Free Republic

Introduction The famous evolutionist Julian Huxley once said, "Any view of God as a personal being is becoming frankly untenable. The difficulty of understanding the functions of a personal ruler in a universe which the march of knowledge is showing us ever more clearly as self-ordered and self-ordering in every minutest detail is becoming more and more apparent" (Essays of a Biologist [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923], p. 217). His sentiments were echoed by the British philosopher Bertrand Russell: "That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin,...

In 1997, the National Association of Social Work (NASW) altered its ethics code, ruling that all social workers must promote social justice "from local to global level." This call for mandatory advocacy raised the question: what kind of political action did the highly liberal field of social work have in mind? The answer wasn't long in coming. The Council on Social Work Education, the national accreditor of social work education programs, says candidates must fight "oppression," and sees American society as pervaded by the "global interconnections of oppression." Now aspiring social workers must commit themselves, usually in writing, to a...

"I would ban religion completely," British pop-music star Elton John said in a much-noted interview last November. "It turns people into hateful lemmings, and it's not really compassionate." It isn't exactly news that many people find religion odious, but what is being called the New Atheism has lately become a booming industry. Books, articles, and lectures in profusion extol secularism and deride faith in G-d as pernicious and absurd. Such antipathy to religion was once relegated to the edges of polite society. Today it shows up front and center: A California congressman is cheered for announcing that he is an...

How can you not love those secular progressives. They've taken a human condition that has bedeviled mankind for centuries and solved it in one fell swoop. Various cultures deal with sin and guilt in vastly different ways. Certain Arab cultures flagellate themselves till they draw blood and thus achieve cleansing. Catholics are given proscribed penance and absolution. Christians, thank God, have Jesus who died for their sins. Secular progressives, having chosen man over God, are thus left in a peculiar situation. The closest the left comes to religious observation is obeisance to 'Mother Earth,' so they have had to figure...

Even the Ivy League schools seem to have noticed: Their students are not only arriving biblically illiterate but leaving pretty much the same way. So a faculty committee at Harvard has considered making a course in religion part of the school's core curriculum. The course would deal with "reason and faith," and touch on topics like the relation between religion and American democracy. Goodness, why not just have the students read and discuss Tocqueville's "Democracy in America"? Nobody's ever done it better. Except maybe Daniel Boorstin in "The Genius of American Politics." But that would be too much like studying...

O’Reilly Calls Them Secular Progressives; I call Them Soreheads and Whiners Those of us who can’t understand why the words, ‘Merry Christmas’ or the sight of a crèche or of a plaque containing the 10 Commandments can evoke such hatred and such passion can learn a bit about the mindset of an atheist from the following fine piece by Robert E. Meyer. It is equally baffling to know that many Americans hate President Bush because of his open avowal of his Christian faith, and that many American atheists hate their country and its history and traditions as well.

In this self-congratulatory age of multiculturalism and hyper-tolerance, what religion other than Christianity is treated as inherently offensive? In fact, haven't our cultural high priests instructed that we dare not find other religions offensive, but must even enthusiastically embrace them for contributing to our diversity of ideas and values? Of course they have, but that admonition -- as all but the most inattentive recognize -- doesn't apply to Christianity, as this year's annual war on Christmas demonstrates once again. The city of Chicago asked organizers of the German Christkindlmarket, a downtown Christmas festival, to reject New Line Cinema as a...

Fairfax County officials have issued a ringing non-endorsement of the bells at St. John Neumann's in Reston, ruling that they must toll within the limits of the county's noise ordinance or not at all. The Board of Supervisors asked the zoning staff this year to see whether the law could be amended to accommodate the church, whose bells ring at a volume slightly higher than the 55-decibel maximum permitted in residential areas.<snip> follow story [here]

"Let's teach our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty. It is already so much more glorious and awesome--and even comforting--than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know."-- Carolyn Porco, astronomer A crusading troika After four centuries of growing tension, the battle lines between secularism and religion have sharpened, owing in large measure to the efforts of Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins. Determined to reduce religion to the ash heap of Dark Age superstition, the crusading troika delivered four flaming arrows this year. In...

by Dinesh D'Souza - Republished with his permission. In recent months, a spate of atheist books have argued that religion represents, as End of Faith author Sam Harris puts it, "the most potent source of human conflict, past and present." Columnist Robert Kuttner gives the familiar litany. "The Crusades slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries."In his bestseller The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins contends that most of the world's recent conflicts — in the Middle East,...

A doctrine fostered by the delusional, illogical, secular progressives*, that was "rabidly" promoted by an unscrupulous drive-by media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. *(liberals, Democrats, Moonbats, Rabid Elves)