Free Republic

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Reuters) - North Carolina prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a man who police say kept detailed notes on parking at his condominium complex before gunning down three young Muslims in a neighboring unit, according to documents released on Monday. Craig Hicks, 46, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the Feb. 10 shooting deaths of a newlywed couple and the wife's sister about two miles from the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill.

David Barton critics beware: There’s now a price to pay if you want to defame the popular historian, author and speaker with false and outlandish charges. Barton won a $1 million defamation judgment in August against two left-leaning candidates for the Texas State Board of Education. The pair, Rebecca Bell-Metereau and Judy Jennings, charged in a 2010 campaign video that Barton, a consultant to the Board, was “known for speaking at white-supremacist rallies.” That highly charged claim stems from two 1991 speeches Barton gave to groups linked to the racist and anti-Semitic “Christian Identity” movement. Barton, recognized as a strong...

Do you find it difficult to believe in God or accept the claims of Christianity? I did, when I was an atheist, but I changed my mind, and my reasons for doing so may be of interest to you in your own personal journey and attempts to make sense of life. I am a freelance writer and lecturer. Since graduating from Oxford in 1973, with a degree in politics and philosophy, I have spent most of my professional life in politics and journalism, loving, as I do, the world of books, ideas and debate. Two questions in particular have always...

Dawkins: Islam is ‘one of the great evils in the world’ February 9, 2011Acharya S/D.M. Murdock470 Comments Richard Dawkins (Photo: Cstreet/Christopher G. Street, Bransgore, Dorset, England, UK)Richard Dawkins says it outright. One wonders why so few other atheists are speaking out in the same way. Note that he does not hasten to qualify his comment by saying, “Islamic extremism” or “radical Islam.” Dawkins: “I’m reasonably optimistic in America and Europe. I’m pessimistic about the Islamic world. I regard Islam as one of the great evils in the world, and I fear that we have a very difficult struggle there.” Narrator:...

Censor of the Year: Neil deGrasse Tyson Broadcast His Photoshopped Narrative of Science to Millions David Klinghoffer February 12, 2015 2:58 AM | Permalink Today is Darwin Day, celebrated by us as Academic Freedom Day. That means it's time to announce the winner of this year's Censor of the Year Award. As you already know from the headline, our recipient is Neil deGrasse Tyson. COTY, as it's called for short, recognizes achievement in thwarting an open and informed discussion of science and scientific controversies. It is a serious thing -- since censorship is serious and often but not always casting...

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...

Creation Conversion: From Atheist to Creationist by Jerry Bergman, Ph.D. * I have always loved science, partly due to the influence of my engineer father, who was heavily involved in research and development. While growing up, my free-time diet consisted of Mr. Wizard, Disney nature films, and doing science experiments. At Wayne State University, where I earned my bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees, I was exposed to evolution. Influenced by my atheist father and my professors, I accepted this worldview, as did most of my peers. We also accepted the atheist philosophy that came with it. The university invited a...

I come from a Jewish family hardwired to Socialist ideas and to atheism for four generations. The last one in my lineage to believe in God must have died in the beginning of the last century. Christmas is to me a date with no special significance, even though I have learned to respect those who celebrate the birth of Jesus. But I wish to take the opportunity of this Christmas Eve to make a confession. A year and a half ago, I wrote for Opera Mundi one of the most flawed articles of my journalistic career. The title says it...

And the bells chimed for victory at 1211 Avenue of the Americas. The so-called War on Christmas, says overpaid bloviator Bill O’Reilly, has been won by his god-fearing, flag-flourishing side. “We won the war,” the Fox News personality proclaimed last week. “I have to confess, you know, I’m like a guerrilla fighter in the War on Christmas…We did this War on Christmas thing for about 10 years. This is the first year I didn’t get one call or letter saying, ‘This store has said it won’t say [“Merry Christmas”].’” Hallelujah.

Powerful gods and demi-gods impregnating human women—it’s a common theme in the history of religion, and it’s more than a little rapey. Zeus comes to Danae in the form of a golden shower, cutting “the knot of intact virginity” and leaving her pregnant with the Greek hero, Perseus. Jupiter forcibly overcomes Europa by transforming himself into a white bull and abducting her. He imprisons her on the Isle of Crete, over time fathering three children. Pan copulates with a shepherdess to produce Hermes. The legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus are conceived when the Roman god Mars impregnates Rea...

What if, instead of climbing Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God, Moses had turned to the Israelites and asked: Hey, what do you guys think we should do? Considering the Hebrews' bad behavior in the Bible, what with the coveting of neighbors' wives and murdering their own brothers, that might have been a disastrous idea. But in our own more enlightened age, we're perfectly capable of crowdsourcing our own commandments -- or, at least, that's what a new project would have us believe.

Link to the video.This has to be seen to be believed. I rarely post, but this really shocked me.

Like many cities, Lake Worth opens its commission meetings with an invocation, usually given by clergy who sometimes pray in Jesus' name. Last week, an atheist named Preston Smith was allowed to give the invocation.Before he opened his mouth, four of five commissioners -- including Mayor Pam Triolo -- walked out of the room. - click here to watch via YouTube . Triolo has told WPTV-Ch. 5 that she walked out before Smith's invocation because of an allegedly offensive Twitter comment he posted in July. "I didn't leave because he's an atheist, I left because of his alleged Tweet," Triolo told...

Christmas and Easter have been stricken from next year’s school calendar in Montgomery County. So have Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. Montgomery’s Board of Education voted 7 to 1 Tuesday to eliminate references to all religious holidays on the published calendar for 2015-2016, a decision that followed a request from Muslim community leaders to give equal billing to the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Adha.

SALEM, Mass. – A video showing a little girl with pigtails screaming at a street preacher to ‘shut up’ as she relentlessly mocked him and his message of redemption through Jesus Christ has gone viral. The video posted on Live Leak, which has been viewed more than 250,000 times, shows a child approaching Austin Coppock, who had been preaching on Salem’s busy Essex Street pedestrian mall during the city’s annual Halloween celebration. Salem, which is also known as “The Witch City” and where police uniforms and patrol cars are even marked with the slogan and an image of a witch...

Hello, everybody. I’m 19 years old, and %100 pro-life. I’m also an atheist. But before you decide to stop reading this, you deserve to know a few things about me. I was born and raised in a Catholic family. I was baptized a month old, went to Sunday school, and went to church every Sunday. Okay, I went most Sundays. I also know that there are other divisions of Christianity, as well as other religions, and I respect your spirituality, what ever it may be. I stopped breathing twice the day I was born. They doctor didn’t think I would...

North Alabama Freethought Association board member Kelly McCauley will open the Huntsville City Council meeting Thursday in a non-religious invocation after a secularist group threatened to sue the council over its tradition of Christian Prayer. McCauley, who according to his Meetup page was confirmed in the Lutheran Church and "dropped out" at age 23, told AL.com, "My goal is to offer a non-sectarian invocation that, I hope, will lend gravity to the meeting and point to our civic values." McCauley was invited by Huntsville leaders to give the body's first atheist "prayer" after secularist group Freedom From Religion Foundation complained...

<p>It’s football time in Tennessee where longtime gridiron traditions are cherished – from Rocky Top to the Pride of the Southland Marching Band. At the start of every game inside the colossal Neyland Stadium, thousands of the football faithful rise to their feet, remove their hats and pause for the pre-game prayer.</p>

The US Air Force has told a sergeant he will have to leave the military unless he agrees to take an oath with the phrase "so help me God," officials said Tuesday. In the latest religious controversy to roil the air force, the atheist airman last month was denied his request to re-enlist because of his refusal to swear to God -- and he is now poised to take the military to court, his lawyer said.

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