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Orbital worship, video game conversion and ghostly deception news

nASA

Smokers’ corner We learn from reliable sources that our president Jonathan miller was approached by a stern-faced woman as he stood outside the royal Society of Arts building enjoying a marlboro Light after his contribution to the New Humanist sponsored debate on humour. “You’re a doctor,” she said to miller. “And you’re smoking.” “madam,” replied miller in a tone which reminded our informer of a lecturer praising a hard-working student. “You are right on both counts.”

Smoke them if you’ve got them: RA president Jonathan Mi ller

Plans to build a giant “Space Mosque” are said to be on hold

2007: a prayer odyssey

In space, Allah can hear you pray. That’s the message from the malaysian national Space Agency, which last month produced a set of guidelines to help their muslim astronaut Sheikh muszaphar Shukor perform his religious duties while on a mission to the International Space Station. The station orbits the earth 16 times a day, meaning under the usual rules a muslim would be required to pray 80 times during a 24-hour period. Part of Shukor’s mission also fell during ramadan, when muslims are required to fast from sunrise to sunset – events that occur

every 90 minutes on the space station. Thankfully the malaysian space agency did what any other sensible organisation would have done and called a massive conference to try and resolve the issues. In April last year 150 scholars, scientists and astronauts gathered for a two-day symposium entitled “Islam and Life in Space”, and its findings were finally released last month. declaring that “According to Islam, travelling to space is encouraged,” the guidelines basically tell astronauts to ignore the sun constantly setting and rising and act according to the earth time on their watches.

Popewatch Bad faith awards

oh ye of little faith. Following the naming of Gerry and Kate mccann as official suspects in the case of their missing daughter, all mention of the couple’s earlier meeting with the Pope mysteriously disappeared from the vatican website’s news archive. Sensing a public relations disaster, it seems vatican of ficials quickly abandoned any notion of “innocent until proven guilty” and moved to bury the news. Quite how they expected this to work given the worldwide media coverage the visit received

is anybody’s guess. In other news, a new authorised biography of the Pope has hit the shelves, telling the story of benedict’s formative years through the eyes of his pet cat, chico. Aimed at children, the book is intended to introduce children to the Pope through a character they can relate to.

6 New Humanist november december 2007

We’ve had two new nominees for the New Humanist bad Faith Awards as readers continue to put forward their favourite enemies of reason. The latest contender from the catholic church is Archbishop Francisco chimoio, who is head of the church in mozambique. He recently shared his theory that some european-made condoms are deliberately infected with HIv in order to quickly finish off the African people. Keeping with the medical

theme, step forward omer butt, a dentist from bury who was recently found guilty of serious professional misconduct after telling a female patient he wouldn’t treat her unless she wore a headscarf. nominations for the bad Faith Awards are open until 8 december, after which a poll will run on the New Humanist website allowing readers to place their votes. meanwhile keep your suggestions coming to editor@newhumanist.org.uk

Gone fishing Always eager to jump on any bandwagon, ministers across America have been luring young men into their churches by offering them the chance to play on the hit X-box video game Halo 3. despite its holy-sounding name, the object of Halo 3 is to assume control of a heavily armed US marine and kill as many enemies as possible. The bad guys may be aliens, but this doesn’t mean they don’t die bleeding on the floor. Still, why let this get in the way of increasing church attendances? Hundreds of churches throughout America have played host to Halo tournaments since its September release, with the game’s “mature” rating meaning they are restricted to the over-17s. naturally, conservative christians have moved to condemn the events, not that the host churches seem too bothered. Gregg barbour of colorado community church in denver wrote to parents explaining that churches must be willing to try any means of recruitment: “Teens are our fish, so we’ve become creative in baiting our hooks.”

mIcroSoFT

Nothing brings you closer to

God than a nice killing spree