Free Republic

The American Humanist Association is promoting a new Web site that is designed to furnish children with a naturalistic or atheistic perspective on science, sexuality, and other topics. The stated goal of the Web site is laudatory: “to encourage curiosity, critical thinking, and tolerance among young people, as well as to provide accurate information regarding a wide range of issues related to humanism, science, culture, and history.” The problem is that those values have no inherent connection with naturalism, which is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that there is nothing beyond the physical contents of the universe. One doesn’t need...

The Navy directed service members serving in Bahrain to cancel and dismantle a “Live Nativity” after receiving a complaint from a military atheist group who said the manger scene endangered Americans serving in a Muslim country and violated the U .S. Constitution. The chaplain at Naval Support Activity (NSA) Bahrain confirmed to Fox News the nativity scene was cancelled – but referred any further comments to the NSA’s public information officer. The “Live Nativity” was a long-standing tradition at NSA Bahrain that featured the children of military personnel dressed as shepherds, wise men, along with Mary and Joseph. It was...

The nearly 60-year tradition of a Nativity scene displayed at a park and hosted by a coalition of churches in Santa Monica, Calif., has ended after a federal judge ruled on Monday that the city can ban such displays. A controversy over the display about the birth of Jesus at Palisades Park erupted last Christmas season when an atheist group "manipulated" the city's lottery system for spaces, according to a nonprofit, resulting in only two booths for the Christian group that normally uses 14 booths for the various Nativity-related scenes. "It's a very sad day when a small number of...

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has filed a federal lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over its lax response to church politicking. The group argues that the tax agency is violating the Constitution by allowing tax-exempt churches and religious organizations to get involved in political campaigns. The suit points to several examples, including a full page newspaper ad by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. The ad, which showed a photo of Rev. Billy Graham, urged Americans to vote along biblical principles. The 94-year-old evangelist also met with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in October and promised to do all he...

Over the past few centuries, science can be said to have gradually chipped away at the traditional grounds for believing in God. Much of what once seemed mysterious—the existence of humanity, the life-bearing perfection of Earth, the workings of the universe—can now be explained by biology, astronomy, physics and other domains of science. Although cosmic mysteries remain, Sean Carroll, a theoretical cosmologist at the California Institute of Technology, says there's good reason to think science will ultimately arrive at a complete understanding of the universe that leaves no grounds for God whatsoever. … Another role for God is as a...

The rigors of teaching apparently got to Michigan State University professor John McCarthy Monday. According to multiple sources, the math teacher stripped naked in the middle of his Calculus 1 class and started shouting obscenities.

HAZLEHURST, GA (WTOC) - Jeff Davis Tax Commissioner mulls removing Christian signs Posted: Aug 16, 2012 6:28 PM EDT Updated: Aug 16, 2012 8:02 PM EDT By Dal Cannady - bio | email Jeff Davis Tax Commissioner Susie Kersey said she's received nothing but compliments for the plaques of scripture and other inspirational messages displayed in her office lobby. But a national organization that monitors the separation of church and state notified her they had received a complaint. The Freedom From Religion Foundation has sent her two letters asking her to remove them.

The report in the New York Times that atheists are looking for official recognition as chaplains in the American military in order to cater to the needs of non-believing servicemen is interesting. On the one hand, it’s kind of absurd. Atheist chaplains? It’s a contradiction in terms. What are they going to teach? Non-belief? What services will they offer? Non-prayers and sermons on evolution? And what comfort will they offer dying soldiers, G-d forbid (oops! Even that doesn’t work). Will they say, “Game over. You’re going to a place of complete oblivion. Thank you for your service.”? On the other...

If you believe any of the hogwash about the irrelevance of the religious right to this election, take a look at the numerous right-wing evangelical websites promoting the 40/40 Prayer Vigil, which began in September with a prayer for Christian voter registration and ends--you guessed it--just before election day, Nov. 2. The 40/40 stands for the forty days and forty nights that Jesus supposedly spent wandering in the desert before finally saying no to Satan's temptations. I'm sure that you won't have any trouble figuring out which political party the Southern Baptist Convention--America's largest religious denomination and one of the...

The Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded. In his latest book, The Grand Design, an extract of which is published in Eureka magazine in The Times, Hawking said: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.” “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the...

I received this dollar bill as change at a Publix in Lakeland, Fl.

Atheist techies fearful of the Word of God 'corrupting' young and impressionable minds are hoping that when school resumes in September, their revolutionary new Internet filtering software will keep kids safe in the classroom from the ultimate online predator, namely, God. "GodBlock is a web filter that blocks religious content," states the company's website. "It is targeted at parents and schools who wish to protect their kids from the often violent, sexual, and psychologically harmful material in many holy texts, and from being indoctrinated into any religion before they are of the age to make such decisions." Not even the...

Washington Post: Independence Day an Atheist Holiday By Nathan Burchfiel Created 07/06/2010 - 11:06 Someone get Lee Greenwood on the phone; he's going to want to know about this. In a front-page Style section report July 5, The Washington Post breathed a sigh of relief that Independence Day gives Americans a break from those God-heavy holidays like Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving. "The trouble with most major holidays in the United States, if you're an atheist, is that it's difficult to ignore the ‘holy day' etymology," [1] Monica Hesse reported. "But not the Fourth of July. The Fourth is a little...

If you're a big fan of the Star Trek science fiction genre, then there's a good chance that you're a humanist at heart. That's the way that Susan Sackett, the longtime personal executive assistant to Trek franchise creator Gene Roddenberry, sees it. Ms. Sackett, who met recently with the Greater Worcester Humanists group at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Worcester, said Mr. Roddenberry was an admitted humanist who liberally sprinkled his out of this world stories about Capt. James Tiberius Kirk, Mr. Spock and the other Star Trek characters with the fundamentals of humanism — a non-theistic, or secular, approach,...

Somewhere along the way, the man who last held the Lucasian chair in mathematics at Cambridge once held by Sir Isaac Newton has forgotten how to construct a scientific hypothesis.  To the delight of his interviewer, Diane Sawyer of ABC News, Stephen Hawking asserted the superiority of science over religion: When Sawyer asked if there was a way to reconcile religion and science, Hawking said, "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works." Ironically enough, Hawking would have us accept this...

Not only are they out to get us, they want our children too. “They” being the atheist stalkers that seek to undermine every shred of faith in God. They are sometimes blatant and sometimes sneaky, but they know what they are doing. Consider the “Atheist Pocket Debater,” a new iPhone app released last month. The competition is stiff with more than 150,000 apps on the market, yet “Atheist Pocket Debater” is currently ranked #100 in popularity. Here is the iTunes description:“Atheist Pocket Debater” gives many ways to argue against Christians, Creationists, and Bible thumpers. It is set up for very...

ctor Sam Elliott claims that the Catholic Church prevented Hollywood from proceeding with the next two film’s in the His Dark Materials trilogy based on Philip Pullman’s books. “The Catholic Church ... lambasted them,” said Elliott. “I think it scared New Line off.” The film...angered Catholics who accused it of promoting atheism. In the book trilogy, set in a series of parallel worlds, heroine Lyra fights the Magisterium, an evil organisation some have interpreted as being based on the Catholic Church. Pullman, 63, told the Western Mail: "If Sam is right then I am very disappointed because it obviously would...

A “triumphalistic, self-righteous atheism” inspired by the work of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris is winning a following among American young people, leading to “atheist clubs” in high schools, according to Cardinal Francis George of Chicago. The cardinal, who is President of the US Catholic Bishops’ Conference, says that unbelief among young people is more than a question of stopping going to church: it is part of a fashionable “new atheism” which is every bit as intolerant as Christian fundamentalism. He told John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter: “In Chicago, we now have atheist clubs in high schools. We...

The so-called New Atheists are attacking the mantra of science and faith being compatible. Others in the science community question the value of confrontation.This fall, evolutionary biologist and bestselling author Richard Dawkins -- most recently famous for his public exhortation to atheism, "The God Delusion" -- returns to writing about science. Dawkins' new book, "The Greatest Show on Earth," will inform and regale us with the stunning "evidence for evolution," as the subtitle says. It will surely be an impressive display, as Dawkins excels at making the case for evolution. But it's also fair to ask: Who in the United...

Do you believe in God? Really? And you're willing to admit it in public? Oops. Sorry, for a moment I slipped back into the arrogant Atheism of my youth. Before my parents had children, they decided to raise their kids in a secular home. We had gifts at Christmas time and chocolate covered matzoh during Passover, but there was no religion and certainly no God. When I was in grade school, God was just a kind of nondescript character who popped up in Little House on the Prairie books from time to time. He seemed like a decent enough fellow,...