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An atheist minister in a Christian denomination got to keep her job leading a congregation after several years of turmoil that could have led to a “heresy trial” later this month, the Toronto Star reported. The Rev. Gretta Vosper — with the theologically liberal United Church of Canada — said in a Friday interview she’s free to minister at West Hill United Church in Toronto after a confidential settlement with the denomination, the paper reported.

Authorities have identified a Facebook post believed to have been made by the shooter around the time of the attack, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the ongoing investigation. In it, the writer says: “I hope people call me insane… (laughing emojis).. wouldn’t that just be a big ball of irony? Yeah.. I’m insane, but the only thing you people do after these shootings is ‘hopes and prayers’.. or ‘keep you in my thoughts’… every time… and wonder why these keep happening…” When CNN read the post to a friend of Long’s, who did not want to be...

Did the horrors of the Great War cause Canadian soldiers to lose their faith? Or is it true that there were no atheists in the trenches? The war has generally been seen as a powerfully disillusioning experience. Books such as Paul Fussell’s widely influential The Great War and Modern Memory portray the war as the origins of modern skepticism and cynicism. The idea of a “lost generation” of disillusioned Anglo-American vets is a widely accepted one. The situation in Canada, however, is a little more ambiguous. In his study of the war’s impact on Canadian culture, Death So Noble, Jonathan...

VLADIMIR, Russia -- Anna Galinkina was appalled recently to see portraits of Stalin-era secret-police officers festooning celebratory billboards at local bus stops. Her father, Zinovy Galinkin, was sent to the gulag shortly after World War II on flimsy accusations of "anti-Soviet propaganda," and she resents the rehabilitation of those who persecuted her family under the government of President Vladimir Putin. "Today it is obvious that they've removed their masks...The ruling corporate elite of heirs of the Soviet chekists" -- a reference to the former secret police -- "are openly taking revenge on those who refuse to let society forget about...

(PHOTO: US EMBASSY, Berlin)Vice President Mike Pence (M), Second Lady Karen Pence (L) and their middle child, Charlotte, tour Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial in Germany on February 19, 2017.Vice President Mike Pence has always encouraged his three children to make his Christian faith their own. But in order to do that, at least one of his daughters had teetered on the brink of atheism.Pence's 25-year-old daughter, Charlotte, released her new book, Where You Go: Life Lessons From My Father, on Tuesday. While the book focuses on the advice and words of wisdom that her father has offered her and her siblings...

Half a century on from the publication of Schaeffer’s seminal books The God Who Is There and Escape from Reason (1968), our culture spins ever faster into irrationality. Schaeffer predicted that plunging below the “line of despair” would lead to social collapse just as surely as the Roman Empire collapsed amid decadence, self-indulgence, and immorality. Others (both Christian and non-Christian) sounded alarms as well. Philip Rieff warned in The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966) that a society released from all restraints would implode. Christopher Lasch argued in The Culture of Narcissism (1979) that no community can flourish where every individual...

When I read that songwriter Michael Gungor told his wife, Lisa, “I don’t believe in God anymore,” I experienced a familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the same one I’d had a couple of years before when Nick, a 20-something leader in our church, called in a panic. He was having doubts and wanted to talk. I spent hours with him, listening as he poured out his questions and fears. Over the months that followed, I prayed God would reveal himself to Nick, but his doubts hardened into unbelief. He began telling people he was an...

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday denounced the “awful abuses” of Muslim Uygurs detained in Chinese reeducation camps. “Hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of Uygurs are held against their will in so-called re-education camps where they’re forced to endure severe political indoctrination and other awful abuses,” Pompeo said in a speech in Washington on the state of religious freedom around the world. He also expressed concern about the fate of Christians in China, who he said had been targeted in a government crackdown. The government, he said, has been “closing churches, burning Bibles and ordering followers to...

Without being aware of it, Vernon Madison might become a footnote in constitutional law because he is barely aware of anything. For more than 30 years, Alabama, with a tenacity that deserves a better cause, has been trying to execute him for the crime he certainly committed, the 1985 murder of a police officer. Twice the state convicted him unconstitutionally (first excluding African Americans from the jury, then insinuating inadmissible evidence into the record). In a third trial, the judge, who during his time on the bench overrode more life sentences (six) than any other Alabama judge, disregarded the jury’s...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday said printing “In God We Trust” on U.S. currency is constitutional, citing its longstanding use and saying it was not coercive. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Paul, Minnesota rejected claims by 29 atheists, children of atheists and atheist groups that inscribing the national motto on bills and coins violated their First Amendment free speech and religious rights.

Batman, one of DC Comics' most recognizable fictional heroes, no longer believes in God in the latest comic book issue. ScreenRant shared the storyline details for Batman #53, released on Wednesday, which comes at the conclusion of comic writer Tom King's post-Catwoman/Batman wedding arc. In the story, Catwoman leaves Batman, whose secret identity is billionaire Bruce Wayne, at the altar. This leaves Wayne in a questioning state, where he explores his life and reflects on his theological background — he had been raised as a Christian by his father, Thomas. In one exchange with another character, Wayne is asked, "Do...

It’s not often that we think or talk about the religious beliefs of our favorite superheroes, barring the times when writers blatantly state from where these characters are coming. For example, we’re all aware of how Daredevil’s a devout Catholic, or how Batwoman’s Jewish. Speaking of which, the latest issue of Batman really hammered home the point that the Dark Knight is, in fact, an atheist. I mean, it’s technically nothing new and has been somewhat explored in the past (I believe it was Broken City that briefly touched on this before), but the latest entry into Tom King’s ongoing...

An investigation by Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe concluded this week that high-profile astrophysicist and atheist Lawrence Krauss violated the university’s sexual harassment policy by grabbing a woman’s breast at a conference in Australia in late 2016. (Krauss is a prominent member of the skeptics movement, which disputes the existence of a god or supernatural powers.)

A new opinion piece in a Texas State University student newspaper tells white students “Your DNA is an Abomination.” “When I think of all the white people I have ever encountered - whether they’ve been professors, peers, lovers, friend, police officers, et cetera - there is perhaps only a dozen I would consider ‘decent,’” student author Rudy Martinez writes in the University Star. Without much biological explanation, Martinez informs white readers, “You were not born white. You became white… You don’t give a damn.” Later in his rant, he calls the police “fascist foot soldiers” and says a “white supremacist...

A new opinion piece in a Texas State University student newspaper tells white students, “Your DNA is an Abomination.”“When I think of all the white people I have ever encountered - whether they’ve been professors, peers, lovers, friend, police officers, et cetera - there is perhaps only a dozen I would consider ‘decent,’” student author Rudy Martinez writes in the University Star. Without much biological explanation, Martinez informs white readers, “You were not born white. You became white… You don’t give a damn.” Later in his rant, he calls the police “fascist foot soldiers” and says a “white supremacist inhabits...

An op-ed in a Texas State University student newspaper Tuesday has sparked controversy for its blatant anti-white racism, according to the Washington Examiner. In "Your DNA is an Abomination," which seems to have been pulled from the pages of the University Star, philosophy student and self-proclaimed Marxist atheist Rudy Martinez begins by declaring that of all the white people he has ever encountered, "there is perhaps only a dozen I would consider 'decent.'" He went on to blather that "whiteness in the United States" is a "construct used to perpetuate a system of racist power" and that whites benefit from...

Imagine you’re the president of a European country. You’re slated to take in 50,000 refugees from the Middle East this year. Most of them are very religious, while most of your population is very secular. You want to integrate the newcomers seamlessly, minimizing the risk of economic malaise or violence, but you have limited resources ... What do you do? Well, you make your best guess and hope the policy you chose works out. But it might not. ... You can, however, experiment like that with virtual people. And that’s exactly what the Modeling Religion Project does. An international team...

Freedom from religion was not what those who fled the oppression and persecution of European monarchies sought and not what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Constitution. Yet the Freedom of Religion Foundation seeks to impose its values and restrict the free exercise of religion guaranteed in the First Amendment. Its latest targets are high school football camps in Arkansas where presumably you are allowed take a knee to protest our racist flag but cannot take a knee in thanks to the Creator the Declaration of Independence notes endowed us with our unalienable rights: It’s not...

Museum collections in Sweden contain thousands of Iron Age board-game pieces. New studies of the raw material composing them show that most were made of whalebone from the mid-6th century CE. They were produced in large volumes and standardised forms. The researchers therefore believe that a regular supply of whalebone was needed. Since the producers would hardly have found the carcasses of beached whales a reliable source, the gaming pieces are interpreted as evidence for whaling. Apart from an osteological survey, species origin has been determined for a small number of game pieces, using ZooMS (short for Zooarchaeology by Mass...

Spain laid claim to the Island of Jamaica from the time Columbus landed there in 1494. In 1503, Columbus was shipwrecked there for a year. In 1655, Jamaica was captured by British Admiral William Penn, the father of Pennsylvania’s founder. Jamaica was too far from England to defend, so the inhabitants turned to privateers, freebooters, buccaneers and pirates for protection. The likes of Blackbeard, Calico Jack and Captain Henry Morgan, namesake of the rum, attacked Spanish ships and settlements, then returned to Jamaica with their booty. The skull pirate flag, called the “Jolly Roger,” was adapted from the flag of...