Register reports that the a group of Christians lost their court case against the University of California. Register reports:

A federal judge has told the University of California that when considering applicants, it has the constitutional right to ignore high school course work grounded in the notion that the Bible is infallible.

Register notes that:

One high school course was rejected because its primary text, the Bob Jones University-published United States History for Christian Schools, “failed to adequately teach critical thinking and modern historical analytic methods.”

According to one professor on the UC course review committee, the text “instructs that the Bible is the unerring source for analysis of historical events, attributes historical events to divine providence rather than analyzing human action, evaluates historical figures and their contributions based on their religious motivations or lack thereof and contains inadequate treatment of several major ethnic groups, women, and non-Christian religious groups.”

The comment “failed to adequately teach critical thinking …” is something teachers in many countries could reflect on. We seem to be failing here.

US judge says University can ignore Christian course credits | The Register.

On my way over to the west coast of Norway I stopped off to look at Heddal stave church. Stave churches are medieval wooden churches. This particular one is Norway’s largest stave church. It was built in the beginning of the 13th century. In Norway there are 29 historical stave churches left.

The second picture shows a detail.

Book: 4
Title: God is Not Great

Author: Christopher Hitchens
Genre: Ante-religion.
Why did you get this book? Out of curiosity.
Did you enjoy the book? Yes, it was thought provoking.
Was the author new to you? Yes.
Would you read something by this author again? Yes. I liked his writing style.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? I am keeping it. Silly question really. I have never thrown away a book in my life and have seldom given one away.
Anything else? It took quite a while to digest this book. Many thought provoking ideas. Hitchins is one of the fairly recent number of authors who are openly and vocally atheist. Opponents of these authors disparagingly call them new-atheist. Stupid name really. Much of what Hitchins (and the others) are writing about are ideas that have been voiced for decades if not centuries. Perhaps the thing that is new about these so called new-atheists is that they are uncompromising, unafraid (apparently) and unwilling to be silenced. I have seen quite a few video clips of Hitchins being interviewed. He seems polite and soft spoken to his opponents at least until they refuse to act likewise. He is on the other hand unwilling to be dominated by opponents and uses his knowledge and acerbic wit effectively.
Number of pages: 286 plus references and index.
Total pages for the year: 1430

Book: 1
Title: The God Delusion

Author: Richard Dawkins
Genre: Anti-Religion
Why did you get this book? Out of curiosity.
Did you enjoy the book? It was thought provoking. Which was the point of reading it.
Was the author new to you? No. I had previously read The Blind Watchmaker.
Would you read something by this author again? Yes.
Are you keeping it or passing it on? I am keeping it.
Anything else? I can agree with many of the points Richard Dawkins has about religion. I can also see how many religious people would feel threatened by such books as this. I thought Richard Dawkins must be one of the people who are most polite in there argumentation against religion.
Number of pages: 420 plus appendix, notes and index.
Total pages for the year: 420

Let’s make this perfectly clear.
Staring at the Sun is not devout; it is stupid.
A loving God would not want you to willfully damage your eyesight on His account.