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CHARLOTTE, N.C., - An atheists organization says it rented a billboard on a Charlotte, N.C., street named after the most famous U.S. evangelist strictly for economic reasons. The Charlotte Atheists & Agnostics ad appeared over Billy Graham Parkway Monday and will be up for four weeks, The Charlotte Observer said. William Warren, a spokesman for the group, said the location was chosen because two other possibilities near the interstate were too expensive and a third billboard would have been seen by fewer people in the heart of the Bible Belt. "We got more bang for our buck there," Warren said...

How Bill Maher Sees Black People

Hero of the left to neocon turncoat, and still battling on: I'm not sure what a legend should look like exactly, but I'm pretty sure it's not this. The paunchy, middle-aged figure who opens the door at 10am has a crust of dried toothpaste around his mouth, an air of bleary dishevelment and the stooped shuffle of a man just out of bed and wishing he'd postponed the appointment to a less ungodly hour... Where is the celebrated rhetorician, famed for speaking in perfect paragraphs sculpted from flawless sentences? Gruff, vague and nursing a cup of tea, he clasps one...

The latest book from a conservative pundit takes aim at the media and praises Christianity…but with a twist. It’s written by an atheist. S.E. Cupp’s Losing Our Religion came out last week, and we talked to the frequent FNC and CNN guest about how the media covers religion, how Pres. Barack Obama handles Christianity and why an atheist would pick this topic to cover. Mediaite: You probably get this question a lot, but throughout the book you describe yourself as being an atheist. What makes an atheist pick this topic to write about? Cupp: I’ve always been fascinated by religion....

I dropped by a colleague's office today carrying a copy of a new Oxford University Press book, "Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think," by Elaine Howard Ecklund. "Have you seen this?" I asked her. "It's really great." "You know," she said. "We funded her research." Sure enough, Ecklund, a Rice University sociologist, credits the Templeton Foundation with primary support for her data collection. I tell you this up front so you won't think I'm praising this book as some sort of professional obligation. It's truly an enlightening book, one that promises to change for the better the way we...

World Pays Tribute on Death of Atheist Turned Believer Leading academics, philosophers and members of the Christian faith across the world continue to pay tribute to Antony Flew, the famed British atheist and thinker who discovered God at the end of his life. The renowned rationalist philosopher died earlier this month at age 87 and continues to be remembered in obituaries and tributes world-wide. Those paying tribute to him include Catholic Theology professors from the Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, well known American rabbis such as Rabbi Brad Hirshfield from New York and leading philosphers from academia such as Dr...

Dr. Jacalyn Duffin, a hematologist, lapsed Anglican and firm atheist, was desperate for work in the mid-1980s when she took on a small contract in Ottawa to interpret a set of laboratory slides for a colleague and write a report. She was given no information about the patient and assumed her report would be used in a malpractice lawsuit, which is common for that kind of blind medical analysis. Instead, her findings and subsequent oral testimony became the last piece of “evidence” of a miracle in the 200-year cause for canonization of Marie-Marguerite d’Youville, the first Canadian to be made...

President Obama literally edited Christ out of his “holiday greeting” today when he excerpted a sermon given by a military chaplain on Iwo Jima on Easter Sunday 1945. Below is the relevant paragraph from Obama’s holiday greeting today: The rites of Passover, and the traditions of Easter, have been marked by people in every corner of the planet for thousands of years. They have been marked in times of peace, in times of upheaval, in times of war. One such war-time service was held on the black sands of Iwo Jima more than sixty years ago. There, in the wake...

The “scientific fundamentalism” promoted by the atheist Richard Dawkins was criticised yesterday by the winner of a prize he had attacked. Professor Francisco Ayala, who won the £1 million Templeton Prize for scientific thought, said that attacking religion and ridiculing believers provided ammunition for religious leaders who insisted that followers had to choose between God and Darwin. “Richard Dawkins has been a friend for more than 20 years, but it is unfortunate that he goes beyond the boundaries of science in making statements that antagonise believers,” he said.

Last year, I met with a former congressional aide, who said that there were several closeted atheists in Congress. To run for public office in America, it is almost a requirement that people publicly proclaim their religious affiliation, irrespective of whether they believe or not. Would you vote for a self-proclaimed atheist?

The Almighty Wins one in U.S. Federal court…in San Francisco. Professional atheist Michael Newdow, founder of The First Atheist Church of True Science, lost his claim that the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance are unconstitutional and infringe upon his religious beliefs. The San Francisco 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Newdow’s claims and ruled that “under God” was indeed constitutional.

Washington (CNN) -- Public schools in Western states can continue teacher-led reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance, after a federal court ruled against a group of atheist parents. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, California, ruled 2-1 Thursday that the pledge does not represent a government endorsement of religion, prohibited by the Constitution. "The Pledge of Allegiance serves to unite our vast nation through the proud recitation of some of the ideals upon which our republic was founded and for which we continue to strive: one Nation under God," wrote the majority. "Millions of people...

IF YOU'RE one of those committed atheists in the Richard Dawkins mould who dreams of ridding the world of religious mumbo-jumbo, prepare yourself for a disappointment: there is no good evidence that education leads to secularisation. In fact, the more we learn about the "god instinct" and the refusal of religion to fade away under the onslaught of progress, the more the non-religious mindset looks like the odd man out. That is why anthropologists, psychologists and social scientists are now putting irreligion under the microscope in the same way they once did with religious belief (see "Where do atheists come...

The theory suggests that more intelligent people are more likely than less intelligent people to adopt evolutionarily novel preferences and values, but intelligence does not correlate with preferences and values that are old enough to have been shaped by evolution over millions of years." "Evolutionarily novel" preferences and values are those that humans are not biologically designed to have and our ancestors probably did not possess. In contrast, those that our ancestors had for millions of years are "evolutionarily familiar."

Supreme Control Over All Things and the Problem of Suffering and Evil 12. You insist on the existence of God. Do you believe that He is a benevolent God, and that His providence extends to all things? Yes, though I admit that you now introduce a problem which has baffled the keenest intelligences of all the centuries, and one the solution of which goes beyond the limits attainable by limited human reason. However, if reason cannot attain to a full and comprehensive explanation of this problem, it can go a certain distance towards a solution, and it can certainly refute...

Here is video of Laura Ingraham questioning Annie Laurie Gaylor the Co-President of the "Freedom From Religion Foundation" about their anti-God ad campaign...(Video)Some of the signs the foundation put up include billboards saying "Heathens greetings" and "Yes, Virginia...there is no God."

With a mere investment of $780,000 Soros and his allies were able to suborn free elections in the states of Montana, West Virginia, Missouri, Oregon, in 2008, and in Minnesota, Ohio, New Mexico, Nevada and Iowa, in 2006. How did he achieve so much with so little? He founded a 527 group which funded candidates in one kind of race in which the victor has the most influence over election integrity, and in which there is so little political competition: the Secretaries of State. In each State the SoS job is entrusted with overseeing the protection of free and fair...

ATHEIST author Philip Pullman yesterday spoke of his “disgust” at the triumphalism of America’s religious right following its successful campaign to sideline attempts to dramatise the last two books in the writer’s His Dark Materials trilogy. Actor Sam Elliott, who starred in the film version of the first novel The Golden Compass, that grossed £230m, says a campaign by conservative Catholics has halted plans to complete the trilogy.

Politics, religion, and atheism in North Carolina are coming to a head. Cecil Bothwell, atheist, is soon to be seated as a City Council member in North Carolina. However, there is a problem: Under North Carolina's constitution politicians who deny the existence of God are barred from holding office. Opponents of Cecil Bothwell are using that law to argue.... Federal courts have ruled religious tests for public office are unlawful under the U.S. Constitution. While Article 6, section 8 of the North Carolina state constitution says: "The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny...

A strange story surrounding a North Carolina city council election has suddenly become national news. Cecil Bothwell won his election fairly, a fact no one disputes. However, the former head of the Asheville NAACP has attempted to block Bothwell’s seating by pointing out an obscure clause in North Carolina’s state constitution that bars atheists from holding public office. The dispute will likely have to be settled in federal court: