Free Republic

A secular group has filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service against the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, alleging that the ministry's activity during the election season violates its tax exempt status. Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based organization, argued in its filed report that BGEA's "vote biblical values" ad campaign violated the IRS' rules on religious groups and political campaigning. "BGEA, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, has run full-page ads publicizing Billy Graham's call for the electorate to 'vote biblical values,'" said FFRF in a statement last week. "The ads have appeared in several 'swing state' newspapers in preparation for tomorrow's...

He is regarded as the most famous atheist in the world but last night Professor Richard Dawkins admitted he could not be sure that God does not exist. He told the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, that he preferred to call himself an agnostic rather than an atheist. The two men were taking part in a public “dialogue” at Oxford University at the end of a week which has seen bitter debate about the role of religion in public life in Britain. Last week Baroness Warsi, the Tory party chairman, warned of a tide of “militant secularism” challenging the...

IF YOU'RE one of those committed atheists in the Richard Dawkins mould who dreams of ridding the world of religious mumbo-jumbo, prepare yourself for a disappointment: there is no good evidence that education leads to secularisation. In fact, the more we learn about the "god instinct" and the refusal of religion to fade away under the onslaught of progress, the more the non-religious mindset looks like the odd man out. That is why anthropologists, psychologists and social scientists are now putting irreligion under the microscope in the same way they once did with religious belief (see "Where do atheists come...