Free Republic

A billboard in Rancho Cucamonga asking viewers to "imagine no religion" was taken down this week after residents and the city complained about its message. The Freedom From Religion Foundation advertisement was first installed last week causing local conversation and complaints. The pressure quickly built up and the General Outdoor sign company took it down. The foundation's co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor was not so happy, as expressed in a statement they sent out: "Are religionists so thin-skinned they must squelch free debate? One small freethought billboard in the immense state of California is such a threat to insecure religious egos...

Old Town Alexandria, Northern Virginia — Jogging through this gorgeous, historic town the first Saturday after the Tuesday vote, which elected the most leftist presidential candidate in American history, it isn't difficult to see how the typically Republican state of Virginia went Democrat in 2008... ...the vast majority of self-described non-religious voting Americans went for Obama, and they were decisive. CNN exit polls found that 76 percent of those who answered "none" when asked about religious affiliation cast ballots for Obama. They comprised 12 percent of voters.

Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist as president, meaning a nonbeliever would have a harder time getting elected than a Muslim, a homosexual, or a Jew. Many would go further and agree with conservative commentator Laura Schlessinger that morality requires a belief in God—otherwise, all we have is our selfish desires. In The Ten Commandments, she approvingly quotes Dostoyevsky: "Where there is no God, all is permitted." The opposing view, held by a small minority of secularists, such...

Coalition complains of religious discrimination in the services By Leo Shane III, Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, Wednesday, November 12, 2008 WASHINGTON — A coalition of atheists and agnostics wants the new White House to protect young military members from what they see as rampant religious discrimination in the services. The Secular Coalition for America held a news conference Monday urging new rules against proselytizing and more training for chaplains on how to handle nonreligious troops. "When they say ‘there are no atheists in foxholes’ it’s slanderous," said Wayne Adkins, a former Army first lieutenant who served in Iraq in...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — You better watch out. There is a new combatant in the Christmas wars. Ads proclaiming, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," will appear on Washington, D.C., buses starting next week and running through December. The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday. In lifting lyrics from "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the Washington-based group is wading into what has become a perennial debate over commercialism, religion in the public square and the meaning of Christmas.

A lot of Americans really think that there is a clause in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution that says that there is a “separation of church and state”. Larry King on CNN was flabbergasted one evening when a preacher told him that it was not there.

Okay, I've heard there's a tape floating around where Obama is saying he wants to remove Christmas from the roster of National Holidays. Anyone else heard of this, or, better, anyone heard or HAVE this tape or a link to it? Thanks!

FRANKFORT — Public misconception is widespread in Kentucky about Barack Obama's faith, a Herald-Leader/WKYT Kentucky Poll shows.Despite heavy national media attention about Obama's faith, more than half of likely Republican voters — 54 percent — and one of every four Democrats in the state do not know that the Democratic presidential nominee is a Christian, the poll found.The poll showed that 14 percent of likely Kentucky voters — 28 percent of Republicans, 4 percent of Democrats and 11 percent of independents — think Obama adheres to the Muslim faith."With all the media attention to the fact that Obama is...

The definition of theory from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary 1: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another 2: abstract thought : speculation 3: the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art 4 a: a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action b: an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances —often used in the phrase in theory 5: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena 6 a: a hypothesis assumed for the...

Angelo Matera | 09.26.08 Issues They’ll Believe in Anything: Study says atheists are more irrational A new Gallup study, “What Americans Really Believe,” suggests that if anti-religious crusaders Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins want a more rational, less superstitious world, they should encourage people to go to church. A recent Wall Street Journal article reported that, according to the study… “…traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend...

'Silhouette City' Captures Essence of Christian Right as Supremacist Political Movement By Bruce Wilson It is the mark of a truly outstanding documentary that it can survive the test of a fast-changing political and religious landscape and remain relevant and even transcendent. There have been many superb documentaries in the last few years about religion and politics, but my own personal opinion is that Michael W. Wilson's Silhouette City stands above the pack, and for one overriding reason - Wilson's deep understanding of the dynamic in which the militant, militia-movement grounded Christian right of the 1980's has morphed into a...

AUSTIN — Scientists from Texas universities on Tuesday denounced what they called supernatural and religious teaching in public school science classrooms and voiced opposition to attempts to water down evolution instruction. The newly formed 21st Century Science Coalition said so far it has 800 members who have signed up online. "Texas public schools should be preparing our kids to succeed in the 21st century, not promoting political and ideological agendas that are hostile to a sound science education," said David Hillis, a professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin. The State Board of Education is considering...

BIG BANG Recreated!!! That's fantastic!!! Someone recreated the big bang, or a model, rather. But hey, ya can't have a recreation without an original creation. Perhaps scientist will realize, if their INTELLIGENCE has brought them to this point of modeling a big bang, then there must exists an INTELLIGENCE, who many years ago gave ignition to the original, and could only endow it with life to boot!

A man who threatened to behead two women because they were Christians was attacked in self-defense early Saturday and injured so severely, police say, that his eye was to be removed. Russell Bowman, who called himself an atheist, showed up with a large knife at the women's apartment in the 700 block of Tia Juana Street about 3:15 a.m., police said. Another resident grabbed a shotgun and ordered him to put the knife down. When Bowman refused and began approaching, the person hit him with the butt end of the weapon, police said. Doctors at Memorial Hospital reportedly told police...

An atheism-promoting organization has withdrawn its lawsuit demanding that Christian baptisms of children be banned in Italy, after a U.S.-based legal team took on the defense of a bishop and the Roman Catholic Church there."This was a preposterous lawsuit, and we are pleased that it has been dropped," said Joseph Infranco, senior counsel for the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund.However, he said, "Americans should be aware that such lawsuits may seem far-fetched, but they really are happening … foreign legal decisions are increasingly cited in American courts."The ADF battled back when the Italian Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics filed a...

The Dennis Miller interview By JEFFREY RESSNER | 8/10/08 12:29 PM EST How would you describe your political beliefs: Republican? Independent? Libertarian? Well, I’d say it’s eclectic pragmatism at some point. I’m a moderate in some degree because I have wildly swinging opinions but through some sort of ideological feng shui they end up in the middle. Some swing far to the left, others to the far right. I’m for the war, but I’m also for gay marriage. I don’t care if two folks with the same genitalia want to get hitched, I just don’t want some a—hole from another...

I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus's tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel. My apologies to those who hoped for more, but the worst I can do is show my unconcerned contempt. By the way, I didn't want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur'an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God...

Yes, the sad little cracker has met its undignified end, so stop pestering me. The cracker, the koran, and another surprise entry have been violated and are gone. You'll have to wait until tomorrow for the details, what little of them there are.

CHICAGO (AP) - A federal judge on Thursday barred school districts statewide from holding the daily moment of silence suitable for prayer that is required under state law. U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman said he had given school districts time to object to his March 28 preliminary injunction on enforcement of the moment of silence law but received no objections. He therefore extended to the entire state the preliminary injunction originally designed to apply only to suburban Buffalo Grove District 214. The law passed by the Illinois General Assembly says every school district in the state must hold a...

On 18th April, the day Ben Stein's infamous film was released, Michael Shermer received the following letter from a Jew (referencing a past article that Shermer had written debunking the Holocaust deniers) whose identity I shall conceal as "David J". Now I truly understand who you atheists and darwinists really are! You people believe that it was okay for my great-grandparents to die in the Holocaust! How disgusting. Your past article about the Holocaust was just window dressing. We Jews will fight to keep people like you out of the United States! Shermer wrote to Mr J to ask if...

JUNCTION CITY, KAN. - Like hundreds of young people joining the Army in recent years, Jeremy Hall professes a desire to serve his country while it fights terrorism. But the short and soft-spoken specialist is at the center of a legal controversy. He has filed a lawsuit alleging he has been harassed and his constitutional rights have been violated because he doesn't believe in God. The suit names Defense Secretary Robert Gates. "I'm not in it for cash," Hall said. "I want no one else to go through what I went through." Known as "the atheist guy," Hall has been...

CHICAGO (CBS) ― A state lawmaker from Chicago has gotten some not-so-adoring attention from news-talk show host Keith Olbermann for her rant against an atheist activist. State Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago), who represents parts of the South Side, was named the "Worst Person in the World" on Tuesday because of her rant against Rob Sherman, an atheist activist who was testifying last week about the constitutionality of a plan to donate money to rebuild Pilgrim Baptist Church. "This is the Land of Lincoln, where people believe in God; where people believe in protecting their children. We don't want – in...

Representative tries to put the fear of God in atheistRead Eric Zorn's full post: Rep. Monique Davis to atheist Rob Sherman: `It's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!' By Eric Zorn | Change of Subject April 6, 2008 Did you hear about the state legislator who last week blasted a Lutheran minister during a committee hearing for spewing dangerous religious superstitions, and then attempted to order the minister out of the witness chair on the grounds that his Christian beliefs are "destroying what this state was built upon"? Of course you didn't, because it didn't...

The British parliament’s first avowedly atheist member, Charles Bradlaugh, would stride into public meetings in the 1880s, take out his pocket watch, and challenge God to strike him dead in 60 seconds. God bided his time, but got Bradlaugh in the end. A slightly later atheist, Bertrand Russell, was once asked what he would do if it proved that he was mistaken and if he met his maker in the hereafter. He would demand to know, Russell replied with all the high-pitched fervor of his pedantry, why God had not made the evidence of his existence plainer and more irrefutable....

Of all the conversion stories I've read over the past couple of years, none have resonated with me more deeply or had a more powerful impact on me than that of author John C. Wright. A former atheist, he is able to articulate what it's like to go from content atheism to deep belief in a way that I cannot. I've been toying with writing my own conversion story before I enter the Church at Easter, but the thing that keeps hanging me up is explaining what it feels like to believe. I'd like to describe it in a...

From the Globe&Mail, H/T John Hetman That triumphal barnburner of an Easter hymn, Jesus Christ Has Risen Today - Hallelujah, this morning will rock the walls of Toronto's West Hill United Church as it will in most Christian churches across the country. But at West Hill on the faith's holiest day, it will be done with a huge difference. The words "Jesus Christ" will be excised from what the congregation sings and replaced with "Glorious hope." Thus, it will be hope that is declared to be resurrected - an expression of renewal of optimism and the human spirit -...

The blogs are ringing with ridicule. Mark Mathis, duplicitous producer of the much hyped film Expelled, shot himself in the foot so spectacularly that the phrase might have been invented for him. Goals don't come more own than this. How is it possible that a man who makes his living from partisan propaganda could hand so stunning a propaganda coup to his opponents? Hand it to them on a plate, so ignominiously and so UNNECESSARILY. In writing this for RichardDawkins.net, I have assumed that our readers will already be familiar with the facts of the case, from Pharyngula and the...

Arthur C. Clarke, 1917 - 2008 Posted at 4:21 pm in Science I am incredibly saddened to hear that Arthur C. Clarke has died. He had been ill for sometime, and finally succumbed earlier today. It is no exaggeration at all to say we owe the world to Clarke. He is most famous for having written the book and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, of course. But he also was the first person to conceive of a geostationary orbit; one in which a satellite orbits the Earth once every 24 hours, giving it a view that always shows the same...

Chip Wall can't help but zero in on the little stuff whenever he watches Barack Obama on TV. It's his old pal Stanley. For Wall and a few dozen others, Obama on the campaign trail often brings to mind Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama's mother and a strong-willed, unconventional member of the Mercer Island High School graduating class of 1960. "She was not a standard-issue girl of her times... "She touted herself as an atheist, and it was something she'd read about and could argue," the only child was a ... daughter of a father who wanted a boy so badly...

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend about a problem that he faces. From this exchange of words I had a revelation about tough situations we all find ourselves in. Within this revelation I found that my friend could of avoided this situation if he simply lived by Judeo-Christian values, morals, and principals. You don't agree? Try this out: Take an awful situation in your life that has caused you pain, whether it was physical, emotional, or mental. Now, think of all the actions you did up to the point where the bad incident occurred. Did any of the...

Which math-phobic among us has not beseeched God for help with another colon-clenching algebra or calculus exam? Had we heeded the words of the German mathematician Leopold Kronecker, perhaps we would have realized we've been talking to the wrong person: "God made the integers; all else is the work of man." Pythagoras, who gave us his eponymous theorem on right-angled triangles, headed a cult of number worshippers who believed God was a mathematician. "All is number," they would intone. The 17th-century Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza echoed the Platonic idea that mathematical law and the harmony of nature are aspects of...

LA GRANGE, Ky. -- A father is in a courtroom battle, trying to keep his son from attending a Catholic high school.The parents involved in this case are divorced. David Ryan, the father, is an atheist. The mother is a Roman Catholic. Their son, who is in the eighth grade, attends a Catholic school in Oldham County.“This is something where it can't be both ways,” said Ryan’s attorney, Edwin Kagin. “We think the constitution wins.” According to Kagin, when Ryan and his wife got divorced, a judge ordered their son continue attending a Catholic school.But Ryan is an atheist and...

Over the last two weeks, leading American atheists have registered complaints about all the attention given to Christmas in the United States. These atheists have issued three challenges. First, they insist that being atheist does not mean being immoral. Second, they want other people to see that atheists are law-abiding, compassionate, and generous to others—that one does not have to be Christian or to feel “the Christmas spirit� to care for the poor and the needy. Third, they insist that monotheists have a harder time being tolerant of others than atheists do. Atheists, they think, are more humble, tolerant, and...

After six years of childless marriage, John and Cynthia Burke of Newark decided to adopt a baby boy through a state agency. Since the Burkes were young, scandal-free and solvent, they had no trouble with the New Jersey Bureau of Children's Services—until investigators came to the line on the application that asked for the couple's religious affiliation.

The devil made Larry do it. Don't blame Lawrence O'Donnell for his ugly anti-Mormon rant. It was really the fault of O'Donnell's fellow panelists. That's Frank Rich's take on the unseemly episode on the McLaughin Group a couple Fridays ago. Rich claims in his NY Times column of today that O'Donnell was: "pushed over the edge by his peers’ polite chatter about Mitt Romney’s sermon on 'Faith in America.'”

Dear friends, The Eighth Circuit recently clarified the law surrounding government funding for faith-based services that address America's intractable social problems. Americans United for Separation of Church and State had challenged the state of Iowa's establishment of the InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI), a reentry program for prisoners launched by Prison Fellowship. In the ruling, the Eighth Circuit held that Judge Pratt's injunction ordering the program in Iowa be shut down doesn't apply to programs that aren't funded by the state. Because the IFI program in Iowa is no longer partially funded by the state, the injunction does not apply to...

This compass is obviously broken and worthless but with a $150,000,000 budget behind it the producers are hoping no one will notice. Another group that hopes no one will notice it is the parents of millions of American children. Catholic and protestant organizations alike are warning families that it has clear anti-Christ overtones and a message that can only drag young minds further into a media driven pool of emptiness where life is hopeless and the future is bleak.

Embarrassed at the murderous legacy of atheist Communist regimes in the twentieth century, leading atheists seek to even the score with believers by portraying Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime as theist and specifically Christian. Atheist websites routinely claim that Hitler was a Christian because he was born Catholic, he never publicly renounced his Catholicism, and he wrote in Mein Kampf, “By defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” Atheist writer Sam Harris writes that since “the Holocaust marked the culmination of…two hundred years of Christian fulminating against the Jews,” therefore “knowingly or...

Service today gathers religious, political leaders to pray for precipitation, but not everyone buys into it. -snip- "This is a ridiculous, illogical exercise even for people who are deeply religious," said Ed Buckner, treasurer for the Atlanta Freethought Society. "I would think they'd be offended." Buckner, an atheist, is helping plan a "polite and peaceful protest" on the Capitol grounds today, and expects members of both the Council on Secular Humanism and Freedom From Religion Foundation to attend. He objects to the governor, in his official capacity as an elected representative, endorsing a belief system. He also thinks God, if...

"In Lyra's world, a person's soul lives on the outside of their body, in the form of a daemon--an animal spirit that accompanies them through life. A child's daemon can change shape, assuming all the forms that a child's potential inspires; but as a person ages, their daemon gradually settles into one form, according to their character and nature...In our world, it is possible that people that people have daemons as well, only they are invisible. If you would like to learn more about your daemon, and create a daemon avatar to take out into the world with you, select...

How liberating childhood initially seemed to those of us bred without religious instruction. We never had to attend catechism classes or miss a single National Football League game on Sunday. There seemed to be little more to the universe than our parents’ rules and edicts, yet gradually, after adolescence, it became more and more apparent that another world—one within and above the realm of our daily affairs—existed. One in which right and wrong were more than legal constructs. It was at this moment that we fathomed the dimensions of our inner-void. The wisdom and guidance of the Bible are an...

TUUSULA, Finland (AP) - An 18-year-old student opened fire in a Finnish high school Wednesday, killing seven students and the principal before turning the gun on himself, police said. The teenager, who was not identified, shot himself in the head but survived and was taken to a hospital in ``extremely critical condition,'' police spokesman Tero Haapala said. The attack at Jokela High School in Tuusula, some 30 miles north of the capital, Helsinki, shocked the Nordic nation, where gun ownership is fairly common by European standards but deadly shootings are rare. ... Police said at a news conference after the...

THE STARTLING ARTICLE appeared on Dec. 9, 2004. “A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind,” Richard Ostling of The Associated Press wrote. “He now believes in God — more or less — based on scientific evidence and says so on a video released Thursday. At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A superintelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the...

PARIS (AFP) - Harry Potter is a left-winger and the seven books by J.K. Rowling are a diatribe against Thatcherite Britain, a French philosopher said Friday on the day of the last novel's publication in French. "It must be said from the start that Harry Potter is deeply political and that the books speak of today's England," Jean-Claude Milner told the left-wing newspaper Liberation. "Reading it, one can see that J.K. Rowling -- like many cultured English people -- believes there was a real Thatcherite revolution, that it was a disaster, and that culture's only chance is to survive as...

Anyone Know Why?

Anti-Christian Children's Novel Coming out as Time Warner Film in December starring Nicole Kidman By Elizabeth O'Brien LOS ANGELES, August 20, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The best selling novels of atheist author Philip Pullman, which were written specifically to indoctrinate children with anti-Christian values, have sparked the creation of a controversial new fantasy film to be released this December 7 by New Line Cinema - a Time Warner Company. Starring Nicole Kidman, "The Golden Compass," is based on Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, which includes "Northern Lights" (re-titled "The Golden Compass" in the United States), "The Subtle Knife" and "The Amber...

On Dec. 7, 2007, the movie "The Golden Compass," based on the first book in the fantasy trilogy entitled "His Dark Materials" by atheist Philip Pullman will be released in theaters throughout the world. Pullman wrote his fantasy trilogy because he was so upset by the Christian evangelism of C.S. Lewis in his wonderful series of Christian tales entitled "The Chronicles Of Narnia." Pullman is an avowed atheist who has dedicated his life to undermining Christianity and the Church among young readers. The film's release is only another example of a culture spiraling away from faith, a culture into which...

LONDON – A debate over a movie’s anti-religious antagonism – or lack thereof – is heating up ahead of its upcoming release, with some accusing Hollywood of “castrating” the anti-Catholic themes present in the novel from which it is based. The expected blockbuster, “The Golden Compass,” is named after the American title of best-selling author Philip Pullman’s novel “Northern Lights” and will star actress Nicole Kidman and James Bond star Daniel Craig. The original children’s novel, part of Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” series, rejects organized religion – in particular, the Catholic Church – and critics of the movie version say...

CathNews alerts us to the potential problem: Nicole Kidman has denied that a new film she's making is anti-Catholic. The movie features an organisation known as "The Magisterium", which kidnaps children to remove their souls.The Brisbane Times reports that Kidman told a US magazine that her Catholic faith affected her consideration of the script for the film, which is titled The Golden Compass.The fantasy film is based on a novel by Philip Pullman called Northern Lights. It is already attracting attention in the US for avoiding much of the book's perceived anti-Catholic rhetoric.Kidman said some of the religious elements...

The British parliament’s first avowedly atheist member, Charles Bradlaugh, would stride into public meetings in the 1880s, take out his pocket watch, and challenge God to strike him dead in 60 seconds. God bided his time, but got Bradlaugh in the end. A slightly later atheist, Bertrand Russell, was once asked what he would do if it proved that he was mistaken and if he met his maker in the hereafter. He would demand to know, Russell replied with all the high-pitched fervor of his pedantry, why God had not made the evidence of his existence plainer and more irrefutable....