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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Texas Man Faces Execution After Jurors Consult Bible To Decide Fate

A convicted murderer faces execution in Texas after jurors consulted the Bible while deliberating on his sentence.

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New York-Based Muslim's Web Site Calls For God To 'Kill the Jews'

New York bicycle cabbie who last year used his Web site to mock the beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl posted a prayer calling for the murder of Jews and exhorting Muslims to "throw liquid drain cleaner in their faces." And there's nothing authorities can do about it.

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Church To Burn Bibles On Halloween Night

A North Carolina Church has stirred controversy with plans for a Halloween book burning.

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N.C. Church Plans Bible Burning

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Children 'Will Go To Hell If They Celebrate Halloween', Says Church Leaflet

Orthodox Jews Rely More On Sex Abuse Prosecution

For decades, prosecutors in Brooklyn routinely pursued child molesters from every major ethnic and religious segment of the borough's diverse population. Except one.

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Early Alarm For Church On Abusers In The Clergy

The founder of a Roman Catholic religious order that ran retreat centers for troubled priests warned American bishops in forceful letters dating back to 1952 that pedophiles should be removed from the priesthood because they could not be cured.

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Bankruptcy Move Delays Abuse Case

A Catholic diocese based in the state of Delaware has filed for US bankruptcy protection on the eve of a civil trial involving high-profile sex abuse.

The move automatically delays the case, the seventh of its kind in the US since a scandal in Boston seven years ago.

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Outrage after US Catholic Church files for bankruptcy and delays sexual abuse claims

Catholic Priest Who Fathered Child Is Suspended

ST. LOUIS A Wisconsin diocese late Friday suspended a Roman Catholic priest who fathered a child during a five-year relationship in Illinois and may have been involved separately with a minor.

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Cover-Ups Exposed In Dublin Report Will Shock Most

OVER COMING days we are likely to witness something definitive where the Catholic Church in Ireland is concerned. Publication of the Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation report is expected to confirm much, but it will shock even more.

This shock factor is unlikely to be centred on the abuse stories involved, or on their scale.

Following the Ryan report last May, it might be said that the Irish public has become almost inured to such depravity. But it is the scale of the cover-up in Dublin and the moral audacity of senior clergy involved which is likely to shock most of all.

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A dark chapter we cannot ignore

Leeds Boy-Rape Vicar Is Jailed For 14 Years

A disgraced Leeds vicar is today starting a 14-year jail sentence for raping two boys and a string of other sex offences.

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Pope Approves Plan To Bring Anglicans Into The Fold

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- The Vatican announced Tuesday it was making it easier for Anglicans to convert to Roman Catholicism -- a surprise move designed to entice traditionalists opposed to women priests, openly gay clergy and the blessing of same-sex unions.

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Churches Involved In Torture, Murder Of Thousands Of African Children Denounced As Witches

EKET, Nigeria (AP) -- The nine-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall.

His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him -- Mount Zion Lighthouse.

A month later, he died.

Nwanaokwo Edet was one of an increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of "witch children" reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files.

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Atheists March Through Krakow

One of the first things visitors to Poland hear is that Poland is a Catholic country. Poles love their Pope, and they love the Catholic Church. But how much of this stereotype actually holds true in Polish society in 2009? One group wants to show that Polish religious life is not as uniform as the guide books report.

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Unification Church Passes To A New Generation As Sun Sets On Moon

The sons inherit an organisation that has gone beyond its pseudo-Christian origins to become a business empire spanning several countries. Its interests include a newspaper, the Washington Times, a gun manufacturer, hotels, an ad agency, a seafood distributor, a professional football team, and a ballet troupe. Yet throughout the church's turbulent history, there has been one constant: Moon, the "true parent" whose cult of personality is behind much of the criticism that has plagued the church since its foundation in 1954.

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The Big Question: What Is The Unification Church, And Do Its Practices Have A Future?

Row Continues Over Protestant Church Memo Attacking Catholic Church

A memorandum by a senior German protestant clergyman heavily criticizing the Pope and the Catholic Church in Germany has thrown interfaith relations between the two denominations in the country into turmoil.

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Property Crash Puts Church Cash At Risk

The Church of England conceded yesterday that its involvement in a controversial New York property deal now on the verge of default has left it at risk of losses that some estimates put at tens of millions of pounds.

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Church Loses $160m On Investments

THE Sydney diocese of the Anglican Church is fighting for survival after a catastrophic loss of $160 million on its once bountiful share portfolio.

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Handsome Muslim Men Accused Of Waging 'Love Jihad' In India

Muslim fundamentalists in India have been accused of waging a "love jihad", using charming young men to lure girls into converting to Islam with promises of marriage.

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Islamic Militants Ban Bras

A HARDLINE Islamist group in Somalia is publicly whipping women for wearing bras they say violate Islam by constituting a "deception", it was claimed yesterday.

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Egyptian Women Protest Ban On Austere Veil

CAIRO, Egypt (CNN) -- There's more to wearing the "niqab" -- the austere, all-covering veil favored by ultra-religious Muslim women -- than meets the eye.

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Five Men Convicted Of Plotting Mass Terror Attack In Australia

The men, all from Sydney's south-west, were arrested in a series of raids on their homes in 2005. They were accused of conspiring between July 2004 and November 2005 to carry out a violent jihadist act, possibly targeting the then Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, to force the government into changing its policies on the Middle East.

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Italy: Bomb Attack Stuns Italy

Rome, (ANSA): A bomb attack on a northern Italian police barracks Monday luckily failed to claim lives but left Italy guessing if it was in the sights of Islamist terrorists.

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Revolutionary Guard Commanders Killed In Iran Bomb

A suicide bomber killed five senior commanders of the elite Revolutionary Guard and at least 26 others in an area of southeastern Iran that has been at the center of a simmering Sunni insurgency, state media reported.

--snip--

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the region in Iran's southeast has been the focus of violent attacks by a militant group from Iran's Sunni Muslim minority called Jundallah, or Soldiers of God, which has waged a low-level insurgency in recent years.

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Battle Rages Over Pakistan Militant Stronghold

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Heavily armed militants put up a fierce fight on Tuesday to protect a Taliban stronghold in South Waziristan, Pakistan's military said.

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Explosions Rock Pakistan University

Taliban fighters resist Pakistani assault

Pakistan faces new wave of Taliban attacks

Militant attacks kill at least 30 in Pakistan

Female suicide bomber kills 11 in fresh wave of attacks in Peshawar

41 dead in Pakistan Swat Valley blast

Gun and bomb attacks kill 39 people in Pakistan

Pakistan fights 'mother of all battles' with the Taliban

Bomb Kills 4 U.S. Troops In Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Four U.S. service members died in a roadside bombing attack, and two civilians were killed in crossfire during a military operation, military authorities in Afghanistan said Friday.

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Runoff ordered for fraud-riddled Afghan vote

9 Killed, 30 Wounded Iraq Mosque Attack

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- At least nine people were killed and at least 30 were wounded Friday in a suicide attack targeting Sunni Muslim worshipers at a mosque in northern Iraq, an Interior Ministry official said.

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More than 85,000 Iraqis killed in war violence, ministry says

The Lonely, Dangerous Life Of Wine-Lovers In Islamist Gaza

Abu Mohammed goes to great lengths to enjoy his wine in Gaza. Risking the wrath of the enclave's Islamist Hamas rulers, he sneaks to the rooftop of an abandoned house to make his own nectar of the gods.

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U.N. Rights Council Backs Gaza 'War Crimes' Report

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- The United Nations Council for Human Rights approved a controversial report Friday which accuses Israel and Hamas of "actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity" during the December-January war in Gaza.

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Supreme Court Debates Legality Of Mojave Cross

Justices take up the issue of whether the display of a cross in a national preserve is a violation of the 1st Amendment ban on establishment of religion.

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Cross Purposes

Humanists Weigh in on Supreme Court Case Salazar v. Buono

Barry Lynn on CNN's 'Lou Dobbs Tonight'

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Council Votes To Restore Monterey Cross

'You Can Run' may be running afoul of the Constitution

Atheist Talks Of His Faith In Science

Richard Dawkins chuckled when I told him he might have to travel on Billy Graham Parkway when he flies into town next week to speak at Queens University of Charlotte.

As perhaps the most famous atheist in the world, Dawkins is hardly a fan of Christian evangelists.

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O'Reilly Debates Atheist Richard Dawkins, Calls His View Of How To Teach Science "Fascism" (VIDEO)

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The latest on evolution from the Vatican

7 Reasons Why Religion Is A Form Of Mental Illness

I would like to propose that religious beliefs be placed in the DSM as a category of mental illness for the following reasons:

(1) Hallucinations - the person has invisible friends who (s)he insists are real, and to whom (s)he speaks daily, even though nobody can actually see or hear these friends.

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Atheist Clubs Are Springing Up In American High Schools, Warns Head Of US Catholic Bishops

The Cardinal's comments will be hard to dismiss as scaremongering. YouTube is crawling with videos by articulate, friendly American teenagers and university students proclaiming their uncompromising atheism; indeed, atheism is one of the fastest-growing movements in the 18-25 age group, casting doubt on old assumptions that the religious impulse is somehow hard-wired into the American psyche.

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ACLU: Bibles Used As Weapons At Local Schools

A report issued Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas claims that Gideon Bibles which were passed out in schools were used to harass and hurt several students in Plano and Frisco.

--snip--

According to the ACLU, students at Vines High School in Plano were given so many Bibles that they threw them at one another, sold them, tore them up and used the pages to roll a marijuana joint.

The report alleges that students at Frankford Middle School in Plano harassed a Jewish classmate with the Bibles before tossing them at the boy.

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Conservative Bible Project Aims To Delete 'Liberal Bias' From The Bible

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." That famous line, attributed to Jesus in Luke 23:34, could well apply to the folks at Conservapedia -- the "conservative version" of Wikipedia -- who have embarked on a project to rewrite the Bible. In an effort to rid the Good Book of "liberal bias," the group has set up the Conservative Bible Project, which aims to rewrite the Bible from a modern, conservative perspective.

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Faith-Healing Parents Sent To Jail

The couple have just been sentenced to serve one month in jail, each year for six years, plus a period of ten years on probation.

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Diocese Ordered To Pay Sex Abuse Victim

Jurors have reached a verdict in the latest priest sex abuse case.

The Vermont Catholic Diocese will pay $2.2 million dollars in damages to a former altar boy who is now 44-years-old.

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Vatican's New Defense On Child Molestation Charges: Finger-Pointing

Over the past decade, thousands of Catholic priests around the world have been accused of molesting children and the Church has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to settle sex-abuse lawsuits. The litigation exposed a far-reaching cover-up of child sexual abuse by the Church hierarchy, which included transferring pedophile priests to new parishes and intimidating victims and their families into silence. In the past few years, revelations of sexual abuse within Orthodox Jewish communities have begun to generate similar allegations and lawsuits.

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Church Removes Power From Women Bishops

The unity of the Church of England is under threat once more after a key committee agreed to automatically remove certain powers from female bishops and give them to their male colleagues.

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In Canada, Church Clings To Relevancy As Congregations Dwindle

Shrinking congregations and spiralling costs are fuelling the decline of the traditional church.

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Report: Nearly 1 In 4 People Worldwide Is Muslim

The global Muslim population stands at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly 1 in 4 people in the world practice Islam, according to a report Wednesday billed as the most comprehensive of its kind.

--snip--

Pew officials call the report the most thorough on the size and distribution of adherents of the world's second largest religion behind Christianity, which has an estimated 2.1 billion to 2.2 billion followers.

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Somali Rebels Carry Out Amputations on Robbery Suspects

Somalia's hardline Islamist group, al-Shabab, has publicly cut off hands and feet of three suspected robbers in the southern port city of Kismayo.

Witnesses said hooded al-Shabab fighters used machetes to cut off the limbs of the screaming men on Friday.

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Saudi Sex Braggart Gets Five Years In Jail, 1,000 Lashes

RIYADH -- A Saudi man whose televised boasts about his sex life outraged the country's conservatives was sentenced to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes on Wednesday, his lawyer said.

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Deadly Iraq Blasts Raise Security Fears

Explosions slay at least 19 and wound dozens in western city of Ramadi.

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Ramadi, Iraq on high alert after car bombings

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Iraqis Shocked as Atheism Creeps in

Afghan Outlook Bleak As Taliban Grabs Territory

The quiet truth whispered by soldiers in the field and aid workers in Kabul is that the Afghan government is not likely to ever control southern Afghanistan's wildlands, the foreboding territory beyond the provincial capitals.

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Indian Embassy Bombed in Afghanistan

Taliban announces that it poses no international threat

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U.N.: "Widespread Fraud" in Afghan Vote

How the Afghan Election Was Rigged

Attacks Show Taliban Resurgence In Pakistan

ISLAMABAD - A week of terror strikes across Pakistan, capped by a stunning assault on army headquarters, show the Taliban have rebounded and appear determined to shake the nation's resolve as the military plans for an offensive against the group's stronghold on the Afghan border.

The 22-hour attack on Pakistan's "Pentagon" in the city of Rawalpindi, which ended with 20 dead Sunday, was the third terror attack in a week to shake this nuclear-armed nation. It demonstrated the militants' renewed strength since their leader was killed by a U.S. missile strike in August and military operations against their bases.

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Suicide bomb blast kills at least 49 in northern Pakistan

Israeli Settlers Burn Fields After Illegal Outpost Dismantled

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli settlers on Sunday set Palestinian fields and olive groves on fire after their illegal outpost in the West Bank was dismantled, Israeli military sources told CNN.

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Al Qaeda Tells China's Uyghurs To Prepare For Holy War

(CNN) -- A high-ranking al Qaeda leader has called on China's minority Uyghurs to prepare for a holy war against the Chinese government.

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Show The World That Humanists Stand For Equality. March With The AHA At The National Equality March This Weekend!

Join the American Humanist Association at the National Equality March this Sunday, October 11 in Washington, DC!

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Las Vegas Gets Irreligious Billboard Mini-Blitz

A "mini-blitz" of nine billboards bearing three different irreverent messages begins today for a month in Las Vegas, compliments of the national Freedom From Religion Foundation.

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'Imagine No Religion' Billboards Hit Detroit

NASA Telescope Spots Ring Around Saturn

(AP) The Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered the biggest but never-before-seen ring around the planet Saturn, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced late Tuesday.

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Oldest Skeleton Of Human Ancestor Found

Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago.

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Fossil finds extend human story

Body Posture Affects Confidence In Your Own Thoughts, Study Finds

ScienceDaily -- Sitting up straight in your chair isn't just good for your posture -- it also gives you more confidence in your own thoughts, according to a new study.

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Why One Way Of Learning Is Better Than Another

Scientists Develop Nasal Spray That Improves Memory

Stereotypes Loom Larger As Our Brains Age

The Neural Correlates Of Religious And Nonreligious Belief

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure signal changes in the brains of thirty subjects--fifteen committed Christians and fifteen nonbelievers--as they evaluated the truth and falsity of religious and nonreligious propositions.

--snip--

A comparison of both stimulus categories suggests that religious thinking is more associated with brain regions that govern emotion, self-representation, and cognitive conflict, while thinking about ordinary facts is more reliant upon memory retrieval networks.

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Italian Scientist Reproduces Shroud Of Turin

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian scientist says he has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, a feat that he says proves definitively that the linen some Christians revere as Jesus Christ's burial cloth is a medieval fake.

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Young People's Ignorance Of Religion Worries Experts

Half of U.S. high-school seniors surveyed recently thought Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple. A McGill University professor's reference to the patience of Job drew blank stares from students in his religion course. An art history teacher in France found children were mystified by the "strange bird" (a dove representing the Holy Ghost) common in Renaissance paintings.

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Humanists Oppose Hatch's Reinstatement of Failed Abstinence-Only Programs in Health Care Bill

Humanists were outspoken in their disappointment about an amendment approved by the Senate Finance Committee late Tuesday night to bring back federal funding for abstinence-only education. The amendment, attached to the Max Baucus (D-Mont.) health reform package and offered by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), would provide $50 million each year through 2014 for abstinence-only education and bar those funds from being used for education about other sex-ed subjects, such as contraception. The amendment, if passed, would effectively reinstate the Title V abstinence-only program, which had expired on June 30.

"Abstinence-only education has been proven not to work," said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association. "But Orrin Hatch doesn't seem to be interested in what the research shows--this is about enforcing his version of morality onto others that don't necessarily share it."

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At The 2009 Values Voter Summit, Religious Right Leaders Plot Their Return From The Political Wilderness

"Politics do not belong in the church, the church must be separate from the state -- these two mottos, these two slogans...came directly from the mind of Adolf Hitler," Fischer told an eager crowd of right-wing fundamentalists at Washington's Omni Shoreham Hotel, shoving aside the views of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. "Those two mottos, those two slogans, were official mottos, official slogans, of the Nazi Party."

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Prayer Effort Seeks "Right Thinking" From Liberals

Religious Right Forces Want Pharmacists' 'Rights' To Trump Those Of Patients, As A National Battle Erupts Over Religion In The Workplace

Federal civil rights laws already require employers to provide reasonable accommodations for religious observances and practices in the workplace. But several right-wing groups continue to lobby our government to protect employees' "religious freedom" in the workplace, even if it violates the civil rights of others.

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Appeals Court Gives Taxpayers The Right To Challenge 'Faith-Based' Funding Of Baptist Youth Agency In Kentucky

In light of this clear sectarian slant, KBHC would seem to be a poor candidate for governmental support. Yet the agency gets lots of it. In fact, since 2000, KBHC has pulled in more than $100 million in public funding from the state of Kentucky and the federal government.

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Faith-Based Hiring

Obama should keep his promise that religious groups getting federal funds can't discriminate in hiring.

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Faith-Healing Parents Get Probation

(AP) A judge has sentenced a Wisconsin couple to 10 years probation and 30 days a year in jail for the next six years for praying instead of seeking medical care for their dying 11-year-old daughter.

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Liberty Legal Takes Up Cross For Religion

WASHINGTON -- In a remote corner of the Mojave Desert, there's a war memorial dating to the 1930s. On top, there's an 8-foot cross that is, for now, obscured by a plywood box lest anyone driving 900 miles out of their way happen upon it and take offense at the endorsement of religiosity on public land.

The ACLU and others want the cross taken down.

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Georgia High School Bars Religious Banners At Football Games

The Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School football team took to the field for Friday night's game with a show of solidarity, bursting through a banner held by the school's cheerleaders as they always do, only this banner had no biblical verse on it.

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School bans cheerleader signs, community rallies

Lodi Council Votes To Keep Prayers Before Meetings

The city of Lodi, one of a handful of small California cities challenged for their invocations during public meetings, on Wednesday night rebuffed efforts to eliminate the prayers.

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Is Ricky Gervais' New Film Really Atheist Propaganda?

The film is set in a world where there is no lying, until the character played by Ricky Gervais tells his dying mother that she will go to heaven and be with the angels, thereby inventing religion. Before that, because everyone told the total truth, religion could not exist.

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Church Loses Fight Over Sealed Papers

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the release of thousands of pages of sealed documents concerning sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic diocese of Bridgeport, Conn.

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Former Canadian Bishop Faces Child Porn Charges

OTTAWA (Reuters) - A former Canadian bishop who oversaw the settlement of sex abuse allegations against the Roman Catholic Church, is facing child pornography charges, police said on Wednesday.

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'Devil In A Dog Collar' Jailed For Child Sex Attacks

A Roman Catholic priest referred to as the "devil in a dog collar" was jailed for eight years today over a string of sex attacks on young boys.

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Vatican Priest Caught In Red Light District After Police Chase

A Vatican priest led police on a high speed car chase leaving three officers injured after being caught in a red light zone, a court has heard.

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Afghan Insurgents Pushed Into U.S. Base, Official Says

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The battle Saturday in which eight U.S. troops were killed was so fierce that, at one point, U.S. forces had to fall back as attackers breached the perimeter of their base, a U.S. military official with knowledge of the latest intelligence reports on the incident said.

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8 U.S. troops killed in battle with militants in Afghanistan

Five Killed At U.N. Office In Islamabad

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- A suicide attack at the offices of the World Food Program in Islamabad killed five employees and wounded several others Monday, an agency official said.

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2 U.S. Soldiers Killed In Philippines Bomb Blast

SEATTLE, Washington (CNN) -- Two U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers were killed by a homemade bomb while supporting anti-terror operations on an island in the southern Philippines, Army officials said Thursday.

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Unrest Continues For Third Day In East Jerusalem

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli police on Tuesday arrested Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic movement in Israel, in the third consecutive day of unrest in East Jerusalem, police said.

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Police out in force day after riots at Jerusalem holy site

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Ultra-Orthodox Jews accused of fight to keep 'Jews for Jesus' out

Video From Al Qaeda's No. 2 Slams Obama, Threatens Attacks

(CNN) -- Al Qaeda's second-in-command slams the "smiling Obama" and threatens attacks in the latest video posted on radical Islamist Web sites.

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