http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/atheist/ en-us Fri, 25 Jul 2008 03:01:47 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050960/posts I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus's tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel. My apologies to those who hoped for more, but the worst I can do is show my unconcerned contempt. By the way, I didn't want to single out just the cracker, so I nailed it to a few ripped-out pages from the Qur'an and The God Delusion. They are just paper. Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God... Pharyngula Blog http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050960/posts#comment Fri, 25 Jul 2008 03:01:47 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050216/posts Yes, the sad little cracker has met its undignified end, so stop pestering me. The cracker, the koran, and another surprise entry have been violated and are gone. You'll have to wait until tomorrow for the details, what little of them there are. Blog http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2050216/posts#comment Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:28:02 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2023337/posts CHICAGO (AP) - A federal judge on Thursday barred school districts statewide from holding the daily moment of silence suitable for prayer that is required under state law. U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman said he had given school districts time to object to his March 28 preliminary injunction on enforcement of the moment of silence law but received no objections. He therefore extended to the entire state the preliminary injunction originally designed to apply only to suburban Buffalo Grove District 214. The law passed by the Illinois General Assembly says every school district in the state must hold a... Att.Net US News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2023337/posts#comment Fri, 30 May 2008 02:29:53 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2008970/posts On 18th April, the day Ben Stein's infamous film was released, Michael Shermer received the following letter from a Jew (referencing a past article that Shermer had written debunking the Holocaust deniers) whose identity I shall conceal as "David J". Now I truly understand who you atheists and darwinists really are! You people believe that it was okay for my great-grandparents to die in the Holocaust! How disgusting. Your past article about the Holocaust was just window dressing. We Jews will fight to keep people like you out of the United States! Shermer wrote to Mr J to ask if... Richard Dawkins.net http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2008970/posts#comment Wed, 30 Apr 2008 03:38:43 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2007672/posts 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... Raleigh News and Observer http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2007672/posts#comment Sun, 27 Apr 2008 17:36:36 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2001853/posts 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... cbs2chicago.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2001853/posts#comment Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:46:07 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1998284/posts 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... Chicago Tribune http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1998284/posts#comment Tue, 8 Apr 2008 04:08:01 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1995783/posts The British parliament’s first avowedly atheist member, Charles Bradlaugh, would stride into public meetings in the 1880s, take out his pocket watch, and challenge God to strike him dead in 60 seconds. God bided his time, but got Bradlaugh in the end. A slightly later atheist, Bertrand Russell, was once asked what he would do if it proved that he was mistaken and if he met his maker in the hereafter. He would demand to know, Russell replied with all the high-pitched fervor of his pedantry, why God had not made the evidence of his existence plainer and more irrefutable.... City Journal http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1995783/posts#comment Thu, 3 Apr 2008 00:50:31 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1991983/posts Of all the conversion stories I've read over the past couple of years, none have resonated with me more deeply or had a more powerful impact on me than that of author John C. Wright. A former atheist, he is able to articulate what it's like to go from content atheism to deep belief in a way that I cannot. I've been toying with writing my own conversion story before I enter the Church at Easter, but the thing that keeps hanging me up is explaining what it feels like to believe. I'd like to describe it in a... Et Tu http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1991983/posts#comment Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:16:26 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1991362/posts 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 -... Cafeteria is Closed http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1991362/posts#comment Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:27:12 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1990848/posts The blogs are ringing with ridicule. Mark Mathis, duplicitous producer of the much hyped film Expelled, shot himself in the foot so spectacularly that the phrase might have been invented for him. Goals don't come more own than this. How is it possible that a man who makes his living from partisan propaganda could hand so stunning a propaganda coup to his opponents? Hand it to them on a plate, so ignominiously and so UNNECESSARILY. In writing this for RichardDawkins.net, I have assumed that our readers will already be familiar with the facts of the case, from Pharyngula and the... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1990848/posts#comment Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:22:50 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1987858/posts Arthur C. Clarke, 1917 - 2008 Posted at 4:21 pm in Science I am incredibly saddened to hear that Arthur C. Clarke has died. He had been ill for sometime, and finally succumbed earlier today. It is no exaggeration at all to say we owe the world to Clarke. He is most famous for having written the book and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, of course. But he also was the first person to conceive of a geostationary orbit; one in which a satellite orbits the Earth once every 24 hours, giving it a view that always shows the same... Bad Astronomy Blog http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1987858/posts#comment Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:25:49 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1978002/posts Chip Wall can't help but zero in on the little stuff whenever he watches Barack Obama on TV. It's his old pal Stanley. For Wall and a few dozen others, Obama on the campaign trail often brings to mind Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama's mother and a strong-willed, unconventional member of the Mercer Island High School graduating class of 1960. "She was not a standard-issue girl of her times... "She touted herself as an atheist, and it was something she'd read about and could argue," the only child was a ... daughter of a father who wanted a boy so badly... Chicago Tribune http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1978002/posts#comment Fri, 29 Feb 2008 00:55:05 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1976806/posts Recently, I had a conversation with a friend about a problem that he faces. From this exchange of words I had a revelation about tough situations we all find ourselves in. Within this revelation I found that my friend could of avoided this situation if he simply lived by Judeo-Christian values, morals, and principals. You don't agree? Try this out: Take an awful situation in your life that has caused you pain, whether it was physical, emotional, or mental. Now, think of all the actions you did up to the point where the bad incident occurred. Did any of the... Me http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1976806/posts#comment Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:27:46 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1960843/posts Which math-phobic among us has not beseeched God for help with another colon-clenching algebra or calculus exam? Had we heeded the words of the German mathematician Leopold Kronecker, perhaps we would have realized we've been talking to the wrong person: "God made the integers; all else is the work of man." Pythagoras, who gave us his eponymous theorem on right-angled triangles, headed a cult of number worshippers who believed God was a mathematician. "All is number," they would intone. The 17th-century Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza echoed the Platonic idea that mathematical law and the harmony of nature are aspects of... The Star http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1960843/posts#comment Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:20:07 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1948941/posts LA GRANGE, Ky. -- A father is in a courtroom battle, trying to keep his son from attending a Catholic high school.The parents involved in this case are divorced. David Ryan, the father, is an atheist. The mother is a Roman Catholic. Their son, who is in the eighth grade, attends a Catholic school in Oldham County.“This is something where it can't be both ways,” said Ryan’s attorney, Edwin Kagin. “We think the constitution wins.” According to Kagin, when Ryan and his wife got divorced, a judge ordered their son continue attending a Catholic school.But Ryan is an atheist and... WLKY http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1948941/posts#comment Sat, 5 Jan 2008 23:08:50 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1948416/posts 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... National Review Online http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1948416/posts#comment Fri, 4 Jan 2008 20:57:05 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1947427/posts After six years of childless marriage, John and Cynthia Burke of Newark decided to adopt a baby boy through a state agency. Since the Burkes were young, scandal-free and solvent, they had no trouble with the New Jersey Bureau of Children's Services—until investigators came to the line on the application that asked for the couple's religious affiliation. Time http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1947427/posts#comment Thu, 3 Jan 2008 00:38:37 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1940208/posts The devil made Larry do it. Don't blame Lawrence O'Donnell for his ugly anti-Mormon rant. It was really the fault of O'Donnell's fellow panelists. That's Frank Rich's take on the unseemly episode on the McLaughin Group a couple Fridays ago. Rich claims in his NY Times column of today that O'Donnell was: "pushed over the edge by his peers’ polite chatter about Mitt Romney’s sermon on 'Faith in America.'” Newsbusters http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1940208/posts#comment Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:39:33 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1939106/posts Dear friends, The Eighth Circuit recently clarified the law surrounding government funding for faith-based services that address America's intractable social problems. Americans United for Separation of Church and State had challenged the state of Iowa's establishment of the InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI), a reentry program for prisoners launched by Prison Fellowship. In the ruling, the Eighth Circuit held that Judge Pratt's injunction ordering the program in Iowa be shut down doesn't apply to programs that aren't funded by the state. Because the IFI program in Iowa is no longer partially funded by the state, the injunction does not apply to... PFM Justice eReport http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1939106/posts#comment Thu, 13 Dec 2007 21:40:50 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1931959/posts This compass is obviously broken and worthless but with a $150,000,000 budget behind it the producers are hoping no one will notice. Another group that hopes no one will notice it is the parents of millions of American children. Catholic and protestant organizations alike are warning families that it has clear anti-Christ overtones and a message that can only drag young minds further into a media driven pool of emptiness where life is hopeless and the future is bleak. CrossActionNews http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1931959/posts#comment Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:43:09 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1925124/posts Embarrassed at the murderous legacy of atheist Communist regimes in the twentieth century, leading atheists seek to even the score with believers by portraying Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime as theist and specifically Christian. Atheist websites routinely claim that Hitler was a Christian because he was born Catholic, he never publicly renounced his Catholicism, and he wrote in Mein Kampf, “By defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” Atheist writer Sam Harris writes that since “the Holocaust marked the culmination of…two hundred years of Christian fulminating against the Jews,” therefore “knowingly or... Townhall http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1925124/posts#comment Tue, 13 Nov 2007 17:33:06 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1925005/posts Service today gathers religious, political leaders to pray for precipitation, but not everyone buys into it. -snip- "This is a ridiculous, illogical exercise even for people who are deeply religious," said Ed Buckner, treasurer for the Atlanta Freethought Society. "I would think they'd be offended." Buckner, an atheist, is helping plan a "polite and peaceful protest" on the Capitol grounds today, and expects members of both the Council on Secular Humanism and Freedom From Religion Foundation to attend. He objects to the governor, in his official capacity as an elected representative, endorsing a belief system. He also thinks God, if... Atlanta Journal Constitution http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1925005/posts#comment Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:41:51 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1924878/posts "In Lyra's world, a person's soul lives on the outside of their body, in the form of a daemon--an animal spirit that accompanies them through life. A child's daemon can change shape, assuming all the forms that a child's potential inspires; but as a person ages, their daemon gradually settles into one form, according to their character and nature...In our world, it is possible that people that people have daemons as well, only they are invisible. If you would like to learn more about your daemon, and create a daemon avatar to take out into the world with you, select... Official Golden Compass New Movie Trailers Website http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1924878/posts#comment Tue, 13 Nov 2007 03:42:12 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1922684/posts How liberating childhood initially seemed to those of us bred without religious instruction. We never had to attend catechism classes or miss a single National Football League game on Sunday. There seemed to be little more to the universe than our parents’ rules and edicts, yet gradually, after adolescence, it became more and more apparent that another world—one within and above the realm of our daily affairs—existed. One in which right and wrong were more than legal constructs. It was at this moment that we fathomed the dimensions of our inner-void. The wisdom and guidance of the Bible are an... Mensnewsdaily.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1922684/posts#comment Thu, 8 Nov 2007 11:09:12 GMT