Free Republic

In the past few years, the number of affiliated student secular organizations has increased more than threefold This month at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a select group of students will show their humanitarian spirit by participating in the Bleedin’ Heathens Blood Drive. On February 12, they will eat cake to celebrate Darwin Day, and earlier this year, they performed “de-baptism” ceremonies to celebrate Blasphemy Day, attended a War on Christmas Party, and set up Hug An Atheist and Ask An Atheist booths in the campus quad. These activities and more are organized by the Illini Secular Student Alliance...

CINCINNATI – A portrait of Jesus that hangs prominently in an entranceway at a rural Ohio public school is in violation of the U.S. Constitution and should be removed, a federal lawsuit filed Thursday says. The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation say the large portrait at Jackson Middle School unconstitutionally promotes religion. The two groups seek a court order requiring the school to remove the portrait and prohibiting its re-hanging or any substantially similar display in the future.

Three Wilmington churches were struck by graffiti vandals early Saturday morning, police said. The vandals stenciled the words "brain washed" on statues, exterior walls, doors and stairs, according to the Rev. Philip Early, pastor of Saint Thomas of Villinova and Saint Dorothy's Catholic churches. A nearby Congregational church was also damaged. Early said, "Acting out accomplishes nothing." The graffiti was discovered early Saturday morning as several funerals were about to get underway.

NBC's sitcom "The New Normal" isn't just trying to remake society for the Gay Left. It's trying to remake Christianity, which is to say, destroy it. For its October 22 episode, "The Godparent Trap," NBC ran promos with the gay character Brian in the confessional, and the priest sneering, "If you're not going to take this seriously, I'm going to go back to playing Angry Birds." As the plot unfolds, we're told Brian was raised Catholic, and as he sits in a pew and looks around at religious pictures, he cracks gay jokes in his mind. He sees the Apostles:...

[UK] THIS is the chilling note that threatens to “kill Christians” left by a drifter weeks before he stabbed a vicar to death. Stephen Farrow, 48, pinned the note to a table with two knives during a burglary. It read: “Be thankful you did not come back or we would have killed you Christian scum. I f****** hate God.” He later knifed Reverend John Suddards, 59, in his vicarage in Thornbury, Gloucs, before carefully positioning a picture of Christ, a Bible, gay porn, condoms and party streamers around his body, a court heard.

Dr Rowan Williams is retiring as the Archbishop of Canterbury to take up the post of Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. His “valedictory” book, Faith in the Public Square, is attracting considerable media interest. I was prompted to buy it after reading Dr William Oddie’s particularly colorful review in the London Catholic Herald. Oddie concluded that the ideas promoted in the book are the sort of impractical nonsense one only hears on Oxbridge high tables and in senior common rooms. I have never met Dr Williams but I once quoted him in a paper I delivered in Italy, a short...

My brother and I have been going back and forth over the last few years, his atheism has really taken a sharp curve into aggravating territory. I got this message from him, and I'm trying to let my anger subside before I respond. I'm curious what you would say:The only two things you should ever worry about getting married to each other are big government and big religion. While many are very vocally opposed to "redefining marriage" (even, though there are more than one definition of marriage if you bother to look in a dictionary) they don't realize that, in...

Chick-Fil-A came under criticism this month after a report by the organization Equality Matters revealed that the company donated around $2 million to antigay Christian organizations in 2010. “Guilty as charged,” the fast-food chain’s president Dan Cathy said over allegations that his company is antigay (“We are very much supportive of the family—the biblical definition of the family unit.”). So. Here we are. Tumblr, listen up. We’re hoping to find a current or former employee of Chick-Fil-A who might want to spill the beans on life inside the alleged antigay company. If that’s you, or you know someone who might...

Part of the hypocrisy of the "anti-bullying" movement is that the concept of bullying is never defined in a meaningful way. Evidently, bullying is one of those things that is defined by the "victim." Hence, we have the spectacle of the man who created the video "It Gets Better" can speak against the bullying of gay kids, but then turn around and bully kids with Christian beliefs - and get away with it. Fox News: As many as 100 high school students walked out of a national journalism conference after an anti-bullying speaker began cursing, attacked the Bible and reportedly...

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Arianne Gasser of Canton, Ohio, is proud to call herself a graduate student at a prestigious Catholic university, and she also is proud to call herself an atheist. The pride she has in her atheist status is part of what inspired her to travel from the Philadelphia area, where she is enrolled at Villanova University, to Washington in March to join thousands of other atheists, agnostics and other nonbelievers for the "Reason Rally," an event that was billed as an assembly to unify secular people nationwide. Carrying a sign that reads, "This is what an atheist looks...

CNSNews.com) – Shaun Casey, the religious affairs adviser to presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008, said at a discussion on Tuesday about “God and Politics” that the demise of religious society in the United States is a good thing. “I, frankly, am glad American civil religion is dying,” said Casey, who is an associate professor of Christian Ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. Casey made the remarks at an event focusing on religion and the 2012 presidential election at the liberal Center for American Progress where he was a panelist along with Gabriel Salguero, president of the National...

One of my superstar former students, writing about his experience at one of our nation's premier law schools, sent me a note after reading my MOJ post on marriage, religious liberty, and the "grand bargain." Here is the text, with names removed to protect the innocent: I had a first-hand experience with this reality in law school. One of my constitutional law professors taught the section of our course relating to same-sex marriage under the "inevitability" banner. I met with him in office hours later to talk to him about something else, but I brought up a question that I...

Gay Pressure on PayPal Named as Fourth Top Anti-Christian Act of 2011 Commentary by Julio Severo Americans were asked to name the top 10 Anti-Christian Acts of 2011 in the US, and the fourth place was given to the homosexual effort to close PayPal accounts from a list of ten Christian organizations, including me. For a long time I have been under attack from Brazilian gay activists. But this was the first time that an American gay group blacklists me with major Christian groups. Read the full article here: Top Anti-Christian Acts of 2011 Revealed The year 2011 saw plenty...

As you may have heard by now, San Francisco will be voting this November on whether or not to ban circumcision in the city. Defenders of the measure say it’s all about “human rights” and “protecting babies” from unnecessary procedures. But critics suspected there was something vaguely anti-Semitic about the whole proposal, since among Jews (and Muslims, as well) circumcising male babies is a religious duty, not just a mistaken medical procedure. Ban proponents insisted their proposal had nothing to do with Jews — really, it’s all about the rights of children. Well, any doubt that they were lying have...

A federal judge has ordered a Texas school district to prohibit public prayer at a high school graduation ceremony. Chief U.S. District Judge Fred Biery’s order against the Medina Valley Independent School District also forbids students from using specific religious words including “prayer” and “amen.” The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by Christa and Danny Schultz. Their son is among those scheduled to participate in Saturday’s graduation ceremony. The judge declared that the Schultz family and their son would “suffer irreparable harm” if anyone prayed at the ceremony. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said the school district...

There’s no page for Christophobia on Wikipedia. Uniquely, the “free encyclopedia” feels more comfortable with the milder term, Anti-Christian sentiment. As well, readers are informed: “This article is about negative attitudes towards Christians. For criticism of the doctrines and practices of Christianity, see Criticism of Christianity.” Just in case you didn’t know! Furthermore, the linked “criticism” looks, oddly enough, like anti-Christian mythology masquerading as history. Some would call this an example of Christophobia. The authors (leftwing Democrats in pajamas my guess) also list the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, and Israel as examples “of anti-Christian sentiment in politics and culture” as...

With less than two weeks before “Everybody Pray for Hitchens Day,” cancer-stricken Christopher Hitchens is encouraging believers to hold off on praying for him. “I don’t mean to be churlish about any kind intentions, but when September 20 comes, please do not trouble deaf heaven with your bootless cries,” the atheist author wrote in a first-person article for Vanity Fair’s October 2010 issue. “Unless, of course, it makes you feel better,” he added, echoing a past comment. Last month, in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Hitchens said he was well aware of the prayer groups that have formed since...

Kevin McKenna’s  review of 2010 in The Observer newspaper includes his assessment of Richard Dawkins behaviour during Pope Benedict’s visit to the UK:‘ The Pope’s visit was great but tinged with sadness because it reduced that once-great biologist Richard Dawkins to a rambling and wild-eyed madman hurling foam-flecked adolescent insults at the Roman holy man. I trust someone is giving the scientist his soup and caramelised biscuits as he recuperates. I even hear of a Richard Dawkins care fund. Could someone forward me the address?’Protect the Pope comment: Couldn’t agree more! It was a relief that the BBC cut away from...

Did you know that the English-speaking world is in the midst of an Atheistic revival? It is fueled by a small but widely celebrated group of authors and thinkers who call themselves “the Brights”, and who lecture, debate and write best-selling books which have a wide following among young college and University students. These are not your father’s atheists either. They are articulate, impassioned, and effective at the use of the media, and the internet. The “new Atheists” believe that the old atheists were too tolerant of religion, and not aggressive enough in their attacks upon it. To them, religion...

Let me start out by saying I'm an atheist. Am I absolutely sure there is no God, no supreme being looking over us? No, of course not. Contrary to some opinions, that doesn't make me agnostic. I hold the possibility of God to be so remote as to be inconsequential, but I don't for a moment think I possess all knowledge on the matter. I would also add that I am a hopeful atheist, not only confident in my lack of belief, but assured that it is ultimately the belief system most in the world will come to. When we...