Free Republic

Waiting for the axe to fall, the soldiers discuss the hereafter. Jocko: I say this :I BELIEVE ! I can never find a way to argue down you that don’t believe, but I believe in the Lord God Almighty,all knowingand all forgiving. [Music.] And I believethat Good shall be triumphant in the endand that evil shall be vanquished. I believein a hereafter. Bob: Me, too. I figure a man’s got to believe in those things, does he want to believe in the good things about man — ?about his very own self — ? [Green Leaves…] the real good...

One of the more common misunderstandings of the modern age, we might even call it a delusion, is to confuse explanation with meaning. Through scientific method and other empirical ways of studying, we have gotten very good at explaining many of the processes and mechanics of the natural world.But to give explanation, is not the same as to ascribe meaning. To answer how things work is not the same as to answer why.Why, for example, do things exist at all? Why is there existence vs. nonexistence? Why is there observable order in the universe vs. chaos. Showing for example the...

LONDON (CNN) - The Sunday Assembly was riding high. The world’s most voguish - though not its only - atheist church opened last year in London, to global attention and abundant acclaim. So popular was the premise, so bright the promise, that soon the Sunday Assembly was ready to franchise, branching out into cities such as New York, Dublin and Melbourne. “It’s a way to scale goodness,” declared Sanderson Jones, a standup comic and co-founder of The Sunday Assembly, which calls itself a “godless congregation.” But nearly as quickly as the Assembly spread, it split, with New York City emerging...

Professor Richard Dawkins dismissed his hard-earned reputation as a militant atheist - admitting that he is actually agnostic as he can't prove God doesn't exist. The country's foremost champion of Darwinist evolution stunned audience members when he made the confession during a lively debate on the origins of the universe with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Professor Dawkins is a dedicated admirer of Charles Darwin, regarding the Victorian pioneer of evolution as the man who explained ‘everything we know about life’. But when Archbishop Dr Rowan Williams suggested that Professor Darwin is often described as the world's most famous atheist, the...

The Navy directed service members serving in Bahrain to cancel and dismantle a “Live Nativity” after receiving a complaint from a military atheist group who said the manger scene endangered Americans serving in a Muslim country and violated the U .S. Constitution. The chaplain at Naval Support Activity (NSA) Bahrain confirmed to Fox News the nativity scene was cancelled – but referred any further comments to the NSA’s public information officer. The “Live Nativity” was a long-standing tradition at NSA Bahrain that featured the children of military personnel dressed as shepherds, wise men, along with Mary and Joseph. It was...

NSFW--Jon Stewart has a nude picture, of his WIFE, maybe? legs spread with a nativity scene placed over the genital area...I guess she never worked a day in her life...Oy!

In Chicago's Daley Plaza, wedged between – and in front of – the traditional nativity display and a giant menorah, there sits something new this year: an 8-foot-tall letter "A" lit up in red. The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) placed the big "A" in downtown Chicago. They say the "A" stands for Atheist, but it also represents Attack, given its timing and placement. While the nativity scene is linked to Christmas, and the menorah is part of Hanukah, the only apparent purpose for this lighted letter "A" is to demean the other displays. In Florida's State Capitol, the...

It seems that those who favor the all or nothing inclusion of December symbols in the annual display in front of the municipal building have been successful in making that happen. Over the weekend - with it still unclear if the lighted tree is to be called a "Christmas tree" or a "Holiday tree" - a crèche and an atheist sign were added to the display. Meanwhile the official name for the lighted tree in the display remains an issue for some. Resident Tim Wagner and others said they will continue to press for administrative action to call the "Holiday...

For people who like church except for the parts about God, a British couple have bodied forth a new denomination that cheerfully excludes him, raising the volume on the question “What is atheism?” several decibels overnight. The Sunday Assembly, a “godless congregation” founded in East London last January by standup comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, now boasts affiliates in Brighton, Bristol, Oxford, Canberra, Melbourne, New York, and Portland, Ore. On September 21, it announced a “global missionary tour”: This past fall, interested individuals in 22 cities across the Anglosphere held Sunday Assembly meet-ups. Look for permanent congregations to be...

All right, before you get your freckles in an uproar by reading that title and making a quick, errant assumption about me, let me clarify a few things. I’m a bible believing, spirit filled Christian. I am not an atheist sympathizer. I do not doubt my faith, nor do I have any doubts about the deity of Jesus Christ. He is my Lord and Savior, and I believe the world is lost without Him. For years I celebrated Christmas. But last year, I decided to stop celebrating it. Something awoke in me, and I just felt turned off by the...

A former Mormon bishop in Riverside County is expected to serve three years in prison for sexually assaulting two teenage girls who attended a Menifee church, prosecutors said. Todd Mitchell Edwards, 49, pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts related to the assault of the teens, ages 16 and 18, as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County district attorney's office. The counts were sexual battery and sexual penetration with a foreign object. In addition to the prison time, Edwards will also have to register as a lifetime sex offender as part...

Atheists in San Diego, Calif. are trying a new approach to recruiting non-believers by offering food, such as pretzels and cheezits, and putting up large banners that read "Relax: hell does not exist, or heaven either, enjoy your life." The atheists are members of the San Diego-based group the San Diego Coalition of Reason, and every Saturday they set up a booth in the city's Balboa Park alongside other religious groups, such as Hare Krishnas and evangelical Christians, to educate passerby on their lack of beliefs. Along with the quirky banner that hangs over their booth, members of the group...

In a recent FoxNews.com editorial, Dr. Robert Jeffress, pastor of the 11,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, Tex., summed up quite nicely what's gone wrong with America's church-state jurisprudence: "Activist judges have replaced the word 'Congress' with 'government,' 'establishment' with 'endorsement,' and 'religion' with 'Christianity,'" he writes, "so that they can eradicate any Christian expression from the public square at the local, state, or national level."

A humanist organization is threatening lawsuits against two public schools for their participation in Operation Christmas Child, a project of evangelist Franklin Graham's international Christian relief organization Samaritan's Purse that seeks to deliver Christmas toys to needy children throughout the world. The American Humanist Association recently sent letters to two public elementary schools, one in South Carolina and one in Colorado, threatening legal action if they continue participating in Operation Christmas Child, which delivers thousands of shoe boxes stuffed with gifts to needy children throughout the world every year during the holidays. Along with containing small gifts, the shoe boxes...

Sunday Assembly, a godless church, founded by two British comedians that meet to hear "great talks, sing songs and celebrate life" throughout 30 cities around the world, launched a new congregation in Nashville, Tenn., last night as part of their effort to expand as a non-religious "megachurch." The Sunday Assembly opened its first church in London in January and both Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, leaders of the atheist group, decided to break ground in Nashville as their way of "church planting" since the pair has already established stateside congregations in San Diego, New York and Washington, D.C. Close to...

NORTH HAMPTON, Ohio — A self-described militant atheist with a criminal past faces multiple charges after an attack on a pastor who, after his sermon, had asked the man's girlfriend if she felt safe. James Maxie, 28, of Springfield, Ohio, is charged with second-degree felonious assault and misdemeanor resisting arrest after an incident Sunday at The Bridge Community Church in North Hampton. Police Chief Jarrod Campbell said in his 11 years with the department, he's rarely dealt with "an incident this brutal." The Rev. Norman Hayes, 57, said he feared for his life and begged for the attack to stop....

He is regarded as the most famous atheist in the world but last night Professor Richard Dawkins admitted he could not be sure that God does not exist. He told the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, that he preferred to call himself an agnostic rather than an atheist. The two men were taking part in a public “dialogue” at Oxford University at the end of a week which has seen bitter debate about the role of religion in public life in Britain. Last week Baroness Warsi, the Tory party chairman, warned of a tide of “militant secularism” challenging the...

Former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, the nation's first openly gay member of Congress and liberal darling, implied in a recent interview that he is also a "pot-smoking atheist." Frank, a Democrat who served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts from 1981 to 2013, made his comments last Friday while serving as a guest on a talk show hosted by Bill Maher, a stand-up comedian known for his atheist, liberal-slanted comedy routine. Maher then went on to say that Frank was lucky to have worked in a "safe district" which didn't receive the kind of media...

I'll be the first to criticize public education for not being challenging enough and simply passing kids on to the next grade without teaching them anything...but is this too much for first graders? Here's a partial list of what 6 year olds will allegedly be able to do after completing this lesson plan: 2. Explain the importance of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the use of canals to support farming and the development of the city of Babylon 4. Identify cuneiform as the system of writing used in Mesopotamia 6. Explain the significance of the Code of Hammurabi 9....

Reflecting upon key similarities between the atheist and gay mafia(Video).