From this month’s Socialist Standard
It was the political power that the Catholic Church once exercised in Ireland that allowed it to cover up for so long the child abuse exposed in the recent Ryan Report.
I travelled to Dublin in the early 1950s as a member of a delegation from a Northern Ireland Labour...
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Religion
The power behind the shame
Darwin and the Intelligent Design Brigade
Christian Right Lobbies To Overturn Second Law Of Thermodynamics
“The second law of thermodynamics, a fundamental scientific principle stating that entropy increases over time as organized forms decay into greater states of randomness, has come under fire from conservative Christian groups, who are demanding that the law be repealed.
“Calling the second law of thermodynamics...
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A Reply to the Pope
On October 8, 2008, an article in the Toronto Star (Credit Crunch Shows Futility of Money : Pope) should have set to rest the minds of any who are worried about the worlds financial crisis. “Pope Benedict XVI, reflecting on crashing stock markets and capitalism, concluded that, ‘money vanishes, it is nothing’ and that,...
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Another Fraud
“For as long as man has worshipped a god, there have been forgers, crafty hucksters who seize on a believer’s desire to possess material proof of the divine. In Jerusalem, it is a bountiful trade. The old adage is that if all the splinters of the True Cross were gathered from across Christendom, it...
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The trouble with gods
Gods do exist, in a certain sense (I use the word “gods” as a gender-neutral term that includes goddesses). Humans create them in their own image, though without being aware of doing so. The fact that gods are male or female in itself strongly suggests that they are creatures of the human imagination. But...
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Happy Wage-Slave-Off Days!
Isn’t it nice to have a few days off from work, warming the cockles of our overgenerous souls after spending the past year producing large sums of wealth for the parasite class, singing Santa songs by the hearth, drinking mulled wine and pretty much anything else that will get us tipsy, opening our...
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Religion or capitalism: Which is the root of evil?
Atheism—thank god—is gaining in popularity and in converts. Books by atheists have been appearing on non-fiction bestseller lists, such as Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion and Sam Harris’s The End of Faith. Even Christopher Hitchens, who has been cheering on the US imperialist crusade with his Christian comrades in the 101st Keyboard Brigade, has...
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Sharia in Nigeria: a class analysis
When, Bill Clinton visited Nigeria, he snubbed the predominantly Muslim north by dropping from his original itinerary a visit there where Sharia Law was in the process of being revived. But the Muslim leaders of the North, already apprehensive about Clinton’s visit, had organized a massive protest demonstration, which took place on the very...
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Pope Condemns Same Sex Union as Attack on Society
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope John Paul on Saturday condemned same sex marriage as an attack on the fabric of society and called on Catholics to combat what he said was aggressive attempt to legally undermine the family.“Attacks on marriage and the family, from an ideological and legal aspect, are becoming stronger and more...
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