Saudi Arabia would move quickly to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran successfully tests an atomic bomb, according to a report. Citing an unidentified Saudi Arabian source, the Times newspaper in the U.K. (which operates behind a pay wall) said that the kingdom would seek to buy ready-made warheads and also begin its own program to enrich weapons-grade uranium.

The paper suggested that Pakistan was the country most likely to supply Saudi Arabia with weapons, saying Western officials were convinced there was an understanding between the countries to do so if the security situation in the Persian Gulf gets worse. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have denied such an arrangement exists. Iran, which follows the Shiite branch of Islam, and Sunni Saudi Arabia are major regional rivals.

The Times described its source for the story as a “senior Saudi,” but gave no other details. “There is no intention currently to pursue a unilateral military nuclear program, but the dynamics will change immediately if the Iranians develop their own nuclear capability,” the source told the newspaper. “Politically, it would be completely unacceptable to have Iran with a nuclear capability and not the kingdom.”

It also cited an unnamed Western official as saying that Saudi Arabia would ask Pakistan to honor the alleged agreement “the next day” after any Iranian nuclear bomb test. The U.S. and other nations suspect that Iran is using its civilian nuclear work as a cover for a weapons program, but Iran insists that its nuclear ambitions are strictly peaceful. The U.S. has used sanctions and diplomacy to pressure Iran on the issue, but has long refused to rule out military action saying that all options are on the table. Israel is also believed to be contemplating a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In a statement issued Friday by the Pakistan Embassy in Saudi Arabia, Ambassador Mohammed Naeem Khan was quoted as saying that “each Pakistani considers (the) security of Saudi Arabia as his personal matter.” Naeem also said that the Saudi leadership considered Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to be one country. In January this year, Saudi Arabia’s former ambassador to the U.S., Prince Turki al-Faisal, said in an interview with The Associated Press that unless a zone free of weapons of mass destruction was created in the Mideast there would “inevitably” be a nuclear arms race, and “that’s not going to be in the favor of anybody.”

He stressed that the Gulf states were committed not to acquire WMD. “But we’re not the only players in town. You have Turkey. You have Iraq which has a track record of wanting to go nuclear. You have Egypt. They had a very vibrant nuclear energy program from the 1960s. You have Syria. You have other players in the area that could open Pandora’s box,” the Saudi prince told The AP.

Asked whether Saudi Arabia would maintain its commitment against acquiring WMD, Turki said: “What I suggest for Saudi Arabia and for the other Gulf states … is that we must study carefully all the options, including the option of acquiring weapons of mass destruction. We can’t simply leave it for somebody else to decide for us.”

Turki is also a former Saudi intelligence chief and remains an influential member of the Saudi royal family. Turki said the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council should guarantee a nuclear security umbrella for Mideast countries that join a nuclear-free zone — and impose “military sanctions” against countries seen to be developing nuclear weapons.

“I think that’s a better way of going at this issue of nuclear enrichment of uranium, or preventing Iran from acquiring weapons of mass destruction,” he said in the AP interview. In October, the U.S. claimed that agents linked to Iran’s Qud’s Force, an elite wing of the Revolutionary Guard, were involved in a plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S., Adel Al-Jubeir. Iran said the claims were “baseless.”

‘Meddling’

Turki said in November that there was “ample and heinous” evidence that Iran was behind the alleged plot. He added that the evidence “indicates the depths of depravity and unreason to which the (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad regime has sunk.” Turki called the plot “the tip of the iceberg,” saying Iran was “meddling” in the affairs of many other countries, including Lebanon, Turkey, Pakistan and especially Iraq.

The Saudi government has also accused a terror cell linked to Iran of plotting to blow up its embassy in Bahrain, as well as the causeway linking the island kingdom to Saudi Arabia. In a secret diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks, Saudi King Abdullah allegedly urged Washington to strike at Iran and “cut off the head of the snake.” Turki dismissed the cable in November, telling reporters that Saudi Arabia supported sanctions and diplomatic pressure against Iran but not a military strike.

He said military action would only stiffen Iran’s resolve, rally support for the regime and at best delay, but not halt, the nuclear program. “Such an act I think would be foolish, and to undertake it I think would be tragic,” he said.

YA THINK? As in maybe female college students being able to get an aborficant from a vending machine will see it on the same level as getting an aspirin from a vending machine to relieve a headache!

“Said Anna Franzonello, counsel to Americans United For Life: “Students at Shippensburg University deserve better than to have their administration represent the potent drug with life-ending potential as no more harmful than any other vending machine item.”

from msnbc:

Students at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania can get the “morning-after” pill by sliding $25 into a vending machine, an idea that has drawn the attention of federal regulators and raised questions about how accessible emergency contraception should be.

The student health center at Shippensburg, a secluded public institution of 8,300 students tucked between mountain ridges in the Cumberland Valley, provides the Plan B One Step emergency contraceptive in the vending machine along with condoms, decongestants and pregnancy tests.

“I think it’s great that the school is giving us this option,” junior Chelsea Wehking said Tuesday. “I’ve heard some kids say they’d be too embarrassed” to go into town — Shippensburg, permanent population about 6,000 — and buy Plan B.

Federal law makes the pill available without a prescription to anyone 17 or older, and the school checked records and found that all current students are that age or older, a spokesman said. It doesn’t appear that any other vending machine in the U.S. dispenses the contraceptive, which can prevent pregnancy if taken soon after sexual intercourse.

The machine has been in place for about two years, and its existence wasn’t widely known until recently. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is contacting state officials and the university to gather facts, agency spokeswoman Stephanie Yao said Tuesday.

The FDA’s sudden interest took place amid a furor over religious rights and access to birth control. An official resigned from the nation’s largest breast cancer charity Tuesday over Planned Parenthood funding, and Republican presidential candidates attacked the Obama administration for a recent ruling requiring church-affiliated employers to provide birth control.

Consumers have long been able to insert a few coins for the likes of aspirin, ibuprofen, antacids and other common over-the-counter remedies. But some experts see a worrisome trend in making drugs like Plan B, which is kept behind the pharmacy counter, available in a vending machine.

Alexandra Stern, a professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan, said she wasn’t questioning a woman’s right to have access to Plan B, but whether making it so easily available is a good idea.

“Perhaps it is personalized medicine taken too far,” she said. “It’s part of the general trend that drugs are available for consumers without interface with a pharmacist or doctors. This trend has serious pitfalls.”

Taking Plan B within 72 hours of rape, condom failure or just forgetting regular contraception can cut the chances of pregnancy by up to 89 percent. It works best if taken within 24 hours. Some religious conservatives consider the emergency contraceptive tantamount to an abortion drug.

The idea for a vending machine started at Shippensburg after a survey about health center services several years ago. Eighty-five percent of the respondents supported making Plan B available, school spokesman Peter Gigliotti said. The student government endorsed the idea.

The machine is in the school’s Etter Health Center, which only students and university employees can access, Gigliotti said in a statement. In addition, “no one can walk in off the street and go into the health center,” he said; students must check in at a lobby desk before being allowed in.

Students and administrators at Shippensburg said they’re puzzled that a single vending machine at a small school has attracted such attention. Matthew Kanzler, a senior, said a lot of students at the school weren’t even aware of the machine until recently.

Most students do support the idea, he said — but not all.

“It’s a way for students to get the help or care they need,” he said, adding that students appreciate the on-campus health care because the school, about 130 miles from either Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, is so isolated.

In December, the Obama administration’s top health official overruled her own drug regulators and stopped the Plan B pill from moving onto drugstore shelves next to condoms and other items. It remains available behind pharmacy counters.

Denise Bradley, a spokeswoman for Teva Pharmaceuticals, which makes Plan B, said in a statement that it sells the product only to “licensed pharmacies or other licensed healthcare clinics, which are required to follow federal guidelines for the distribution of pharmaceutical products.”

On whether the machine might violate the law, “I don’t have a definite yes or no,” said Ron Ruman, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State, which oversees the state pharmacy board. If a person younger than 17 used the machine, it “potentially could be a violation,” he said.

The drug isn’t covered or subsidized by the school. Its price at the vending machine is set by the school’s cost to the pharmaceutical company and is less than at off-campus pharmacies.

Deanne Hall, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, noted that the ease of access to such a machine could be positive for many women, but wondered whether self-treatment might deter sexual assault victims from seeking medical attention.

“This does open up a different door,” she said.

Rob Maher, a professor at the Duquesne University School of Pharmacy in Pittsburgh, said he had never heard of a vending machine dispensing Plan B, but noted that there have been vending machines in doctor’s offices, and even a specialized machine designed to fill prescriptions.

Still, he questioned whether the machine would make it possible for a young person to buy the drug without discussing their risk factors with a health care professional.

“That’s the big risk with a vending machine like this,” he said.

Carol Tobias, president of the anti-abortion group National Right to Life, said other services would be more appropriate.

“It would be a much more productive use of funds if universities would partner with local pregnancy resource centers where students can get real help if they need it,” Tobias said.

Said Anna Franzonello, counsel to Americans United For Life: “Students at Shippensburg University deserve better than to have their administration represent the potent drug with life-ending potential as no more harmful than any other vending machine item.”

from The Local:

Animal sex abuse is on the rise in Germany, with bestiality brothels being set up across the country, according to a state animal protection officer demanding stronger laws to protect mankind’s furry and feathered friends.

Madeleine Martin, the animal protection official for Hessian state government, said the law needed to be changed to make sex abuse of animals – known as zoophilia – a crime.

“It is punishable to distribute animal pornography, but the act itself is not,” she told the Frankfurter Rundschau daily paper on Friday.
“There are even animal brothels in Germany,” she said. Sex with animals was being increasingly seen as a lifestyle choice, and thus more acceptable.
“The abuse seems to be increasingly rapidly, and the internet offers an additional distribution platform,” she said.

She said the justice authorities had found it exceptionally difficult to convict a man from Hesse, who had offered pictures and instructions for animal sex abuse over the internet.

“Zoophilia must be completely banned in the reformed animal protection law,” said Martin, referring to the governments plan to rework that section of the law.

Sex with animals was banned until 1969, when the animal protection law was introduced, but failed to include a specific ban on zoophilia, the Frankfurter Rundschau said.

Martin said the current legal situation makes it too difficult for authorities to intervene – an animal has to be shown to have massive injuries before the animal protection laws prescribe action.

Revelation 18:4-7:

And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.  For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.  Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her.  In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.’

from Independent Ireland:

A HOMILY delivered at Knock shrine by the Bishop of Raphoe, Philip Boyce, is being investigated by the Director of Public Prosecutions following a formal complaint by a leading humanist who claims the sermon was an incitement to hatred.

 The gardai have confirmed to former Fine Gael election candidate John Colgan that they have prepared and forwarded a file to the DPP after he made allegations that the address by Dr Boyce was in breach of the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, 1989.

The homily, entitled: “To Trust in God” was delivered to worshippers during a novena at the Marian shrine in Co Mayo last August and subsequently reported in the media, including The Irish Times, under the headline: “‘Godless culture’ attacking church, says bishop.”

Mr Colgan, a retired chartered engineer and economist from Leixlip, Co Kildare, referred in his formal complaint to two key passages in Dr Boyce’s homily which he believes broke the law.

One of the passages referred to the Catholic Church in Ireland being “attacked from outside by the arrows of a secular and godless culture”.

A second passage, which was included in the complaint, stated: “For the distinguishing mark of Christian believers is the fact they have a future; it is not that they know all the details that await them, but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness.”

Mr Colgan, who was a leader in the ‘Campaign to Separate Church and State’ in the late 1990s, said in his complaint: “I believe statements of this kind are an incitement to hatred of dissidents, outsiders, secularists, within the meaning of the [Incitement to Hatred] Act, who are perfectly good citizens within the meaning of the civil law. The statements exemplify the chronic antipathy towards secularists, humanists etc, which has manifested itself in the ostracising of otherwise perfectly good Irish citizens, who do not share the aims of the Vatican’s Irish Mission Church.”

To back up his complaint, Mr Colgan referred to two statistical surveys carried out two decades apart by the Jesuit sociologist and academic Fr Michael MacGreil, entitled: ‘Prejudice and Tolerance in Ireland’ and ‘Prejudice in Ireland Revisited’ which Mr Colgan claims showed “marked prejudice by Roman Catholics and other Christian denominations against agnostics and atheists” (humanist was not an option offered to respondents in either survey).

In his complaint, Mr Colgan said he attributed this prejudice to “hostile propaganda disseminated in school and chapel in the main by or for the institutional churches, for there is no rational or temporal reason”. In a statement to the Sunday Independent, Martin Long of the Catholic Communications office said: “Bishop Boyce’s homily ‘To Trust in God’ is available for anyone to read at catholicbishops.ie.

“I advise any person to read it and judge it for themselves. It is clearly a reasonable, balanced, honest — and indeed self-critical from a church perspective — analysis of the value of the Catholic faith. Bishop Boyce is a good and holy man and much loved by those who know him.”

After the homily was delivered late last summer, Mr Colgan wrote personally to the cleric seeking a corrective statement.

Dr Boyce responded saying that in his homily he did “not wish to disparage in any way the sincere efforts of those with no religious beliefs, atheists, humanists etc.

“I have too much respect for each human person, since I believe all are created in the image of God. At Knock I wished to encourage and confirm the hope of believers, even in the present challenging times, since trust in God was the theme I was given.”

An interesting commentary on this article can be found here: The Entire Sad Contraception Issue Explained

Also read here about how the Japanese population is going to drop by one third in the next fifty years due to their love affair with contraceptives and abortions:

from The Blaze:

We’ve covered the Catholic Church’s ongoing battle with the Obama administration over contraception health care mandates for quite some time. Over the weekend, though, the stand-off took an unusual turn, as Catholic churches across America read a letter to congregants that perfectly encapsulated the church’s stance against the impending federal requirements.

The Church’s vocal arguments against the Obama administration are centered upon a Health and Human Services Department requirement that employers must include contraception and abortion-inducing drugs in health-care coverage. While this requirement doesn’t apply to houses of worship, it will force Catholic colleges, hospitals and other Christian groups to provide these drugs despite their faith-based opposition to them.

Over the weekend, the Catholic Church’s letter went beyond simply issuing oppositional rhetoric to media. Instead, priests read an open note to congregations across the country, dubbing the administration‘s take on women’s health and religious violations as an attack on their faith. In the letter, Bishops highlighted what they called “an alarming and serious matter,“ as their words contended that the federal government has ”dealt a heavy blow” to the Catholic population.

In it, Catholic leaders went on to say that the Church “cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law,” as it violates the Catholic conscience. Additionally, the church says that it is faced with a difficult decision — either comply and violate its faith or drop coverage for employees and suffer the consequences. The letter urges congregants to take action and to call Congress in an attempt to overturn the regulation.

And this small minority will not only be persecuted by the state, but they will also be persecuted by those Churches that have chosen to put their allegiance to the state over their allegiance to God.

A classic fairly recent example is Nazi Germany during WWII. The Nazi government required ALL Churches,Seminary’s and Ministers to swear loyalty to the National Socialist Government or be faced with being dissolved by the government or ministers being defrocked and prohibited from being a minister.

Read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “The Cost of Discipleship“

Just for Clarity: I do not endorse the Roman Catholic Church  by posting this article. Nor do I endorse the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The Roman Catholic Church is an apostate church that practices idolatry, however what this article is saying has a much broader impact upon the religious freedom of all those denominations and individual believers that identify themselves as Christian.

And likewise Dietrich Bonhoeffer had many questionable beliefs, but again what happened to churches and individuals that identified themselves as Christian in Nazi Germany and occupied Europe during WWII is a good case study and “Type” of will happen to Christians in the latter days who will be forced to either deny their faith or not be allowed to openly practice their faith!

from The Washington Times:

Like many leftists, President Obama has deep contempt for Christianity and democracy. This is why his administration has declared war on the Catholic Church and religious liberty.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently went ahead and approved last year’s decision to mandate that many religious organizations provide health insurance plans to their employees that include contraception, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization coverage – and this must be done without charging a co-pay. In other words, Mr. Obama has done something that is ominous and unprecedented: compelling religious groups to embrace and subsidize free birth control. Catholic universities, hospitals and charities must either betray their fundamental social teachings or drop insurance coverage for their employees, thereby triggering massive financial penalties under Obamacare. The choice is simple: Abandon Catholic doctrine or go out of business.

The ruling will not simply devastate the Catholic heath care system and elaborate social network, which includes soup kitchens, adoption centers, immigrant services and parochial schools. It directly assaults and violates the conscience rights of Catholics. The church teaches that contraception is a sin, an immoral attempt to obstruct God’s will of when and whether human life should be created. It is the ultimate embodiment of pride: man trying to act as God. That is why opposition to birth control is at the heart of the Catholic faith.

The church teaches that the primary purpose of sexual activity within the sacred bonds of marriage is procreation – to perpetuate humanity from one generation to the next. For nearly 1,500 years, such thinking underpinned the Christian West. That was then; this is now. Since the 1960s, modern society is obsessed with contraception, abortion and sexual hedonism. The results have been declining birth rates and shrinking native populations. Literally, the West is dying. As the late Pope John Paul II put it, we are in the grips of “a culture of death.” Birth control is a key pillar. It is a seminal aspect of the socialist drive to establish a secular utopia – smash the traditional family by relentlessly advancing the sexual revolution. The pill and the condom are the hammer and sickle of cultural Marxism. Decades ago, the Vatican warned that birth control eventually would lead to the West’s demise. A civilization unable – and unwilling – to reproduce itself is doomed. . . . . .

2 Thessalonians 2:9-12:

“The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders,  and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

From Bioedge:

Pregnancy and childbirth are so painful, risky and socially restrictive for women that public funding should urgently be directed to the development of artificial wombs. This is the only way to achieve true equality between men and women for then neither women nor men would then be limited by having children and the burdens of reproducing the species would be shared equally.

This is the radical suggestion made by a leading British bioethicist, Anna Smajdor, of the University of East Anglia.

Artificial gestation, or ectogenesis,  is currently science fiction, but it may be possible. Dr Smajdor believes that in a truly liberal society pregnancy and childbirth should not be tolerated:

Changes to financial and social structures may improve things marginally, but a better solution needs to be found. Either we view women as baby carriers who must subjugate their other interests to the well-being of their children or we acknowledge that our social values and level of medical expertise are no longer compatible with “natural” reproduction.…

I suggest that there is a strong case for prioritizing research into ectogenesis as an alternative to pregnancy. I conclude by asking the reader the following: if you did not know whether you would be a man or a woman, would you prefer to be born into Society A, in which women bear all the burdens and risks of pregnancy, or Society B, in which ectogenesis has been perfected.

http://seg.sharethis.com/getSegment.php?purl=http%3A%2F%2Ftruediscernment.wordpress.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost-new.php%3Fpost_type%3Dpost&jsref=&rnd=1327681635366

Britain’s broadcast advertising body has given the go-ahead for private abortion clinics to advertise their services on television, angering those who say that the move desensitizes the public to the practice.

The Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice said late Friday there was no justification for barring private clinics that offer post-pregnancy services, including abortions, from advertising on television. Nonprofit post-pregnancy services are already allowed to advertise on television, and their for-profit counterparts are allowed to advertise in all other media.

The organization’s spokesman, Matt Wilson, said that “there is not going to be some sort of free-for-all saying: ‘Come to us to get an abortion.’ They are not there to promote abortion, they have to promote an array of services.”

Speaking to Britain’s right-leaning Daily Mail, Conservative lawmaker Nadine Dories said the move would allow broadcasters to make a profit “through advertising revenue off the back of a service which ends life. It’s appalling.”

British law allows abortion up to the 24th week of pregnancy, so long as two doctors agree that the procedure would cause less harm to a woman’s physical or mental health than carrying the fetus to term. There is no time limit in cases which pose a serious risk to the life of the mother.

Employers will be forced to offer free contraception in their healthcare plans, it was announced yesterday.

Religious organisations had been pushing for exemption from the ruling, but the Obama administration has said they will be allowed just a one-year delay in implementing the policy.

The vast majority of healthcare plans will have to offer birth control without any co-pays or deductibles from the beginning of August.

Republicans in Congress argued that the administration’s ‘unbending’ refusal to make an exception for religious groups would undermine freedom of worship.

But reproductive-rights activists hailed the decision as ‘common sense’ which would uphold employees’ access to ‘basic health care’.

The decision was announced by Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who said she had considered ‘the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty’, according to The Hill.

She added: ‘I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.’

Churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship are exempted from the requirement, but other religious bodies – such a universities, hospitals and charities – will have to offer free contraception from August 2013.

‘This ruling forces religious organizations to violate the fundamental tenets of their faith, or stop offering health insurance coverage to their employees,’ said the Republican Policy Committee.

The GOP leadership also criticised the government’s ‘unbending approach to appease its liberal base’.

The ‘Obamacare’ health reforms are designed to make insurers offer preventive measures such as contraception free, on the grounds that that will save on the future costs of treating illness.

Although most insurance plans already include contraception, some religious groups say they would rather shut down than offer birth control.

Nashville’s Dominican congregation told The Hill: ‘What war and disease could not do to the congregation, the government of the United States will do – it will shut them down.’

The president of Planned Parenthood welcomed the ruling, saying: ‘Birth control is not just basic health care for women, it is an economic concern.

‘This common sense decision means that millions of women, who would otherwise pay $15 to $50 a month, will have access to affordable birth control, helping them save hundreds of dollars each year.’

Psalm 53:1:

“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good”

And God’s word will offend those who reject it:

Galatians 5:11:

“And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offense of the cross ceased”

from The Daily Mail:

A church advertising campaign that depicted atheists as stupid has been banned by a watchdog in South Africa.

Officials ruled a billboard that suggested non-believers considered their existence to be accidental was likely to be found offensive.

The advertisement, which had been erected beside a church in Johannesburg, was pulled down following the ruling by South Africa’s Advertising Standards Authority.

The “offending” poster showed a picture of a man holding his hands against his temples in thought above the line ‘An atheist is a man who believes himself to be an accident’, famously attributed to British poet Francis Thompson.

It was erected last year in a prominent position on the property of the Rivers Church in the Sandton suburb of Johannesburg.

However, the ASA noted that it was obliged to consider the advertisement’s content after it received a complaint from a non-Christian member of the public.

Laying out its judgement on the matter, the authority stated that the complainant, Eugene Gerber, felt offended by the suggestion he was stupid.

The ruling stated: ‘In essence, the complainant submitted that the billboard offends him as an atheist as he does not consider his existence to be an accident.

‘Secondly, the depiction of a man with an empty head communicates that atheists are stupid.’

In a four-page judgement, the ASA noted that it had considered the billboard in terms of a clause in South Africa’s advertising code preventing content which could offend.

The authority stated that the church leaders had responded to the complaint by saying they believed the public would recognise the quote as the work of Thompson, who wrote during the late nineteenth century and died in 1907.

The ASA wrote: ‘The respondent submitted that the advertisement is based on Psalm 14v and Psalm 53v1, which say “only foolish say in their hearts there is no God”.

‘The implication of the image was meant to convey that if someone does not believe in God, then they are not wise.

‘It quoted the famous English poet Francis Thompson thinking that most people would be familiar with his work and would possibly respect his comment.’

However, the advertising authority judgement said the watchdog believed the quotation printed alongside an image of a man shaking his head was likely to cause gratuitous offence to atheists.

It wrote: ‘It is apparent that the proverbial line is drawn when advertising propagates statements that undermine the dignity and constitutionally protected right to freedom of religious beliefs of any identifiable sector of society.

‘The Directorate notes that the respondent has made use of a quote “An atheist is a man who believes himself to be an accident” by Francis Thompson, however this does not justify its use in this context.

‘The Merriam Webster online dictionary defines an accident as, “An unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance”.

‘The quote therefore suggests that atheists believe that their existence is a result of an unforeseen and unplanned event. 

‘The use of the word believe further strengthens this communication.

‘Furthermore, the visuals of a man holding the sides of his empty head suggest that atheists are ‘empty-headed’ or lack intelligence, presumably as a result of the above “belief” communicated.

‘This is something that would likely offend all atheists in a manner that the Code seeks to prevent.’

The ruling added: ‘While the directorate accepts that the respondent is entitled to promote its view and commentary to all who choose to attend its services, it cannot ignore the fact that the respondent has chosen to publicly proclaim its viewpoint.’

The ASA ruling, published on January 6, concluded by stating that the complaint against the church had been upheld.

The institution was ordered to pull down the advert immediately and was banned from using the material again.