Free Republic

It seems that those who favor the all or nothing inclusion of December symbols in the annual display in front of the municipal building have been successful in making that happen. Over the weekend - with it still unclear if the lighted tree is to be called a "Christmas tree" or a "Holiday tree" - a crèche and an atheist sign were added to the display. Meanwhile the official name for the lighted tree in the display remains an issue for some. Resident Tim Wagner and others said they will continue to press for administrative action to call the "Holiday...

For people who like church except for the parts about God, a British couple have bodied forth a new denomination that cheerfully excludes him, raising the volume on the question “What is atheism?” several decibels overnight. The Sunday Assembly, a “godless congregation” founded in East London last January by standup comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, now boasts affiliates in Brighton, Bristol, Oxford, Canberra, Melbourne, New York, and Portland, Ore. On September 21, it announced a “global missionary tour”: This past fall, interested individuals in 22 cities across the Anglosphere held Sunday Assembly meet-ups. Look for permanent congregations to be...

All right, before you get your freckles in an uproar by reading that title and making a quick, errant assumption about me, let me clarify a few things. I’m a bible believing, spirit filled Christian. I am not an atheist sympathizer. I do not doubt my faith, nor do I have any doubts about the deity of Jesus Christ. He is my Lord and Savior, and I believe the world is lost without Him. For years I celebrated Christmas. But last year, I decided to stop celebrating it. Something awoke in me, and I just felt turned off by the...

A former Mormon bishop in Riverside County is expected to serve three years in prison for sexually assaulting two teenage girls who attended a Menifee church, prosecutors said. Todd Mitchell Edwards, 49, pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts related to the assault of the teens, ages 16 and 18, as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Riverside County district attorney's office. The counts were sexual battery and sexual penetration with a foreign object. In addition to the prison time, Edwards will also have to register as a lifetime sex offender as part...

Atheists in San Diego, Calif. are trying a new approach to recruiting non-believers by offering food, such as pretzels and cheezits, and putting up large banners that read "Relax: hell does not exist, or heaven either, enjoy your life." The atheists are members of the San Diego-based group the San Diego Coalition of Reason, and every Saturday they set up a booth in the city's Balboa Park alongside other religious groups, such as Hare Krishnas and evangelical Christians, to educate passerby on their lack of beliefs. Along with the quirky banner that hangs over their booth, members of the group...

In a recent FoxNews.com editorial, Dr. Robert Jeffress, pastor of the 11,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, Tex., summed up quite nicely what's gone wrong with America's church-state jurisprudence: "Activist judges have replaced the word 'Congress' with 'government,' 'establishment' with 'endorsement,' and 'religion' with 'Christianity,'" he writes, "so that they can eradicate any Christian expression from the public square at the local, state, or national level."

A humanist organization is threatening lawsuits against two public schools for their participation in Operation Christmas Child, a project of evangelist Franklin Graham's international Christian relief organization Samaritan's Purse that seeks to deliver Christmas toys to needy children throughout the world. The American Humanist Association recently sent letters to two public elementary schools, one in South Carolina and one in Colorado, threatening legal action if they continue participating in Operation Christmas Child, which delivers thousands of shoe boxes stuffed with gifts to needy children throughout the world every year during the holidays. Along with containing small gifts, the shoe boxes...

Sunday Assembly, a godless church, founded by two British comedians that meet to hear "great talks, sing songs and celebrate life" throughout 30 cities around the world, launched a new congregation in Nashville, Tenn., last night as part of their effort to expand as a non-religious "megachurch." The Sunday Assembly opened its first church in London in January and both Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, leaders of the atheist group, decided to break ground in Nashville as their way of "church planting" since the pair has already established stateside congregations in San Diego, New York and Washington, D.C. Close to...

NORTH HAMPTON, Ohio — A self-described militant atheist with a criminal past faces multiple charges after an attack on a pastor who, after his sermon, had asked the man's girlfriend if she felt safe. James Maxie, 28, of Springfield, Ohio, is charged with second-degree felonious assault and misdemeanor resisting arrest after an incident Sunday at The Bridge Community Church in North Hampton. Police Chief Jarrod Campbell said in his 11 years with the department, he's rarely dealt with "an incident this brutal." The Rev. Norman Hayes, 57, said he feared for his life and begged for the attack to stop....

He is regarded as the most famous atheist in the world but last night Professor Richard Dawkins admitted he could not be sure that God does not exist. He told the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, that he preferred to call himself an agnostic rather than an atheist. The two men were taking part in a public “dialogue” at Oxford University at the end of a week which has seen bitter debate about the role of religion in public life in Britain. Last week Baroness Warsi, the Tory party chairman, warned of a tide of “militant secularism” challenging the...

Former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, the nation's first openly gay member of Congress and liberal darling, implied in a recent interview that he is also a "pot-smoking atheist." Frank, a Democrat who served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts from 1981 to 2013, made his comments last Friday while serving as a guest on a talk show hosted by Bill Maher, a stand-up comedian known for his atheist, liberal-slanted comedy routine. Maher then went on to say that Frank was lucky to have worked in a "safe district" which didn't receive the kind of media...

I'll be the first to criticize public education for not being challenging enough and simply passing kids on to the next grade without teaching them anything...but is this too much for first graders? Here's a partial list of what 6 year olds will allegedly be able to do after completing this lesson plan: 2. Explain the importance of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the use of canals to support farming and the development of the city of Babylon 4. Identify cuneiform as the system of writing used in Mesopotamia 6. Explain the significance of the Code of Hammurabi 9....

Reflecting upon key similarities between the atheist and gay mafia(Video).

Atheists aren’t limiting their attacks in religion in the military to demonizing Christians. It turns out they’re also agitating for their own chaplains. I find this amusing. I can just imagine the atheist chaplain in different military scenarios. Atheist military chaplain on the eve of battle: “You’re going into battle tomorrow. No one is watching over you; no one is at your side; and you’re not cradled in anyone’s divine love. Have fun and be careful.” Atheist military chaplain in a fox hole: “We’re going to die! We’re going to die! And after that . . . nothing!!!” Atheist military...

A member of a Christian organization that posted a Decalogue outside a Florida courthouse said an atheist group posting a monument in the same location has the right to do so. American Atheists will soon be posting what is believed to be the United States' first atheist monument on public property outside of the Bradford County Courthouse later this month. Ken Weaver, member of the Starke, Fla.-based group Community Men's Fellowship, told The Christian Post about how he feels regarding the atheist monument bench. "Simply put, while we do not agree with the 'faith' of the American Atheists that disregards...

When children are desperate for attention they scream and cry, talk show hosts in need of attention make fun of Catholics. Actually "make fun" isn't the proper term. They hurl hate at Catholics with a smile on their face so they can accuse anyone who's offended of being humorless. Television host Bill Maher has long lost the power to shock because he's so consistently misinformed and hateful about religious people. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't take note of what is said by him and others like him. Sometimes when I write about anti-Catholic screeds from the media some see...

Argues any military member talking about faith guilty of sedition That there have been those who oppose Christianity in all its forms and expressions at any time anywhere isn’t new. Those are personalities like Mikey Weinstein, of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, who recently said, “We face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces.” The fact the military is listening to him is new. That was confirmed in a report by Fox News’ Todd Starnes, who said...

Over the past few years, evangelical atheists have switched places with fire-and-brimstone Christians: where once it was the Christians who brooked no disagreement, now it is the atheists; and it is the atheists, too, who perform cartwheels on the heads of pins. Christopher Hitchens once even managed to argue of the Reverend Martin Luther King, of all people, that ‘In no real as opposed to nominal sense . . . was he a Christian’. A weaselly self-righteousness is now the hallmark of the celebrity unbeliever. Meanwhile, it is the Christian who nods diligently in any discussion, taking pains to reassure the atheists...

Physicist Walks Out of Gender-Segregated Debate At London University A renowned American physicist created a row at University College London last weekend when he stormed out of a debate hosted by an Islamic group because men, women and couples in the audience were segregated. The physicist, Lawrence Krauss, is a professor at Arizona State University. Krauss is a noted atheist who served on President Barack Obama’s science policy committee during the 2008 presidential campaign. The debate, sponsored by the Islamic Education and Research Academy, was entitled: “Islam or Atheism: Which Makes More Sense?” A YouTube clip posted by Stand for...