Free Republic

(IsraelNN.com) Professor Richard Dawkins, a senior British evolutionary scientist and outspoken atheist, drew fire on Monday for saying that Jews “more or less monopolize American foreign policy.” Religious Jews are a small group, Dawkins said, but are “fantastically successful” in lobbying the US government. Dawkins, who is currently in the US in an attempt to promote atheism and fight religious influence, expressed hope that atheists would be similarly successful in determining government policy. A number of Jewish leaders responded immediately, with ADL head Abe Foxman calling Dawkin’s remarks “classic anti-Semitism.” Malcom Hoenlein, a senior official in the Conference of Presidents...

Is Germany on the path to secularization? In 2024, for the first time, the country recorded more individuals without religious affiliation than Catholics and Protestants, according to the research group Weltanschauungen in Deutschland, which bases its findings on publications from the German Bishops' Conference and the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD). Indeed, Germany reported 47% atheists, compared to 45% Catholics and Protestants combined, and 4% Muslims. In 1990, only 22% of Germans identified as non-religious. By way of comparison, non-religious individuals have been in the majority in France for several years, with a National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies...

A group of over 100 Christian pastors and social justice activists have signed an open letter denouncing the Trump administration's cuts to welfare programs, foreign aid and large-scale deportations of immigrants in the country illegally. Titled "Returning To Jesus: Practicing Lent In Our Time," the letter was the result of meetings among faith organization leaders in January, with the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University, headed by longtime Evangelical progressive activist Jim Wallis, helping organize signatures and other logistics. The letter does not mention President Donald Trump by name, though it does take issue with the current efforts...

The 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study (RLS) and other Pew Research Center polling find that the Christian share of the population, after years of decline, has been relatively stable since 2019. And the religiously unaffiliated population, after rising rapidly for decades, has leveled off – at least temporarily. At present:62% of U.S. adults describe themselves as Christians: 40% are Protestant, 19% are Catholic, and 3% are other Christians.29% are religiously unaffiliated: 5% are atheist, 6% are agnostic, and 19% identify religiously as “nothing in particular.”7% belong to religions other than Christianity: 2% are Jewish, and 1% each are Muslim, Buddhist or...

Russia is deploying “human waves” of North Korean soldiers, the U.S. said Friday, and at least one soldier captured by Ukraine died of his injuries. According to White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, some North Korean soldiers have taken their own lives rather than surrendering to Ukrainian forces.

Evolutionary biologist and renowned atheist Richard Dawkins, author of the 2006 book The God Delusion, came out as a “cultural Christian” this past weekend on British radio. “I do think that we are culturally a Christian country,” Dawkins told Leading Britain’s Conversation, a British talk-radio station. “I call myself a cultural Christian,” Dawkins continued, “I’m not a believer. But there is a distinction between being a believing Christian and being a cultural Christian. And so you know I love hymns and Christmas carols and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos. I feel that we are a...

Atheist Vatican appointee says pro-abortion UN goals should form basis of ‘common good’Pontifical Academy for Life member Mariana Mazzucato suggested a redefined 'framework' for the common good aligning with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and echoing globalist sentiments expressed by Pope Francis.VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — The controversial member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Mariana Mazzucato, told the academy yesterday that society’s “common good” must be based on the United Nations’ pro-abortion Sustainable Development Goals and that Christianity’s teaching contributed to “climate change.”Mazzucato’s striking statements came during her February 12 presentation at the annual assembly of the Pontifical Academy for...

On this date in 1697, Scottish medical student Thomas Aikenhead was hanged on the road from Edinburgh to Leith for blasphemy, an already-archaic punishment inflicted for what reads like headstrong youthful atheism of a decidedly garden variety. Aikenhead partook of the times’ emerging (albeit forbidden) store of humanist and skeptical literature, and chatted most unguardedly with University of Edinburgh “friends” who tattled to authorities to the extent that, not content with testifying against him, one published a pamphlet demanding the offender “atone with blood, the affronts of heaven’s offended throne.” Said authorities scarcely elevated the dignity of the temporal throne...

U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe did her best to laugh off an injury she suffered in the final match of her career on Saturday. Rapinoe went down in the sixth minute as OL Reign lost to Gotham FC in the National Women’s Soccer League Championship on Saturday night. Rapinoe said she believed she tore her Achilles. In the post-match press conference, Rapinoe said she was going to get the "Aaron Rodgers treatment" to try and recover from the injury. She said she’d reach out to him or whoever did his surgery. "I’m not a religious person or anything and if...

In a recent discussion on The Discovery Institute’s ID the Future podcast, geologist Casey Luskin explained that the original “98-99%” figure was derived from a single protein-to-protein comparison before the chimp genome was sequenced. Since then, we’ve gained a great deal more precision. According to Luskin, humans and chimps have about 35 million single base-pair genetic differences and five million insertion-deletion differences. Humans also have 689 unique genes not found in chimps. And while there are different ways of quantifying the differences, almost none of these ways yield the famous “98-99%” number. For example, in 2018, Queen Mary University of...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal’s tribute to ‘God Save the Queer’ author reflects ‘both/and’ instinctROME – Italy is a county that reveres artists and intellectuals, in part because since antiquity, culture has been its leading export. Thus the recent death of a 51-year-old novelist and essayist named Michela Murgia, after a long struggle with cancer, has been a national drama here, even amid the traditional mid-August doldrums.To be sure, Michela was not everyone’s cup of tea.Although she professed herself to be a believing Catholic, her strongly progressive positions on issues such as women’s liberation, LGBTQ+ rights, abortion, euthanasia and artificial reproduction –...

The last forty years of politics and religion has been focused squarely on the ascendancy of the Religious Right. I must admit that I’ve probably contributed my fair share to that discourse, as well. A motley crew of white evangelicals and traditional Catholics locked arms on some social issues, started voting in large numbers for Republican candidates, and changed American politics forever. But I think that era of religion and politics is rapidly coming to a close. The Religious Right is no longer a primarily religious movement - it’s one about cultural conservativism and nearly blind support for the GOP...

...In the WhatsApp group called - "Establishment of Liberal Democratic Autonomy" managed by Nicham R. - a senior lecturer at the Van Leer Institute and whose members are some of the leaders of the leftist protest, one of the participants in the group, attorney Tal Nevo, asked: "So when will we reach the stage of autonomy? We want a solution Immediate to the situation, not another 5 or 10 years." Another participant by the name of Gal Efrati answered him: "It needs to be done right, yes unilateral separation, but as little blood on the streets as possible, we must...

A Guide to Mexican Anti-Catholicism in the 1800s - Part 1“In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).A History of Bloodshed and RevolutionOften untaught to children today, Catholics were extremely persecuted in Mexico during the early 1900s because of the rise of the atheistic government in Mexico, which was seeking to secularize the country and limit the power of the Catholic Church.History books cite September 16, 1810 as the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence from Spain.[1] Credited for initiating this revolution is Don Miguel Hidalgo, a Catholic priest. Sadly,...

When members of the small Pennsylvania chapter of Secular Democrats of America log on for their monthly meetings, they’re not there for a virtual happy hour. “We don’t sit around at our meetings patting ourselves on the back for not believing in God together,” said David Brown, a founder from the Philadelphia suburb of Ardmore. The group, mostly consisting of atheists and agnostics, mobilizes to knock on doors and make phone calls on behalf of Democratic candidates “who are pro-science, pro-democracy, whether or not they are actually self-identified secular people,” he said. “We are trying to keep church and state...

Republican lawmakers are questioning the constitutionality of a Biden State Department program to fund the spread of atheism and humanism internationally. At the end of June, a group of 15 Republican members of Congress wrote to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken about a State Department funding program from April 2021 that "would award grants of up to $500,000 to organizations committed to the practice and spread of atheism and humanism, namely in South/Central Asia and in the Middle East/North Africa." Noting that both atheism and humanism "are official belief systems," the GOP legislators wrote, "Any such...

CHICAGO — A historian devoted to keeping alive the stories of long-dead victims of racial violence along the Texas-Mexico border and a civil rights activist whose mission is to make sure people who leave prison are free to walk into the voting booth are among this year’s MacArthur fellows and recipients of “genius grants.” The Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on Tuesday announced the 25 recipients, who will each receive $625,000. Race figures prominently in the work of about half of them, including that of Ibram X. Kendi, author of “How to be an Antiracist” and “Stamped...

Sometimes, atheists can be downright religious. On Monday, the American Humanist Association (AHA), which advocates for a “nontheistic worldview,” turned on one of the most prominent atheists in the world, Richard Dawkins. The AHA rescinded an award it gave Dawkins back in 1996, apparently for the heresy of raising questions about transgender identity.The AHA awarded Dawkins the Humanist of the Year Award in 1996, recognizing the atheist evolutionary biologist as “an exemplar of humanist values.” AHA cited the “communication of scientific concepts to the public” as a vital part of giving that award to Dawkins, who had published the influential...

Francis Makes Another “Secret Call” to ScalfariIn his Sunday editorial, Eugenio Scalfari, an ex-fascist and founder of the anti-Church newspaper La Repubblica revealed he received another "secret" phone call from Francis.Scalfari embarrassed Francis many times publicly.The atheist insists on calling Francis "His Holiness" and "a friend who has helped me rediscover my self and my questions", but reports almost nothing of the call.He rambles instead that Francis “re-interpretation” of “religion” has essentially created his "self," but he remained an atheist despite the many conversations with Francis.His relationship with Francis is fundamental for him to investigate questions that remained "unanswered" in...

Liberation Theologian Leonardo Boff Is a Keynote Speaker at Vatican’s ‘Economy of Francesco’ ConferenceThe controversial former Franciscan priest was disciplined by the Vatican in the 1980s, for disseminating Marxist-oriented ideas that demonstrated ‘a profound misunderstanding of the Catholic faith.’VATICAN CITY — The controversial Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff will be a keynote speaker at the Economy of Francesco, a three-day international Vatican-organized conference that starts tomorrow aimed at making finance inclusive and sustainable.A former Franciscan priest, Boff will speak on “socio-ecological responsibility: global view, territorial actions” along with Father Vilson Groh, who works with the poor in the favela...