Derren Brown: Miracles for Sale – Tonight 9pm
With the cameras in hot pursuit, Derren faces his toughest project yet, going in search of an unsuspecting member of the British public prepared to adopt the guise of a pastor and miracle worker.
His chosen one then has six months to learn the trade and flourish across the pond as a convincing pastor.
The final phase of the volunteer’s extraordinary challenge sees them attempt to perform faith healing miracles live in Texas, but will Derren’s new recruit be accepted as a faith healer or cast away as fake healer?
The show will air tonight at 9pm on Ch4, 10pm on Ch4+1 and will be available on 4oD here.
Feel free to leave comments below.
‘Koran Burn Preacher’ To Protest At US Mosque
YAHOO NEWS: “A militant preacher in Florida whose Koran burning triggered deadly riots in Afghanistan has vowed to lead an anti-Islam protest outside the biggest mosque in America.
The planned demonstration could further inflame tensions over the Koran burning, which led to two days of protests in Afghanistan that included the killings of UN staff and stoked anti-Western sentiment across the Muslim world.
“Our aim is to make an awareness of the radical element of Islam,” pastor Terry Jones said at the church he leads in the college town of Gainesville, Florida.
“Obviously it is terrible any time people are murdered or killed – I think that on the other hand, it shows the radical element of Islam.”
Jones, a former hotel manager turned pastor who claims the Koran incites violence, said he will go ahead with a protest on April 22 in front of the US’ largest mosque, in Dearborn, Michigan.
US President Barack Obama denounced the act of burning a Koran but did not mention Jones by name.
“The desecration of any holy text, including the Koran, is an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry,” Mr Obama said in a statement released by the White House.
“However, to attack and kill innocent people in response is outrageous, and an affront to human decency and dignity.”
Government officials in Pakistan and Afghanistan have called for US authorities to arrest Jones, however his public criticism of Islam and desecration of the Koran are allowed under US laws protecting free speech.
Jones provoked an international outcry last year over his plan to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, with Mr Obama saying it would cause “profound damage” to the US.
He backed down after pleas from the US government and other world officials, but then presided over a March 20 mock trial of the Koran that included a torching of the book.
Internet footage later reverberated across the Muslim world and sparked the latest wave of violence.”
Via Yahoo News
Fake: Seventy metal books found in cave in Jordan labeled most important find in Christian history
BBC news reported recently: They could be the earliest Christian writing in existence, surviving almost 2,000 years in a Jordanian cave. They could, just possibly, change our understanding of how Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and how Christianity was born. A group of 70 or so “books”, each with between five and 15 lead leaves bound by lead rings, was apparently discovered in a remote arid valley in northern Jordan somewhere between 2005 and 2007. A flash flood had exposed two niches inside the cave, one of them marked with a menorah or candlestick, the ancient Jewish religious symbol.
A Jordanian Bedouin opened these plugs, and what he found inside might constitute extremely rare relics of early Christianity. The director of the Jordan’s Department of Antiquities, Ziad al-Saad, says the books might have been made by followers of Jesus in the few decades immediately following his crucifixion. “They will really match, and perhaps be more significant than, the Dead Sea Scrolls,” says Mr Saad. ”Maybe it will lead to further interpretation and authenticity checks of the material, but the initial information is very encouraging, and it seems that we are looking at a very important and significant discovery, maybe the most important discovery in the history of archaeology.”
However it turns out they are FAKE.
Peter Thonemann at Oxford has staked his career on the conclusion that the lead codices being discussed recently are forgeries executed within the last 50 years. The following is what he wrote to Elkington in an email after he was asked late last year to comment on the authenticity of the plates based on some photos:
A surprisingly easy task, as it turns out! The Greek text at the top of your photo no. 0556 reads: ΛΛΥΠΕΧΛΙΡΕΛΒΓΛΡΟΚΛΙΕΙΣΙΩΝ, followed by ΛΛΥΠΕ in mirror-writing.
This text corresponds to ΛΛΥΠΕ ΧΛΙΡΕ ΛΒΓΛΡ Ο ΚΛΙ ΕΙΣΙΩΝ, i.e. ἄλυπε χαῖρε, Ἀβγαρ ὁ καὶ Εἰσίων, followed by the word ἄλυπε again, in mirror writing. The text at the bottom of your photo no. 0532 is the first part of the same text again: ΛΥΠΕΧΛΙΡΕΛΒΓ, i.e. [ἄ]λυπε χαῖρε, Ἀβγ…
The text was incised by someone who did not know the Greek language, since he does not distinguish between the letters lambda and alpha: both are simply represented, in each of the texts, by the shape Λ. The text literally means ‘without grief, farewell! Abgar also known as Eision’. This text, in isolation, is meaningless.
The original News article at the BBC here.
Peter Thonemann on the Lead Codices refutation here.
Huge payout over US priests sex-scandals
ALJAZEERA: The Pacific Northwest chapter of the Roman Catholic Church’s Jesuit order has agreed to pay $166 million to settle more than 500 child sexual abuse claims against priests in five states, attorneys have said.
The decision on Friday compels a payout by the Society of Jesus in the Oregon Province, and is part of an agreement to resolve its two-year-old bankruptcy case. Lawyers for the victims said it is also the largest ever payout by a Catholic religious order such as the Jesuits.
The Oregon Province is the Northwest chapter of the Rome-based Jesuit order and covers Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Montana.
The victims, most of them Native Americans from remote Alaska Native villages or Indian reservations in the Pacific Northwest, were sexually or psychologically abused as children by Jesuit missionaries in those states in the 1940s through the 1990s, the plaintiffs’ attorneys said.
Full story at AlJazeera
Bible’s Buried Secrets: ‘Did God Have a Wife?’
TELEGRAPH: If you hadn’t already guessed from its subtitle, “Did God Have a Wife?”, you could tell this programme was trying hard to shock the moment you heard the music its producers had chosen to play in the background. Alternately simmering and whooshing in a bid to create tension, it would have sounded at home on the soundtrack of a James Bond film. While oddly melodramatic for a theological documentary, it did at least reflect the tone of the presenter’s narration. The programme’s findings, said Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou, would “rock the foundation” of Christianity and Judaism. She must have been very keen to press home this point, because she used the phrase again and again, although, perhaps worried we were tiring of it, she did once switch to “undermine the basis”.
The findings that were supposed to rock the foundation, or undermine the basis, of Christianity and Judaism, were two-fold: 1) that ancient Israelites worshipped many gods, rather than one, meaning the origins of Christianity and Judaism are polytheistic, and that monotheism is a recent development; and 2) that ancient Israelites believed God, or El, or Yahweh – they’re all the same, said Dr Stavrakopoulou – had a wife, or “consort”: a goddess named Asherah.
Article at Telegraph
Two-thirds of Britons not religious, suggests survey
BBC: Nearly two-thirds of people do not regard themselves as “religious”, a new survey carried out to coincide with the 2011 Census suggests.
The British Humanist Association (BHA), which commissioned the poll, said people often identified themselves as religious for cultural reasons.
The online poll asked 1,900 adults in England and Wales a question which is on this month’s census form. The Office for National Statistics has defended the wording of the census.
While 61% of the poll’s respondents said they did belong to a religion, 65% of those surveyed answered “no” to the further question: “Are you religious?”
Two surveys were commissioned, one covering England and Wales, and the other for Scotland. South of the border 61% of respondents said they did have a religion.
But only 29% also said they were religious, while 65% said they were not.
Apple ‘gay-cure’ app severely slapped
THE REGISTER: “Apple is today accused of anti-gay discrimination, following the release of an iPhone app that aims to help people find “freedom from homosexuality”.
A petition has been launched by Truth Wins Out, which describes itself as a non-profit organisation that fights anti-gay religious extremism on the change.org website, asking Steve Jobs to intervene to remove the app. The app is the work of the Exodus International ministry.
In a letter which those supporting their petition sign up to receive, they write: “Apple has long been a friend of the LGBT community, opposing California’s Proposition 8, removing the anti-gay Manhattan Declaration iPhone app, and earning a 100% score from the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.
“I am shocked that this same company has given the green light to an app from a notoriously anti-gay organization like Exodus International that uses scare tactics, misinformation, stereotypes and distortions of LGBT life to recruit clients, endorses the use of so-called ‘reparative therapy’ to ‘change’ the sexual orientation of their clients.”
According to TWO, “reparative therapy” has been roundly condemned by every major professional medical organisation. The petition launched last week and has already attracted some 17,000 signatures: however, as word of the app spreads, the rate at which individuals are signing up appears to be snowballing.
Exodus International claims to be “the world’s largest ministry to individuals and families impacted by homosexuality”. On its site, Exodus states that it “upholds heterosexuality as God’s creative intent for humanity, and subsequently views homosexual expression as outside of God’s will”.
Their new smartphone app was released last week and is “now available through iTunes”. According to Exodus, this app has received a 4+ rating from Apple and “applications in this category contain no objectionable material”. They conclude: “This application is designed to be a useful resource for men, women, parents, students, and ministry leaders.”
TWO are unimpressed. Describing the app as “unacceptable”, and requesting its immediate removal, they warn Apple: “Your company would never allow a racist or anti-Semitic app to be sold in the iTunes store, and for good reason. Apple’s approval of the anti-gay Exodus International app represents a double standard for the LGBT community with potentially devastating consequences for our youth.”
We have asked Apple whether it intends to take any action in respect of this app, but so far have received no response.”
Read more at The Register
Further reading at Truth Wins Out
And you can sign a petition to remove the app here (Thanks Annette M and @d_g_)
Cory Doctorow denounces Jediism
The Register: When Cory Doctorow, creative freedoms campaigner, author of Little Brother and co-editor of the massive Boing Boing blog, tweeted yesterday that “we’re all going to put our #religion down as #Jedi”, the response was instantaneous.
A flurry of counter-tweets followed, with reaction typified by the likes of Andrew Carter, who tweeted: “NO! It screws up the demographics and makes it look like there are fewer ‘Non-religious’ than there are!”
Doctorow thought about it, and shortly after, his blog conceded an absolute about-turn. He wrote: “When I joked on Twitter that my family were going to list ourselves as Jedi, I was deluged with outraged responses from atheists asking me to tick the ‘no religion’ box; this is part of a larger campaign to get people who tick ‘Christian’ out of habit (though they have no faith) to switch to ‘no religion’ as well, as some atheists believe that the number of religious people in the UK is misreported through a combination of habitual box-ticking and smart-alecky ‘Jedi’ like me.” He concluded: “I’m convinced; we’re atheists and we will list ourselves as such.”
Full Story at The Register
Benny Hinn Sued For Adultery
Scam artist “faith healer” and mega-millionaire Pastor Benny Hinn is being sued by a Christian book publisher who says Hinn violated the “immorality” clause in their contract when he had an adulterous affair with fellow preacher Paula White.
Hinn is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions, money largely scraped out of the Social Security checks of the gullible elderly and the desperately ill. He travels the world in a $36M personal Gulfstream jet in between stays at his numerous opulent mansions.
Full details at JoeMyGod
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