Free Republic

Another fitting title would be "The Destructive Nature of Socialism, Reckless Individuality, and Intellectualism". A lengthy (but uplifting) essay - give it time. The Bible, if you believe its words, states that man was made in God's image, though there are some obvious differences between the two. The most notable of them would be that Adam did not share God's knowledge or power. This is because God had chosen to keep Adam and Eve unburdened. They shared his benevolent nature, his capacity for joy, and they had all of Paradise to themselves. God knew that He could not give them...

Britain’s Leaders Warn of the Loss of Common Values The decline of Christianity and moral values in general is reaching new lows in Britain. While the number of faithful has been decreasing for some time now, warnings about the situation are starting to come from all quarters. Britain is no longer a Christian nation, affirmed Anglican bishop, Paul Richardson, in an article published Jun. 27 in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. The Anglican prelate was also critical of his fellow bishops for not understanding just how serious the change is in contemporary culture, and for their lack of action in dealing...

Do MY will , feign away from others not in my will for they shall weigh and slow you down and there is no time for the flesh . Your posture before me is about to change in that a door has been swung wide for you to enter the Garden of My will For I AM your Father as you are my Children . Do you see your eyes enlightening to my purposes througout the world now and how you fit into this living , flowing picture ?! Stay within the framework of this at all times and you...

Chores of enchantment are as you do My will , For truly this is to subdue and fulfill , For I am the glory and the power , And it is My will you should be doing in the last hour , Not wanting , not needing for I will supply , For all things fall under my eye , So procede and procure , By asking and declaring , breakthrough and endure . . . 1 Peter 4:7-9 (King James Version) 7But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. 8And...

NEVADA CITY – At Camp Quest, campers may not believe in God, but they do have faith in their community. On Sunday evening, 49 children from across the western United States arrived at the camp nestled in the hills outside Nevada City. It is one of five summer camps in the country for the children of atheists and other nonbelievers. In a campground in Malakoff Diggins State Historical Park, the campers have many of the traditional summer experiences. They practice archery in the meadow, participate in team competitions and gather around the campfire at night to sing. Their activities, however,...

News out of Great Britain indicates that Richard Dawkins, perhaps the world's most famous living atheist, is setting up a summer camp intended to help children and teenagers adopt atheism. As The Times [London] reports: "Give Richard Dawkins a child for a week's summer camp and he will try to give you an atheist for life." The camp, based upon an American precursor, is to be financially subsidized by Dawkins. According to media reports, all 24 places at the camp have been taken. As Lois Rogers of The Times reports: Budding atheists will be given lessons to arm themselves in...

New atheist summer camp launched An atheist summer camp for children set up in Somerset is to offer a "godless alternative" to religious camps. The 24 places on Camp Quest UK, which will be held next month near Bath, have already been booked up. Organisers said the purpose of the camp was to encourage critical thinking and provide children with a summer camp "free of religious dogma". The camp, supported by scientist Richard Dawkins, plans to expand after receiving hundreds of inquiries. The event has been set up by Samantha Stein, a postgraduate psychology student from London. She said: "It...

We believe in Marx, Freud,and Darwin We believe everything is OK as long as you don’t hurt anyone to the best of your definition of hurt, and to the best of your knowledge. We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage. We believe in the therapy of sin. We believe that adultery is fun. We believe that sodomy’s OK. We believe that taboos are taboo. We believe that everything’s getting better despite evidence to the contrary. The evidence must be investigated And you can prove anything with evidence. We believe there’s something in horoscopes UFO’s and bent spoons. Jesus...

Ayn Rand was an atheist. According to her one-time associate Barbara Branden, Rand became an atheist at age thirteen. Branden records Rand writing in her diary at that age: "Today I decided to be an atheist." Branden then reports her as later explaining, "I had decided that the concept of God is degrading to men. Since they say that God is perfect, man can never be that perfect, then man is low and imperfect and there is something above him – which is wrong." [Branden, PAR, p. 35.] Branden continues that Rand's "second reason" is that "no proof of the...

Two thirds of teenagers don't believe in God Nearly two thirds of teenagers don't believe in God, according to a study by Penguin books. Teenagers even say family, friends, money, music and even reality television are more important than religion. It also emerged six out of ten 10 children (59 per cent) believe that religion "has a negative influence on the world". The survey also shows that half of teenagers have never prayed and 16 per cent have never been to church. The study of 1,000 teenagers aged 13 to 18 was carried out by Penguin to mark this week's...

BOSTON, June 18 /Christian Newswire/ -- On July 3, Vision Forum Ministries will host Calvin vs. Darwin: The Boxing Match of the Millennium -- a vigorous head-to-head debate between two re-enactors representing John Calvin and Charles Darwin's diametrically-opposing worldviews. This "boxing match" will take place during the Reformation 500 Celebration, to be held July 1-4 in Boston, which falls during a year where millions around the world are celebrating two distinct birthdays: the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth on the one hand, and the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth on the other (as well as the 150th anniversary of the...

Signs are evident we are living in a spiritually prophetic age. Many have deep seated questions about our times and are frantically searching for answers wherever they can to find them. Intellectuals are turning to lost civilizations like the Mayans and the ambiguous predictions of Nostradamus to satisfy a need for truth. They’ve even dug up some of old Merlin’s psychic prophesies to learn what he said about the end of the world — we won’t repeat them here. Their conclusion after gathering all the prophetic material: All sources agree, the world will end in 2012. It can’t be a...

Mankind is an interesting creation. When he gets to the point where he has everything he could possibly want, he begins taking the things he has for granted. After he takes things for granted, he pursues more, with his appetite never fully satisfied...... ....If man disregards God, he feels that he is in control, and if he is in control, then he feels that he is the writer and creator of the laws, and eventually begins playing God. When a person holds power and has no fear of God, or being held accountable to Him, then he feels that he...

What is good if there is no God? Atheists want to know. I'm serious. They'll actually pay to find out, according to The Examiner. In a world without God, good, it would seem to me, could only mean what you or a finite group of people consider good for a certain amount of time. The definition would be perennially up for debate and revotes. But I'm pretty sure $1,000 would be pretty cool for anyone.The United Coalition of Reason is delighted to announce an essay contest as part of our upcoming Good Without God campaign tied not only to a...

Geo physics is not going to save anyone from what is about to transpire , For I AM The Kingdom and The Power , No man has seen , no man has heard , What is about to happen for I AM "The Word " ! The things of life depend upon me , For I AM Lord and creation is My tapestry , So be advised by my prophets and word , For the sound you are about to witness has never been heard ( ( () ) ) , A catastrophic catastrophe , To open eyes so all...

Over at Evolution News & Views, I reflect on the question of whether it's "beyond the pale" to read, quote from, and reflect on the worldview implications of James von Brunn's addled thoughts on evolution and eugenics. Excerpt (keep reading after the jump): "Our culture is very comfortable reminding us often of atrocities committed in the name of religion -- whether it's the Crusades, the Inquisition, or 9/11. Ironically, the day of the Holocaust Museum shooting, an interesting new Jewish web magazine, Tablet, published a fascinating scholarly essay by Paula Fredriksen about how under the Nazis, some German theologians tried...

Have you ever heard the one about the Christian who started to study calculus and ended up losing his faith? Of course you have. Such "conversion" to atheism is supposed to be the story of all modern, thinking people. But imagine it happening the other way around. Moreover, imagine the convert being a well-informed, public intellectual who had long made it his business to argue that faith is irrational? Just such a conversion has happened to A.N. Wilson, the 58-year-old British biographer, novelist and man of letters. He was once an observant Anglican and, later, a Roman Catholic, but in...

For those who objected to my post yesterday quoting Holocaust Museum shooting suspect James von Brunn on the role of evolutionary doctrine, however distorted, in his rationale for racism, let me ask you a question. Try this thought experiment. If in his crazed manifesto he had somehow found support for his thinking not in evolution but in intelligent design, do you think we would have heard nothing about it from the media as in fact we've heard nothing (except from me) about his evolutionary thoughts? What if he had based his hate explicitly on Biblical literalist creationism? Or on Roman...

At this particular moment in time, people’s hearts are growing in darker strains, and people are taking more and more liberties, while making decisions without any fear of being held accountable to God. This is the fulfillment of prophecy.

Will there be an end of the world? Will the earth blow up the way many speculate? Will approximately 6.6 billion people on earth be destroyed in a very small time frame due to nuclear warfare, neutron bombs, dirty bombs, or something worse? The answer to this question depends on who you put your faith in.

"In the Beginning, Man Created God." This provocative twist on the Bible’s opening line was plastered on the side of 25 Chicago buses this week as part of an advertising crusade by the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign. The ads have been cruising between downtown and the city’s North and South sides, including the No. 56 Milwaukee route, since the beginning of the week and will run through June. "The intent of the campaign is to stimulate discussion of religion and its place in our society," said Charlie Sitzes, a spokesman for the Indiana group who with help from the American...

There are those who believe in the Rapture prophesied in the Bible. And there is Joshua Witter, avowed atheist. They need each other. At least some people think so -- those willing to pay Witter to be their post-apocalyptic postman, delivering cards and letters to their non-believing friends, relatives and neighbors who will be left behind when the Day of Reckoning arrives. About 70 people have paid the Orlando man about $5 apiece to get their messages to those doomed to face the plagues, pestilence and darkness of Armageddon. As sure as the True Believers are they will escape this...

Francis Collins, former head of the National Human Genome Research Institute and seminal player in sequencing the human genome, has launched a foundation that seeks to reconcile Christian faith with science. The Washington-based foundation, BioLogos, is funded by the John Templeton Foundation and aims to promote "the search for truth in both the natural and spiritual realms, and seeks to harmonize these different perspectives," according to its website. The BioLogos website also lists several questions (eg. "How does the harshness of evolution align with the idea of a loving God?" and "Can scientific and scriptural truth be reconciled?" and "What...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The city of Bloomington faces a federal lawsuit after advisements from an atheist group were deemed too controversial for city buses. The Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign wanted to buy space on the side of Bloomington buses for their message that "You Can Be Good Without God," 6News' Ben Morriston reported. But Bloomington Transit rejected the advertisements, citing a clause that allows the company to turn down messages that are too controversial. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana has now filed a federal lawsuit against Bloomington Transit, claiming its policy is unconstitutional. "The issue here is who...

Tom Hanks, who plays the character Robert Langdon in the controversial new film Angels & Demons, has described the plot as “playing fast and loose with the truth”. The plot of the film sees a secret society known as the Illuminati try to destroy the Vatican in order to take revenge for a massacre against its members by the Catholic Church. The film is the prequel to The Da Vinci Code, which claimed that the Church covered up Jesus’ secret marriage to Mary Magdalene. Leaders within the Catholic Church have already condemned the film as offensive to Catholics. The Catholic...

How do you film a movie set largely in the Vatican when the Holy See itself has banned you from shooting within its walls? If you are the producers of Angels and Demons, the prequel to the church-baiting worldwide blockbuster The Da Vinci Code, you send in cameramen posing as tourists to take more than 250,000 photographs and shoot hours of video footage.The team behind the new film, which is based on an earlier book by Dan Brown, used the surreptitiously-gathered material to digitally recreate many of the famous papal buildings, Tuscan colonnades, fountains and monuments within St Peter's Square.Special...

Catholic League president William Donohue has been dissing the upcoming Angels & Demons--the prequel to The Da Vinci Code--for a couple of months now, claiming the film to be a "smear" on the Catholic Church. For the most part, the filmmakers have taken the high road and remained silent. No longer. In a measured but strongly-worded op-ed today in The Huffington Post, A&D director Ron Howard responds by saying that Donohue should essentially zip it till he sees the movie. Howard writes that Donohue "is on a mission . . . to paint me and the movie I directed, Angels...

Of all the spokesmen for godlessness to emerge during 2007, the "year of the atheist," Christopher Hitchens is perhaps the most prominent. He is a prolific journalist and television pundit, selected by voters in Prospect magazine's 2008 poll as the #5 most important public intellectual. His 2007 treatise, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, continues to sell briskly, and he has built a sideline career debating any willing opponent from any church or creed, from Al Sharpton to Dinesh D'Souza. There is one man, however, who has sparred with Hitchens more than anyone: a relatively unknown Idaho pastor...

Faith has disparagingly been characterized as a "crutch" for "weak minds." And on one real level, that is true: every Christian, for example, in exercising faith, has realized that he or she is a spiritually helpless sinner facing a just, holy and morally perfect God. Christianity has been called the only religion in which one must first claim personally helplessness in order to join. If someone wants to trivialize the faith of the Christian as a "crutch," I cannot help but ultimate affirm the characterization. But, for "weak minds"? There I would profoundly disagree. Faith is not a sign of...

Memorial Church seems, at first glance, to be a vestige of Harvard’s Puritan roots. The austere brick façade evokes the covenanted communities of New England from which Harvard men used to flock. Accordingly, Memorial Church is Protestant. The student body has changed drastically over the years, but this anachronism, as Pusey Minister Peter J. Gomes called it in 1973, still remains. To reflect the diverse array of faiths on campus and act as an inclusive home for religious life at Harvard, Memorial Church should become a solely interfaith space. Harvard College today would be unrecognizable to Charles Eliot, the university...

What are the implications of God's existence or non-existence?

Al Gore met Thursday with LDS Church leaders in Salt Lake City. The Nobel Peace Prize winner and former U.S. vice president requested the dinner time meeting to discuss climate change and its solutions, sources said. Gore had a brief courtesy visit with President Thomas S. Monson before talking with other church leaders. Gore did not make a public appearance or speak with reporters. Church spokesman Scott Trotter called it "a cordial meeting" attended by Elder M. Russell Ballard, Elder Quentin L. Cook and other members of the church's Public Affairs Committee. Gore "gave a 30-minute presentation and expressed his...

This is most evident when you consider the poverty of the new atheism’s “error theory”, which is needed to explain why, if atheism is indeed the view evidence and reason demands, so many very bright people are still religious. The usual answers given to this are not good enough. They tend to stress psychological blind-spots and wishful thinking. For instance, Dawkins says “the meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.” But if very intelligent people are so easily led astray by such things, then shouldn’t the new atheists themselves be...

So the ever snarky team at the Washington Post Style section decides to do a feature story about male circumcision. (Cue: rim shot and cymbal splash) It does sound like the start of one of those jokes: “So a priest, a rabbi and a televangelist walk into a hospital …” There are just so many bad puns that can be used in this circumstance, starting in the headline: “Rallying in the Name of the Unkindest Cut? Sharp Rhetoric Abounds In Circumcision Debate.” I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first? The good news is...

Often, after victories, athletes like to take a moment to thank God, Jesus, or even the occasional shout out to Allah. But one NMU hockey player stirred up controversy after thanking Our Dark Lord Satan. Melvin Schwarz, a sophomore wood technology major and forward for the Wildcats, thanked Satan for imbuing him with "the strength of the Dark Prince himself." Schwarz has been a self professed Satanist for the past three weeks. According to Schwarz, the conversion has not affected his game play, except for the occasional possession. "As a Satanic-American, I'm entitled to all the rights that Christians are,"...

My U.S. News column this week is on the roadblocks the Obama administration is encountering to its expansive budget and economic policies. Ours is not a parliamentary democracy like Britain's, where the majority party can push its program through the legislature without much trouble. Members of Congress are, to a considerable extent, independent operators, beholden not to the president but to their own constituents, and act accordingly. Obama's big plans on energy and taxes affect different states and congressional districts in different ways, ways that cut across party lines. So he's encountering roadblocks, and it's not clear whether he'll get...

Adverts for the Mormon church are appearing on the website of a district council which is seeking to exploit the revenue-raising potential of the internet. Three church advertisements appear on Tandridge District Council's home page, none of which initially appears to be connected to the church, whose full name is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In one, the word 'happiness' is slowly circled from among a jumble of letters, and when clicked on transfers users to the church's site. Another invites viewers to "click here to watch Finding Happiness", while a third flashes up words such as...

We are losing our religion. That, with apologies to R.E.M., is the startling conclusion of a new study, the American Religious Identification Survey, conducted by researchers at Trinity College of Hartford, Conn. The poll of more than 54,000 American adults found a sharp erosion in the number of people claiming religious affiliation. A few highlights: The number of people who call themselves Christian is 76 percent, down 10 percentage points since 1990. Thirty percent of married couples did not have a religious ceremony. Better than one in four Americans do not expect a religious funeral. It is important to reiterate...

Outraged parents are suing a Florida school board saying a teacher made their third-grade children learn a religious-themed song recorded by country group Diamond Rio for an end-of-the-year program. The lawsuit, filed in federal court last week — a month after students at the Webster School in St. Augustine started practicing "In God We Still Trust" — says the song interferes with the parents' right to raise children according to their own beliefs, The Florida Times-Union reported. The song was cut before the lawsuit was filed when another parent complained. But the lawsuit says they are still entitled to damages...

Who says it's hard to be a saint in the city? The path to sainthood seems a little easier in New Haven than in, say, Rome. Main criteria: "These are people who are important to me," explains Sara Scranton, better known among the area's visual arts, local rock and roller derby scenes by her nom-de-camera, Lipgloss Crisis. The shutterbug/designer/canonizer is busily erecting shrines, consisting of elaborate portraits and prayer cards, to such exemplars of Elm City culture as Todd Lyon and Nancy Shea (of the Fashionista vintage clothing emporium), Leslie Blatteau (of oodles of local bands, honored here as "The...

Bill Maher is a full time comedian known for his wit, sharp tongue, and edgy material. To those who are familiar with his work many would consider him a talent in the world of "smart" comedy and showbiz. Like all styles that are out there, it is usually hit or miss, and Mr. Maher is no different. He has as many detractors as he has admires. But, Maher is also a little unique when one considers his very opinionated political and personal views. For instance, he professed respect and intrigue in Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist preacher, governor, and presidential...

When he first heard about a Vatican-sponsored course on exorcism for priests, journalist Matt Baglio was intrigued by the idea of this ancient ritual taking place in the modern world. In his new book, The Rite, Baglio follows American priest Father Gary — sent to Rome to train as an exorcist — and his apprenticeship with Father Carmine. Baglio talked to TIME about belief, skeptical priests and the particulars of the exorcism ritual.

‘Unshakable’ Rationalist Blogged Her Way Into the ChurchJennifer Fulwiler “always thought it was obvious that God did not exist.” Fulwiler grew up a content atheist. Having a profound respect for knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge, Fulwiler was convinced that religion and reason were incompatible. Not surprisingly, she was also emphatically anti-Christian and, especially, anti-Catholic. “Catholic beliefs seemed bizarre and weird,” she says. Fulwiler would have been astonished to know that she and Joe Fulwiler, her husband, would come to embrace those “bizarre,” “weird” beliefs. On Easter 2007, they entered the Catholic Church with deep joy and a sense of coming home...

Imay be the most prayed-for atheist in America. Since my memoir, “Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America — and Found Unexpected Peace,” was released last week, I’ve received scores of emails and phone calls assuring me that God hasn’t given up on me and that I’ve been put on various prayer lists around the world. So far, it’s not working. “Losing My Religion” details my journey from a gung-ho evangelical Christian who became a religion reporter for the Los Angeles Times (I thought God had answered my prayers) to a reluctant atheist because...

A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the Roman Catholic population has been shifting out o of the Northeast to the Southwest, the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all. Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey. Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study...

HIV prevalence is higher among non-religious Kenyans compared to faith practitioners, the first ever large study to interrogate the relationship between religion and the disease in the country has found out. The government-sponsored Kenya AIDS Indicator Survey (KAIS) whose final findings will be released in a couple of weeks, indicates that prevalence levels among non-believers stands at 7.7 per cent against the national average of 7.1 per cent. When preliminary findings of the survey were released in 2008, they did not include the new findings. The prevalence levels are even different among various faiths, with the highest being among Protestants...

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - In an effort to reduce the church's political influence, Argentine atheists and feminists are spearheading a drive to get people who were baptized Roman Catholic but disagree with the church's politics to formally renounce their faith. The "Not in my Name" Internet campaign, also called Collective Apostasy, encourages people who are Catholic in name only to write to the bishops where they were baptized to officially register that they have left the church. Latin America is home to about half of the world's Roman Catholics but many people who were baptized Catholic do not practice the...

Recently, Religious Left icon Jim Wallis preached about the virtues of Big Government to the already converted at Yale University’s chapel, from which the late chaplain William Sloane Coffin had inveighed against America during the tumultuous 1960’s and 1970’s. “Change requires people of faith,” Wallis intoned from the pulpit in the style of Coffin, whose “spirit and…legacy live on,” Wallis later discerned. “If you have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, you can move mountains.” The “mustard seed” quote came from Jesus, who was referring to faith’s exponential power in building the Kingdom of God. Wallis, like...

My mom was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer a little under five months ago. It had spread into the lymph nodes, and getting the news was one of those things that I will never forget. I would throw myself under the wheels of a bus if doing so would protect my mother; and hearing that she had cancer - the very same form of cancer that took her own mother's life - was frightening. My mom went through 3 months of chemo that left her as bald as a cue ball, and had surgery this week. She is now...

The University of Southern California has received a $6.9 million grant to study the growth, reach, and impact of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity - one of the world’s fastest growing religious movements. The university's College of Letters, Arts & Sciences Center for Religion and Civic Culture has used the grant to establish the Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative (PCRI), which will provide a scholarly framework to investigate Pentecostalism and the various renewal movements that have emerged in Roman Catholicism and mainline Protestantism. Awarded by the John Templeton Foundation, the grant is the largest amount ever given toward the study of...