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She laughed. I had invited Cheryl Hall to the screening of “Religulous” to get a faith-based reaction to comedian Bill Maher's diatribe on the divine. Hall's credentials: longtime member of the United Methodist Women and faithful San Diego churchgoer whose husband teaches a weekly Bible study class. Surely, she would be offended at roasting religion as if it were a Hollywood has-been. But she laughed. Several times. Her defense: “I think God has a sense of humor.” And then she added: “If his point was to make religion look ridiculous, then he did a very good job.” It did not,...

Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is once again coming under attack because of her Christian faith. A recent Los Angeles Times story claimed that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin espoused young-earth creationism. The report prompted liberal Internet columnist Robert Paul Reyes to brand Palin a "religious fanatic" with a "Neanderthal faith" who "thinks that 'The Flinstones' is a reality show." Reyes suggests that during tonight's vice-presidential debate, Palin should be questioned about her reported belief that God created the earth 6,000 years ago and that dinosaurs and men coexisted. Mark Looy is co-founder of the creation apologetics ministry...

Pentecostals number between 10-30 million in the United States depending on how you define the term and make up one quarter of all Christians worldwide. They are a subset of the larger evangelical movement that numbers about 102 million people in the United States. ABC News recently published this article on the type of churches Sarah Palin has attended at one time or anther. What Does Palin’s Faith Mean For US? As America gets a crash course in Sarah Palin, the question has been raised of how her two decades as a member of the Assemblies of God church in...

While the millions of Muslims in America are observing the month of Ramadan and concentrating on gaining as many blessings as possible in this noble month, we would be deaf, dumb, and blind not to be caught up in election fever. Every media outlet is giving non-stop coverage to the contest between the Democratic Presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama and Vice-Presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden and the Republican candidate John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Given the unpopularity of President George W. Bush and the Democratic leads in polls, most observers have assumed it to be...

Listen, mister, I'm pretty sure that lady is crazy. She thinks the earth is only 6,000 years old, like God put the fossils here to mess with our heads. She thinks no woman should have an abortion, even if she is raped by her smackhead older brother. She thinks global warming is nothing to do with our SUVs or tumble dryers or coal-fired power plants or air conditioners or airplanes or over-zealous central heating, oh no. It's all perfectly natural. She thinks guns are good, but books not so much. She thinks Jesus wanted us to invade Iraq. She thinks...

Gov. Sarah Palin's church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer."You'll be encouraged by the power of God's love and His desire to transform the lives of those impacted by homosexuality," according to the insert in the bulletin of the Wasilla Bible Church, where Palin has prayed for about six years. Palin's conservative Christian views have energized that part of the GOP electorate, which was lukewarm to John McCain's candidacy before he named her as his vice presidential choice. She is staunchly anti-abortion, opposing exceptions for rape and incest, and opposes...

If you want to know why ... John McCain came to pick a total unknown with a Down Syndrome baby as his replacement as war-president, you have to understand the immense importance of the Christianist base. McCain isn't one of them, however much he tries to re-tell his life-story to make it so. They know it, he knows it, and he needed a religious running mate. He might have succeeded with Pawlenty, who is a solid pick that a mature and responsible campaign would have selected in a heartbeat. Instead - partly out of insane cynicism (did he really believe...

As questions have been raised over how thoroughly Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign vetted Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the V.P. slot, it seems the McCain campaign was unaware of a video -- available online -- in which Palin talks about God's role in U.S. military action overseas, according to a political operative familiar with the situation.

Vatican Warns of Growing "Christianophobia" ROME (Reuters) - "Christianophobia" is a growing problem around the world and it must be fought with the same determination as anti-Semitism or Islamophobia, the Vatican said on Friday. Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's foreign minister, spoke in the wake of attacks against Christians in India that have left at least 13 people dead this week. Mamberti, addressing a conference in northern Italy, said religious freedom was a vital part of international relations and human dignity. "In order to promote this dignity in an integral way, so-called 'Christianophobia' should be combated as decisively as 'Islamophobia'...

Paul Zachary Myers, a professor at the University of Minnesota Morris, has pledged to desecrate the Eucharist. He is responding to what happened recently at the University of Central Florida when a student walked out of Mass with the Host, holding it hostage for several days. Myers was angry at the Catholic League for criticizing the student. His post can be accessed from his faculty page on the university’s website. Here is an excerpt of his July 8 post, “It’s a Frackin’ Cracker!”: “Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers?” Myers continued by saying, “if any of...

A University of Central Florida student, upset religious groups hold church services on public campuses, is holding hostage the Eucharist, an object so sacred to Catholics they call it the Body of Christ. Church officials say UCF Student Senator Webster Cook was disruptive and disrespectful when he attended Mass held on campus Sunday June 29. It was during that Mass where Cook admits he obtained the Eucharist.... A church leader was watching, confronted Cook and tried to recover the sacred bread. Cook said she crossed the line and that's why he brought it home with him. "She came up behind...

It apparently takes more than a government investigation and the threat of fines to keep a priest in Canada from speaking his mind about biblical issues. Father Alphonse de Valk, who WND reported just days ago is the target of a Human Rights Commission case over his biblical references regarding homosexuality, now is warning of an educational agenda to be implemented in support of "gay" pairs. In a column at Catholic Insight, de Valk writes under the headline "Fascism has come to Canada" that the Department of Education in British Columbia plans in September to "introduce the mandatory teaching of...

A police community support officer ordered two Christian preachers to stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham. The evangelists say they were threatened with arrest for committing a "hate crime" and were told they risked being beaten up if they returned. The incident will fuel fears that "no-go areas" for Christians are emerging in British towns and cities, as the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, claimed in The Sunday Telegraph this year. Arthur Cunningham, 48, and Joseph Abraham, 65, both full-time evangelical ministers, have launched legal action against West Midlands Police, claiming...

A community college in New York has been presented with a demand letter from the American Center for Law and Justice to halt a professor's classroom practices that allegedly have damaged at least one student – so far. The letter from the ACLJ targets Suffolk County Community College and will be the prelude to a federal lawsuit if the issue isn't resolved, the organization said. At issue is a professor's demand that students "change their own personal viewpoints or state that they are unsure of whether their own personal beliefs are correct" on religious issues, according to the letter. That...

MADISON, Wis. — A Tomah High School student has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his art teacher censored his drawing because it featured a cross and a biblical reference. The lawsuit alleges other students were allowed to draw "demonic" images and asks a judge to declare a class policy prohibiting religion in art unconstitutional. "We hear so much today about tolerance," said David Cortman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group representing the student. "But where is the tolerance for religious beliefs? The whole purpose of art is to reflect your own personal experience. To...

Did anyone else watch the LAW & ORDER episode on Wednesday night? I managed to catch last 30 minutes of it. Jason is accused of stoning his mother to death because she was having an affair. He is a student of a pastor who runs a Christian camp for children. DA people play a videotape of the pastor's sermon...The pastor tells the children that we are in a "war" with Islamic fanatics. He speaks out against "hypocrites". Prosecutors shake their heads...The deputy prosecutor states that one doesn't have to go to Middle East to find a school for extremists. Jason...

The anti-religionists, represented by well-known atheist Michael Newdow and others, have filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire to challenge the inclusion of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. You remember Mr. Newdow. He's the same one who sued Congress and the Elk Grove Unified School District in California, demanding the removal of "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance to our nation's flag. In 2005, he sued President Bush to prohibit a minister from delivering an invocation at the President's inaugural ceremony. FFRF is also no stranger to the spotlight....

"From murder and intimidation, to the crass and the blasphemous, 2007 was a horrendous year of Christian bashing,” said Dr. Gary L. Cass, Chairman and CEO of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission. “Anti- Christian sentiments are being fomented in the culture and are becoming more deadly and cynical,” said Cass.

After catching Harold Meyerson's latest Washington Post hatemongering against religion in general, Christians in particular, and Republicans especially, all I could say was just WOW! This thing is nearly unhinged and if you took the word Christian out and replaced it with any of the favored, protected minorities that the MSM guards like mother hens, it would be indistinguishable from the kind of pure bigotry that would result in Meyerson's utter ostracizing should it have been written about those protected classes. Calling Republicans/Christians torturers, abusers of immigrants, members of the KKK, bigots and even mean, Meyerson skipped only the Nazi...

AURORA, Illinois, December 12, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A YouTube video shows police monitoring a peaceful protest in a Chicago suburb who threatened to arrest a man that was not part of the protest because he was praying while walking his baby in a stroller on the sidewalk near a huge Planned Parenthood abortion facility. Aurora resident Roger Earl was walking his baby and praying from a prayer book on November 17 when police confronted him and told him he couldn't be there. "I wasn't planning to be part of the protest today," said Earl. "I didn't realize that I was...

A national weekly news magazine recently featured a debate between atheist/author Sam Harris and author/pastor Rick Warren ("The Purpose Driven Life"). As part of his debate, Mr. Harris threw down a challenge to prove God's existence by finding a deserving amputee and having 1 billion people pray for God to grow the leg back. In trying to disprove the existence of God, it's unclear why Mr. Harris chooses to focus on amputees growing limbs back rather than looking for a sea to split open or fish and loaves to multiply, and it's equally unclear why Harris specifically asked that it...

Teacher's comments lead to complaint By: JENNIFER KABBANY - For The Californian TEMECULA -- A Temecula Valley High School student has decided to opt for an independent study program rather than finish out the semester on campus because of her teacher's derogatory comments about Christians, the girl's attorney said Friday. Attorney Bob Tyler said 17-year-old junior Brittney Cowles became very upset Thursday after her creative writing teacher allegedly called local Christian parents "crazy" and "prejudiced" for keeping their children home from school to protest a new state law that some parents contend promotes a homosexual agenda in public schools. The...

PHILADELPHIA - You could call it a stick-up of a different kind. Vandals put glue in the locks of several churches in Philadelphia's Tacony and Mayfair sections, making it difficult for parishoners to get inside for Sunday services. At least eight churches of various denominations were targeted on and near Tyson Avenue. In some cases, the vandals broke off keys inside locks. Worshippers at one church used a drill to get their doors open. At another church, a member brought a blow torch from home. Pastor Arthur Johnson says his Tacony Baptist Church was among those affected. He calls it...

In the darkest hour of despair, when all hope seemed lost, the communal leader called together his counsel of the faithful and uttered ritual sayings. Sounds like something out of the eighth century, doesn't it? Just this past week, however, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, facing a massive and seemingly unrelenting drought, declared that "The only solution is rain, and the only place we get that from is from a higher power." He then sent out responses to leaders of several faiths to take part in a prayer service. The potential establishment clause violations inherent in state sponsored prayer are disturbing....

There are a lot of scary things in the world. There’s the “fun-scary”—kids who dress up as clowns, monsters, or fairy princesses once a year to get a month’s supply of candy, which they’ll finish off by morning. There’s scary movies, from “Jaws” to “Friday the 13th“ to—well—“Scary Movie.” The murder mystery genre—in books, TV, and film—can scare even the least gullible. What’s even scarier is that there were about 1.4 million violent crimes last year; about 17,000 of them were murders, about 89 percent from firearms, according to the FBI. Poverty, the deterioration of the environment, and Dick Cheney...

Foster child to be taken away because Christian couple refuse to teach him about homosexuality By JAMES MILLS They are devoted foster parents with an unblemished record of caring for almost 30 vulnerable children. But Vincent and Pauline Matherick will this week have their latest foster son taken away because they have refused to sign new sexual equality regulations. To do so, they claim, would force them to promote homosexuality and go against their Christian faith. The 11-year-old boy, who has been in their care for two years, will be placed in a council hostel this week and the Mathericks...

NEARLY half the British think that religion is harmful, according to a poll carried out by YouGov. Yet more than half also believe in God “or something”. The YouGov poll commissioned by John Humphrys, the broadcaster and writer, found that 42% of the 2,200 people taking part considered religion had a harmful effect. “One reason might be the publicity attracted by a handful of mad mullahs and their hate-filled rhetoric,” writes Humphrys in his new book, In God We Doubt, an extract of which appears in today’s Sunday Times News Review. Only 16% of those polled called themselves atheists; 28%...

“Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.” Perhaps you remember that pearl from Rosie O’Donnell, the perpetually agitated former co-host of The View. While few had put it quite so brusquely, O’Donnell’s sentiment was hardly a novel one. A steady stream of books and films had for years demonized conservative Christians, attacking their rising influence in politics and on broader American life as heralding the establishment of a Christian theocracy. It was against this backdrop of anti-Christian paranoia that CNN recently aired “God’s Warriors,” a mini-series that investigated what animates the most fervent...

Diploma withheld until she apologized for declaring Christian faith A high school valedictorian is suing a Colorado school district because she was forced to publicly apologize for declaring her Christian faith and inviting students to respond to the Gospel in a speech at her graduation ceremony. Erica Corder, who graduated from Lewis-Palmer High School near Colorado Springs in 2006, alleges in a First Amendment lawsuit filed by Liberty Counsel that the school violated her civil rights. Corder says officials withheld her diploma until she issued an apology, and the school "continues to portray her as a student who engaged in...

When atheist Sam Harris wrote his 2004 bestseller The End of Faith, a radical attack on religious belief in any form, he was prepared for strong rebuttals from Christians. Related articles and links What may have surprised him was the vitriol in which many of the emails and letters were couched. The most hostile messages came from Christians (not Muslims or Hindus). "The truth is," he explained in the forward to his latest bestseller, Letter to a Christian Nation, "that many who claim to be transformed by God's love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism.""How do I know this?"...

Valedictorian Threatened with Loss of Diploma over Religious Graduation Message Sues School DENVER, CO, August 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Today, Liberty Counsel filed suit against Lewis Palmer School District on behalf of Erica Corder, a high school valedictorian who was forced to publicly apologize for sharing her Christian faith at graduation. Erica was one of fifteen valedictorians from the Lewis-Palmer High School class of 2006. For the past year, she has been the subject of criticism because the school continues to portray her as a student who engaged in improper conduct because she mentioned Jesus Christ during her speech. Before...

For several weeks CNN has been hyping their miniseries God’s Warriors as an “unprecedented six-hour television event.” The series dedicates two hours each to “God’s Jewish Warriors,” “God’s Muslim Warriors,” and “God’s Christian Warriors.” Prior to the first airing, CNN invited several bloggers to preview a few clips from the series and to submit a question for Christiane Amanpour to be answered during a special webcast. The three clips provided by CNN each highlighted one of the “fundamentalist” branches of the three Abrahamic faiths: the segment on Jews focused on theocratic Israeli settlers, including the man who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin;...

Last week, after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering "freedom packages" to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended. What were the packages to contain? Not body armor or home-baked cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which "soldiers for Christ" hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers. The packages were put together by a fundamentalist Christian ministry called Operation Straight Up,...

Startling.

Jack Kinsella - Commentary The Omega Letter Hating Christ . . . I was reading the comments posted by readers of the Huffington Post in response to a column posted by Max Blumenthal about the "Christians United For Israel Tour" Washington summit meeting, hosted by San Antonio pastor John Hagee... The column was entitled, "Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United For Israel Tour." Blumenthal's column fairly dripped with hate for Christians in particular, but reserving some for Jews who collaborate with them. "CUFI has added the grassroots muscle of the Christian right to the already potent Israel lobby. Hagee and...

A black dustman has been banned from wearing a St George's Cross bandana because council officials say it could be regarded as racist. ST GEORGE'S CROSS Matthew Carter, 35, who was born in Barbados, used the headgear to keep his dreadlocks out of the way while he was on his rounds in Burnley, Lancs. He had done so for seven months before his photograph appeared in a local newspaper. A number of local people complained, and his superiors called him. "I received a verbal warning," Mr Carter said yesterday. "They told me the St George's Cross was not allowed to...

From Nigeria to Indonesia, Christians are under siege in virtually every single country in the Muslim world, the victims of countless acts of discrimination, depredation, brutality, and murder that are so widespread and systematic that it can rightfully be called the new Holocaust. This time, however, the perpetrators of this Holocaust aren't wearing swastikas, but kufi skull caps and hijabs. Some of the oldest Christian communities in the world are subject to relentless attack and teeter on the brink of extinction at the hands of the "Religion of Peace": Palestinian Christians in Gaza and the West Bank; Assyrian, Syriac and...

(Michael Crabtree/The Times) Lydia Playfoot, who says her school is discriminating against her for banning her from wearing a purity ring (Michael Crabtree/The Times) The ring that Millais School banned Lydia Playfoot from wearing A teenage girl who was banned by her school from wearing a "purity ring" is taking her case to the High Court today. Lydia Playfoot, 16, is a member of a Christian group called the Silver Ring Thing and one of a number of students at the Millais School in Horsham, West Sussex, who wears a silver ring engraved with a Biblical reference — "1...

For almost 70 years, Scouts and Guides have savoured their place of peaceful worship under the trees. But no longer. The woodland chapel has been demolished - its wooden pews and rudimentary cross and altar removed. In its place is a campfire circle. The change has been imposed by the Scout Association, which believes the chapel excludes non-Christian Scouts. Locals are dismayed, but the association says it is simply "moving forward". The basic open-air structure in woodland surrounding Belchamps Scout Centre in Hockley, Essex, was built between the wars by volunteers. They used old telegraph poles for pews and built...

The college head thinks 95% of us are going to burn in hell. His new deputy believes it’s wrong for women to teach men. Insiders are complaining about an “openly homophobic” atmosphere. A third of the academic staff have resigned. Others are unwilling to speak openly because they fear disciplinary action. Is this perhaps the notorious Bob Jones University in South Carolina, where rock music and cellphones are banned, where men must have short hair and where women can’t wear trousers to class? No. Welcome to the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. Strictly speaking Wycliffe Hall is a permanent private...

One thing we can generally predict about human behavior is that when people are unhappy, they go on the hunt for someone to blame. Taking a lot of heat for today's discontents is the so-called "religious right." Just consider books, some hot sellers, of recent years: Jim Wallis' "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It"; "How the Republicans Stole Religion: Why the Religious Right is Wrong About Faith & Politics and What We Can Do to Make It Right" by Bill Press; and, more recently, Victor Gold's "Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How...

C.S. Lewis, the former atheist and famous Oxford scholar, once said "Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning...." There are a myriad of eminent scholars (like Lewis) who understand the folly of atheism. I will list a few others in this second part of my treatise to expose atheists' agenda to ban Christianity from the courts of culture. In my last article I discussed "step 1" of their plan. In this discourse I will address steps 2 & 3. Step two: target...

In many of his talks to Liberty University students, the Rev. Jerry Falwell emphasized the importance of "finishing well." On Tuesday, May 18, he was at the top of his game when he unexpectedly died in the college office where he was planning more expansions of the fast-growing university that he founded in 1971. The Rev. Falwell did a lot of things well, ticking off leftists right up to the end. How else would he have garnered the kind of tribute from a major newspaper's religion writer that was headlined, "Sigh of relief over Falwell death." To make sure no...

Freedom from religion is a delusional fantasy shared by atheists, liberals, and the varied collection of First Amendment interpreters, who see in it a prescription for religious sterility. Membership in one of these camps is required; otherwise, any individual would recognize the absurdity of stretching and molding the words of the amendment, like so much silly putty. The collective effort of these people does not strengthen their argument, but rather, masks the fallaciousness behind a deafening roar of monotonous repetition. Honestly, can one really look at these words, and come away skewered between the eyes with the question mark of...

ROOT OF ALL EVIL? THE God Delusion - based on Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion - is the best documentary I've ever seen. And, I imagine, will ever see. No jokes. No smart-arse cracks. No witty asides. Dawkins is a scientist and passionate atheist who has produced a stunning, thoroughly researched and expertly executed work that flatly denies the existence of God and illustrates what a destructive force religion is. Even in its mildest form. This provocative and entertaining ride will have some believers coming out the other end as atheists. And every Bible basher, Torah toter and Koran...

Lawsuit seeks restoration of traditional American slogans in classroom. A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of a veteran California teacher whose school officials ordered him to remove several banners carrying slogans from American history, such as "In God We Trust."

The headline read, "New Jersey School Stages Practice Hostage Drill - Portrays Killers as Fundamentalist Christians." This was not something out of a Michael Moore movie. It was, according to news reports, a real-time drill staged to prepare local agencies to handle another Columbine. That, you will remember, is when two students shot up their local high school outside Denver, Colorado, in 1999, killing 13 people and wounding 24 others. Burlington School Superintendent Chris Manno praised the New Jersey drill, saying, "You perform as you practice. We need to practice under conditions as real as possible in order to evaluate...

Écrasez l’Infâme The Persistence of Christophobia by Tom Piatak Imagine a magazine that argued that the central symbol of Judaism was inextricably bound up with monstrous evil, claimed Judaism’s holy writings were lies, criticized what Jews believe and demanded they change their beliefs, attacked Judaism’s most important holidays, asserted that Judaism was directly responsible for one of the most horrific slaughters in history—and declared that anyone who questioned Judaism’s responsibility for that great crime was a liar or a bigot. An impartial observer would be forced to conclude that such a magazine harbored an animus against Judaism. It is difficult...

Once I accepted an invitation to give the benediction at the graduation of the Medical University of South Carolina. I was delighted that a school like MUSC was still willing to invoke the Name of God and ask his blessings on those who are to be sent out into the world to practice the work that the school has trained them to do. Having driven past the university’s beautiful St. Luke’s Chapel (named after St. Luke, the evangelist and physician) hundreds of times, I began to consider what words might be fitting for these medical students. I sat at my...

HomeU.S.BusinessWorldEntertainmentSportsTechPoliticsElectionsScienceHealthMost Popular Secondary Navigation Local News Education Religion Politics Crimes and Trials Search: All News Yahoo! News Only News Photos Video/Audio Advanced -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Religious group attacks religion in U.S. healthcare By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor Tue Apr 24, 6:11 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A coalition of religious leaders took on the Catholic Church, the U.S. Supreme Court and the Bush administration on Tuesday with a plea to take religion out of health care in the United States. ADVERTISEMENT They said last week's Supreme Court decision outlawing a certain type of abortion demonstrated that religious belief was interfering...