South Africans have been exposed to the psychic phenomenon over the past week – and we have clearly lost our baloney detectors.

by George Claassen

Is there any reason to still believe in God? Or are religious faith and reason incompatible? 

I ask this because the pressure on scientists to become believers in God seems to get stronger by the day. Atheism is more and more used as an excuse to get rid of competent people. We all know that in the American election the chances of a candidate who openly states he or she is an atheist is absolutely none to be elected as president.

The vast majority of scientists say these questions can immediately be answered with a direct no and yes respectively.  

No, there is no single reason today to continue believing or to have to believe in God. For that, science has since Copernicus and Galileo in the 15th and 16th century, Darwin in the 19th and modern discoveries today been too emphatic in discrediting and in fact killing the fairy tales of the Bible, the Koran en other holy books.  

And yes, reason and religious faith are indeed incompatible in an age where scientific findings and reason have probably become the only mechanisms to survive in a universe and solar system in which the God in whom so many believe, clearly has never made his appearance, or is rather too quiet when humankind has needed him most.  

Parents object to 'Jesus before lunch' and using teaching time to push one religion above others

Our Father, who art in heaven - and in our churches, synagogues, temples, mosques - and anywhere else, but not in our classrooms.

This is the message from a group of parents threatening to take on public schools that favour one religion above others.

The group claim that many schools are disobeying the Constitution and the Department of Education's policy on religion.

For them, the law is clear: the curriculum must cover all the main religions.

"All religions should have their rights protected. If they wish to have religious observances, which would include praying, in public schools, these must represent the realities of the country," argues Hans Pietersen of the Afrikaans Movement of Freethinkers.

He says that, in reality, schools use teaching time to promote one religion over another by, for example, praying to a particular god during a lesson or sticking only Bible verses on classroom walls.