Free Republic

Good Friday—a holiday in just 10 states—is celebrated by most Christian denominations, with fasting and somber worship services that often end in silence.Before Christians joyously celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday, they first must make a gruesome stop at a hill called Calvary. Two days before the trumpets sound, and churches—many opening for the first time in a year—fill their sanctuaries with lilies, dogwood, and alleluias, we first must witness the hideous trial of the sinless Lord, the bloody brutal scourging by Roman soldiers and his anguishing suffering and suffocating death on the cross, a day called...

Return of the God HypothesisScientific discoveries reveal the mind of God behind the universeThroughout history, many prominent scientists have believed in God. Far from seeing their faith in God as incompatible with scientific investigation, most have found the two things complementary.Seventeenth-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler, for example, believed that science was only possible because God made the world to be “intelligible” to the human mind. In his view, the same God who designed the world in a rational and orderly way also gave human beings rationality so they could understand the world He made. Thus, Kepler described scientists as having...

Back in 1973, John Lennon and Yoko Ono created a nation that might sound familiar to anyone who watched a bit of the Democrat Convention last summer. It went like this:Imagine there is no heaven or something like that.Nutopia is a conceptual country, sometimes referred to as a micro-nation, which was founded by John Lennon and Yoko Ono on April Fools' Day in 1973. When announcing the birth of this micro-nation, the couple declared that Nutopia would have no boundaries and "no laws other than cosmic," according to the New York Times.There is no leadership, and not all citizenships have...

Thirty-three self-identified LGBTQ etc. students who are currently attending Christian universities have sued the Department of Education, demanding that all federal funding be withdrawn from those institutions. This suit is an inevitable sequel to the Obergefell lawsuit, which put the whole non-traditional sexual identity spectrum into the Constitution. However, it also highlights that Christian institutions should never have gotten entangled with the federal government. In typically histrionic terms, the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Eugene, Oregon, claims that it's a necessity because the court must "put an end to the U.S. Department of Education's complicity in the abuses and...

Just as Georgia was a flashpoint after the election because of the run-off election for the Senate, Georgia is again a flashpoint now that the Democrats, led by Creepy Joe, are demonizing the sensible steps the Georgia Legislature enacted to prevent election fraud. What's amusing about the Democrats' histrionics is watching as corporations that have earned brownie points for years by being woke, are getting slapped around by the left for not being woke enough. Even funnier is that, when Delta Airlines responded by "woking up," the Georgia House stepped in to slap it around some more. Briefly, leftists outraged...

“Obama is another oppressor.” Those are not my words. Instead, they are the words of activist Julie Contreras, who “works with a group that runs shelters for undocumented children at the U.S./Mexico border.” Contreras joined with other Hispanic immigrants who opposed renaming two Chicago-area schools after Barack and Michelle Obama. Yes, they wanted the names changed, but not from one oppressor to another. The schools are currently named Thomas Jefferson Middle School and Daniel Webster Middle School, but since Jefferson owned slaves and Webster supported slavery, those names must go. Unfortunately, the Obamas are tainted too. “I will not be...

The Butterfly Effect, simply put, is the proposition that small events can trigger and lead to much larger and significant events. It is derived from the idea of a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a tornado elsewhere in the world. On Wednesday of this week, the third day of the trial of Derek Chauvin, a store clerk by the name of Christopher Martin, who took the counterfeit twenty-dollar bill George Floyd was using to pay for a pack of cigarettes, testified that he almost paid for it with his own money before changing his mind. This one small decision...

New polls show that Hispanics are not down with the Biden administration’s shameless open borders agenda. According to a survey by NPR, there’s strong opposition from Americans of all partisan and ethnic stripes to open border machinations coming from Washington, D.C. For example, Neil Munro of Breitbart News pointed out that the “nation’s swing voting independents oppose” the Biden administration’s immigration agenda by a 2:1 margin. The poll was pretty straightforward. It asked 1,309 adults if they “approve or disapprove of how President Biden is handling immigration.” In total, only 33% of voters are in favor of Biden’s mass migration...

The U.S. and Iran have agreed to take part in talks in Vienna next week in a bid to restore the nuclear agreement that was negotiated during the Obama Administration and abandoned by Obama's successor Donald Trump. Officials from Tehran and Washington will travel to Vienna next week as part of efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and global powers, although they will not hold direct talks, diplomats said on Friday. Even without face-to-face talks, which Tehran has ruled out, the presence of both of Iran and the United States in the Austrian capital would mark a...

Senator Rand Paul shared video Wednesday of CDC Director Rochelle Walensky announcing that new data suggests vaccinated and recovered people do not carry Covid-19.Paul directed his comments at White House chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci, writing “paging Dr Fauci: please end the mask theater now that cdc admits evidence that the vaccinated do not carry the virus.”In a further post, Paul also shared a study examining T cell responses in people who have recovered from Covid-19.“T cell immunity after natural infection shown to include variants,” Paul, who is also a physician, noted.He again addressed Fauci, asking “Do we still need...

Republican lawmakers in Kansas have ended the state's mask mandate by blocking the executive order that the Democrat governor signed to keep it in place. On Thursday, Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly issued her order to extend the current mandate on face coverings.

Whether you like it or not, there's probably some food combination that you absolutely love and most people would think is absolutely insane. It's all good though, that's what makes you unique! And apparently, someone over at Disney wants to appeal to everyone out there who has a taste for something kind of out there, which is why they have a fried pickle corn dog that you can get at Disneyland right now. Don't get me wrong, I love a strange food combo more than I'd shamelessly admit, so I want to let you know if this snack sounds like...

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Strongly protesting her Innocence, she was executed on Kennington Common, 2nd of April, 1759, for the Murder of her Aunt This unhappy girl was the daughter of a farmer near Leeds, in Yorkshire, and was sent to reside with her aunt, Mrs Walker, of Rotherhithe, who was a widow lady. With this aunt she lived two years, comporting herself in the most decent manner, and regularly attending the duties of religion. A lady, named Toucher, having spent the evening with Mrs Walker, Mary Edmondson lighted her across the street on her way home, and soon after her return a woman...

“Peter answered and said to Him, ‘Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away’” (Matthew 26:33). Prior to Jesus’ death, Peter’s trust in himself rather than God distorted his judgment concerning loyalty to Jesus. Like a self-willed child, Peter often heard and believed only what he wanted to. He failed to grasp the Lord’s warning that his faith would be severely tested. At the Last Supper Jesus told Peter, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat” (Luke 22:31). But Peter was unfazed by these words. Instead, he boasted, “Lord,...

God uses people to refresh other people. He so loves this kind of ministry that he moved the prophet Malachi to speak of it as a most-needed work in the last days. Malachi described how, in his day, God’s people built each other up through one-on-one edification: “Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another” (Malachi 3:16). When did this happen, exactly? Malachi’s words came during a time of rampant ungodliness, when the “devourer” had destroyed much fruit in the land. God’s people had grown weary and started to doubt that walking with the Lord was worth it....

Few people still pick up phone calls from unknown numbers, but if you do you need to listen closely to what the person on the other end says. If you receive a call and immediately hear the phrase “Can you hear me?,” hang up. The phrase is used to coax you into saying “yes,” a word that, if said in your voice, is as good as gold for con artists.

COVID-19 Deaths by Race/Ethnicity Timeframe: as of March 24, 2021

A few years ago, my friend Sheila recounted an incident of alleged racism she experienced at a café in California. While waiting in line to order a coffee, a barista took the order of an older white woman first. The barista didn’t refuse service to Sheila and was polite when she finally took her order. To my surprise, the only potential slight was that in a moment of uncertainty, the barista took a white woman’s order before my friend, who is African American. It is possible that the barista was a racist, but it is equally plausible that the barista...

When it comes to phantom aircraft that are the product of 'bleeding-edge' technologies and supposedly exist only in the shadows, the so-called RQ-180 is unrivaled in our time. The existence of this high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) stealth drone has all but been officially disclosed. Specters of its existence and growing maturity seem to materialize around every turn, and as of November 2020, the public may have gotten its first glimpse of this aircraft that has existed behind a veil of secrecy and innuendo for over a decade. This is the first in a three-part series - the product of a ghost...