Free Republic

On Monday night, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly had some tough words for secular progressives, highlighting their purportedly dangerous views on social and economic issues. The subject of his “Talking Points Memo” segment asked, “Is traditional America gone for good?”The popular television host commenced the segment by noting his belief that traditional America can, once again, rise to prominence, however, he contended that “it will take a very special person to make that happen.” To corroborate O’Reilly’s point that the nation may, indeed, bounce back to its traditional roots, he noted that, despite winning re-election, Obama is slipping in popularity.“Left-wing ideology...

(RNS) Last month, Lauren Anderson Youngblood, communications manager for the Secular Coalition for America, approached Broderick Johnson, a senior adviser to the Obama campaign, as they both left a conference on religion and the election. The SCA is an umbrella group representing 11 nontheistic organizations. So who, Youngblood asked Johnson, could she reach out to with their concerns about civil rights, access to health care and education? “He said, ‘We don’t view you as a constituency,’” Youngblood said. “He said, ‘We don’t do outreach to that community.’” After Tuesday's election, that may soon change. According to a Pew Forum on...

Until recently, Americans were used to hearing about threats to religious freedom in other countries. “From the end of World War II, for about 50 years, our understanding of religious liberty was relatively stable,” Notre Dame professor Gerard Bradley said in a Georgetown University seminar on October 24, 2012. “Our understanding was that the greatest threat to religious liberty was public authority. But somewhere around the turn of the millennium, that changed.” “At around this time, what has previously been thought of as a canonical definition of religious freedom turned into a relativistic one,” Bradley said. “There are two kinds...

LILLE, France (Reuters) - Police in France said on Friday they were trying to identify the skeleton of a man believed to have lain undiscovered in bed for more than 15 years. The body, found in an abandoned house in the northern city of Lille, is thought to be that of the elderly owner of the property, who lived alone and appeared to have no relatives. Police said they had found piles of unopened mail at the house dating back to 1996.

A woman throws icons away in a propaganda poster which states, "The Bright Light of Science Has Proven That There Is No God." Denver, Colo., Oct 19, 2012 / 05:43 pm (CNA).- Some 40 Soviet propaganda posters against Christianity will soon be displayed at Denver’s Catholic cathedral as part of an exhibit dedicated to religious liberty. “These posters remind us that societies can turn very deadly when you have a kind of radical secularism which manifests in an anti-Christian attitude … you see it in all its ugliness through the lens of these posters,” Father Doug Grandon told CNA...

Adam Gopnik is a gifted essayist and writer whose contributions, often published in The New Yorker, are almost always thoughtful and interesting. Nevertheless, one of his most recent writings is deeply disturbing, and at the deepest level. Reflecting on the debate between Vice President Joseph Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan, Gopnik registered alarm at “something genuinely disturbing and scary” that had been said by Paul Ryan. Gopnik first complained that Biden and Ryan should not have even been asked about the role their Roman Catholic faith plays in their thinking, specifically on the issue of abortion. Gopnik then wrote: “Paul...

This is clearly the implication of the media reports following the latest Pew Research, "Nones on the Rise," which shows a "steep decline" in the number of Americans who self-identify as Protestant, coupled with a "significant jump" in the number of those who now claim "no religion." The secular devotees in the media seem hardly able to constrain their delight over the prospect that Christianity is disappearing in America. Trying to spin this in such a way that the Christian faith appears culturally vital in the U.S. is a little like putting lipstick on a pig; but concluding that Christianity...

According to a recent study, religion is dying in America. And it’s a trend that has grave implications for our politics, culture, and the fate of our civilization. Ben Fearnow of CBS News reports on the story, writing: ...The study also posits some theories for this burgeoning irreligiosity, which, writes Fearnow, “run the gamut from a backlash against the entanglement of religion and politics to a global relationship between economic development and secularization.” Now, I don’t know if that “gamut” includes the obvious, but these two theories miss the mark. Question: Do we wonder why Pakistan is spawning jihadists when...

In 2008, Barack Obama stole a chunk of religious voters from the GOP by clothing his secularist and socialist positions in quasi-religious garb.“People of faith” received their own slot on his campaign web site, a mere two tabs down from the “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community.” Obama “valued” the religious, as he put it. He particularly valued their votes. Obama has long believed in the separation of church and state but not in the separation of bogus religiosity from winning.This year his pitch to the religious is a little more tricky in light of the HHS mandate and other...

Dr Rowan Williams is retiring as the Archbishop of Canterbury to take up the post of Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. His “valedictory” book, Faith in the Public Square, is attracting considerable media interest. I was prompted to buy it after reading Dr William Oddie’s particularly colorful review in the London Catholic Herald. Oddie concluded that the ideas promoted in the book are the sort of impractical nonsense one only hears on Oxbridge high tables and in senior common rooms. I have never met Dr Williams but I once quoted him in a paper I delivered in Italy, a short...

Transhumanism is a powerfully influential planetary 'elite' movement that believes man can begin a radical transfiguration of himself by merging his brain with technology with the long term goal of eventually transferring his 'essence' out of his decaying body and into a highly advanced robo-machine. A Daily Mail article reported that, '...inserting technology into human brains is not the only thing going on. Some scientists also want to insert human brains into technology" ("Hitler would have loved The Singularity: Mind-blowing benefits of merging human brains and computers," Ian Morris, 6 February 2012, dailymail.co.uk) In July 2012, transhumanism officially came out...

Last week, before an audience of millions of Americans, the new president made a telling statement. Alluding to the American founders, President Barack Obama, in his Inaugural Address, stated: “The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.” This seemed to be a reference to the Declaration of Independence, or at least to the principles in that sacred...

So here we have 'Jared Loughner #2' with a twist; James Eagen Homles as Batman's nemesis 'The Joker'.Are guns to blame? I say no. Secularism taught in the schools is to blame. Children today are indoctrinated into their social media culture where religions of all kinds are mocked, especially Christians and God Almighty. The mere mention of God is subject to attack and relentless bullying. The 'G' word is met with the same fierce reaction as the 'N' word. Blaming guns for a person's actions is a diversion from the REAL culprit in our society; The secular, Godless individual.

The recently highlighted “crisis of Zionism” is in fact a quandary afflicting Jewry and no new phenomenon. Rather, it has two sources, each centuries old. One source is the exile and dispersion of a majority of the Jewish people from their native land of Israel by Emperor Hadrian in the year 135 CE, and the deep-seated and long-lasting consequences on the Jewish psyche over the course of the ensuing 1,813 years; the other source is about 200 years old, a gradual religious erosion which begins with the radical Reform movement of Samuel Holdheim in Germany and David Einhorn in the...

Sometimes today you encounter stories that are truly jaw-dropping, like this one being reported by the Washington Post. Headlined, "The Crime of Circumcision," it deals with a ruling issued by a judge in Germany that prohibits Jews from circumcizing their baby boys: A district judge in Cologne, Germany, recently ruled that ritual circumcision is a crime, violating “the fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity,” which outweighs other parental and religious rights. “This change runs counter to the interests of the child,” the court concluded, “who can decide his religious affiliation himself later in life.” Circumcision is a rite...

A Phoenix man has been sentenced to 60 days in jail after he refused to stop hosting Bible studies in the privacy of his home – in violation of the city’s building code laws.

The younger generation is becoming godless. Increasing numbers of Americans under the age of 30 are skeptical about the existence of God. This will have profound repercussions upon our society, fostering moral disintegration and the eventual death of our Judeo-Christian civilization. Traditional America is dying. In its place, a new liberal barbarism is being born. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center finds that belief in God has dropped dramatically among so-called millennials — those born after 1980 — during the past five years. In particular, the Pew poll found that 31 percent of respondents say they doubt whether...

When it comes to religiosity, some American states truly do fit in to the union — the European Union, that is. According to recent surveys, the most and least religious states are mainly where one might expect: respectively, the Bible Belt of the South, and New England and the West. A recent Gallup study, for instance, rated (in order) Mississippi, Utah, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Oklahoma as the 10 most religious states; and Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Alaska, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, New York, and Rhode Island (the last...

28 Iyar, 5772 May 20, '12 Translated from the Makor Rishon newspaperSome people still think that the reason that our national train continues to speed down the Oslo track is because of the people at the helm. Begin surrendered the Sinai Peninsula because he was tricked. Netanyahu hugged Arafat because he is pliable. Sharon destroyed Gush Katif because he is corrupt. And the list goes on. But the truth is just the opposite. The Right continues to slide down the slippery slope of the "peace process" not because of the weakness of its leaders but despite the fact that its...

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Arianne Gasser of Canton, Ohio, is proud to call herself a graduate student at a prestigious Catholic university, and she also is proud to call herself an atheist. The pride she has in her atheist status is part of what inspired her to travel from the Philadelphia area, where she is enrolled at Villanova University, to Washington in March to join thousands of other atheists, agnostics and other nonbelievers for the "Reason Rally," an event that was billed as an assembly to unify secular people nationwide. Carrying a sign that reads, "This is what an atheist looks...