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Richard Dawkins: Children need to be ‘protected’ from religion ‘You have to write off those people’ who put the Bible ahead of science, author says Children need to be “protected” from religious indoctrination in schools, biologist and atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins has said, backing a campaign by Atheist Ireland to overhaul our education system.Speaking to The Irish Times in advance of a public talk at Trinity College Dublin on Tuesday evening, Prof Dawkins said: “There is a balancing act and you have to balance the rights of parents and the rights of children and I think the balance has swung...

The 2016 presidential campaign is already upon us and the debate is heating up over an unexpected issue -- the theory of evolution. Of course, in an ideal world, evolution would never really become a campaign issue. But the anti-science wing of the Republican Party continues to voice skepticism. Apologists for this wing would dearly like to distract the media and the voting public from what is, frankly, a national if not a global embarrassment. In truth, the President of the United States needs to be scientifically literate. For the federal government has an important role to play and it...

(CNN)Whether you believe that religious violence is fueled by faith or is a symptom of larger factors -- political instability, poverty, cultural chaos -- one thing seems clear: Last week was hellish for religion.

New York City, N.Y., Feb 13, 2015 / 04:02 am (CNA).- Questions are being raised over two U.S. foundations that have poured more than three million dollars into abortion rights, LGBT activist, and legal groups to push the message that exemptions based on religious beliefs are “un-American” and an abuse of liberty. The Arcus Foundation and the Ford Foundation have spent over $3 million in combined spending against religious liberty exemptions since 2013, according to a CNA review of tax forms and grant listings. John Lomperis of the Institute for Religion and Democracy – a D.C.-based ecumenical Christian think tank...

During a heated discussion over gay marriage, CNN morning Anchor Chris Cuomo opined that the unalienable rights endowed to all Americans do not come from God. Cuomo was debating Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. Near the end of the back-and-forth and after Moore argued that rights cannot be handed down by men, Cuomo blurted out:“Our rights do not come from God, your honor, and you know that. They come from man... That’s your faith, that’s my faith, but that’s not our country. Our laws come from collective agreement and compromise.”

A man who posted anti-religious sentiments online has been arrested after three Muslim students were shot dead close to the University of North Carolina campus on Tuesday. Craig Stephen Hicks, who describes himself as a vehement supporter of atheism, has been charged with three counts of murder after the trio were shot dead in Meadowmont around 5pm. Dentistry student Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, of Chapel Hill, his new wife Yusor Mohammad, 21, of Chapel Hill and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, of Raleigh, all died. Hicks, 46, of Chapel Hill, turned himself in 'without incident' and is currently being...

The co-founder and former guitarist of the popular world-famous Christian rock band the Newsboys has officially renounced his Christian faith and is calling members of the current version of the band hypocrites. George Perdikis, who founded the chart-topping Christian band in 1985 with his friend Peter Furler, wrote an op-ed on Wednesday published by the website Patheos explaining how he transformed from a guitarist in one of the most popular Christian rock bands of all-time to a cosmology-enthused atheist. "I always felt uncomfortable with the strict rules imposed by Christianity. All I wanted to do was play rock and roll,"...

The issue of whether political speech is more important than religious speech was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in oral arguments Monday in a case involving a small church that is suing an Arizona town over a sign display code they believe violates their rights. Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court appeared to favor Good News Community Church and its pastor Clyde Reed over the town of Gilbert's restrictions on religious roadside signs. During the arguments, a couple attorneys wondered if Gilbert's code on roadside signs placed political speech above religious speech. Reed and his congregation were represented by...

One of the secular left’s latest windmills at which to tilt is America’s fanciful “rape culture.” There is a universal ethos of violence against women, as they imagine it, that stems from a millennia-old global patriarchy chiefly derived from religion in general and Judeo-Christianity in particular (another of their pet nemeses). Paradoxically, these “progressive” Don Quixotes actually believe in said “rape culture,” something that, outside of Islam, does not exist, while they disbelieve in their Creator, Christ Jesus, who both did and does exist. Exhibit A, of course, is the now-debunked UVA fraternity gang-rape hoax concocted in the disturbed minds...

Couldn't the New York Times put aside its hostility to traditional religion on Christmas Day and feature a column by a believing Christian? No, it couidn't. Instead, believers who blunder onto the online op-ed page today are hit with a lead column entitled "Religion Without God." And just in case you didn't get the message, there's a second column called "An Atheist’s Christmas Dream."

In case you didn’t know it, if you are a conservative Christian, you are just like Boko Haram and ISIS. At least, that’s what the secularists are saying. More absurd still, they actually believe this.Of course, secularism has been waging war against religion for centuries, but more recently, in America and Europe, the rhetoric of secularism has become more extreme and shrill.When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, critics complained that the Court’s eminently reasonable decision was “anti-scientific.”As noted by Jonathan Adler in the Washington Post, “The Daily Beast‘s Sally Kohn decried the Court’s reliance on ‘bunk...

Last May, one of the most influential conservative and religious intellectual leader in America gave a somber speech in Washington, declaring it to be “Good Friday in America for Christians.” In this exclusive two part video interview, Princeton’s Robert P. George admitted, “that was a hard speech to give.” “Christians, and those rejecting the me-generation liberal dogma of ‘if it feels good do it,’ are no longer tolerable by the intellectual and cultural elite,” says George, 59, director of the James Madison program at Princeton University. Citing the political witch hunt....

Most antiquities scholars think that the New Testament gospels are “mythologized history.” In other words, they think that around the start of the first century a controversial Jewish rabbi named Yeshua ben Yosef gathered a following and his life and teachings provided the seed that grew into Christianity. At the same time, these scholars acknowledge that many Bible stories like the virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, and women at the tomb borrow and rework mythic themes that were common in the Ancient Near East, much the way that screenwriters base new movies on old familiar tropes or plot elements. In this...

Travelodge Removes The Bibles From Its Rooms On Grounds of 'Diversity'. Were Satanists complaining? By Tim Stanley August 16th, 2014 A comforting sight in hotel rooms for 126 years. Until now. If you’re staying in a Travelodge and you get a hankering to save your mortal soul, don’t bother. The management has decided to pull every single Gideon Bible from bedside tables in their hotels, on the grounds of "diversity" and not wanting to cause offence. Who, pray, might be offended? Cut to a Satanist coming down to reception at 1.30 in the morning, covered in goats blood, slamming a...

A couple have gained thousands of fans after they 'counter-protested' anti-abortion pickets with bizarre slogans like 'Bring back Crystal Pepsi' and 'Who farted?'.Grayson and Tina Haver Currin came up with the idea in March to break the ice with pro-lifers outside an abortion clinic near their home in Raleigh, North Carolina.Since then the photographs of their surreal placards have gone viral - prompting dozens of other pro-choice activists to join them every Saturday morning.

Image credit: Jimmy Demello Artworks[/caption] The last time I was in Houston, I had to change the fuse in my paradox meter after meeting a self-described pro-choice Republican woman, who was also a lawyer.  I told her at least she was better than Wendy Davis, to which no response was offered.  I said it a second time, and with a puff of white smoke, the paradox-meter died. Dang, the fuse just blew again, reading Time’s August 4 issue, Religion section article “Atheist “Churches” Gain Popularity—Even in the Bible Belt” (behind a paywall).  Yup, the “Atheist Church” they wrote about...

The IRS recently settled a case against it brought by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). As part of the settlement, the IRS has agreed to monitor church sermons for political content. The suit was filed because FFRF apparently did not like an event called Pulpit Freedom Sunday. Apparently once a year a number of pastors preach on political topics, presumably to rebel against the never enforced Federal prohibition on 501(c)(3) political activities. Technically it is illegal for tax exempt non-profits to engage in political activities, presumably this includes commenting on politics from the pulpit. To date there isn’t a...

People who disagree with same-sex marriage and birth-control use have been met with accusations of bigotry. Are some Christians being unfairly shamed out of the public sphere? Is evangelical Christian morality still viable in American public life? This is the question lurking in recent debates over religious-liberty issues, from the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision to the Christian bakers who object to baking cakes for gay weddings. In discussions of these cases, objections to same-sex marriage and contraception are described as a retreat from “secular society.” And in some cases, evangelicals actually have retreated: Since the Boy Scouts of America...

A High School in California has insisted that it has a right to ban the mention of God in a student’s graduation speech paradoxically claiming the Constitution gives them that power. In July 18-year-old Brooks Hamby refused to follow the schools ban order and thanked Jesus in his speech anyway sending the school into fits of apoplexy. A California school district says it will not apologize to a teenager who defied its orders and mentioned God in his graduation speech. Attorneys representing the Brawley Union High School District have written a 10-page letter defending the school’s right not only to...

ALEXANDRIA, La. (BP) -- There are atheists and liberals, some who are both, who believe there is no need for God in order for morality to be maintained in a society. They argue that people can act morally apart from a supreme authority. I agree that people can act morally apart from God's standard. However, the real question is why should they? If there is no supreme authority -- no God -- then why behave morally? If there is no God, there are no objective standards for moral behavior. The logical progression leads to anarchy. Everyone does what is right...