 "Don't believe in God? You are not alone." Starting this week, these words will be read by motorists traveling on Highway 95 near Moscow, Idaho. They are part of a highway billboard that features an image of blue sky and clouds with the words superimposed over. The billboard is placed by the American Humanist Association, a national advocacy organization, and is part of an ongoing campaign to raise the public profile of nontheism. The striking message raises a question . . . and maybe some eyebrows. "The point of the billboard is to let nontheistic people--such as atheists, agnostics, humanists and freethinkers--know they're not alone," explained Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association. "The message is particularly important in smaller towns like Moscow and Pullman, which tend to have a larger percentage of religious people than the big cities. Nontheists might not realize there's a community out there for them because they're inundated with religious messages on every corner. But now they'll have a message catered specifically to them." The announcement of the billboard coincided with a press conference held by the American Humanist Association today at the 1912 Center in Moscow. Speckhardt said he was excited to talk to the local community about the billboard campaign and the American Humanist Association's mission. Reaching out to nontheists isn't the only goal of the billboard campaign: "We want people to know you can be good without God," said Maggie Ardiente, director of development of the American Humanist Association. "There's a lot of misinformation out there about nontheists, so we want to educate people about our community and change those false perceptions. Humanists are patriots, we are dedicated to our families and friends and we want to live fulfilling, virtuous lives." The billboard will run on Highway 95 between March 24 and June 14 of this year. It can be found just south of Moscow near the Sweet Avenue cross street, facing southbound traffic. Click here for a pdf version of the billboard. The billboard is one of many that have gone up around the country, including billboards outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Charleston, South Carolina. In addition, during the past holiday season the American Humanist Association ran an ad campaign on metro buses in Washington, DC, which garnered both applause and controversy. LINK
Fred Edwords, director of communications for the American Humanist Association, has been offered, and has accepted, the position of leading a new freethought organization. The United Coalition of Reason is being created for the purpose of developing coalitions of local humanist, freethought, atheist, Humanistic Jewish, and Ethical Culture organizations all over the country. These coalitions will be modeled on the successful Philadelphia Coalition of Reason. More...
Both billboards are part of a national educational campaign sponsored by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the nation's largest association of freethinkers (atheists and agnostics), which works to keep church and state separate. The state/church watchdog has 13,600 members, and more than 130 in Kansas. More...See also: Cast Vote for Freedom From Religion Foundation's Next Bus Sign!
People with strong religious beliefs appear to want doctors to do everything they can to keep them alive as death approaches, a US study suggests. More...
PRINCETON, NJ -- Despite suggestions that the economic recession might cause religiosity among Americans to increase, there has been no evident change over the past 15 months in either Americans' self-reported church attendance or the importance of religion in their daily lives. More...Earlier: More Americans say they have no religionSee also: Britain is one of the least religious nations in Europe, according to a major survey
(CNN) -- Along the Rust Belt and in cities dotting the Northeast and Upper Midwest, Catholic communities are mourning the loss of parishes. It's a five-year trend of sweeping church closures that most recently hit Cleveland, Ohio. More...
ScienceDaily -- The genetic toolkit that animals use to build fins and limbs is the same genetic toolkit that controls the development of part of the gill skeleton in sharks, according to a new study. More...
Chicago Sun-Times -- The House voted 79-33 Thursday to change a law that a federal judge ruled unconstitutional in January. The legislation now moves to the Senate, where a similar bill died last year. More...See also: 5th Circuit Affirms Texas Schools' Moment of Silence Law
Greenville, SC -- More than 500 people filled Simpsonville's Temple Baptist Church on Tuesday night to support the issuance of "I Believe" state license plates in an event that blended elements of a church service and a Republican campaign stop. More...
Some 40,000 people in the US state of Utah live in illegal polygamous families in which a man takes more than one wife. These fundamentalist Mormons have now begun a campaign for a change in the law they regard as discriminatory and unfair. More...
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- A group of Minnesota religious leaders say they're supporting another push at the state Capitol for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in the state, but the effort isn't likely to get much attention this year. More...See also: Vermont Guv Vows to Veto Same-Sex MarriageGovernor vows gay marriage vetoProp 8 protestors march from Berkeley
The pair, from Bristol, booked a room at the Chymorvah Private Hotel in Marazion, Cornwall, last September, but when they arrived were told that only married heterosexual couples could stay in the same room. More...
An Italian court has jailed a Tunisian pilot who paused to pray instead of taking emergency measures before ditching his plane, killing 16 people. More...
A Borat-style documentary lampooning the world's religions through interviews with their leaders is to open in Britain next week -- and, if the US experience is anything to go, it is certain to spark controversy. More...See also: Vatican 'to call for boycott' of Tom Hanks film Angels & Demons
Up to 1,000 Gambian villagers have been abducted by "witch doctors" to secret detention centres and forced to drink potions, a human rights group says. More...
The Pope caused dismay among Aids campaigners yesterday by declaring on his first trip to Africa that condoms were not the solution to the epidemic ravaging the continent. In his first public comments on condom use, an issue that has divided even Roman Catholic clergy working with Aids sufferers, he told reporters en route to Cameroon that Aids "cannot be overcome by distributing condoms -- it only increases the problem". --snip-- Rebecca Hodes, head of policy, communication and research at Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, said that if the Pope were serious about preventing HIV infections he would focus on promoting wider access to condoms and information. "Instead, his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans," she said. More...See also: Pope Benedict XVI is WrongVatican insiders declare the Pope a 'disaster'
RABAT, Morocco -- Morocco's government is clamping down on homosexuality and alleged Shiite propaganda, saying it will tackle any group that threatens moral and religious values in the Sunni Arab kingdom. More...See also: All homosexuals should be stoned to death, says Muslim preacher of hate
JERUSALEM: The publication late last week of eyewitness accounts by Israeli soldiers alleging acute mistreatment of Palestinian civilians in the recent Gaza fighting highlights a debate here about the rules of war. But it also exposes something else: the clash between secular liberals and religious nationalists for control over the army and society. More...See also: Israeli Soldiers' Shirts Joke About Killing ArabsIsrael Military Condemns Anti-Palestinian T-shirtsReport: 'Evidence of war crimes' in GazaSegregated bus line opens in Jerusalem
(CBS/ AP) A suicide bomber blew himself up at the main gate of a police station in the Pakistani capital late Monday, killing himself and one officer. More...See also: Pakistan, "Terror's Frontline"
(CBS/AP) A roadside bomb ripped through a van carrying civilians on a road used by foreign troops in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing 10 and wounding six, officials said. In the south, three Australian soldiers were wounded in another blast. More...See also: NATO Kills Senior Afghan Taliban MilitantU.S.: 34 Militants Killed In AfghanistanBomber Kills 11 In Afghan Police Station
(AP) A suicide bomber struck a tent filled Monday with Kurdish funeral mourners, unleashing a huge fireball that killed at least 23 people in a northern town where Kurds and Arabs are competing for power. More...See also: In Baghdad, it's fear that keeps the peace
(AP) Philippine marines clashed for a second day Tuesday with al Qaeda-linked militants holding three Red Cross workers hostage, killing at least six combatants and wounding 19 troops, officials said. More...
Al Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden, speaking in a new audio recording released Thursday on various jihadi Web forums and downloaded by CBS News, has asked Somalis to rebel against their newly elected president. More...
A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the Roman Catholic population has been shifting out of the Northeast to the Southwest, the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all. Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey. Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state. "No other religious bloc has kept such a pace in every state," the study's authors said. More...See also: See how U.S. religious landscape has changed in nearly 2 decades (Great interactive graphs!) More Americans say they have no religionDownward, Christian Soldiers: Godless Americans Become an American ForceRise Of The Godless (Our billboard mentioned in the cover story of the National Journal) And... Survey: Less Than 1 Percent of Young Adults Hold Biblical WorldviewA sceptical inquiryAlso... Atheist Billboard Causes Debate
ScienceDaily -- Herd mentality. Angry mob. Mass hysteria. As these phrases suggest, we are not always confident that a large group of people will come up with the smartest decisions. So it may be surprising to learn that numerous studies have shown that a crowd of people usually gives more accurate responses to questions compared to a mere individual. More...See also: Children As Young As Preschoolers Tend To Follow Majority Opinion'The Unexpected Outcome' Is A Key To Human Learning
ScienceDaily --Researchers have discovered that a long-defunct gene was resurrected during the course of human evolution. This is believed to be the first evidence of a doomed gene -- infection-fighting human IRGM -- making a comeback in the human/great ape lineage. The study, led by Evan Eichler's genome science laboratory at the University of Washington and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is published March 6 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics. More...
The Popol Vuh chronicles how the Maya gods created the world and made several attempts to fashion people to live in it, including "mud people" and "wooden people" that didn't quite meet the grade. Finally, the gods got it right, creating the people who inhabited the urban site now known as El Mirador - where the panels were found - and the hundreds of thousands of acres comprising the Serpent Kingdom. More...
A lecture given by evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins on the University of Oklahoma campus Friday night was received with varying levels of applause and cheers by a generally sympathetic crowd. More...
A former religion reporter for the L.A. Times writes about conversion and loss of faith. More...
Link is strong but varies across religious traditions. More...
Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday, March 11, will urge a federal appeals court to uphold the right of taxpayers to challenge public funding of a Baptist childcare agency that proselytizes youngsters in its care and discriminates against gay employees who do not share its belief that homosexuality is sinful. More...See also: Americans United Hails Senate Vote Rejecting Indefinite Funding For Washington, D.C., 'Experimental' Voucher Plan
Today marks a new stage in Newdow v. Roberts, the lawsuit filed December 30, 2008, by atheist Michael Newdow and others to stop plans to include prayer and a religious oath at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Attorneys for the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint overnight in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, adding 230 plaintiffs (including a number of children) to show the court there are many Americans who object to the infusion of religion into inauguration ceremonies. And just before noon today an attorney for the plaintiffs completed the new filing with an unredacted version of an appendix that includes all the names, addesses and declarations of the new plaintiffs. To protect plaintiffs from potential harassment in connection with the controversial case, a motion has been filed to place their addresses under seal. More...See also: The Appignani Bioethics Center Hosts Panel Discussion on how HIV Victimizes WomenLifting Stem Cell Ban Rebuffs Religious Right, Say Humanists
The Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing has called on the US administration to end federal funding for abstinence-only programmess and commit to comprehensive sexuality education in the nation's public schools. More...
The number of new claims of sexual abuse made against US Roman Catholic priests rose by 16% to more than 800 last year, a Church report says. More...
A senior Irish Catholic bishop, who served as a private secretary to three different popes, has agreed to step down from his post after being accused of mishandling allegations of child sex abuse in his diocese. More...
The advertising watchdog has decided not to launch a formal investigation into a controversial advertisement from the Christian party proclaiming that "there is definitely a God", even though it has become one of the four most criticised adverts of all time. More...
Across Africa, a war is being waged on women -- but we are refusing to hear the screams. Over the past fortnight, I have travelled into the secretive shadow world that mutilates millions of African women at the beginning of their lives, and at the end. As girls, they face having their genitalia sliced out with razors, to destroy their "filthy" sexuality and keep them "pure". As old women, they face being hacked to death as "witches", blamed for every virus and sickness blowing across the savannah. More...
Valletta, Malta - Nine people are expected to be charged in court in Malta for wearing religious vestments during the recent carnival, the police said. The nine people aged between 20 and 35 years will be marched to court, days after Maltese bishops raised concerns about the behaviour of certain individuals and the costumes worn during this year's carnival in the small island of Gozo. It is customary for some young people to dress up as priests and nuns during the rowdy carnival in the staunchly Catholic island. The accused will face charges under a section of the Criminal Code which bars people from dressing up as priests or donning Church vestments or naval/military uniforms without a permit. More...
BRASILIA, Brazil (CNN) -- A doctor excommunicated by the Catholic Church for performing an abortion on a 9-year-old rape victim received a standing ovation during a national convention on women's health, according to a local media report. More...
KENINGAU, Malaysia (Reuters) - Reciting the Catholic Creed, the 1,800-strong congregation attending mass at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral on Borneo island intones in Malay: "We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of Allah". More...
Turkey's feuding political factions are embroiled in a row over academic freedom after state officials forced a science journal to scrap an article celebrating the work of Charles Darwin. More...
What connects an academic, a blogger, a Nobel prize winner, a postgraduate researcher, a cyber feminist, a journalist and a woman who let her head covering slip? The answer? They have all had their freedom to express themselves violated. They have all been imprisoned, flogged and fined in Iran. More...
(CNN) -- A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a 75-year-old Syrian woman to 40 lashes, four months imprisonment and deportation from the kingdom for having two unrelated men in her house, according to local media reports. More...See also: Saudi men arrested for seeking female writer's autographLiving Under Sharia: The Plight of Women in Saudi Arabia
Cairo -- A 60-year-old Christian man has been stabbed to death in an Egyptian village following a week of sectarian tension surrounding an illicit love affair, local Christian church sources reported on Friday. More...See also: Minister beaten after clashing with Muslims on his TV show
(AP) Dutch police have arrested seven people suspected of preparing a terrorist attack in Amsterdam, including a relative of one of the attackers who died in the 2004 bombings in Madrid. More...
In his second audio release in two months, Osama bin Laden continues to call for jihad or holy war, and to taunt the West, urging Muslims to join fighters in Iraq against the United States and lashing out at moderate Muslim states. More...
(CBS/AP) A suicide bomber struck tribal leaders touring a market in a Sunni area west of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing as many as 33 people in the second major attack in the capital area in two days. More...Earlier... Suicide Bomb Kills 32 In Baghdad
(AP) A bomb-laden car exploded Saturday in northwest Pakistan as police tried to pull a body from it, authorities said, killing eight people amid growing international concern over the nuclear-armed country's stability. More...See also: Pakistan Protests "Prelude To Revolution"Missiles Hit Suspected Pakistan MilitantsDespite U.S. Efforts, Tension Mounts in Pakistan
Liverpool -- The 1971 song, which contains the lyric "Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try, No hell below us, above us only sky", will be performed from the world's tallest bell tower, which is 100.89m (331ft) tall, as part of the Futuresonic Festival in May. More...See also: Controversey as Liverpool Anglican Cathedral set to peal John Lennon's ImagineAnd... Liverpool Hope University to offer Beatles degree
NASA is getting ready to launch the Kepler telescope on an ambitious, first-of-its-kind mission: to search for Earth-size planets in our galaxy, orbiting stars at the right distances to have water on their surface. More...See also: Galaxy may be full of 'Earths,' alien life
Ehrman is the author of Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them). He says that each Gospel writer had a different message -- and that readers should not "smash the four Gospels into one big Gospel and think that [they] get the true understanding." More...
A new analysis of survey data finds women pray more often then men, are more likely to believe in God, and are more religious than men in a variety of other ways. More...
The figures indicate that the Catholic church lost 398,000 members since the appearance of the 2008 Yearbook. Southern Baptists lost nearly 40,000 members. More...
The Bible advises to turn the other cheek. So how do these God-fearing Americans square carrying firearms with their religion? More...
Specialist Chalker is now a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that accuses the military of ignoring laws and policies banning mandatory religious practices. Specialist Chalker, who earned a Purple Heart in Iraq, remembers returning from the war in 2007 and attending a mandatory ceremony that began and ended with a Christian prayer. The experience, Specialist Chalker said, was "humiliating and dehumanizing." More...
Humanists are reacting to a comment today from a Boy Scouts of America spokesperson stating that President Barack Obama has indicated he will accept the title of honorary president of the BSA. "If President Obama does this, it will send an implicit message to nontheists that discrimination against them is permissible," said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association. In a White House meeting this afternoon, Obama officially received the Boy Scouts' 2008 Report to the Nation. Every U.S. president since William Howard Taft has served as honorary head of the Boy Scouts. Boy Scout policy is to deny the participation of nontheistic members and employees and expel those already involved, a policy to which the American Humanist Association has publicly objected. Hence the American Humanist Association, in conjunction with 18 other nontheistic (atheist and agnostic) organizations, sent a letter to then-President-Elect Obama in January urging him to decline the title and role of honorary president of the Boy Scouts. In addition, the American Humanist Association had participated in a grass-roots effort to educate and persuade President Obama on this matter. "We're disappointed that it seems Obama won't do the right thing and break with tradition by declining the honorary presidency of the Boy Scouts," Speckhardt added. "Discrimination against nontheists should never be condoned in a society that values pluralism--and it's especially important that our leaders send that message by living through example. Obama will send the wrong message today if he tacitly endorses such discrimination." "We're particularly disappointed because President Obama understands that secular Americans can be model citizens," said AHA President David Niose. "In fact, he was raised without theistic belief by a secular humanist mother. How can he endorse a group that stands for policies that discriminate against the same values with which he was raised?" Niose continued: "We had high hopes that America's new president would courageously stand up for what is right, but it looks like he's going to let us down. By accepting the BSA honorary presidency he will have turned his back not only on the secular community but on his own upbringing." LINK
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE 1ST SESSION OF THE 52ND OKLAHOMA LEGISLATURE: THAT the Oklahoma House of Representative strongly opposes the invitation to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma to Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published statements on the theory of evolution and opinion about those who do not believe in the theory are contrary and offensive to the views and opinions of most citizens of Oklahoma. THAT the Oklahoma House of Representatives encourages the University of Oklahoma to engage in an open, dignified, and fair discussion of the Darwinian theory of evolution and all other scientific theories which is the approach that a public institution should be engaged in and which represents the desire and interest of the citizens of Oklahoma. More...See also: Richard Dawkins' US Dates begin Monday
Yesterday the American Humanist Association hailed the United States Supreme Court for declining to hear a lawsuit that challenged a school district policy that bans sport coaches from participating in student prayer. Marcus Borden, a high school football coach, had sued officials in East Brunswick, New Jersey, after he was forbidden to bow his head and "take a knee" with students before games. A federal appeals court sided with the school board against Borden, and the Supreme Court has allowed that decision to stand. More...See also: U.S. Supreme Court rejects appeal by East Brunswick football coach in prayer caseAmericans United Lauds Supreme Court's Refusal To Hear N.J. Football Prayer CaseAnd... Americans United Issues Statement On Resignation Of James Dobson As Focus On The Family Chairman
(CBS/AP) As thousands demonstrated outside Thursday, California Supreme Court justices weighed whether voters' decision to ban same-sex marriage was a denial of fundamental rights or within what one justice called the people's "very broad powers" to amend the state constitution. More...See also: Gay Marriage: Is California's Supreme Court Shifting?
The Obama administration is moving to overturn a controversial Bush administration policy that allows health care workers to decline to provide or participate in any service that violates their beliefs. More...
A federal appeals court says the Vatican can be sued for abuse committed by its priests. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled that victims of sexual abuse by priests can sue the Vatican even though it is considered a sovereign nation. More...
RIO DE JANEIRO -- A 9-year-old girl who was carrying twins, allegedly after being raped by her stepfather, underwent an abortion Wednesday despite complaints from Brazil's Roman Catholic church. More...See also: Rape row sparks excommunicationsBrazil attacks church opposition to girl's abortion
ROME - A Vatican-backed conference on evolution is under attack from people who weren't invited to participate: those espousing creationism and intelligent design. More...See also: Vatican hosts Darwin conferenceCardinal says atheist's theories "absurd"Four out of five Britons repudiate creationismHow to Spot Religion Disguised as Science
(AP) Roman Catholic bishops in Italy are urging the faithful to go on a high-tech fast for Lent, switching off modern appliances from cars to MP3 players and abstaining from surfing the Web or text messaging until Easter. More...
America's Catholic League is to campaign against Angels and Demons, Ron Howard's prequel to worldwide blockbuster The Da Vinci Code, it said yesterday. The League, which is led by controversial president William A Donohue, said it would be pointing out what it says are a number of falsehoods in the new film and the Dan Brown book on which it is based. It also claimed Angels and Demons, which arrives in cinemas on 15 May, had an anti-Catholic agenda. More...Of course, they have no problem with the greater "number of falsehoods" contained in the Bible.
(CBS/AP) Pope Benedict XVI on Monday formally rescinded the promotion of an ultraconservative priest who came under fire for suggesting that God punished New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina. More...
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - In an effort to reduce the church's political influence, Argentine atheists and feminists are spearheading a drive to get people who were baptized Roman Catholic but disagree with the church's politics to formally renounce their faith. More...
A long list of thinkers, both believers and nonbelievers, have posited something like an innate religious instinct. Confronted by the mystery of death or the puzzle of life's ultimate meaning, humans are said to be hard-wired to turn to religion or something like it. Based on his experience in Scandinavia, Mr. Zuckerman disagrees. More...
A U.N. resolution seeks to criminalize opinions that differ with the Islamic faith. More...See also: U.S. won't participate in racism conference
(CNN) -- Police in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca Wednesday arrested a woman for violating the country's ban on women driving, according to the Saudi English-language daily Arab News. More...
Could the Islamic republic be heading towards a sexual revolution? More...
(AP) A car bomb tore through a crowded livestock market south of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 13 people in a mainly Shiite area where the U.S. believed the threat from extremists has greatly diminished. More...
GAZA CITY, Gaza (CNN) -- An Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Wednesday targeted Islamic Jihad militants, including a senior commander, following an attack on the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, the Israel Defense Forces said. More...
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Rapes targeting girls as young as seven are on the increase in Afghanistan where conditions for women are little better than under the Taliban, the U.N. and rights groups say. --snip-- "Violence is tolerated or condoned within the family and community, within traditional and religious leadership circles, as well as the formal and informal justice system," said Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. More...See also: 3 Hurt In Attack On Main U.S.-Afghan Base
(CBS/AP) At least a dozen men ambushed Sri Lanka's cricket team with rifles, grenades and rocket launchers Tuesday as they drove to the stadium ahead of a match in Pakistan, killing six policemen and a driver. More...See also: Islamic terror groups growing in strength in PakistanTwo Christians Charged Under Blasphemy Law in Kasur, Punjab
(AP) Security forces have killed 120 militants linked to al Qaeda in Algeria over the past six months and arrested 322, the government said Sunday. More...
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