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Statistics about religious beliefs evolve surprisingly quickly. In the USA the number of non-religious people has been increasing steadily by about 1% per year in the last 20 years. The same trend can be seen in Europe, although religiosity has fallen much faster in some countries than others...

In the Netherlands there is a new category of belief called Ietsism. The term derives from the Dutch word iets meaning 'something' and refers to people who are not religious but believe that "there must be something undefined beyond the mundane and that which can be known or can be proven." The...

I was wondering what they meant by 'non-strict photo ID'. I found this explanation on the National Conference of State Legislatures website: Non-strict: At least some voters without acceptable identification have an option to cast a ballot that will be counted without further action on the...

The epicanthic fold is a Mongoloid trait that was brought to Europe on several occasions (Uralics, Huns, Mongols, Tatars...). In this case I think that Barry Keoghan inherited the mutation(s) for the epicanthic fold from Viking ancestors who had Saami or Finnish admixture. Nowadays Finns and...

I asked ChatGPT its thought on the subject. It could be interesting what AI has to say based on the analysis of millions of online articles and posts on the subject. I asked: "Would you agree that Christian confession incites crime as people know they can be forgiven by God for anything they...

I was reading about the local UK elections. Boris Johnson had introduced for the first time requirement for voters to show a photo ID a few years ago and that buffoon was turned away at the polling station because he forgot his own ID! That made me wonder how many developed countries still...

I've just found out that since the change of forum software from vBulletin to Xenforo in August 2023 members in the the elite user group (about 30 people) were not allowed to react to posts (add likes), use links, or upload media. This has now been fixed. I apologise to the users affected. I'm...

True. And if we take this reasoning further, why would an Almighty God who created the Universe and all life beings specifically created sins for humans but not for other life beings? God can't ever accuse plants or bacteria to be sinful or immoral as they have no brain to reflect upon their...

A good demonstration of Christian faith. 😆 This is a scene from the series The Last Kingdom. Viking leaders Ubba (son of Ragnar Lothbrok) and Guthrum are meeting with the Christian Anglo-Saxon King of East Anglia, who is trying to convert them to Christianity. It didn't take long to confirm...

That's what I said above, wasn't it? That's what it means to confess (acknowledge the sins) and repent (feeling sorry). But that doesn't make it any less of a problem. Basically Christians can be forgiven anything as long as they feel sorry for what did it. That's completely unacceptable to me...

I know it's just a movie but it reflects reality pretty well in this case. See how quickly and easily the cardinal absolve the sins of the Godfather. I like how he admits that he "always has time to save souls". That's his main business. That's what keeps the herd faithful. The "aah" at the...

In Western countries, where Christianity has traditionally been the dominant religion, prisoners facing death penalty typically have (or had in countries that abolished capital punishment) the right to confess to a priest or pastor before being executed. This is because for a Christian it is...

I have much to reproach to Christianity. Apart from being nonsensical, irrational belief system built on fairy tales and contradictory rules, and apart from all the excesses of the Church committed over the centuries, there is a more pernicious element to being a Christian that has, IMHO, had a...

One of my biggest criticism of Christians, or religious people in general, is that they are hypocrites. They preach one thing and can't even abide to their own preaching. The 10 commandments and the 7 'deadly sins' are just two examples among many. Hardly any Christian in history has led a life...

I don't blame (too much) the ignorance of people from past centuries. Education standards used to be much lower and people didn't have access to online encyclopaedia like Wikipedia until about 20 years ago, or even public libraries until the 19th century (in Western countries, or 20th century is...

It's one thing to compare crime rates between countries. But wouldn't it be interesting to know what percentage of the population is responsible for those crimes? Are a lot of people likely to commit misdemeanours and felonies (to use the American terms). Or is it the same small percentage of...

You may be right. The idea of converting to a religion is so alien to me that it didn't even cross my mind that they could do that. I found this article on Wikipedia about Conversion to Islam in U.S. prisons. Here they say that the percentage of Muslims in US prisons is 18% in 2003, twice more...

The stats I posted above about Germany was only for immigrant suspects arrested for a limited crimes (robberies, thefts, bodily harm, fraud, drug offenses), but did not include homicides, rapes or kidnapping. Unfortunately the German Police report does not give the figures by nationality for...

I have split the discussion about Palestinian refugees in Denmark and the subsequent debate about Palestinian refugees in the Middle East.

It seems that Italy also doesn't publish crime statistics by nationality or ethnic origin, like Spain, France and Belgium. Nevertheless I found a paper on Islam in Italian prisons, which gives the following statistics. In 2016 there were 3,146 Moroccans, 1,996 Tunisians, and 403 Algerians in...