Free Republic

When Melody Hensley first met Lawrence Krauss, she was a 29-year-old makeup artist at a department store, and he was one of her intellectual idols. She ran an atheist website in her spare time and had just started volunteering for the Center for Inquiry (CFI), a nonprofit group committed to promoting science and reason above faith. She was hoping to build a career in the burgeoning “skeptics” movement, and Krauss was one of its brightest luminaries. At a CFI event in November 2006, Krauss asked Hensley for her card, and later, as she was leaving, asked her if she was...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- A Purdue University student's attempt to poke fun at an Iranian cleric's contention that promiscuity and immodesty is responsible for earthquakes mushroomed into a cause that went viral, taken on by thousands of women. Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, Tehran's acting Friday prayer leader, ignited controversy last week by linking tremors to the behavior of women. "Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," Iranian media quoted Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi as saying. Jen McCreight, a self-described "liberal, geeky, nerdy, scientific, perverted atheist...