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Maybe the reason the misperception persists that there are no atheists in foxholes is that nonbelievers must either shut up about their views or be hounded out of the military. Just ask Army Spc. Jeremy Hall, who is making a splash in the news because of the way his atheism was attacked by superiors and fellow soldiers while he was risking his life in service to his country. Hall, 23, served two combat tours in Iraq, winning the Combat Action Badge. But he's now stationed at Fort Riley, Kan., having been returned stateside early because the Army couldn't ensure his...

Peter Singer is a calm, lucid and able debater, and our debate at Biola University in Los Angeles on April 25 was lively and hard-fought. Not for nothing is Singer considered a world-class philosopher and advocate. To watch the debate go to dineshdsouza.com and click on my AOL blog. Singer praised me for not simply making assertions of faith or hurling Bible passages at him but rather for using reason and argument to make my case . And I complimented Singer for stepping, so to speak, into the lion's den. (Biola actually stands for Bible Institute of Los Angeles.) Unlike...

New film takes Da Vinci Code conspiracy theories and shaky evidence to new heightsJoseph Brean, National PostWhen Ben Hammott discovered the apparent tomb of a Knight Templar at the bottom of a hole in a cave in the countryside of southern France, he thought he had discovered the final resting place of Mary Magdalene, and so he did what any amateur treasure hunter in this age of the Da Vinci Code would have done. He returned with a Hollywood director, lowered a pole into the tomb with "some sticky stuff on the end," removed the shroud from the body, plucked...

JUNCTION CITY, KAN. - Like hundreds of young people joining the Army in recent years, Jeremy Hall professes a desire to serve his country while it fights terrorism. But the short and soft-spoken specialist is at the center of a legal controversy. He has filed a lawsuit alleging he has been harassed and his constitutional rights have been violated because he doesn't believe in God. The suit names Defense Secretary Robert Gates. "I'm not in it for cash," Hall said. "I want no one else to go through what I went through." Known as "the atheist guy," Hall has been...

FORT RILEY, Kan. — When Specialist Jeremy Hall held a meeting last July for atheists and freethinkers at Camp Speicher in Iraq, he was excited, he said, to see an officer attending. But minutes into the talk, the officer, Maj. Freddy J. Welborn, began to berate Specialist Hall and another soldier about atheism, Specialist Hall wrote in a sworn statement. “People like you are not holding up the Constitution and are going against what the founding fathers, who were Christians, wanted for America!” Major Welborn said, according to the statement. Major Welborn told the soldiers he might bar them from...

[An oldie-but-goodie from 4/22/2005, appropriate for Earth Day and the environmentalist cult.] April 22, 2005 -- Today is a religious holiday that should make us all into atheists. April 22, 2005, marks the 35th anniversary of Earth Day. For many people it's simply a day to think warm and fuzzy thoughts about clean air, crystal lakes, verdant forests and soaring eagles. Until the 1990s May Day marked the worship by the communists of an abstraction called the "workers" at the expense of real flesh-and-blood workers and every other human being on the planet. The result was human carnage. Now Earth...

[An oldie-but-goodie appropriate for Earth Day.] April 22, 2005 -- Today is a religious holiday that should make us all into atheists. April 22, 2005, marks the 35th anniversary of Earth Day. For many people it's simply a day to think warm and fuzzy thoughts about clean air, crystal lakes, verdant forests and soaring eagles. Until the 1990s May Day marked the worship by the communists of an abstraction called the "workers" at the expense of real flesh-and-blood workers and every other human being on the planet. The result was human carnage. Now Earth Day marks the worship by eco-extremists...

CHICAGO (CBS) ― A state lawmaker from Chicago has gotten some not-so-adoring attention from news-talk show host Keith Olbermann for her rant against an atheist activist. State Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago), who represents parts of the South Side, was named the "Worst Person in the World" on Tuesday because of her rant against Rob Sherman, an atheist activist who was testifying last week about the constitutionality of a plan to donate money to rebuild Pilgrim Baptist Church. "This is the Land of Lincoln, where people believe in God; where people believe in protecting their children. We don't want – in...

Anyone reading this blog who isn’t aware of the dustup that occurred at the Mall of America somewhere in Minnesota this past Friday must not be a reader of the New York Times (or any of the teeming millions of ‘mom and pop’ atheist/Darwinist / boffin blogs that are all atwitter about it and still writing well into the night.) The controversy around Premise Media’s upcoming movie Ben Stein’s EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed became the hottest topic in the blogosphere. According to BlogPulse, a service of Nielsen Buzzmetrics, the issue held the number one slot throughout the day on Monday,...

Despite the recent spate of major bestsellers touting the virtues of atheism, polls show consistent, stubborn reluctance on the part of the public to cast their votes for a presidential candidate who denies the existence of God...

Representative tries to put the fear of God in atheistRead Eric Zorn's full post: Rep. Monique Davis to atheist Rob Sherman: `It's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!' By Eric Zorn | Change of Subject April 6, 2008 Did you hear about the state legislator who last week blasted a Lutheran minister during a committee hearing for spewing dangerous religious superstitions, and then attempted to order the minister out of the witness chair on the grounds that his Christian beliefs are "destroying what this state was built upon"? Of course you didn't, because it didn't...

David Hume was a Scottish philospoher well known for his attack on the principle of causality - the principle that nothing can occur or exist without a cause. He believed that although one event (set of impressions) always preceded another, this did not prove that the first event caused the second. The constant conjunction of two events, he said, built up the expectation that the second event would take place after the first. But this was nothing more than a strong belief or habit of mind taught by experience. One could never prove that there were causal connections among impressions....

THE scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome is to publish a book explaining why he now believes in the existence of God and is convinced that miracles are real. Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, claims there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries bring man “closer to God”. His book, The Language of God, to be published in September, will reopen the age-old debate about the relationship between science and faith. “One of the great tragedies of our time is this impression that has been...

From the Globe&Mail, H/T John Hetman That triumphal barnburner of an Easter hymn, Jesus Christ Has Risen Today - Hallelujah, this morning will rock the walls of Toronto's West Hill United Church as it will in most Christian churches across the country. But at West Hill on the faith's holiest day, it will be done with a huge difference. The words "Jesus Christ" will be excised from what the congregation sings and replaced with "Glorious hope." Thus, it will be hope that is declared to be resurrected - an expression of renewal of optimism and the human spirit -...

This is the idol that both Barack Obama --and-- Hillary Clinton both look up to! If you want to see the original just type the word "Lucifer" into Amazon's search window--GGG “Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins -- or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer.” --Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 1971

An atmosphere of moral panic surrounds religion. Viewed not so long ago as a relic of superstition whose role in society was steadily declining, it is now demonised as the cause of many of the world's worst evils. As a result, there has been a sudden explosion in the literature of proselytising atheism. A few years ago, it was difficult to persuade commercial publishers even to think of bringing out books on religion. Today, tracts against religion can be enormous money-spinners, with Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion and Christopher Hitchens's God Is Not Great selling in the hundreds of thousands....

Historical facts clearly prove the murderous evils of atheism and big government At a minimum, atheist dictators in the Soviet Union, Red China, Cambodia, North Korea, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia murdered 105 million people in the 20th Century, more than 60% of the mass murders, genocide and political murders in that time. In comparison, only about 2% of the 169 million examples of democide in the 20th Century were due to religious conflict. Also in comparison, the Crusades murdered only 1 million people over several centuries, the Spanish Inquisition only murdered 350,000 people over several centuries, and the witch hunts added...

The re-awakening of atheism in America is going to make for some very interesting times. Leaders of the Christian Right have spent years trying to cast themselves as the voiceless victims in a secular society, but the scapegoating is over. (Want to talk marginalized? How many atheists have there ever been in Congress or the White House?) Nonbelievers know a lot about Christianity and Judaism, most having been raised in religious families. Believers, however, are somewhat less clued-in about atheists. Here are a few simple truths about who they are, and aren’t. Atheists are well-behaved. Atheists seem to play well...

The anti-religionists, represented by well-known atheist Michael Newdow and others, have filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire to challenge the inclusion of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. You remember Mr. Newdow. He's the same one who sued Congress and the Elk Grove Unified School District in California, demanding the removal of "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance to our nation's flag. In 2005, he sued President Bush to prohibit a minister from delivering an invocation at the President's inaugural ceremony. FFRF is also no stranger to the spotlight....

Over half of Britons claim no religion Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent of The Times Freedom from religion in Britain is becoming as important as freedom of religion, according to a United Nations investigation into religion in the UK. In a 23-page report published this evening, a UN rapporteur claims the 2001 Census findings that nearly 72 per cent of the population is Christian can no longer be regarded as accurate. The report claims that two-thirds of British people now do not admit to any religious adherence. The report also calls for the disestablishment of the Church of England. The role...

Postmodern Epistemologies by: Bethany Stotts, February 19, 2008 ...How does style affect our perception of the text, and does style itself impart its own distinct meaning?...Modern Language Association (MLA) professors attempted to answer these questions by drawing upon postmodern academics who remain skeptical of absolute knowledge, one of whom belongs to the radical “naturalist” Brights movement. Among the scholars mentioned were Donald Freeman, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Mark Turner, Daniel Dennett, and Noam Chomsky.... Instead, Chodat referred the audience to the works of radical atheist and Brights Movement member Dennett, who is listed on the site as one of the movement’s “enthusiastic...

And Obama Wept February 07, 2008 9:43 AM Inspiration is nice. But some folks seem to be getting out of hand. It's as if Tom Daschle descended from on high saying, "Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in the city of Chicago a Savior, who is Barack the Democrat." Obama supporter Kathleen Geier writes that she's "getting increasingly weirded out by some of Obama's supporters. On listservs I'm on, some people who should know better – hard-bitten, not-so-young...

In the house I grew up in, there was no god but Science, and the PBS Nova programming was his prophet. There was a little-g god, as we attended church every week, but we were just there for the dose of morality and the teachings of Jesus. So what if we did not believe in concepts like heaven or hell, probably not the devil, and now that you mention it, that idea of an omnipotent creator? Going to church wouldn’t do us any harm. There is no fire and brimstone with Methodists — just a few hymns, a quiet sermon,...

Not all atheists are supercilious, of course. Many are content to live and let live, and some even grant that religion (which, in America, basically means Christianity) does some good. But atheism as an organized, evangelizing movement has been on the offensive lately. Witness the "New Atheists" such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, with their aggressive stance against God and their bestselling books attempting to debunk religion. So, assuming you are a theist, what do you say to the atheist who asks, "You don't (chuckle) actually believe in God, do you (snicker)?" The natural response would be...

Good column about the campaign against religion in America. For copyright reasons here is the link: http://www.thebulletin.us:80/site/news.cfm?newsid=19195677&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=623508&rfi=6

Over the last two weeks, leading American atheists have registered complaints about all the attention given to Christmas in the United States. These atheists have issued three challenges. First, they insist that being atheist does not mean being immoral. Second, they want other people to see that atheists are law-abiding, compassionate, and generous to others—that one does not have to be Christian or to feel “the Christmas spirit� to care for the poor and the needy. Third, they insist that monotheists have a harder time being tolerant of others than atheists do. Atheists, they think, are more humble, tolerant, and...

I watched the movie "The Great Debaters" last night, and it helped me to understand why atheists are such bad debaters. The movie portrays four students from a little black college in Texas, and shows how, under the tutelage of their pugnacious coach, they went on to defeat Almighty Harvard. Denzel Washington, who plays the coach, says early in the movie that debate is a kind of bloodsport. It's great virtue is that it puts rival ideas up against each other, as argued by people who passionately espouse those ideas, and then it lets the truth emerge through a kind...

One of the biggest obstacles facing what’s called the “New Atheism” is the issue of morality. Writers like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens have to convince people that morals and values are possible in a society that does not believe in God. It’s important to understand what is not in doubt: whether an individual atheist or agnostic can be a “good” person. Of course they can, just as a professing Christian can do bad things. The issue is whether the secular worldview can provide a basis for a good society. Can it motivate and inspire people to be...

Atheists, God, and ReasonIn a recent issue of Scientific American, arch-Darwinist Richard Dawkins and physicist Lawrence Krauss discussed the relationship between science and religion. Dawkins, whose latest book, The God Delusion, is only one of a slew of recent books attacking religious beliefs, prefers an “in your face” approach. He once wrote that “if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane.” He then added “or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that.” In his discussion with Krauss, Dawkins stood by his statement, calling it “a simple and sober statement of...

Minnesota Atheists are taking their message to the air waves with a new radio program that will debut in January on the talk station Air America Minnesota. Called "Atheists Talk" -- the same name as a show the organization airs on cable access television -- the live radio broadcast featuring news, interviews, listener call-ins and special guests is believed to be the first show of its kind in Minnesota, said August Berkshire, a spokesman for the Minnesota Atheists. The show will air Sundays from 9 to 10 a.m. on AM 950 starting Jan. 13 when Oxford professor, evolutionary biologist and...

“Laces 4 Love” is a not for profit charitable organization that has been providing shoes and socks to poor kids during the Holidays. Barry Lynn and "Americans United" tried to stop them.

The Greatest Gift For All Christmas is a time of traditions. If you have found time in the rush before Christmas to decorate a tree, you are sharing in a relatively new tradition. Although the Christmas tree has ancient roots, at the beginning of the 20th century only 1 in 5 American families put up a tree. It was 1920 before the Christmas tree became the hallmark of the season. Calvin Coolidge was the first President to light a national Christmas tree on the White House lawn. Gifts are another shared custom. This tradition comes from the wise men or...

This is the time of year, as Hillary Clinton once put it, when Christians celebrate “the birth of a homeless child” — or, in Al Gore’s words, “a homeless woman gave birth to a homeless child.” Just for the record, Jesus wasn’t “homeless.” He had a perfectly nice home back in Nazareth. But he happened to be born in Bethlehem. It was census time and Joseph was obliged to schlep halfway across the country to register in the town of his birth. Which is such an absurdly bureaucratic over-regulatory cockamamie Big Government nightmare it’s surely only a matter of time...

The Broken Compass Posted by Tom Piatak on December 14, 2007 It seems fitting that Hollywood has chosen to observe Christmas in the year Christopher Hitchens’ atheist manifesto became a best-seller by releasing The Golden Compass, a movie based on the first volume of a fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials by another angry British atheist, Philip Pullman. Lest there be any doubt what Pullman’s objective is, he told the Washington Post in 2001 that “I’m trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief” and the Sydney Morning Herald in 2003 that “My books are about killing God.” Pullman, in fact,...

Like Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, "The Golden Compass" (an atheist's stealth attack on faith) was unleashed on December 7. Unlike Yamamoto's attempt to sink the U.S. Pacific Fleet, there isn't much bang to "The Golden Compass." The $150-million blockbuster is as flat as cola left in a glass overnight. The first in a planned cinematic trilogy intended to rival "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" and "The Lord of The Rings," "Compass" may turn out to be the "Heaven's Gate" of juvenile fantasy films. The movie is based on a series of children's books ("His Dark Materials"),...

Not the oasis it was intended to be, The Golden Compass failed to guide the box office out of the desert. A dispirited response to the fantasy adaptation combined with a largely pathetic group of holdovers led to the least attended early December frame in 13 years. The Golden Compass pointed to $25.8 million on approximately 5,600 screens at 3,528 theaters, which was about average for a live action fantasy. The turnout was well below half that of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or The Lord of the Rings movies, and the picture was...

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has withdrawn a positive review of the film "The Golden Compass," after more than a week of criticism about the church's apparent approval of a pro-atheism work. The review, which had said that the film "can be viewed as an exciting adventure story with, at its core, a traditional struggle between good and evil, and a generalized rejection of authoritarianism," was not available on the USCCB.org Web site last night.

Connecticut atheists, taking advantage of a town's policy of allowing holiday-season displays in its public park, have erected a 10-foot tall sign in celebration of the winter solstice that includes a message blaming the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, on religious believers. The 3-sided sign was erected in the Town of Vernon's Central Park on Dec. 1 by the Connecticut Valley Atheists. The two sides facing Main Street feature a pre-attack image of the Twin Towers with the sun shining between them and the message, "Imagine no religion," drawn from the John Lennon anthem, "Imagine." Use of the image...

There was no Saturday miracle surge for New Line. The Golden Compass, an effects-laden family film starring Nicole Kidman with a reported budget of $200M, received a modest 16% increase from its opening day, posting an estimated $10.2M on Saturday. Assuming a Sunday drop of 33%, Compass will finish its opening weekend with a disastrous $25.84M. (For a comparison to other big budget, family-oriented films in this mold along with details about New Line’s dismal 2007 and Nicole Kidman’s box office cold streak, scroll down to my Friday Night report.) Disney’s Enchanted blew past $80M domestic with a $4.9M Saturday,...

Andy Thomson held a lecture on subject of the psychology of suicide bombing in AAI 2007. I Personally found it quite interesting, examining the phenomena of suicide terrorism from analytical and secular point of view. The Lecture is available on three parts from youtube. Part 1Part 2Part 3 Quite long, but IMHO well worth watching.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "The Golden Compass," a costly fantasy starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, got off to a slow start at the North American box office and will likely fall short of opening-weekend expectations. New Line Cinema's $180 million film sold an estimated $8.8 million worth of tickets during its first day in theaters on Friday, according to data issued on Saturday by tracking firm Box Office Mojo (www.boxofficemojo.com). After Saturday and Sunday sales are factored in, the film will come in at No. 1 with about $28 million when the studios issue their weekend estimates on Sunday,...

The release of The Golden Compass as a major motion picture represents a new challenge for Christians – especially parents. The release of a popular film with major actors that presents a message directly subversive of Christianity is something new. It is not likely to be the last. Having seen the movie at an advance viewing and having read all three books of His Dark Materials, I can assure Christians that we face a real challenge – one that will require careful thinking and intellectual engagement. Why is this movie such a challenge? First of all, The Golden Compass...

Review: **** "The Golden Compass" is a darker, deeper fantasy epic than the "Rings" trilogy, "The Chronicles of Narnia" or the "Potter" films. It springs from the same British world of quasi-philosophical magic, but creates more complex villains and poses more intriguing questions. As a visual experience, it is superb. As an escapist fantasy, it is challenging. Teenagers may be absorbed and younger children may be captivated; some kids in between may be a little conflicted, because its implications are murky. They weren't murky in the original 1995 novel, part of the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, a...

Where are Harry and Frodo when you really need them? Here is a magical-mystery movie with everything money can eagerly buy: big-name stars, boffo effects, a story pre-sold in a mass-cult fantasy novel. The only thing "The Golden Compass" lacks, alas, is magic. And its mystery is a little too mysterious. The picture looks great — director Chris Weitz and his town-size team of digital technicians have created a fantasy world of misty cities, gleaming dirigibles and intricate steampunk gadgetry that really pops. But in attempting to cram as much as possible of Philip Pullman's 400-page novel into a two-hour...

No one would be surprised later this month, I suppose, if the editors of Time magazine were to announce they were putting Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris on their year-end cover as co-winners of the annual Person-of-the-Year award. Nobody, the editors would explain, had done more than these three pioneers during the year 2007 to encourage humankind to rethink its superstitious bondage to theism. Nobody had made it more legitimate to leave God out of the day-to-day discussion. Their widely published books, lectures, and debates—for better or for worse—were pacesetting and world changing. But if the editors of...

Christian kids are typically sent to Sunday school for lessons on the Bible and morals. For nonbelievers, there's atheist Sunday school. With an estimated 14 percent of Americans professing to have no religion, according to the Institute for Humanist Studies, some are choosing to send their children to classes that teach ethics without religious belief. Bri Kneisley sent her 10-year-old son, Damian, to Camp Quest Ohio this past summer after a neighbor had shown him the Bible. "Damian was quite certain this guy was right and was telling him this amazing truth that I had never shared," said Kneisley, who...

A star-studded, big-budget fantasy film released for Christmastime features religion as the villain. Hollywood is collaborating with a militant atheist British children's book author to indoctrinate children. "The Golden Compass," which opens this week, stars Nicole Kidman and cost Time Warner's New Line Cinema $180 million to produce, is based on the first installment of Phillip Pullman's children's book trilogy "His Dark Materials." Pullman is a fire-breathing British atheist who has told the Washington Post that "I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief" and remarked that "My books are about killing God." He has also noted that "I...

Few public figures have done more to earn our sympathy than the Muslim apostate Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a fugitive from her native Somalia, and now a virtual exile from her adopted country, the Netherlands. Under constant threat since the 2004 murder by an Islamist of her collaborator, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, Hirsi Ali warns the West that Islam presents a mortal threat to its freedoms. America took her in last year when the Dutch government connived to remove her refugee status, but she remains something of an embarrassment to the George W Bush administration. This autumn the Dutch...

When parents look at the beautiful covers adorning the gift-boxed sets of Philip Pullman's fantasy series, His Dark Materials, they might be forgiven for believing that these books follow in the tradition of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. In fact, the publishers are counting on it. The display tables have arrived just in time for Christmas and the release of the screen adaptation of the first volume: The Golden Compass.What Pullman's promoters desperately hope is that parents will not get beyond the colorful covers, which appear to depict nothing more than an...

The protests against the forthcoming anti-religious film, "The Golden Compass," are "fundamentally ridiculous" and are perpetuated by "America's religious fear-mongers." That's according to Laura Miller in an opinion article in the Los Angeles Times (Sun., 12/2/07). But that's not all. Writing about the various e-mails that Christian groups have sent to warn the public about the disturbing themes in "Compass," Miller spews: [Y]ou have to wonder how much actual reading goes on in the sort of household that welcomes e-mails like the ones denouncing 'The Golden Compass' ... Good ... grief. Just when you thought the level of condescension could...