Free Republic

Well, you’ve heard about Sham-Wow – here’s the Real Wow: Find God in Just 60 Days or we’ll return your meaningless existence with no obligation! My new Klavan on the Culture video with visuals once again by Justin Folk who actually personally decapitated Richard Dawkins to get that shot of his head floating in muck. Is that dedication or… what? Anyway, here’s the vid: Cannot embed here

LAKELAND - Motorists along one of Lakeland's major thoroughfares are being greeted with a billboard asking a provocative question: "Don't believe in God?" Then there's the answer: "You are not alone." The billboard went up Sunday on eastbound Memorial Boulevard near Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, making Lakeland the second Florida city to have a billboard sponsored by an atheist organization.

Did you miss it? Last month the country celebrated national Blasphemy Day! According to NPR.com, atheists marked Blasphemy Day last month at gatherings around the world, celebrating the freedom to denigrate and insult religion. Activities included de-baptizing people with hair dryers and an art exhibit in Washington, D.C., which showed, among other titles, Jesus Paints His Nails, in which "an effeminate Jesus after the crucifixion [applies] polish to the nails that attach his hands to the cross." The atheist group Center for Inquiry hosted the exhibit. Addressing a capacity crowd at the University of Toronto, columnist Christopher Hitchens elicited enthusiastic...

Beside ads beckoning believers to explore Islam, attend services at the Boston Chinese Evangelical Church, or learn about the healing powers of Christian Science, the walls of the city’s subway cars will make room this month for another creed: nonbelief. A group called the Boston Area Coalition of Reason has spent $11,000 to buy ads on more than 200 subway cars on the Red Line and Green Line to raise awareness about people who believe that God is a myth. Surveys suggest that they account for an increasing number of Americans. The ads, which were unveiled yesterday and will be...

<p>Atheists asked the Macomb County Road Commission to rescind their order removing a privately maintained Nativity scene set at the crossroads of the city.</p> <p>The Christmas culture wars for 2009 have begun and ground zero is the Detroit suburb of Warren, which for 63 years has hosted a privately maintained Nativity scene set at the crossroads of the city.</p>

A “triumphalistic, self-righteous atheism” inspired by the work of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris is winning a following among American young people, leading to “atheist clubs” in high schools, according to Cardinal Francis George of Chicago. The cardinal, who is President of the US Catholic Bishops’ Conference, says that unbelief among young people is more than a question of stopping going to church: it is part of a fashionable “new atheism” which is every bit as intolerant as Christian fundamentalism. He told John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter: “In Chicago, we now have atheist clubs in high schools. We...

An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ's burial cloth is a medieval fake. The shroud, measuring 14 feet, 4 inches by 3 feet, 7 inches bears the image, eerily reversed like a photographic negative, of a crucified man some believers say is Christ. "We have shown that is possible to reproduce something which has the same characteristics as the Shroud," Luigi Garlaschelli, who is due to illustrate the results at a conference on the para-normal this weekend in northern Italy,...

SNIPPET - Quote: Ex-Muslim receives death threats after publishing article critical of Islam -- in Tulsa He criticized all religious belief in his essay. But he's not in fear for his life from an angry mob down the road at Oral Roberts University. "Former Muslim receiving death threats," by Bill Sherman for Tulsa World, October 1 (thanks to Basil): Sabri Husibi, a former Muslim who is now an atheist, says he has been ostracized and threatened with death since publication of a Tulsa World article Saturday in which he was critical of Islam and all other religions. That article can...

Berlin, Sept 29 (CTK) - Pope Benedict XVI has won great respect in the atheist Czech Republic, the German daily Die Welt wrote Tuesday commenting on the Pope's visit to the country on September 26-28.Public Czech Television's (CT) cameras followed almost every move by Benedict XVI during his three-day visit to the Czech Republic, the daily says.The Pope managed to raise enthusiasm among young people and he even won respect of Czech President Vaclav Klaus, Die Welt wrote."Judging by the space provided by Czech Television to the coverage of Benedict XVI's visit it could seem that the Pope visited a...

WASHINGTON — A California Republican congressman wants to do a little writing on the walls of Washington's newest federal building. If Rep. Dan Lungren gets his way, Congress will spend nearly $100,000 to engrave the words "In God We Trust " and the Pledge of Allegiance in prominent spots at the Capitol Visitor Center . Lungren's proposal drew only a whimper of opposition last week when the House of Representatives voted 410-8 to approve it. Now, however, Lungren finds himself tussling with a national atheists and agnostics group. The Wisconsin -based Freedom From Religion Foundation Inc. sued this week to...

Fratricide: New Atheists vs. Framing Atheists As of late there has been a lot of spittle passed between two camps in the Darwin-sphere. Things are getting really nasty, as so often happens among atheist factions. On one side are the new atheists: Coyne, Harris, Dawkins, Dennett, Myers. On the other side are the … well for want of a better word — the "framing" atheists: Ruse, Mooney, Kirshenbaum, Nisbet, Scott. With the exception of a few theist Darwinians (an oxymoron, I know) like Ken Miller, the motivation of the combatants seems to be the same: how to best advance an...

Even in the heart of the Bible Belt, Texas isn’t immune to the proliferation of atheistic propaganda, whether in its public schools or now in atheist summer camps. Camp Quest—with the tagline “It’s beyond belief!”—bills itself as “the first residential summer camp in the history of the United States for the children of Atheists, Freethinkers, Humanists, Brights, or whatever other terms might be applied to those who hold to a naturalistic, not supernatural world view.”[1] The first UK Camp Quest, which received funding from the Richard Dawkins Foundation and other private donors, launched late July in England, and five other...

When South Florida atheists held their first meeting, they were just five friends, having a beer at a bar. Four years later, they've moved to a bigger place -- still a bar -- to hold their weekly meet-and-greets. Membership is up to almost 500, Darwin Day is in the planning stages and bumper stickers are on sale. "There is no God, but ice-cream is great," reads one. "What schools need is a moment of science," reads another. Atheist groups are growing all over the United States, challenging stereotypes and confronting what they consider a big backslide in the separation of...

Oh, Brother. This is rich...

I first heard of PZ Myers when he became known for being the man who was literally expelled from a screening of the creationist mockumentary Expelled. . .despite not doing anything wrong and actually being one of the stars of the film. Now he can add being expelled from the Creation “Museum” to his resume. Well, actually he wasn’t expelled; it was some of the atheists he was with that were expelled from the “museum” and another atheist he was with that was harrassed by the “museum’s” security staff. It all began several weeks ago when PZ Myers along with...

Dawkins Supports First UK Atheist Kids' Camp by Christine Dao* The God Delusion author Richard Dawkins has sponsored a week-long summer camp geared towards making atheists out of children...

Most of us saw the news about the pro-Sharia Hizb ut-Tahrir organization being allowed to set up shop right in our own backyard. We also see how Atheist organizations constantly take swipes at Christianity. Well for once Atheists have spoken out against Islamists.

I'm a fighter for the freedoms of speech and religion. They are our constitutional rights -- what the First Amendment is all about. But those freedoms don't give atheists the entitlement to eliminate or revise America's religious heritage in the new $621 million taxpayer-provided Capitol Visitor Center in Washington. This month, the House and Senate passed identical resolutions approving the engravings of the national motto ("In God We Trust") and the Pledge of Allegiance in prominent places in the Capitol Visitor Center -- a 580,000-square-foot facility under the Capitol -- where 15,500 guests visit each day. Spearheading the measures were...

It alleges that Congress is trying to make belief in God synonymous with citizenship and "discouraging non belief" among Americans, a contention that Lungren rejects.

We’re never going to have an atheist president, are we? Besides the one we have now, I mean. OH YES. The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based church-state watchdog group, claimed the engravings are unconstitutional and would exclude the 15% of Americans who identify themselves as non-religious… Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said historical references to God should not be censored for political correctness. “The Founders based the Constitution and our laws on religious faith and principles that clear the way for individual freedom,” he said in a statement. “Our true motto, ‘In God...

The nation's largest group of atheists and agnostics filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block an architect from engraving "In God We Trust" and the Pledge of Allegiance at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington. The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation's lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in western Wisconsin, claims the taxpayer-funded engravings would be an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. The House and Senate passed identical resolutions this month directing the Architect of the Capitol to engrave "In God We Trust" and the pledge in prominent places at the entrance for 3 million tourists who visit the Capitol each...

The nation's largest group of atheists and agnostics filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block an architect from engraving "In God We Trust"...

MADISON, Wis. – The nation's largest group of atheists and agnostics filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block an architect from engraving "In God We Trust" and the Pledge of Allegiance at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington. The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation's lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in western Wisconsin, claims the taxpayer-funded engravings would be an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. The House and Senate passed identical resolutions this month directing the Architect of the Capitol to engrave "In God We Trust" and the pledge in prominent places at the entrance for 3 million tourists who visit...

Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, has helped launch an atheist summer camp for children. Alongside the more traditional activities of tug-of-war, swimming and canoeing, children at the five-day camp in Somerset will learn about rational scepticism, moral philosophy, ethics and evolution. Camp-goers aged eight to 17 will also be taught how to disprove phenomena such as crop circles and telepathy. In the Invisible Unicorn Challenge, any child who can prove that unicorns do not exist will win a £10 note - which features an image of Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory -...

Britain’s most prominent non-believer is backing its first atheist summer camp for children..... WHEN schoolchildren break up for their summer holidays at the end of next month, India Jago, aged 12, and her brother Peter, 11, will be taking a vacation with a twist. While their friends jet off to Spain or the Greek islands, the siblings will be hunting for imaginary unicorns in Somerset, while learning about moral philosophy. The Jagos, from Basingstoke, Hampshire, are among 24 children who will be taking part in Britain’s first summer camp for atheists. The five-day retreat is being subsidised by Richard Dawkins,...

New atheist summer camp launched An atheist summer camp for children set up in Somerset is to offer a "godless alternative" to religious camps. The 24 places on Camp Quest UK, which will be held next month near Bath, have already been booked up. Organisers said the purpose of the camp was to encourage critical thinking and provide children with a summer camp "free of religious dogma". The camp, supported by scientist Richard Dawkins, plans to expand after receiving hundreds of inquiries. The event has been set up by Samantha Stein, a postgraduate psychology student from London. She said: "It...

""Freedom from indoctrination ought to be a basic human right for all children," argues ABBA star Björn Ulvaeus in a passionate plea for Sweden to rethink its policy on faith-based schools."

The role of religion in public life in Sweden has been brought into sharp relief by a provocative ad campaign questioning the existence of God. Earlier this week, billboards went up in several Stockholm subway stations and elsewhere around the city proclaiming, “God probably doesn’t exist” (Gud finns nog inte). Accompanying the proclamation are images of three flags featuring symbols from Judaism, Islam, and Christianity fashioned in the same shades of blue and yellow found on the Swedish flag. The ads come from the Swedish Humanist Association (Humanisterna), and are part of a campaign to further debate about the impact...

We're increasingly uncomfortable with religion these days. As a society, we tolerate pastors, priests, rabbis and other religious folks, so long as they confine their message to a vanilla "God is love" theme and bless babies, brides and caskets. But when religious leaders speak out on the issues of the day -- especially using morally tinged language -- the elite gatekeepers of public opinion in the media, government and academia warn shrilly that a new Dark Age is upon us. More and more, we see outright hostility to religion -- particularly to Christianity. Consider the wild popularity of a recent...

Atheist Ads in Chicago Say Man Created God by Christine Dao* “In the beginning, man created God,” according to recent advertisements posted on 25 Chicago buses. The Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign targeted the country’s third largest city to espouse “the idea that man created God as well as all religions.”[1] The ads were inspired by similar campaigns elsewhere, including...

COSTA MESA–Leaders from a variety of religions and belief systems declared today that they will continue to fight for same sex couples to marry. Although the 10 speakers outnumbered spectators at a press conference at Fairview Community Church in Costa Mesa, Christians, Pagans, Jews and atheists alike still pushed to get their message heard: overturn Proposition 8. "Bigotry…and exclusion are not faith-based family values," said AJ Blackwood, a Unitarian Universalist seminary student. The speakers are part of the Orange County Equality Coalition, a group that was formed when the ballot measure to ban gay marriage was introduced last summer.

This provocative twist on the Bible’s opening line was plastered on the side of 25 Chicago buses this week as part of an advertising crusade by the Indiana Atheist Bus Campaign. The ads have been cruising between downtown and the city’s North and South sides, including the No. 56 Milwaukee route, since the beginning of the week and will run through June. "The intent of the campaign is to stimulate discussion of religion and its place in our society," said Charlie Sitzes, a spokesman for the Indiana group who with help from the American Humanist Association has collected more than...

I can't stand atheists — but it's not because they don't believe in God. It's because they're crashing bores. Other people, most recently the British cultural critic Terry Eagleton in his new book "Faith, Reason, and Revolution," take to task such superstar nonbelievers as Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins ("The God Delusion") and political journalist Christopher Hitchens ("God Is Not Great") for indulging in a philosophically primitive opposition of faith and reason that assumes that if science can't prove something, it doesn't exist. My problem with atheists is their tiresome — and way old — insistence that they are being oppressed...

Ican't stand atheists -- but it's not because they don't believe in God. It's because they're crashing bores. Other people, most recently the British cultural critic Terry Eagleton in his new book, "Faith, Reason, and Revolution," take to task such superstar nonbelievers as Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins ("The God Delusion") and political journalist Christopher Hitchens ("God Is Not Great") for indulging in a philosophically primitive opposition of faith and reason that assumes that if science can't prove something, it doesn't exist. My problem with atheists is their tiresome -- and way old -- insistence that they are being oppressed and...

Evolutionary scientists feels Darwin's theory incapable of understanding scumbags  Noted atheist and evolutionary scientist Richard Dawkins believes that John Edwards is damned to hell.Dawkins, author of the God Delusion and the Selfish Gene, as well as host of The Family Feud, said the former Senator, presidential candidate, and one-time human being should be forced to pay eternally for philandering while his wife lay stricken with breast cancer.Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, has written an account of the infidelity called, Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities. The working title, "I hope my husband's testicles drop off," was passed...

Two months after the local atheist organization here put up a billboard saying “Don’t Believe in God? You Are Not Alone,” the group’s 13 board members met in Laura and Alex Kasman’s living room to grapple with the fallout. The problem was not that the group, the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, had attracted an outpouring of hostility. It was the opposite. An overflow audience of more than 100 had showed up for their most recent public symposium, and the board members discussed whether it was time to find a larger place. And now parents were coming out of the...

Campaign designed to challenge Christian societies, collective worship and religious education. The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) plans to launch a recruitment drive this summer. Backed by professors Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling, the initiative aims to establish a network of atheist societies in schools to counter the role of Christianity. It will coincide with the first atheist summer camp for children that will teach that religious belief and doctrines can prevent ethical and moral behaviour. The federation aims to encourage students to lobby their schools and local authorities over what is taught in RE...

Of all the spokesmen for godlessness to emerge during 2007, the "year of the atheist," Christopher Hitchens is perhaps the most prominent. He is a prolific journalist and television pundit, selected by voters in Prospect magazine's 2008 poll as the #5 most important public intellectual. His 2007 treatise, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, continues to sell briskly, and he has built a sideline career debating any willing opponent from any church or creed, from Al Sharpton to Dinesh D'Souza. There is one man, however, who has sparred with Hitchens more than anyone: a relatively unknown Idaho pastor...

Last week Obama told the planet on his Dixie Chick America Sucks Euro-Tour that ol’ bigheaded America is not and has never been a Christian nation. I believe he said that right after he bowed and curtsied to the Saudi King and told the French that the US has been stuck-up meanies to their jealous and ungrateful Euro-socialist cousins. Damn you, Yankee doodle dandies. America’s not a Christian nation? Well, it’s not a Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim (yet) or Tai Chi nation. I know Barack is auguring for the USA to become an Obamanation, but heretofore from what I’ve read regarding...

The Atheist Perversion of Reality By Jean F. Drew Atheism we have always had with us it seems. Going back in time, what was formerly a mere trickle of a stream has in the modern era become a raging torrent. Karl Marx’s gnostic revolt, a paradigm and methodology of atheism, has arguably been the main source feeding that stream in post-modern times. What do we mean by “gnostic revolt?” Following Eric Voëgelin’s suggestions, our definition here will be: a refusal to accept the human condition, manifesting as a revolt against the Great Hierarchy of Being, the most basic description of...

Smoking Gun Proof there is an Atheist Media Bias (click link for news report)

Why We Ran the "Godless" Ad—And What I'd Do Differently In the final week of the 2008 election, Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s campaign aired a television ad that would be one of the most controversial of the year. The ad criticized our opponent, Kay Hagan, for attending a fundraising event in her honor at the home of two well-known atheists. One was a founding member of the Godless Americans PAC. Many in the media, especially on the liberal side, were quick to point to the ad and claim it backfired, costing Dole the election. Nothing could be further from the truth....

-- snip -- The atheist bus campaign began in England with London comedy writer Ariane Sherine and signs that read "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." Funds were collected by the British Humanist Association, and Richard Dawkins pledged to match donations up to £5,500. The ads are on some 600 buses and in many tube stations. So far only one bus driver has refused to drive his bus because of the ads. -- snip -- The idea for an atheist bus campaign is now global and includes nations in Europe, Australia, North America, and South...

Madison, Wis. An atheists' group and a church are taking their rivalry on the road, using ad space on Madison Transit buses to display their competing messages. The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation is spending $2,100 on six signs appearing for up to two months inside 50 buses. Each sign has a quotation questioning religion or giving reasons for not believing. A quote from the late actress Butterfly McQueen, who appeared in the movie "Gone With the Wind," says, "As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion."In response to the ads, Pilgrims Covenant...

John Hunt was baptised in the parish church of St Jude with St Aidan in Thornton Heath in south-east London. But 50 years later he stands outside and regards its brick facade without much affection. Mr Hunt was sent to Sunday school at St Jude's and later to confirmation classes, but he decided early on that he had no place in what he felt was a hypocritical organisation. He recalls that his mother had to get lunch ready early for him to attend the classes. "One Sunday I came back home and said 'Mum, you needn't get lunch early next...

A federal judge in Washington, D.C, dismissed a case yesterday brought by Michael Newdow and the American Humanist Association seeking to ban prayer and the phrase "so help me God" from presidential inaugurations. Newdow, a California attorney who pushed a case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in an unsuccessful effort to remove the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, previously joined Dan Barker, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and others in an attempt to obtain an injunction barring pastors Rick Warren and Joseph E. Lowery from praying at Barack Obama's inauguration. As WND...

Atheists strategize against book on God Online plot reveals plan to give Christian writing low rating The Christian author whose book "You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence but You Can't Make Him Think" bumped atheist Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" on Amazon.com's best-seller list says he's uncovered a conspiracy to attack his work...

My mom was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer a little under five months ago. It had spread into the lymph nodes, and getting the news was one of those things that I will never forget. I would throw myself under the wheels of a bus if doing so would protect my mother; and hearing that she had cancer - the very same form of cancer that took her own mother's life - was frightening. My mom went through 3 months of chemo that left her as bald as a cue ball, and had surgery this week. She is now...

The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies launches "anti-God squad" to mobilise non-believers Every religion on campus has its student society, from the Christian Union to the Jedi Knights. Now the non-religionists will have theirs too. The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies launches today to mobilise non-believers. The "anti-God squad", as it is happy to be called, says it will fight for the voices of what it believes to be the majority of students to be heard on campus and further afield. It is planning campaigns and events across the country to protest...

In Florida, an atheist created a case against the upcoming Easter and Passover Holy days. He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination case against Christians, Jews and observances of their holy days. The argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized days. The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the passionate Presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring,"Case Dismissed!" The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the ruling saying, "Your honor, How can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and others. The Jews have Passover, Yom...