Thread by @center4inquiry

Welcome to a new week, heretics. Time for The Morning Heresy’s roundup-thread of all the weird, disturbing, and bewildering goings-on in the news.

centerforinquiry.org/blog/virus-por…

Benjamin Radford looks at how the coverage of mass shootings often begins with a scramble to name the race of the perpetrator, which he says is “counterproductive, can perpetuate racism, and distract from far more salient factors.”
centerforinquiry.org/blog/the-futil…

CFI joined with allies in the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination urging White House Faith-Based office director Melissa Rogers to adopt new policies with “more robust protections for religious freedom and civil rights.”

au.org/sites/default/…

Things are very bad in India. The virus is out of control. Over 300,000 new cases every day. cnn.com/2021/04/26/ind…

@mariamkiparoize reports on the explosion of junk science and conspiracy theories fueling India’s crisis: codastory.com/waronscience/i…

9.1 million people took part in Kumbh Mela for a “holy dip” in the Ganges. Held every 12 years, it was moved up one: "Because the ‘astrological configurations’ of the ‘Sun entering Aries’ and ‘Jupiter entering Aquarius’ were available for 2021 this time" thewire.in/government/kum…

Shuddhabrata Sengupta: The government "need not have let it take place this year at all, simply because this is the 11th, not the 12th year … Instead, they did much worse … because some astrological mumbo-jumbo told them that this was desirable."

All the while, India’s government is succeeding in one thing: Getting social media platforms to comply with its demands to block criticism. @shiringhaffary reports:

vox.com/recode/2241093…

26 percent of American adults say they won’t bother to get vaccinated, and that just ain’t gonna cut it, folks.
cnn.com/2021/04/29/pol…

.@MichaelJStern1: “A quarter of the country is ruining it for all of us.” Therefore, “restaurants, movie theaters, gyms, barbers, airlines and Ubers should require proof of vaccination before providing their services." usatoday.com/story/opinion/…

I can’t believe I’m going to agree 100 percent with this formerly-antivax Instagram (ack)influencer(ack), Heather Simpson: “I’m freaking out. I hate needles. I’m gonna pass out. But I trust the science.” @tarahaelle reports
texasmonthly.com/news-politics/…

Some GOP doctors in Congress are trying to convince folks in their party to get vaccinated, saying it’s the best way to “end the government’s restrictions on our freedoms.” Also to not die, but whatever gets the point across I guess. @apwillweissert:
abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireS…

The COVID–19 vaccines do not
* give you shingles
khn.org/news/article/f…
* make you shed spike proteins like a porcupine
sciencebasedmedicine.org/covid-19-vacci…
* decimate the human population
news.yahoo.com/fact-check-cor…

.@kelsey_dallas takes a look at how various religious groups and interests evaluate Joe Biden’s first 100 days. In office, not of life. He’s much older than that, obviously.

deseret.com/faith/2021/4/3…

This is disturbing in a number of ways: Jerry Falwell Jr. wants Liberty University graduates to party at his house. “If you’re not a senior but you’re dating one, you can come, too.” Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew.

by @emmillerwrites & @jackmjenkins
religionnews.com/2021/04/30/fal…

The European Parliament is not impressed with Pakistan’s international tantrum about French cartoons and blasphemy laws, so it called for Pakistan to scrap its blasphemy law and passed a resolution calling for a review of its trade relations with the EU. apnews.com/article/pakist…

A film of military aircraft from 1923 does not, in fact, reveal Gilded Age chemtrails.

reuters.com/article/factch…

Gideon Lewis-Kraus at The New Yorker reports on how the military is handling the whole UFO question: “In throwing up its hands and granting that there are things it simply cannot figure out, it has relaxed its grip on the taboo.” Oh good.
newyorker.com/magazine/2021/…

That's plenty to chew on, yeah? Totally. There's more at the blog-proper if you must have more. centerforinquiry.org/blog/virus-por…

Or you can subscribe to The Morning Heresy and never be lonely again. (I cannot actually make that promise.) centerforinquiry.org/newsletter/?ut…