Free Republic

American Atheists has unveiled its holiday billboards, including 2 in the Shreveport area. They encourage people to "Skip church for a merrier Christmas." The group is trying to stir the pot. "And part of stirring the pot is getting that conversation going," explained Nick Fish, American Atheists' national program director. "There are atheists in the community, there are people who don't believe in God." One of the billboards parodies President-elect Donald Trump's campaign slogan. "Make Christmas Great Again. ... skip church." [Snip] American Atheists has its holiday messages on display from Louisiana, to Colorado, even down in Georgia.

The pastor of West Hill United Church has found herself in the middle of a firestorm ever since she came out publicly as a disbeliever, raising the question of just how far this big Christian tent can stretch. Progressive Christian churches that have adopted inclusivity as their defining virtue find themselves ill-equipped to oust a member, even when that member has overtly rejected the fundamental tenets of the faith.

What in the world is going on? When travelling and presenting at churches, CMI speakers explain why the creation issue is so important for Christians. They often present information about the loss of young people from churches and their belief in moral relativism. Many times, older congregants seem dumbfounded by the loss of morality and Christian ethics in western society. Confronted with statistics such as two thirds (more in many cases) of our ‘churched’ young people falling away, many seem flabbergasted at the extent and rapidity of our cultures abandonment of Christianity. Some of the older people know this only...

(RNS) When KellyAnne Kitchin began home schooling her three sons three years ago, she had difficulty finding curriculum programs that fit her atheist and humanist beliefs. So Kitchin, 33, cobbled together what she could. She left out one geography textbook’s description of the earth as God’s creation and another’s disdain for Darwin, and substituted her own point of view — that no supernatural powers guide human beings, who alone have the power to improve the world. She also found many online forums for home-schoolers were unwelcoming. Some had statements faith members needed to agree to. On others she was made...

Mechanicsburg District Judge Mark Martin and his staff temporarily relocated to the Cumberland County Courthouse in Carlisle today due to threats his office has received and public criticism of his ruling in the "Zombie Muhammad" case. (excerpt: read article here:http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/02/judge_in_zombie_muhammad_case.html)

Hitchens had a serious problem with Jews, Israel and anti-Semitism. The universal encomia for the departure of Christopher Hitchens, the most celebrated atheist in the world, has been matched only by the earlier demise of Apple’s guru, Steve Jobs. Some of Hitchens’ praise is deserved, since he had been an exception in the leftist debacle after 9/11. But Hitchens had a serious problem with Jews, Israel and anti-Semitism. Despite the well known fact that the journalistic superstar boosted a deadly Judeophobic propaganda, Hitchens was given a pass by many US Jews for the anti-Semitic cheap shots about Israel just because...

Penn Jillette is fond of Christians. Despite the title of his new book, "God, No! Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales," the talky half of the magic-comedy duo Penn & Teller finds those who follow Jesus to have compassion. "If you say bad things about them, they won't kill you — which is all I require out of people I share the planet with," Jillette says. "The fact that I attack Christians is, in a lot of ways, showing how much I trust them." "God, No!" is filled with hilarious stories from Jillette's life, each...

Barry A. Hazle Jr. served a year in prison on a drug charge. After he got out, his parole agent sent him back for being an atheist. Now, the 41-year-old Redding computer technician has won a ruling from a Sacramento federal judge against the state and stands to collect damages for having his constitutional rights violated. Even before U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. decided in his favor last week, California corrections officials had issued a new policy protecting the rights of atheist parolees. "This has been a long and painful process for me," Hazle said in a statement...

It is Christmas Eve 2009 and the hope of the true Messiah lives on. Nothing has changed. Christmas Eve in Bethlehem It is now Christmas Eve in Bethlehem. The reverent silence over the hallowed place where Jesus Christ was born is the same on Christmas Eve 2009 as it was more than 2000 years ago. The winter stars still shine on this most humble of towns; the shepherds, in the same kind of clothes worn by those who witnessed the Child in the Manger, are still there watching their flocks by night. The pictures in the YouTube, provided by LifeInTheHolyLand.com...

Angie O'Neill recently moved into a new apartment complex for seniors and she's trying to make new friends. But Christmas is a tough time of year for an atheist. "All the planned activities at this time of year revolve around the church," said O'Neill, a retiree and an atheist for decades. O'Neill sought an escape this week, joining a group of her fellow nonbelievers for a weekly "Atheist Happy Hour" at a suburban Mexican restaurant. The group, Atheists for Human Rights, is active year-round but takes it up a notch this time of year with a Winter Solstice party, a...

Large swaths of economics are going to have to be rethought on the basis of what's happened." So said Larry Summers, President Obama's chief economic adviser, in an interview in the weeks after the markets crashed a year ago. Yet to a remarkable degree, economic thinking hasn't changed very much at all. (Click here to follow Michael Hirsh). Now financier George Soros is announcing a $50 million effort to speed things along. This week Soros is gathering some of the leading practitioners of the market-skeptic school, who were marginalized during the era of "free-market fundamentalism," among them Nobelists Joseph Stiglitz,...

He enraged America's religious right with his portrayal of God as a senile old man in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and now Philip Pullman is set to court more Christian controversy – this time with a novel about "the Scoundrel Christ". The book will provide a new account of the life of Jesus, challenging the gospels and arguing that the version in the New Testament was shaped by the apostle Paul. "By the time the gospels were being written, Paul had already begun to transform the story of Jesus into something altogether new and extraordinary, and some of his...

HATES THE RIGHT WING FOR BEING NON VIOLENT“The American Right-wing (RW) with few exceptions is totally Pacifist. They are "educators." The RW does NOTHING BUT TALK. It offers no Goal, no short or long-term objectives, no plan of action against the well-known enemy. There is no strategy, no tactical advice. Only the warning: DO NOTHING, BREAK NO LAWS, SIT TIGHT (as it has for almost 100-years). (7 or 8 paragraphs from bottom)

The atheists and humanists must have been eyeing the benefits of Christian congregations because they now want a piece of the action. To accomplish this, they are establishing God-free, um, church-type places. They want all the benefits of a Christian church without the Christian part. I can save them a great deal of trouble in starting this God-free denomination. All they need to do is find their local mainline Protestant church. Why reinvent the wheel? These atheists, agnostics and humanists will feel right at home on Evolution Sunday, listening to lectures about the glories of man, and they can have...

My box office gurus are telling me that New Line Cinema's holiday tentpole The Golden Compass is going to be a huge bomb. They predict an opening domestic weekend starting today only in the high $20s million from 3,528 theaters. That's disastrous because, with a pricetag of $200+ million without P&A costs, the fantasy epic should be making a minimum $50 million debut. Not to mention that the studio has spent big bucks marketing the heck out of the PG-13 pic based on UK author Philip Pullman's young adult book trilogy His Dark Materials. Problem is, Golden Compass has sparked...

Neither snow, nor rain, nor fire and brimstone will keep Joshua Witter from the swift completion of his appointed rounds come the end of the world. Witter, a 24-year-old self-described atheist living in Orlando, is the creator of the Post-Rapture Post, which bills itself as "the postal service of the saved." For as little as $4.99, Witter offers to deliver your letters to friends and loved ones left behind after the Rapture, when some Christians believe they will be whisked up to heaven while everyone else — the "Left Behind" of the popular book series — suffers a series of...

An Ohio woman is steaming after reading an anti-God message published on the side of a Starbucks coffee cup. The message that got Michelle Incanno's blood boiling reads: "Why in moments of crisis do we ask God for strength and help? As cognitive beings, why would we ask something that may well be a figment of our imaginations for guidance? Why not search inside ourselves for the power to overcome? After all, we are strong enough to cause most of the catastrophes we need to endure."

Atheists Split Over Message By JAY LINDSAY BOSTON - Atheists are under attack these days for being too militant, for not just disbelieving in religious faith but for trying to eradicate it. And who's leveling these accusations? Other atheists, it turns out. Among the millions of Americans who don't believe God exists, there's a split between people such as Greg Epstein, who holds the partially endowed post of humanist chaplain at Harvard University, and so-called "New Atheists." Epstein and other humanists feel their movement is on the verge of explosive growth, but are concerned it will be dragged down by...

James Rosen from FOX News does this news story about Rep. Pete Stark (D) Fremont, CA who cussed out an Army National Guard soldier on his personal telephone voicemail in response to a letter from the soldier, his constituent.

SAN DIEGO – A San Diego appeals court ruled Thursday that Proposition A, a voter-approved 2005 measure which authorized transferring land underneath the Mount Soledad cross to the federal government was constitutional. The 3-0 ruling by a panel of justices from the 4th District Court of Appeal overturned a decision by Superior Court Judge Patricia Yim Cowett that invalidated the measure. Cowett ruled that Proposition A violated the state constitution's ban on government preference or aid to religion. The justices concluded that the initiative was religiously neutral and city voters did not endorse the establishment of any religion when...