Free Republic

16 churches closed in Indonesia in Sharia run province

An atheist rapist has complained that his human rights were breached by having to share a prison cell with a Christian inmate. Barman Steven Relf, 40, was jailed indefinitely after admitting raping two women he targeted when he served them drinks in a pub. Police branded him a "sexual predator" and said he could have had as many as 40 victims. In a letter to an inmates' magazine, Relf wrote: "I recently had the displeasure of sharing a cell with a Bible-thumping believer."

The Muslim world has youth, numbers and global ambitions. The West is growing old and enfeebled, and lacks the will to rebuff those who would supplant it. It's the end of the world as we've known it. An excerpt from 'America Alone'. MARK STEYN Sept. 11, 2001, was not "the day everything changed," but the day that revealed how much had already changed. On Sept. 10, how many journalists had the Council of American-Islamic Relations or the Canadian Islamic Congress or the Muslim Council of Britain in their Rolodexes? If you'd said that whether something does or does not cause...

Group's spray-painting meant as a political statement Slogans spray-painted on the side of a church and school, along with dark shadows colored onto streets and sidewalks throughout Cranford's downtown area were meant to be artistic statements, but police call them acts of vandalism. Three Cranford men and a Garwood resident, all 18-year-old members of a musical group called Interior Decorating, have been charged with criminal mischief in connection with the graffiti incidents that occurred at 17 locations during the morning of July 22, authorities said yesterday. (snip) Bonney said the spray-painting was "an artistic statement against capitalism, the war in...

There is one sin that may be worse than all other sins. And it is taking place on a large scale today. There are some religious people who maintain that one cannot declare any sin worse than any other – that a person who takes an office pen is committing as grievous a sin in God's eyes as a murderer. But most people intuitively, as well as biblically, understand that there are gradations of sin. Having a background in theology and a lifetime of teaching the Bible from the original Hebrew, I would like to offer evidence for demarcating one...

'THE PASSION' UNLEASED'Protection squad'for Gibson's JesusSecurity detail hired for James Caviezel as execs think movie's main stars targeted Posted: March 8, 20045:00 p.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com James Caviezel, who plays Jesus in Mel Gibson's blockbuster "The Passion of the Christ," has reportedly been assigned a security detail to protect him. Jim Caviezel portrays Jesus in 'The Passion of The Christ' (courtesy Icon Distribution) "There are some crazy people out there and everything is being done to protect Mel and Jim from physical attack," a source close to executives of Newmarket Films told the London Express. The paper said Caviezel, a devout...

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A second-grader was suspended for a day for telling a classmate he would go to hell for saying, "I swear to God." Brandy McKenith, 7, was suspended for swearing for saying the word "hell," but her family says she was referring to the biblical location of fire and brimstone. She served the suspension Tuesday. The Pittsburgh Public Schools' student code of conduct prohibits profanity, but doesn't provide a definition, spokeswoman Pat Crawford said. The school would not comment further. Brandy's father, Wayne McKenith, said when he learned about the suspension, he thought perhaps his daughter had said...

<p>January 12, 2004 -- NABLUS, West Bank - Before dawn yesterday, 17-year-old Iyad al-Masri strapped on a belt filed with explosives and left this city - intent on carrying out an attack on Israelis. Hours later, his belt malfunctioned and exploded, killing him.</p>

Group Picks R.I. To Launch Vegetarianism CampaignPROVIDENCE -- A billboard in Providence, R.I., is urging people to go vegetarian with the image of Virgin Mary cradling a chick carcass, according to a Local 6 News report. The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals launched the campaign in Rhode Island because it has the highest percentage of Catholics in the United States. The billboard can be seen by motorists near exit 4 on Interstate 195 in East Providence and includes the phrase, "Go Vegetarian. It's an Immaculate Conception." PETA said its message is designed to highlight that...

The Big Lie is as prevalent in public life today as it was in Hitler’s Germany. So rash and irresponsible is European reporting about the Middle East that in a recent European Union poll Israel was regarded as the number one threat to world peace, ahead of Iran and North Korea. This view so strains credulity, that it appears as if a kind of brainwashing that afflicted Germans during World War II has occurred in Europe today. Moreover, it confirms a deeply held suspicion among many Jews that anti-semitism has raised its ugly head in Europe yet again. A European...

Was Jesus married? Posted: November 6, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com I was stunned by the audacity of the ABC News special, "Jesus, Mary and DaVinci," which sought to build a case that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. They even went so far as to give credence to a completely unfounded myth that he had a child by her. Using unfounded and speculative sources, they sought to build a case on assumptions to prove their suppositions. The amazing thing to me is why a major network would give primetime to such baseless speculation that is in extreme conflict with the...

Wednesday, August 13, 2003 at 13:41Attack of the Nazi Trolls: A Lesson for Message Board ModeratorsIn a recent blog entry titled, "I've Been Red-Baited!", I wrote, "I'm not familiar with LibertyForum.org, but it appears to be an anti-Bush, anti-war message board with a distinctly anti-Jewish undertone." A member of LibertyForum.org named Max Soldo (aka "thoughtcriminal") has responded by e-mail and provided further clarification of LibertyForum's political orientation. He writes: This forum is a libertarian forum, and is devoted to the libertarian concept of unabashed free speech. With that principle in mind, most posters aren't libertarian as many fringe types...

A controversy has erupted in Italy over a court ruling ordering a state kindergarten to remove crucifixes from its classrooms. A judge in the central town of L'Aquila upheld a complaint by an Italian Muslim leader, Adel Smith. The ruling has re-opened a bitter debate about religious symbols. A law dating back to the fascist period requiring crucifixes to be hung in classrooms has never been fully repealed. The BBC's Frances Kennedy in Rome says the case is set to have far-reaching implications. It centres on a nursery and primary school near L'Aquila, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Rome....

I think it was Macaulay who said that the Roman Catholic Church deserved great credit for, and owed its longevity to, its ability to handle and contain fanaticism. This rather oblique compliment belongs to a more serious age. What is so striking about the "beatification" of the woman who styled herself "Mother" Teresa is the abject surrender, on the part of the church, to the forces of showbiz, superstition, and populism. It's the sheer tawdriness that strikes the eye first of all. It used to be that a person could not even be nominated for "beatification," the first step to...

Palestinians Support Suicide Bombing By Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research PSR | October 20, 2003 With Yasser Arafat's popularity reaching its highest level in five years, three-quarters of Palestinians support the Haifa restaurant suicide bombing. Another two-thirds believe the Road Map is dead. Despite that, 85 percent of Palestinians support a mutual cessation of violence. Two-thirds support a return to "husna" (truce) and 59 percent support taking action against those who would violate a ceasefire. October 7-14,2003 The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in Ramallah has conducted a public opinion poll in the West Bank...

The scent of blueberry incense wafts through the kitchen. Tall sticks of the incense, meant to ward off unwanted influences, burn in front of a statue of Thor on the stove. It is the Thursday before a threatened hurricane, and the Schaffers, practicing Wiccans or witches, are appealing to the Norse weather god for protection for the town of Laurel. Later, as their son Collin watches and participates, Athena and her husband, Keith Schaffer, light four thick candles _ one green, one red, one yellow, one blue _ to represent earth, fire, air and water. They place the candles on...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Saudi Arabia's religious police have declared Barbie dolls a threat to morality, complaining that the revealing clothes of the "Jewish" toy - already banned in the kingdom - are offensive to Islam. The Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, as the religious police are officially known, lists the dolls on a section of its Web site devoted to items deemed offensive to the conservative Saudi interpretation of Islam. "Jewish Barbie dolls, with their revealing clothes and shameful postures, accessories and tools are a symbol of decadence to the perverted West. Let...

Savage Loses TV Show The Real Story What happened on the air is much different than what is being reported. It was in the middle of an airline horror story segment with a great set (see photos above). Out of nowhere a crank caller from a competitive talk show went from describing his airline horror story to making vicious personal attacks against me. I signaled and thought that this crank caller was cut from the air. His insults continued in my ear piece and I reacted to him personally as an individual who was attacking me to defend myself. Unfortunately,...

<p>NEW YORK - MSNBC on Monday fired Michael Savage for anti-gay comments.</p> <p>The popular radio talk show host who did a weekend TV show for the cable channel referred to an unidentified caller to his show Saturday as a "sodomite" and said he should "get AIDS and die."</p>

At a conference this week, Palestinian church leaders declared American Christians who support Israel's right to the Holy Land based on biblical grounds have no connection to true Christianity. The three-day event in Bethlehem featured speeches by Archbishop Munib Yunan, Manuel Chassasian and Fr. Marun Laham who emphasized "Zionist Christianity is not connected to Christianity in any way," the Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported, according to Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch. The leaders called for the Zionist Christians to be repudiated and discussed holding conferences in the United States to further the views of Palestinian churches. In a lecture, conference...