Free Republic

Pope Francis's concerns about global warming and climate change are outside his expertise and may not be taken seriously by practicing Catholics, says Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. "I don't care whether it's Pope Francis or his predecessors or his successors someday. Once you get outside the domain, of faith and morals, be careful and be careful particularly when you get into the weeds and get very specific," Donohue said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV. (Watch video at link.) "For example, are we God's stewards? Are we supposed to...

British Christian schools could face a European Commission investigation, following complaints from a humanist campaign group. The British Humanist Association (BHA) claims that faith schools breach European Union (EU) equality rules when hiring staff, because they say religious adherence is a “desirable” quality. EU rules state that schools must prove there is a “genuine occupational requirement” in preferring to recruit teachers of faith. IntolerantSpokesman for The Christian Institute, Simon Calvert, said church schools are “hugely popular”, and their ethos is why “they do such a good job of preparing children for life in 21st-century Britain”. “It’s disappointing that humanists seem...

<p>RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A group of religious non-believers at Fort Bragg is pushing for the U.S. military to make sure they get the same treatment as religious groups.</p> <p>Soldiers at the post have filed paperwork seeking recognition for their group, called Military Atheists and Secular Humanists. They want to hold meetings at the base, work with the Army's chaplains and have their gatherings listed in a bulletin of religious services.</p>

Where’s the Human in Humanism? Humanist Ads Violate their Own Humanist Standards By:   Some parishioners have recently expressed distress over an Ad campaign of the American Humanist Association. Rather provocative Ads are appearing on buses and subways here in the Nation’s Capitol and I suspect elsewhere as well. As Christmas draws near, the “Humanists” have made it a practice in recent years to tweak Christians (as well as Jews and Muslims) and attempt to make the concept of faith look ridiculous. They generally do this by quoting a sacred text and interpreting it in a mechanistic, fundamentalist and literalistic  manner....

A student says a Dallas public community-college teacher compared crosses to swastikas while explaining a school ban on religious items made in ceramics classes.

"Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind." --Albert Einstein Secularists today love to frame the religion vs. science debate as one of "superstitions" against fact as if theistic truth, morality and the spiritual aspect of humanity is meaningless fluff not to intersect with the hard fact and incontestability of science. But, as I quoted Einstein, the patron saint of scienceists, there is a part of science that dangerously crosses over into religion's realm of morality even as secularists try to deny that fact. And here is a story that does, indeed, show scientists crossing over into the...

It's a brilliant Sunday morning, but the sunshine deceives. Step outside and the air is frigid, still below the freezing point. South University Avenue looks like a mirage in the windy cold. The winter just refuses to give up. The detritus of our national day of alcohol abuse - pardon me, St. Patrick's Day - litters the streets and yards of campus. Cracked green knickknacks are blown about. Partially-filled beer cans roll down South U. One block away, the Campus Chapel on 1236 Washtenaw Avenue opens its doors for Sunday service. On campus, the sacred and profane maintain an uneasy...

An article in the The Australian relates how Britain's Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology is reportedly calling on doctors to consider euthanasing "the sickest of newborns" which it says can disable healthy families.

inferno n 1: any place of pain and turmoil; "the hell of battle"; "the inferno of the engine room"; "when you're alone Christmas is the pits"; [syn: hell, hell on earth, hellhole, snake pit, the pits] http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=inferno

The Kansas school board's hearings on evolution weren't limited to how the theory should be taught in public schools. The board is considering redefining science itself. Advocates of "intelligent design" are pushing the board to reject a definition limiting science to natural explanations for what's observed in the world. Instead, they want to define it as "a systematic method of continuing investigation," without specifying what kind of answer is being sought. The definition would appear in the introduction to the state's science standards. The proposed definition has outraged many scientists, who are frustrated that students could be discussing supernatural explanations...

"There's something strange about the folks running our country." --Joan Bokaer, founder of Theocracy Watch "Christian Reconstructionism is Calvinism on crack." --Chip Berlet "'Homeland'--who thought up that fascist-sounding term?" --Charles StrozierHe also calls the phrase Bush often uses to end his speeches--"May God continue to bless America"--"a nauseating trope," and describes Rove whistling "Onward Christian Soldiers" as "a chilling image." "Right-wing intellectual is an oxymoron." --Skipp PorteusHe also said "Most Pentecostal ministers are shouters," and "The foundation of Christian fundamentalism is guilt and fear." Also, "The Jesus of the religious right is not the Jesus of the New Testament."Mark Crispin...

NEW YORK -- Secular humanists and leftist activists convened here over the weekend to strategize how to counter what they contend is a growing political threat from Christian conservatives. Understanding and answering the "religious far right" that propelled President Bush's re-election is key to preventing a "theocracy" from governing the nation, speakers argued at a weekend conference.

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...

It is absurd to believe that Bush's re-election represents the triumph of a Christian fundamentalismCOME OUT, readers, from under your bedclothes. Stop cowering behind the sofa. Quit exchanging looks of fearful incomprehension with strangers in the street. The world did not end on Tuesday. A great darkness did not descend across civilisation. America is not about to embark on a biblically-mandated jihad against the enemies of evangelical Christianity around the world. American soldiers will not be enforcing Washington’s imperium on your towns and villages any time soon. You will not be required to swap your compulsory licence fee from the...

<p>Summer camp usually includes swimming, horseback riding, canoeing and other physical activities. But Camp Quest, a "secular humanist" camp for atheist youths in Overpeck, Ohio, just north of Cincinnati, offers something more.</p> <p>Every year, Camp Quest's director issues a challenge to campers: Find the unicorns. He tells campers "unicorns" are invisible. They are silent, leave no tracks or traces, and you can walk right through them. If you can prove they exist, you win $100.</p>

The secularists are gloating. They got a court order to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building and another court order to suspend Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore who put it there. But anyone who thinks this confrontation in Montgomery is just about an inscribed rock and a defiant judge is out of touch with reality. The Ten Commandments dispute is the tip of the iceberg in the ongoing battle to obliterate every acknowledgement of God except behind the closed doors of churches. The goal of the secularists and the atheists is...