Free Republic

Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper" had another jaw-dropping weekend, reaching an impressive $200 million at the domestic box office. Despite the film's colossal success, liberals like former DNC chairman Howard Dean and director Michael Moore just won't let "American Sniper" go. Over the weekend, Moore invoked Jesus in a slew of incendiary tweets aimed at dishonoring American soldiers and the Iraq war. One tweet stated "Tomorrow's Sunday School (1 What Would Jesus Do? Oh, I know what he'd do --hide on top of a roof and shoot people in the back!" He followed that tweet with: Sunday School: (2) But What...

Captured By Grace [video at link] Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner turned bombardier, survived a plane crash and prisoner of war camps during WWII. He returned a hero, but his greatest battle was yet to come.

As Islamists continue to kill innocents, they provide more fuel for the oft-made atheist claim that religion is evil. Atheist Richard Dawkins condemned the recent attacks in France by tweeting, "No, all religions are NOT equally violent. Some have never been violent, some gave it up centuries ago. One religion conspicuously didn't." Dawkins is right that some religions and religious people have consistently perpetrated evil. Atheists often use this fact to support atheism. However, the existence of evil turns out to be a bigger problem for atheists to explain than for theists. The kind of evil Dawkins and the rest...

As atheistic movements grow more bold, they are putting up monuments and anti-shrines and billboards. Here are some images of atheist billboards and what I would say to them, if they could hear me … Indoctrinate you? As painter George Braque said “Art disturbs; science reassures.” I cannot limit myself to teaching you the reassuring facts of science and the “carpe diem” philosophy of the world — I must introduce you to the truths that challenge: These include beauty, sin, God, the afterlife, and the often difficult necessities of love. I don’t want to indoctrinate you; I want the truth to...

I come from a Jewish family hardwired to Socialist ideas and to atheism for four generations. The last one in my lineage to believe in God must have died in the beginning of the last century. Christmas is to me a date with no special significance, even though I have learned to respect those who celebrate the birth of Jesus. But I wish to take the opportunity of this Christmas Eve to make a confession. A year and a half ago, I wrote for Opera Mundi one of the most flawed articles of my journalistic career. The title says it...

When he’s not mocking Americans for being Bible-toting, bitter gun-clingers, every chance he gets Barack Obama loves to throw Bible verses around. The problem is that the verses he quotes are usually out of context, woefully misinterpreted, cherry-picked and distorted to support a socialist worldview, and occasionally completely made-up. Listening to the president play the reverend on more than one occasion would lead one to believe Jesus Christ was a Marxist whose only objective was to further Obama’s Gospel of Collectivism. Moreover, for the Scripture enthusiast the president portrays himself to be, it’s amazing how he manages to avoid the...

THIS Christmas our family will go to church. The service is held in a beautiful old church in the charming town of Walpole, N.H., just over the border from Vermont. The Lord’s Prayer hangs on the wall behind the sanctuary. A lectern rises above the nave to let the pastor look down on his flock. The pews and the side stalls have the stern, pure lineaments suited to the Colonial congregation that once came to church to face God. Except that this church is Unitarian. Unitarianism emerged in early modern Europe from those who rejected a Trinitarian theology in preference...

Ryan Bell, an ex-pastor who quit his faith in God for a year following his resignation from the Hollywood Adventist Church and a divorce from his wife of 17 years, is set to decide New Year's Day whether he will remain a believer or become an atheist. While he has distanced himself from zealous atheists, Bell expressed a desire to be "good" without submitting to boundaries. Nearing the end of his yearlong embrace of non-theism, Bell told the LA Times that leaving the faith has allowed him to see "both sides of the coin." The former Fuller Seminary and Azusa...

(CNSNews.com) -- When the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) went after a city council in Jay, Fla., for displaying a nativity set on public property, the atheist group might have won a battle, but seems to have lost the war. The FFRF, known for protesting any and all religious displays in public places, sent a complaint letter recently to local officials in the 526-person city of Jay, arguing against the life-sized nativity that had been set up on the site every Christmas for nearly 40 years, the group said in a press release. In a letter sent to the city’s...

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, one of the largest secular groups in America, announced it is erecting 11 different billboards across Chicago this week with various messages. Some of the ads ask people to "think for (themselves)," while others argue that kindness "comes from altruism" and not from "seeking divine reward." "Research shows that atheists and other nonbelievers remain at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to social acceptance. One reason for that is that even though at least 20% of the population today is nonreligious in the United States, many Americans have never knowingly met an...

Although these bans aren't enforceable under federal law, a coalition of atheists are now lobbying to remove language from constitutions in Maryland and six other states that prevent people who do not believe in God from holding public office. Along with Maryland, the constitutions of Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas all bear language prohibiting people who do not believe in God from holding office according to The New York Times. And the Openly Secular coalition wants the language removed. "If it was on the books that Jews couldn't hold public office, or that African-Americans or women...

In a spectacular and telling failure of journalism MSNBC reported recently that Pope Francis “broke with Catholic tradition” by asserting that the Big Bang theory is real. Instantly, the Internet responded with the name Georges Lemaitre, one of the creators of the Theory of Universal Expansion who also happened to be a Jesuit priest. He is also the first entry on a Google search of “Catholic Big Bang.” That the MSNBC author did not bother to do one search before making a pronouncement about the faith of a billion people displays abysmal incompetence. But it also reflects very skewed...

Has science now proven that God exists? Douglas Ell, author of the new book Counting To God, will speak about this and other “big questions” related to science and faith in two lectures at Trinity Episcopal Church in Vero Beach. Times: Tuesday, October 21, 2014, 6:00 pm Tuesday, November 18, 2014, 6:00 pm Location: Trinity Episcopal Church 2365 Pine Avenue Vero Beach, FL 32960 Both talks are open to the general public and there is no charge. In Counting To God, Ell applies the lens of mathematical analysis to a series of scientific discoveries, drawing startling conclusions about the relation...

The intellectual role that used to be occupied by theology is now largely filled by science fiction. Wikipedia lists only a dozen of possibly hundreds of books where writers, some of them practicing mathematicians or scientists themselves, examine the consequences of our current understanding of the universe. The familiar, everyday world that we know isn’t what it seems. It is actually a strange place. On large scales it isn’t governed by ‘common sense’ Newtonian physics but by the paradoxes of relativity. At very small scales, perhaps at its foundation, it is governed by quantum phenomena, which is stranger still. Arthur...

JRR Tolkien in 1967 (Photo: PA) Books blog: Dr Holly Ordway's Not God's Type recounts a fascinating and uplifting journeyI have been reading Dr Holly OrdwayÂ’s Not GodÂ’s Type: an Atheist Academic Lays Down her Arms (Ignatius Press, or Gracewing in the UK). It is always uplifting to read books like this, not in a triumphalist way but because it is a reminder that underneath all the glaring human weaknesses in the Church as an institution, which we all know so well, there are still people out there who are searching for answers to fundamental questions and then finding...

I’m going to say something many of my fellow secularism advocates would probably not appreciate: I like Pope Francis. Why? I like Pope Francis because, in my opinion, he is more liberal than many liberals. American conservatives already hate him for his seemingly liberal position on many issues. He’s so liberal that Sarah Palin is actually taken aback by what she calls his “liberal agenda.” The Pope is so liberal that writer Damian Thompson, in an article he wrote for “The Spectator,” had to ask if we were in the early stages of a Catholic civil war. Apparently, even Catholics...

A film presented by EXIT highlights the importance of offering solace to those who have lost the will to liveAnyone involved in the euthanasia debate in this country should watch a recently released YouTube film about the work of EXIT ADMD, a Swiss association which helps French-speaking Swiss residents to die. As Michael Cook describes it in his article on Saturday, it is about the “mysticism” of Swiss-assisted suicide and it is all the more powerful and persuasive because of it. Unlike films about euthanasia made by the BBC in this country, there is nothing overtly strident or polemical about...

The state’s response to this resurgence of faith is an escalating campaign of repression As he stood in the hot sun and watched a dozen earth movers smash through the walls of the Sanjiang church, Mr Dai felt a great sadness and also fear – for himself and for the future of his fellow Christians. “There were so many police blocking the road and surrounding mountains. They had cut off power to the whole area and blacked out mobile phone coverage and they were trying to stop anybody coming near,” he says. By pretending to be part of the demolition...

Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ, during a 2010 appearance on "The Larry King Show". Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ, Ph.D., 62, is president of the Magis Center (www.magiscenter.com), headquartered in the new chancery office of the Diocese of Orange, California. The center’s goal is to demonstrate that faith and reason and science are compatible, and to combat the increasing secularization of society, particularly among young people. Fr. Spitzer was born and reared in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father was an attorney and businessman; he was one of five children. His father was Lutheran; his mother a Catholic and daily communicant. He attended...

It's interesting to note that Jesus knew his identity as the Son of God, yet he did not speak of himself with that terminology; rather, he repeatedly called himself the Son of Man... Yet, for many believers the idea of embracing and celebrating our humanity is rejected, as if our humanity is contaminated, dirty, and sinful... The Pharisees were quick to denounce people as sinful from birth, but Jesus did the opposite. He actually pointed to the little children as an example of the Kingdom of God. The notion Jesus thought any of us were born sinners is completely contrary...