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My father once told me a story about when he was a boy. He said there was a certain man who every now and again would visit his family and give him 10 cents for an ice cream soda each time. Well, one day this fellow came ‘a callin’, but for some reason, on this occasion the dime wasn’t offered. Being a little tyke who had become accustomed to the gift, my dad asked, “Where’s my 10 cents?” He never got that dime again. The man taught my father a moral lesson: Don’t develop a spirit of entitlement. It’s one...

Islamists seeking to define the character of Libya's tomorrow burst into the open Tuesday with charges that Libya's de facto prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, a US-educated political scientist, is "worse than Qaddafi." On Tuesday - just one day after Libya's rebel leaders tried to assuage mounting fears in Western capitals it may be dragged under by Islamic currents - Ali al- Salabi, a prominent Islamist scholar, denounced Jibril and his allies as "extreme secularists" who seek to enrich themselves via "the deal of a lifetime." The National Transitional Council (NTC), headed by Jibril, is trying to establish itself in the...

Terrorist proclaimed himself 'Darwinian,' not 'Christian' Norwegian's manifesto shows Breivik not religious, having no personal faith WASHINGTON – A review of Anders Behring Breivik's 1,500-page manifesto shows the media's quick characterization of the Norwegian terrorist as a "Christian" may be as incorrect as it was to call Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh one. Breivik was arrested over the weekend, charged with a pair of brutal attacks in and near Oslo, Norway, including a bombing in the capital city that killed 7 and a shooting spree at a youth political retreat on the island of Utoya that killed more than 80...

While most Israelis worry about a prospective demographic imbalance between Jews and Arabs in the Land of Israel, with demographers claiming that, under current trends, Arabs will eventually outnumber Jews in the country, Professor Arnon Sofer of Haifa University says that there is a more realistic demographic change afoot. And while the notion of Arab births eventually causing Jews to become a minority in the Land of Israel is by no means accepted by all demographers, the imbalance Sofer speaks of – that between the diminishing of the secular Israeli population in the State of Israel and the growth of...

God is not doing very well these days. Here are four reasons why: The first is that increasingly large numbers of men and women attend university, and Western universities have become essentially secular (and leftist) seminaries. Just as the agenda of traditional Christian and Jewish seminaries is to produce religious Christians and religious Jews, the agenda of Western universities is to produce (left-wing) secularists. The difference is that Christian and Jewish seminaries are honest about their agenda, while the universities still claim they have neither a secularist nor a political agenda. The more university education a person receives, the more...

It seems like the religion in the U.S. is a juggernaut that will be nigh unstoppable in the next decade or two. It's seemingly impossible to get elected without being openly and devoutly religious. George Bush claimed to receive divine commandments on how to perform his job. President Obama has made his church attendance receives plenty of attention too. Some question his sincerity, but no one questions that this is the politically smart thing to do. George Bush famously said that Islam is a religion of peace despite all the evidence to the contrary. 40% of U.S. citizens are strict...

In June 2010, the deepening rift between Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) unexpectedly came to the public eye when seventy-two retired ambassadors and consul-generals issued a written statement protesting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan's lack of respect in dubbing them "mon chers" and criticizing the government's foreign policy. Why did the prime minister publicly snub his diplomats? By way of answering this question, this article reviews the ongoing rift between ErdoÄŸan and his diplomats before carrying an English translation of the ambassadors' statement and interviews with two retired senior diplomats. ...

During a House Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called Egypt's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood movement "largely secular." In response to questioning from Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) about the threat posed by the group, Clapper suggested that the Egyptian part of the Brotherhood is not particularly extreme and that the broader international movement is hard to generalize about. "The term 'Muslim Brotherhood'...is an umbrella term for a variety of movements, in the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried Al Qaeda as a perversion of Islam,"...

A man with a low IQ has been banned from having sex by a High Court judge who admitted the case raised questions about “civil liberties and personal autonomy”. Under the judge's order, the man is now subject to 'close supervision' by the local authority to ensure he does not break the highly unusual order The 41 year-old had been in a relationship with a man whom he lived with and told officials “it would make me feel happy” for it to continue. But his local council decided his “vigorous sex drive” was inappropriate and that with an IQ of...

My last column did its job. I was trying to highlight some of the reasons why conservative Christians are reluctant to join in the struggle against global jihad. And this is a problem, because–apart from Muslims, the only groups who are having children and passing along their beliefs almost undiluted to the next generation are conservative Christians and ultra-orthodox Jews (Snip) To be sure, in countries rich and poor, under all forms of government, birth rates are declining across the globe. But they are declining least among those adhering to strict religious codes and literal belief in the Bible

For Christian parents and students, this should be a matter of deep concern and active awareness. The secularization of most educational institutions is an accomplished fact. Indeed, many college and university campuses are deeply antagonistic to Christian truth claims and the beliefs held by millions of students and their families. Furthermore, the leftist bent of most faculty is well-documented, especially in elite institutions and within the liberal arts faculties. On many campuses, a significant number of faculty members are representatives of what has been called the “adversary culture.” They see their role as political and ideological, and they define their...

Democrats are trying to impose a "secular-socialist machine" rejected by most Americans, an unapologetic Newt Gingrich said Sunday. The former House speaker described Democrats as "secular" because those in power in government are beset by a "relentless anti-religious bias"; "socialist" because the Obama administration wants to determine salaries, own corporations and provide health care; and a "machine" because the agenda is being pushed robotically without concern for people standing in the way.

<p>Ayad Allawi says he dreamed for years of two things -- toppling Saddam Hussein and establishing a democracy in Iraq. As an opposition leader and then interim prime minister, he helped achieve both goals. But as he prepares to leave office, Allawi worries that his country remains on the edge of a precipice.</p>

Today Conservatism in America - and in the world - is at the “Alamo” of its existence. As we shall see, there is no way that we as a nation - let alone a global society - can survive the devastating secular impact of the past 50 years. We are at the imploding point even now. The overall structure is ready to collapse by the overload of godlessness and decadence heaped upon it by the American people. The dam is about to burst, and the “lawlessness flood” of oppression, tyranny, global war and human catastrophe is soon to deluge the...

Faith is not the “opiate of the masses”. Karl Marx was dead wrong in his understanding of the true nature of faith and its purpose in the life of the believer. Although it is true that the world can seem like a “heartless world”, it is in this climate of disarray and suffering that our faith in God is vindicated. Faith by definition is, “hope of things not seen” and hope of “what is to come”. Faith would not be necessary in completely predictable circumstances, and even then, a measure of faith is required to act upon the notion that...

With blatant disregard for the first amendment, Republicans' intolerance of US secularism means things are turning uglyIf you're part of secular America – that is, if you're an atheist, an agnostic, a religious liberal or even a mainstream believer who thinks religion should be kept out of politics and vice-versa – then you should be very afraid of what the Republican party has in store for you in 2012. No news there, you might say. The Republicans, as we all know, have been in thrall to the Christian right since the Reagan era. But there's something new, something more intolerant,...

We should not be overly excited or deceived by the Scott Brown victory or any other conservative-moderate victories in 2010, however exciting as they might be. The true heart of the American people has NOT CHANGED for the better. It still is what it has always been over these last 50 years or so: licentious and haughty. Even now many conservatives have been subtly intoxicated and tainted by socialism, godlessness and the immoral practices of the Left (Jer. 6:16-17; Matt. 15:8, 18-20). For example, consider the Republican administration and congress of the last 8 years. Except for a core of...

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said Rush Limbaugh reached a new low with "borderline anti-Semitic comments" on his radio show, in which he raised the possibility that liberal Jews were having "buyer's remorse" with President Obama in light of the outcome of the Senate election in Massachusetts. Limbaugh told his listeners: "To some people, banker is a code word for Jewish; and guess who Obama is assaulting? He's assaulting bankers. He's assaulting money people. And a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish. So I wonder if there's – if there's starting to be some buyer's remorse there." Abraham...

writing teams of Texas teachers drafted the 2010 proposed standards...The writing teams had recommended the removal of Nathan Hale, Daniel Boone, and General George Patton; they eradicated Columbus Day, Martin Luther King Day, and Christmas (but they did add Diwali as a holiday). They also declared that to say there was "an American love of individualism, inventiveness, and freedom" was to express inappropriate "value language," and they also rejected the concept of identifying specific beliefs that contributed to ou "national identity."

LEBANON — “Silent Night” was not on the program at Pioneer School’s concert Tuesday, but it was sung anyway — by the audience after the kids were done. Shortly after the children started rehearsals this fall, Principal Mark Finch had scratched the number after a parent complained that the carol’s emphasis was “too single-religion.” Superintendent Rob Hess, in attendance Tuesday, said he didn’t see who started the carol but thought approximately 100 of the more than 700 people in the audience joined in. Sam Long, a Pioneer volunteer and the grandmother of a Pioneer student, said the only reaction following...

The county still has no approved Nativity scene or Christmas tree, more than a week after Loudoun's Board of Supervisors reversed a committee's decision to ban public displays. The supervisors will probably change that at a special meeting Thursday by ironing out details about who can set up displays...The meeting will be at 5:30 p.m. at the school administration building in Ashburn, an hour before a scheduled public input session on the budget. On Dec. 1, supervisors voted, 7 to 1, to allow community groups "equal access" to the grounds. A decision last month to bar any structures, religious or...

Life decisions are often made when we feel that we are at a crossroads where the decision to turn to the left or to the right seems as clear for us to make as it is to breathe. Yet what about those times when the decision is not quite as clear where the variables that we are weighing are as cloudy and murky as a morning fog? Usually that is the time where the weight is heavy on our soul that we have truly to come to a decision that shoves us out of our comfort zone and that demands...

To the surprise of the majority of Americans and the entire world, on 10/9/09 U.S. President Barak H. Obama was chosen to receive this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. It is no secret to any who follow politics or world events on the Right that the Nobel Peace Prize Foundation is an elitist, secular liberal body with a secular liberal utopian vision for the world and pushes a godless leftist agenda (Isaiah 30:1). The past recipients of this Award undoubtedy reveal this organization’s leftist leanings. All one has to do is to listen to President Obama’s acceptance speech today to understand...

In the comment section of a recent post, I drew some fire for making the following, apparently shocking claim: We [Americans] see America, from the Pilgrims who signed the Mayflower Compact to the Biblical scholars… who birthed the nation, to the spirit of sacrifice and charity that thrives to this very day, not as a nation of Christians (for that freedom is at the deepest core of our common philosophy) but as a Christian nation. It seems that there is a growing belief that because our Founders were stalwart advocates for religious liberty, and because some of them had very...

The National Health Care - Setting The Stage For The Anti - Christ The cry and mantra we’re now hearing from the Obama administration and the Leftist Secular controlled Democratic Party is that we have to have a National Health Care bill passed and in place before the beginning of the summer congressional recess. The urgency and subtlety of this bill is quite telling. Some common tactics used by the Left are camouflage, deception, manipulation, connivery and demagoguery to get the agenda that they want. It is the Left’s agenda with this issue - as well as many others -...

(IsraelNN.com) Activist secular group 'The Jerusalemites' complains that the women's prayer area in front of the Kotel (Western Wall) was reduced in size, and that men and women are separated in the external courtyard, are signs of the 'haredization' of the Kotel. A local Jerusalem weekly reported Friday that the group, which is represented by one member (out of 31) on the City Council, said it was forming an action group for "returning the Kotel to the general public as part of the struggle for the character of Jerusalem.'"

The percentage of people who claim no religion has nearly doubled since 1990. Meanwhile, the percentage of Christians is on the decline, according to a new study on American religious life. The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), released on Monday, shows that the percentage of Americans claiming no religion, which jumped from 8.2 percent in 1990 to 14.2 in 2001, has now increased to 15 percent. The findings were based on over 54,000 interviews conducted between February and November of last year. The 2008 survey was a continuation of ARIS surveys in 1990 and 2001, which are part of...

Authorities in San Francisco who called the beliefs of the Catholic Church "hateful," "callous," and an "insult," – and urged members to disobey them – have been given the go-ahead by a panel of judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to express such hate because it serves a "secular" purpose. "It is not a stretch to compare the San Francisco Board's actions to that of the Nazi Germany policy of 'Gleichschaltung:' vilifying Jews as an auxiliary to and laying the groundwork for more repressive policies, including the final solution of extermination," said Richard Thompson, the president and...

Hi Folks, proud black conservative Lloyd Marcus here. Years ago, I was outraged when a dear white friend said her son came home from middle school full of guilt for slavery. I thought, “Good grief, this kid was basically born yesterday. What on earth should he feel guilty about?” But, this is the liberal “white men are evil” and “America sucks” garbage he was being taught in school. Fast forward to today. My friend's son, “Jay”, not his real name, is a young man. He contacted me on Facebook. Jay wrote that my writings make him “scratch his head”, but...

Taking a semester off to travel and focus on writing isn't that unusual for a student at Brown University. But instead of studying comparative literature in Europe, Kevin Roose decided to go to Lynchburg, Va., and enroll at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. Roose passed himself off as an evangelical Christian to blend in with students at the school founded by the late Moral Majority leader. The experience led to a book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University.

Gallop recently released polling research which suggests the median proportion of residents worldwide who said religion is important in their daily lives is 82%. Not surprisingly, America's average was 65%, well below the worldwide average. What do these numbers mean, and how has America's declining religiosity affected it? http://conservativebrawler.blogspot.com/2009/02/implications-of-decline-in-american.html

Jewish students at the University of California, Berkeley, recently clashed over insensitive advertising for a Hillel-sponsored Valentine's Day event. The ad, which labeled a newlywed Orthodox couple as "scary," was originally posted on the Facebook social networking Web site, and generated a heated response. LIGHT-HEARTED, OR SHAMEFUL? This ad for 'speed friendship' on Valentine's Day drew sharply divided response. Hillel was attempting to attract students to a "speed friending" event in honor of the holiday. It was based on speed dating, a structured matchmaking process in which one meets many members of the opposite sex in a short period of...

'Silhouette City' Captures Essence of Christian Right as Supremacist Political Movement By Bruce Wilson It is the mark of a truly outstanding documentary that it can survive the test of a fast-changing political and religious landscape and remain relevant and even transcendent. There have been many superb documentaries in the last few years about religion and politics, but my own personal opinion is that Michael W. Wilson's Silhouette City stands above the pack, and for one overriding reason - Wilson's deep understanding of the dynamic in which the militant, militia-movement grounded Christian right of the 1980's has morphed into a...

It was billed as the first-ever "Muslim Heretics Conference." Provocative? To be sure. But when Sudanese-American scholar Abdullahi An-Naim organized it in Atlanta this April, what he really wanted to do was ignite some innovative thinking – brainstorm the predicament of traditional Islam in the modern world. "I deliberately wanted to shock people into seeing `heresy' as a creative force," he laughs. Naim may describe himself as a Muslim heretic (his conservative critics certainly do), but his peers in academia prefer the rather more admiring designation of public intellectual. Either way, the Emory University law professor has become famous throughout...

Turkey's parliamentary speaker on Saturday proposed a new constitution and re-establishment of an upper house of parliament, apparently with the aim of reducing the power of the country's top court. The Constitutional Court infuriated the Islamic-oriented government on Thursday by rejecting legislation that would have lifted a ban on Muslim headscarves in universities. It said the move would violate Turkey's secular principles. Speaker Koksal Toptan, speaking in a hall at the parliament, said re-installing the upper house, or Senate, would remove what he called "the pressure on the court." The Senate was abolished after Turkey's 1980 military coup on the...

Turkey's ruling AK party appeared to move a step closer to being shut down on Thursday when the Constitutional Court overturned a reform that would have allowed women to wear Islamic headscarves in universities. The headscarf amendment plays a central role in a separate, crucial case that seeks to outlaw the AK Party for anti-secular activities, and ban 71 members, including the prime minister and president, from belonging to a political party for five years. "This guarantees the closure of the party. I don't think we can talk of any calm before full chaos," said Cengiz Aktar, a political scientist...

(IsraelNN.com) President Shimon Peres said recently that he hoped to reconcile the secular and religious communities in Israel in honor of the state’s 60th Independence Day. “There is no Israeliness without Judaism,” he said, according to the weekly paper Mishpacha. Peres denounced scorn for religious and hareidi-religious Jews, saying, “There is no place for condescension, derision, or mockery.” Peres said just weeks earlier that secular Israelis “must stop treating the ultra-Orthodox public with contempt.” In addition, he called on the secular community to “return to our roots” by studying the Torah.

A reliable GOP aide informs Townhall that Senate Democrats are blocking a measure to commend Pope Benedict XVI because of “controversial” religious language used in the text of the resolution.a,pa. The Pope arrived in Washington Wednesday for a six-day visit to the United States. He delivered an address on the White House South Lawn that morning to praise the America for preserving religious freedom at home and abroad. The Senate has so far refrained from passing a similar resolution because at least one Senate Democrat is objecting to the following statements contained in the Senate’s resolution to welcome the Pope:...

Pakistan secular win 'will aid war on terror' By Isambard Wilkinson in Peshawar Last Updated: 1:41am GMT 26/02/2008 A victory for secular parties over an Islamic alliance in Pakistan's frontier province will significantly aid the United States-led war on terrorism, according to a senior western diplomat. Asfandyar Wali Khan, the chief of the ANP Secular parties swept last week's polls in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) as the electorate rejected violence and extremism in an area where pro-Taliban and al-Qa'eda forces have taken root. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of six Islamic parties that scored a landslide victory...

I am a practising Christian, but lately I've been giving serious thought to becoming a secular progressive. The advantages of adopting this popular mindset are becoming more attractive every day. Consider: As a Christian, one does the right thing, even when no one is looking. As a progressive, I can get public recognition, peer approval and moral points for my intentions. No need to actually do any heavy lifting. Very cool. As a secular progressive I won't have to worry about guilt or wrestle with moral dilemmas. I can now cheat on my mate and remain guilt free by merely...

The rapid and drastic process of secularization in western Europe over the last decades has not diminished the continuing unease with which Europe considers the Islamic religion and Muslims in its midst. In this benchmark essay from 2004, José Casanova argues that the "Islam problem" is an indicator of the disparity between liberal and illiberal strands of European secularism. Since the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 that established the EEC and initiated the ongoing process of European integration, western European societies have undergone a rapid, drastic, and seemingly irreversible process of secularization. In this respect, one can...

-- snip --So, Iowa chose to reward, on the Democrat side, a proponent of the conventional secular left, and, on the Republican side, a proponent of a new Christian left. If that's the choice, this is going to be a long election year.

The Christmas ads that showed up in Iowa and New Hampshire — and here, on the Internet — are mostly just more ads, but with a new and disturbing twist. There is Barack Obama, being sensitive by letting his wife, Michelle, speak first; Rudy Giuliani, softening his image by joking with Santa, and Ron Paul grinning in the midst of family pandemonium. John McCain reminds us he was a prisoner of war, Fred Thompson offers heart-warming snapshots of the troops and John Edwards promises not to forget the poor. The hullabaloo has come over the ad for Mike Huckabee. He...

A study presented to the [U.S. Catholic] bishops on Monday by Karen Terry and Margaret Smith of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on the "causes and context" of the [sex abuse] crisis....said the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy, which peaked numerically in the mid-1970s, for the most part reflected "overall changes in behavior, attitudes, and media representations in American society during this time period." "This is in conflict with the idea that there is something distinctive about the Catholic church that led to the sexual abuse of minors," Terry said. [snip] ...During a press briefing on...

Democratic leader Howard Dean blasted the GOP's lack of diversity in a speech to Jewish communal leaders. Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, also appeared to criticize the practice of including an invocation of Jesus at the end of pre-game prayers at scholastic sporting events. Dean made the remark Sunday during a decidedly partisan speech at the opening plenary of the United Jewish Communities' General Assembly in Nashville. He painted the Republican Party as religiously and racially exclusive. His speech to the 3,500 Jewish communal leaders in attendance followed an address by the University of Tennessee's basketball coach, Bruce...

Board pulls out of program; Organizers try to understand reasoning Posted By Jennifer Hamilton-McCharles The Nugget Posted 10 hours ago Rose Haufe doesn't buy the reason given by the area's largest school board to no longer support Operation Christmas Child. The Powassan resident told The Nugget Tuesday the project is "simply caring for people and is beyond any religious boundaries." "I'm trying to think of their motivation, but I can't think of why they wouldn't want to do this," Haufe said. "When a child gives they never forget. It's a lesson they need to learn. It teaches them there's others...

Attacking "God" has become a lucrative book business. But there's not much substance behind the latest atheist tracts. There is nothing new under the sun," proclaims the Book of Ecclesiastes. The rise of the new new atheism confirms this ancient biblical wisdom. Of course the famous words of Ecclesiastes should not be taken in a slavishly literal sense, a technique that is all-too-common among those who think they can refute belief in God by showing that the Bible abounds in demonstrably false and self-contradictory statements.

I participated in two debates this week, and between them learned a great deal about the nature of science and religion in our time. The first debate, on the subject of religion, was with Richard Dawkins, the famous evolutionary biologist and atheist, in Toronto. The second, in New York, was with a leading Jewish-Christian missionary on whether Jesus died for our sins. What startled me was how, in the religion debate, although my adversary and I challenged each other's most sacredly held beliefs, there was no offense taken on either side. Less so was there any acrimony directed toward me...

Mother's Day is, to be honest, somewhat of an annoyance. It's manifestly one of those tedious Hallmark holidays wherein everyone is supposed to run out and support the revenue stream of cardboard manufacturers in the name of expressing gratitude to mothers, fathers, grandparents and anyone else to whom we might be related. I imagine it won't be long until Sept. 18 is declared Anonymous Sperm Donor's Day, which will probably be celebrated by giving matching card sets to one's two mommies and lighting a candle for dear old anonymous sperm donor, whoever he might be. Mothers are not only important,...