Free Republic

THE population of nonreligious Americans -- including atheists, agnostics and those who call themselves "nothing in particular" -- stands at an all-time high this election year. Americans who say religion is not important in their lives and who do not belong to a religious group, according to Pew Research Center, have risen in numbers from an estimated 21 million in 2008 to more than 36 million now. Despite the extraordinary swiftness and magnitude of this shift, our political campaigns are still conducted as if all potential voters were among the faithful. The presumption is that candidates have everything to gain...

Americans with no religious affiliation have supplanted Catholics as the largest such group in the Democratic Party, according to a new Pew Research study set to be released on Tuesday. “Nones,” as the religiously unaffiliated are called, make up 28% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults, Pew’s Religious Landscape Survey found, compared with 19% in 2007, the last time it studied the issue. Christians overall still make up a majority of the Democratic Party, 63%. Catholics comprised 21% of the party as of 2014, down from 24% in 2007, the Pew study concluded. Evangelicals remain by far the largest single religious...

Just 3 percent of Americans consider themselves atheists, but there’s one city in which a much larger portion of the population — a stunning one in 10 residents — identify as nonbelievers: Seattle.In fact, according to the Seattle Sun Times, the city has the highest rate of atheists among the nation’s largest metro areas.Overall, the percentage of unaffiliated residents in Seattle — those individuals who either don’t believe in a higher power or are unaffiliated with a faith — is 37 percent, compared to about 23 percent nationally, according to recently released Pew Research Center data.And the total percentage...

A Small But Growing Number of Jews Are Questioning The Ancient Ritual of Circumcision By Michelle Boorstein December 28 When his pregnant wife first challenged circumcising their son, Mike Wallach had a gut reaction: “That’s what we do: We’re Jews!” But doubts about whether the surgery was medically necessary and concern over his wife’s opposition forced Wallach to confront some questions. Can you be Jewish without Judaism’s oldest ritual? he says he asked himself. What does it mean to be Jewish? Adults attending conversion classes at Sixth and I synagogue learn about the traditions behind the ancient Jewish practice of...

A national secular organization is in a frenetic push to ensure that the voices of atheists, agnostics and “freethinkers” are heard in statehouses across the country and in the presidential election in the fall. The Secular Coalition of America plans to have statewide chapters in virtually all 50 states by the end of 2012. “Recently, we’ve seen some of the most egregious bills commingling religion and government at the state level,” spokeswoman Lauren Youngblood said. “If we’re going to fight some of this stuff, we have to fight it at state capitols.” The D.C.-based group, which will outline its plans...

The "Courtyard of the Gentiles,” a Vatican bid to start conversations with non-believers, will be unveiled in Paris next week. At a March 18 Vatican press conference, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, explained the project, which his office has undertaken on a suggestion from Pope Benedict XVI. "The aim is to help to ensure that the great questions about human existence, especially the spiritual questions, are borne in mind and discussed in our societies, using our common reason,” Cardinal Ravasi said. The title, “Courtyard of the Gentiles,” is drawn from the area outside the...

If you want to know about God, you might want to talk to an atheist. Heresy? Perhaps. But a survey that measured Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics knew more, on average, than followers of most major faiths. In fact, the gaps in knowledge among some of the faithful may give new meaning to the term "blind faith." A majority of Protestants, for instance, couldn't identify Martin Luther as the driving force behind the Protestant Reformation, according to the survey, released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Four in 10 Catholics misunderstood the...

I must conclude with the humbling and sorrowful remark, that we who profess faith, and are never troubled with unbelief, are not altogether free from blame. Too often our faith is little better than a mere "useless assent" to certain theological propositions, but not a living, burning, active principle—which works by love, purifies the heart, and overcomes the world. It is not the faith which made primitive Christians rejoice under Roman persecution, and made Luther stand up boldly before the Diet of Worms, and made Ridley and Latimer "love not their lives to the death," and made Wesley give up...

No Church is Exempt... so take heed!!! ------ The New Jerusalem Post Writers Latest news reports are that five terrorist cell groups have been operating in many of our churches. They have been identified as: Bin Sleepin, Bin Arguin, Bin Fightin, Bin Complainin, and Bin Missin. Their leader, Lucifer Bin Workin, trained these groups to destroy the Body of Christ. The plan is to come into the church disguised as Christians and to work within the church to discourage, disrupt, and destroy. However, there have been reports of a sixth group. A tiny cell known by the name Bin Prayin...

MADISON, Wis. — The nation's largest group of atheists and agnostics is suing President Bush, the governor of Wisconsin and other officials over the federal law designating a National Day of Prayer.

AUSTIN — Scientists from Texas universities on Tuesday denounced what they called supernatural and religious teaching in public school science classrooms and voiced opposition to attempts to water down evolution instruction. The newly formed 21st Century Science Coalition said so far it has 800 members who have signed up online. "Texas public schools should be preparing our kids to succeed in the 21st century, not promoting political and ideological agendas that are hostile to a sound science education," said David Hillis, a professor of integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin. The State Board of Education is considering...

I teach at a Catholic university. I study and write about evangelical Protestants. I have no religious convictions of my own. This bothers people who insist that if you are not yourself religious you cannot possibly "get" religion. I leave it to others to decide whether my lack of faith helps or hinders my capacity to understand the subject. But I do know one thing. Because of where I teach and who I study, I have come across some remarkable people I otherwise would never have met. Familiar with the Catholic tradition, I cannot say I am surprised to meet...

Are there more atheists and agnostics in this country than is commonly supposed? Two studies -- last week's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey from the Pew Forum and one published two years ago -- suggest so. The 2006 study from the University of Minnesota does not examine the question of how many non- believers there are but rather makes clear the troubling depth of Americans' distrust of them. Asked whether they would disapprove of a child's wish to marry an atheist, 47.6% of the 2,000 randomly selected people interviewed said yes. When asked the same question about Muslims and African Americans,...

How do you minister to someone who wants to believe in God, but doesn't? What if they have bought into the lies of The Da Vinci Code and Holy Blood, Holy Grail?Scripture?

In nearly every interview about my book, Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism,I am asked whether I am an atheist or an agnostic. The bias--a profoundly American bias--implicit in this question is that only an "unbeliever" would want to write a historical work about the secular influences on the founding and development of our nation. [...] What we ought to be talking about are decent human values that can be subscribed to by Americans of any faith or no faith. I could not care less whether any elected official believes in God: I care about what he or she does...

This thread is a continuation of the first thread "Questions For Atheists & Non-Atheists" Some points were brought up that I wish to address here. I look forward to the responses. Taken from one of my dictionaries in my personal library: "Occam's Razor. A principle devised by the English philospher William of Occam, which states that entities must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary. In a scientific context, Occam's Razor is the choice of the simplest theory from among the theories which fit what we know. In logic, Occam's Razor is the statement of an argument in its essential...

If I am not mistaken, atheists do not believe that God exists, whereas agnostics state that God may exist, but that they simply do not know if God does exists. Questions: 1.) Where did all the matter in the universe come from? 2.) Was this matter created by a Supreme Being (God)? 3.) If all the matter in the universe was not created by God, then where did it come from? 4.) Has this matter always existed? 5.) or did this matter bring itself into existence? 6.) If this matter has always existed, then why isn't it equally possible that...

July 24, 2005 — Nicole Ward grew tired of having to pray during the hot activity-filled days of her summer camp experience; especially since she comes from a family that doesn't believe in God. "I really didn't enjoy having to say a million prayers a day at other camps," said Ward. Subindex: Faiths and Beliefs Lance Armstrong: Man, Myth, Legend Police Hold Three in Failed London Attack Ever Use the Internet for a One-Night Stand? Thanks to Camp Quest, she no longer has to. Camp Quest is a secular camp operated in Butler County, Ohio, by a group incorporated in...

From where do your rights come? Not the right to bear arms, or freedom of the press. I’m talking about those unalienable rights our founding fathers spoke of: Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. At face value, it’s quite a simple question; who, or what, gives you these rights? It seems to me there are two possible answers, God or government. Though it seems like a simple question, the implications of either answer are quite severe. Either your rights come from an objective, unchangeable higher authority, or a manmade power with the potential for corruption. The danger in assuming that...

Scouts Canada ceased to serve any useful purpose the day they became all-inclusive, all-sensitive, and all-tolerant. Big Canadian real estate is on the market. A rather sizable chunk of Lord Robert Baden-Powell's Empire is available for investors, homebuilders, fishing resort prospectors, or blacktop barons. Scouts Canada is pounding in "for sale" signs at the entrances of a number of Scout camps across the country, including at least twenty camps in Ontario. But don't worry. No Boy Scouts will mourn the loss of their summer camps, for the Boy Scouts of Canada no longer exist. Thinking they could become more inclusive,...