Free Republic

Agnostic attorney Clarence Darrow once said, "I don‘t believe in God, because I don’t believe in Mother Goose." Now those controversial words and others are being used in part of a new push to promote the thinking of atheists and agnostics. Dozens of new ads will target the people of San Francisco. The campaign is the brainchild of the Midwest-based Freedom from Religion Foundation, which represents some 14,000 nonbelievers across the country. The association has been working since 1978 to keep church and state separate. The ads are already popping up on city buses. The group ordered 75 exterior signs...

Do you believe in God? Really? And you're willing to admit it in public? Oops. Sorry, for a moment I slipped back into the arrogant Atheism of my youth. Before my parents had children, they decided to raise their kids in a secular home. We had gifts at Christmas time and chocolate covered matzoh during Passover, but there was no religion and certainly no God. When I was in grade school, God was just a kind of nondescript character who popped up in Little House on the Prairie books from time to time. He seemed like a decent enough fellow,...

Texas Evolution Lobby Making Power Grabs to Promote Their Censorship Agenda A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article from last month, “Education Board in Texas Faces Curbs,” revealed how the Texas evolution-lobby has been seeking to use both censorship and power grabs to promote their agenda. First, they sought to censor from Texas students any instruction on scientific weaknesses in evolution. Having lost that fight before the Texas State Board of Education (TSBOE), they have tried to use other tactics to punish the board for adopting science standards that teach evolution objectively, or to grab power away from the democratically elected...

Religion-Free Group Says to 'Praise Darwin' by Christine Dao* How much sense does this make? An organization that bills itself as a promoter of “freedom from religion” posted billboards bearing the words “Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief” in several U.S. cities to coincide with the British naturalist’s 200th birthday. Cities where the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) placed the advertisements include Dayton, Tennessee, and Dover, Pennsylvania—homes of the 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial” and the highly politicized 2005 Dover Trial, respectively. The Wisconsin-based foundation, which put up a Grinch-like sign next to a nativity scene in the Washington State Capitol during...

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. – On the day Muslims around the world began to celebrate Eid al-Adha, Fatuma Mohamed was at the Mall of America (MOA), far away from where she would normally say her prayers. But she and other Muslims needed to take time from the activities of the mall and find a quiet area to pray as Muslims do during the festival that commemorates Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his only son for God. “I said my prayer right at that corner,” Mohamed said, pointing to the spot. Another Muslim, Amran Ali, did the same. “I had to say my prayer...

Because "public life" now entails virtually every part of our lives, erasing references to God entirely from public life means virtually eliminating them from America. Imagine, if you will, a gala birthday party given in your honor. The guests will sing, dance, give presents, eat, drink, and have the merriest of times. The hitch: your name will not be mentioned, the gifts will not be for you, the celebrants won't be thinking about you, and everyone would sort of prefer that you not come. That's all that will be left of Christmas if various groups have their way. All across...

Just in time for the Christmas season, Washington State Gov. Christine Gregoire has insulted Christians all over the world. Inside the state Capitol building in Olympia there is a traditional holiday display featuring a tree and the Nativity scene; perfectly appropriate since the federal and state Christmas holiday celebrates the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. But this year Gregoire decided to add another item to the display. Standing alongside the baby Jesus is a giant placard designed by atheists that reads: "There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion...

(CNN) -- An atheist sign criticizing Christianity that was erected alongside a Nativity scene was taken from the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, on Friday and later found in a ditch. An employee from country radio station KMPS-FM in Seattle told CNN the sign was dropped off at the station by someone who found it in a ditch.

Dan Barker of the Freedom from Religion Foundation on December 1, 2008's Fox & Friends stated that the nativity scene represented 'hate speech' and 'a direct attack on good human values.'

...Religion is such a huge part of life for many people that it cannot be ignored even while they are at work. "What motivates a lot of people is closely related to their faith," says Joe Lewis, secretary of the Ford Interfaith Network (FIN) at Ford Motor Co. "It gives them a lot of energy and inspiration, and for some people, it's already the foundation of their moral activity, and you certainly want people to act morally in the workplace. So to keep it out means that instead of bringing the whole of the employee and the best of the...

A pagan priestess runs into the president of the atheists in a phone booth in New York. No, it’s not a joke — it’s the start of a controversial report from National Public Radio — and your tax dollars may have paid for it. New York City officials this fall launched an art project called “Public Prayer Booth,” which features a modified phone booth rigged up with a flip-down kneeler. Passers-by, if they’re in the mood, can bend to their (padded) knee and say a prayer — a private moment in a very public atmosphere. To cover the story, NPR...

Rancho Cucamonga, CA (AP) -- Atheists and agnostics now have a San Bernardino County billboard embracing Godlessness. The "Imagine No Religion" billboard in Rancho Cucamonga was put up by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which advocates separation of church and state. The 12,000-member Madison, Wis.-based group now has billboards in nine states that include such messages as "Reasons Greetings" and "Beware of Dogma."

The atheist Freedom from Religion Foundation has taken its anti-faith message to Denver, the site of the Democratic National Convention. Their "Imagine No Religion" sign demands Denver residents and Democratic Party officials preparing for the convention to envision an America without people who believe in God. In response, Bishop Council Nedd, chairman of the In God We Trust has asked Senator Barack Obama to condemn the sign's message. The Freedom from Religion Foundation President, Dan Barker, has called Christianity "and enemy to humanity" and "the antithesis of freedom." In his letter to Senator Obama Nedd states, "By placing their billboard...

Christian kids are typically sent to Sunday school for lessons on the Bible and morals. For nonbelievers, there's atheist Sunday school. With an estimated 14 percent of Americans professing to have no religion, according to the Institute for Humanist Studies, some are choosing to send their children to classes that teach ethics without religious belief. Bri Kneisley sent her 10-year-old son, Damian, to Camp Quest Ohio this past summer after a neighbor had shown him the Bible. "Damian was quite certain this guy was right and was telling him this amazing truth that I had never shared," said Kneisley, who...

The National Park Service has banished God from a key display of America's Christian heritage in Washington, and a California pastor who regularly leads teams of visitors to see markers of the nation's religious history wants Him restored. The reference is an engraving of "LAUS DEO," which is Latin for "Praise be to God," and is on the east side of the 100-ounce aluminum cap of the Washington Monument. Since the actual inscription on the cap, which on the other three sides provides other information, is unviewable atop the 555-foot stone column, the National Park Service has created a replica,...

A group of young Muslim apostates launches a campaign today, the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America, to make it easier to renounce Islam. The provocative move reflects a growing rift between traditionalists and a younger generation raised on a diet of Dutch tolerance. The Committee for Ex-Muslims promises to campaign for freedom of religion but has already upset the Islamic and political Establishments for stirring tensions among the million-strong Muslim community in the Netherlands. Ehsan Jami, the committee’s founder, who rejected Islam after the attack on the twin towers in 2001, has become the most talked-about public figure...

As the deadline nears to decide what image will grace the back of Oklahoma's state quarter, several Oklahomans have taken exception with what won't be on the proposed coins. Four of the five final designs for the Oklahoma quarter include visual references to Ponca City's Pioneer Woman, a 30-foot-tall bronze statue depicting a stoic young mother, her son's hand firmly grasped in her left hand, a Bible in her right hand. However, on all four quarter designs, the Pioneer Woman's Bible is not included. Guidelines posted on the U.S. Mint's Web site say "inappropriate" designs for the quarters include logos...

See for example this thread first. A chapel with nary a cross? At this college, that's not a loss! "Returned on request" (Muslims won't feel oppressed) Makes you wonder just who is the boss!

Amber Mangum was a frequent reader during lunch breaks at her Prince George's County middle school, silently soaking up the adventures of Harry Potter and other tales in the spare minutes before afternoon classes. The habit was never viewed as a problem -- not, a lawsuit alleges, until the book she was reading was the Bible. A vice principal at Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School in Laurel last month ordered Amber, then 12, to stop reading the Bible or face punishment, according to a lawsuit filed Friday by Amber's mother. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, alleges...

(AgapePress) - The United States Supreme Court may hear a case involving a school district's censorship of an art poster that a kindergartener drew for a school assignment -- a drawing that was partly suppressed by school officials because it contained the child's depiction of Jesus.The case involves Antonio Peck, who was a kindergarten student in the late 1990s at Baldwinsville Elementary School in Syracuse, New York. The boy's teacher told members of the class to draw posters illustrating their understanding of the environment. Antonio's poster featured children holding hands and encircling the globe and people picking up trash and...

WASHINGTON (BP)--Indiana’s John Hostettler is trying for the fifth consecutive Congress to prevent the American Civil Liberties Union from receiving government funds when it succeeds at legal challenges to public expressions of religion. This year, the Republican representative has more hope than before thanks to the American Legion. The country’s largest veterans organization, with about three million members, has aggressively thrown its influence behind Hostettler’s bill, and the persistent congressman is encouraged at his proposal’s prospects. Hostettler’s measure, the Public Expression of Religion Act (PERA), H.R. 2679, is designed to close what he considers a loophole in federal law that...

RICHMOND -- A federal judge has ruled that a southeastern Virginia school district didn't violate a teacher's free-speech rights by removing Christian-themed postings from his classroom walls. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith rejected arguments that York County school officials deprived William Lee of his First Amendment rights when they ordered the removal of postings that included articles about President Bush's religious faith and John Ashcroft's prayer meetings with his staffers when he was attorney general. "This case is not about what free-speech rights Lee has as an individual expressing himself on private property," Judge Smith wrote in her opinion...

Biologists are beginning to solve the riddles on which intelligent-design advocates have relied To advocates of intelligent design, the human sperm's tiny tail bears potent evidence that Charles Darwin was wrong--it is, they say, a molecular machine so complex that only God could have produced it. But biologists now are starting to piece together how such intricate bits of biochemistry evolved. Although the basic research was not meant as a response to intelligent design, it is unraveling the very riddles that proponents said could not be solved. In contrast, intelligent design advocates admit they still lack any way of using...

Competing Designs Tuesday's ruling by a federal judge in Pennsylvania, disparaging intelligent design as a religion-based and therefore false science, raises an important question: If ID is bogus because many of its theorists have religious beliefs to which the controversial critique of Darwinism lends support, then what should we say about Darwinism itself? After all, many proponents of Darwinian evolution have philosophical beliefs to which Darwin lends support. "We conclude that the religious nature of Intelligent Design would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child," wrote Judge John E. Jones III in his decision, Kitzmiller v. Dover,...

Tuesday's ruling by a federal judge in Pennsylvania, disparaging intelligent design as a religion-based and therefore false science, raises an important question: If ID is bogus because many of its theorists have religious beliefs to which the controversial critique of Darwinism lends support, then what should we say about Darwinism itself? After all, many proponents of Darwinian evolution have philosophical beliefs to which Darwin lends support."We conclude that the religious nature of Intelligent Design would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child," wrote Judge John E. Jones III in his decision, Kitzmiller v. Dover, which rules that...

Many people view the ACLU as anti-Christian (Anti-Christian Lawyers Union, etc). With all the cases they take beating away any symbol of Jesus in the public square, it's hard to think they AREN'T anti-Christian. As the new symbol of Los Angeles shows, they don't seem to have a problem with other religions, just Christianity it appears. The question is, are they really anti-Christian? The ACLU says they are the guardian of liberty who works to defend and preserve individual rights. However, they are less fighting for something than fighting against something. They fight against intelligent design and abstinence education not...

ACLU, atheist in 16-year battle to remove it The San Diego City Council voted this week to allow voters to decide the fate of the historic Mt. Soledad Cross overlooking the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla. The vote represented the newest chapter in a long line of legal battles to remove the cross, led by ACLU attorney James McElroy, who represents an atheist seeking to remove the Christian symbol from public lands.

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan (Reuters) -- A group of Afghan Muslim clerics have threatened to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it hands over military interrogators reported to have desecrated the Quran. The warning on Sunday came after 16 Afghans were killed and more than 100 hurt last week in the worst anti-U.S. protests across the country since U.S. forces invaded in 2001 to oust the Taliban for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network. The clerics in the northeastern province of Badakhshan said they wanted U.S. President George W. Bush to handle...

“In fact, the breadth and extent of the anti-evolutionary movement that has spread almost unnoticed across the country should force American politicians to think twice about how their public expressions of religious belief are beginning to affect education and science. The deeply religious nature of the United States should not be allowed to stand in the way of the thirst for knowledge or the pursuit of science. Once it does, it won’t be long before the American scientific community—which already has trouble finding enough young Americans to fill its graduate schools—ceases to lead the world.” That is the editorial voice...

. FReeper help needed: To help promote FReeper AnnaZ's BRAND NEW SaveOurSeal.net video, I need some ONLINE images of the Taliban blowing up those Buddha statues. Some time VERY SOON, AnnaZ will be releasing a BRAND NEW short video,which will open with VIDEO images of their destruction by Muslim fanatics.This new video will be about the ACLU fanatics who recently forced Los Angeles County to remove a tiny cross from their official County Seal, and how this ANTI-religious fervor is much more DANGEROUS, and much more WIDESPREAD than some might think. I would like to use something like THESE images,...

This was not the mother’s first trip to her child’s classroom, where parents regularly volunteered to lead story time. Because it coincided with the holiday season, she thought the ideal story to tell would be the original Christmas story that began nearly 2,000 years ago. But she remembered the memo. Sent weeks earlier, it was a stern reminder by the school principal that children in public schools could not celebrate Christmas. The sensitive kindergarten teacher added in her own handwriting, “It’s that old ‘separation of church and state’ thing.”

Saturday after Thanksgiving is the traditional day to purchase stamps for my annual Christmas card mailing... [snip] So, shortly before noon on that most recent post-turkey day, I sauntered into a neighborhood "U.S. Postal Store," [snip] and headed for the stamps-only section. I quickly found a packed wall of display racks offering a panoply of first-class postage devoted to the various elements of the year-end holiday season, specifically: 1) Christmas, featuring colorful, contemporary designs of Santa Claus with an array of inanimate, secular Yule symbols; 2) Kwanzaa, with not just one but two stamps promoting a totally fabricated "harvest holiday"...

CHRISTMAS IS NOT THE TARGET: Much has been written and discussed in talk radio and on the internet this holiday season as to why certain decisions are being made when it comes to certain symbols of Christmas. I have seen or heard stories along these lines on all of the following topics just in the past 24 hours... 1. TARGET vs. Salvation Army 2. Macys banning "Merry Christmas" 3. Bloomingdales banning "Merry Christmas" 4. The Denver Parade of Lights banning "Christmas" floats 5. Maplewood Schools in New Jersey banning all Christmas and Hannukah music from its Winter Concert. 6. Bloomberg proclaiming the NYC no longer...

Just in time for Christmas, America's two largest news magazines devote this week's cover stories to debunking the story of Jesus' birth. Among the conclusions in Time and Newsweek: Jesus was born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem; there is little evidence of three kings following a star, and the story of the virgin birth may have been borrowed. "The Nativity saga is neither fully fanciful nor fully factual but a layered narrative of early tradition and enduring theology," Newsweek writes in examining the Sunday-school version of the birth of Christ. This may be unwelcome "news" to most Americans. A Newsweek poll...

TARGET THE GRINCH:And the beat goes on... According to this morning's USA Today, Target Inc.  is sticking to its plan to kick the Salvation Army to the curb throughout this holiday season. For those of you late to this story, Target stores had long allowed the Salvation Army to be the only charity that raised funds outside their stores using their famous red kettles and the cheerful sound of Christmas Bells. This year the good will from the red bulls-eye came to an end.  According to the USA Today the impact will leave the Salvation Army short about 9 million dollars...

Two dozen San Francisco schoolkids sporting white turtlenecks and Santa hats got a very un-Christmaslike civics lesson the other day when they showed up at Union Square hoping to delight Christmas shoppers with holiday carols. "They just wanted to set up next to the Christmas tree and sing,'' said Donna Vargas, one of the parents who escorted the fifth- and sixth-graders from San Francisco Day School on Friday's outing. Instead, they got the boot. Seems they didn't have a city permit -- so after a brief run-in with the park's security, the kids were shooed away. "How can children not...

Denver's holiday traditions include a Christmas Parade and the lighting of the City and County Building in downtown Denver.Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper recently announced that the phrase "MERRY CHRISTMAS" on the outside of the building will be changed to "HAPPY HOLIDAYS," in yet another politically correct attack on the institution of Christmas. And while they're at it, the city is stopping a church group from participating in the annual "Parade of Lights", and singing Christmas Carols.Parade organizers claim that Christmas Carols may be offensive to some people....a church group who wants to march in the Parade of Lights and sing...

HOLIDAY BLUES Christmastime event is no-Christian zone Santa, 'holy homosexuals' OK for parade, but no floats with direct religious themes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: December 2, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Joe Kovacs © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com In the latest skirmish over Christmas in America, a Christian group is not allowed to participate in Denver's annual Parade of Lights, because church members sought to sing yuletide hymns and proclaim a "Merry Christmas" message on their float. However, the event, now in its 30th year, will include homosexual American Indians, Kung Fu artisans, belly dancers and, of course, Santa Claus. "I think there's an...

MY CHRISTMAS CRUSADE  By Michelle Malkin   ·   December 02, 2004 02:36 AM The persecution never ends. Denver has launched war against a church group that wanted to march in the city's Christmas parade "Parade of Lights." (I hate, hate, hate that p.c. euphemism.)From the Denver Post: Parade Organizers Say Christmas Carols May Be Offensive To Others Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper recently announced that next year the phrase "Merry Christmas" will be removed from the city building and replaced with "Happy Holidays." And now a church group who wants to march in the Parade of Lights and sing Christmas carols...

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 Pull plug on ACLU Posted: November 30, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Joseph Farah © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com The American Civil Liberties Union, the misnamed, extremist persecutors of the Boy Scouts of America, claims to be fighting to end taxpayer support of religious groups. That was the excuse the ACLU used when it targeted the Boy Scouts use of military bases in a case in which the Pentagon caved into the neo-Talibanists of secular humanism. But the dirty little secret the ACLU doesn't want you to know is that it, too, received significant funding of its jihad against Judaism, Christianity...

Tonight on Special Report after the panel had weighed in on the pressing issues of the day, Brian Wilson had the closing "human interest" piece that concerned the National Christmas Tree. Now I understand that the P.C. title for this item is the National Holiday Tree and Wilson acknowledged as much, but he then stated "...but this is FOX and we don't care about P.C. so this is the Nations CHRISTMAS TREE". I about had a stroke! Congratulations to FOX for not caving in to the PC Police and calling it what it is. Merry Christmas everybody!

.S. District Judge Sim Lake ruled today that a Bible displayed in a monument outside the Harris County Civil Courts Building must be removed within 10 days and that the county must pay $41,000 in court costs and attorney fees. Real estate broker and attorney Kay Staley sued the county in federal court to have the monument removed, contending the display violates the First Amendment ban on an establishment of religion. The King James Bible rests under glass inside a 4-foot stone monument on the west side of the Civil Courthouse, 301 Fannin. The monument was constructed with private funds...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- President Bush, seeking to mobilize religious conservatives for his reelection campaign, has asked church-going volunteers to turn over church membership directories, campaign officials said on Thursday. In a move sharply criticized both by religious leaders and civil libertarians, the Bush-Cheney campaign has issued a guide listing about two-dozen "duties" and a series of deadlines for organizing support among conservative church congregations. A copy of the guide obtained by Reuters directs religious volunteers to send church directories to state campaign committees, identify new churches that can be organized by the Bush campaign and talk to clergy members about...

Not content with slandering Mel Gibson, the Bible, and Jesus Christ, the media elite are now gearing up to slander even more religious and political figures who profess Jesus Christ as their divine savior. For example, according to the April 5 issue of VARIETY, Harry and Linda Thomason, two of former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary’s buddies in Hollywood, are making a movie that will slam those Christians and Republicans who helped the GOP gain control of the United States Congress and stymie the radical liberal, atheist agenda of the Clintons and their supporters. Furthermore, radical maniac Michael...

WASHINGTON - A California atheist told the Supreme Court Wednesday that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance are unconstitutional and offensive to people who don't believe there is a God. Michael Newdow, who challenged the Pledge of Allegiance on behalf of his daughter, said the court has no choice but to keep it out of public schools. "It's indoctrinating children," he said. "The government is supposed to stay out of religion." But some justices said they were not sure if the words were intended to unite the country, or express religion. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist noted...

Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry is not sure God is on America's side in the war terrorism. Kerry made the startling comments during the Feb 29 Democrat presidential primary debate in New York City. Elizabeth Bumiller of the New York Times asked Kerry: "President Bush has said that freedom and fear have always been at war, and God is not neutral between them. He's made quite clear in his speeches that he feels God is on America's side. "Is God on America's side?" Kerry replied, "Well, God will -- look, I think -- I believe in God, but I don't...

<p>Kindergartners and first-graders may not distribute to their classmates gifts that bear a religious message, according to a ruling by a federal appeals court.</p> <p>The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of a New Jersey elementary school in forbidding a boy from giving out pencils with the message "Jesus loves the little children" with a heart symbol substituted for the word love.</p>

Atheist center’s fence is blasphemy in town By SUSAN EVANS, TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT NORTHERN CAMBRIA BUREAU August 31, 2003 GALLITZIN – Lorie Polansky views her new fence as a way of keeping out vandals who already have desecrated her building with foul materials. Local officials view the fence as illegally built, with a corner intruding on a borough road. They’ve issued a citation and are threatening further legal action. Bank officials next door to Polansky decline to complain publicly, but privately say they are unhappy with the fence being so close to their drive-in window. It seems there’s no mending of fences...

-snip- Judge Roy Moore, the publicity-seeker who put the 2.5-ton Ten Commandments in the Alabama state courthouse, declared Monday that he could disobey the direct order of a federal judge because "judges do not make laws, they interpret them." Since, Moore continued, an interpretation can be wrong, therefore he may defy a judicial order. So presumably Judge Moore also thinks that if he sentences a man to prison, the man can declare that the interpretation might be wrong and walk free? It's exactly the same logic. Moore further said that the First Amendment precept, "Congress shall make no law respecting...

With regard to today's refusal to hear the case against Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, the court has at least delayed a legal decision about defacing its own hallowed halls.It is likely well-known to the justices that the East Pediment of the Supreme Court showcases the image of Moses bearing the two tablets upon which the 10 Commandments are enscribed. In fact, Moses is front and center and indeed the largest figure in the entire sculpture.Ironically, the Chief Justice's offices are immediately behind this portico.Moses center stage on the USSC East Pediment, brandishing his illegal "Ten Commandments."The sculpture, "Justice the...