RELIGION HEADLINES MON 12-8

Audio By Carbonatix

(SRN NEWS)-

(  )  The internet has become a powerful weapon for anti-Semitic groups to get their message out and recruit people.  Experts warn that the next frontier for such extremists is Artificial Intelligence.  Anti-Semitic organizations are already using AI tools to create targeted propaganda, manipulate images, audio and videos, and evade detection.  One extremist social network has even built a Hitler chatbot that users can talk to.  Anti-Semitism has always been a problem but it has been on the rise around the world in recent years.  The 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, rather than sparking sympathy for Jewish people, has turbo-charged anti-Semitism.

(  )  Europe and North America aren’t the only regions that are seeing a decline in religious faith.  A new analysis of data by Matthew Blanton at the University of Texas finds that the number of Latin Americans reporting no religious affiliation surged from seven percent in 2004 to over 18 percent in 2023.  The share of people who say they are religiously unaffiliated grew in 15 of the 17 countries, and more than doubled in seven.  On average, 21 percent of people in South America say they do not have a religious affiliation, compared with 13 percent in Mexico and Central America.  Uruguay, Chile and Argentina are the three least religious countries in the region.

(  )  The Trump administration will restrict visas for Nigerians and their family members involved in mass killings and violence against Christians in the West African country.  Two separate Muslim terrorist groups are at work in the northern part of Nigeria and have murdered tens-of-thousands of Christians over the past decade.  Secretary of State Marco Rubio says in a post on X “The United States is taking decisive action in response to the mass killings and violence against Christians by radical Islamic terrorists, Fulani (foo-LAH-nee) ethnic militias, and other violent actors in Nigeria and beyond.”  Muslim extremism is spreading all across Africa.

(  )  A University of Oklahoma instructor has been placed on leave after a student complained about receiving a failing grade on a paper.  The student argued that her paper, which used the Bible to claim that belief in multiple genders is demonic, was unfairly given a grade of “F”.  The school has issued a statement saying “OU remains firmly committed to fairness, respect and protecting every student’s right to express sincerely held religious beliefs.”  The assignment in question was for a psychology class about lifespan development.  Students were asked to write a response to an academic study about conformity with so-called “gender norms”.