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On Nov. 5, 2010, I read an article titled “Where Did God Go in Afghanistan?” by Capt. Michael Cummings. Captain Cummings, who reported his thoughts concerning sparse attendance at religious services in Afghanistan, speculated as to why so few soldiers were willing to attend these services. He stated that he personally could not imagine anyone being in combat without a belief in God, but theorized that being openly religious wasn’t “cool” enough for modern troops and that’s why they failed to attend religious services that were arranged for them. Throughout his heartfelt article, it was clear that he was distressed...

Esbensen, 53, who was ordained as a Unitarian Universalist minister in 1996 and recently became head of a Madison congregation, does not believe in God or life after death. She calls herself a "humanist atheist." She thinks belief in deity has arguably done more to hurt than help the world. "People who do not believe in God are actually kinder, gentler people," she says. A personal belief in God, for instance, was not needed for Esbensen to comfort the dying woman in Minnesota, to "say what she needed to hear." This fall, Esbensen became minister of the Prairie Unitarian Universalist...

“BALI is so intensely spiritual that it makes the Vatican seem secular,” sniffs the self-proclaimed atheist Phillip Adams in The Weekend Australian Magazine. “Which, of course, it is. A corporate HQ running one of the world’s oldest multinational corporations.” But, for the sake of argument wouldn’t a more secular Vatican be more attractive than a more spiritual Bali, according to atheist logic? And, given that many devout Catholics give their years and resources to the poor – is Adams unwittingly arguing that multinationals are enlightened, after all? You can see where this is going. As always, Adams is trying to...

In an interview today, the author at the center of a controversy about Amazon’s sale of a self-published pedophile’s guide told TSG that he has sold exactly one copy of the book and revealed that he was involuntarily hospitalized following a “mental breakdown.” Noting that, “I have what they call manic depression,” Phillip Greaves, 47, said that he himself was not a pedophile and that “the best advice I can give a pedophile is accept that masturbation is your best friend.” Greaves’s book, “The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover's Code of Conduct,” last week became available for...

...That “Hitchens delights too much…” is indeed true, which is why he refers to himself as an “anti-theist.” The greatest issue with the death bed conversion is that a death bed is not guaranteed. Whoever said that you will rest upon a death bed and reflect upon your life, etc.? One car wreck or one fallen piano could spell your instant demise. Daniel Dennett suffered a heart attack and he took pleasure in praising man and science for his physical salvation stating, “Thank goodness I’m alive.” Richard Dawkins stated that he is going to record his death bed experience so...

Remarks by the President at a DSCC Dinner in Rockville, Maryland October 18, 2010 8:03 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: ... I want to, before I begin, just say that, Maryland, you are graced with two of the finest senators in the United States Senate in Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin. (Applause.) We are so proud of them. Everything that I've been able to accomplish over the last couple of years has been because I had these great partners. And these are two of the best partners, and they were also wonderful colleagues when I was in the United States Senate....

Husband, son fell to outlaws earlier In yet another spine-chilling incident of Red terror, the Maoists operating in the Jangalmahal area burnt alive a woman after she tried to organise villagers to revolt against them. Not only this, the panic-stricken villagers were prevented from claiming and cremating the body which kept rotting for four days. A police officer at Jhargram, a police district under the West Midnapore district, told The Pioneer on Monday that....

Barack Obama threw his mom under the parish van on Tuesday, describing her as formlessly "spiritual" while casting himself as the self-made convert. "I am a Christian by choice," he said at a campaign event in New Mexico this week. In 2007, he said the opposite: that he became a Christian through his mother. "My mother was a Christian from Kansas…I was raised by my mother. So, I've always been a Christian," he told a voter who had inquired about his Islamic background. The woman at the campaign stop in New Mexico on Tuesday asked him to explain why he...

WASHINGTON -- Christopher Hitchens -- bald from cancer treatments, speaking between doctor's appointments -- has a special disdain for deathbed religious conversions. Appearing before a group of journalists organized by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public life, he criticized the pressures put on Tom Paine to embrace Christianity and the malicious rumors of faith that followed Charles Darwin's demise. "I've already thought about this a great deal, thanks all the same," he explained. The idea "that you may be terrified" is no reason to "abandon the principles of a lifetime." At this event -- a joint appearance with his...

Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups in a 32-question survey of religious knowledge by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. On average, Americans got 16 of the 32 questions correct. Atheists and agnostics got an average of 20.9 correct answers. Jews (20.5) and Mormons (20.3). Protestants got 16 correct answers on average, while Catholics got 14.7 questions right. How will you do on the quiz? Write down your answers as you go. CLICK ABOVE LINK TO START THE QUIZ

Recently the Pew Research Foundation took a poll on religious "knowledge".  The media is spinning the results of this poll to say that atheists are more knowledgeable about religion than are those who profess to be religious. Before showing why the results of the poll don't support that conclusion let's look at what the scores were.  Atheists/Agnostics correctly answered 20.9 of the 32 questions.  Jews correctly answered 20.5 questions.  For some reason Protestants and Catholics were broken out by race while Atheists/Agnostics weren't.  In any case, Catholics averaged 16 right answers while Protestants averaged 17.6. The first thing to...

Well, for all those who said it was just a slip of the tongue last time or that his speechwriters were to blame, Obama just made sure you knew that he meant it the first time. Yup. President Obama just omitted God again from the Declaration of Independence. As Weasel Zippers said, "No denying it now." But while I take notice of what he doesn't say, what he does say irks me a bit too. Check it out. CNS reports: Just seven days after he sparked controversy by omitting the word “Creator” when he closely paraphrased the passage from the...

God didn't create the universe, Stephen Hawking says in his latest book, "A Grand Design." Rather, the renowned physicist writes, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing." Everything – created from nothing? The assertion begged a reply from the author of "Nothing Created Everything: The Scientific Impossibility of Atheistic Evolution." "It is embarrassingly unscientific to speak of anything creating itself from nothing," said Ray Comfort, a best-selling author and acclaimed minister who's confronted and confounded some of the world's most accomplished atheists. "Common sense says that if something possessed the...

Well how 'bout that Obama omits the part about being "endowed by our creator" from the Declaration of Independence during a speech with the National Hispanic Caucus.... via iOwnTheWorld Ann Coulter put forth a "theory" on Obama's religious beliefs that I've held for sometime myself, that he is in fact probably either agnostic, or (as Ann has put it) is just flat out atheist. America's problems aren't political, they are religious. The downward spiral of our gradually becoming more liberal on social issues is the symptom of that. I know there are a lot of conservatives who would disagree,...

The atheist is always... at constant war with Almighty God in his heart (Isa. 57:20-21, Acts 9:1-5, Romans 5:10, Gal 5:7, Eph 2:1-3, Rev. 17:12,14, 19:19). If Almighty God truly does not exist, then why do these possess such a passionate hatred for Him? It is NOT that they try to seek to dismiss the ABSOLUTE REALITY of Almighty God in their minds and hearts, but rather that they are in ABSOLUTE FULL REJECTION of Him (Psalm 14: 1-3, Luke 19:14, Romans 1:18-32). It is becoming more evident to many in the creation movement of today that the evolutionary fundamentalist...

Sent: Sun Sep 19 09:01:22 2010 Subject: Sunday pool report 1 The first family left the White House on foot this morning for the 9am choral holy eucharist service and sermon at St John's Church Lafayette Square. The Obamas walked out of the residence at 8.49am and crossed the park to the nearby Episcopal church. The president was wearing a dark suit and held Sasha Obama's hand. She was wearing a blue dress and cream cardigan. Michelle and Malia Obama were wearing cream-colored dresses. (Check photos for accuracy of descriptions. It's sunny and pool was at a distance.) The service...

The Pope has compared ''atheist extremism'' to the Nazi tyranny of WWII in a speech given in Edinburgh as he begins a four-day visit to the UK. The pontiff praised Britain's fight against the Nazis - who ''wished to eradicate God'' - before relating it to modern day ''atheist extremism''. (snip) ''As we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the 20th century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society,'' he added.

In Ann Coulter's latest column, she defends Obama against claims that he is a Muslim. She reveals that he is an atheist: http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/printer_friendly.cgi?article=384 Obama's father was a former Muslim who later became a communist atheist. Obama's mother was also a communist atheist. He did not have a Christian experience in childhood. He remained an atheist while in his mid 20s as a community organizer. He makes it clear in his autobiography that he joined Rev. Wright's church, not because he desired the gospel, but because it would help him in his career as a community organizer. In 2008, when Rev....

The Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the Universe, Stephen Hawking has concluded. In his latest book, The Grand Design, an extract of which is published in Eureka magazine in The Times, Hawking said: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist.” “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the...

OBAMA IS NOT A MUSLIMSeptember 1, 2010 The nonsense about President Obama being a Muslim has got to stop. I rise to defend him from this absurd accusation by pointing out that he is obviously an atheist. Leave aside Obama's fanatical opposition to allowing Illinois hospitals to save the lives of babies with God-given souls inadvertently born alive during abortions. Also leave aside the fact that neither of his parents were Christians. And leave aside his current crop of "spiritual advisers," which is a collection of Mother Earth worshippers, polytheists and other nonbelievers. Now rest from all that "leaving...