Free Republic

I nominate Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, as the most inconsistent, mysterious, and therefore most unpredictable major politician on the world stage. His victory in a referendum last Sunday formally bestows him with near-dictatorial powers that leave Turkey, the Middle East, and beyond in a greater state of uncertainty than ever.Here are some of the puzzles:Mystery #1: Holding the referendum. The Turkish electorate voted on April 16 in a remarkable national plebiscite that dealt not with the usual topic – floating a bond or recalling a politician – but with fundamental constitutional changes affecting the very nature of their...

House Republicans who have led a nearly two-year investigation into a $500,000 State Department grant to an organization that promotes humanism and secularism are pressing the agency to conduct more diligent oversight after it admitted that the organization may have misused taxpayer funds.Rep. Mike McCaul, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who heads the panel’s human rights subcommittee, have accused the State Department of trying to promote atheism overseas under the guise of advancing religious pluralism, a longtime U.S. foreign policy priority. Rep. Brian Mast, a Florida Republican who...

Members of a secretive Turkish Islamic movement that is at the center of a congressional ethics committee investigation have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and to her family’s charity, a Daily Caller investigation has found.The largest donation from a leader of the Gulen movement, which is operated from Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains by a moderate Muslim cleric named Fethullah Gulen, came from Recep Ozkan. A former president of the Gulen-linked Turkish Cultural Center, Ozkan gave between $500,001 and $1,000,000 to the Clinton Foundation in recent months, the charity’s website shows. He also served as a national...

What came to be known in the last century as “humanism” was, in reality, nothing new. It actually has an ancient lineage. Indeed, since the human race first appeared, there have basically been only two “religions”—two existential philosophies that have informed people’s beliefs and behaviors. Each has had multiple variations, to be sure, but still, in the end, there are just two: People can either believe in and worship the Creator, or they can reject that idea and worship themselves, individually and collectively. The latter belief is essentially the original sin, attributable to Adam and Eve as well as to...

A shocking Vatican perspective on the pandemic The latest document from the Vatican, a reflection on the CO19 pandemic, is an embarrassment to the Catholic faithful. The Pontifical Academy for Life, under the leadership of the controversial Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, produced the document, and the Vatican press office introduced it on July 22 with a title as prolix as the statement itself: “Useful information on the Document of the Pontifical Academy for Life: Humana Communitas in the age of pandemic: untimely meditations on life’s rebirth.” That title is misleading; the document provides very little hard information. But I will grant...

A 78-year-old cross on public property in Florida targeted by atheist groups will remain standing after a victory in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The court ruled Wednesday that the Bayview Cross in Pensacola, which was built ahead of World War II as a place for the community to gather, does not violate the Constitution. […] The federal appeals court ruled the cross is constitutional, noting it has become “embedded in the fabric of the Pensacola community” and that removing it could “strike many as aggressively hostile to religion.” Four individuals, represented by the American Humanist Association and the...

MUSLIM students repeatedly disrupted a lecture on blasphemy given by a human rights activist with one making a death threat, it has been claimed. Maryam Namazie was giving a lecture on blasphemy at the Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society (ASH), of Goldsmiths in London. Her talk was repeatedly disrupted by members of the university's Islamic Society (ISOC) with hecklers shouting and turning off her Powerpoint presentation when she showed a cartoon of Jesus and the prophet Muhammad. One member of the audience also claimed he received a death threat during Ms Namazie's talk.

Protesters from the Goldsmiths University Islamic Society have heckled and aggressively disrupted a talk from ex-Muslim and feminist campaigner Maryam Namazie. Ms Namazie was giving a speech on blasphemy and apostasy at the invitation of the Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society at Goldsmiths University when several men from the Goldsmiths Islamic Society (ISOC) arrived and started disrupting the event. The night before the event the president of the Islamic Society wrote to the ASH society saying "we feel extremely uncomfortable by the fact that you have invited Maryam Namazie. As you very well probably know, she is renowned for being...

Atheists Blast Ted Cruz's Response When Asked How Important It Is for a President to 'Fear God' Atheists are decrying Ted Cruz’s recent claim that any president who does not pray to God each day is unfit to serve as commander-in-chief.The Center for Freethought Equality, a secular lobbying group, released a statement on Monday condemning the Texas senator and Republican presidential candidate over a response that he gave to a question at the National Religious Liberties Conference in Des Moines, Iowa, on Friday.Cruz, who was asked how important he believes it is for “the president of the United States to...

In England the liberal left wing ideologues are shaking their heads with shame at the revelations coming from the town of Rotherham. In a huge scandal it has emerged that hundreds of children in state run children’s homes were systematically abused by gangs of Muslim men. *snip* The fact that this sex abuse ring was perpetrated by Asian (Pakistani) men forces one to ask whether the crimes are somehow linked to their culture and religion. The police and social services were useless precisely because they thought the behaviors were linked with the Pakistani culture and religion, and why did so...

I was asked by the Young Adult group in my parish to address some ads on our local buses and subway trains here in Washington. The members of the Young adult group found the ads offensive and troubling, especially since they were aimed at kids. The ads are posted by the American “Humanist” Association (AHA) and are indeed aimed at kids and teenagers. The focus of the message is “Kids without God: You’re not the only one.” I have altered the ad at the upper right of this post to avoid listing its website but as you can see God...

Muni officials are scrambling to prepare for a planned protest in the city's Bayview neighborhood next week that's sure to screw up your commute come Monday. The Examiner brings us the bad news this morning, explaining that demonstrators are calling on all Muni lines to be shut down—and they claim to have plenty of good reasons for it, including the Police Department's racial discrimination policies and Muni's ongoing attack on organized labor. … A random group called the Humanists for Revolutionary Socialism is backing Monday's protest, dubbed "Kenneth Harding Jr. Transit Shut Down Day" and blames Muni's policies for Harding's...

The origin of the war against Christianity in the United States can be traced back to the early days of the public school movement when Unitarians, Owenite socialists and atheists, and Hegelian pantheists vehemently rejected the God-centered worldview of the Founding Fathers and sought to secularize education and substitute salvation through scientific education than by salvation through Christ . However, it wasn’t until the turn of the last century and the rise of the progressive education movement that the war in America took on the militancy which characterizes it today. The progressives were, for the most part, members of the...

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...

Even in the heart of the Bible Belt, Texas isn’t immune to the proliferation of atheistic propaganda, whether in its public schools or now in atheist summer camps. Camp Quest—with the tagline “It’s beyond belief!”—bills itself as “the first residential summer camp in the history of the United States for the children of Atheists, Freethinkers, Humanists, Brights, or whatever other terms might be applied to those who hold to a naturalistic, not supernatural world view.”[1] The first UK Camp Quest, which received funding from the Richard Dawkins Foundation and other private donors, launched late July in England, and five other...

-- snip -- The atheist bus campaign began in England with London comedy writer Ariane Sherine and signs that read "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." Funds were collected by the British Humanist Association, and Richard Dawkins pledged to match donations up to £5,500. The ads are on some 600 buses and in many tube stations. So far only one bus driver has refused to drive his bus because of the ads. -- snip -- The idea for an atheist bus campaign is now global and includes nations in Europe, Australia, North America, and South...

The right-wing crusade against the liberal "war on Christmas" is great for rallying the troops. Too bad the war doesn't exist. In 1959, the recently formed John Birch Society issued an urgent alert: Christmas was under attack. In a JBS pamphlet titled "There Goes Christmas?!" a writer named Hubert Kregeloh warned, "One of the techniques now being applied by the Reds to weaken the pillar of religion in our country is the drive to take Christ out of Christmas -- to denude the event of its religious meaning." The central front in this perfidious assault was American department stores, where...

Why believe in a god?' ads draw scorn The Associated Press 9:27 AM EST, December 3, 2008 WASHINGTON - More than 200 people have complained to Metro about an ad campaign that questions believing in God. One person praised the campaign. The ads by the American Humanist Association first appeared on buses two weeks ago and inside buses Monday. They say, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake."

The American Humanist Association, or AHA, has announced the launch of a "godless holiday" ad campaign on Metro buses in Washington, D.C. The new ads will show a picture of a fake Santa Claus and read: "Why believe in a God? Just be good for goodness' sake". The group says they don't want atheists to be left alone in their convictions over the holidays. But some experts from religious groups are criticizing the campaign, saying that morality and the intention to do good is based on a belief in God.

Ads proclaiming, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," will appear on Washington, D.C., buses starting next week and running through December. The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday. In lifting lyrics from "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the Washington-based group is wading into what has become a perennial debate over commercialism, religion in the public square and the meaning of Christmas. "We are trying to reach our audience, and sometimes in order to reach an audience, everybody has to hear you," said Fred Edwords, spokesman for the humanist group...