Free Republic

The Kremlin has confirmed that the divorce of Russian President Vladimir Putin from his wife of 30 years, Lyudmila, has been finalised. The country's best-known couple, who have two daughters in their late 20s, went on TV in June to announce they were breaking up. Mr Putin, 61, was still officially listed as "married" only last week.

Since its founding in the 1930s, Alcoholics Anonymous has become part of the fabric of American society. AA and the many 12-step groups it inspired have become the country's go-to solution for addiction in all of its forms. These recovery programs are mandated by drug courts, prescribed by doctors and widely praised by reformed addicts. Dr. Lance Dodes sees a big problem with that. The psychiatrist has spent more than 20 years studying and treating addiction. His latest book on the subject is The Sober Truth: Debunking The Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs And The Rehab Industry. Dodes tells NPR's...

There’s not a lot to like about Vladimir Putin: he’s autocratic, vain and runs a corrupt government. And he doesn’t give a fig for human rights. The repression in Chechnya, the jailing of the businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the Pussy Riot protestors, the murders of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and of Alexander Litvinenko, the former spy – all this happened on Putin’s watch. Who would not be on the side of the 100,000 people who turned out on Moscow’s streets last winter to protest against Putin’s election to a third term as president and to demand fair elections and an honest...

Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, revealed in a recent interview that his family goes to a Catholic church and that religious morality inspires a lot of his charity work. He also shared his personal thoughts on God and the biggest issues facing the world today. "The moral systems of religion, I think, are super important. We've raised our kids in a religious way; they've gone to the Catholic church that Melinda goes to and I participate in. I've been very lucky, and therefore I owe it to try and reduce the inequity in the world. And that's...

Maher began the monologue by declaring that America is “stupid” because 60 percent of the country reportedly believes the tale of Noah’s ark is literally true. He went on to slam the film Noah as “floating giraffe cr**,” but said it “must be doing something right” since it’s been condemned by both Muslims and Christians. And the fact that it might lose a lot of studio money, he joked, “may put it in hot water with the Jews too.”

The American Humanist Association filed a lawsuit last week in federal court in Maryland calling for the removal of Bladensburg’s 40-foot Memorial Peace Cross, which honors men from Prince George’s County who died during World War I. The association and three individual plaintiffs contend that the cross, which is on state property, violates the constitutional principle of separation of church and state. The cross was dedicated in 1925. ...One of the individual plaintiffs, Steven Lowe of Washington, contends that the cross "associates a Christian religious symbol with the state and gives the impression that the state supports and approves of...

Oral arguments in a lawsuit by an atheist organization against the placement of the "World Trade Center cross" at a museum on government property will take place later this week. American Atheists will present their case before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, arguing that the WTC cross does not belong in a museum on government leased property. Two days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, construction workers found a cross beam among the wreckage of the Twin Towers. Measuring 17 feet tall and approximately 4,000 pounds, the piece of debris became known as the World Trade...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Museum of Tolerance has acquired a 1937 letter written by Bertrand Russell in which the Nobel Prize-winning philosopher says if the Nazi army invades his native England the British should invite Adolf Hitler to dinner rather than fight. ... “The fact of the matter is he had all the credentials. He probably was Britain’s greatest philosopher and won the Nobel Prize for literature after all,” Hier said. “But he didn’t understand a basic concept: that the idea that you allow evil to flourish under these conditions, that if we act nice to Hitler, serve him...

That's why it's pretty chilling to hear Vladimir Putin hurling accusations at the West and pointing out that what's going on is identical to what went on when communism was established and religion was completely expunged from the Soviet Union. Between 1917 and 1937, almost a quarter of a million Christians were executed, and churches that survived destruction were converted into things like museums of atheism. Russian President Putin, who hasn't been shy about expressing his disapproval of homosexuality and has banned what he defined as "homosexual propaganda," had this to say: Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their...

I'm most likely an atheist, leaning to the agnostic side of the spectrum. I know I'm a sceptic, in the true sense of the word. Or shallow. One of the two. [snip] About five years ago, work took me, my fellow-journalist wife and our then three-year-old child from eastern England to southwest France. We enrolled our little girl at a local Catholic school, selected purely on the recommendation of a colleague for the quality of its education. [snip} Being a Catholic school, an hour is set aside each week for catechism. A friend takes the class. She has often told...

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...