Free Republic

A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the Roman Catholic population has been shifting out o of the Northeast to the Southwest, the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all. Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey. Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study...

Why is religion taboo in American schools? Christian attorney John Whitehead addresses that question. "God has become THE four-letter word in most public schools in the United States," says Whitehead, founder of The Rutherford Institute. And he explains in a commentary why that has come to pass: "An elite segment of society that views God as irrelevant has come to predominate." (View video commentary) Whitehead gained his legal insights into the phenomenon through the many cases of religious discrimination that have crossed his desk. "What's happened is [that] the elitists -- the people who run American society, from the public...

Thursday, 30 October 2008 A four year old who knows she needs a saviour! O wretched little girl she is, who will deliver her from her body of death. First thing in the morning my 4 year old daughter normally says to me, "I am going to be a good girl today mummy". When she says this she really means it, and I can see how she longs to finish even just one day in her life without doing anything wrong. However my daughter knows as well as I do that within at the least an hour of saying she...

Religion-Free Group Says to 'Praise Darwin' by Christine Dao* How much sense does this make? An organization that bills itself as a promoter of “freedom from religion” posted billboards bearing the words “Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief” in several U.S. cities to coincide with the British naturalist’s 200th birthday. Cities where the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) placed the advertisements include Dayton, Tennessee, and Dover, Pennsylvania—homes of the 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial” and the highly politicized 2005 Dover Trial, respectively. The Wisconsin-based foundation, which put up a Grinch-like sign next to a nativity scene in the Washington State Capitol during...

Religion is the problem, just like government is the problem. In both cases people have beliefs that don't fit reality. In both cases people try to push their beliefs on other people. In both cases people believe in fairytales that just aren't true. They have no factual support. In both cases people believe "faith" should substitute for facts, like with Obama for instance, and Bush for that matter, and "going to heaven" for instance, and an "ever-burning hell" for that matter. In both cases you can't say what you think. In both cases you have to be "politically correct." In...

On a Saturday night in early December, it's business as usual on downtown Tempe's Mill Avenue. Dreadlocked buskers beat on bongos across from a head shop called Hippie Gypsy, banging over the strains of Jimi Hendrix's guitar on "All Along the Watchtower" screaming from the store's speakers. The scent of patchouli fades into the reek of horse manure into the sugary coffee smells of Dunkin' Donuts as people shuffle down the street, below brawny frat guys in ASU jerseys beating their chests and bellowing from the balcony of Hooters. Beneath the neon glow of Hooters, a large crowd has gathered...

Because "public life" now entails virtually every part of our lives, erasing references to God entirely from public life means virtually eliminating them from America. Imagine, if you will, a gala birthday party given in your honor. The guests will sing, dance, give presents, eat, drink, and have the merriest of times. The hitch: your name will not be mentioned, the gifts will not be for you, the celebrants won't be thinking about you, and everyone would sort of prefer that you not come. That's all that will be left of Christmas if various groups have their way. All across...

"The nation’s elite universities disdain honest intellectual inquiry, which is by its nature distrustful of authority, fiercely independent and often subversive. They organize learning around minutely specialized disciplines, narrow answers and rigid structures that are designed to produce certain answers." ~ Chris Hedges This is an excellent piece about the state of higher education in America, the elites who run it, and what it's producing. Hedges, a self-proclaimed atheist who holds a seminary degree from Harvard, brilliantly diagnoses the elitist attitude in higher education and its rotten fruit. . .

Just in time for the Christmas season, Washington State Gov. Christine Gregoire has insulted Christians all over the world. Inside the state Capitol building in Olympia there is a traditional holiday display featuring a tree and the Nativity scene; perfectly appropriate since the federal and state Christmas holiday celebrates the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. But this year Gregoire decided to add another item to the display. Standing alongside the baby Jesus is a giant placard designed by atheists that reads: "There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion...

OLYMPIA, Wash. - A controversial anti-religion placard was reported missing from the state Capitol Friday - then later found - and now the sign's sponsor wants the State Patrol to provide special protection for it when it is returned. The uproar came as several other groups clamored for permission to post their own holiday displays at the state Capitol. The anti-religion sign, posted by the Freedom From Religion Foundation in Madison, Wis., was reported missing Friday morning then was turned over to a Seattle radio station by an unidentified man at about 10 a.m. Annie Laurie Gaylor, a spokesman for...

(CNN) -- An atheist sign criticizing Christianity that was erected alongside a Nativity scene was taken from the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, on Friday and later found in a ditch. An employee from country radio station KMPS-FM in Seattle told CNN the sign was dropped off at the station by someone who found it in a ditch.

December 05, 2008, 1:40 p.m. Enough with the Oogedy-BoogedyReligion, politics, and us. By Shannen W. Coffin Kathleen Parker’s war on religion in the Re-public-an square entered a new phase today. In her syndicated column, she nobly attempted to explain her use of the term “oogedy-boogedy” to describe religious conservatives. It’s not that she is “anti-God.” It’s just that God really shouldn’t be mentioned in polite company. Religion can inform our values (gee, thanks). But reason, not religion, should inform our public debates. I hadn’t realized religion and reason were mutually exclusive. It seems Pope Benedict hasn’t gotten the memo,...

Dan Barker of the Freedom from Religion Foundation on December 1, 2008's Fox & Friends stated that the nativity scene represented 'hate speech' and 'a direct attack on good human values.'

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- An atheist group has unveiled an anti-religion placard in the state Capitol, joining a Christian Nativity scene and "holiday tree" on display during December. The atheists' sign was installed Monday by Washington members of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a national group based in Madison, Wis. With a nod to the winter solstice - the year's shortest day, occurring in late December - the placard reads, in part, "There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."

Contemporary atheism marches behind the banner of science. It is perhaps no surprise that several leading atheists—from biologist Richard Dawkins to cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker to physicist Victor Stenger—are also leading scientists. The central argument of these scientific atheists is that modern science has refuted traditional religious conceptions of a divine creator. But of late atheism seems to be losing its scientific confidence. One sign of this is the public advertisements that are appearing in billboards from London to Washington DC. Dawkins helped pay for a London campaign to put signs on city buses saying, “There’s probably no God. Now...

The national advocacy group In God We Trust today blasted the atheist American Humanist Association for its ad campaign mocking the Christmas holiday and American's who believe in God. The ad campaign asks, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness sake," and will be targeted at New York and Washington commuters. "These ads are a deliberate attack on American traditions, beliefs and customs by a United Nation's affiliated group that espouses a radical anti-American agenda and is funded by an zealot who believes that the U.S. is a backwards nation full of imbeciles," says In God We...

A reader writes: I love to see you grapple with trying to explain this woman and her thought processes. You are Tcs2 missing something obvious though. She believes in the literal truth of the Bible. She believes it informs on matters of science, biology, evolution, physics, cosmology, etc. So if there are multiple creation versions in the Bible what do you do, make up your own reality. If there are contradictions in it, ignore them. Just like you ignore inconvenient facts about day-to-day life. If you BELIEVE the bible is the literal inerrant word of God what do you do?...

After airing an interview clip of Sarah Palin telling Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that she was looking for guidance from God about running for national office again, an appalled Chris Matthews called it "troubling," when he let loose this rant on Tuesday's "Hardball": Is, is this commentary about theocracy and going to God for approval? We've been through that with President Bush who said he, "didn't take advice from his father, he got it from another father." And we've been through this sort of Joan of Arc period. Are we gonna get another piece of this where God's leading...

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...

The prominent atheist is stepping down from his post at Oxford University to write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in "anti-scientific" fairytales. Prof Hawkins said: "The book I write next year will be a children's book on how to think about the world, science thinking contrasted with mythical thinking. "I haven't read Harry Potter, I have read Pullman who is the other leading children's author that one might mention and I love his books. I don't know what to think about magic and fairy tales." Prof Dawkins said he wanted to look...