essentialsaltes | There's plenty of places where it's worse to be an atheist

In the Maldives, a man "was assaulted Friday evening, after he declared his atheist status to the public during the Q&A session of a lecture given by visiting Indian scholar Dr Zakir Naik. ... Nazim’s question sparked comments of hatred from an angry crowd of around 11,000 with many calling to kill him and attack him, while Naik was answering the question. ... A Police media official said Nazim received several minor injuries. He is in custody at an undisclosed location, the official added Saturday afternoon."

I'm glad the religious authorities and the speaker were voices of calm, but I'm a little less certain about the speaker's response to the man: “The problem with you is that you are extra-smart. Being smart is good, [but] being extra-smart is not good."

In a kind of odd followup to the fired Catholic school teacher story, there's this Canadian story of how the Catholic church is growing as teachers convert to Catholicism in order to compete for jobs at Catholic schools: "'I haven't gone for my, um, what do you call it the bread thing yet...Communion. I'm nervous about it,' she added."