Free Republic

Where’s the Human in Humanism? Humanist Ads Violate their Own Humanist Standards By:   Some parishioners have recently expressed distress over an Ad campaign of the American Humanist Association. Rather provocative Ads are appearing on buses and subways here in the Nation’s Capitol and I suspect elsewhere as well. As Christmas draws near, the “Humanists” have made it a practice in recent years to tweak Christians (as well as Jews and Muslims) and attempt to make the concept of faith look ridiculous. They generally do this by quoting a sacred text and interpreting it in a mechanistic, fundamentalist and literalistic  manner....

The times in which we live are often described as “secular.”  This word comes from the Latin “saecula” meaning “world.” Hence in saying our age is secular is another way of saying our times are  worldly. We may think it has always been so but such is not the case. To be sure, it IS the human condition to be a little preoccupied with the world. But previous times have featured a much more religious focus than our own. The Middle Ages were especially known for way in which faith permeated the culture and daily experience. The Rose window to...

I was asked by the Young Adult group in my parish to address some ads on our local buses and subway trains here in Washington. The members of the Young adult group found the ads offensive and troubling, especially since they were aimed at kids. The ads are posted by the American “Humanist” Association (AHA) and are indeed aimed at kids and teenagers. The focus of the message is “Kids without God: You’re not the only one.” I have altered the ad at the upper right of this post to avoid listing its website but as you can see God...

Church Nativity Scene Replaces Jesus with Bloody Trayvon Martin By Russell Goldman Dec 28, 2013 HT trayvon nativity nt 131227 16x9 608 Church Nativity Scene Replaces Jesus with Bloody Trayvon Martin John Zachary created a Nativity scene for Claremont United Methodist Church that employs a figure of Trayvon Martin as a commentary on gun violence. (David Allen/Daily Bulletin) A California church sought to make people think about the repercussions of violence, by replacing the baby Jesus with a bloody sculpture of Trayvon Martin in a nativity scene. What they got instead were threats. The crèche outside the church Claremont United...

The Obamas are calling attention to Kwanzaa's seven principles

Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, and their two daughters did not go to church on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, according to press pool reports. The Obamas are in Kailua, Hawaii for a 17-day Christmas vacation. Although the Obamas did not go to church for Christmas, President Obama did play golf

If you have a chance, I recommend each of you carve out the evening of Dec 20, from 7-9pm, to watch CNN. The show is called After Jesus: The First Christians, and it is an excellent and stimulating presentation of the first four centuries of the Christian faith. CNN kindly sent me an advanced copy and I have watched it in its entirety. Dec 21, in the morning, I would like to begin a conversation on this blog with those who watched it the evening before. (It will also be replayed Friday Dec 22 at 10pm and 1am; Saturday Dec...

Staff members of the Arizona affiliate of Planned Parenthood are celebrating the season by changing the lyrics of the traditional Christmas carol, “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” to accommodate the abortion industry. Planned Parenthood Arizona says it "wants to wish everyone happy holidays and a wonderful 2014!" They add, "We hope you will enjoy this original song written by staff and performed by volunteers. And, if you want to know more about the different types of birth control mentioned in the song, visit www.ppaz.org."

O'Reilly continued on to say secular progressives want to destroy Christmas because they want a fundamental transformation of the country that includes income equality, "unfettered abortion," and "legalized narcotics."

Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays — whichever you prefer. On this anniversary of the birth of our Lord, it may be time to retrench in the War on Christmas. You see, Christians have two complaints about how our culture approaches Christmas: (1) Calling it “Christmas” is becoming verboten; and (2) Christmas is becoming secularized, stripped of its true significance. Here’s the good news: Those two problems might solve one another. The “War on Christmas” is perennial cable news fodder, not only for conservative Christians in search of grievances, but just as much for liberals looking to mock conservative Christians. (More...

Don’t say Christmas. That’s the message that was conveyed to a group of soldiers at Camp Shelby by an equal opportunity officer from the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, according to a soldier who attended a recent briefing. “It’s unbelievable that the Army would ban ‘Christmas’ like it’s a bad word,” said Michael Berry, an attorney with the Liberty Institute, a legal firm representing the unidentified soldier. Two weeks ago, a routine meeting was held at the Mississippi base with various leaders of the 158th Infantry Brigade. During the meeting, they discussed an upcoming Christmas football tournament. The equal opportunity...

Don’t say Christmas. That’s the message that was conveyed to a group of soldiers at Camp Shelby by an equal opportunity officer from the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, according to a soldier who attended a recent briefing. “It’s unbelievable that the Army would ban ‘Christmas’ like it’s a bad word,” said Michael Berry, an attorney with the Liberty Institute, a legal firm representing the unidentified soldier. Two weeks ago, a routine meeting was held at the Mississippi base with various leaders of the 158th Infantry Brigade. During the meeting, they discussed an upcoming Christmas football tournament. The equal opportunity...

School Omits 'Christ' from 'Silent Night,' Upsetting Parents By Beth Greenfield, Dec 20, 2013 Christ has officially been removed from Christmas. At least that was the case at one middle school on Long Island, New York, where its holiday-concert chorus sang a version of "Silent Night" that had all references to "the savior" and "holy infant" removed by school administrators. But the effort to avoid alienating people seems to have backfired. "It's offensive," one father of a student at the Ralph J. Osgood Intermediate School in Kings Park told CBS New York. "If you're going to remove words to not...

Disney has decided to pull access to several purchased Christmas videos from Amazon during the holiday season, as the movie studio wants its TV-channel to have the content exclusively. Affected customers have seen their videos disappear from their online libraries, showing once again that not everything you buy is actually yours to keep. One of the best ways to deal with online piracy is to make content available legally. This is common knowledge by now, but copyright holders still believe that exclusivity can earn them more in the long run, even when it hurts legitimate customers. A good example of...

The Obama family this year sent out what must be the most depressing White House Christmas card of all time. Not only is there no mention of God or Jesus, or anything vaguely religious, the aesthetics of the thing are downright depressing. Start with the color spectrum, featuring cold blue, instead of the customary warm reds associated with this most joyous holiday. Then there is the visual perspective chosen, looking down on the White House from above:

All right, before you get your freckles in an uproar by reading that title and making a quick, errant assumption about me, let me clarify a few things. I’m a bible believing, spirit filled Christian. I am not an atheist sympathizer. I do not doubt my faith, nor do I have any doubts about the deity of Jesus Christ. He is my Lord and Savior, and I believe the world is lost without Him. For years I celebrated Christmas. But last year, I decided to stop celebrating it. Something awoke in me, and I just felt turned off by the...

The Baby Jesus has been kicked off Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, according to an organization who relishes any opportunity to eradicate Christianity from the U.S. military. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation praised officials at Shaw Air Force Base for removing a Nativity scene located near Memorial Lake on Friday. The traditional Nativity included plastic statues of Mary, Joseph, the Baby Jesus and an assortment of animals. Apparently, an undisclosed number of Airmen were so emotionally troubled by the sight of a manger scene that they immediately notified the MRFF. I can only imagine the psychological damage they...

WESTMORELAND COUNTY (KDKA) – Two Mt. Pleasant families are baffled, after someone stole the baby Jesus from their nativity scene. The thefts happened on Connellsville Road. “I went to get my mail, and when I came back and looked at the nativity, the baby was gone,” Valarie Goodwin said.

Imagine if an activist group blanketed a major city with 55 billboards urging that illegal aliens go back to their own country. Or that homosexuality is a crime against nature. Or that Muslims are responsible for most of the world’s terrorist attacks. The mainstream media would be all over the story. Organizations – like La Raza, like GLAAD, like CAIR – would organize protests. President Obama would publicly condemn the billboards (while defending illegals, homosexuals and Islam). And the sponsors of the billboards would be branded a “hate group.” Yet, there has been little outrage over the 55 billboards that...

It seems like it would take a special combination of Grinchy, Scroogy awfulness and world-historical stupidity to run afoul of a straightforward new law in Texas called the “Merry Christmas Law” that allows children and teachers in public schools to celebrate Christmas and other winter holidays plainly and explicitly.Naturally, then, a group of parents and a state legislator have claimed that the organizer of the winter party at Nichols Elementary School in the affluent Dallas suburb of Frisco has outlawed all mentions of Christmas at the event.But, wait! There’s so much more. The unidentified, fun-hating party organizer has also...