Free Republic

The county still has no approved Nativity scene or Christmas tree, more than a week after Loudoun's Board of Supervisors reversed a committee's decision to ban public displays. The supervisors will probably change that at a special meeting Thursday by ironing out details about who can set up displays...The meeting will be at 5:30 p.m. at the school administration building in Ashburn, an hour before a scheduled public input session on the budget. On Dec. 1, supervisors voted, 7 to 1, to allow community groups "equal access" to the grounds. A decision last month to bar any structures, religious or...

Life decisions are often made when we feel that we are at a crossroads where the decision to turn to the left or to the right seems as clear for us to make as it is to breathe. Yet what about those times when the decision is not quite as clear where the variables that we are weighing are as cloudy and murky as a morning fog? Usually that is the time where the weight is heavy on our soul that we have truly to come to a decision that shoves us out of our comfort zone and that demands...

To the surprise of the majority of Americans and the entire world, on 10/9/09 U.S. President Barak H. Obama was chosen to receive this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. It is no secret to any who follow politics or world events on the Right that the Nobel Peace Prize Foundation is an elitist, secular liberal body with a secular liberal utopian vision for the world and pushes a godless leftist agenda (Isaiah 30:1). The past recipients of this Award undoubtedy reveal this organization’s leftist leanings. All one has to do is to listen to President Obama’s acceptance speech today to understand...

In the comment section of a recent post, I drew some fire for making the following, apparently shocking claim: We [Americans] see America, from the Pilgrims who signed the Mayflower Compact to the Biblical scholars… who birthed the nation, to the spirit of sacrifice and charity that thrives to this very day, not as a nation of Christians (for that freedom is at the deepest core of our common philosophy) but as a Christian nation. It seems that there is a growing belief that because our Founders were stalwart advocates for religious liberty, and because some of them had very...

The National Health Care - Setting The Stage For The Anti - Christ The cry and mantra we’re now hearing from the Obama administration and the Leftist Secular controlled Democratic Party is that we have to have a National Health Care bill passed and in place before the beginning of the summer congressional recess. The urgency and subtlety of this bill is quite telling. Some common tactics used by the Left are camouflage, deception, manipulation, connivery and demagoguery to get the agenda that they want. It is the Left’s agenda with this issue - as well as many others -...

(IsraelNN.com) Activist secular group 'The Jerusalemites' complains that the women's prayer area in front of the Kotel (Western Wall) was reduced in size, and that men and women are separated in the external courtyard, are signs of the 'haredization' of the Kotel. A local Jerusalem weekly reported Friday that the group, which is represented by one member (out of 31) on the City Council, said it was forming an action group for "returning the Kotel to the general public as part of the struggle for the character of Jerusalem.'"

The percentage of people who claim no religion has nearly doubled since 1990. Meanwhile, the percentage of Christians is on the decline, according to a new study on American religious life. The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), released on Monday, shows that the percentage of Americans claiming no religion, which jumped from 8.2 percent in 1990 to 14.2 in 2001, has now increased to 15 percent. The findings were based on over 54,000 interviews conducted between February and November of last year. The 2008 survey was a continuation of ARIS surveys in 1990 and 2001, which are part of...

Authorities in San Francisco who called the beliefs of the Catholic Church "hateful," "callous," and an "insult," – and urged members to disobey them – have been given the go-ahead by a panel of judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to express such hate because it serves a "secular" purpose. "It is not a stretch to compare the San Francisco Board's actions to that of the Nazi Germany policy of 'Gleichschaltung:' vilifying Jews as an auxiliary to and laying the groundwork for more repressive policies, including the final solution of extermination," said Richard Thompson, the president and...

Hi Folks, proud black conservative Lloyd Marcus here. Years ago, I was outraged when a dear white friend said her son came home from middle school full of guilt for slavery. I thought, “Good grief, this kid was basically born yesterday. What on earth should he feel guilty about?” But, this is the liberal “white men are evil” and “America sucks” garbage he was being taught in school. Fast forward to today. My friend's son, “Jay”, not his real name, is a young man. He contacted me on Facebook. Jay wrote that my writings make him “scratch his head”, but...

Taking a semester off to travel and focus on writing isn't that unusual for a student at Brown University. But instead of studying comparative literature in Europe, Kevin Roose decided to go to Lynchburg, Va., and enroll at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Roose passed himself off as an evangelical Christian to blend in with students at the school founded by the late Moral Majority leader. The experience led to a book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University.

Gallop recently released polling research which suggests the median proportion of residents worldwide who said religion is important in their daily lives is 82%. Not surprisingly, America's average was 65%, well below the worldwide average. What do these numbers mean, and how has America's declining religiosity affected it? http://conservativebrawler.blogspot.com/2009/02/implications-of-decline-in-american.html

Jewish students at the University of California, Berkeley, recently clashed over insensitive advertising for a Hillel-sponsored Valentine's Day event. The ad, which labeled a newlywed Orthodox couple as "scary," was originally posted on the Facebook social networking Web site, and generated a heated response. LIGHT-HEARTED, OR SHAMEFUL? This ad for 'speed friendship' on Valentine's Day drew sharply divided response. Hillel was attempting to attract students to a "speed friending" event in honor of the holiday. It was based on speed dating, a structured matchmaking process in which one meets many members of the opposite sex in a short period of...

“At this season of the Winter Solstice may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.” — The Freedom From Religion Foundation During this time of giving, no person of good will can read the statement quoted above without offering a gift that improves its ironically poor use of reason. Here, then, is one that its authors may find more useful than the usual solstice fruitcake: “Because no empirical evidence has been discovered to verify the...

'Silhouette City' Captures Essence of Christian Right as Supremacist Political Movement By Bruce Wilson It is the mark of a truly outstanding documentary that it can survive the test of a fast-changing political and religious landscape and remain relevant and even transcendent. There have been many superb documentaries in the last few years about religion and politics, but my own personal opinion is that Michael W. Wilson's Silhouette City stands above the pack, and for one overriding reason - Wilson's deep understanding of the dynamic in which the militant, militia-movement grounded Christian right of the 1980's has morphed into a...

It was billed as the first-ever "Muslim Heretics Conference." Provocative? To be sure. But when Sudanese-American scholar Abdullahi An-Naim organized it in Atlanta this April, what he really wanted to do was ignite some innovative thinking – brainstorm the predicament of traditional Islam in the modern world. "I deliberately wanted to shock people into seeing `heresy' as a creative force," he laughs. Naim may describe himself as a Muslim heretic (his conservative critics certainly do), but his peers in academia prefer the rather more admiring designation of public intellectual. Either way, the Emory University law professor has become famous throughout...

Turkey's parliamentary speaker on Saturday proposed a new constitution and re-establishment of an upper house of parliament, apparently with the aim of reducing the power of the country's top court. The Constitutional Court infuriated the Islamic-oriented government on Thursday by rejecting legislation that would have lifted a ban on Muslim headscarves in universities. It said the move would violate Turkey's secular principles. Speaker Koksal Toptan, speaking in a hall at the parliament, said re-installing the upper house, or Senate, would remove what he called "the pressure on the court." The Senate was abolished after Turkey's 1980 military coup on the...

Turkey's ruling AK party appeared to move a step closer to being shut down on Thursday when the Constitutional Court overturned a reform that would have allowed women to wear Islamic headscarves in universities. The headscarf amendment plays a central role in a separate, crucial case that seeks to outlaw the AK Party for anti-secular activities, and ban 71 members, including the prime minister and president, from belonging to a political party for five years. "This guarantees the closure of the party. I don't think we can talk of any calm before full chaos," said Cengiz Aktar, a political scientist...

(IsraelNN.com) President Shimon Peres said recently that he hoped to reconcile the secular and religious communities in Israel in honor of the state’s 60th Independence Day. “There is no Israeliness without Judaism,” he said, according to the weekly paper Mishpacha. Peres denounced scorn for religious and hareidi-religious Jews, saying, “There is no place for condescension, derision, or mockery.” Peres said just weeks earlier that secular Israelis “must stop treating the ultra-Orthodox public with contempt.” In addition, he called on the secular community to “return to our roots” by studying the Torah.

A reliable GOP aide informs Townhall that Senate Democrats are blocking a measure to commend Pope Benedict XVI because of “controversial” religious language used in the text of the resolution.a,pa. The Pope arrived in Washington Wednesday for a six-day visit to the United States. He delivered an address on the White House South Lawn that morning to praise the America for preserving religious freedom at home and abroad. The Senate has so far refrained from passing a similar resolution because at least one Senate Democrat is objecting to the following statements contained in the Senate’s resolution to welcome the Pope:...

Pakistan secular win 'will aid war on terror' By Isambard Wilkinson in Peshawar Last Updated: 1:41am GMT 26/02/2008 A victory for secular parties over an Islamic alliance in Pakistan's frontier province will significantly aid the United States-led war on terrorism, according to a senior western diplomat. Asfandyar Wali Khan, the chief of the ANP Secular parties swept last week's polls in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) as the electorate rejected violence and extremism in an area where pro-Taliban and al-Qa'eda forces have taken root. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six Islamic parties that scored a landslide victory...

I am a practising Christian, but lately I've been giving serious thought to becoming a secular progressive. The advantages of adopting this popular mindset are becoming more attractive every day. Consider: As a Christian, one does the right thing, even when no one is looking. As a progressive, I can get public recognition, peer approval and moral points for my intentions. No need to actually do any heavy lifting. Very cool. As a secular progressive I won't have to worry about guilt or wrestle with moral dilemmas. I can now cheat on my mate and remain guilt free by merely...

The rapid and drastic process of secularization in western Europe over the last decades has not diminished the continuing unease with which Europe considers the Islamic religion and Muslims in its midst. In this benchmark essay from 2004, José Casanova argues that the "Islam problem" is an indicator of the disparity between liberal and illiberal strands of European secularism. Since the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 that established the EEC and initiated the ongoing process of European integration, western European societies have undergone a rapid, drastic, and seemingly irreversible process of secularization. In this respect, one can...

-- snip --So, Iowa chose to reward, on the Democrat side, a proponent of the conventional secular left, and, on the Republican side, a proponent of a new Christian left. If that's the choice, this is going to be a long election year.

The Christmas ads that showed up in Iowa and New Hampshire — and here, on the Internet — are mostly just more ads, but with a new and disturbing twist. There is Barack Obama, being sensitive by letting his wife, Michelle, speak first; Rudy Giuliani, softening his image by joking with Santa, and Ron Paul grinning in the midst of family pandemonium. John McCain reminds us he was a prisoner of war, Fred Thompson offers heart-warming snapshots of the troops and John Edwards promises not to forget the poor. The hullabaloo has come over the ad for Mike Huckabee. He...

“Nearly every American liked Christmas a lot, But the far-Left, who lived in self-righteousness, did not! The Left hated Christmas! The whole Christmas season! Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason. It could be their heads weren’t screwed on just right. It could be, perhaps, that their jeans were too tight. But I think that the most likely reason of all, May have been that their brains were two sizes too small…” Two thousand years ago, a man was born in Judea (a region of modern-day Israel). During three years of His adult life He preached...

We have come to a point in the 2008 presidential election cycle where both political parties’ candidates are fielding questions about religion. While religion is a personal issue for an overwhelming majority of Americans, religion in government has been frowned upon ever since the ACLU took an active roll in purging it from the “public square.” So, it would seem at odds with the dogma of the Secular Progressive Left that religion should be an election issue at all. Yet each candidate has had to answer questions about their faith, with Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney being literally scrutinized on...

A study presented to the [U.S. Catholic] bishops on Monday by Karen Terry and Margaret Smith of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on the "causes and context" of the [sex abuse] crisis....said the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy, which peaked numerically in the mid-1970s, for the most part reflected "overall changes in behavior, attitudes, and media representations in American society during this time period." "This is in conflict with the idea that there is something distinctive about the Catholic church that led to the sexual abuse of minors," Terry said. [snip] ...During a press briefing on...

Democratic leader Howard Dean blasted the GOP's lack of diversity in a speech to Jewish communal leaders. Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, also appeared to criticize the practice of including an invocation of Jesus at the end of pre-game prayers at scholastic sporting events. Dean made the remark Sunday during a decidedly partisan speech at the opening plenary of the United Jewish Communities' General Assembly in Nashville. He painted the Republican Party as religiously and racially exclusive. His speech to the 3,500 Jewish communal leaders in attendance followed an address by the University of Tennessee's basketball coach, Bruce...

Board pulls out of program; Organizers try to understand reasoning Posted By Jennifer Hamilton-McCharles The Nugget Posted 10 hours ago Rose Haufe doesn't buy the reason given by the area's largest school board to no longer support Operation Christmas Child. The Powassan resident told The Nugget Tuesday the project is "simply caring for people and is beyond any religious boundaries." "I'm trying to think of their motivation, but I can't think of why they wouldn't want to do this," Haufe said. "When a child gives they never forget. It's a lesson they need to learn. It teaches them there's others...

Attacking "God" has become a lucrative book business. But there's not much substance behind the latest atheist tracts. There is nothing new under the sun," proclaims the Book of Ecclesiastes. The rise of the new new atheism confirms this ancient biblical wisdom. Of course the famous words of Ecclesiastes should not be taken in a slavishly literal sense, a technique that is all-too-common among those who think they can refute belief in God by showing that the Bible abounds in demonstrably false and self-contradictory statements.

I participated in two debates this week, and between them learned a great deal about the nature of science and religion in our time. The first debate, on the subject of religion, was with Richard Dawkins, the famous evolutionary biologist and atheist, in Toronto. The second, in New York, was with a leading Jewish-Christian missionary on whether Jesus died for our sins. What startled me was how, in the religion debate, although my adversary and I challenged each other's most sacredly held beliefs, there was no offense taken on either side. Less so was there any acrimony directed toward me...

Mother's Day is, to be honest, somewhat of an annoyance. It's manifestly one of those tedious Hallmark holidays wherein everyone is supposed to run out and support the revenue stream of cardboard manufacturers in the name of expressing gratitude to mothers, fathers, grandparents and anyone else to whom we might be related. I imagine it won't be long until Sept. 18 is declared Anonymous Sperm Donor's Day, which will probably be celebrated by giving matching card sets to one's two mommies and lighting a candle for dear old anonymous sperm donor, whoever he might be. Mothers are not only important,...

Turkish ruling party warns army Turkey's army chief (left) is said to have talked to the PM by phone Turkey's ruling party has sharply criticised an army threat to intervene in politics, saying the military must remain under civilian control. Cemil Cicek, spokesman for the Islamist-rooted party, was commenting after an unusual statement by the army vowing to defend the secular system. The army, which led coups in the past, said it was concerned by the party's choice of presidential candidate. Mr Cicek said any army intervention was "inconceivable in a democratic state". "The chief of the general staff is...

An article in The Wall Street Journal (April 12) breathlessly informs us of the latest fad on the Incredible Shrinking Continent -- "As Religious Strife Grows, Europe's Atheists Seize Pulpit: Islam's Rise Gives Boost To Militant Unbelievers; The Celebrity Hedonist," the headline teases. The "Celebrity Hedonist," isn't geriatric frat-boy Hugh Hefner, but Michel Onfray, a 48-year-old author dubbed "France's high-priest of atheism" in the Journal piece. Reporter Andrew Higgins describes the doyen of disbelief -- commander of the faith-less -- strutting onto the stage of Caen's 500-seat Alexis de Tocqueville auditorium, dressed in black from head to toe, to deliver...

Atheists Split Over Message By JAY LINDSAY BOSTON - Atheists are under attack these days for being too militant, for not just disbelieving in religious faith but for trying to eradicate it. And who's leveling these accusations? Other atheists, it turns out. Among the millions of Americans who don't believe God exists, there's a split between people such as Greg Epstein, who holds the partially endowed post of humanist chaplain at Harvard University, and so-called "New Atheists." Epstein and other humanists feel their movement is on the verge of explosive growth, but are concerned it will be dragged down by...

Secular groups applauded Rep. Pete Stark for publicly acknowledging he does not believe in a supreme being. The declaration, they said, makes the California Democrat the highest-ranking elected official - and first congressman - to publicly claim to be an atheist. The American Humanist Association took out an ad in the Washington Post on Tuesday, congratulating Stark's stance. "With Stark's courageous public announcement of his nontheism, it is our hope that he will become an inspiration for others who have hidden their conclusions for far too long," the group's executive director, Roy Speckhardt, said in a statement. Stark's beliefs garnered...

-27-2007 Former ACLU Official Charged With Child-Porn Possession The former president of the Virginia American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been arrested and charged with possession of child pornography, ABC News reported. A criminal complaint against Charles Rust-Tierney said federal investigators found evidence of multiple subscriptions to child-porn sites on his computer. In addition, court papers noted that confiscated CD-ROMs contained graphic images of rape against prepubescent girls. Rust-Tierney opposed restrictions on Internet access in Virginia public libraries, arguing that people should be trusted to act responsibly. "The default should be maximum, unrestricted access to the valuable resources of the...

Midterm election result could change her job dramatically WASHINGTON -- As the chief lobbyist for atheists in the nation's capital, former state Sen. Lori Lipman Brown is keeping a close eye on the Nov. 7 midterm elections. Democrats may gain a majority in the House and possibly the Senate. For Brown, 48, such a result might change her job dramatically. "There are some things we would like to see moved that haven't gone anywhere under current (Republican) leadership, and some things that we would prefer not to be spending our time fighting against," Brown said. For example, Brown would like...

Alert: Americans who honor the U.S. Constitution’s strict separation of church and state are now genuinely alarmed. Agnostics and atheists, as well as observant people of every faith, fear — sensibly — that the religious right is gaining historic political power, via an ultraconservative movement with highly placed friends. But many of us feel helpless. We haven’t read the Founding Documents since school (if then). We lack arguing tools, “verbal karate” evidence we can cite in defending a secular United States. For instance, such extremists claim — and, too often, we ourselves assume — that U.S. law has religious...

October 02, 2006, 6:02 a.m. Traitors to the EnlightenmentEurope turns its back on Socrates, Locke, et al. By Victor Davis Hanson The first Western Enlightenment of the Greek fifth-century B.C. sought to explain natural phenomena through reason rather than superstition alone. Ethics were to be discussed in the realm of logic as well as religion. Much of what Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and the Sophists thought may today seem self-evident, if not at times nonsensical. But that century was the beginning of the uniquely Western attempt to bring to the human experience empiricism, self-criticism, irony, and tolerance in thinking. The...

This is a video of a brave Arab woman speaking passionately against violent Muslims on Al-Jazeera TV. I'm surprised they allowed her to speak and I wonder if she is still alive today.

Blessing of school may have done more harm to students than good Saturday, September 09, 2006 I write regarding the Aug. 27 blessing of Woodward Park Middle School and the Aug. 31 editorial "No harm done." Even if I grant that the 180 people who took part in this blessing were legally exercising their free-speech rights and that no unconstitutional mixing of church and state occurred, I am far from convinced that no harm was done. Can you cite any empirical studies proving that such blessing ceremonies are safe and effective? If you can’t, is it possible that students who...

U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is "a lie" and God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws." The Florida Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will "legislate sin," including abortion and gay marriage. Harris made the comments - which she clarified Saturday - in the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention, which interviewed political candidates and asked them about religion and their positions on issues. Separation of church...

Secularists today have a catch phrase that they use like a club against religion in America. That club is named "The Separation of Church and State." So many Americans have heard the phrase that they think it is one actually written right into the Constitution of the United States. Those who are more learned on the subject realize it is not. In fact, those who are learned on the subject know that it wasn't mentioned in any law, or even in the halls of Congress, until long after the Constitution was written. In fact, there was not much attention paid...

Shai Zarhi and Itamar Lapid want to take the renaissance of secular interest in Judaism to an unprecedented level: Now that secular study centers (batei midrash), rituals and prayers have been developed, Zarhi and Lapid, both from the Midrasha at the kibbutz movement's Seminar Oranim (the secular beit midrash that helped pioneer the phenomenon), are talking about fashioning a secular halakha, or Jewish legal code - a detailed code that, like religious halakha, will include a punctilious formulation of dos and don'ts, according to secular principles. Lapid, to be precise, refers to an "Israeli halakha," because in his vision, religious...

Call for help: High-risk teenagers, mostly new immigrants, use swastikas, racial slurs to convey their emotions; draw pictures of wounded ultra-Orthodox man saying ‘Hail Hitler’ and another calling for 'death to Jews.' Educators: Using Nazi symbols became most effective way of protest for them The repeated cases of swastikas spray-painted in synagogues and in public places, which naturally caused a storm all around Israel, do not surprise education experts who work with new immigrant high-risk teens. Nazi symbols and anti-Semite slurs have become the main and most effective means of protest against the injustice they feel they are subject to...

Explaining Jews, Part I By Dennis Prager FrontPageMagazine.com | January 4, 2006 Years ago, on a flight to Louisville, KY, the woman seated next to me asked what brought me from Los Angeles to Louisville. "I will be giving a lecture," I responded. "To whom?" the personable middle-aged woman asked. "To the Jewish community," I responded. She then proceeded to engage me in a discussion about Jews, and it became apparent that she believed Jews wielded great influence in society. So I decided to ask her a question: "There are almost 300 million Americans. How many of them do you...

Persecution and martyrdom of Christians under 20th century totalitarianism - mainly of Russian Orthodox Christians under Bolshevism - is by far the greatest crime in all of recorded history. It is several times greater than the Holocaust in terms of innocent lives brutally destroyed. It has killed more Christians in a few decades than all other causes put together in all ages, with Islam a distant second as the cause of their death and suffering. And yet it still remains a largely unknown, often minimized, or scandalously glossed over crime. According to the respected and reliable OUP World Christian...

Orthodox and traditional Jews comprise a majority of Israel's Jewish population according to a Central Bureau of Statistics study published Sunday. According to the study, which was carried out from 2002 to 2004, 8% of Israeli Jews defined themselves as hareidi-religious, 9% as Orthodox and 39% as traditional – leaving secular Jews as a minority of 44%. The rate of those identifying as secular is much higher among native Israelis of European and North American origin (63%) than those from Asian origin (33%) or Sephardic and North African origin (25%). When the questions used terms of religiosity instead of denominational...