Humanists Launch First-Ever National Godless Holiday Campaign

Celebrating a new kind of holiday tradition, the American Humanist Association has launched a new advertising campaign similar to the one that ran in the nation's capital last year, which made headlines around the globe. Only this year, instead of the campaign focusing on a single location, ads will be blazoned across transit systems in five cities--including Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco--marking the first-ever nation-wide humanist holiday advertising campaign.

"No God?...No Problem!" proclaim the ads, featuring an image of several smiling, Santa hat-clad individuals. The ads will kick off in Washington, D.C. in time for Thanksgiving weekend, running inside 200 buses, fifty rail cars and on the side or tail of twenty buses. The campaign will continue with ads appearing on select buses in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco starting in early December.

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Godless Billboard Near Houston's George Bush Airport

"Don't Believe In God? You are not alone."

These words are part of prominent billboard slated to go up in Houston today. It will be located west of I-45 on Farm-to-Market Rd. 1960 near Ella Blvd. and will be viewable by westbound traffic. Sponsored by the Houston Freethought Alliance with funding from the United Coalition of Reason, the billboard's message is superimposed over an image of blue sky and puffy white clouds.

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Tulsa's Godless Groups Organize With Billboard, Book Tour

"Are you good without God? Millions are."

These words are slated to appear today on a prominent Tulsa billboard, located on I -44 West at Elwood. It will be visible to westbound traffic and is sponsored by Tulsa CoR, the Tulsa Coalition of Reason.

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Group Organizes To Be 'Good Without God'

Teresa Cherry was out running errands when she saw the question floating over Interstate 95.

"Are you good without God?" the electronic billboard asked. "Millions are."

The Baltimore woman does not believe in the existence of a supreme being. And in that moment, she did not feel so alone.

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Baltimore's Nontheistic Groups Organize with Billboard Campaign

Atheist Billboard Stirs God Debate

It was supposed to be a meeting for the Atheists of Florida to recruit more members, but it turned into a debate with Christians about whether or not God exists.

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Humanists Pleased With Inclusion Of Nontheists At Colorado Holiday Event

The American Humanist Association announced today they were pleased that nontheists were included in a government-sponsored holiday event in Colorado this past weekend. The Colorado Coalition of Reason (COCOR) was permitted by Larimer County Sheriff James Alderden to participate in the "Apparently Annual Politically Incorrect Christmas Tree Trimming Party," which was held outside the Larimer County Sheriff's Office Administration on Saturday. COCOR, with legal advice from the American Humanist Association, had asked to be included in the celebration amidst concerns that the event was going to unlawfully promote Christianity.

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Atheist Display at Sheriff Alderden's Nativity Scene

Atheists Need A Different Voice

We all know the names (Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens) of those angry white men who tend to antagonize the world's believers. But the most persuasive voices for the 'new New Atheism' tend to be women.

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We macho atheists need a little woman to calm us down

Social Scientists Build Case For 'Survival Of The Kindest'

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive.

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It Seems Biology (Not Religion) Equals Morality

Recent discoveries suggest that all humans, young and old, male and female, conservative and liberal, living in Sydney, San Francisco and Seoul, growing up as atheists, Buddhists, Catholics and Jews, with high school, university or professional degrees, are endowed with a gift from nature, a biological code for living a moral life.

This code, a universal moral grammar, provides us with an unconscious suite of principles for judging what is morally right and wrong. It is an impartial, rational and unemotional capacity. It doesn't dictate who we should help or who we are licensed to harm. Rather, it provides an abstract set of rules for how to intuitively understand when helping another is obligatory and when harming another is forbidden. And it does so dispassionately and impartially. What's the evidence?

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The Chronic Dependence Of Popular Religiosity Upon Dysfunctional Psychosociological Conditions

Abstract: Better understanding the nature, origin and popularity of varying levels of popular religion versus secularism, and their impact upon socioeconomic conditions and vice versa, requires a cross national comparison of the competing factors in populations where opinions are freely chosen. Utilizing 25 indicators, the uniquely extensive Successful Societies Scale reveals that population diversity and immigration correlate weakly with 1st world socioeconomic conditions, and high levels of income disparity, popular religiosity as measured by differing levels of belief and activity, and rejection of evolutionary science correlate strongly negatively with improving conditions. The historically unprecedented socioeconomic security that results from low levels of progressive government policies appear to suppress popular religiosity and creationist opinion, conservative religious ideology apparently contributes to societal dysfunction, and religious prosociality and charity are less effective at improving societal conditions than are secular government programs. The antagonistic relationship between better socioeconomic conditions and intense popular faith may prevent the existence of nations that combine the two factors. The nonuniversality of strong religious devotion, and the ease with large populations abandon serious theism when conditions are sufficiently benign, refute hypotheses that religious belief and practice are the normal, deeply set human mental state, whether they are superficial or natural in nature. Instead popular religion is usually a superficial and flexible psychological mechanism for coping with the high levels of stress and anxiety produced by sufficiently dysfunctional social and especially economic environments. Popular nontheism is a similarly casual response to superior conditions.

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Creating God In One's Own Image

For many religious people, the popular question "What would Jesus do?" is essentially the same as "What would I do?" That's the message from an intriguing and controversial new study by Nicholas Epley from the University of Chicago. Through a combination of surveys, psychological manipulation and brain-scanning, he has found that when religious Americans try to infer the will of God, they mainly draw on their own personal beliefs.

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Dear God, please confirm what I already believe

More U.S. Christians Mix In 'Eastern,' New Age Beliefs

Elements of Eastern faiths and New Age thinking have been widely adopted by 65% of U.S. adults, including many who call themselves Protestants and Catholics, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released Wednesday.

--snip--

The percentage of people who call themselves Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation, and so many people declined any religious label that the "Nones," now 15% of the USA, are the third-largest "religious" group after Catholics and Baptists, according to the American Religious Identification Survey last March.

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Entropy Alone Can Create Complex Crystals from Simple Shapes; Tetrahedra Packing Record Broken

Entropy is a measure of the number of ways the components of a system can be arranged. While often linked to disorder, entropy can also cause objects to order. The pyramid shape central to this research is the tetrahedron---a three-dimensional, four-faced, triangular polyhedron that turns up in nanotechnology and biology.

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Large Hadron Collider Makes History With 1.18 TeV Protons

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has made history and become most powerful particle accelerator on the planet.

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Just After the Big Bang: Hubble's Deepest View of Universe Unveils Never-Before-Seen Galaxies

ScienceDaily -- The new Wide Field Camera 3 aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken the deepest image yet of the Universe in near-infrared light. The faintest and reddest objects in the image are likely the oldest galaxies ever identified, having formed between only 600-900 million years after the Big Bang.

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The Big Dipper Gains a Star

Hunt for new worlds goes into overdrive

Black Hole Caught Zapping Galaxy Into Existence?

War On Solstice? Celebrate!

'Tis the season for celebrating, and we should all rejoice, according to American Atheists, Inc. As President Ed Buckner notes, "Claims abound that both Thanksgiving and Christmas are Christian in origin, but in fact both are grounded in non-Christian ideas and rituals that the churches have co-opted for their own purposes.

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'Tis The Season For Battles Over Holiday Displays On Public Property

This is the time of year when disputes over holiday displays on public property and be expected. Here is a sampling of the most recent.

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Atheists Take Softer Approach With Capitol Display

A Seattle-based atheists group asked state officials Friday for permission to display a placard outdoors on the Capitol Campus over the holidays.

Jerry Schiffelbein, the treasurer for Seattle Atheists and an activist in other "free-thought" groups that advocate for separation between church and state, said the sign's message is less provocative than those that the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation put up last year.

The proposed 18-by-30-inch sign says, "In this holiday season let us remember that kindness, charity and goodwill transcend belief, creed or religion."

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Tenn. City Drops Bible Text Reading At Tree-Lighting Ceremony

MARYVILLE, TENN. -- Acknowledging it is "terrifying to stand and go against the courts," Samuel David Duck, a Maryville resident and father of two, did what city officials had decided not to do.

He read an account of the birth of Jesus Christ from the Bible at the city's tree-lighting celebration Monday night at the Greenbelt.

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How The Religious Right Stole Christmas

Every year during the holiday season, right-wing pundits and Religious Right groups rally their followers by claiming there is a "war on Christmas." These groups are outraged annually by holiday displays, parades, music and anything else that has to do with the December holiday -- unless a large dollop of Christianity is included.

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Uphill Political Battles In Washington Have Religious Right Leaders Foaming At The Mouth

Americans United Praises Senate Vote Against Nelson-Hatch Amendment

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today commended the U.S. Senate for rejecting a religion-based amendment to the health-care reform bill that would have limited women's access to abortion.

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Soledad Cross Back On Court's Agenda

A federal appeals court today takes up an issue it is very familiar with -- whether the Latin cross at a veterans memorial atop Mount Soledad violates the U.S. Constitution.

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Redding Woman's Christmas Carol Initiative Picks Up Allies

Merry Hyatt has found allies in her quest to put an initiative on the ballot next year requiring public schools to play Christmas carols.

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Six FFRF "Yes Virginia..." Signs Censored In Las Vegas

Apparently there's no room at the inn for an irreverent billboard saying "there is no God." ClearChannel Outdoor company in Las Vegas has taken down six Freedom From Religion Foundation billboards that had a jolly Santa stating, "Yes, Virginia... There is no God," just one to two days after placing them around the city.

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FFRF Creates Solstice Mini-Blitz in Las Vegas

"No Gods" Solstice Sign Returns To Illinois Capitol

The Freedom From Religion Foundation's Winter Solstice display is going up during December in the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield. The Madison, Wis.-based Foundation is the largest national association of freethinkers (atheists and agnostics), with about 14,000 members nationwide and more than 500 in Illinois. The Foundation works to protect the constitutional separation between religion and government.

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Freethinkers' Winter Solstice Sign Up in Madison

Rights And Religion Clash In Court

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from a Christian student group that had been denied recognition by a public law school in California for excluding homosexuals and nonbelievers. The case pits anti-discrimination principles against religious freedom.

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Judge Denies Pastor Intervention Status In FFRF Case

U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb, Eastern District of California in Sacramento, denied a local pastor the right to intervene in the Freedom From Religion Foundation's challenge of tax benefits for "ministers of the gospel," commonly known as "the parsonage exemption."

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Bakersfield Council Prayers Too Christian?

Bakersfield is the second city in Kern County to have prayers at city council meetings challenged by the Freedom From Religion Foundation Inc., a Wisconsin nonprofit with a membership of mostly atheists and agnostics.

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FFRF Challenges Prayers at City Council Meetings in Bakersfield, Calif.

Magistrate Says Sectarian Invocations At N.C. County Commission Meetings Are Unconstitutional

For many years, members of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners in North Carolina have opened their meetings with invocations offered by guest clergy. Most of the time, the preachers would pray "in Jesus' name" or include other overtly Christian content.

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Board may press case

Federal Judge Says South Carolina Legislature Crashed Into The Church-State Wall When It Mandated A 'Christian' License Plate

When the Rev. Dr. Neal Jones heard that the South Carolina legislature had voted to create a special license plate bearing Christian symbols and the words "I Believe," he took alarm.

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ACLU Decries Conn. Graduation Venue

The ACLU is demanding that school officials in Enfield, Connecticut, stop holding high school graduation ceremonies at a Christian church, arguing that the public school system should not "be in the business of embracing particular faiths or religious viewpoints." The graduation location is also disputed as the ACLU feels that public schools should respect religious diversity "when making decisions about where to hold important events such as graduation."

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Group Complains That Too Many Christian Clergy Open City Council Meetings In Cleveland

CLEVELAND (AP) -- The Americans United for Separation of Church and State organization complains that opening prayers for the Cleveland City Council are too often said by Christian clergy.

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Calif. College Sued Over Prayer At Group Events

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- A community college is Southern California faces a federal lawsuit for opening its public ceremonies with an official prayer.

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Federal Appeals Court Blows Whistle On Wisconsin Sheriff's Religious Proselytism

A federal appeals court made the right call today by striking down religious presentations given at mandatory meetings at the Milwaukee County Sheriff's office, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

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FFRF Pursues National Day Of Prayer Case

The Freedom From Religion is vigorously defending its groundbreaking federal challenge of the National Day of Prayer.

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Critics Of Cecil Bothwell Cite N.C. Bar To Atheists

ASHEVILLE -- North Carolina's constitution is clear: politicians who deny the existence of God are barred from holding office.

Opponents of Cecil Bothwell are seizing on that law to argue he should not be seated as a City Council member today, even though federal courts have ruled religious tests for public office are unlawful under the U.S. Constitution.

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Asheville, NC Atheist Runs for City Council Seat; Opponents Use His Beliefs Against Him

Fewer Americans Give Clergy High Honesty, Ethics Ratings

Only half of Americans rate the honesty and ethics of clergy as very high or high, a new Gallup poll reveals.

A fall from 56 percent of Americans last year, the percentage is the lowest it has been in the last three decades.

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Rift Flares After US Episcopal Church Elects Gay Bishop

Conservatives insist the Bible unequivocally outlaws homosexuality whereas liberals believe the Bible should be reinterpreted in the light of contemporary wisdom.

The row led to the formation of a conservative breakaway Episcopal movement in the US - the Anglican Church in North America.

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Holy Cow? Farmer Sees Divine Sign In Bovine

A calf with a white marking on its forehead in the approximate shape of a cross was born last week at a dairy farm in Sterling, a small rustic town on the Rhode Island border.

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10 strangest Jesus sightings of 2009

Man Dies After Sitting In Recliner For Eight Months

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (NBC) -- Believing his faith would heal him, a Greenwood County, South Carolina man sat down in his recliner after an injury in March and never got up.

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Atlanta Minister Accused Of 'Modern Day Slavery'

ATLANTA -- An Ellenwood minister and his wife were arrested and charged after authorities said they made a woman work for them and their friends for little or no money.

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Trenton Roman Catholic Diocese Pays $325K Settlement In Sexual Assault Case

JAMESBURG -- The Roman Catholic Diocese of Trenton has paid $325,000 to a 32-year-old woman who says she was sexually assaulted by a former diocesan priest, the late Rev. Ron Becker, who died in January.

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Bishop To Defrock Priest Who Filmed Abuse Of Boy

A SENIOR Catholic bishop is preparing to hold a secret ecclesiastical trial in his diocese to defrock a priest who filmed himself sexually abusing a school boy on his mobile phone.

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Parish Shocked By Priest Probe

Many parishioners of Kirkinriola, which includes All Saints, Crebilly and Harryville, left Mass looking visibly shocked and some were in tears after hearing that Fr Paul Symonds was the subject of a police investigation.

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Former East Lancashire Teacher In Abuse Probe

A ROMAN Catholic priest who used to teach at an East Lancashire college has been arrested on suspicion of child abuse.

Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Force's Child Abuse Investigation Team investigating the alleged sexual abuse of a boy in the 1970s, have arrested former Stonyhurst College teacher Father Paul Symonds.

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Irish Church Accused Of Abuse Cover-Up

A damning report into child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese has criticised the Catholic Church hierarchy for covering up the abuse.

The report investigated how Church and state authorities handled allegations of child abuse against 46 priests.

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Report Reveals 'Reprehensible' Role Of Diocese

Irish Church accused of abuse cover-up

Four archbishops colluded to cover up child sex attacks

The Brothers grim

Weakland shredded copies of sex abuse reports, documents say

Why Ireland Is Running Out of Priests

'Family Values' Bishop Michael Reid Had Two Secret Affairs

A BISHOP who preached strict family values secretly had two affairs, an employment tribunal heard yesterday.

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Pope Benedict Replaces Antigonish Bishop Facing Child Porn Charges

Vatican City (AHN) - The Vatican has replaced the Canadian bishop facing child pornography charges. Pope Benedict XVI named on Saturday Sault Ste. Marie Auxiliary Bishop Brian Joseph Dunn as the replacement for Antigonish Diocese Bishop Raymond Lahey.

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Catholic Counsellor 'Sexually Abused Boy'

A SYDNEY Catholic boys' school teacher who allegedly sexually assaulted a student in the 80s has been allowed to continue teaching for more than 20 years because the incident was deliberately covered up, a court has been told.

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Indian Nun Claims Sex Is Rife Within Catholic Church

Bookshops throughout India's Christian communities in Kerala have already sold out of Amen, the autobiography of Sister Jesme, who has alleged that priests and nuns not only broke their vows of celibacy with each other but regularly forced novices to have sex with them.

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Italy: Vatican Bank 'Accused Of Money Laundering'

Rome -- The Vatican bank is under investigation for suspected money laundering via accounts held at one of Italy's largest banks, the UniCredit Group, according to the Italian investigative weekly Panorama.

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Atheists Feel Cold Shoulder

ATHEISTS have accused the Brumby Government of discriminating against them by refusing to fund the movement's global conference in Melbourne but giving $2 million to a religious conference.

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Atheists cross as religious forum secures taxpayer funding

Untying the knot of church and state

Faith Leaders Call For Calm As Murdered Priest Is Buried

A murdered Russian Orthodox priest was laid to rest in Moscow yesterday, amid fears of rising religious tensions between Christians and Muslims in the country. Father Daniil Sysoyev was shot dead inside his own church last week, in a killing that many suspect was by Islamic radicals.

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Islamists Claim Russian Train Bombing

MOSCOW -- A militant Islamist group claimed responsibility Wednesday for last weekend's deadly Russian train bombing, as investigators said the well-planned attack resembled tactics used by Chechen rebels.

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It's No Miracle, I Could See But Now I Am Blind

FIVE people who stared at the sun in the hope they might be witnessing religious apparitions are being treated for serious eye damage, a top eye surgeon has revealed.

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Swiss Ban Building Of Minarets On Mosques

GENEVA -- In a vote that displayed a widespread anxiety about Islam and undermined the country's reputation for religious tolerance, the Swiss on Sunday overwhelmingly imposed a national ban on the construction of minarets, the prayer towers of mosques, in a referendum drawn up by the far right and opposed by the government.

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'Men Sought To Kill Woman For Adultery In Spain'

SPANISH police have arrested nine men suspected of seeking to have a woman killed after they accused her of adultery, claiming they were following Islamic law, authorities said.

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Islamic law in Socialist Spain

Muslim Numbers Soar In Latin America's Islamic Resurgence

"ALLAH Akbar" blares from the loudspeakers as hundreds of Muslims file into the mosque for prayers. Outside, halal meat stores line the street as in Damascus, Cairo or Baghdad, but this is the working-class neighbourhood of Bras in Sao Paulo, Brazil -- the heart of Islam's Latin American rebirth.

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Hindu Sacrifice Of 250,000 Animals Begins

The world's biggest animal sacrifice began in Nepal today with the killing of the first of more than 250,000 animals as part of a Hindu festival in the village of Bariyapur, near the border with India.

The event, which happens every five years, began with the decapitation of thousands of buffalo, killed in honour of Gadhimai, a Hindu goddess of power.

--snip--

Chandan Dev Chaudhary, a Hindu priest, said he was pleased with the festival's high turnout and insisted tradition had to be kept. "The goddess needs blood," he said. "Then that person can make his wishes come true."

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Hindu Leaders Are Blamed For Mosque Plot That Led To Carnage

The destruction of a mosque by Hindu radicals that led to some of the bloodiest religious riots in India since Partition was "meticulously planned" by politicians including a former Prime Minister, according to a leaked report of the official investigation.

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Call to protect secular India

Buddhist Extremists Shatter Peace Of Catholic Church

A Catholic Church in Sri Lanka has been attacked, with suspicions falling on Buddhist extremists.

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Uganda Proposes Death Penalty For HIV Positive Gays

Britain and Canada protested yesterday over a proposed law that would result in gays in Uganda being imprisoned for life or even executed.

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Have your tax dollars helped Evangelicals set stage for gay execution bill in Uganda through Bush's ''AIDS Relief'' program? [video]

An Unholy Alliance Of Church And State

When Fiji's regime brought the Methodist Church under its thumb, a fundamentalist rival joined forces with the police.

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TV Presenter On Death Row For Witchcraft

Ali Sibat is not even a Saudi national. The Lebanese citizen was only visiting Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage when he was arrested in Medina last year.

A court in the city condemned him as a witch on November 9.

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Baghdad Car Bombs Cause Carnage

A series of car bombings has killed at least 127 people and wounded 448 in the centre of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

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Al-Qaida claims deadly Baghdad blasts

Scores dead as car bombs rock Baghdad

Bombs shake Iraq before Muslim holiday

Pakistan Militants Launch Deadly Attack On Rawalpindi Mosque

Suicide attackers have swarmed through a Pakistani mosque frequented by senior army officers, shooting randomly, killing worshippers at close range and exploding bombs in a frenzied attack that killed at least 40 people.

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Dozens dead in Pakistan mosque attack

Deadly blast hits near Pakistan's ISI

Dozens killed in Pakistan market blasts

Suicide blast near Pakistan naval headquarters

Bus Explosion Kills, Wounds Dozens In Syria

(CNN) -- An explosion killed or wounded dozens of passengers in a bus in the Syrian capital, Damascus, Thursday morning, an official in the president's office said.

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Blast Kills 2 In Southern Thailand, Police Say

Bangkok, Thailand (CNN) -- An explosion killed at least two people Monday in a city in southern Thailand, a police official who is familiar with the investigation said.

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Report: Scores Of Albinos In Hiding After Attacks

(CNN) -- As many as 10,000 albinos are in hiding in east Africa over fears that they will be dismembered and their body parts sold to witchdoctors, the Red Cross said in a recent report.

The killings of albinos in Burundi and Tanzania, who are targeted because their body parts are believed to have special powers, have sparked fears among the population in the two countries, the report said.

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Somalia Graduation Ceremony Blast Kills 23

(CNN) -- The death toll rose to 23 on Friday in a suicide bombing attack at a Somali graduation ceremony, which killed three members of Somalia's U.N.-backed interim government, according to an independent media report.

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Arrest Highlights Clergy's Role In Rwanda Genocide

So far, four Catholic priests have been indicted by the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Human rights activists say the small number of indictments do not accurately represent the church's role in the genocide.

By failing to issue swift condemnation, the church opened the door for slaughter in the name of God, according to the global group Human Rights Watch.

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Godless Ads Now On Portland Buses

The Portland ads are among many that have gone up around the country earlier this year, including those on billboards or in transit systems in cities as far flung as Charleston, South Carolina; Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas; Des Moines, Iowa; Morgantown, West Virginia; New Orleans, Louisiana, and Phoenix, Arizona.

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Godless Groups in Silicon Valley Organize

Godless Ads Now on Philadelphia Transit

No 'godspeed' in atheist TriMet ads

Godless Billboard Appear in San Diego

Godless Billboard Appears In La Mesa

Billboard aims to raise profile of nonbelievers

Freeway billboard has controversial message

San Diego Coalition of Reason

Godless Billboards Appear Across Ohio

Cincinnati's Godless Billboard Taken Down

Godless Billboard Moved After Threats

'Godless' billboard greets I-71 drivers

Atheist Group Takes Message To Lakeland Via Billboard

LAKELAND - Motorists along one of Lakeland's major thoroughfares are being greeted with a billboard asking a provocative question: "Don't believe in God?"

Then there's the answer: "You are not alone."

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Billboard supporting Atheism upsets some Lakeland drivers

Non Religious Billboard Brings Controversy To Nashville

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A new Nashville organization classifies itself as non-religious, but the group's billboard has stirred up a religious debate. The organization behind the billboard is called Secular Life.

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Atheists Turn To Billboard Sites

The group behind a controversial atheist bus-poster campaign is urging parents not to label their children with their own religious faith.

The British Humanist Association (BHA) has launched a series of billboard advertisements in capital cities.

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Hey, preacher -- leave those kids alone

No God Doesn't Mean No Beliefs

Greg M. Epstein, Harvard University's humanist chaplain. Epstein's new book, "Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligous People Do Believe," explains the moral code of people neither frightened by the threat of hellfire nor blissed out by the promise of heaven. Nonbelievers, writes Epstein, can live ethical lives without the framework of religion because it is the practical and right thing to do.

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Religious Leaders Warn Of Civil Disobedience

They are calling it the Manhattan Declaration, a 4,700-word manifesto reaching into scripture and signed by 148 Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical leaders.

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Vote For Secular Nonprofit Organizations On Facebook

Chase is giving out $5 million to various charities nationwide. This is a perfect opportunity to vote for secular nonprofit organizations and help support them. You don't have to donate anything, just login to your Facebook account and start searching for secular nonprofits to vote. Each member gets 20 votes, so you can vote for up to 20 secular organizations.

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Atheist Student Groups Flower On College Campuses

Campus affiliates of the Secular Student Alliance, a sort of Godless Campus Crusade for Christ, have multiplied from 80 in 2007 to 100 in 2008 and 174 this fall, providing the atheist movement new training grounds for future leaders. In another sign of growing acceptance, at least three universities, including Harvard, now have humanist chaplains meeting the needs of the not-so-spiritual.

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Atheism: Striving for knowledge, but not faith

BibleThumper iPhone App Finds Cool Bible Verses for Atheists

Konstanz, Germany - BibleThumper allows atheists to keep the most funny and irrational bible verses right in their pocket.

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Student Gives Reasons For Not Standing During Pledge

The teenager said she is an atheist and does not support the Pledge of Allegiance.

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S.C. License Tag With Cross And 'I Believe' Ruled Unconstitutional

A federal judge has ruled unconstitutional a Christian "I Believe" vehicle license tag featuring the image of a cross.

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Religious License Plate Banned in South Carolina

US Lawmakers Rally For 'In God We Trust'

WASHINGTON -- More than 40 US lawmakers, all Republicans, have signed on to a legal brief opposing a lawsuit aimed at removing "In God We Trust" from the US Capitol's tourist hub, the Politico web site said Monday.

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Johnson Says Iredell Board Unfazed By Forsyth Prayers Lawsuit

When a federal magistrate in Winston-Salem ruled last week that Forsyth County Commissioners meetings had too much Jesus in their opening prayers, counties around the state started looking at their own meeting invocations policies to see how First Amendment-friendly they were.

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Gene Change In Cannibals Reveals Evolution In Action

It's a snapshot of human evolution in progress. A genetic mutation protecting against kuru -- a brain disease passed on by eating human brains -- only emerged and spread in the last 200 years.

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Did Christianity Cause The Crash?

Many explanations have been offered for the housing bubble and subsequent crash: interest rates were too low; regulation failed; rising real-estate prices induced a sort of temporary insanity in America's middle class. But there is one explanation that speaks to a lasting and fundamental shift in American culture -- a shift in the American conception of divine Providence and its relationship to wealth.

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When A Child Dies, Faith Is No Defense

In the past 25 years, hundreds of children are believed to have died in the United States after faith-healing parents forbade medical attention to end their sickness or protect their lives. When minors die from a lack of parental care, it is usually a matter of criminal neglect and is often tried as murder. However, when parents say the neglect was an article of faith, courts routinely hand down lighter sentences. Faithful neglect has not been used as a criminal defense, but the claim is surprisingly effective in achieving more lenient sentencing, in which judges appear to render less unto Caesar and more unto God.

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Hard Evidence

The admonition not to rush to judgment or jump to conclusions might sound fair and prudent enough, perhaps even statesmanlike when uttered by the president, as long it's borne in mind that such advice is itself a judgment that is more than halfway to a conclusion. What it plainly implies in the present case is that the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan should not be assumed in any meaningful way to be related to his Muslim faith.

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Fort Hood gunman had told US military colleagues that infidels should have their throats cut

'God is great' shouted before massacre

Murder at Ft. Hood: the act of a crazy man, or an act of terrorism?

America-hater in Qns. hails Hood massacre

Fort Hood massacre: Gunman linked to al-Qaeda as he awakes from coma

Why I Murdered 13 American Soldiers at Fort Hood: Nidal Hassan Explains It All to You

Major Hasan's E-Mail: 'I Can't Wait to Join You' in Afterlife

Secular Coalition Responds To Pew Faith-Based Program Survey

WASHINGTON, DC - A recent survey on faith-based programs from Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life collected considerable data that concerns the Secular Coalition for America.

According to the Pew report, more people are using religious social service providers than secular nonprofits. As religious organizations continue to receive more federal funding to help the needy, secular nonprofits struggle to provide and expand their services. According to the Pew survey 9% of Americans are using faith-based organizations for help, compared with 7% of Americans who use secular organizations.

The whole premise behind faith-based organizations was allegedly to level the playing field for religious organizations, so they could compete with secular organizations. Secular Coalition for America opposes the funneling of tax dollars to any religious entity as a violation of constitutional principles. That said, even the premise on which faith-based proponents argued for funding, no longer holds true if it ever did.

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Faith-Based Programs Still Popular, Less Visible

Rep. Kennedy: I'm Barred From Communion

EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A month of harsh words between U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin escalated Sunday when the bishop acknowledged asking Kennedy not to receive Holy Communion because of the Democratic lawmaker's support for abortion rights.

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Catholic Archdiocese Gives Ultimatum To D.C.

Church officials say that unless the city alters a proposed same-sex marriage law, the archdiocese will discontinue its social service programs.

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AAI Denounces Blatant Religious Privilege In Shaping US Health Bill

Atheist Alliance International denounces the unprecedented and exclusive access granted to members of the US Catholic Church in shaping the final form of the health care reform bill recently passed by the US House of Representatives, as disclosed in US media reports.

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AAI Calls for Evidence-Based Health Care in US

The Ban on Abortion Coverage

Senate version of health-care bill 'completely unacceptable,' pro-lifers say

Why the Stupak Amendment to the Healthcare Reform Bill Is Unconstitutional

Bishops meet to discuss health care reform

Religious Right, Catholic Bishops Seek To Impose Religion On All Americans Through Law, Americans United Charges

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today expressed grave concern about a renewed push by a coalition of conservative church groups to impose religious teachings on all Americans through government action.

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Religious Right Activists Use Wide Variety Of Tactics To Evangelize In The Classroom

Cheerleaders at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School in north Georgia had an unusual way of kicking off football games: They would set up huge paper banners on the edge of the field for players to crash through -- banners embossed with Christian proselytizing messages and Bible passages.

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Americans United And ACLU Demand Connecticut School District Stop Holding Graduation At Christian Church

Americans United Challenges California Community College Prayer Policy In Federal Court

New Book On Religion And Schools Offers Road Map To Avoid Legal Dead Ends

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Proposed 'Christian' Prison In Oklahoma Raises Serious Legal Issues, Americans United Warns

Justices' Decision In Mojave Religious Symbol Case May Determine Direction Of Church-State Law

Anti-Gay Church Sets Its Sights On Jews For Sex Crimes

WASHINGTON -- For more than a decade, Westboro Baptist Church has raised a ruckus with the message that God hates gays, posting itself outside government buildings, college campuses and even the funerals of American soldiers. But in recent months, the Topeka, Kan.-based church has been moving toward other targets, predominantly in the American Jewish community.

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US Evangelist Tony Alamo Gets 175 Years

Tony Alamo, a US preacher, has been sentenced to 175 years in prison for taking underage girls across state lines for sexual intercourse.

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Judge Orders Lien On Vt Diocese's Investments

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) -- A judge has ordered that a lien be placed on a portion of the investments of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington to cover a $2.2 million jury award to a former altar boy.

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Abuse Group Hands Over Petition

Campaigners demanding an inquiry into child abuse in Catholic and state institutions in NI have delivered a petition to the Assembly.

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Roman Catholic church stalls on child abuse claims

Church Compensates Abuse Victim

The Catholic Church has paid a five-figure sum to a victim of clerical sexual abuse in Northern Ireland.

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Child Rape Accused Priest First Suspended In 1964

An elderly Irish Catholic priest facing extradition from the US over charges of child sex abuse was first suspended from service 45 years ago.

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Vicar Denies 11 Child Sex Assaults

The Rev Canon James Andrew Christopher Wilson, right, the Rector and Rural Dean of Calstock, now faces a total of 11 charges of indecency against boys and girls between 1973 and 1980.

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Irish Turn Out For Apparition, Defying Church Plea

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Some 10,000 people gathered at a Irish shrine hoping to witness an apparition of the Virgin Mary on Saturday despite pleas from an archbishop to ignore invitations to the event by a self-proclaimed spiritual healer.

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Human Rights Ruling Against Classroom Crucifixes Angers Italy

There was uproar in Italy today over a ruling by the European court of human rights that the crucifixes that hang in most Italian classrooms are a violation of religious and educational freedoms.

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Myths and misconceptions about the Italy ruling

Church Of Scientology Accused Of Torture And Forced Abortions

The Church of Scientology faces the prospect of a police investigation in Australia after being accused of torture and embezzlement and of forcing employees to have abortions.

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Tom Cruise and Scientology: there's more

The two faces of Scientology

Celebrities lead charge against Scientology

'Witches, Possessed' Flock To Kenya Pastor

Kisii, Kenya (CNN) -- On one Sunday each month Pastor Lawrence Omambia, the lead preacher at the Community of Christ church in Kisii, Kenya, shows off his gift -- healing and exorcism.

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Four Sentenced To Hang For Killing Albino In Tanzania

(CNN) -- A court sentenced four people to death in northern Tanzania for the killing of an albino man who was targeted for body parts believed to have special powers, authorities said Friday.

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Legal Move On India Turtle 'God'

Officials in the Indian state of Orissa have filed a case against a priest for illegally keeping a rare turtle under the belief that it is a god.

The freshwater Gangetic turtle has natural markings on its shell which resemble the eyes of a Hindu deity.

Gangetic turtles are on an official list of endangered species in India.

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In Turkey, Fertile Ground For Creationism

ISTANBUL -- Sema Ergezen teaches biology to Turkish students interested in teaching science themselves, and she has long struggled with her students' ignorance of, and sometimes hostility to, the notion of evolution.

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Muslim academics and students are turning against Darwin's theory

Muslim Countries Seek Blasphemy Ban

GENEVA -- Four years after cartoons of the prophet Muhammad set off violent protests across the Muslim world, Islamic nations are mounting a campaign for an international treaty to protect religious symbols and beliefs from mockery -- essentially a ban on blasphemy that would put them on a collision course with free speech laws in the West.

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Atheists Concerned Over UN Defamation of Religions Resolution

Somali Woman, 20, Stoned To Death By Islamic Militants After Admitting Affair With Boyfriend

A Somali woman of 20 has been stoned to death after admitting she had an affair, an Islamic militant judge said today.

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Inside The Mind Of A Suicide Bomber

Suicide bombing is one of the trickiest and least understood methods of modern warfare.

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Pakistan: Suicide Bomber Kills 30 Outside Peshawar Court

A suicide bomber has killed an estimated 30 people and wounded 36 outside a Pakistan court in the latest attack to strike the northwest city of Peshawar.

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Suicide attack kills 19 in Pakistan's Peshawar

Suicide bomber kills six in Peshawar

Suicide car bomb in Pakistan kills 11

Deadly car bombs explode in Peshawar

17 dead in Pakistani car bombings

At least 26 dead in Pakistan traffic blast

Suicide bomber kills 3 in Pakistan

Pakistan suicide bombing kills mayor, 11 others

Suicide Attack In Afghanistan Kills 13

(CNN) -- At least 13 people were killed in a suicide bombing Friday morning in Afghanistan's western Farah province, police said.

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Two U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan

10 killed in Afghan suicide bombing

Three Americans killed in Afghanistan

2 killed in blast outside U.S. base in Kabul

Roadside Bombs Wound At Least 8 In Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- At least eight people were wounded and a woman was killed in violent incidents Thursday in Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official told CNN.

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Bombings kill 7, wound more than 45 in Iraq

Israel Fires At Gaza, Says Weapons Facilities Hit

(CNN) -- Israeli fighter jets attacked what the country said were "terrorist sites" in Gaza in retribution for an earlier attack, the military said Sunday.

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Somali group with al Qaeda ties threatens Israel

Godless Ads Now On The Boston Subway

"Good without God? Millions of Americans Are."

These words are part of a coordinated multi-organizational advertising campaign designed to raise awareness about people who don't believe in a god. The prominent ad appears on over 200 subway cars, 175 on the Red Line and 26 on the Green Line. Each is 21 inches tall by 22 inches wide. Their appearance will continue for at least a month.

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New T ads reach out to Hub's nonbelievers

Godless Billboard Appears On The New Jersey Turnpike

"Are you good without God? Millions are."

These words are part of a coordinated multi-organizational advertising campaign designed to raise awareness about people who don't believe in a god. The four-city campaign includes a billboard on the New Jersey Turnpike just north of Newark, subway ads in New York City and Boston and a billboard in Chicago.

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Press coverage of the NYC bus ads HERE.

Press coverage or the Chicago billboard ad HERE.

Press coverage of the Morgantown, WV billboard HERE.

Good Without God: The Ethics Of Atheism

On Monday, October 26, The United Coalition of Reason launched a "Good without God" campaign to raise the visibility of local nontheistic groups in communities across the country. Their billboards, big white lettering against a background of a fluffy-clouded sky, ask "Are You Good Without God?" The answer: "Millions are." It's like a kinder, gentler Atheist Bus campaign.

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50 Voices Of Disbelief

Why We Are Atheists, edited by my mate Russell Blackford and Udo Schuklenk, goes on sale in the US.

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Humanist Billboard Vandalized In Moscow, Idaho

Washington, D.C -- Vandals have blacked out -- apparently with spray paint -- part of a billboard in Moscow, Idaho that reads "Millions are good without God" so that the word "without" is unreadable. The billboard, which was placed by the American Humanist Association in mid-September, is part of an AHA advertising campaign to spread awareness about being good without God. It's the third billboard the organization has displayed in the Moscow area and similar advertisements have been put up around the country.

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North Idaho atheist billboard vandalized

FFRF Offers Reward To Solve Hate Crime

The Freedom From Religion Foundation today announced it is offering a $1,000 award to anyone coming forward with information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator(s) of a hate crime directed against the Foundation and gays. The Foundation's "Keep Religion OUT of Government" billboard on the 2600 block of North Avenue, Grand Junction, Colo., was defaced, apparently last weekend. A vandal X'ed out the word "religion," and painted in the word "fag."

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"It's a Double Hate Crime"

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FFRF Gears Up for Seattle Convention

Las Vegas Non-Prayer Brunch Celebrates Freethinking Billboards

Insecurity Not Education Determines Church Attendance

Stijn Ruiter, senior researcher at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, and Frank van Tubergen, a professor of sociology in Utrecht, compared 'religious participation' in 60 countries. They found no effect of education, but instead came to the conclusion that social insecurity and the environment people grow up in have a significant impact. Results of their research will be published in the American Journal of Sociology next month.

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Mr. Deity And The Identity Crisis

Mr. Deity and Jesus try to figure out their relationship.

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Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network Warns Americans Of 'Demonic' Halloween Candy

Put aside your fears of swine flu. TV preacher Pat Robertson's Web site has just issued a bulletin warning Americans of the real threat we face this season: Demons may be lurking in our Halloween candy.

In a column on the Christian Broadcasting Network's Web site, writer Kimberly Daniels asserts that "demons" sneak into bags of Halloween candy at grocery stores.

"[M]ost of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches," Daniels wrote. "I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference."

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Sachse Church Turns Sanctuary Into Imaginary Hell

SACHSE -- This weekend, many North Texas churches are opting to celebrate fall with festivals rather than Halloween.

But one church in Sachse is doing something totally different. They have transformed their sanctuary into an imaginary hell. The idea behind their "Fear Factory" is to deliver a powerful spiritual message.

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Happy 'Costume' Day

'A Universe From Nothing' By Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009

Lawrence Krauss gives a talk on our current picture of the universe, how it will end, and how it could have come from nothing. Krauss is the author of many bestselling books on Physics and Cosmology, including "The Physics of Star Trek."

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Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot

Will E.T. Look Like Us?

Seven questions that keep physicists up at night

Blast From The Past: Most Distant Stellar Object Gives Clues About Early Universe

ScienceDaily -- Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope have gained tantalizing insights into the nature of the most distant object ever observed in the Universe -- a gigantic stellar explosion known as a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB).

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World's Fastest Supercomputer Models Origins Of The Unseen Universe

Physicist Makes New High-resolution Panorama Of Milky Way

New View Of The Heliosphere: Cassini Helps Redraw Shape Of Solar System

Junk DNA Mechanism That Prevents Two Species From Reproducing Discovered

ScienceDaily -- Cornell researchers have discovered a genetic mechanism in fruit flies that prevents two closely related species from reproducing, a finding that offers clues to how species evolve.

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The Cost To The Planet Of Fearing Science

Time was when science was considered a value-neutral pursuit. That seems like an eternity ago. Nowadays, science is all too often viewed as as a political constituency and not always in our best interest. How much of a toll has the fear of science had on individuals and the planet? In Denialism, New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter examines the consequences of what's become a war against progress.

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'No God' War Raging On Twitter

This Twitter war has caused a flurry of Twitter Atheists and Theists to argue about God, some resorting to insults, others to clever jokes. I found it also ironic that some theists would complain about the "No God" trending topic, and by mentioning it they perpetuated the topic. As a result, Twitter has been crashing repeatedly and showing off its "Fail Whale" page.

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Americans United Issues Update On Proposed Congressional Land Transfer To Michigan Religious School

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today expressed appreciation to a Michigan member of Congress for taking steps to ensure that Coast Guard property in Cheboygan will be sold at fair market value, rather than freely granted to a religious school.

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The Future Of Abstinence

It's been a mainstay of sex ed for more than a decade. Now, as the Obama administration cuts off federal funding, the movement scrambles for money, determined to continue its mission.

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Faith Healing On The US Taxpayer

Should US health insurers fund spiritual healing? As members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives slug it out over issues like government-funded health insurance, clauses that could force health insurers to pay for religious and spiritual healing have slipped into at least two of the healthcare reform bills currently making their way through Congress.

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Orthodox Union Effective, But Controversial

WASHINGTON (RNS) As Congress began writing legislation last spring to give businesses and homeowners tax incentives to make their homes more environmentally friendly, Nathan Diament looked at the legislation and saw a hole.

Director of public policy for the Orthodox Union, Diament successfully pushed the sponsors of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which the House passed in June, to include provisions that allowed synagogues, churches and other non-profit groups to seek federal subsidies as well.

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FBI Arrests Two Chicago Men For Danish Terror Plot

Federal authorities announced Tuesday that they had broken up a Chicago-based plot to help attack the offices of a Danish newspaper that once published cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammed.

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'Mickey Mouse Project' plotted to kill Muhammad cartoonist

Bankrupt Diocese Offers $11 Million To Settle 292 Abuse Cases

The Diocese of Fairbanks, which filed for bankruptcy in 2008, has submitted a second reorganization plan in bankruptcy court. Under the terms of the plan, the Alaska diocese would offer $11 million to creditors and alleged victims to settle 292 abuse cases.

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Victims Target Parish Assets

Sex-abuse plaintiffs dispute diocese's claim of separate legal status for properties.

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Archdiocese Blasted Over 2 Predator Cases

An advocacy group slammed Catholic officials in Detroit on Monday for what they said was a failure to properly publicize the alleged abusive pasts of a former lay brother and a Catholic seminarian who is now a priest in the Philippines.

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Child Sex Abuse Allegation Made Against Archbishop

THE VATICAN is investigating an allegation of child sex abuse against an Irish-born archbishop based in Africa, his missionary order confirmed yesterday.

Sixty-year-old Archbishop Richard Burke, from Clonmel, Co Tipperary, was ordained a priest in the St Patrick's Missionary Society, known as the Kiltegan Fathers, in Co Wicklow, in 1975. He was ordained a bishop in 1997, and installed as Archbishop of Benin, Nigeria, in March of last year.

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23rd Albany priest removed for alleged sexual abuse

Alachua Publisher Enlists Kirk Cameron To Promote Criticism Of Darwin

A former child actor is partnering with a local publisher to distribute altered copies of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species" to university students across the country in November - around the time of the 150th anniversary of the book's original publishing.

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Teach both evolution and creationism say 54% of Britons

Meet Harun Yahya

It may be tempting to dismiss Yahya as a crackpot, but he runs a sophisticated media operation, with perhaps several hundred members, that distributes books, articles, videos, and Web sites around the Muslim world. Two years ago he mailed, unsolicited, a visually stunning 13-pound, 800-page Atlas of Creation to at least 10,000 scientists, doctors, museums, and research centers in Europe and the United States. The cost of this publicity stunt, if that's what it was, had to be staggering.

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Islam's Darwin problem

Former Scientologists Level Accusations

Since its inception in the 1950s, the Church of Scientology has rarely been far from controversy. And now the Church is under attack again. Former senior insiders claim the Church's current leader, David Miscavige, has created and encouraged a climate of violence within senior staff and was frequently violent himself.

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Scientologists convicted of fraud in France

Paul Haggis Ditches Scientology

Islamic Countries Push A Global 'Blasphemy' Law

Remember the Danish "Muhammad cartoons" that set off riots by offended Muslims more than three years ago? The debate pitted freedom of press and speech against notions of freedom from insult of one's religion. It rages still -- but now in a forum with international legal implications.

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Bibles Seized As Malaysia Minorities Fear Fundamentalism

(CNN) -- Authorities in Malaysia have seized more than 20,000 Bibles in recent months because they refer to God as "Allah," Christian leaders said Thursday.

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Government Urged To Amend Constitution To Clarify Country's Status

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 21 (Bernama) -- The government has been urged to amend several articles in the Federal Constitution to clarify certain issues including the status of the country which adopts a dual-system (a hybrid legal system) and not a secular state as claimed by some quarters.

The amendments to the constitution were also necessary to draw up the differing line between the constitution as the main federal law and the implementation of Islamic law and syariah.

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Extremism Spreads Across Indonesian Penal Code

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia -- Under Islamic law, or Shariah, the religious police have administered public canings for such things as gambling, prostitution and illicit affairs. But under a new Islamic criminal code that goes into effect this month, the Shariah police will be wielding a new and more potent threat: death by stoning for adulterers.

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Women banned from wearing trousers

Somali Women Beaten For Violating Islamic Law, Officials Say

(CNN) -- Militants who control parts of Somalia's capital city are beating women in broad daylight for violating their radical brand of Islamic law, according to local officials and witnesses in Mogadishu.

"Just today, Al-Shabaab dispatched men with whips to the streets around Bakara market and they are flogging any woman who is found not wearing socks," according to a female maize trader at the Mogadishu market, who spoke Thursday.

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When women are sinners in the eyes of extremists

Shelling kills at least 30 in Somalia

We Are Killing In The Light Of God

More than five million people have died in the war that has been raging in eastern Congo. And now, yet another rebel group is at large in the country, slaughtering hundreds of civilians. It is led by Joseph Kony, a ruthless yet charismatic killer who claims he is fighting a holy war.

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Clinton Has Tough Sell In Repairing Scarred Relationship With Pakistan

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Just a few hours after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Islamabad, a massive car bomb exploded in a crowded market frequented by women in the northwest city of Peshawar, a two-hour drive away.

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Explosion outside Pakistan restaurant wounds 9

Seven dead in latest Pakistan violence

Schools across Pakistan close after deadly suicide blasts

U.N. Reviews Security After Kabul Attack

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The United Nations is reviewing its security procedures after an attack on a private guesthouse in central Kabul killed five U.N. staff members Wednesday.

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8 U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan

Afghan blasphemy protest continues

Baghdad Blasts: 155 People Killed In Worst Attack In Two Years

Iraq suffered its deadliest terrorist attack in more than two years when two car bombs killed at least 155 people in the centre of Baghdad.

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Dozens of security officials detained in Iraq bombings

30 children among 160 killed in Iraq bombings, Interior Ministry says

Police Arrest 18 At Jerusalem Holy Site

Jerusalem (CNN) -- Palestinians and Israeli police engaged in a standoff for more than five hours at Jerusalem's holiest site Sunday, with police storming the site twice.

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Report From Israel: The Coming Intifada?

Israeli orthodox rabbis ban all lift travel on the Sabbath

Coalition Of Godless Groups Announces Subway Ad Campaign

"A million New Yorkers are good without God? Are you?"

These words are part of a coordinated multi-organizational advertising campaign designed to raise awareness about people who don't believe in a god. The prominent ads will go up Monday, October 26, in a dozen Manhattan subway stations. Placed by Big Apple CoR, the New York City Coalition of Reason, with funding from the United Coalition of Reason, the ads feature an image of blue sky and clouds with the words superimposed over.

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'Good Without God,' Atheist Subway Ads Proclaim

Godless Billboard Appears In The Chicago Loop

"Are you good without God? Millions are."

These words are part of a coordinated multi-organizational advertising campaign designed to raise awareness about people who don't believe in a god. It fits into a nationwide effort that has now come to the Chicago area. The prominent ad appears on a downtown billboard at LaSalle Boulevard and Grand Avenue and can be read by those traveling north on LaSalle who will see it on their right (east side). Placed by the Chicago Coalition of Reason, with funding from the United Coalition of Reason, the billboard features an image of blue sky and clouds with the words superimposed over.

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GOOD WITHOUT GOD

From the forthcoming book GOOD WITHOUT GOD: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe by Greg Epstein.

SPECIAL BOOK EXCERPT

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From the Heavens or From Nature: The Origins of Morality

Richard Dawkins: Universal DNA Code Is 'Knockdown' Evidence Of Evolution

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins was on Grounds Friday to discuss his new book, "The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence For Evolution," which lays out more than a dozen lines of argument and evidence in support of evolution. Dawkins gave a quick introduction to every one of those lines of evidence (each gets a chapter in the book), speaking to a standing room only audience in the Gilmer Hall Auditorium. (Scores more were turned away after the room filled.)

The most compelling evidence of all, Dawkins explained, comes from molecular biology -- the fact that DNA code is universal among all living things, with all creatures sharing identical segments of code.

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Richard Dawkins defends theory of evolution

Evolution All Around

Richard Dawkins evolves his arguments

The not-so-angry evolutionist

Time In A Bottle: Scientists Watch Evolution Unfold

ScienceDaily -- A 21-year Michigan State University experiment that distills the essence of evolution in laboratory flasks not only demonstrates natural selection at work, but could lead to biotechnology and medical research advances, researchers said.

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Are Humans Still Evolving? Absolutely, Says A New Analysis Of A Long-term Survey Of Human Health

3-D Structure Of Human Genome: Fractal Globule Architecture Packs Two Meters Of DNA Into Each Cell

The Newest Oldest Ancestor Tells Her Tale

Meet 44 million year old Ardi

New Mesozoic Mammal: Discovery Illuminates Mammalian Ear Evolution While Dinosaurs Ruled

Archaeopteryx Was Not Very Bird-like: Inside The First Bird, Surprising Signs Of A Dinosaur

Seeing Blue: Fish Vision Discovery Makes Waves In Evolutionary Biology

Plants can recognize rivals and fight, study says

Chimpanzees Help Each Other On Request But Not Voluntarily

ScienceDaily -- The evolution of altruism has long puzzled researchers and has mainly been explained previously from ultimate perspectives -- "I will help you now because I expect there to be some long-term benefit to me". However, a new study by researchers at the Primate Research Institute (PRI) and the Wildlife Research Center (WRC) of Kyoto University shows that chimpanzees altruistically help conspecifics, even in the absence of direct personal gain or immediate reciprocation, although the chimpanzees were much more likely to help each other upon request than voluntarily.

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Amazon.com Confuses The Ray Comfort Version Of 'Origin of Species' And The Real One!

The video explains that Amazon currently mixes ratings and comments for Ray Comfort's version of Origin with those of the "real" anniversary edition thus giving buyers the wrong impression about the quality of the respective books.

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Secular Coalition Urges Kevin Jennings To Protect Nontheist Students

The Secular Coalition for America and member group American Atheists were invited to an event held by U.S. Dept. of Education Asst. Deputy Secretary Kevin Jennings to comment on the problems teens without a god belief face in public schools.

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Campus Group Promotes Assortment Of Beliefs

The rise in nonreligious populations among college students has increased more than any other religious group. So why are we seeing these trends become more prevalent on college campuses? There could be several explanations.

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Religions That Rely On Prayer To Heal Add Twist To Health Care Reform Debate

Getting lots of attention in the health care reform debate: the idea of requiring nearly all Americans to get insurance coverage.

Getting less attention: the people who don't visit doctors on religious grounds. Should they, too, be required to buy a policy they feel compelled not to use?

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Just Say No To Blasphemy Laws

Around the world, free speech is being sacrificed on the altar of religion. Whether defined as hate speech, discrimination or simple blasphemy, governments are declaring unlimited free speech as the enemy of freedom of religion. This growing movement has reached the United Nations, where religiously conservative countries received a boost in their campaign to pass an international blasphemy law. It came from the most unlikely of places: the United States.

While attracting surprisingly little attention, the Obama administration supported the effort of largely Muslim nations in the U.N. Human Rights Council to recognize exceptions to free speech for any "negative racial and religious stereotyping." The exception was made as part of a resolution supporting free speech that passed this month, but it is the exception, not the rule that worries civil libertarians.

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Help Stop Abstinence-Only Funding In The Health Care Reform Bill

The Senate Finance Committee recently approved an amendment to the Health Care Reform bill that would bring back the failed Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage program -- despite the fact that abstinence-only education is ineffective and raises serious concerns about the separation of church and state. The amendment, offered by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), would reinstate the $50 million per year in funding for the program that expired on June 30 of this year.

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Faith-Based Discrimination

President Obama promised in his campaign to preserve President George W. Bush's faith-based initiative aimed at helping social service programs sponsored by religious organizations win federal grants and contracts. He also promised a vitally important change: groups receiving federal money would no longer be allowed to hire employees on the basis of their religion.

The idea was to prevent discrimination and preserve the boundary between church and state. But Mr. Obama has not made good on the promise.

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Unsafe Abortions Kill 70,000 A Year

About 70,000 women die every year and many more suffer harm as a result of unsafe abortions in countries with restrictive laws on ending a pregnancy, according to a report.

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Oklahoma Abortion Law To Put Patients' Details Online

Women seeking abortions in Oklahoma are to be forced to reveal an array of personal information, such as the state of their relationships, how many children they have and their race, which will be posted on an official website.

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The Word - Symbol-Minded

The cross has nothing to do with Christianity -- it's just the normal symbol of the resting place of the dead.

Colbert Report Video (Humor)

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At Legal Crossroads

Americans United Opposes Proposed Congressional Land Grant To Religious School In Michigan

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has urged U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak (D - Mich.) to withdraw legislation that would grant seven acres of Coast Guard land to Cornerstone Christian School in Cheboygan, Mich.

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Church-state debate: Religious groups slated for Illinois grants

Grant to rebuild church cancelled

FFRF Sues IRS, Geithner & California State Over "Minister of Gospel" Tax Benefits

The national Freedom From Religion Foundation, along with 21 of its California members, has filed a nationally-significant federal lawsuit in Sacramento, challenging tax benefits for "ministers of the gospel," commonly known as "the parsonage exemption."

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'Messiah' Moves From School To Church -- For Now

Leaders of the interfaith performance of Handel's "Messiah," held in a school and backed by Holladay, have been battling red tape after a Washington, D.C., group complained about a conflict of church and state.

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'Messiah' performance hunts for home

Taxpayer May Get A Fat Bill

Residents who support sectarian prayer at meetings of the county commissioners will have to dig deeper into their pockets if the case goes on to an appeal, Dave Plyler, the board chairman, said last week.

The local group N.C. Partnership for Religious Liberty Inc. has raised about $55,000 to pay the county's legal fees in the suit, which was filed against Forsyth County by two residents upset over sectarian prayer at board meetings.

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Chesapeake Council Insists On Nonsectarian Prayers Only

As requested by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the city of Chesapeake, Va., is telling clergy who pray before City Council meetings that their prayers must be nonsectarian.

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Bible Classes Slow To Appear In Schools

Two years ago state lawmakers made it OK for schools to provide elective Bible classes but, so far, few Houston-area school districts have taken them up on the offer.

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God Is Not The Creator, Claims Academic

The notion of God as the Creator is wrong, claims a top academic, who believes the Bible has been wrongly translated for thousands of years.

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Biblical Sex Row Over Explicit Illustrated Book Of Genesis

A sexually explicit illustrated Book of Genesis by controversial artist Robert Crumb, which features Bible characters having intercourse, has been condemned by religious groups.

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Medical Mystery: Boy's Skin Branded With Religious Passages

LONDON -- Doctors in the United Kingdom are baffled by what they have found on a 9-month-old's skin.

The Sun reports passages from the Koran were written all over the baby's body.

The word "Allah" appeared on the boy's chin soon after he was born. Since then, his parents say scores of Arabic writings have emerged.

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Man Accused Of Torching Church Where He Was Music Director

A federal grand jury has indicted a Kansas City man, alleging that he set fire to a Leavenworth church where he worked as music director.

His intent, the indictment said, was to collect insurance money for inflated repair bills

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Bible Quoting Passenger Causes Delta Plane Diversion

A Delta airliner en route from Seattle to Atlanta made an unscheduled stop in Nashville after a passenger reportedly began quoting Bible passages.

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