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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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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 -...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.

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.'”

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...

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.

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...

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...

"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...

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...

TUUSULA, Finland (AP) - An 18-year-old student opened fire in a Finnish high school Wednesday, killing seven students and the principal before turning the gun on himself, police said. The teenager, who was not identified, shot himself in the head but survived and was taken to a hospital in ``extremely critical condition,'' police spokesman Tero Haapala said. The attack at Jokela High School in Tuusula, some 30 miles north of the capital, Helsinki, shocked the Nordic nation, where gun ownership is fairly common by European standards but deadly shootings are rare. ... Police said at a news conference after the...

THE STARTLING ARTICLE appeared on Dec. 9, 2004. “A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind,” Richard Ostling of The Associated Press wrote. “He now believes in God — more or less — based on scientific evidence and says so on a video released Thursday. At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A superintelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the...

PARIS (AFP) - Harry Potter is a left-winger and the seven books by J.K. Rowling are a diatribe against Thatcherite Britain, a French philosopher said Friday on the day of the last novel's publication in French. "It must be said from the start that Harry Potter is deeply political and that the books speak of today's England," Jean-Claude Milner told the left-wing newspaper Liberation. "Reading it, one can see that J.K. Rowling -- like many cultured English people -- believes there was a real Thatcherite revolution, that it was a disaster, and that culture's only chance is to survive as...

Anyone Know Why?

Anti-Christian Children's Novel Coming out as Time Warner Film in December starring Nicole Kidman By Elizabeth O'Brien LOS ANGELES, August 20, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The best selling novels of atheist author Philip Pullman, which were written specifically to indoctrinate children with anti-Christian values, have sparked the creation of a controversial new fantasy film to be released this December 7 by New Line Cinema - a Time Warner Company. Starring Nicole Kidman, "The Golden Compass," is based on Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, which includes "Northern Lights" (re-titled "The Golden Compass" in the United States), "The Subtle Knife" and "The Amber...

On Dec. 7, 2007, the movie "The Golden Compass," based on the first book in the fantasy trilogy entitled "His Dark Materials" by atheist Philip Pullman will be released in theaters throughout the world. Pullman wrote his fantasy trilogy because he was so upset by the Christian evangelism of C.S. Lewis in his wonderful series of Christian tales entitled "The Chronicles Of Narnia." Pullman is an avowed atheist who has dedicated his life to undermining Christianity and the Church among young readers. The film's release is only another example of a culture spiraling away from faith, a culture into which...

LONDON – A debate over a movie’s anti-religious antagonism – or lack thereof – is heating up ahead of its upcoming release, with some accusing Hollywood of “castrating” the anti-Catholic themes present in the novel from which it is based. The expected blockbuster, “The Golden Compass,” is named after the American title of best-selling author Philip Pullman’s novel “Northern Lights” and will star actress Nicole Kidman and James Bond star Daniel Craig. The original children’s novel, part of Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” series, rejects organized religion – in particular, the Catholic Church – and critics of the movie version say...

CathNews alerts us to the potential problem: Nicole Kidman has denied that a new film she's making is anti-Catholic. The movie features an organisation known as "The Magisterium", which kidnaps children to remove their souls.The Brisbane Times reports that Kidman told a US magazine that her Catholic faith affected her consideration of the script for the film, which is titled The Golden Compass.The fantasy film is based on a novel by Philip Pullman called Northern Lights. It is already attracting attention in the US for avoiding much of the book's perceived anti-Catholic rhetoric.Kidman said some of the religious elements...

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....

When I was 26, I had never once believed in God. Raised entirely without religion, I was a contented atheist and thought it was simply obvious that God did not exist. I thought that religion and reason were incompatible, and was baffled by why anyone would believe in God (I actually suspected that few people really did). After a few years in the Bible Belt, I became vocally anti-Christian. Imagine my surprise to find myself today, just three years later, a practicing Catholic who loves her faith (I entered the Church at Easter 2007). This is the chronicle of my...

Atheists can be good, but people who believe in God are more likely to value being good, a recent study showed. An analysis by sociologist and pollster Reginald Bibby of the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada, addressed the question "Do people need God to be good?" Polling 1,600 Canadians, the nationwide survey found that those who believe in God are consistently more likely than atheists to highly value such traits as courtesy, concern for others, forgiveness, generosity and patience. Believers are also more inclined to place high value on friendship, family life, and being loved. While God and religion...

Caption this "representative" of American views being honored by American Atheists Kalifornia director Dave Kong.

WASHINGTON — Remarks by Rep. Pete Stark suggesting that U.S. troops in Iraq are getting their heads "blown off for the president's amusement" will forever live in posterity after Republicans tried and failed to censure the California Democrat during floor debate Thursday. The assault came during House debate on a vote to override President Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program bill, which went down to defeat, 273-156, 14 votes shy of the number necessary. The action briefly came to a halt when Republicans asked that remarks by Stark be "taken down," or removed from the record. However,...

WASHINGTON — The Dalai Lama said he was "deeply touched" Wednesday by his receipt of the Congressional Gold Medal, which he received in an ornate ceremony under the U.S. Capitol dome -- but not before having a hearty laugh over his inability to speak perfect English. "It is a great honor for me to receive the Congressional Gold Medal. This ... will bring tremendous joy and encouragement to the Tibetan people, for whom I have a special responsibility," the Dalai Lama said, reading from his prepared remarks. The Dalai Lama was surrounded by top congressional leaders and President Bush Wednesday...

President Shimon Peres, who is a personal friend and great fan of celebrated singer Barbra Streisand, hopes to persuade her to come to Israel for the country's 60th anniversary celebrations in May 2008. ... Peres revealed that part of the conference would be devoted to a special tribute to the United States of America as an expression of appreciation for its consistent support of Israel. "After sixty years, it's time to say thanks for being on our side," said Peres

As if allowing the indoctrination of school children into the seeded realms of the gay and transsexual lifestyles wasn’t bad enough now the attack crosses into family values territory and squashes the language of the traditional family. These terms have been used in California, the country and the entire world for millennia. Leave it to the state that is sometimes called “the other United States” to be the first to change a world wide folkway at the stroke of a pen.

NEW YORK — A week into the cross-country launch of a radio talk show for "Godless infidels," the son of the late former President Ronald Reagan will be a guest. Ron Reagan will speak this weekend on Freethought Radio, which Air America Radio is now broadcasting nationally, about his own atheism.

The National Public Radio (NPR) website today (10/2/07) reports a discussion on their daily radio show, “All Things Considered”, about the religious right’s new stand on the possibility of Rudy Giuliani winning the Republican presidential nomination: “This weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah, a group of leading social conservatives — all members of an organization called the Council for National Policy, agreed on a resolution: If the Republican Party nominates a “pro-abortion” candidate, the group will consider running a third-party candidate.” From the context of the NPR article, and because of the quotation marks around it, it is difficult to...

The liberal talk radio network Air America announced this week it will launch a nationwide show focusing on atheism. The first national show will feature Christopher Hitchens, author of "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." The Freethought Radio Program, hosted by the co-presidents of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, has been airing on Air America's Madison, Wis., affiliate since April 2006. On Saturday, Oct. 6, the show will begin airing on 14 other affiliates from Palm Springs, Fla., to Eugene, Ore., and on XM Satellite radio. "You can turn on the radio or TV 24/7 to be preached...

Do we have any prayer volunteers for Christopher Hitchens? He’s the self -proclaimed “atheist/anti-theist,” and stunningly clever wordsmith. He leapfrogged puzzled agnosticism to a pledged rebellion against God. He’ll be a tough turn-around, so thick is his iron-clad ignorance of the divine. In a recent Newsweek he cynically dissects Mother Teresa’s dark theological struggles, a postscript to his derisive 1995 book, “The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice.” A week ago he was a featured speaker for an Atheist Alliance conference in Washington DC. Hitchens’ latest book, “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything,” maligns the devoted,...

<p>ABC may have set a loathsome new MSM low in insulting traditional Christians. On today's "Good Morning America," the network lumped the "Christan right" with the 9-11 Islamic terrorists as driving people to atheism.</p> <p>Some are reacting to religious extremism, like the Islamic fundamentalism behind the terrorist attacks of 9-11, but also the rise of the Christian right in the U.S.</p>

Kathy Griffin wins Emmy, no thanks to Jesus 09/08/2007 - Kathy Griffin - 59th Annual Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards - The Shrine Auditorium - Los Angeles, CA © David Gabber / PR Photos By Stone Martindale Sep 10, 2007, 3:42 GMT Kathy Griffin's Bravo series "My Life on the D-List" won the Emmy for "Best Reality Program (non-competition). Her speech was memorable, in which she refused to thank Jesus. "A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this. He had nothing to do with this," Griffin said. "Suck it, Jesus. This award is my God now."...

WASHINGTON - One in four people in the U.S. said in a recent poll that they would be less likely to support a presidential candidate who is Mormon, an ominous sign for Republican contender Mitt Romney. Yet the survey found two groups, atheists and Muslims, were even less likely to win votes. Sixty-one percent of those questioned said they would be less likely to support a presidential candidate who did not believe in God. Forty-five percent said the same for a Muslim contender. Only 5 percent or fewer said they would be likelier to support candidates who were atheists, Muslims...

For your perusal : Former foremost atheist, Philosopher, Antony Flew's latest book -- "There IS a God : How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind".Antony Flew was one of the world's most prominent atheist who wrote many books trying to debunk the notion of the existence of God. He has debated many Christian thinkers like Gary Habermas and William Lane Craig on the issue in the past and was considered a champion of atheism. Among his most famous books promoting atheism are : * Hume's Philosophy of Belief (1961) * Logic And Language (1961) editor * God and...

I just received this via email. There is no "In God We Trust" motto on these new coins. This is the underhanded incremenatalism I have mentioned before. I am urging everyone to boycott this FUNNY MONEY. We are "One nation under God."

It is not surprising that decent, sceptical people, observing the revival in our time of superstitious cults, the conflict between secular freedoms and religious edicts, and the murderousness of radical Islamism, should be receptive to the anti-religious polemics of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and others. The "sleep of reason" has brought forth monsters, just as Goya foretold in his engraving. How are we to rectify this, except through a wake-up call to reason, of the kind that the evangelical atheists are now shouting from their pulpits? What is a little more surprising is the extent to which religion is caricatured...

Just hours before being sworn in as Israel's ninth president on Sunday, Shimon Peres said the time had come for his nation to surrender its biblical heartland in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) to the Palestinian Arabs.“We have to get rid of the territories,” Peres said in an interview with The Associated Press. The elder statesman insisted, contrary to recent opinion polls, that an overwhelming majority of Israelis agree with him on this issue. In his inauguration speech later in the evening, Peres expounding upon his vision of peace for the Middle East, but Israel National News pointed out...

Christians were shocked when George Barna reported in 1999 that married Christians were not only as likely to divorce as anyone else but actually get divorced more often than the godless hell-bound. Atheists, of course, were delighted and claimed they weren't the least bit surprised. These findings confirm what I have been saying these last five years. Atheist ethics are of a higher caliber than religious morals. It stands to reason that our families would be dedicated more to each other than to some invisible monitor in the sky. – Ron Barrier, national media coordinator, American Atheists Thus demonstrating once...