Free Republic

WASHINGTON — A coalition of atheists and agnostics wants the new White House to protect young military members from what they see as rampant religious discrimination in the services. The Secular Coalition for America held a news conference Monday urging new rules against proselytizing and more training for chaplains on how to handle nonreligious troops. "When they say ‘there are no atheists in foxholes’ it’s slanderous," said Wayne Adkins, a former Army first lieutenant who served in Iraq in 2004 and 2005. "To deny their existence is to deny that they serve." The coalition also wants President-elect Obama to develop...

Excerpt..... A new policy banning Virginia State Police chaplains from saying Jesus,’ Christ’ during prayer is stirring up a lot of controversy. Six chaplains have already resigned over the issue. “In the bible it says to pray in Jesus name,” said Charlotte Ryan, Johnson City, Tennessee resident. Claude Duncan from Johnson City is also against the prayer policy change. “I think it’s a terrible thing that they would create such a thing that would deny us the privilege of praying in the name of our savor, Jesus Christ,” Duncan said. We found strong opposition on Monday to a decision.........

We are constantly reminded about the destructive consequences of religion -- intolerance, hatred, division, inquisitions, persecutions of "heretics," holy wars. Though far from the whole story, they are, nevertheless, true. There have been many awful consequences of religion. What one almost never hears described are the deleterious consequences of secularism -- the terrible developments that have accompanied the breakdown of traditional religion and belief in God. For every thousand students who learn about the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials, maybe two learn to associate Gulag, Auschwitz, The Cultural Revolution, and the Cambodian genocide with secular regimes and ideologies....

The Democratic National Convention's Aug. 24 interfaith service in Denver is supposed to be about unity. But to a Washington, D.C., coalition that supports nontheistic views, it's about division. The Secular Coalition Group, a lobbying organization for church-and-state separation, is pushing to get an atheist on the speaker list, and contends the service is divisive because it alienates nonreligious Democrats at a time when the party needs to unite to support the presumptive nominee, Sen. Barack Obama. "We can all hold different beliefs," said the group's executive director, Lori Lipman Brown, "but we can still come together as patriotic Americans."...

The atheist Freedom from Religion Foundation has taken its anti-faith message to Denver, the site of the Democratic National Convention. Their "Imagine No Religion" sign demands Denver residents and Democratic Party officials preparing for the convention to envision an America without people who believe in God. In response, Bishop Council Nedd, chairman of the In God We Trust has asked Senator Barack Obama to condemn the sign's message. The Freedom from Religion Foundation President, Dan Barker, has called Christianity "and enemy to humanity" and "the antithesis of freedom." In his letter to Senator Obama Nedd states, "By placing their billboard...

Creationists (I mean, Intelligent Designers) often cite the dictum by IDer William Dembski that non-intelligent processes cannot produce new information. From this they conclude that biological evolution is impossible. But what to do when a researcher shows bacteria evolving new capabilities?

"Don't believe in God?" a bright blue billboard with images of puffy white clouds asks. "You are not alone."The 20-by-60-foot sign alongside I-95 was designed by a group of area atheists as an invitation to join the Greater Philadelphia Coalition of Reason, or PhillyCoR, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports."If you don't ... [h]undreds of thousands of your neighbors in the Delaware Valley feel the same as you do," the organization's website declares.Steve Rade, president of Wireless Accessories, Inc., gave the $22,500 to fund the billboard May 1, and he plans to keep it there until the end of August."Our mission is...

Unbelievers think that skepticism is their special virtue, the key virtue believers lack. Bolstered by bestselling authors, they see the skeptical and scientific mind as muscular thinking, which the believer has failed to develop. He could bulk up if he wished to, by thinking like a scientist, and wind up at the “agnosticism” of a Dawkins or the atheism of a Dennett—but that is just what he doesn’t want, so at every threat to his commitments he shuns science. That story is almost exactly the opposite of the truth. Men of Truth The story is right about virtue: The smoothly...

The fastest-growing faith in America is no faith at all. And now some atheists think they need a church. It seems unlikely that many of the 850 or so people at the Society for Ethical Culture on a recent Saturday night believed that God was still extant. But evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and possibly the most famous atheist in the world, was not taking any chances. He gave a PowerPoint presentation driving home that religion does not meet any of the standards of basic scientific inquiry, before casually flicking away a few of His last...

Representative tries to put the fear of God in atheistRead Eric Zorn's full post: Rep. Monique Davis to atheist Rob Sherman: `It's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!' By Eric Zorn | Change of Subject April 6, 2008 Did you hear about the state legislator who last week blasted a Lutheran minister during a committee hearing for spewing dangerous religious superstitions, and then attempted to order the minister out of the witness chair on the grounds that his Christian beliefs are "destroying what this state was built upon"? Of course you didn't, because it didn't...

A former member of the U.S. Supreme Court serving on an appeals court panel has justified a city's decision to ban prayers at council meetings that are "in Jesus name," calling it a "reasonable" restriction on a councilman's speech rights. The comments came this week as the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard a case handled by the Rutherford Institute on behalf of Rev. Hashmel Turner. Turner, a resident of Fredericksburg, Va., and a member of its town council, was part of a rotation of council members who took turns bringing a prayer at the council meetings, and he...

Historical facts clearly prove the murderous evils of atheism and big government At a minimum, atheist dictators in the Soviet Union, Red China, Cambodia, North Korea, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia murdered 105 million people in the 20th Century, more than 60% of the mass murders, genocide and political murders in that time. In comparison, only about 2% of the 169 million examples of democide in the 20th Century were due to religious conflict. Also in comparison, the Crusades murdered only 1 million people over several centuries, the Spanish Inquisition only murdered 350,000 people over several centuries, and the witch hunts added...

"An age of science is necessarily an age of material­ism," wrote Hugh Elliot early in the last century. "Ours is a scientific age, and it may be said with truth that we are all materialists now."[1]One does not have to look far to discover the con­tinued accuracy of Elliot's assessment. Scientific materialism--the claim that everything in the uni­verse can be fully explained by science as the prod­ucts of unintelligent matter and energy--has become the operating assumption for much of American politics and culture. We are repeatedly told today that our behaviors, our emotions, even our moral and religious longings...

To hear some Floridians tell it Tuesday night, introducing the word ''evolution'' into state science-education standards would be a needed step into the 21st century. Others at a meeting at Everglades High School in Miramar urged state education officials to give other theories of the origin of life equal space -- and let students decide what to believe. ''We don't teach science in Sunday school,'' said Ken Loukinen, president of the Atheists of Broward County. ``Please don't teach religion in science class.'' The public forum -- the fourth statewide and only one in South Florida -- was the last before...

FORT WORTH: A passenger on a Fort Worth bus says the T. Bus Service discriminated against her religion. Christine Lutz says she was reading her Bible to her children when the bus driver asked her to stop or get off the bus

The “In God We Trust” inscription, currently on the edge of the presidential $1 coin, apparently will return to the obverse (front) or reverse (back) of the coin, thanks to a bill recently passed by Congress. Photo Terms of Use WASHINGTON (BP)--Presidential one dollar coins are the only U.S. coins currently being issued by the United States Mint that have the inscription "In God We Trust" along the edge, but public pressure soon may send the motto back to the front or back of the coins. Legislation introduced by Sens. Sam Brownback, R.-Kan., and Robert Byrd, D.-W.Va., that would...

As the movie studios gear up for a big Christmas movie season, one trailer that looks like a blockbuster is "The Golden Compass," which must be trying to cash in on the "Narnia" movies. It has flashy special-effect polar bears in armor and a young heroic damsel in distress facing off against evil forces. The casting is top-notch, led by Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, the current star spy in the James Bond movies. But buyer beware: Narnia it's not. It's the anti-Narnia. Instead of a Christian allegory, it's an anti-Christian allegory. The author of "The Golden Compass," Philip Pullman,...

"In Lyra's world, a person's soul lives on the outside of their body, in the form of a daemon--an animal spirit that accompanies them through life. A child's daemon can change shape, assuming all the forms that a child's potential inspires; but as a person ages, their daemon gradually settles into one form, according to their character and nature...In our world, it is possible that people that people have daemons as well, only they are invisible. If you would like to learn more about your daemon, and create a daemon avatar to take out into the world with you, select...

Consider the latest fad perpetuated by, or at least partner of the Progressive Left agenda; Atheism. Here we have all the ingredients of the flashiest and most delicate means yet of evading morality ever conceived. Why, the Atheist has it made! Who can question another’s faith whether it be Christian, Buddhist, Mormon or Jew or any other faith? The topic is out of bounds as it should be. The Spiritual basis for one’s faith should never be questioned. This legally enforced right holds true when the topic is one of faith but the entire context of the discussion changes when...

On Dec. 7, 2007, the movie "The Golden Compass," based on the first book in the fantasy trilogy entitled "His Dark Materials" by atheist Philip Pullman will be released in theaters throughout the world. Pullman wrote his fantasy trilogy because he was so upset by the Christian evangelism of C.S. Lewis in his wonderful series of Christian tales entitled "The Chronicles Of Narnia." Pullman is an avowed atheist who has dedicated his life to undermining Christianity and the Church among young readers. The film's release is only another example of a culture spiraling away from faith, a culture into which...