Free Republic

The victory of Israeli, Netta Barzilai, and her song 'Toy' in the May 2018, Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon, Portugal, was not so much amazing or spectacular. The talented young lady's unremarkable song, 'Toy', resembles more of a techno 'Hokey Pokey' or contemporary 'Chicken Dance' rather than a vocal masterpiece. However, what was remarkable were the words she used in her victory speech saying, "Next year in Jerusalem!" What does her phrase mean? 2000 year ago the Jewish people were expelled by the Romans from their land and dispersed to the four corners of the earth (even China!). Since then...

By Philip Cottraux First, some background info. A friend of mine posted a recent chat on her YouTube channel with an orthodox professor of Biblical studies who doesn't believe the first 11 chapters of Genesis should be taken literally. While he still maintains to be a Christian, he believes that the Garden of Eden, the flood, and the tower of Babel are myths that God used as symbols of his relationship with man. I thought I would present historical evidence for Noah’s flood to contribute to their discussion (I've linked the following blog to them on Twitter to read and...

She’s the most high-profile guest of the “Katholikentag,” Germany’s Catholic Convention: Chancellor Angela Merkel came to the five-day event in Münster as it turned its attention to international politics on Friday. Merkel called the US decision to leave the Iran nuclear deal “a cause of great concern,” in a panel discussion and emphasized the role of international cooperation when confronting crises. […] Merkel has come under criticism for a refugee policy that some conservatives call too generous and how best to integrate, support or expel asylum-seekers continues to divide many in Germany. Cardinal Peter Turkson, a prefect in the Vatican...

....According to the cardinal rule of Islam, non-Muslims are kefirs (infidels). The kefirs are fair game to be maltreated, plundered, taken as slaves, and slaughtered. It just so happens that the followers of Muhammad, before rasul-ul-allah (the messenger of Allah) was even buried, started having disagreements among themselves about who was a real Muslim and who was a pretender and actually a kefir. The house of Muhammad, in no time at all, splintered into sects, sub-sects, and sub-sub-sects and whatnot. And each of these "real and true" Muslims started treating other Muslims as he would treat the kefirs, in obedience...

The nation’s religious makeup has shifted dramatically in the past 15 years, with a sharp drop in the number of Americans who say they’re members of a Protestant denomination – still the nation’s most prevalent religious group – and a rise in the number who profess no religion. On average last year, 36 percent of Americans in ABC News/Washington Post polls identified themselves as members of a Protestant faith, extending a gradual trend down from 50 percent in 2003. That includes an 8-point drop in the number of evangelical white Protestants, an important political group. Reflecting the change among Protestants,...

Wonder where Rihanna scored that bejeweled papal-looking hat for Monday night’s Met Ball celebrating the Costume Institute’s exhibit of Vatican fashion? Turns out the miter was a loaner — from Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the head of New York’s Roman Catholic diocese.

Scientists have discovered a surprising fact about our universe in the past 40 years: against incredible odds, the numbers in basic physics are exactly as they need to be to accommodate the possibility of life. If gravity had been slightly weaker, stars would not have exploded into supernovae, a crucial source of many of the heavier elements involved in life. Conversely, if gravity had been slightly stronger, stars would have lived for thousands rather than billions of years, not leaving enough time for biological evolution to take place.

I have some breaking news. Next year's Met Gala is going to have an 'Islam' theme. Yes, guests in 2019 will be encouraged to wear skimpy, provocative dresses that 'celebrate' the Prophet Mohammad, Islamic clothing including hijabs and burqas, and the Koran. I can also reveal that the 2020 Met Gala will have a 'Jewish' theme. Yes, a bunch of celebrities and models will be posing for the world's paparazzi dressed in all manner of Jewish attire and regalia, including dressing up as Rabbis and wearing kippahs. Oh, wait. Neither of these things is actually going to happen. In fact,...

A survivor of the June 2016 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that left 49 people dead now says he has found Christ and is no longer gay. “I should have been number 50!,” Luis Javier Ruiz said in a message posted to Facebook. “Going through old pictures of the night of Pulse, I remember my struggles of perversion, heavy drinking to drown out everything and having promiscuous sex that led to HIV. My struggles were real! The enemy had its grip, and now God has taken me from that moment and has given me Christ.” Ruiz...

Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis is dropping its refugee resettlement and adoption programs and diving deeper into its other work, especially programs combating homelessness and helping at-risk children. CEO Tim Marx unveiled the new priorities this week. The dramatic pivot comes as Catholic Charities, which over its 150 years has been one of the Twin Cities’ most influential charitable organizations, saw participation in its adoption program decline and the Trump administration’s immigration policies led to a slump in the number of refugees arriving in Minnesota. At the same time, Marx said, Catholic Charities has seen demand for other...

Several Iranian women have caught people's attention by revealing the lengths they go to to attend a football match. Donning beards and wigs, they disguised themselves as men so they could watch their team, Persepolis, play rivals Sepidrood at the Azadi stadium in Tehran last Friday. Images of the women at the stadium have been widely shared on both Persian and English social media.Although there's no official ban on women going to sporting events in Iran, it is rare for them to attend as they are often refused entry. Prior to the Islamic revolution of 1979, women were allowed to...

A lost city dating to the rule of King David from the Old Testament has been uncovered in Jerusalem. King David is an ancestor of Jesus, according to biblical sources, which say he ruled around BC 1,000. Experts say that recently-found ruins date to the 10th century BC. This ties in with the timeframe for when the bible says King David existed, making the link between the two 'plausible', researchers claim. The finding is likely to fuel the debate surrounding whether Biblical figures such as King David actually existed, however.

Atheists, agnostics, and people who just don't give a darn about God keep telling us they are just as moral as, if not more moral than, people of faith. Really? All the following exist because countries reject religion and adhere to moral codes generated by men. The casual killing of those whose lives "aren't worth living." Murdering 56,000,000 unborn babies each year because they are inconvenient, or because they are women to be. The mass murder of 100,000,000 people in the last century. Sexual objectification of women. The use of violence to silence "offensive" speech. A hedonistic ruling class oppressing...

Not enough German high school students receive Islam religion lessons, according to a new study by the media info service Mediendienst Integration.Around 54,000 students at 800 schools across the country currently receive Islam religion lessons, a significant increase on the 42,000 who attended such lessons two years ago, according to official statistics from Germany’s 16 state education ministries. But this is still much less than the 580,000 students who would potentially be interested in such lessons, a number that came out of a 2008 report entitled “Muslim Life in Germany” carried out by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees...

A Malaysian court Monday handed a man who lives in Denmark a one-week jail term for breaking a law against “fake news”, the first person to be punished under the controversial legislation. The law, passed in early April, makes the deliberate dissemination of false information punishable by up to six years in jail and a hefty fine. It has sparked outrage from rights groups, who believe it is aimed at cracking down on dissent. Salah Salem Saleh Sulaiman, a 46-year-old of Yemeni descent, admitted making and posting on YouTube a video accusing emergency services of responding slowly after a Palestinian...

An Alabama teacher says school officials told her Monday to remove a shirt with the words “just pray” on it because the shirt violated the school dress code. Chris Burrell, who works as a teacher in the Mobile County School District, told WALA she wore the shirt to support a local 11-year-old girl diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor last year. An organization called “Aubreigh’s Army” designed the shirt to raise money for the girl, Aubreigh Nicholas, who had been receiving treatment. The organization’s crowdfunding page for Aubreigh’s treatment raised $45,645 as of Saturday afternoon. The school principal, allegedly unaware...

Scientists discovered a strange, tall, humanoid wooden figure under four meters of peat in a Russian bog. The figure, dubbed the Shirgir Idol (after the bog where it was found), is more than twice as old as the Egyptian pyramids. Gold miners stumbled upon pieces of the wooden figure in 1894. 100 years later, radiocarbon dating helped researchers trace the sculpture back some 9,900 years, which made it the oldest monumental sculpture in the world. The most recent analysis of the idol, published in Antiquity journal, pegged the figure at about 11,500 years old.

For you insufferable wymyn out there it’s time for a trip to the woodshed and a good old-fashioned spanking. I’m not some wigged-out dominatrix but a grandmother ashamed of women behaving badly. After the death of Barbara Bush claws came out double quick. Fresno State Professor Rhonda Jarrar labeled the former first lady, “an amazing racist…I’m happy the witch is dead. can’t wait for the rest of her family to fall to their demise the way 1.5 million iraqis have. byyyeeeeeee.” Such eloquence. Such shortsighted ignorance from a supposedly well-educated professor trusted with the training up of our young people....

Denmark’s ruling Liberal Party has come out against a ban on the circumcision of young boys, meaning the controversial citizen’s proposal is unlikely to make it through parliament. “It has been difficult today, and if we had taken the easy route, we would have said ‘yes’ to a ban,” the party’s group chairman, Søren Gade, told the Berlingske newspaper after a long-drawn out meeting of party MPs to discuss the issue on Tuesday. Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, the party’s political spokesman, told the paper that views had been split across the party. “Many have veered both for and against. There are really...

The recent attack on two men wearing kippas in Berlin has alarmed the Central Jewish Council. On Tuesday its President, Josef Schuster, advised Germany’s Jews against wearing kippas in cities like Berlin or Munich. […] Jewish people living in Germany’s major cities should “wear a baseball cap or something else”, rather than the traditional Jewish head covering, Schuster suggested. Schuster warned that if open anti-Semitism is not countered, then democracy in Germany is in danger. “It is not just anti-Semitism; it is also racism and xenophobia. This requires a clear stop sign,” he said. Despite this warning, Schuster said in...