Free Republic

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...

Secular fundamentalists, it turns out, have their own version of Sharia law. It is just as unbending, rigid and dangerous to liberty as the Muslim kind. And secular Sharia has ten commandments, just like the Judeo-Christian tradition does. The Ten Commandments of the Judeo-Christian tradition supplied the foundation for the American political experiment. As George Washington said, "Of all the disposition and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports." By "Religion," Washington meant Christianity, and by "morality," he meant the Ten Commandments. In other words, according to the Father of our country, it is impossible...

Jonah Goldberg's most recent "Goldberg File" comments at length, and with several good points, on the maddening way that modern liberalism presents itself as an objective, secular belief system above the superstitious, backwards fray of traditional (and non-traditional) religions: Speaking of Liberal Fascism, one of its core themes -- and mine -- is that modern liberalism is a political religion. That's why I've been so intrigued and frustrated by the discussion around Rick Santorum and his various comments, including: His ham-fisted remarks about wanting to vomit after reading JFK's church-state speech, his defense of religious freedom, his insistence that Obama's...

(Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum challenged President Barack Obama's Christian beliefs on Saturday, saying White House policies were motivated by a "different theology." A devout Roman Catholic who has risen to the top of Republican polls in recent days, Santorum said the Obama administration had failed to prevent gas prices rising and was using "political science" in the debate about climate change. Obama's agenda is "not about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your jobs. It's about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different...

We are experiencing an ever widening cultural divide, according to Charles Murray. Upper-middle class professional types may pretend that they are cultural relativists, accepting of whatever lifestyle their fellow human beings happen to choose. In reality, they live by old fashioned puritan values, however. They get married and stay married. They work hard and work long hours. Not so for the blue collar, never-got-beyond-high-school class, however. A shocking number aren't even working at all. Many are not getting married in the first place. Of those that get married, the divorce and separation rates are soaring. What about happiness and well-being?...

As the recent battle for a proper understanding of religious liberty shows, our culture and many of our government leaders and organizations are becoming increasingly secularized and hostile to religion and religious practice.Yet another example of this is a recent rule change in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF). According to this program, a person who has been engaged in Public Service employment for ten years, can have the remainder of their Student Loan form the government forgiven, presuming they have faithfully been paying it up till then.However, a recent rule change now excludes those who are involved in any...

"And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." (From this week's Torah portion, Yitro, Exodus 19:6) Before the giving of the Torah, before the Ten Commandments, before the most momentous and splendorous ceremony in history, the Creator explains why. Before "Honor your parents", before "Guard the Sabbath day to sanctify it", before all the 'how', G-d explains why He gave us the Torah; why this trek from the House of Bondage to the Land of Israel. What is the destiny? What is the purpose? "And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests...

Fr. George Rutler was kind enough to share his latest parish bulletin concerning the recent HHS mandate with the Cardinal Newman Society.He writes:Our many fellow Catholics now enchained for the Faith of our Fathers in such places as China, Syria, and Egypt are, as Father Faber’s hymn says, “in heart and conscience free.” But what happens when a government tries to chain the conscience itself?A few weeks ago, in a remarkably unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the attempt of the present Administration in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC to restrict religious freedom. Chief Justice Roberts...

We live in a secularized world of nation states in which traditional religion, especially Christianity, is unwelcome. Rooted in the “Enlightenment,” this view supports a secularized and authoritarian public square enforced by government and that progress requires forcing religion ever backward into remote corners of society. In short, America has become a secular theocracy with a civic religion of national politics (nationalism) occupying the public realm in which government has replaced God...

We live in an increasingly secularized world of massive and pervasive nation states in which traditional religion, especially Christianity, is ruled unwelcome and even a real danger on the basis of a purported history of intolerance and “religious violence.” This is found in most all “public” domains, including the institutions of education, business, government, welfare, transportation, parks and recreation, science, art, foreign affairs, economics, entertainment, and the media. A secularized public square policed by government is viewed as providing a neutral, rational, free, and safe domain that keeps the “irrational” forces of religion from creating conflict and darkness. And we...

While necessity is the mother of invention, sloth and envy beget mediocrity and upheaval – the twin siblings of secular-socialism. It is in this vein that a rebellious and increasingly violent spirit of incoherent anarchy continues to fester in urban centers across the nation. This is most evident in the form of the envy-driven "Occupy wherever" nonsense embraced by the "progressive" establishment. Still, this Obama-supported effort to supplant, through lawless imposition, our free-market constitutional republic with some misguided conception of an outcome-based equalitocracy is rooted in much more than just good old-fashioned class warfare. Part and parcel of secular-socialism is...

CUMBERLAND — Thanks to a small group of local men, the tradition of erecting a Nativity scene and decorating a large Christmas tree on the lawn of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in downtown Cumberland will continue. Two years ago, city officials decided to end city government’s involvement with the Nativity scene. According to Michael Mudge, one of the men who is keeping the tradition alive, city leaders had received a complaint from two people who objected to local government being involved in the Christian Nativity tradition.After Christmas 2009, the city donated the Nativity items to The Cumberland Nativity & Tree Display...