We felt that George Lemaître, who featured on the Google Doodle for his 124th birthday, really demanded our attention this week.  Lemaître was a Roman Catholic priest, but also the scientist who came up with the Big Bang theory, and the idea that the universe is...

Proposals for educational reform are often controversial, but a suggestion by the Australian Medical Association in Queensland that death should be incorporated into the school curriculum has made international headlines.   There has long been a growing awareness that...

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose,By any other name would smell as sweet.Given that romantic partnerships are the topic of this blog, a quotation from Romeo and Juliette is not out of keeping with the theme.  However, the question posed by one of the...

The Trinity Western case has been closely followed by many with an interest in religion, equality or human rights throughout the world.  In a nutshell, Trinity Western, a private, Christian university in Canada decided that it wanted to open a law school.  In this...

The forthcoming film ‘Boy Erased’ has already attracted a significant degree of attention.  Based on the memoir of Garrard Conley, it portrays his experiences as the son of a Baptist Minister in a small US town, pressured into attending a residential gay conversion...

For those who don’t feel like taking a thriller or romance to the beach this summer, a couple of interesting books have just hit the shelves: ‘Dangerous Illusions: How Religion Deprive Us of Happiness’ by Vitaly Malkin, and a new edition of ‘Is Religion Dangerous?’ by...

The US Supreme Court has just ruled in favour of the Colorado baker who refused to produce a wedding cake for two men. There were many technical aspects to the case, which will keep lawyers (academic and otherwise) wrangling for some time.  It certainly should not be...

For many people in the UK, the fall of Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on 1st June came as a surprise, but the Parliamentary Vote of No Confidence which gave rise to Rajoy’s demise was part of an ongoing corruption scandal known as the Gurtel case.Regrettably,...

Drastic cuts to public sector spending continue to hit police forces hard. In late 2017 it was announced that their budgets would be cut by £700m, but it should be stressed that the pressures which feed into many kinds of crime tend to build, rather than fall, during...

The High Court has now reached its decision in a challenge to a policy imposed by the coroner for Inner North London which stated as follows: “No death will be prioritised in any way over any other because of the religion of the deceased or family”.This taxi-rank rule...