RELIGION HEADLINES SAT 12-23-25

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.

(  )  Christianity continues to wane in the United Kingdom.  In 2020, the Christian share of the U.K.’s population was less than half while the share of the religiously unaffiliated increased to 40 percent.  And now there are reports of people turning to ancient British history, folklore and nature as sources of spiritual nourishment.  Stone circles such as Stonehenge are becoming pilgrimage sites again.  The latest census puts the number of officially declared pagans in the U.K. at a little over 100,000 — which also includes those who identify as Wiccan.

(  )  Some legal experts predict the 10 Commandments will be before the Supreme Court again soon.  At least a dozen states have considered proposals that would require the posting of the Decalogue in public school classrooms, with Texas, Louisiana and and Arkansas mandating their display in 2024 or 2025.  Legal challenges have led to all three laws being at least partially blocked while the cases play out.  Last week families in Texas filed a class-action lawsuit seeking to take down displays across the state.  Federal trial court judges have already temporarily blocked the law in around two dozen districts.