday.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.2 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Brains of Steele

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - By Chip Giller - Mar. 16 (News Report) - OMG. RNC Chair Michael Steele (i.e., the titular head of the GOP) says that global warming is really "global cooling." Sam Stein at HuffPost excavates Steele's thoughts on global warming from his little-noticed stint as guest host of a conservative talk radio show on March 6:

NewsTrust Rating: 3.5 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Wholesale Sedation of America’s Youth

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

csicop.org - By Andrew M. Weiss - Feb. 20 (Investigative Report) - In the winter of 2000, the Journal of the American Medical Association published the results of a study indicating that 200,000 two- to four-year-olds had been prescribed Ritalin for an “attention disorder” from 1991 to 1995. Judging by the response, the image of hundreds of thousands of mothers grinding up stimulants to put into the sippy cups of their preschoolers was apparently not a pretty one. Most national magazines and newspapers covered the story; some even expressed dismay or outrage at this exacerbation of what already seemed like a juggernaut of hyper-medicalizing childhood. The public reaction, however, was tame; the medical community, after a moment’s pause, continued unfazed. Today, the total toddler count is well past one million, and influential psychiatrists have insisted that mental health prescriptions are appropriate for children as young as twelve months. For the pharmaceutical companies, this is progress. In 1995, 2,357,833 children were diagnosed with ADHD (Woodwell 1997)—twice the number diagnosed in 1990. By 1999, 3.4 percent of all American children had received a stimulant prescription for an attention disorder. Today, that number is closer to ten percent. Stimulants aren’t the only drugs being given out like candy to our children. A variety of other psychotropics like antidepressants, antipsychotics, and sedatives are finding their way into babies’ medicine cabinets in large numbers. In fact, the worldwide market for these drugs is growing at a rate of ten percent a year, $20.7 billion in sales of antipsychotics alone (for 2007, IMSHealth 2008).

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Abstinence-Only Clowns?! Your Federal Tax Dollars at Work

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Amanda Terkel - Jan. 16 (Special Report) - Thanks to George W. Bush and a complicit Congress, we currently spend $1.5 billion a year to fund abstinence-only until marriage sex education in our public schools. And yes, that money goes to people like Derek Dye, as he is employed by the Elizabeth New Life Center that received a $800,000 CBAE grant in 2007 to promote abstinence until marriage.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.4 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Top Ten Power Brokers of the Religious Right

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Rob Boston - Nov. 10 (Investigative Report) - "The Religious Right is not dead," said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "AU's new survey of its funding and power should help dispel the myth that the Religious Right is on the ropes. Forces determined to merge government with their narrow version of religion are alive and kicking, and it behooves us all to understand their goals and tactics."

NewsTrust Rating: 4.3 average - 7 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Spirituality Protects Against Depression Better Than Church Attendance

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ScienceDaily - Oct. 26 (News Report) - Those who worship a higher power often do so in different ways. Whether they are active in their religious community, or prefer to simply pray or meditate, new research out of Temple University suggests that a person's religiousness – also called religiosity – can offer insight into their risk for depression.

NewsTrust Rating: 2.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

PROPHECIES OF HOLY BIBLE COMING TRUE ? NEWS WORLD IMPACT

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

newseffect.wordpress.com - By Newseffect - Oct. 18 (Breaking News) - 1 Corinthians 15:26: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” and the Revelation 2:11: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.” Thus Bible ..

NewsTrust Rating: 5.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The New AgeThe New Age of Reason & Enlightenment:

Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Global Unity - By By John Webb; the ‘Host’ & Zhan: A messenger from the 24th Century. - May. 19 (Special Report) - Now that NewsTrust has done all the Political, Economic & Environmental stuff, here is something that will really 'shake up' the issue. This is a message from the 24th Century, which explains were we have gone wrong, and the solutions to surviving the consequences. In any other age, this message would be hailed as the 'Voice of God'. In truth this is what it has always been: Intuition, the voice of the Global Collective Mind: the Ghia, a voice from the future, the voice of Commonsense & Reason, which is accessible, through the subconscious, to every human & animal.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.8 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Global Warning! Waste Heat causes Global Warming, not CO2

Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Global Unity - By By John Webb; the ‘Host’ & Zhan: A messenger from the 24th Century. - May. 19 (Special Report) - Global Expansion is a prime example of mainstream science & quantum mechanics ignorance (to ignore & neglect) of the 'Conservation of Energy', the first law of thermodynamics, and the misconstruction of Einstein's Theories of Relativity. This 'corruption of the laws of physics' has also created a great impediment in he search for the holy grail of science: The Unified Theory. The fallacy of quantum mechanic's 'mathematical fantasy' has seriously 'infected' & influenced mainstream science, with disastrous affects we know as Global-Warming. Global-Unity & Cosmic-Dimension provide clear evidence that Global Warming is due to 'Bad Science' based on Quantic principles.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.7 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Prophecies of Mitar Tarabich:

Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Global Unity - By By John Webb; the ‘Host’ & Zhan: A messenger from the 24th Century. - May. 19 (Special Report) - Predictions are not Prophecies until they 'come-to-pass', by which time it's too late to act-upon, usually resulting in much 'Lamentation' & suffering by people claiming that they had no Warning! The virtually unknown Prophet: Mitar Tarabich; an illiterate Serbian peasant who died in 1899, made some uncannily clear & accurate predictions up till around 2015. There are many prophets, including the Mayans & Nostradamus et al, who predicted a Global Apocalypse around the years 2000-2013. I discovered Tarabich's prophecies around Feb 2008, 13-years after Zhan's first contact. I was amazed-shocked at the 'frightening' similarity of Zhan's & Tarabich's prophecies.

NewsTrust Rating: 5.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Global Warming: The Nazi Conspiracy - Legacy based on Heisenberg's 'Uncertainty Principle'

Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Global Unity - By By John Webb; the ‘Host’, Zhan: A messenger from the 24th Century. - May. 19 (Special Report) - After more than 100 years, Einstein's Theory of Relativity, although totally misunderstood, is still the best basis of our understanding of classical & atomic physics. Einstein's and his theories have been denigrated and misconstrued, initially as part of the 'Nazi Conspiracy', later to satisfy the mathematical fantasies of quantum mechanics. The 'Nazi Conspiracy' is a factual story of the consequential Chaos and Scientific corruption, which is the real, fundamental cause of Global Warming, and an imminent Global Apocalypse. The 'American Dream' and blatant encouragement of waste and over-consumption is another 'spin-off' of the Nazi Conspiracy and cause of Global Warming.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Controversy Erupts Over Errors, Bias in Textbook

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Skeptical Inquirer - By Henry Huber - May. 06 (News Analysis) - But was it corrected? An electronic copy was purchased and downloaded April 8, and a side-by-side analysis of sixteen examples from both editions shows the offending text wholly unaltered in eleven instances (which includes repeating a falsely depicted 6-3 court ruling as a contentious 5-4 decision), and altered to correct only a spelling error in a twelfth (it read, "global warning"). It appears that all the most recent edition corrects is a typo that was arguably more accurate than the lesson.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.2 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Who's Your Daddy?

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Religion Dispatches - By Arri Eisen - Apr. 24 (News Report) - Affordable in-home paternity tests may spark more questions than answers; What does it mean to be a father? Do we know enough about DNA to process the results over Pop-Tarts?

NewsTrust Rating: 4.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Students trained to use emotional and social intelligence

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Canada.com - By Douglas Todd - Apr. 02 (News Report) - The evidence is now overwhelming that children who are taught to understand their own feelings and those of others do much better in school, careers and long-term relationships, says the psychologist who made famous the term "emotional intelligence." Daniel Goleman, author of the ground-breaking books Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence, will be in Vancouver from Friday to Tuesday to reveal how new scientific studies show students who learn self-awareness and interpersonal skills score higher marks, cut fewer classes, suffer less anxiety, are more well-mannered and know how to say "no" to sex without losing their friends.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.5 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Science and the Islamic world--The quest for rapprochement

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Physics Today - By Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy - Aug. 03 (Special Report) - he question I want to pose--perhaps as much to myself as to anyone else--is this: With well over a billion Muslims and extensive material resources, why is the Islamic world disengaged from science and the process of creating new knowledge? To be definite, I am here using the 57 countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) as a proxy for the Islamic world.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Secrets and Lies

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 10:23:00 -0700

Committe for Skeptical Inquiry - By Mary Carmichael, Benjamin Radford - Apr. 14 (Special Report) - Last year, Rhonda Byrne discovered the secret of the universe. It is based on a principle of quantum mechanics and lies in a force with direct physical effects on matter. If you're thinking it's odd that such a momentous discovery hasn't been publicized--surely it deserves at least a journal article or two?--you clearly haven't been spending much time in the self-help section of your local bookstore, where Byrne's new book is found. Tantalizingly titled The Secret, it's probably the most slickly marketed idea to draw on quantum physics in all of history. Alas, though, it won't be appearing in Science or Nature. "The Secret," it turns out, is a lie. Propelled by the gushing enthusiasm of Oprah Winfrey and a clever advertising campaign, The Secret has topped the best-seller lists and moved nearly two million copies to date. The book has a companion DVD film, whose "hidden knowledge" themes bear more than a passing resemblance to The Da Vinci Code and the ironically titled What the Bleep Do We Know? The first warning sign that something is amiss is a common one--the author is a self-appointed expert whose main source is a personal inspiration or revelation. Byrne, a documentary producer, traces her "discovery" of the "secret" to a downtrodden period in her life. Give her this: she didn't fold. Instead, she drew on a poorly understood scientific theory, a few common-sense principles, and, most heavily, a nineteenth-century American philosophical movement with roots in quackery. She co-opted William Shakespeare, Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, and other prominent people as co-bearers of her secret, then rounded up a panel of twenty-four contemporary teachers: self-help gurus and metaphysicians, a few MBAs, a feng shui expert, and two fringe quantum physicists who weren't fully informed about her theories before the cameras started rolling. Voila: a semblance of scientific accuracy. Out of this patchwork she made a movie (available for download online for just $4.95!) and accompanying book.

NewsTrust Rating: 2.9 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Celebrate Evolution Sunday - 11 February 2007

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 10:03:47 -0800

The Beatitudes Society - By Stephanie Wert - Feb. 11 (Not sure) - The Second Annual Evolution Sunday will occur on February 11th 2007. Your help is needed to make this day a success. This date is an opportunity for congregations across the country (indeed, around the world) to join together to discuss the compatibility of religion and science. Evolution Sunday is being sponsored by The Clergy Letter Project, a collection of more than 10,400 members of the Christian clergy who have signed a letter asserting that Christianity and modern evolutionary science need not be at odds with one another. In a two paragraph plea (online here), these Christian clergy members assert that they "believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests." They go on to urge that modern evolutionary theory rather than any form of creationism or intelligent design be taught in our country's public schools and conclude by requesting that "We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth."

NewsTrust Rating: 3.6 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

An Edge Discussion of BEYOND BELIEF: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 11:57:03 -0800

Edge - By Scott Atran, Nicholas Humphrey, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett - Nov. 10 (Special Report) - Scientists who are atheists -- surely a much larger proportion than the general public realizes -- have a difficult unsolved problem of how to balance their allegiance to the truth against their appreciation of the social impact of some truths and hence the need for diplomacy and reticence. Not surprisingly, most scientists "solve" this problem with silence, but silence can be just as culpable as lying. The problem is that the dangerous fanatics get an entirely undeserved mantle of respectability from the sane behavior of the moderates. If we button our lips to avoid offending the moderates, declining to draw attention to the utter irresponsibility of the fanatics, we become complicit in perpetuating the myth that there's really nothing to criticize in religious convictions. ("We know it's nuts, but of course we must never admit it in public!") (Daniel Dennett quoted)

NewsTrust Rating: 4.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer