A baby died at a New York hospital in September after contracting herpes from a controversial circumcision ritual. The infant died at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, where the cause of death was listed as "disseminated herpes simplex virus Type 1, complicating ritual circumcision with oral suction," according to the New York Daily News.

Now, the Brooklyn District Attorney's office is looking further into the case, the Jewish Week reports.

The boy is the second New York area infant in recent years to die from complications related to the Orthodox Jewish ritual of metzitzah b'peh, during which "the mohel places his mouth on the freshly circumcised penis to draw blood away from the cut," according to the New York City Department of Heath.

Another infant died in 2005 after contracting herpes from a rabbi who performed the procedure.

At least three infants are thought to have contracted the disease from the same mohel in 2004, but when city officials denounced the practice, Haredi leaders became defensive and alleged government shouldn't impede on a religious ritual, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The mohel in question disputed claims that he was the cause of the infection.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/06/baby-dies-circumcision-ritual-herpes_n_1322420.html

Dr Susannah Cornwall claimed that it is “simply a best guess” that Jesus was male. Her comments, which are bound to provoke fury in some quarters, were published in response to the ongoing debate about women bishops in the Church of England.

Dr Cornwall, of Manchester University’s Lincoln Theological Institute, describes herself on her blog as specialising in: “Research and writing in feminist theology, sexuality, gender, embodiment, ethics and other fun things like that.”

In her paper “Intersex & Ontology, A Response to The Church, Women Bishops and Provision”, she argues that it is not possible to know “with any certainty” that Jesus did not suffer from an intersex condition, with both male and female organs.

In an extraordinary paper she says: “It is not possible to assert with any degree of certainty that Jesus was male as we now define maleness.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9116974/Jesus-may-have-been-a-hermaphrodite-claims-academic.html

Faith is a term often overused, even exhausted; when describing the inherent flaws and unanswered questions of any man’s doctrine. Should the questioning of truth arise in even its most basic form, “Faith” is the only robotic answer a child of logic will ever receive. From the mouths of parents, to the pulpits of liars and thieves, the word faith reverberates so strongly in the ears of the skeptical that it serves to drown the fire of reason and leave us empty, if we let it. But the faithless should fear not, for we are no longer synonymous with emptiness. We are full of life, true life that echoes this world and the people that walk it.

It is all a matter of excuses, and the faithless have none. No distractive terms to cloak the deception of our doctrine. We must search for our answers, trek to the ends of conciseness and science for even the slightest glimpse of the powerful truth this universe holds. For it is not a simple truth, it is not so easily explained by the blind conclusions of the fearful.

In the face of adversity the believers will scorn the skeptics for their lack of faith. In a believer’s eyes, It has become essential to the proper development of a person, and without the presence of blind faith they are not whole. So many questions should arise concerning this travesty, but as with all forms of religious doctrine, it is not viable without faith. This is unacceptable. Why should a human being be forced to suppress who they are and shoulder the burden of intellectual blindness. Why should a man be expected to ingest the poison of falsehood and fantasy and destroy their humanity and curiosity? The faithless have refused this vile concoction, and will no longer be satisfied with this simple explanation of what the pulpit and the book cannot explain.

A god so powerful that he could create the heavens in a day asks only one thing of his Children. He asks only faith; in him, in his power, in his mercy, in his love, in everything he does. When he takes a man’s children in a freak accident, he asks only faith in his decision to cause such pain. When he careens a plane into the earth or slaughters thousands in an earthquake, he asks only faith in his rage. When his silence and indifference to prayers of millions brings such emptiness, he asks only faith in deliverance of doubt. A God so powerful asks only faith when he knows the suffering it causes.

--snip--

But alas, in the face of overwhelming reason, Faith still shines so brightly in the eyes and ears of the masses. The pain of insignificance, the cosmic loneliness of the truth of reality is too much to comprehend. So the alternative is Faith. It is the one-size-fits-all ideology, the breath in the lungs of the drowning believer. It is a basis for the fearful to fall back upon, in their most terrifying moments when they see the transparency of their beliefs and they realize they are losing grip on the simplicity of the idea of god, they suppress all reason with faith.

http://networkedblogs.com/uLLTb

VANCOUVER - After a decade of scientists arguing the insanity of issuing mineral leases allowing the mining of the world-renowned McAbee fossil beds for cat litter, British Columbia's government finally has begun the process of protecting them with a heritage designation.

It says formal notifications are going out to local governments, stakeholders and First Nations within whose traditional territories the fossil beds lie, about 13 kilometres east of Cache Creek along the highway to Kamloops.

This 50-million-year-old site of an Eocene lake bed yields exquisitely preserved fossils which paleontologists say provide answers critical to our present-day understanding of how plants, insects and animals react to rapid climate change.

The Eocene is better known for its large, exotic and now extinct creatures: a flightless predatory bird the size of modern bears, carnivores as big as small pickup trucks, whales with legs and rhinoceros-like animals that were the largest mammals ever to walk the Earth.

http://www.canada.com/news/seen+light+important+fossil+beds/6246858/story.html

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland Cardinal Keith O’Brien has defended comments at the weekend in which he described equal marriage rights as ‘grotesque’ and the legalisation of gay marriages as being akin to the legalisation of slavery and warned of ‘further aberrations’.

Defending the comments he made at the weekend likening equal marriage to slavery and saying it was a violation of human rights, he told the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning it was “time to call a halt now to what you may call progress in society”.

“Further aberrations” would ensue and “society would be degenerating even further than it has already degenerated into immorality” if the government were to allow gays to marry, he said.

He added that he was not “saying it is grotesque, but perhaps to some people it might appear grotesque” and it would “shame” the UK.

While Scotland will not be included in Westminster plans for gay marriage, the consultation on which is due to begin soon, the Scottish government has said it is “minded” to introduce marriage equality and completed its own consultation last year.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/03/05/scottish-cardinal-defends-grotesque-gay-marriage-comment-and-calls-to-stop-progress/