Free Republic

Atheist Jerry Coyne explains why morality is impossible for atheists Let’s review what you need in your worldview in order to have a rationally grounded system of morality.You need 5 things:1) Objective moral valuesThere needs to be a way to distinguish what is good from what is bad. For example, the moral standard might specify that being kind to children is good, but torturing them for fun is bad. If the standard is purely subjective, then people could believe anything and each person would be justified in doing right in their own eyes. Even a “social contract” is just based...

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Writing at the website of Time magazine, New York Times columnist Mark Oppenheimer called for abolishing the tax exemptions for nonprofits and instead turning over those funds to government to spend in the interests of the community. “We’d have fewer church soup kitchens — but countries that truly care about poverty don’t rely on churches to run soup kitchens”, he rationalizes. Take that, Salvation Army. Oppenheimer’s view takes the idea of “government as simply a word for the things we decide to do together” to an unsustainable extreme – suggesting that if we do not do things via government, they...

Atheism is so often considered in the negative: as a lack of faith, or a disbelief in god; as an essential deprivation. Atheism is seen as being destitute of meaning, value, purpose; unfertile ground for growing the feelings of belonging needed to overcome the alienation that dogs modern life. In more extreme critiques, atheism is considered to be another name for nihilism; a fundamental negation of existence, a noxious blight on creation itself. Yet atheists – rather than flippantly dismissing the insights of theologians – should take them seriously indeed. Humans, by dint of being human, are confronted with baffling...

Does National Geographic Promote Atheism? by Brian Thomas, M.S. * National Geographic interviewed atheist Jerry Coyne.1 The subject was not science, but Coyne's personal beliefs. Will Nat Geo provide the same platform for a researcher who believes that God, rather than nature, created all things? In the article posted online May 31, 2015, Coyne took shots at the idea that God created the world from the perspective of his belief in an evolving universe. He is a professor of evolution at the University of Chicago, the author of the book Why Evolution is True, and has frequently contributed to National...

[caption id="attachment_1500" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Image source: WENN[/caption] I was reading on Quora, which I like to do in the mornings to increase my knowledge of random subjects like WWII’s greatest atrocities or how astronauts aboard the ISS keep the toilet clean. I came across this piece titled “If Jesus forgives all sins what is the point in not sinning?”  Johnnie Lockett makes a really strong argument for living a righteous life. It’s actually the best, most concise answer I have seen, backed up with personal experience. And when people do such things well, those who watch are greatly impressed. We...

Sometimes it feels like the whole world is collapsing around us. It’s not. But you can see why it looks like it is. • Ireland rejected what every major religion and every major civilization in history has said about marriage. (Marriage is the state’s protection and encouragement of potential parents. Marriage in Ireland is the state’s registry of “official” sexual partners.) • In America, public opinion has changed drastically to reject commonsense morality: big majorities say you can kill yourself through physician-assisted suicide, turn your descendants into science projects through embryonic research, and that pretty much any kind of sex with...

A head teacher at a state school in Munich is attempting to introduce a strict Christian regime by hanging crosses in the classroom and holding daily prayers. He’s within the law, but parents and pupils are beginning to resist. According to Spiegel, the headteacher of Geretsried comprehensive was covering a lesson for a class of 14-15 year-olds when a debate broke out after the class refused to say a prayer. At the end of the debate, he said atheists were stupid, sparking outrage among teachers, parents and students alike. Not all pupils are baptized, and some teachers—including the biology teacher—don’t...

Millennials—soon to be the largest generation of Americans, surpassing the baby boomers—are fleeing organized religion in droves. As a result, a generation of Americans is creating a national existential crisis. How can a country that regularly proclaims “God Bless America,” emblazons its currency with “In God We Trust,” and mentions God so frequently that it could make a secularist nauseous, survive if the largest demographic is indifferent toward the Almighty? According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, about 35 percent of millennials have no religious affiliation and thus are categorized as the “nones.” Approximately 56 million Americans...

An atheist activist is planning to file lawsuits claiming the phrase “In God We Trust” on American money is “offensive” and “unlawful.” “It violates the first ten words of the Bill of Rights (‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion’) and it violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA),” said Michael Newdow, who is also a lawyer and doctor. “Unfortunately, because Constitutional principles can be twisted and perverted, the challenges to this practice under the Establishment Clause have, so far, failed.” Newdow wrote a guest post on the Friendly Atheist blog last week, arguing that the Religious...

Will the last true Christian in America please turn out the lights on the way out? A recent study on religion and America that has received much attention has been interpreted by some to indicate that Christianity is on its virtual deathbed. But as the saying goes, “The good news is the bad news is wrong.” The study comes from the respected Pew Research Center: “America’s Changing Religious Landscape” (5/12/15). The subtitle is: “Christians Decline Sharply as Share of Population; Unaffiliated and Other Faiths Continue to Grow.” They note that as recently as 2007, nearly eight in 10 Americans identify...

The decline in Americans who identify as Christian shown by a new Pew report is mostly due to those with weak church ties no longer identifying as Christian, Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, recently wrote. Was he correct? The Christian Post contacted Pew Research Center to find out. The report, released Tuesday, found that Americans who identify as Christian fell from 78 percent to 71 percent of the U.S. population between 2007 and 2014. In the same period, the religiously unaffiliated increased six percentage points, from 16 to 22 percent. (Note: the report...

The last several decades, the Left has done its best to change America’s religious landscape. According to a new Pew study, they’re succeeding better than many thought possible: "The number of Americans who don’t affiliate with a particular religion has grown to 56 million in recent years, making the faith group researchers call “nones” the second-largest in total numbers behind evangelicals, according to a Pew Research Center study released Tuesday." Christians are still the majority, but their numbers have fallen from 78 percent to just under 71 percent. The main reason? Increasingly more Americans consider themselves “non affiliated” with any...

The number of Americans who don't affiliate with a particular religion has grown to 56 million in recent years, making the faith group researchers call "nones" the second-largest in total numbers behind evangelicals, according to a Pew Research Center study released Tuesday.      Exclusive WBEN AudioOn The WBEN LivelineLana Benatovich, National Federation of Just Communities hristianity is still the dominant faith by far in the U.S.; 7 in 10 Americans identify with the tradition. However, the ranks of Christians have declined as the segment of people with no religion has grown, the survey says. Between 2007 and 2014,...

Way too many of us believe in a magic book negated by science and peppered with all manner of misanthropic myths. A lawyer and an associate dean at Liberty University, a columnist for Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, and the founder of WND’s Christian fundamentalist site Barbwire.com, Matt Barber might seem like an evangelical fringe character, but, clearly, he means to have his voice heard and his pronouncements taken seriously: his work appears under the portentous slogan RELATIVISTS BEWARE: TRUTH TOLD HERE. Yet he is affiliated with Glenn Beck, so, in pursuit of Truth-Telling, he sees fit to publish such essays...

Amid the cross-country race to election 2016, the secular left’s utter disdain for both our Creator Christ and His faithful followers is fast approaching critical mass. Self-styled “progressives” – that is, America’s cultural Marxist agents of ruin – typically disguise their designs on despotism in the flowery and euphemistic language of “reproductive health,” “anti-discrimination” and “multiculturalism.” We see this Orwellian newspeak at play right now in Washington, D.C., where congressional Republicans endeavor to prevent, if only timorously, two unconstitutional pieces of legislation from taking effect. The first, the District of Columbia’s so-called “Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act,” would force pro-life groups,...

It was bad enough, as I wrote here last August, that the Internal Revenue Service appeared to reach an agreement to monitor the pulpits of ill-favored churches. WhatÂ’s worse is that the IRS, directly counter to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requirements, steadfastly has refused to make public key documents pertaining to that decision. So the IRS, acting with the whole power of government behind it, seems to be saying it can monitor and presumably punish churches for the content of their sermons, but the churches canÂ’t know exactly if, how, and why they are being monitored. To fight this...

Those who don’t believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, but do profess an overwhelming belief in the constitutional separation of church and state, may soon have to round up their lawyers and head to Arkansas under the banner of the organization known as American Atheists, Inc. Arkansas state politicians have approved legislation to build a Ten Commandments monument, which would be paid for with private donations, on the grounds of their state Capitol in Little Rock. American Atheists, Inc. does not have a problem with the Ten Commandments or building monuments, per se, to immortalize the basic...

The article about Sen. Ted Cruz and the start of his White House run ("Ted Cruz announces campaign for president," Plain Dealer, March 23) reveals the sad state of America's fading hope for a sane future. No sane future without sane leaders, in all branches of government. To think of an individual who truly believes that "God's blessing has been on America from the very beginning of this nation, and I believe that God is not done with Americans" is a statement of ignorance, not a sane vision. The original people who lived on this land before the light skinned...

I first became aware of Phil Robertson’s recent controversial comments because Ace wrote up a criticism headlined “So Phil Robertson Is Yammering Again.” I disagreed with some of what he said but that was that and I went about my day. Then an article by Katherine Timpf at National Review titled “Stop Defending Phil Robertson – You’re Embarrassing Yourself” popped up as well and I started to realize that the only people writing about Phil’s comments were people that disagreed with them.Before I show you the comments, let me make clear that I do not believe the language Phil used...