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Icelanders will soon be able to publicly worship at a shrine to Thor, Odin and Frigg with construction starting this month on the island’s first major temple to the Norse gods since the Viking age. Worship of the gods in Scandinavia gave way to Christianity around 1,000 years ago but a modern version of Norse paganism has been gaining popularity in Iceland.

Fairy tales and believing in Father Christmas could cause children harm.This is according to controversial biologist Richard Dawkins who warned an audience at the Cheltenham Science Festival about the dangers of make-believe. In typically incendiary style, Dawkins suggested it was 'pernicious to instil in a child the view that the world is shaped by supernaturalism.'The 73-year-old acknowledged that the appeal of fairytales lay in their magic but believes they may be causing more harm than we think.He also questioned whether we should let children believe in the myth of Father Christmas at all.'Is it a good thing to go along...

Democrats are waging war on the faithful and are even comfortable booing God on national TV. Give it three more presidential election cycles and the Democrat Party’s platform will be expressly antireligious. Today, they still pretend not to hate the concept of faith or hold those who have it in contempt. You’ll see Hillary hitting plenty of black churches in 2016 – after all, that condescending empty suit is in no ways tired. But otherwise, Democrats are delighting in their opportunity to burden, harass and humiliate the believing. They use Obamacare to try to force the faithful to breach their...

A humanist advocacy group has filed a federal lawsuit to remove a cross-shaped World War I memorial in Prince George's County, alleging the display violates the First Amendment. The American Humanist Association says it does not object to the fact that the Bladensburg Cross memorializes soldiers, but rather the placement of the Christian symbol on property owned by a government agency, The Daily Record reported. "We are certainly recommending coming up with a monument inclusive of all religious groups," said Monica Miller, a lawyer with the association's Appignani Humanist Legal Center. In 2012, the group sent a letter to the...

......."Today, to mark the anniversary, Twitter is arguing about why President Obama didn't say the words "under God" in his videotaped recitation of the speech. God bless America."......

For the moment let's dispense with the discussion about whether some of these people deserved to be included, and keep the focus on those two words. As you see, in the mashup version, the words "under God" are included, delivered by Jimmy Carter. According to this story from Washington's WMAL Radio, all the participants when reading their full versions included "under God," with the exception of Obama. So what's that? The explanation from Obama's people is that he was working from an earlier draft of the text, known as the "Nicolay copy," which did not include "under God." Lincoln added...

*Authors note: This post has gotten quite a lot of traffic. Several people (mainly practicing pagans) have pointed out that I used the word "pagan" in a way that doesn't fit the official definition. For my purposes here, I used that word to broadly define someone who rejects a biblical world view, fails to place God at the highest place in their lives, and is depending on something other than the cross for salvation. In hindsight, I probably could have gone with a different word. If you are a practicing pagan, please accept my apologies. Every Imperfect and Normal Family...

The Truth about Tattoos I had written a hub earlier on 'The Dangers of Tattoos' - which was from purely a medical point of view. The present article is more comprehensive, and should enlighten the open-minded reader about the 'dark truths' behind tattoos. Historical Aspect History shows that tattoos have always been associated with paganism, shamanism, heathen (Baal worship), occult mysticism and demonism. The tattoo has never been associated with Christians, until the present decadent religious times. Wherever the Christian faith made its entrance, the tattoo made its exit. Tattoos where associated with shamans or magic-men (witch-doctors). A shaman is...

At a morning sermon Sunday in Northern Virginia, Republican lieutenant governor candidate E.W. Jackson, a Chesapeake pastor, said people who don’t follow Jesus Christ “are engaged in some sort of false religion.” Jackson offered that view while describing a list of the “controversial” things he believes, and that must be said, as a Christian.... It is not the first time Jackson has weighed in with controversial comments on questions of faith and social issues. He has also said that gay people’s “minds are perverted. They are frankly very sick people psychologically and mentally and emotionally.”...

Bishop Thomas Paprocki (CNS photo) Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois recently did an interview with the Washington Times in which he lamented what he calls the “rupture” in the relationship between Church and culture: “We [Christians] have to mentally adjust. I know it is an adjustment for me because – and I assume for many other people as well - because I grew up in this country at a time when the values in our secular world mirrored the values of the religious world,” Bishop Paprocki said. “And I think what’s happening now is that...

The church is training ministers to create “a pagan church where Christianity [is] very much in the centre” to attract spiritual believers. Ministers are being trained to create new forms of Anglicanism suitable for people of alternative beliefs as part of a Church of England drive to retain congregation numbers. Reverend Steve Hollinghurst, a researcher and adviser in new religious movements told the BBC: “I would be looking to formulate an exploration of the Christian faith that would be at home in their culture.” He said it would be “almost to create a pagan church where Christianity was very much...

Rick Warren said it's been difficult to deal with some of the hate mail and online comments he's read since announcing Saturday that his son had committed suicide. "Grieving is hard. Grieving as public figures, harder. Grieving while haters celebrate your pain, hardest," Warren wrote on Facebook on Monday night. Warren has been deluged with words of support both at his Saddleback Church in Orange County and on the Web. “Kay and I are overwhelmed by your love, prayers, and kind words,” the pastor wrote. But there have also been many words of hate on various website comment boards, including...

I should say at the outset that I was turned down by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) for a post they advertised. I'd never have dared apply had it not been for Trevor Phillips, who headed it at the time. "Why don't you have a Christian on board?" I had asked him. "Why don't you apply?" he'd graciously replied. Alas, he was leaving the Commission when he said it. But when I saw his replacement – Baroness O'Neill – I wasn't upset about my failed application: the philosopher is, at least on paper, Christian. She'd look after the...

March 31 marks the birthday of National Farm Workers Association (later United Farm Workers) co-founder Cesar Chavez. Chavez, who was trained by Saul Alinsky in the tactics of community organizing, has become a cult figure in California due to his organization of agricultural workers. March 31 also happens to be another important date this year: Easter. So, naturally, Google’s current logo features a graphic of Chavez’s face, rather than anything having to do with Easter.

In the past few years, the number of affiliated student secular organizations has increased more than threefold This month at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a select group of students will show their humanitarian spirit by participating in the Bleedin’ Heathens Blood Drive. On February 12, they will eat cake to celebrate Darwin Day, and earlier this year, they performed “de-baptism” ceremonies to celebrate Blasphemy Day, attended a War on Christmas Party, and set up Hug An Atheist and Ask An Atheist booths in the campus quad. These activities and more are organized by the Illini Secular Student Alliance...

According to Grey Matter Research, Americans think our country is far more religiously diverse than it actually is. In a survey of 747 adults the research and consulting firm found that most underestimated the size of Christianity and over-estimated the size of atheists, Muslims, and other religious minorities. “The typical American adult pegs religious affiliation in the U.S. as follows:  24% Catholic, 20% Protestant, 19% unaffiliated, 9% Jewish, 9% atheist or agnostic, 7% Muslim, 7% Mormon, and 5% from all other religious groups. In reality, according to the 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Americans...

One of the great losses to Western Culture is the increasing refusal to accept that there is a Natural Law to which we may commonly refer. This is especially problematic in pluralistic and secularist societies like the post-Christian West where reference to the sacred text of Scripture is not considered authoritative by many.Hence, it has been the long practice of the Church, even before secularizing trends to base her witness to the truth not only on Scripture but also on Natural Law. The recourse to such a basis for discussion is now largely impossible for us, as most secularists have...

I will not address the scientific grounds for circumcision (which among other things drastically reduces the transmission of infections including AIDS), because your decree has nothing to do with science. Rather, as Heinrich Heine wrote in 1844 of your city of Cologne, Dummheit und Bosheitbuhltenhier GleichHunden auf freierGasse; Die Enkelbruterkennt man nochheut An ihremJudenhasse. (Stupidity and evil mated here / Like dogs in the open gutter / You still can recognize their descendants today / By their Jew-hatred).

A majority of people surveyed believe the Obama White House is lying when it says the government has no evidence that extraterrestrial beings exist. According to those surveyed, 99% believe that UFO's of extraterrestrial origin have visited earth now or sometime in the past! And about 98% believe that the US government "knows more than it is saying" about UFO's and extraterrestrials, thus disputing the White House recent announcement last month on its website stating that that government/scientists/CIA/ military do not have information that supports that extraterrestrials do exist. "When asked, most people feel that the government has more knowledge...