Ryan Bell — the former Seventh-day Adventist pastor who spent 2014 living as an atheist — is ready for his big reveal. He no longer believes there is God. Wait, what!? read on...

After chronicling the last 12 months on his blog Year Without God, Bell — who now works as director of community engagement at People Assisting the Homeless in Southern California — announced in an interview with NPR that he no longer believes in God.

Bell talked with Religion News Service about his decision and what it will mean to him and his loved ones. Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: This weekend you told NPR: “I don’t think that God exists.” Can you elaborate?

A: I think the best way I can explain the conclusion I’ve come to — and conclusion is too strong a word for the provisional place I now stand and work from — is that the intellectual and emotional energy it takes to figure out how God fits into everything is far greater than dealing with reality as it presents itself to us.

That probably sounds very nonrational, and I want people to know that I have read several dozen books and understand a good many of the arguments. I’d just say that the existence of God seems like an extra layer of complexity that isn’t necessary. The world makes more sense to me as it is, without postulating a divine being who is somehow in charge of things.

Q: You also said that you’re “still the same person deep down that I was before.” What was valuable about the past year? Would you do it again?

A: I would definitely do it again! And I’ll go a step further: I think others should do it, too. Anytime you can step outside your comfort zone, you will learn important things about yourself and the world. I’ve learned that atheists are not the miserable nihilists that many Christians think they are.

I’ve also had a few remarkable moments of irony. Once I was in a gathering of atheists and the speaker referred to “seeing the light” and “finding freedom at last.” It struck me then that most people really are searching for the same thing.

Q: Do you still plan to write about, speak and work in the atheist community?

A: I do, in some capacity. I don’t think I’ll be joining a crusade to destroy all religion anytime soon, though some days I’m tempted. I just know too many good people of faith to see religion as any kind of universal evil. But I do think that there is much work to be done with and among atheists.

I have a special interest in post-theists — people who are in the in-between phase that I’ve been inhabiting for the past year. There are thousands and thousands of people who are betwixt and between, and there is next to nothing for them in the world of religion. I’d like to be a part of that conversation.

Q: After a year, what do you think about the priorities and actions of the atheist movement in the U.S.?

A: On the whole, I love the no-holds-barred search for truth. I love the honesty and clarity of speech that is so often lacking in religious circles, where everything is couched in metaphor and innuendo.

On the other hand, I recoil from a one-track-minded scientism that I sometimes encounter — as though science has all the answers for every question that a person has ever asked. There is also a kind of smug condescension that is hard for me. I still have scores of Christian friends who are not dumb. Their faith is not like believing in Santa Claus. The more the atheist movement behaves like the traveling evangelists I encountered as a conservative Christian, the more I cringe — and for the same reasons.

Q: Your significant other is a Christian. How are you navigating that?

A: It’s challenging sometimes, but she is an open-minded, thoughtful person. I’d call her a Christian Humanist, or a Humanist in the way of Jesus, if that makes any sense. I still share a love for the stories of the radical Jesus preferring the poor and downtrodden, so we’re not as different as it may seem on the surface. Besides, our relationship is about more than debates about God’s existence.

Q: What would you like to say to people who question your motives or sincerity?

A: There’s not much I can say. I don’t feel like I need to defend myself. I’ve only lost money and earning potential this year, but I wouldn’t change a thing. I guess I can’t prove I’m not being dishonest any more than I can prove that God doesn’t exist. People will just have to evaluate the evidence and decide for themselves.

Q: You’ve lived as a Christian and an atheist. What’s one thing you wish more Christians knew about atheists? One thing you wish more atheists knew about Christians?

A: I wish more Christians knew that atheists are not nihilists who have no meaning to their lives or people with no moral compass. They’re not stubbornly rejecting God. All the atheists I have met have seriously hit a brick wall while trying to know God.

I wish more atheists knew that Christians care very deeply about knowledge and truth. They are not stupid. In every group there is a percentage that are ignorant — but if you take a wider view, Christian intellectuals have contributed a great deal to the body of human knowledge through history.

Credit: Huffington Post

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1 YEAR LATER - I write this with great sadness over the unimaginable and shocking loss of a close friend to death. He is too young. He loved life. He is the best guy you would want around you. He can lay down his life for you, which he did under some strange circumstances.

EBINABO TARIYEMIENYO MEINDINYO inside and out, was a wonderful friend to me, supporting me for over 2 years with his gentle and caring nature. One of his beliefs in life was the importance of being authentic, original and carefree with people, saying what needs to be said because it’s good for the relationship and for the soul.

Also, I always admired how Ebi never judged or forced his opinions on anyone, but offered valuable and truthful advice that I will surely miss. He was loving and real. He was a wonderful and generous friend to all his friends.



Ebi’s life was taken away from us too soon and it is hard to understand why tragic things like this happen to such good people. However, this is a question without an answer and we should not dwell on the loss of our dear friend, son and brother. Today let’s celebrate his life and remember all of the remarkable things Ebi accomplished and how wonderful his life was.

Ebi was incredibly responsible, intelligent and caring. I knew that I could trust him with anything and I respected him more than words can say. I wonder what you were thinking as your life ended. Did you wonder if your life mattered? did you wonder if people would remember you? Oh God, this is so sad.

It is incredibly sad that Ebi’s life ended so soon and I cannot put into words how much I will miss him. Ebi was a positive person and would not want us to be sad today. If he were here he would tell us to cheer up, smile and remember all of the great memories we all shared. Even though Ebi may be gone, his memory will live on in all of us forever.

COMRADE EBINABO TARIYEMIENYO MEINDINYO, I appreciate your friendship and will never forget you.

Your brother and friend,
K.D - Nigeria

_____________________
This is  Sponsored Post.

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A strong correlation exists between religiosity and personal happiness, according to a new study by the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture.

The study found that people who attend religious services on a weekly basis are nearly twice as likely to describe themselves as “very happy” (45%) than people who never attend (28%). Conversely, those who never worship are twice as likely to say they are “very unhappy” (4%) as those who attend services weekly (2%).

Building on prior research, this broad survey of American adults comprised a representative sample of 15,738 Americans between the ages of 18 and 60.

The study indicated that not only religious service attendance, but self-reported “religiosity” and religious “affiliation” are also linked with happiness levels. Yet of the three indicators, service attendance has the highest correlation to increased happiness. The study showed that higher levels of church attendance “predict higher life satisfaction,” even after accounting for how important religious faith is in people’s lives.

The correlation between religiosity and happiness is clear, but explanations of the connection and possible causal relationship are less clear. One theory suggests that the social support that religious communities can provide may be a key factor contributing to increased happiness, since “religious Americans are more apt to be involved in their communities.” Yet even here, the study found “that those who attend religious services often are happier than their peers with similar levels of involvement in the community.”

These statistics tying happiness to religiosity have held true over time. A similar survey conducted ten years ago generated similar results, leading to the same conclusions. When the General Social Survey asked a sample of Americans in 2004, “Would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” religious people were more than twice as likely as the non-religious to say they were “very happy” (43%-21%). The secular people, or those who never attend worship services, were overwhelmingly more likely to say they were not too happy (21%-8%).

One could almost predict that many of those celebrating Christmas will be merry, those observing Hanukkah will be happy, but those only recognizing the “holidays” will have a little less cause for rejoicing.

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Nigeria is a secular state, and its citizens are free to hold on any religious belief, President Muhammadu Buhari has declared. The president made the declaration last weekend in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, at the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria. Mr. Buhari, represented by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, while making the declaration on Sunday, acknowledged the fact that the Catholic Bishops Conferences were crucial, and commended the Catholic Church for its humanitarian works in the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in the North Eastern part of the country.

The President said "There shall be no state religion, and all Nigerians are guaranteed freedom of worship.” He added that the menace posed by Boko Haram will soon be over, as the Federal Government is winning the war.

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A technology company says it's working on a project which would allow a human's consciousness to be transferred to an artificial body after their death.

In what sounds like a plot from a science fiction blockbuster, tech company Humai are working on human resurrection through artificial intelligence.

They're hopeful that the technology - bionics, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence - will be ready in just three decades.

Creating an imprint of people to remain after they go , Humai is using artificial intelligence and nanotechnology to store data of conversational styles, behavioral patterns, thought processes and information about how bodies function.

This data will be coded into multiple sensor technologies, which will be built into an artificial body with the brain of a deceased human.

The science as they explain it means using cloning technology, they will be able to restore the brain as it matures.

Their website explains: "Humai is an AI company with a mission to reinvent the afterlife. We want to bring you back to life after you die."

.....

Will death always be inevitable? We don't think so. HumaiTech.com
Posted by Humai on Sunday, November 15, 2015

"The artificial body functions will be controlled with your thoughts by measuring brain waves.

"As the brain ages we'll use nanotechnology to repair and improve cells," he adds, saying that cloning technology is going to help, and: "We believe we can resurrect the first human within 30 years."

Bocanegra, who says he doesn't believe that the "body was evolved with the best possible functions" says it's all about offering a choice.

"I don't think of it as fighting death. I think of it as making death optional.

"I personally can't imagine why anyone would want to die but I respect their wishes."

We believe in life after death. HumaiTech.com
Posted by Humai on Saturday, October 31, 2015

The company has five staff members, including two researchers, an AI expert and an ambassador.

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Residents of South Carolina’s Lowcountry witnessed an unusual natural light show on Sunday August 16th. A “fire rainbow” appeared in the sky and drew comparisons to “a multi-colored angel” for about an hour before disappearing, The media in Charleston reported.

Rare "fire rainbow" goes viral after several sightings in S.C. http://t.co/g99uOh05nS pic.twitter.com/bAqs5jmCVv

— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 20, 2015

Images of the iridescent clouds went viral, but scientists say “fire rainbow” is a misnomer: the phenomenon is not a true rainbow, and it has nothing to do with fire – instead of rain or flame, the phenomenon is caused by ice.

Seeing lots of pics of the #IsleOfPalms #FireRainbow so thought I'd share mine! pic.twitter.com/0MDoJ5ogry

— Carrie (@carrie_brighton) August 20, 2015

The term “fire rainbow” was apparently coined by a journalist in Spokane, Wash. in 2006. Circumhorizontal arcs – the real, if less catchy, name – can many times be seen during the spring and summer months in middle-latitude locations, the Weather Channel reported, saying that the spectacle looks  “as if wispy cirrus clouds take on a rainbow palette.”

Perhaps the most memorable time a “rainbow” – real or false – went viral was in 2010, when a YouTube video of a “double rainbow” spotted near Yosemite National Park was posted online.

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58-year-old Bhanwarlal Doshi, who was profiled by Forbes and said to be worth over $600m, runs a plastic company in Delhi, India. But Doshi would get converted into the famous Jain monk’s life, prompting him to give up his $600m empire.

He got converted last Sunday and became one of the disciples of Jain Acharya, Shri Gunratna Surishwarji Maharaj.

To kick-off his monk life, a lavish three-day send-off party was thrown for him, where 1,500 people served food to guests. After the ceremony, he is expected to live in abject poverty with no maids or money or any physical possession.

Times of India reports that, “The venue [of the send-off] was built in the form of a ship. 500 hotel rooms were booked to accommodate guests. An estimated 150,000 people participated in the event.”
Reports said he had always wanted to become a monk after he listened to Jain’s lectures in 1981, but it took him time to convince his family. .

Credit: Times of India

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Onlookers at a train station in northern India watched in awe as a monkey came to the rescue of an injured friend - resuscitating another monkey that had been electrocuted and knocked unconscious.

The injured monkey had fallen between the tracks, apparently after touching high-tension wires at the train station in the north Indian city of Kanpur.

His companion came to the rescue and was captured on camera lifting the friend's motionless body, shaking it, dipping it into a mud puddle and biting its head and skin - working until the hurt monkey regained consciousness.

The first monkey, completely covered in mud, opened its eyes and began moving again.

Crowds of travelers watched the Sunday scene in amazement, filming and snapping pictures.

Watch video below:

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Credit: The Guardian

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After collapsing near the finish line of the Austin Marathon and Half Marathon on Sunday, 29-year-old Hyvon Ngetich of Kenya was offered a wheelchair and assistance, both of which she refused.

Determined, Ngetich then crawled the remaining 50-meters to the to end of the race while the crowd cheered her on, finishing third in the elite women's division in 3 hours and 4 minutes. According to Keye-TV, Ngetich led the elite women to the 23 mile mark, before she was overtaken.

The race director, John Conley, was so impressed with Ngetich's determination that he doubled her prize from $250 to the second-place prize of $500.

“You ran the bravest race and crawled the bravest crawl I have ever seen in my life," Conley told Ngetich. "You have earned much honor, and I am going to adjust your prize money, so you get the same prize money you would have gotten if you were second.”

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A Nigerian student achieved the highest grades at a university in Japan for 50 years and solved a maths equation in his first semester at his university that was unsolvable 30 years ago.

Ufot Ekong, who studied at Tokai University in Tokyo, achieved a first class degree in Electrical Engineering and scored the best marks at the university since 1965, the Flotilla Magazine reported.

He began his success early at the university, solving a 30-year-old maths equation in his first semester.

Throughout his university career Mr Ekong won six awards for academic excellence.

The mathematician worked two jobs alongside his studies to pay his way as a student.

Mr Ekong also speaks English, French, Japanese and Yoruba and won a Japanese language award for foreigners. He is currently working for Nissan and already has two patents for electronic car design to his name.

Tokai University is a prestigious private university based in the Japanese capital, which was founded in 1924. It is focused on the sciences and technology and roughly 60 per cent of all students are enrolled in these schools.

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From child soldier and refugee to defence lawyer, Deng Thiak Adut’s story is truly inspiring and a classic case of rising up against all odds.

Born in Sudan, Adut was taken away from his mother at six, marched for 33 days and forced to fight with rebels in Ethiopia. At 12 years-old, Adut was shot in the back. He spent years fighting but eventually managed to escape to Kenya. With the help of the UN he was smuggled out of Sudan together with his brother and in 1998 arrived in Australia as an illiterate 15-year-old refugee.

Adut taught himself to read and in 2005 he enrolled for a Bachelors of Law at the Western Sydney University and graduated with a law degree. Adut now works as a lawyer in Sydney, determined to help other refugees with legal advice and support.

In a world inundated with negative stories about refugees and immigrants, Adut’s story is indeed extraordinary and a video on Adut’s journey by Western Sydney University highlights this remarkable story.

The video has been well received on social media for its portrayal of Adut’s story and its timely message about refugees and immigrants.

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Tess Christian’s female friends look the picture of merriment when they get together for their frequent Friday nights out in a local restaurant. Champagne flows, the conversation gets steadily more raucous and peals of laughter hang over their table. But there’s always an odd one out in the happy scene: Tess, 50, who sits stony-faced while her friends giggle around her. Not even a flicker of a smile, let alone a laugh, escapes her lips.

Tess isn’t devoid of humour, but for nearly 40 years she has made a conscious decision not to laugh or smile — even at the birth of her daughter. This is because Tess says that maintaining a perennial poker face is a crucial way to keeping her — admittedly, impressive — youthful looks.

‘I don’t have wrinkles because I have trained myself to control my facial muscles,’ says Tess, ‘Everyone asks if I’ve had Botox, but I haven’t, and I know that it’s thanks to the fact I haven’t laughed or smiled since I was a teenager. My dedication has paid off, I don’t have a single line on my face. ‘Yes, I am vain and want to remain youthful. My strategy is more natural than Botox and more effective than any expensive beauty cream or facial.’

As unorthodox as Tess’s regime may sound, she is not alone in her drive to suppress facial movements, such as laughing or frowning, in a bid to stop wrinkles forming. Even celebrities such as U.S. TV star Kim Kardashian, 34, have admitted trying not to smile or laugh ‘because it causes wrinkles’.

[Source]

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While growing up during the Great Depression, Barbara Beskind was an inventor by necessity who hoped to become one professionally.

Eight decades later, the 91-year-old has finally realized her dream at a top design firm in Silicon Valley.

"As a 10-year-old I wanted to be an inventor,'' Beskind told Jenna Bush Hager on TODAY Friday. "I've arrived. But it took me about 80 years."

Beskind was 10 years old during the Great Depression, when ingenuity was a life requirement.

"I wanted to make a hobby horse, and I made it out of old tires,'' she said. "I learned a lot about gravity because I fell off so many times."

Her initial dreams of becoming an inventor were dashed when her high school guidance counselor told her that engineering schools don't accept females. Instead, she served in the U.S. Army and as an occupational therapist while also writing books and learning to paint. Two years ago, she read about the Silicon Valley design firm IDEO and decided to apply for a job at the firm, which is famous for designing the first mouse for Apple and dozens of other well-known devices.

"It took me about two months to write my resume, paring it down from nine pages,'' Beskind said. "Then I wrote the letter and sent it by snail mail."

In an industry often criticized for ageism, Beskind got the job.

"Our culture is telling us, aging equals decline,'' IDEO associate partner Gretchen Addi told TODAY. "And Barbara is very solidly standing there and saying, you know, 'I'm gonna call you on that.'''

Beskind now takes public transportation and walks a few blocks to IDEO's office in Palo Alto, California, every Thursday, where she is a beloved member of the staff. There's even a company-wide email that gets sent to alert her co-workers, many of whom are six or seven decades younger than her, to when she arrives.

"Everybody gives a hug,'' she said. "IDEO is really my second family, and they're very supportive. On Thursdays, I feel 30 years younger."

Beskind sits at a couch rather than a desk, and her focus is on projects related to aging, which she often tests out in her retirement home. She still walks several miles a day with the help of ski poles that she bought from Costco and modified, and she has adapted a magnifying device to help her read the paper because of poor eyesight due to macular degeneration. She also has designed what she has dubbed a "trekker,'' a modified version of a walker, which is being developed into a prototype by IDEO.

"They can't put themselves in the shoes of the elderly,'' Beskind said about younger designers. "People who design for the elderly think they need jeweled pill boxes or pink canes. We need functional equipment."

Beskind may be in her golden years, but she is showing that she still brings plenty to the (design) table.

"I feel that elderly people bring experience that you can't teach,'' she said.

Beskind also had a few words of wisdom on several other topics:

Get rid of your devices:  "I'm one of the wealthiest people in the world. I'm as wealthy as Warren Buffett, because I measure my wealth by having uninterrupted time. I have no cell phone except one to use for emergency. I have no laptop. I have no smartphone, no iPod, because I can't see them. I have uninterrupted time to think."

Expect the unexpected: "I think the beauty of being 91 is that you can look back and see how the little pieces fit into the big pieces of life, and life is a complete puzzle. Only when you get to be this age can you see it, and that's the joy and the excitement of it."

Don't let age get in your way: "Age is not a barrier to performance. Live life as an adventure, and expect change and endorse it, embrace it. Because as you age, every day you will be making changes. You will be adapting to changes in the way you have to do things whether they're physical or they're visual.

Don't let "old" become your identity: "Everybody has untapped resources. You just have to find them. They may be in music, they may be in childcare, they may be in volunteering at the hospital or at the library. I think with the aging, you so often lose your identity, and I think this is what IDEO gives to me, is the opportunity to explore what my identity is."

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FUNDA GUMUSH - "It wasn’t My Fault Officer, it was My Selfie!" [OPINION]
But to me the most striking part of a survey carried out at a private university, is that 14% of respondents confessed to taking a selfie or a video whilst driving. A selfie? Seriously??...READ MORE Learn more »

Some ‘reports’ we occasionally come across leave us shaking our heads in doubt.

According to the Daily Sun, the South African government wants to test a newborn calf to see whether it is half-human.

This is after the calf, with a “strange head” and both male and female organs was born to a cow belonging to a Kwazulu-Natal province family.

“At about 12pm I saw cow legs coming out of Nyamazane, but I realised she was in pain and it was taking longer than normal for the birth process to finish,” Sebenzile Mlangeni, the head of the family, said, “after a while I called my kids to come help. After pulling the dead calf out we got the shock of our lives when we saw that the head looked like a human’s.

“Some residents have said that the cow may have been sexually abused in the veld where she grazes,” he said, “We do not know whether to bury it like a human baby or maybe send it to doctors to assess it,” said Sebenzile.

News of the strange birth spread fast. The SunTeam saw people arriving at the homestead in taxis on Monday.

The news shocked Ukhahlamba mayor Thulani Sibeko, who sent a ward councillor and induna to find out how true the rumour was.

“When the family sent me the picture I thought it was photoshopped,” Sibeko said.

Yes the animal looks strange but WTF! That does NOT look like a human being!

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Fluffy clouds waft across a blue sky as you log in and while you chat with friends, Gospel music rings out: welcome to Facegloria, the social network for Brazilian Evangelicals.

The new website's home page bears a passing resemblance to the global phenomenon Facebook.
But Facegloria, which attracted 100,000 users in its first month, was set up to serve those who find billionaire entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg's version sinful.

There's no "liking" on Facegloria. Here, you click "Amen."

"On Facebook you see a lot of violence and pornography. That's why we thought of creating a network where we could talk about God, love and to spread His word," one of the founders, web designer Atilla Barros, said.

It all started three years ago when Mr Barros and three other devout Christian colleagues working at the mayor's office in Ferraz de Vasconcelos, near Brazil's financial capital Sao Paulo, decided there was a market for a squeaky-clean version of Facebook.

Given that 42 million of Brazil's 202 million people are estimated to be Evangelicals – and the fervent Protestant movement continues to make inroads into traditionally dominant Catholicism – they might be right.

With help from the Ferraz de Vasconcelos mayor's own pocket, they set up a business with about $16,000 in start-up money and Facegloria was born.

Anyone can sign up to Facegloria.com, but if they do, they better mind how they behave.

Swearing is banned – there is a list of about 600 forbidden words – as is any violent or erotic content, or photo or video depictions of homosexual activity.

"We want to be morally and technically better than Facebook. We want all Brazilian Evangelicals to shift to Facegloria," said Mr Barros.

Behind the scenes, more than 20 volunteers patrol online to weed out bad language and to decide whether or not to allow potentially risqué selfies and bikini shots. Even pictures showing tobacco and alcohol get scrutinised for possible removal.

But the morality police don't have a hard job.

"Our public doesn't publish these kinds of photos," said one of the volunteers, Daiane Santos, 26, who spends six hours a day working for Facegloria, in addition to his job at the town's commerce department.

Brazil has the world's biggest Roman Catholic population.

However Evangelicals, who numbered just six per cent of the population in 1980, are now 22 per cent, while the Catholic total has dropped from 90 per cent to 63 per cent.

At that rate, Evangelicals will become the majority by 2040 and Facegloria hopes to be riding the wave.

"Evangelicals have spread because of the intense urbanisation over the last 50 years," said Edin Abumanssur, an expert on religion at Sao Paulo's Catholic University.

"The Pentecostal message which is preached in the outskirts of cities and the favelas puts a lot of emphasis on the individual as being responsible for his behaviour if he wants help from God too.
"This kind of faith works well in cities."

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Pope Francis says it is acceptable for parents to smack their children to punish bad behaviour. The Pontiff believes it is fine for parents to smack their children as punishment for bad behaviour.

He made the remarks, which were condemned by campaigners for child protection, in front of thousands of people at his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square during a homily about the responsibilities of fatherhood.

The Pope recalled a conversation he had had with a father, who told him that on occasion he hits his children if they have been naughty.

The Pope, smiling and miming the action of slapping a child on the bottom, said: “One time, I heard a father say, 'At times I have to hit my children a bit, but never in the face so as not to humiliate them.’

“That’s great. He had a sense of dignity. He should punish, do the right thing, and then move on,” he told around 7,000 people gathered in the Pope Paul VI Hall on Wednesday.

“It is disappointing that anyone with that sort of influence would make such a comment,” said Peter Newell, the coordinator of the Global Alliance to End Corporal Punishment of Children.

Peter Saunders, the founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, told The Telegraph: “I think that is a very misguided thing to have said and I’m surprised he said it, although he does come up with some howlers sometimes.”

Mr Saunders, who was abused by two Catholic priests as a child in London, was appointed by the Pope to a Vatican commission on protecting children from abusive priests and will take part in its first full meeting on Friday in Rome.

“It is a most unhelpful remark to have made and I will tell him that,” said Mr Saunders, who expects to meet the Pope this weekend.

But the remarks were defended by Father Antonio Mazzi, a priest well-known in Italy for his television appearances.

“This Pope is always astounding us because he uses the same language we use. Naturally there will be psychologists who protest, but they make me laugh,” he said.

Last month, during a visit to Sri Lanka and the Philippines, the Pope said that if someone insulted his mother, they could expect “a punch” in the face.

He made the comments in relation to the terrorist attack on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, suggesting that someone who insults another person’s religion should not be surprised by a violent reaction.

Meanwhile it was announced that the 78-year-old Argentinian pontiff will address the US Congress on Sept 24, becoming the first Pope ever to do so.

“That day His Holiness will be the first Pope in our history to address a joint session of Congress,” John Boehner, the House Speaker, said.

Credit: The Telegraph UK

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At the press of a button, the gurney holding Auriel Peterson slides slowly into the pale blue glow of a magnetic resonance imaging machine. Soon, all that's visible are the shins of her black track pants and the chartreuse-and-white soles of her running shoes, angled like the fins of a torpedo.

Behind a window in an adjacent room, a splayed-out cauliflower pattern appears on a computer screen in black and white. It's Peterson's brain. And it's probably the last thing about this exercise that will be so simply shaded.

From Peterson's perspective, the next hour will be spent in service, like the day she packed donated eyeglasses to send to Zimbabwe. But the ardent Mormon also knows she could be adding to a centuries-old debate about God and science.

So she says a silent prayer: "I hope they get what they need."

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Other animals have hierarchies, organized behaviors, even a semblance of norms. Only humans have religion and science. And the two have seldom been on civil terms.

Jeff Anderson and Julie Korenberg, neuroscientists at the University of Utah, want to change that. They're among a growing number of scientists aiming their field's most sophisticated machinery at religious cognition.

"It amazes me how one of the most profound influences on human behavior is virtually completely unstudied," Anderson said. "We think about how much this drives people's behavior, and yet we don't know the first thing about where in the brain that's even registered."

The researchers want to see more than religion's registry on the brain. They want to know whether it differs across sects, or by intensity of belief. They want to see what genes it activates, what hormones it releases, and how it relates to social behaviors. Can the same basic circuitry produce Mother Teresa and the Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta? If so, how?

To approach even speculative answers to such questions, the researchers have to capture what goes on in the brain of a believer during a religious moment.

Right now, that depends on whether a maw of helium-cooled superconducting magnets can become Auriel Peterson's personal church.

The 26-year-old community college student lies still, clears her mind. The machine whirs and clicks, taking rapid-fire snapshots of the flux of blood through billions of neurons.

"I want you to spend the next six or seven minutes in quiet prayer," Anderson says into a microphone.

Anderson's team has rigged a video screen above Peterson's face, and placed a set of switches at her fingertips so she can convey how intense her religious feelings are when she sees quotes from Scripture or the Book of Mormon or images of religious figures.

She is the fifth subject to be scanned, and the research team hopes to record 15 others before sorting through the data for something of significance to science.

And, maybe, to religion: Peterson wants to see how the spirit manifests on her brain too.

"Within a week of announcing that we were going to do this project, we had over a hundred volunteers," Anderson said.

"I think some people worry that we're biologizing the religious response ... that that will demystify it or make it somehow less important," said Anderson, who was raised Mormon but left the church a decade ago.

There are plenty who would relish any data that support the idea that God is all in the mind. But Korenberg and Anderson aren't looking for how people come to believe in a supernatural being. They want to know what happens once they do believe.

"I think we're trying to do something much more simple, and that is look at private religious practice," said Korenberg, who is Jewish, was raised in a Catholic neighborhood in Natick, Mass., and sings in a Christian chorale. "I think that what we're expecting to find here is that Mormons aren't really going to be that different from Jews or Muslims."

Until now, Korenberg and Anderson have done what medical researchers do -- studied abnormalities. She has spent 15 years investigating the neurochemical and genetic roots of Williams syndrome, an obscure brain abnormality somewhat like the inverse of autism; it causes people to become hypersocial but befuddled by simple objects. They have extreme emotional reactions to music, akin to religious ecstasy.

Anderson, for his part, scanned the brains of people with autism, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis. But he thought a lot about religion's hold on the mind, and when he had the chance to scan Zen Buddhist monks a few years ago, he jumped. And he realized he had been overlooking a ready-made sample right in front of him: Mormons.

"They have thousands of hours of practice doing exactly the one thing that we're interested in, which is identifying when they are feeling spiritual influences," Anderson said. "And there also is a really generous tradition of participation in science and contribution, voluntarism, that makes for a really nice study design and a focused group."

Other scientists who started from similar premises have strayed into metaphysics. Neuroscientist Andrew Newberg began by scanning the brains of Franciscan nuns and Tibetan Buddhists and wound up founding "neurotheology," which fuses science with mysticism. Newberg has co-written a series of bestselling books on the topic, including "Why God Won't Go Away."

"There's still value in doing those studies, even if the study doesn't answer the big question -- does God exist," said Newberg, now the research director of the Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University and Hospital in Philadelphia. "We still learn about the brain; we still learn about the nature of spiritual experiences and practices. And those have practical implications."

Neuroscientist Mario Beauregard of the University of Arizona is writing a book criticizing the scientific belief that there eventually will be a material explanation for everything. His work helped disprove earlier studies that purported to find a "God spot" in the brain.

"There really is no such thing," said Michael Inzlicht, a psychologist at the University of Toronto who also has studied religion's effect on the brain. "Thinking of God could maybe activate certain spots of the brain, but they weren't evolved for that purpose. They have evolved for some other reason and have been co-opted for religious cognition."

Most neuroscientists have long since abandoned any search for a "God spot," and settled on delving deeper into networks involving attention, salience, self-reflection, emotion and other functions.

Anderson and Korenberg are curious about chemicals produced or released by brain activity. Oxytocin, a hormone produced in the hypothalamus, has been associated with intimacy, fidelity and bonding, but also with social bias.

::

Peterson has been in the scanner for more than an hour when they slide the gurney out. She stirs, and asks for tissues. Tears streak her face.

Two assistants draw blood to test for levels of oxytocin and other chemicals and rush down the hall to put it in a centrifuge, then pack the samples on dry ice before such chemicals degrade. Then they lead Peterson to a meeting room for debriefing.

With pen and paper, she charts her emotional responses to each of the prompts. Then she checks off descriptions that fit her feelings, from a lexicon familiar to any Mormon -- promptings, warnings, burning in the bosom, alignment of heart and mind, pure intelligence.

"I don't have to pick one, right?" she says. "Good. There were so many."

Although she describes herself as "young in spirituality," Peterson, a third-generation Christian, said she had ample practice at priming her mind for a spiritual state. The MRI machine wasn't much of an obstacle.

"I just had to tune out the noise," she says. "I just tried to remember people and experiences."

Some religious passages reminded her of people she had met on her mission, of elders, or of her father, an attorney in Fresno who emailed the ad for the Utah project and suggested she try it. Like him, Peterson was skeptical that science would show them much they did not already know about their spiritual life. But it was worth a try.

Peterson has trouble explaining what a religious moment is like. "It's one of those things you have to experience," she tells them. "It's like witnessing a baby being born. Until you see it, you really don't get it."

Then she and the scientists exchange thank-yous. They walk out into the twilight, alone again with their own questions.

Credit: Sci-Tech Today

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