She says religious belief appears to be just as important to society as it's always been.

Chevalier-Watts is a University of Waikato senior law lecturer who is a charity law specialist and is in completing a PhD in which she reviews religion and charity law.

She says that charity law is the ideal vehicle to support religion "because of the rules surrounding charity law that actually may give confidence to the public that when it comes to charity, religion is not always the tyranny that people might presume it to be."

Chevallier-Watts said she found that it is extremely rare for people not to have some kind of belief system.

"If you try to remove a system out of society, as occurred in a number of Communist states, it simply goes underground.

"Once religion is permitted again, it flourishes once more."

She suggests that religion "is here to stay and in many regards it is fundamental to society."

Chevalier-Watts says there are some high-profile and influential people who denigrate religion, demanding that it should not exist anymore.

"Obviously, people are entitled to be as negative as they wish, and it is perhaps right in a contemporary society that we can challenge beliefs and religions.

"However, I'm coming at it first from a legal context, and then a societal context and, if you examine the way humans operate, it is apparent that in many ways humans prefer to operate within a religious construct.

"As a result, it is right that it is recognised, and charity law provides a way of ensuring that it is recognised, and charity law provides a way of ensuring that religion is acknowledged and also underpinned by stringent governance."

Chevalier-Watts has written three books on equity, trusts, and charity law.

Source

• waikato.ac.nz
• Image waikato.ac.nz

Physicist Lawrence Krauss was due to speak on a double-bill with Richard Dawkins at the Science in the Soul tour in May in Auckland and Christchurch, but the promoter has announced he would no longer be on the bill.

Instead, Dawkins would appear at the two Science in the Soul shows alone, with a new co-host to be announced, Australia-based Think Inc. said.

The Auckland University of Technology had pulled its sponsorship of the tour, and New Zealand event management firm Loop had also backed out.

With Krauss' departure, it is unclear whether Loop and AUT would step back in.

Loop declined to comment and AUT has been approached.

Krauss, a professor in the Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration, is a director of the Origins Project, a multidisciplinary research effort to tackle questions about life, the universe and complex social problems.

He gained prominence for his book, "The Physics of Star Trek" in 1995.

He later became one of the leaders of the so-called "skeptics" movement that espouses science over religion.

Arizona State University has suspended him while it investigates accusations.

Krauss has published a lengthy response to the allegation which he has called libellous and defamatory.

"While it has gone against every grain of my nature not to immediately speak and write against falsehoods and distortions imposed upon the public, I have been advised by many individuals, wiser and more experienced than I in these matters, to wait until calmer heads, including my own, prevailed."

In his statement Krauss addresses three questions:

• Was BuzzFeed's story accurate?
• Does it accurately portray me?
• Did they do the community a service?

Source

• nzherald.com
• twitter.com
• nytimes.com
• Image: buzzfeeed.com

His words were read to a conference sponsored by Poland's president last week.

Those attending the conference included representatives of Poland's government and Church.

They were discussing Benedict's paper "The Concept of the State From the Perspective of the Teachings of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI".

He sent a message to the delegates saying "the contrast between the concepts of the radically atheistic state and the creation of the radically theocratic state by Muslim movements creates a dangerous situation for our age, one whose effects we experience each day.

"These radical ideologies require us to urgently develop a convincing concept of the state that will stand up to the confrontation between these challenges and help to overcome it," he told them.

Source

• National Catholic Register
• Image: DailyMail