Free Republic

Atheist Jerry Coyne explains why morality is impossible for atheists Let’s review what you need in your worldview in order to have a rationally grounded system of morality.You need 5 things:1) Objective moral valuesThere needs to be a way to distinguish what is good from what is bad. For example, the moral standard might specify that being kind to children is good, but torturing them for fun is bad. If the standard is purely subjective, then people could believe anything and each person would be justified in doing right in their own eyes. Even a “social contract” is just based...

A Missouri sheriff has slapped “In God We Trust” decals on patrol cars saying “there is no better time than now” to be displaying the national motto. Sheriff Doug Rader of Stone County in the Ozarks said he was proud to announce that the decals are now on the back of department vehicles, but not everyone is pleased, Fox2Now reports. “Very simple and ill state for the record, I’m not offended that these decals exist, IT’S INAPPROPRIATE TO HAVE THEM ON GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. No voting required, it’s a violation of church and state. You are showing preference to a...

Jeff Schweitzer heralded the discovery of an apparent Earth-like planet as a nail in the coffin for religion in a Thursday item on Huffington Post. Schweitzer, a scientist, "rationalist," and former Clinton administration senior policy analyst contended that "with this discovery, we come ever closer to the idea that life is common in the universe," and added that religions would "all will come out and say such a discovery is completely consistent with religious teachings. My goal here is to declare this as nonsense before it happens."The Huffington Post contributor led his article, "Earth 2.0: Bad News for God," by...

Group sought to convince Republicans that their rhetoric was pushing away atheist voters.AMES — As they arrived at an all-day cattle call of conservative presidential hopefuls, Christian conservatives were greeted by demonstrators from the Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers who sought to convince Republicans that the party’s rhetoric was pushing atheists away as voters. “They’re telling me they don’t want me in their party,” said John Fruetel, of Newton, who was part of a protest outside of Stephens Auditorium in Ames where more than 2,500 people were arriving to hear from the 2016 GOP candidates at the 2015 Family Leadership Summit....

Title shortened because of space limitation. Complete title: Christian Colleges' Right to Deny Married Housing for Gay Couples Is 'on the Edge of the Indefensible,' Barry Lynn Asserts WASHINGTON — Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced Monday the launch of an "aggressive" initiative to combat any state or federal legislation, or court ruling seeking to protect religious objectors of same-sex marriage from government consequence for living according to their religious convictions. The organization, which advocates a strict separation view of the religious freedom clauses of the First Amendment, has started the "Protect Thy Neighbor" project, which will...

In a nation that based its Declaration of Independence on the principle that all men “are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” a record 58 percent now say they would vote to elect “a generally well-qualified” atheist as president if their political party nominated such a person. In a poll conducted June 2-7, Gallup asked 771 adults living in the United States this question: “Between now and the 2016 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates—their education, age, religion, race, and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president...

LAKELAND -- A religious freedom group says Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd broke the law when he gave a sermon at a local church. The sermon was titled, “Wouldn’t the world be better if everyone behaved like a Christian?” It’s a question Sheriff Judd asked hundreds of people from the pulpit of First Baptist Church at the mall in Lakeland. It’s a question he’s now defending two months after the sermon he delivered in April. “I was invited to this church, as I am to many churches and secular events, and you know what, the message was clear,” Judd said....

Just 3 percent of Americans consider themselves atheists, but there’s one city in which a much larger portion of the population — a stunning one in 10 residents — identify as nonbelievers: Seattle.In fact, according to the Seattle Sun Times, the city has the highest rate of atheists among the nation’s largest metro areas.Overall, the percentage of unaffiliated residents in Seattle — those individuals who either don’t believe in a higher power or are unaffiliated with a faith — is 37 percent, compared to about 23 percent nationally, according to recently released Pew Research Center data.And the total percentage...

Sometimes it feels like the whole world is collapsing around us. It’s not. But you can see why it looks like it is. • Ireland rejected what every major religion and every major civilization in history has said about marriage. (Marriage is the state’s protection and encouragement of potential parents. Marriage in Ireland is the state’s registry of “official” sexual partners.) • In America, public opinion has changed drastically to reject commonsense morality: big majorities say you can kill yourself through physician-assisted suicide, turn your descendants into science projects through embryonic research, and that pretty much any kind of sex with...

By now, many readers have probably heard about the recent revelation that Josh Duggar, the oldest son of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting fame, has admitted to molesting some young girls a decade ago when he was a teenager. The information about this came out recently when a heavily redacted police report from 2006 was released by In Touch Weekly detailing the incidents. Duggar has since apologized for the acts, even as the scandal has grown and the Duggar's television show has been pulled from TLC. I have no interest here in defending Josh Duggar...

So while Josh Duggar may be a hypocrite who needs to face up to the consequences of his actions, the radical "freethinker" community is really the last group of people who have any business pointing it out By now, many readers have probably heard about the recent revelation that Josh Duggar, the oldest son of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting fame, has admitted to molesting some young girls a decade ago when he was a teenager. The information about this came out recently when a heavily redacted police report from 2006 was released by In...

Have a look at this article, whose nominal subject is academic freedom and whose implicit subject is the crudity and ineptitude with which a professor at a third tier state university can go about instructing his students: [Liberty Counsel’s] complaint relates to Grace Lewis, a high school student enrolled at Polk State through the Florida Virtual School Full Time program … Liberty alleges that Russum is a “radical ideologue, bent on imposing his views on students, in violation of acceptable academic standards and the U.S. Constitution.” As evidence, it cites multiple elements of the syllabus and assignments for the...

WASHINGTON (Christian Examiner) – A group claiming to defend the military against a Christian takeover is demanding an Air Force general face a court martial for saying he is a "redeemed believer in Christ" while in uniform at a National Day of Prayer Task Force meeting in Washington May 7, the Air Force Times has reported. Mikey Weinstein, who heads the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, wrote an editorial on the organization's website May 15 that Maj. Gen. Craig Olson violated Air Force instructions about speaking openly of God and Jesus Christ as a representative of the military. Weinstein believes the...

While conservatives in Indiana and Arkansas were explaining last month why their new religious objections laws weren’t invitations to discriminate against gays, the leaders of Wisconsin’s capital city were busy protecting the rights of another group: atheists. In what is believed to be the first statute of its kind in the United States, Madison banned discrimination against the non-religious on April 1, giving them the same protections afforded to people based on their race, sexual orientation and religion, among other reasons. It’s hardly surprising that such a statute would originate in Madison, an island of liberalism in a conservative-leaning state...

The IRS targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups prior to the 2012 election was an unconscionable abuse of power for which accountability and punishment have been noticeably absent. But this was and is not the only use by the Obama administration of the power to tax to attempt to destroy its political opponents. The IRS is also involved in targeting what President Obama has called “less than loving” Christians through the mandates of ObamaCare and its attack on the free exercise of religion through the attempted coercion of mandated health insurance coverage This administration’s war on religion is...

A public school district in Oklahoma has agreed to stop allowing for the distribution of Bibles following threatened legal action from an atheist organization. Duncan Public Schools sent a letter to the American Humanist Association in response to a complaint leveled against an elementary school teacher who distributed several Gideon Bibles to her students. Scott W. Stone, legal counsel for Duncan Schools, explained to the AHA's legal arm the Appignani Humanist Legal Center that actions were being taken in response to their complaint. "All teachers and administrators in the district are being advised that they are not permitted to distribute...

Yesterday, humorist Andy Borowitz published a piece at the New Yorker with the headline “Cruz’s Constant References to Jesus Drive Millions to Atheism“: The Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz’s constant references to Jesus Christ in his speeches and campaign ads are sparking a strong interest in atheism among millions of Americans, atheist leaders report. … “It’s been amazing,” [executive director of the American Society of Atheists Carol] Foyler said. “We’re getting calls from people who are curious about atheism for the first time in their lives. And when we ask them what got them thinking about it, they all say...

Those who don’t believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, but do profess an overwhelming belief in the constitutional separation of church and state, may soon have to round up their lawyers and head to Arkansas under the banner of the organization known as American Atheists, Inc. Arkansas state politicians have approved legislation to build a Ten Commandments monument, which would be paid for with private donations, on the grounds of their state Capitol in Little Rock. American Atheists, Inc. does not have a problem with the Ten Commandments or building monuments, per se, to immortalize the basic...

Who Are the Atheists? [excerpts] For reporting purposes at Barna, we often combine atheists and agnostics into one group, which we call skeptics. Skeptics either do not believe God exists (atheists) or are not sure God exists, but are open to the possibility (agnostics). Skeptics represent one-quarter of all unchurched adults (25%). Nearly one-third of skeptics have never attended a Christian church service in their lives (31%). That’s nearly double the proportion of “virgin unchurched” who are not skeptics (17%)... Five Demographic Shifts among Skeptics They are younger. Skeptics today are, on average, younger than in the past. Twenty years...

11 silly things that some atheists say. February 27, 2015 · by James Bishop · in Articles, Atheism. · Introduction: The atheist that this blog article is briefly referring to is the fundamentalist head-in-the-sand, fingers-in-their-ears type, which contrary to atheism makes up the majority of the religion hating New Atheists. My last point, point 11, addresses Stephen Hawking but I want to make it clear that I do not view him as a fundamentalist atheist like Richard Dawkins, or Sam Harris would be. Although I, alongside many, disagree with Hawking and his conclusions, I don’t take anything away from his...