Free Republic

Argues any military member talking about faith guilty of sedition That there have been those who oppose Christianity in all its forms and expressions at any time anywhere isn’t new. Those are personalities like Mikey Weinstein, of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, who recently said, “We face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces.” The fact the military is listening to him is new. That was confirmed in a report by Fox News’ Todd Starnes, who said...

Over the past few years, evangelical atheists have switched places with fire-and-brimstone Christians: where once it was the Christians who brooked no disagreement, now it is the atheists; and it is the atheists, too, who perform cartwheels on the heads of pins. Christopher Hitchens once even managed to argue of the Reverend Martin Luther King, of all people, that ‘In no real as opposed to nominal sense . . . was he a Christian’. A weaselly self-righteousness is now the hallmark of the celebrity unbeliever. Meanwhile, it is the Christian who nods diligently in any discussion, taking pains to reassure the atheists...

Physicist Walks Out of Gender-Segregated Debate At London University A renowned American physicist created a row at University College London last weekend when he stormed out of a debate hosted by an Islamic group because men, women and couples in the audience were segregated. The physicist, Lawrence Krauss, is a professor at Arizona State University. Krauss is a noted atheist who served on President Barack Obama’s science policy committee during the 2008 presidential campaign. The debate, sponsored by the Islamic Education and Research Academy, was entitled: “Islam or Atheism: Which Makes More Sense?” A YouTube clip posted by Stand for...

March 15, 2013 (LiveActionNews.org) - It would seem the pro-life movement has acquired an unlikely supporter. On Wednesday, Richard Dawkins, a vocal proponent of atheism and the author of The God Delusion, posted a provocative tweet about abortion: With respect to those meanings of "human" that are relevant to the morality of abortion, any fetus is less human than an adult pig. Now, when Dawkins typed “any fetus,” he did not mean it. He was not thinking of dolphin fetuses or dog fetuses. What he really meant to say was this: With respect to those meanings of “human” that are...

Caracas, Venezuela, Mar 6, 2013 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- A source in Venezuela has revealed to CNA that President Hugo Chavez died “in bosom of the Church” and received spiritual direction and the sacraments in his last days. In announcing Chavez’s death to the nation on March 5, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said the Venezuelan leader died “clinging to Christ.” The source in Venezuela told CNA that during the last weeks of his life, Chavez requested spiritual direction and asked to receive the sacraments. Ever since he assumed power in 1999, Chavez butted heads continuously with the Catholic Church over...

[Full title] ‘By All Means, Leave’: The Amazingly Blunt Response One State Rep. Gave a Citizen Who Wrote Him Opposing Concealed Carry in Schools Get out of here. That was one Wyoming state representative’s message to a resident who contacted him recently stating her opposition to a bill that would have allowed people with concealed carry permits to carry guns in public schools, colleges and sporting events. Rev. Audette Fulbright had emailed all state legislators, including Republican Rep. Hans Hunt, earlier this month to say she and her husband had just moved to Wyoming and were “seriously reconsidering” their decision...

SOUTH BRUNSWICK – Motor vehicle workers in Dayton called police on a man who insisted on wearing a pasta strainer on his head during the taking of his driver’s license photo, according to a police report. South Brunswick police officers responded to the MVC facility on Route 130 on a call that a man renewing his driver's license refused to remove the strainer on his head, according to a police report. The incident occurred about noon on Saturday, Feb. 2. The man, Aaron Williams, 25, who gave an Egg Harbor Township address, told motor vehicle workers the strainer was a...

"I feel sorry for the church next door, waiting for their three people to trickle in," says Nick Julius, glancing at the small adjacent hall that will shortly be hosting its own gathering. There are still 40 minutes before the Sunday Assembly, an atheist service run by two standup comedians, is due to begin, but a queue of eager congregants is already forming outside a grand but crumbling former church in Islington, north London, hands shoved deep into pockets against the cold. Julius arrived an hour early, just to be sure of a place at the service, which is described...

The U.S. military reportedly ordered soldiers to remove a cross and a steeple from atop a chapel and to board up cross-shaped windows at a remote American forward operating base in Afghanistan. The removal of Christian symbols from the chapel at Forward Operating Base Orgun-E came after a solider complained — leading American Atheists president David Silverman to send a letter to the Pentagon. (snip) “The local command in Afghanistan is aware of this chapel and has taken appropriate action to ensure that it is changed into a neutral facility,” said a statement from an Army spokesman at the Pentagon...

The formula seems simple: parents pass down what they believe to their children. Atheist parents don’t believe in God or go to church, therefore…. Yet, a surprisingly large number of atheist scientists from elite universities raise their children in a religious community such as a church. Sociologists Elaine Ecklund (Rice University) and Kristen Lee (University of Buffalo, SUNY) found that these atheist scientists do so because they want to give their children religious choice, have a religious spouse, or think that religious communities will give their children moral bearings and community. Unfortunately, very little research has been done concerning how...

"We know that a large population of 'Christians' are actually atheists who feel trapped in their family's religion. If you know god is a myth, you do not have to lie and call yourself 'Christian' in order to have a festive holiday season. You can be merry without the myth, and indeed, you should," said David Silverman, President of American Atheists.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- A cadet quitting West Point less than six months before graduation says he could no longer be part of a culture that promotes prayers and religious activities and disrespects nonreligious cadets. Blake Page announced his decision to quit the U.S. Military Academy this week in a much-discussed online post that echoed the sentiments of soldiers and airmen at other military installations. The 24-year-old told The Associated Press that a determination this semester that he could not become an officer because of clinical depression played a role in his public protest against what he calls the unconstitutional...

Lawsuit threat cancels Christmas concert HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - A threatened lawsuit had put a halt to what's become a Christmas tradition for members of the Moanalua High School orchestra. For the past six years, the award-winning group and volunteers from the New Hope Church have raised more than $200,0000 for a charity that treats poor people in Hawaii. But that all came to a halt on Monday when the Department of Education decided to cancel the concert just four days before the event. In a letter to the Department of Education, Mitch Kahle, founder of the Hawaii Citizens for the...

It never ceases to amuse – if not infuriate – how often atheists claim as one of their own much-revered historic figures who happen to make the news for some reason or another. So it was when Neil Armstrong went to be with the Lord this past August. So it was when Albert Einstein’s so-called “God Letter” went on auction last month. And so it is now with Abraham Lincoln. The nation’s 16th president is the subject of a new motion picture, helmed by Stephen Spielberg, the Oscar-winning director, with the screenplay penned by Tony Kushner, the Tony Award and...

An atheist group at Dartmouth College is planning an event aimed at skewering the reputation of the late Mother Teresa. The Atheists Humanists Agnostics (AHA) club sent out a campus-wide e-mail announcing the program on Tuesday and promising a “full-out romp against why one of the most beloved people of the century, Mother Teresa, is as Hitchens put it… ‘a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf.’” The e-mail says the group plans to screen an anti-Mother Teresa film, discuss Hitchens’ book, Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, and question how the public has been “conned into thinking this woman [Teresa]...

Churches are going to federal court to reclaim their freedom of speech after the city of Santa Monica, Calif., decided to end a nearly 60-year tradition of having Christian displays of the nativity in a public park due to an uproar caused by atheists' anti-God signs. Behind the trouble in Santa Monica is a member of the American Atheists, Damon Vix, who applied for and was granted a booth in Palisades Park alongside the nativity display three years ago. He erected a sign quoting Thomas Jefferson: "Religions are all alike -- founded on fables and mythologies." Another sign read, "Happy...

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has filed a federal lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over its lax response to church politicking. The group argues that the tax agency is violating the Constitution by allowing tax-exempt churches and religious organizations to get involved in political campaigns. The suit points to several examples, including a full page newspaper ad by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. The ad, which showed a photo of Rev. Billy Graham, urged Americans to vote along biblical principles. The 94-year-old evangelist also met with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in October and promised to do all he...

An atheist organization claims Indiana’s marriage statute is unconstitutional because it doesn't allow nonbelievers to be married by their own leaders, but state officials say the group is divorced from reality. The New York-based Center for Inquiry claims in a federal lawsuit that Indiana Code 31-11-6-1 violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment since it sets clear preference for religious individuals over those devoted to the “pursuit of ethical alternatives to religion.” The group says it filed suit on behalf of members John Kiel and Michelle Landrum, who plan to wed in the next six months. “You can have...

The recent boom in religiously unaffiliated Americans may ultimately help explain the results of the upcoming 2012 presidential election, according to a new poll that shows such voters lean heavily toward President Obama but are less likely than the religiously affiliated to turn out. Nearly one-quarter of likely Obama supporters say they have have no particular religion — a group less likely to vote than those affiliated with an organized religion, according to a poll released Monday by the Public Religion Research Institute. Sixty-one percent of unaffiliated Americans said they are certain to cast a ballot, compared with 73 percent...

Americans are losing their religion, and that’s good news for Democrats. So says Pitzer College prof Phil Zuckerman in a fascinating breakdown in Bloomberg Businessweek. Americans have long been more religious than almost all other Western societies, but that’s changing fast, reports Pitzer: Which is good news for Democrats, because “63 percent of nonreligious Americans support the Democratic Party, with only 26 percent supporting Republicans.”

Last week, two same-sex marriage bills were firmly rejected. As a result, campaigning journalists feel confused, even wounded. Or at least they’re pretending to be upset right now. Why isn’t their atheist prime minister on their side? Left-wing gay activists are fuming too. After all, they believe Gillard should be for “marriage equality” in relation to monogamy (but not polygamy for some outré reason). Why isn’t their progressive prime minister on their side? In response , political editor Ross Peake of The Canberra Times wrote, “Her detractors wonder how this works for an atheist living in a de facto relationship....

Wasserman Schultz calls Jerusalem omission from platform 'technical error' By Daniel Strauss - 09/06/12 09:15 AM ET Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) explained the exclusion of language recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital in the 2012 Democratic national platform as a "technical error" that had not been discussed at all during the drafting process. "Essentially, with Jerusalem, it was a technical omission and nothing more than that," Wasserman Schultz said Thursday on CNN. "There was never any discussion or debate commentary over adding or subtracting it." A day earlier, Democrats amended the 2012 party platform to include...

BOSTON (CBS Connecticut) — The National Atheist Party is canceling its secular convention due to a lack of funding. Troy Boyle, the party’s president, announced on its website won’t be holding NAPCON 2012 in Boston in October because it would bankrupt the group. “After this year’s amazing Reason Rally, and flush with our successful recruiting and a spike in donations, we decided to hold our OWN secular event. NAPCON 2012 was supposed to be our biggest and best public event; our chance to show the U.S. that we could fund and organize a large, noteworthy and impressive ‘Secular Summit’ that...

The funniest thing about the r/K divide within our species is how pervasive it is. Everywhere I look, I see aspects of it manifesting in our culture, our behavior, our history, and even our future. Here is a free abstract from an interesting study examining the “balancing selection hypothesis” of homosexuality. Let me rephrase this, so it makes more sense. There may be a gene which produces women who are more fertile, have more offspring, and want to deal with children less. At the same time it makes men more feminine (and more promiscuous, since that correlates with homosexuality). (There...

Pastor Became Atheist. Why? by Brian Thomas, M.S. | Aug. 8, 2012 Teresa McBain ministered in the Methodist church for twenty years. She formerly pastored at Lake Jackson United Methodist Church in Tallahassee, Florida, but today she ministers as the public relations director of the American Atheists.1 She says that she used to believe in the God of the Bible, but she recently changed her mind: "I know it's a lie. I know it's false."2 Why has she rejected God? She explained her reasons to the Christian Post, saying, "One [reason] was the contradictory nature of the Bible; the lack...

A former Methodist worship and teaching pastor who served in ministry for 20 years before becoming an atheist has been appointed as the American Atheist's public relations director. In an interview with The Christian Post, she revealed that despite initially being ostracized by friends, she is now happy and at peace with her decision. "No it was very, very gradual. Actually there's not really one single moment where I can look back and say ah, that was the moment. It was kind of a slow progression," Teresa MacBain shared about her loss of faith with CP in a phone interview...

An atheist has called out a Christian pastor for ignoring Bible passages condemning homosexuality to argue that gays can go to heaven. "If Christians support that (putting LGBT individuals on equal footing), that's great, but it's going to happen in spite of what the Bible says, not because of it," said Hemant Mehta, also known as the Friendly Atheist, in a recent blog post. Mehta was referring to commentary written by Pastor Craig Gross, founder of XXXchurch.com. Gross suggested that there will be gays in heaven just as there will be fat people and other sinners. "Why do they (religious...

The younger generation is becoming godless. Increasing numbers of Americans under the age of 30 are skeptical about the existence of God. This will have profound repercussions upon our society, fostering moral disintegration and the eventual death of our Judeo-Christian civilization. Traditional America is dying. In its place, a new liberal barbarism is being born. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center finds that belief in God has dropped dramatically among so-called millennials — those born after 1980 — during the past five years. In particular, the Pew poll found that 31 percent of respondents say they doubt whether...

Alternate headline: "Blogger's plan to be president by 2040 still on track."Note to The One: You can admit it now.I've blogged a bunch of these Gallup polls over the years and my demographic has always been at the bottom of the barrel preference-wise. But things are improving: In 2007, just 45 percent said they'd vote for an atheist, then last year it crept up to 49 percent. Now we're over the hump at 54. I wonder why. It's not like the "new atheism" suddenly exploded onto the national scene over the past six months, and to hear believers tell it,...

The noted atheist Richard Dawkins has been very active recently in his campaign to discredit religious belief, in particular Christianity, and Roman Catholicism has been a special target. He had a debate of sorts with Rowan Williams, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, and appeared on an Australian television program, “Q and A,” with Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney. His animus against Catholicism was also evident in a joint appearance with Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist and fellow non-believer (as Krauss likes to be called), at the Australian National University. Krauss is the author of the much heralded, A Universe...

Actor Keira Knightley, a self-confessed atheist, says she is desperate to be Catholic because she would “just get to ask for forgiveness”. “It sounds much better than having to live with guilt. It’s absolutely extraordinary. If only I wasn’t an atheist, I could get away with anything,”

WOONSOCKET, R.I. (FOX 25) - “The Firefighter’s Prayer” is a creed dear to firefighters all over the United States; however, that prayer and a monument in Woonsocket, R.I. are under fire by a national group which says the department is blurring the lines of religion. Tom Poole, a disabled veteran, is one of many in Woonsocket trying to protect a cross that stands on top of a monument located in the parking lot of the city’s fire station on Cumberland Hill Road. The monument was erected 91 years ago to honor Woonsocket war veterans, including the three brothers killed in...

When Patrick Greene learned that a county five hours north of his San Antonio home had placed a nativity on the courthouse square, he vowed to file suit if they did it again, the Malakoff News reported. An atheist, Greene did not believe the religious symbol of Christmas had any place on government property. Then, as quickly as he blew into Henderson County, he withdrew. He would not lead a rally, he told reporters there, because he believed he suffered from a detached retina and was going blind. He had to leave his job as a taxi driver, he elaborated,...

An atheist activist group is fighting the Catholic Church's "war against contraception" by stepping up its campaign that suggests believers should end their faithfulness to their religion. The Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation plans to run a full-page ad in The New York Times that states, "It's Time to Quit the Catholic Church." FFRF is conducting a fundraiser to pay for the $52,000 ad and has collected $45,000 so far, according to a chart on the group's website. The FFRF campaign began last month in light of opposition from the Catholic Church to the Obama administration's decision that seeks...

The ayatollahs are not a great advertisement for faith in God. Here in Sydney, Australia, where I’ve been lecturing for a week, I may have had one Australian-born waitress or waiter, and one Australian-born taxi driver. As is my wont, I have been asking all my waiters, waitresses, and taxi drivers where they were born and, whenever possible, having some discussion about their native country. I say “whenever possible” because, unlike in the United States, where taxi drivers, whether foreign- or American-born, are known for being talkative, in Sydney, apparently, the influence of the famous British reserve is still very...

With all the talk of holding radio talk show hosts accountable lately, it’s probably worth bringing you what liberal firebrand Mike Malloy said last week as storms ravaged the South. According to a clip from his March 2 show, it seems the storms are God’s way of getting back at them for not believing in science. Or something. “Their God … keeps smashing them into little grease spots on the pavement in Alabama, and Mississippi, and Arkansas, and Georgia, and Oklahoma,” Malloy says in his broadcast from Friday. “You know, the Bible belt, where [in a mocking voice] they ain’t...

An atheist organization says it will unveil a Hebrew-language billboard calling God a “myth” near a Brooklyn hassidic enclave, and a similar billboard in Arabic in heavily Muslim Paterson, NJ. The group American Atheists says it will unveil a billboard Monday in hassidic-dominated South Williamsburg. The billboard writes out the name of God in Hebrew, and then features in English and Hebrew translation the phrase “You know it’s a myth… and you have a choice.” “If there are atheists in those communities, we are reaching out to them,” Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists, told CNN last week. “We are...

Mark this in your book of bizarre celebrity sightings. Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking is somewhat of a regular at a Devore, California sex club, RadarOnline.com is exclusively reporting. According to a source who has been a member of Freedom Acres swingers club for nearly half a decade, Hawking, 70, shows up to the club with a bevy of nurses and assistants and has naked woman grind on him.

Oral arguments were heard in a Massachusetts Superior Court on Monday over a lawsuit filed by an atheist couple who believe that their children are being discriminated against because the Pledge of Allegiance – which is said every day in Mass. public school classrooms under state law – contains the phrase "under God." "The daily recitation in public schools of a pledge declaring that the nation is 'under God' is discriminatory toward atheists and humanists," David Niose, president of the American Humanist Association and lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, stated. "No child should go to school each...

Timeless words...written 149 years ago but could have been penned yesterday, but not by the current Imposter-in-Chief: "Insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and...

Atheists are using a music video that celebrates the burning of churches and synagogues to promote an upcoming atheist-themed festival at Fort Bragg. “Rock Beyond Belief” is scheduled to be held on the parade field at Fort Bragg in March. The event was created in part as a response to a Billy Graham Evangelistic Association event that was held last year. FOLLOW TODD ON FACEBOOK! Justin Griffith, who organized “Rock Beyond Belief,” said he was personally offended that a Christian evangelical event like “Rock the Fort” was held on the base. “We felt it was entirely inappropriate for anyone to...

Tim Tebow is called a "Christian Taliban" by an atheist, comparing Southern Baptists to Muslim fundamentalists. Link to Mindposts article hereExcerpt: "Superstar NFL quarterback Tim Tebow looks like an All-American guy, but he has more in common with the Taliban than with our Founding Fathers. The press has given Tim an open mic to opine on abortion, virtue, and piety. When will reporters ask Tim to share his views on gay marriage, the subservience of women, the power of the devil, where the dinosaurs too big for the Ark, or the age of the planet? His overt Christianity has resounded...

"...What is the difference between right and wrong, good and bad? There is no moral difference between them. Why should I be moral? Because it makes you feel better than being immoral. Is abortion, euthanasia, suicide, paying taxes, foreign aid, or anything else you don’t like forbidden, permissible, or sometimes obligatory? Anything goes. What is love, and how can I find it? Love is the solution to a strategic interaction problem. Don’t look for it; it will find you when you need it. Does history have any meaning or purpose?It’s full of sound and fury, but signifies nothing.” I take...

A conservative group has set up a nativity scene at the Capitol building in Madison, and an atheists' group is seeking its own permit for an opposing display. A WISC-TV report says Wisconsin Family Action has been granted a permit to display its scene until the end of the month. The six statuettes that sit on a table depict the birth of Jesus Christ. Group spokeswoman Julaine Appling says the display is tasteful. She says there's room for a number of different voices. But the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation says a nativity scene isn't appropriate for a state building....

Pennsylvania Town Rejects Atheist 'There Are No Gods' Banner in Holiday DisplayPublished December 03, 2011 | Associated Press ELLWOOD CITY, Pa. – A western Pennsylvania mayor refused to include a banner from an atheist group that says "there are no gods" as part of a holiday display that includes a Nativity scene, which has been erected annually on city property for decades. Hundreds of people turned out to support the mayor's decision to go ahead with the display Friday, which also includes symbols pertaining to Kwanzaa and Hanukkah and secular symbols, including Santa Claus, a snowman and a Christmas tree....

They may not find much meaning in the birth of Jesus Christ, but many atheists embrace religious traditions such as churchgoing for the sake of the children, a new study finds. The research, which focused on atheist scientists, found that 17 percent of atheists in the study attended a religious service more than once a year. The atheists embraced religious traditions for social and personal reasons, they told the study researchers. "Our research shows just how tightly linked religion and family are in U.S. society — so much so that even some of society's least religious people find religion to...

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The upbringing I underwent in New South Wales, Australia —partly in Sydney, but mainly in the village of Mulgoa— was one of complete, although predominantly quiet and civil, atheism. Both my parents (who are now dead) spent their childhood as Presbyterians, but shed religious belief soon after attaining adulthood. My father was the philosopher and political polemicist David Stove. During his undergraduate years, he fell under the spell of the militantly atheistic guru John Anderson of the University of Sydney's philosophy department. Except that "fell under" seems a much too gentle phrase to describe what my father and thousands like...

"In 1919, Georg Lukacs became Deputy Commissar for Culture in the short-lived Bolshevik Bela Kun regime in Hungary. He immediately set plans in motion to de-Christianize Hungary. Reasoning that if Christian sexual ethics could be undermined among children, then both the hated (traditional) family and the Church would be dealt a crippling blow, Lukacs launched a radical sex education program in the schools. Sex lectures were organized and literature handed out which graphically instructed youth in free love (promiscuity) and sexual intercourse while simultaneously encouraging them to deride and reject Christian moral ethics, monogamy, and parental and church authority. All...