    A CHRISTIAN barber in Sargodha, Pakistan is recovering from broken bones and other injuries sustained earlier this month after eight Muslims allegedly beat and sodomised him for cutting a young Muslim’s beard. Marwat Masih, 29, initially refused to cut 19-year-old Qandeel Cheema’s beard, knowing that Sunni Muslims in the area believe [...]
YOU can always rely on the mad, mad word of Islam to produce the wackiest stories in the world – but for sheer lunacy this month Iran beats all competition. First we had a crazy cleric – Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi – blaming earthquakes in Iran on female “immodesty”, and now we have a police decree [...]
POP over to the Christian Legal Centre today, and you will find much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the refusal by Lord Justice Laws to grant Gary McFarlane permission to have his case heard before the Court of Appeal. McFarlane, a relationships counsellor from Bristol, was sacked by the Relate Relationship organisation after he [...]
Continue reading about More squeals of persecution as Christian homophobes are put in their place
DR Ergun Caner, the President of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, has been a rising star on the religious right, entertaining audiences at major fundie gatherings with his hip, irreverent stories about his upbringing as a radical Muslim and his conversion to Christianity. Just this week, according Right Wing Watch, his story was featured on Focus [...]
Continue reading about ‘Ex-towelhead’ chief of Liberty Baptist Seminary stands accused of deception
WHEN people fall under the spell of a charismatic figure, areas of the brain responsible for scepticism and vigilance become less active. That’s the finding of a study which looked at people’s response to prayers spoken by someone purportedly possessing divine healing powers. According to The New Scientist, to identify the brain processes underlying the [...]
Continue reading about Parts of the brain shut down when religious ‘healers’ perform their tricks
THE case of an unnamed woman who was fined in France last week for driving with her vision impaired by a face-obscuring veil received fresh media attention yesterday when it was revealed that she might be one of four wives of Algerian-born Lies Hebbadj, a halal butcher. Authorities are now looking into whether Hebbadj was [...]
Continue reading about Woman fined for driving with a burqa is now the centre of a polygamy row
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
