Free Republic

JIZAN, Saudi Arabia,- A Saudi farmer who claims his "miracle" sheep was born with the name "Muhammad" on its body in Arabic says he was offered $400,000 for the animal. Mohammed bin Yehya Al Addawi, a farmer in the village of Jizan, said his black-and-white sheep was born with the Muslim prophet's name written on its body in Arabic letters. A video of Al Addawi holding the sheep was posted to YouTube. The farmer said he was offered $400,000 for the sheep, but decided to retain ownership of the "heavenly miracle." "Many people come to see it and all of...

Fighting hard to resurrect his NFL career, the Christian quarterback... Without explanation or elaboration, a sports writer for the CBS affiliate in the City of Brotherly Love called Tim Tebow “the most polarizing Philadelphia Eagle” in an article that goes on to share the surprising opinion of one of Tebow’s teammates who claims the quarterback’s play will “shock a lot of people.” Of course, one can imagine what writer Andrew Porter may have had in mind when offering that “most polarizing comment” about Tebow — the NFL player’s proudly promoted Christianity as well as the trepidation of a lot of...

Robin Douglas says up to 10 people attend his cannabis-centred servicesThe self-proclaimed pastor of the Church of the Holy Smoke in White Rock, B.C., is refusing to tear down the tents where he conducts cannabis-centred services. The City of White Rock ordered the tents, erected in the backyard of a beachfront property in the city, to be removed citing bylaw contraventions, but Robin Douglas says that's just a smokescreen. "The only thing that the city is getting mad about is that we're a religious organization that uses cannabis as a sacrament and they want us gone," he told CBC News....

The time was the late 1940s, the place Greensboro. A mother had sent her two young sons to the neighborhood grocery. A gang of local toughs waited just outside the store. One came at the older brother from the front, one from the back and the third went for the money in the boy’s pocket. The younger brother, who was only 6, stood back while his sibling managed to fight off the young would-be robbers. The little fellow took it all in, though, and came away with some very important life lessons: Be prepared to defend yourself. Show no fear....

Moral decline (or degeneration) refers to the process of declining from a higher to a lower level of morality. The condition of moral decline is seen as preceding or concomitant with the decline in quality of life, as well as the decline of nations. In the words of British lawyer and jurist Judge Devlin (1905 -1992), "an established morality is as necessary as good government to the welfare of society. Societies disintegrate from within more frequently than they are broken up by external pressures."[1] Contents[] 1 Moral standards2 Causality 2.1 Biblical theology2.2 Secular ideology 3 Examples of development and decline...

On Sunday mornings, you’ll find Pastor Brenda Stevenson preaching from the tattered pages of her Bible to a congregation clinging to her every word. But the pastor of New Outreach Christian Center will soon be armed with something other than the word of God. “Like I tell everybody – just welcome two new members, Smith and Wesson,” Stevenson said. Next month, Stevenson will take the pulpit with a gun by her side for the first time, a need realized after the Charleston shooting, something she believes may have been stopped if someone inside could have fired back. “I do not...

Liberal Hollywood might try to silence Christian and conservative voices but it doesn’t always succeed. To be heard, Christian and conservative actors and athletes have used their platforms on Facebook and Twitter to “come out,” so to speak, on hot-button topics. After the release of two damning videos showcasing the casual bartering of aborted baby parts by Planned Parenthood representatives, actress Stacey Dash, actor Kevin Sorbo and NFL player Benjamin Watson lambasted the taxpayer-funded abortion giant on Twitter. Stacey Dash ("Clueless"), an outspoken critic of liberal politics in Hollywood and presenter at last year’s Media Research Center’s Dishonors Awards, challenged...

Adrian Trotman and his wife, Jen, were walking their dog Sunday when they stumbled upon something potentially life-changing. It was a Coca-Cola bottle, couched in the sand along Port Melbourne Beach in Australia, and held a note inside. The note was written on a page ripped from a diary or personal organizer dated 2013 and contained an inspiring message. “Dear finder, This is your fate, it’s your mission to change life as you know it. Do something amazing, something you are too scared to do. Why not? Life’s short. Once you have decided, leave this note for someone else to...

Brittney Griner filed to have her marriage to fellow WNBA player Glory Johnson annulled last month, claiming that the union was based on “fraud and duress” and that Johnson pressured her into it. Griner also suspected that Johnson was cheating on her. According to court documents obtained by TMZ, Griner says she discovered in April that Johnson had been texting with her ex-boyfriend. She says she never would have married Johnson if she suspected something was still going on between Johnson and the man.

Chick-fil-A officials say Jeannette McNeil Cathy, the wife of the restaurant chain's late founder, Truett Cathy, has died at age 92. Officials said in a release that Cathy was surrounded by family when she died Wednesday night at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital. Officials say Jeannette Cathy attended New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and married Truett Cathy in 1948. The two met when she was 8 years old. …

Mayors emboldened by an appeal from Pope Francis are committing themselves to a new set of U.N. goals to end poverty and promote sustainable development over the next 15 years. At the end of a two-day Vatican summit on Wednesday, several dozen mayors from around the world unanimously adopted a declaration pledging to endorse the goals and work to implement them in their home cities. …

Virtual unwrapping software has revealed verses from the Book of Leviticus in a charred parchment scroll, making it the oldest biblical text after the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced on Monday. Found 45 years ago inside the Holy Ark of the synagogue at Ein Gedi, on the western shore of the Dead Sea, the 2.7-inch scroll was dated by C14 analysis to about 500 AD. “This is the first time in any archaeological excavation that a Torah scroll was found in a synagogue, particularly inside a Holy Ark,” the IAA said in a statement. ... To...

Over 28 years as head of the Anti-Defamation League, Abe Foxman emerged as a forceful torchbearer for American Jews. He counseled presidents and diplomats, CEOs and celebrities. He took on prominent figures over anti-Semitic remarks or representations—actor Mel Gibson among them—and accepted any ensuing apologies on behalf of an entire community. No other U.S. Jewish leader has wielded as much influence with policymakers, faith leaders and U.S. Jews. On Monday, Foxman retires as national director, a major moment of transition in American Jewish life that raises questions about the future of the organization known as the ADL. […] The ADL...

Obama favored Iran in the negotiations because he has many ties to Shia Islam and Iran, regardless of his actual faith.

The names of the tech workers in this story have been changed.Ten thousand miles from Silicon Valley, in a room near the Black Sea, Yegor Karpenchekov dreams of money. At night, while the rest of Odessa sleeps and cocaine smugglers drift in and out of the port under cover of darkness, Yegor logs onto FaceTime and talks to a 70-year-old woman in San Francisco. Her name is Sally Faubion, and five months ago she recruited Yegor from the freelancer marketplace UpWork to code her apps. She believes "divine intervention" brought them together; for Yegor, it was likely $20 per hour...

Getting troublemakers off the street used to be Jim Runnels’ job as a police officer, but now he wants to bring them in in a different way. “Someday God’s going to tap you on the shoulder and wake you up,” Runnels recalls the president of the Open Door Mission in Omaha telling him. Runnels was a sergeant with the Omaha Police Department for 18 years and within that time he had many run-ins with that same president. Pastor Bob Timberlake was his name and he knew Runnels as the officer who would drop off the forgotten, the drug addicts, the...

I am proposing a pool to raise money for the web site. Lots of us on the site believe that President Obama is secretly of the Muslim faith and has kept it a secret because he knows that he never would of been elected if he was open about it. what I propose is a pool that those playing the game donate 50 dollars to the web site if they a wrong in there guess of when President Obama states publicly that he is Muslim. the choices are 1. Between now and the last week in office. 2. The last...

The ship Exodus 1947 became a symbol of Aliya Bet — illegal immigration. After World War II, illegal immigration increased and the British authorities decided to stop it by sending the ships back to the ports of embarkation in Europe. The first ship to which this policy was applied was the Exodus 1947. The ship sailed from the port of Site, near Marseilles, on July 11, 1947, with 4,515 immigrants, including 655 children, on board. As soon as it left the territorial waters of France, British destroyers accompanied it. On July 18, near the coast of Palestine but outside territorial...

Are you reading this because you chose to? Or are you doing so as a result of forces beyond your control? http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130924-how-belief-in-free-will-shapes-us After thousands of years of philosophy, theology, argument and meditation on the riddle of free will, I'm not about to solve it for you in this column (sorry). But what I can do is tell you about some thought-provoking experiments by psychologists, which suggest that, regardless of whether we have free will or not, whether we believe we do can have a profound impact on how we behave. The issue is simple: we all make choices, but could...

Divorce papers obtained by Daily Mail Online reveal Muhammad Youssuf Abdulazeez's father beat his wife - and his murderous son Youssuf Saed Abdulazeez also told his wife of 28 years he was going to take a second wife in their native Palestine - as it was permitted under Islamic law Papers show that his wife, Rasmia, made a series of allegations including that the father of five was sexually abusive She wanted a restraining order against her husband, according to papers filed in Tennessee in 2009 Papers disclose that family were originally from Palestine and other relatives' posted 'Free Palestine'...