In the downstairs loo of Richard Dawkins's house in Oxford there's a framed award from the Royal Society; to remind visitors, or maybe Richard himself, that here lives a man of some purpose, some gravitas and intellectual clout.
Atheism has been an accepted creed in the West since the French Revolution. But surely its champions weren't always this obnoxious.
If there were a law assigning certain jobs by race, it could not be more effectively enforced.
One can be ignored. Two need to be noted. Three demand a response. In the last few weeks there have been several attacks on religion and all its pomp and works.
The good news for hockey fans in Pittsburgh came last week not from the hockey team, but from the Pittsburgh Gaming Task Force.
Does Islam need a Reformation? Not unless you think it would benefit from additional dollops of Puritanism; further encouragement to smash altars, stained glass, and other forms of idolatry; prodding to ban riotous celebrations like Christmas and Easter; and support for fundamentalist Islamic schools that insist on sola Korana and sola Sunnah.
The excerpt below from the book Women and the Priesthood (by Peter Kreeft and Alice Von Hildebrand) comprises Kreeft's second of four reasons defending the Catholic church's teaching on the male priesthood.
Not for the first time, the world finds itself in an age of great movements of peoples.
