Coming soon - Will dogs, Gods and electronic lizards have rights?

Tomorrow's post will look at changing attitudes to legal rights. At a time when government is accused of eroding hard won human rights and freedoms, why is it lawyers are asking whether legal rights should be extended to domestic pets? And where will this lead? Could intelligent robots have rights one day? And could the government that introduced the 'Religious Hatred' bill one day try and argue that... even Gods, Saints and Icons have rights?

Faith Value

Following reports this week that public forums on the website, Dawkins.net, have been closed, there has been a swift response to one of the questions that had caused a problem: How do I persuade religious believers to believe in black holes?

Question - "This question has two parts. It's to do with your average, poorly educated member of society. He’s the kind of guy who could believe in anything and everything. But for now let's just say he believes in God. So first, how do I, a physics teacher, get that kind of individual to take on board esoteric ideas like "black holes" and "wave-particle duality", when - and this is key - the mathematical proofs behind those ideas are beyond the reach of ordinary folk? And second, if I ever do get this guy to grasp these ideas, how can I really be sure that his grasp is actually what we call knowledge?”

Answer - “Well, we all need faith in some things.”