Blog Heap o' Urantiana Links

California is currently experiencing a whooping cough epidemic… more than 800 new cases of pertussis… reported in the last two weeks. …3,458 cases of whooping cough… as of June 10 – more cases than were reported in all of 2013… [No mention of the unvaccinated Americans or the influx of diseased illegal immigrants flooding So Cal.]

In other action Monday, the AMA said transgender people should be able to switch the sex designation on their birth certificates without having sex-change surgery. Most states make the operations a prerequisite. But the new AMA policy acknowledges that gender identity doesn't always match a person's birth anatomy. An AMA report says identification documents that are consistent with gender identity rather than anatomy is essential to basic social and economic functioning. The report also says patients deserve medical care that is appropriate to their birth anatomy even if they self-identify as the opposite sex. [And in a SHOCKING development:] The new policy won praise from the National Center for Transgender Equality. [Imagine if the AMA had gone 180 the other way and said, um, sorry, boys is boys and girls is girls and your genes don't lie, whether you imagine otherwise or how you get mutilated. Heresy! Uproar! How… un-scientific?]

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee (D) and California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) were among other leftist politicians and gay advocacy leaders who used the words of Pope Francis to criticize San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone for his upcoming participation at the March for Marriage in Washington D.C. on June 19th. … “We ask that you will reconsider your participation and join us in seeking to promote reconciliation rather than division and hatred…."

While … the left accused Cordileone of promoting “division and hatred” through participation in the March for Marriage, the archbishop described those with activist agendas against marriage as “bullies,” and urged young pro-lifers during the March for Life last January to stay “close to Christ” as they seek to present the truth about marriage.

“Future generations will understand that the natural truth of marriage benefits everyone and discriminates against no one,” the archbishop said. “But prepare yourselves: It will require heroic virtue, for there is a lot of reverse bullying going on these days.”

Melinda Gates, of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has announced that her international family planning foundation will no longer fund abortion because she believes abortion and family planning have become “conflated.” … [Melinda Gates:] "The question of abortion should be dealt with separately. But in the United States and around the world the emotional and personal debate about abortion is threatening to get in the way of the lifesaving consensus regarding basic family planning."

Pope Francis and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traded words on Monday over the language spoken by Jesus two millennia ago.

"Jesus was here, in this land. He spoke Hebrew," Netanyahu told Francis, at a public meeting in Jerusalem in which the Israeli leader cited a strong connection between Judaism and Christianity.

"Aramaic," the pope interjected.

"He spoke Aramaic, but he knew Hebrew," Netanyahu shot back.

“In the last fifty years, evidence has steadily mounted that the components and conditions we believe necessary for life are common and perhaps ubiquitous in our galaxy,” said Werthimer in his written testimony.

“There may even be primitive extraterrestrial life in our own solar system, perhaps on a moon of Jupiter or Saturn. Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, is thought to have a liquid water ocean beneath its icy surface, perhaps a good environment for life as we know it.”

The pair said that although “no evidence exists for the presence of life outside of the Earth”, the sheer abundance of planets – “roughly one trillion in our Milky Way galaxy; three times more planets than stars” – suggests that the universe is “teeming with primitive life.”

Vanessa Cullins, vice president for external medical affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said she hopes the future of health care under the Affordable Care Act includes more women using “long-acting” forms of birth control, including intrauterine devices that can cause a fertilized embryo to be aborted.

…a new series of mysterious signals, known as Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), has again got astronomers scratching their heads and wondering if, maybe, we’re picking up alien messages….

When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do? (Psalm 11)

Astronomers believe they have found the sun’s ‘long-lost brother’ – a stellar body born from the same gas cloud as our own star. The researchers claim there is even a ‘small’ chance that this solar sibling could host planets that harbour life. … 15 per cent more massive than our sun and located 110 light-years away in the constellation Hercules…

...twice Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground with His finger, then all her accusers “went away one by one, beginning with the elders.” ...

I got thinking about this again the other day when I figured out that this event occurred on Shemini Atzeret. That is a day that God commanded be a Sabbath-level holy day of rest...."

The number of Christians in Communist China is growing so steadily that it by 2030 it could have more churchgoers than America

The headlines coming out of the Episcopal Church’s annual U.S. convention are stunning — endorsement of cross-dressing clergy, blessing same-sex marriage, the sale of their headquarters since they can’t afford to maintain it.

…the denomination has been deserted in droves by an angry or ambivalent membership. Six prominent bishops are ready to take their large dioceses out of the American church and align with conservative Anglican groups in Africa and South America. …

U.S. Catholics out-number the Episcopal Church 33-to-1. There are more Jews than Episcopalians. Twice as many Mormons as Episcopalians. Even the little African Methodist Episcopal denomination -- founded in in 1787 -- has passed the Episcopalians. …

A few years ago, the annual national Episcopal convention overwhelmingly refused even to consider a resolution affirming that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Upon returning home from that meeting, Bishop Peter H. Beckwith, leader of the Springfield, Illinois, diocese, wrote in a pastoral letter that the Episcopal church was “in meltdown.” &hellip

The Devil does not want people to follow Christ, so he tempts them, and this is not old-fashioned rhetoric because “the Devil is here, even in the 21st century” and we must learn “how to fight against Satan,” said Pope Francis during his homily at Mass on Friday in Rome….

“The Devil tempted Jesus many times and Jesus experienced temptation and persecution throughout his lifetime… Maybe some of you might say: ‘But Father, how old fashioned you are to speak about the Devil in the 21st century!’ But look out because the devil is present! The devil is here, even in the 21st century! And we mustn’t be naïve, right? We must learn from the Gospel how to fight against Satan.”

Patrick Air Force Base in Florida… officials confirmed… that the entire [POW/MIA] Missing Man Table display had been removed from a dining hall because of the Bible. A press statement said the inclusion of the Bible ignited “controversy and division.” … After consultation with several relevant organizations… [Note that in modern MilSpeak, "inclusion" means "exclusion."]

"The first detection of intelligent extraterrestrial life will likely come within the next quarter-century, a prominent alien hunter predicts."

hahahaha. We'll "detect" them when they let us!

Also, predicting 1st contact? Better luck predicting earthquakes.

United Worlds Watcher assigned to us:/em So, do we smack them with SMOD today?

UWW's Superior: Naw. Orders are, give 'em a little longer. I hear there's True Hope in certain pockets of the old USA. Anyway, not on Palin's 50th birthday.

[Cross-posted as a comment on Ace of Spades]

What is the difference between courting and dating?

Briefly, courting is dating with a purpose, and that's marriage. It isn't dating just to play the field or have fun. Usually the guy asks the parent(s) for permission to court the daughter. So while you're "dating" so to speak, you're serious about it and you're learning whether the person is marriage material. And from people I know, the courting process doesn't last years and years like some dating relationships can. At some point you fish or cut bait.

The boys have to spend time around the girls parents and the parents get to know each other before they're allowed to go out anywhere on their own. That's part of it.
My friends attitude is he wouldn't let some 18 year old kid he didn't know take off with his pickup for a few hours. He's sure not letting him "borrow his daughter."

St. Malachy prophesied that the final pope would be "Peter the Roman", which is interesting because no pope to date has chosen the name of Peter out of respect for Peter the Apostle. There has also been speculation that the final pope would be black. Even more curiously, there is a black cardinal in Ghana, Peter Turkson, who is believed to be a frontrunner and whose name has come up in previous discussions of papal appointment.

Cardinal Turkson has said in the past that "if God would wish to see a black man also as pope, thanks be to God." Catholic Church chronicler Rocco Palmo has called Turkson the lone Scripture scholar in the Pope's "Senate", and believes that his status as a potential "papabile" has been elevated due to his 2009 appointment as spokesman for the Second Synod for Africa.

Outside of the Church, there are also many who believe that Turkson is the favorite to take over as pontiff. Even the London bookmakers believe he's the top choice. Odds comparison site Oddschecker.com lists Turkson at best price odds of 4/1, and as short as 2/1 with some firms. Francis Arinze, the Nigerian Cardinal, is also a huge favorite with the bookies.

There are some who insist that Malachy did not say that the last pope he mentioned would be the 112th pope, insisting that he was merely the last, and theorizing that there could be more popes to come between Benedict and "Peter the Roman". However, this is not a belief that everyone subscribes to and many believe that "Peter the Roman" will be both the 112th and last pope of the Catholic Church.

Malachy's prophecies are taken very seriously as they've been uncannily accurate to date. Will the Catholic Church get its first black pope? Will "Peter the Roman" lead us into the End Times? These questions are set to be answered by Easter, which comes this year at the end of March, when the papal conclave announces their decision.

It is time for us to pull apart the institution of marriage from the definition of a legal union.

Marriage should be determined by the church, whatever church you belong to. Some religions agree to same-sex marriages, others do not.

On the other hand, the state should not meddle with the definition of marriage, but focus instead on determining the legality and requirements of civil unions.

Marriage -- and the relationship between partners and their God -- should be defined by the church.

Civil unions and their legalities should be defined by the state.

It would breach the idea of freedom of religion to force a priest or pastor who does not believe in same-sex marriage to perform such a union.

The division? The government should issue civil-union licenses that could be referenced for legal/insurance matters. Churches should continue to perform marriages as they see fit. The churches' determinations would not affect couples' legal standing in terms of taxes, benefits, etc.

seeking to have his marriage annulled after discovering that his Indonesian wife of 19 years had been born a man. … said that he and his wife had decided not to have children because he had two by his previous marriage and she fooled him by pretending to menstruate, using sanitary towels, "to conceal the truth". … "Even during sex, I never noticed anything."

Google is set to begin covering a cost that gay and lesbian employees must pay when their partners receive domestic partner health benefits…. The increased pay is largely to compensate these workers for an extra tax that heterosexual married couples do not pay. [Root of the problem: IRS defines marriage because of income tax, therefore putting the government in charge of religion, in violation of the First Amendment. Related webwork: Freedom to Marry]

The outer reaches of our solar system may have been shaped long ago by a close encounter with another star that tore up both nascent planetary systems like colliding buzz saws, astronomers said today.
The dramatic encounter, if it occurred, might even have deposited an alien world into our midst.
 The scenario was devised to describe unexplained observations of the solar system but is based on speculation about actual events. The resulting computer simulations suggest a range [of] possible outcomes for a close celestial brush shortly after the planets formed, about 4.5 billion years ago.

[4,500,000,000 years ago the enormous Angona system began its approach to the neighborhood of this solitary sun. The center of this great system was a dark giant of space, solid, highly charged, and possessing tremendous gravity pull. -Urantia Paper 57 (1934)]

today, in Nevada, the life of an 11-week-old unborn baby and the future of his or her 32-year-old mother hang in the balance as a judge considers whether or not to order the woman to undergo an abortion and sterilization against her will. … [woman] suffers from severe mental and physical disabilities attributed to fetal alcohol syndrome, is currently in the final weeks of her first trimester…. has epilepsy and is said to have the mental and social capacity of a 6-year-old. The circumstances surrounding her pregnancy are unknown…. family suspects she may have been raped, but it’s possible the sexual encounter that led to her pregnancy was consensual. On several occasions, [she] has left her group home for hours or days at a time to engage in sexual activity with men at a local truck stop…. wants to carry out her pregnancy [although] she knows she will be unable to care for the child. [Adoptive parents] support her decision, are following all the prenatal protocol for high-risk pregnancies, and have already lined up six qualified couples who are eager to adopt [her] child once he or she is born. However, when Washoe County Social Services became aware of Elisa’s pregnancy, the department issued an informal report requesting that the Court set a status hearing to address the potential health effects Elisa’s pregnancy could have on her and her unborn child, and possibly override the mutual decision made between Elisa and her parents to have her baby. [Emphasis added. It's like that old 1950s TV sitcom, Government Knows Best, right?]

“Although the news stories alone did not increase stress levels, they did make the women more reactive, affecting their physiological responses to later stressful situations,” lead author Marie-France Marin was quoted as saying in a press release by HealthDay. “Moreover, the women were able to remember more of the details of the negative stories. It is interesting to note that we did not observe this phenomenon amongst [sic] the male participants.”

My eyes are up here, Hill! [Photo]

Now every child's favorite game, "Horsie," comes to life!

In my article The Difference Between Israelis and Palestinians I pointed out that in Israeli fairy tales the story ends with peace between natural enemies while in Palestinian fairy tales the story ends with the death of the Jews and Israel wiped off the map. Today I would like to point out the difference between Palestinian and Israeli Gardens. ... [The Israelis] treated the land as a gift from God.

The most powerful sky-scanning camera yet built has begun its quest to pin down the mysterious stuff that makes up nearly three-quarters of our Universe.

The Dark Energy Survey's 570-million-pixel camera will scan some 300 million galaxies in the coming five years.

The goal is to discover the nature of dark energy, which is theorised to be responsible for the ever-faster expansion of the Universe.

118 106 Men are bad in this way: you're telling a story--a funny or impactful one--and in the middle of it, they interrupt and comment, thinking that the place in which they interrupted is the point. Their interruption ruins the punchline or the impact. Yes, we are. I am. I try not to do that, but sometimes I still do. But being guilty of this, I know why I do it to women especially. Men seem to know when to leave a rising inflection, or some other vocal signal that the story is not over. Women often seem to drop something that sounds final, and then the listener finds out it was just a way station.

The chemical was designed by dentists in Chile, and wipes out all the bacteria that cause cavities in just 60 seconds in tests. The chemical could be added to any current dental care product, turning toothpaste, mouthwash and chewing gum into 'super cleansers' that could get rid of the underlying cause of tooth decay. The chemical targets 'streptococcus mutans', the bacteria that turns the sugar in your mouth into lactic acid which erodes tooth enamel.

According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt's Great Pyramids… those "symbols of paganism…" Bahrain's "Sheikh of Sunni Sheikhs" and President of National Unity, Abd al-Latif al-Mahmoud, called on Egypt's new president, Muhammad Morsi, to "destroy the Pyramids and accomplish what the Sahabi Amr bin al-As could not…" a reference to the Muslim Prophet Muhammad's companion, Amr bin al-As and his Arabian tribesmen, who invaded and conquered Egypt circa 641. Under al-As and subsequent Muslim rule, many Egyptian antiquities were destroyed as relics of infidelity….

"A quote from an 1899 book by Winston Churchill, "The River War", in which he describes Muslims he apparently observed during Kitchener's campaign in the Sudan" "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient" Rome.

A: You know it’s interesting you bring up the virus. That is actually a question I had for you. Are you familiar with Urantia?
C: Yes.
A: OK. It also talks about that there had come a virus on the outer seventh sphere of the Universe. It equated the virus with fear, war, and amnesia. Do you agree with that?
C: Yes I would actually describe the way the virus was created was like a virus spreading around the galaxy. A mutation, an anomaly, an error, something that was also described in very old Gnostic texts from the last 2000 years and even earlier. So that this anomaly, this error needs to be corrected now. That is what we are doing. And this correction mechanism has reached its (?) right now.
[Like many references to the revelation, nothing of this sounds much like what I think the Urantia Papers say, but then again, I've said something similar myself.]

Now, let’s cut through the drivel: play-acting at being married with someone to whom you have not committed will delay that commitment, or finding the person you really want to commit to. Acting like someone’s wife, when that person has not wed you in front of his family and friends, will just make you feel like you’re in a perpetual audition – because you’re in a perpetual audition. Not to go all Ayn Rand, but you wouldn’t take that from an employer (it would be “hire me, enough already, or I’ll find another job”); why do you take that from a man?

Still classy, President Bush dances with a wounded warrior. He looks a little lead-footed, but she seems to be enjoying it. [Photo]

At the heart of this great argument lies the assumption on the part of the anti-religion camp that this is a battle between reason and obscurantism, between rationality on the one hand and knuckle-dragging ignorance and prejudice on the other. And of course, that anti-religion camp is on the side of reason, and thus of intelligence, science, progress and freedom; whereas religious believers would undo the Enlightenment and take us all back to the dark ages of credulity, superstition and the shackling of the mind.

462 453 #440 What is wrong with them, to say something so reprehensible to a wonderful person like Jane? It's beneath contempt. It's just so hard to believe anyone could be so vile.
Posted by: Hummingbird at April 07, 2012 01:04 AM (R5yLq)

It is a glimpse into the nature of evil.

Mostly, evil is boring. It tries to shock, but falls into predictable patterns of behavior. It depends on good to create space for it to work. It contributes nothing but hate and bile, but wants nothing more that to be the focus.

Posted by: cthulhu at April 07, 2012 01:09 AM (kaalw)

Billions of potentially habitable planets may exist within our galaxy, the Milky Way, raising new prospects that life could exist near Earth, a study has found.

Richard Clark Rodgers was born January 1, 1916 and died March 14, 2012. He is survived by Lillian, his wife of 70 years. He is also survived by sons Dick (Linda), Bozeman, MT, Stephen (Mary), Edinburg, VA, and Greg (Mikki), Tucson and by his daughter Mary (Jim), Tucson and many grandchildren and great grandchildren. Richard was the rector at St Luke's Episcopal Church in Bartlesville from 1947-1966 and was involved in the transition of Jane Phillips Hospital to Jane Phillips Episcopal Hospital. Richard and Lillian retired to Tucson in 1983 after his career as an Episcopal priest in Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. Memorial Service were held at St Alban's Episcopal Church, Tucson, AZ at 2pm on Saturday, March 17, 2012. [Father Rogers, thank you for answering my silly childhood questions about God in a way that told me, even if we can't know the whole truth, we can find answers. Thank you for being there that strange day when I reached out for help. Your smile continues to light my heart.]

[A horror story of an ending to a beautiful marriage. What their attacker deserves, only God can justly mete out. They deserve to be remembered and honored.] An 85-year-old woman was sexually assaulted and battered to death by a home invader who also shot her 90-year-old husband in the face with a BB gun. Nancy and Bob Strait, who had celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary in December, were discovered by their daughter at their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Both the pensioners were rushed to hospital where Mrs Strait, who was nearly blind, died from her injuries.

Modern technology allows prospective parents to learn the sex of a fetus, and many of them use that knowledge to exercise a preference for sons. Absent such intervention, about 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. But as Mara Hvistendahl reports in her 2011 book "Unnatural Selection," the number for boys per 100 girls has risen to 112 in India and 121 in China.

It was once assumed that the general preference for male offspring would subside as countries became richer and women became more educated. But in country after country, that has proved false. … "female feticide" is so common in Canada that he believes "doctors should be allowed to disclose this information only after about 30 weeks of pregnancy — in other words, when an unquestioned abortion is all but impossible…."

Selective abortion, however, does not target only girls. Recent screening advances now make it easier and safer to detect Down syndrome in the womb… A survey reported in the American Journal of Medical Genetics found that only 4 percent of parents with Down syndrome children regret having them — and nearly 99 percent of the people with the disorder said they are happy with their lives&hellip.

David Reimer was hailed by scientists as a triumph of nurture over nature. But as his suicide shows, this was a terrible mistake.

She's revered as a trail-blazing feminist and author Alice Walker touched the lives of a generation of women. A champion of women's rights, she has always argued that motherhood is a form of servitude. But one woman didn't buy in to Alice's beliefs — her daughter, Rebecca, 38. Here the writer describes what it was like to grow up as the daughter of a cultural icon, and why she feels so blessed to be the sort of woman 64-year-old Alice despises — a mother.

36 200 years spans approximately 6 generations...if you think about a family business, it usually runs through 3 generations of family members before it goes tango uniform or the family sells it off. Perhaps the distance of time from founding to dissolution isordained in some regard — based on what different generations value and reject.

Less than two weeks after finding out about the tumor, the McCartneys decided to go ahead with open fetal surgery, a procedure that had been successfully completed fewer than 20 times worldwide. It would be the first time the operation would be conducted at Texas Children's Hospital. But with Macie's heart getting weaker by the day and excess fluid building up around it, there wasn't much time to deliberate.

In this post, I will argue that Paul was in fact a widower at the time of his writing.

When Mary Coleman died in May 2009, two days after she fell to the floor at her sister's house, her sister and nephew decided there was nothing they could do about it and went out for pizza. … police found her mummified remains more than three months later …

An Illinois Circuit Court judge upheld the state's decision to drop adoption and foster care service contracts with Catholic Charities Thursday, ignoring the group's claims that their contracts were discontinued because of its religion-inspired policies.

…racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard. The new planet is far denser than any other known so far and consists largely of carbon. Because it is so dense, scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of this strange world will effectively be diamond.

MOUNT DORA, Fla. -- A man and woman were arrested early Monday after they were found living with three children, one of whom had second-degree burns, inside a garbage-filled car in the parking lot of a Mount Dora Walmart… 1987 Cadillac Coupe Deville… said they had been living in the car for about three days.

A man herding reindeer in Russia's Arctic found the perfectly-preserved, 40,000-year-old body of a baby woolly mammoth. The creature's carcass was sticking up out of the permafrost

Scientific evidence for popular dietary supplements, showing tangible health benefits when taken orally by an adult with a healthy diet

Pato Banton initially burst onto the international reggae scene in the same wave of British artists that included his friends and colleagues Ranking Roger and UB40. Over the years, Banton's music and lyrics have retained the lighter pop appeal of those performers, while incrementally adding depth and profundity. At this point in his career, Banton has become one of reggae music's most individual and powerful artists. ... Banton's motivation for making records clearly is not based on marketing strategies, however, as he has frequently worked on projects with a spiritual, rather than commercial, impetus. Banton has appeared on a series of religious albums titled "Words of Christ." Banton does not use his own lyrics on these works, but rather serves as a narrator, reading texts from the Urantia Book, also known as the Fifth Epochal Revelation, the central work of an esoteric Christian splinter group. "I've been very blessed to find the Urantia Book. After 21 years of studying it, I'm convinced that it is a revelation for the human race," Banton says. "It's a gift from the angels." Tenets of Rastafarianism also figure in Banton's lyrics, but he cherishes his role as a Urantian prophet. "It's become a tool not only that I give to people but also that I can use for my own edification," he says. Banton, who says he has the gift of revelation, explains that it becomes manifest in many ways. "In my travels, there have been times when I've seen miracles before my own eyes. I have to give thanks for those times," he says. "I don't talk much about them, because I don't want to freak people out or make people think that I'm anything special, but there have been times when God has used me to do certain things, and I just stand there in awe."

Italian officials have detained a German couple who abandoned three young children earlier this week. The couple claims they had run out of money and had no food for their children. They could still face charges, though.

A bone marrow transplant using stem cells from a donor with natural genetic resistance to the AIDS virus has left an HIV patient free of infection for nearly two years, German researchers.

Feminism is better termed femisogyny because it is an ideology which hates all things feminine in women

21 percent of white fathers, 44 percent of black fathers, and 35 percent of Hispanic fathers live apart from their children. Twenty-seven percent of absent fathers say they have not seen their children even once in the past year. ... 26-year longitudinal study which says that the strongest factor indicating whether children practiced high levels of empathic concern for others in their adult years was whether they had an involved father in their life.

Be near them, Lord Jesus, in the midst of this great horror. Gently touch their wounds and gather together the pieces of their shattered hearts, for they will need every fractured piece of it in the days, weeks and years to come.

When it comes to sexual relationships and cohabitation among consenting adults, Utah takes a permissive approach. If a guy wants to shack up with a lady, that's fine. If he wants to shack up with several, no problem. He can father children by different roommates, with no fear of the law. But if he marries one woman and represents three others as his "spiritual wives," like Kody Brown? Then he's committed a felony. Not because of the stuff that goes on behind closed doors. It's the public act of claiming to be part of a lifelong "plural marriage" that raises the specter of jail. … Brown went to court claiming that his constitutional rights have been violated in various ways. Though it may come as a surprise to hear, he's got a perfectly reasonable argument. … Brown isn't asking the state to officially accommodate his chosen form of matrimony. He's just asking to be let the hell alone. … Other people, after all, are exempt from such control. Turley says Brown and his women "would not be prosecuted if they claimed no religious obligation and merely had casual or purely sexual associations." He notes, "Monogamists are allowed an infinite number of sexual partners, and consequently have the right to bear children with multiple partners, so long as they do not claim to be committed to such partners in a union or family."

Lamb and Lynx Gaede, the dimpled tween rockers whose Nazi-themed pop band, Prussian Blue, sparked an exuberant media firestorm several years back have grown up — and had a change of heart. "I'm not a white nationalist anymore. My sister and I are pretty liberal now." "Personally, I love diversity," Lynx seconded. "I'm stoked that we have so many different cultures. I think it's amazing and it makes me proud of humanity every day that we have so many different places and people."

Stop worrying about Shariah. Christian fanatics are the ones using the government to restrict individual liberty. [Uh, yeah, flying planes into our buildings, massing troops on and infiltrating through our unsecured Southern border, beating gays and mutilating women and using cultural terrorism. Those darned Baptists!]

[She's not his daughter. He knows she's not his daughter. He has a record of sex with a minor and of domestic abuse. She has lived with her grandmother since her birth. Judge gave him custody.]

An Austrian atheist has won the right to be shown on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as "religious headgear". Niko Alm first applied for the licence three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons. Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.

A young man who has had a world-first double leg transplant in Spain cried with joy on seeing his new limbs and might walk in six or seven months, the head surgeon say. ... "I imagine he will be able to walk with crutches. I imagine that in the long term he will even be able to leave the crutches but that depends on how his rehabilitation goes," the doctor said. "If everything goes as we hope we could realistically think that in six or seven months he could be walking."

Many companies already offer domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples. Now that same-sex couples can marry in six states and the District of Columbia, companies must decide if same-sex couples should marry to receive those benefits. Some companies in New York, and elsewhere, have decided to no longer offer domestic partner benefits.

A treasure trove of gold and silver jewelry, coins and precious stones said to be worth billions of dollars has been found in a Hindu temple in southern India... estimated preliminary worth of over 500 billion rupees ($11.2 billion)… "We are yet to open one more secret chamber which has not been opened for nearly 140 years…."

The fastest way to make God laugh…

CHASE KYLA HUNTER has been WARNING US! And SHE, according to her Twitter Profile, is a "Spirit Led Cherokee writer, news blogger. Genetic Clairvoyant. Jesus lover Bible Urantia. Nature mama. True blue conservative. Sun surf wine women & song :-)" YOU probably don't even know what "Urantia" MEANS! NEITHER DID I! Until I LOOKED! I LOOKED and I SAW!!! [Sarcasm much?]

A Chinese migrant seeking refugee status in Canada on the grounds that he faced persecution back home for his Christian beliefs was repeatedly asked by the Immigration and Refugee Board last year to describe what Jesus was "like as a person."

The edge of our solar system is filled with a turbulent sea of magnetic bubbles, … key to our understanding of how fast-moving particles known as cosmic rays are spawned, and how they reach near-Earth space. … NASA hasn't revealed many details …

The Gliese 581 system has already yielded evidence of a number of exoplanets. This one, though, is in the 'Goldilocks zone' where the temperature could be bearable, liquid water could exist on the surface and an atmosphere be sustained…. the most Earth-like exoplanet yet discovered….

Health ministers from around the world agreed Tuesday to put off setting a deadline to destroy the last known stockpiles of the smallpox virus for three more years, rejecting a U.S. plan that had called for a five-year delay.

Standardized Reference Committee Text Alterations to First Printing Function of the Standardized Reference Committee: Excerpt from the Standardized Reference Text Committee Draft Report, December 2008 Since the first edition of The Urantia Book was published in 1955, there have been a number of changes made over the years.

A 22-year-old Australian university student has solved a problem which has puzzled astrophysicists for decades, discovering part of the so-called "missing mass" of the universe during her summer break. Undergraduate Amelia Fraser-McKelvie made the breakthrough during a holiday internship with a team at Monash University's School of Physics, locating the mystery material within vast structures called "filaments of galaxies".

School officials in Neptune Township, N.J., have bowed to the demands of the ACLU and will cover decades-old religious signs posted in the historic Great Auditorium to allow a 70-year tradition of high school graduations to continue. Instead of the sign, "Holiness to the Lord," a banner will be posted over it saying, "Neptune Township School District … A Community of Learners." In addition, a banner with the words "So Be Ye Holy" will be covered with another banner saying, "Neptune High School: A School of Excellence and No Excuses."

last year the rabbi of the synagogue, David Twersky, announced no one should pray outside the main synagogue. That day, Rottenberg's car windows were broken, then his house windows, then 100 people chanted outside his home "Aron Rottenberg, leave the neighborhood," then the attempted firebombing. Police acknowledged that these incidents occurred but have made no arrests in any of them

John, the Revelator, certainly didn't diminish our 'fear of God.' His revelations, along with others revered as 'holy men of God' has fueled the fires of fear and suspicion. According to the Urantia Papers, those events are grossly distorted and are exaggerated narratives—advocating there just is no such a 'wrathful and angry God' who, out of anger, destroys his children, but a kind and loving Father who never-endingly seeks to bring peace and harmony among his children

A five-year survey of 200,000 galaxies, stretching back seven billion years in cosmic time, has led to one of the best independent confirmations that dark energy is driving our universe apart at accelerating speeds.

A man left paralyzed after a car accident was able to stand and take steps after electrical stimulation of his spinal cord

Japanese astronomers claim to have found free-floating "planets" which do not seem to orbit a star. Writing in Nature, they say they have found 10 Jupiter-sized objects which they could not connect to any solar system. They also believe such objects could be as common as stars are throughout the Milky Way.

A group of researchers agrees that Earth is facing a mass extinction event, but they are daring to overturn dogma on how fast species are disappearing. The researchers say they have discovered why current estimates are overblown, and they recommend a different way to calculate the rates.

The post, written by Assistant Surgeon General Ali Khan, instructs readers how to prepare for "flesh-eating zombies"

British scientist Stephen Hawking has branded heaven a "fairy story" for people afraid of the dark [Scientist flounders in theological ignorance, people for some reason pay attention to the odd little man far out of his league]

Timothy Ray Brown tested positive for HIV back in 1995, but has now entered scientific journals as the first man in world history to have that HIV virus completely eliminated from his body in what doctors call a "functional cure." Brown was living in Berlin, Germany back in 2007, dealing with HIV and leukemia, when scientists there gave him a bone marrow stem cell transplant that had astounding results. "I quit taking my HIV medication the day that I got the transplant and haven't had to take any since," said Brown, who has been dubbed "The Berlin Patient" by the medical community.