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Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is the latest GOP presidential candidate to jump on 2016 frontrunner Ben Carson's theory that the pyramids were created by the biblical figure Joseph to store grain. "I'm really big into conspiracy theories, so I think they were probably built by the aliens as grain silos, don’t you think," Paul joked, when asked about Carson's idea on 1110AM WBT, as reported by Buzzfeed. Carson has defended the idea that the pyramids were built for grain storage -- not as pharaohs' tombs, as modern archaeology holds -- since Buzzfeed recently unearthed a video of the neurosurgeon making...

"If you go to St Mark's cathedral in Venice, there's a medieval depiction showing people using the three great pyramids of Giza as granaries in Joseph's story," says John Darnell, a professor of Egyptology at Yale University. The belief was also popularised by Saint Gregory of Tours, a sixth century Frankish bishop, who wrote: "They are wide at the base and narrow at the top in order that the wheat might be cast into them through a tiny opening, and these granaries are to be seen to the present day." The Book of John Mandeville, a popular 14th Century travel...

Ben Carson was put on the defensive on Thursday, with reporters pressing him about a series of reports that have sprung up questioning the factual accuracy of his past statements. As Carson has gained in the polls, so has media scrutiny of the 64-year-old retired pediatric neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate, whose past and present statements have drawn no shortage of curiosity and interest. On Thursday, during a stop on his book tour, Carson was pressed on everything from a report that questioned past claims of his physical violence toward others, an interview in which he appeared to struggle with...

".... I certainly don't agree with Carson on this but neither do I think it is terribly material to anything. If you are trying to make a case that Carson is an idiot or against science, I think it takes more than a religious conviction to discredit an internationally prominent neurosurgeon with a string of articles published in scholarly medical journals. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton believes in man-induced global warming. Many of the same people criticizing Carson actually believe that gender has nothing to do with chromosomes or endocrinology or physiology. When it comes to GMOs, especially seeds...

Yesterday, November 4, marked 93 years to the day that the tomb of King Tutankhamen was opened in Egypt, revealing spectacular artifacts and a magnificent mummy of the boy king. The celebration was somewhat marred, at least here in the U.S., by a leading Republican candidate for president, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who confirmed a statement he'd made in 1998 - that he believes the Egyptian pyramids were grain silos, not tombs. The collective reaction from archaeologists and historians, who have command of literally centuries' worth of research into the artifacts and literature of the ancient Egyptians, is... Wait, what...

Seventeen years ago, Ben Carson delivered a commencement address at Andrews University that featured a very unusual theory: Maybe Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. The speech itself, dug up by the ever-enterprising Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed, was framed around Carson's trademark inspirational stories. "I thought that I would talk about my own personal philosophy for success in life," he told the graduating class. "Think big.? He used Joseph to illustrate the point. "Here was a man who was basically able to save the entire world with his big thinking," he mused. Joseph, in the biblical narrative, oversees the...

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson is not backing down from a belief that drew widespread attention on Wednesday - that the Egyptian pyramids were built as grain silos, not elaborate tombs. In a 1998 commencement speech at Andrews University unearthed by BuzzFeed, Carson pointed to hermetically sealed chambers as a sign the pyramids were used by Egyptians to store grain and food. "My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain," Carson said in the speech, referring to the biblical figure. He added: "Now, all the archaeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs' graves. But,...

So the left is all abuzz over Ben Carson’s 1998 speech in which he expressed an, admittedly, exotic view on the purpose of Egyptian pyramids. (This is a another hard-hitting click-bait piece by BuzzFeed cub reporter Andrew Kaczynski, so no link because I try not to reward bad behavior.) At the 1998 commencement for Andrews University, a school associated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Carson also dismissed the notion that aliens were somehow involved in the construction of the pyramids. “My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain,” Carson said. “Now all the archeologists think...

The retired neurosurgeon seeking his party's nomination for the White House made these remarks in a 1998 address at Andrews University, a school associated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, to which he belongs, in a video posted Wednesday on Buzzfeed. The church is a conservative evangelical Christian one. "My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain," Carson said.

NAPLES, Florida -- Ben Carson stood by his long-held belief about ancient pyramids in Egypt, that they were used to store grain, rather than to inter pharaohs. Asked about this Wednesday, Carson told CBS News, "It's still my belief, yes." The subject came up when Buzzfeed published a 1998 commencement speech delivered by Carson at Andrews University, a college founded by Seventh-day Adventists. "My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain," Carson said. "Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs' graves. But, you know, it would have to be something...

GOP frontrunner Ben Carson, in a 1998 commencement address, floated his own personal theory that the pyramids in Egypt were built by Joseph -- the biblical patriarch known for his coat of many colors -- to store grain, Buzzfeed reported. In the speech -- given at Andrews University, a school with ties to Carson's Seventh-day Adventist faith -- the neurosurgeon shot down claim that aliens had built the pyramids. But he also disagreed with the archaeological consensus that the pyramids were constructed as tombs for the pharaohs. “My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain,”...

Donald Trump made headlines this weekend by questioning fellow GOP candidate Ben Carson's Seventh-day Adventist faith -- literally. "I'm Presbyterian," Trump said at a rally in Florida on Saturday. "Boy, that's down the middle of the road folks, in all fairness. I mean, Seventh-day Adventist, I don't know about. I just don't know about." Carson, who was baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Detroit when he was 8 and earnestly committed himself to the church when he was 14, is perhaps the faith's most famous member. Trump later said that he wasn't trying to "send a dog whistle" to...

Georgia health officials on Friday retracted a job offer made to Pasadena's former public health director, who had come under fire for controversial remarks he made on homosexuality and evolution. Dr. Eric Walsh, a Seventh-day Adventist preacher, interviewed for the position about two weeks ago and had received an offer letter with a start date of mid-June. But Walsh never mentioned that he had recently been placed on leave from his job in Pasadena because of controversial sermons he gave on homosexuality and evolution, Georgia officials said. The sermons were discovered during a background check that happens as the last...

“If you look at his past, which I’ve done, he wasn’t a big man of faith. All of a sudden he’s become this man of faith,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Carson, a Seventh-Day Adventist. “And he was heavy into the world of abortion, and he was a doctor, and take a look at the hospitals where he worked. He was a doctor. Check out the past and see.”

Ben Carson took a personal shot at Donald Trump on Wednesday, questioning the authenticity of the businessman's faith, a move that suggests new combativeness between the top GOP contenders. "I've realized where my success has come from, and I don't in any way deny my faith in God," Carson told reporters at a campaign rally in Anaheim, California, when asked about the biggest difference between him and the Republican presidential front-runner. "And I think that is the big difference." "By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life and that's a very big part of...

James Cardinal Gibbons, The Faith of our Fathers, 88th ed., pp. 89. "But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify." Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism 3rd ed., p. 174. "Question:  Have you any other way of proving that the Church has power to institute festivals of precept? "Answer:  Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her-she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the...

Two 50-year-old men filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming the Seventh-Day Adventist Church put a man known to abuse children in charge of its youth program in the 1970s and kept him in that position even after learning he was accused of abusing a child in its ranks. The men filed the suit in Oregon, seeking $15 million from the Maryland-based church and its Northwest and Oregon branches. The men say they were abused in the 1970s but only discovered two years ago that the church knew it had a convicted child molester in the program and did nothing.

A 63-year-old Romeoville man who authorities say was a police officer and church camp leader was charged today with the distribution of child pornography. Miguel Luna, of the 500 block of North Frieh Drive, was charged with one count of dissemination of child pornography and two counts of possession of child pornography, according to the Will County State’s Attorney’s office. Bail was set at $500,000 this afternoon for Luna, who was ordered not to have unsupervised contact with anyone under 18. He also was ordered to surrender his passport.

Pasadena city officials placed Public Health Director Eric Walsh on temporary paid administrative leave Thursday after they learned of controversial statements he had made about homosexuality and evolution in online videos and audio clips. In sermons uploaded to various websites, Walsh, a Seventh-day Adventist preacher, calls evolution "a religion created by Satan," compares Disney to a "dark empire" of superstition and witchcraft, and criticizes homosexuality.

DALLAS (AP) - Chocolates are always nice, and a diamond necklace would be delightful. But a Dallas-based ministry thinks it has a better idea for Valentine's Day. "Her gift for Valentines? Stop looking at porn," proclaim billboards put up by NetAccountability, a nonprofit software company that aims to help Christians confront the "secret sin" of pornography. If national surveys are any indication, it is a personal battle waged by millions of Christians. Almost 18 percent of people who called themselves born-again Christians admitted visiting Internet porn sites, according to a 2000 survey of 1,031 adults by the evangelical group Focus...