Free Republic

<p>A 21-year-old central Florida man faces multiple charges after authorities say he tried to rob a church during Sunday services.</p> <p>Pastor Les Snodgrass of The Door Christian Fellowship Church in Melbourne tells Florida Today he was in the middle of his sermon on Sunday when a man stood up and pointed a gun at his 76-year-old mother.</p>

Physicists say there is a possibility that our world is merely a simulation They claim there may be evidence of this if only we know where to look For instance, some of the laws of physics may not quite add up, they say The year is 2050 and super-intelligent robots have taken over the planet. Except you have no idea, because you're living in a computer simulation, depicting what life was like in 2015. Everything you see and touch right now has been created by robotic overlords who are using humanity as playthings in their virtual game. That's the radical...

Archaeologists at Israel's Bar-Ilan University announced on Monday the discovery of a massive gate and other fortifications in the ruins of Gath, the hometown of the Bible's Goliath. The ancient gate is one of the largest ever discovered in Israel and evidence of the Philistine city's power in the 10th and ninth centuries B.C.E, head archaeologist Professor Aren Maeir says. It even made a brief appearance in the Bible when David, Goliath's slayer and future king of Israel, "acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard."

In the wake of two videos allegedly showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of aborted fetal body parts, Republicans in Congress are working to ensure that Planned Parenthood is stripped of its federal funding. However, it’s not only the government that fills Planned Parenthood’s coffers. According to 2nd Vote, a website and app that tracks the flow of money from consumers to political causes, more than 25 percent of Planned Parenthood’s $1.3-billion annual revenue comes from private donations, which includes corporate contributions. 2nd Vote researched the corporations and organizations to find which supported Planned Parenthood and found that more...

Eight months after it suffered one of the worst terrorist attacks in French history, the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo continues to provoke wrongheaded, confused and even cowardly analysis that disregards the facts and betrays a failure to understand – or a refusal to recognize — the stakes we in the West all have in what the publication stands for: freedom of expression. Lest we forget those facts: on Jan. 7, the brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi burst into the Paris headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, and, shouting “Allahu akbar!” systematically gunned down staff members and others present. After doing so,...

Friend of mine, her husband turned 50 today, lost his mother yesterday and is having brain surgery tomorrow to clamp off an aneurism. Prayers appreciated. Thank you.

Surveillance cameras caught images of two white males laying Confederate battle flags on the ground near the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s church, but it wasn’t clear whether they had committed a crime. Atlanta police Chief George Turner said Thursday his officers were working with federal authorities and hadn’t determined what, if any, charges might be sought. Turner said they had not ruled out a hate crime, though Georgia has no state hate crimes law. An officer from the Atlanta FBI’s joint terrorism task force was on the scene “to better determine if any specific threats were received” and to...

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...