Morality Research Sheds Light On The Origins Of Religion

ScienceDaily -- The details surrounding the emergence and evolution of religion have not been clearly established and remain a source of much debate among scholars. Now, an article published by Cell Press in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences on February 8 brings a new understanding to this long-standing discussion by exploring the fascinating link between morality and religion.

--snip--

Citing several studies in moral psychology, the authors highlight the finding that despite differences in, or even an absence of, religious backgrounds, individuals show no difference in moral judgments for unfamiliar moral dilemmas. The research suggests that intuitive judgments of right and wrong seem to operate independently of explicit religious commitments.

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Godless Billboards Spring Up Across Sacramento

"Are you good without God? Millions are."

These words are part of ten billboards (10 ft. 5 in. by 22 ft. 8 in.) that have just gone up around Sacramento. Sponsored by the Sacramento Area Coalition of Reason (Sacramento CoR) with $6,450 in funding from the United Coalition of Reason, the billboards each carry their message superimposed over an image of blue sky and puffy white clouds. Their appearance marks the launch of the Sacramento coalition, which is made up of nine area nontheistic (atheist and agnostic) groups.

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Billboards On Tampa Bay Roads Duel Over Existence Of God

A group representing people who do not believe in God or any gods has revved up an awareness campaign in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

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Pink Ouija Board Targeting Young Girls Riles Critics

A pink version of the popular Ouija board game has some critics seeing red.

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Obama Draws Fire For Remarks On 'Faith-Based Initiative'

President Obama praised the work of religious charities in a speech today and said he has tried to improve how the government supports their charitable efforts.

But civil-liberties groups criticized his administration's "faith-based initiative," saying Mr. Obama has yet to fulfill his promise to place better safeguards against proselytization and religious discrimination.

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On One Year Anniversary, Humanists Join with Broad Coalition Urging President Obama to Fix the Faith-Based Initiative

Americans United Joins Broad Coalition Of Groups Asking Obama To Reform 'Faith-Based' Initiative

ADL Urges President Obama to Ensure Faith-Based Initiative Does Not Lead to Proselytizing Or Discrimination

Tensions Over Faith-Based Office Erupt in Public Spat

Keeping Faith, Courting Conservatives

Obama's faith-based inertia

More Faith-Based Follies: One Year Later, Initiative Remains Plagued With Problems

Action Alert: Tell Obama to Reform the Faith Based Initiative Program

Political Prayer Breakfasts Are Bad Religion

Washington is the Vatican of a larger cult. In municipalities across the country, and on US military bases worldwide, government officials gather to bow their heads and invoke God's blessing - an exercise that should seem benign. But these official liturgies are fraught with dangerous implications.

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Cross Found At Air Force Academy's Wicca Center

Denver - The Air Force Academy, stung several years ago by accusations of Christian bias, has built a new outdoor worship area for pagans and other practitioners of Earth-based religions.

But its opening, heralded as a sign of a more tolerant religious climate at the academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., was marred by the discovery two weeks ago of a large wooden cross placed there.

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Wallbuilders' Narrow Notion: Religious Liberty For Me, But Not For Thee

Wallbuilders.... asserts that the Founders only wanted the word "religion" to incorporate monotheistic beliefs and should not protect the beliefs of others.

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Orwellian Call To Criminalize Homosexuality -- In America! -- Denounced By Atheists

An Atheist civil rights group today denounced a statement by a representative of the American Family Association that gay and lesbian Americans should be forced to receive "Reparative Therapy" and compared homosexuals to intravenous drug users.

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Voucher Volley: D.C. Newspaper Continues To Push Failed School-Aid Plan

The Washington Post yesterday added to its long list of editorials and columns in support of Washington, D.C.'s controversial school voucher plan.

The newspaper seems to have an obsession with keeping the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program alive, despite knowing that the program has shown no improvement in student performance, lacks accountability, hurts public schools and subsidizes religious education with taxpayer funds.

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Bumper Battle: Abortion-Rights Activists Fight 'Choose Life' License Plates With Their Own

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- Abortion-rights advocates have been unable to halt the "Choose Life" license plate variations in nearly two-dozen states, so now they're working to balance the bumper debate.

Activists are pushing a "Trust Women/Respect Choice" license plate in Virginia, which would become only the fourth state to offer a pro-choice plate and the first to require legislative approval for it. Supporters have threatened to sue if lawmakers don't give drivers the option.

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School's Sacking Of Christian Science Teacher Divides Town In Bible Belt

Freshwater denied responsibility for writing references to God and religion on class notes even though the hearings were told that they matched his handwriting.

But he did acknowledge that in 2003 he was ordered by school officials to cease a part of his teaching in which he scattered Lego blocks on a table and said that however long you left them there they would not build themselves, and so something as complex as the eye could not be the result of evolution but had to have been created by someone.

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Windsor, Conn., School Board Votes To Stop Holding Graduations At Church

The Windsor (Conn.) Board of Education voted late Monday to stop holding public high school graduation ceremonies at a local Christian church. With this decision, all five area school districts that had been holding graduations at the church have voted to halt the practice.

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Residents Urge Lake Local To Keep "Belief In God"

LAKE TWP. -- More residents are telling the Lake Local Schools Board of Education that they believe in God and don't want the district's values statement to change.

School board members are wrestling with whether they should drop the phrase "belief in God" from the district's values statement.

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Tampa City Councilwoman Mary Mulhern Sounds Off On Atheist Debate

Back in 2004, three members of the council at that time -- Kevin White, Rose Ferlita and Mary Alvarez -- walked out of the chamber in a vivid display of disdain when an atheist whom Councilman John Dingfelder had invited to give the invocation began to speak.

Mulhern correctly said that nobody on the current council had done so. Continuing her monologue, she then seemed to raise some eyebrows by recounting a story about a parent in the chamber who told her when his toddler asked him about religion, "'The only thing you need to know about religion is never criticize anyone's religion, because if you do they might kill you.'"

She then took on both the atheists and their critics, saying that those who mocked other's beliefs "are not going to help your cause. And to come as a religious person and condemn people who don't have belief is not going to help you either."

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Atheist group wants prayer out at City Council

Board Won't Resist Court

Judge James A. Beaty Jr. of U.S. District Court recently ruled that the county cannot allow prayers with sectarian content before meetings. Beaty said that the county could choose to have no prayer or a nonsectarian prayer instead.

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SC School District Ends Prayer Meetings

GEORGETOWN, S.C. -- For more than a decade, Violet Infinger had been praying with students in Georgetown High School's auditorium, but the South Carolina school district officials have ended that.

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FFRF Objects To Prayer Proposal In Albany, New York

The Freedom From Religion Foundation wrote a letter yesterday objecting to a proposal introduced Monday by Common Council member Anton Konev, of Albany, N.Y., to replace a moment of silence at Council meetings with prayer.

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FFRF Urges Elmhurst, Illinois City Council Not to Pray

How Alaska Court Dealt With Sincerity Of Religious Belief

Courts rarely pass judgment on whether individuals' religious beliefs are sincere, but that's exactly what the Alaska Court of Appeals did in Lineker v. State of Alaska Jan. 20 when it denied the religious-freedom claims of a couple who douse themselves in extracted marijuana liquid as part of a purported religious ritual.

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Secular Club Asks Concordia College Officials To Reconsider Rejection

Students trying to start a secular club at Concordia College are gathering signatures of support after the college declined to recognize the group. Concordia leaders determined the mission of the proposed group Secular Students of Concordia is not consistent with the college's mission.

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Baptists To Flood Texas With Bible CDs By Easter

DALLAS -- The largest state Baptist group in the nation wants Christ's message of hope heard in every home in Texas - about 9 million of them - by Easter.

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Baptists' Descent From Idaho To The Hell Of A Haitian Prison

The Idaho Baptists who are in a Haitian prison facing child kidnapping charges were led by a woman with financial and personal problems.

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American Charged in Haiti Had Some Troubles in Idaho

Americans jailed in Haiti tried taking other kids, officer says

A Graveyard That Tells No Lies

"My family has been in the church for decades," said a middle-aged woman who has called several times over the years. "I have seen so many people die, many from heart attacks and diseases."

"However, the deaths of the young women in child birth, and the deaths of their babies and children, is the reason I left and will never go back to that church."

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Clackamas County hopes to prevent more faith-healing deaths

Televangelist Denies 'Quid Pro Quo' With Ex-Liberian President

UNITED NATIONS -- Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, testifying in his war crimes trial in The Hague on Thursday, said that his government had awarded American televangelist Pat Robertson a gold mining concession in 1999 and that Robertson later offered to lobby the Bush administration on the government's behalf.

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AP: Ala. Christian Coalition Gets Gambling Money

Campaign finance reports show one of the state's leading faith-based groups, the Christian Coalition of Alabama, has received donations from political action committees financed largely by gambling interests.

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Vt. Diocese Selling HQ To Raise Settlement Money

MONTPELIER, Vt. -- Buffeted by priest sex abuse lawsuits, Vermont's Catholic church says it will sell its headquarters building and a children's camp to raise money for settlements to alleged abuse victims.

If it does, the 118,000-member Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington would become the latest U.S. diocese to resort to selling off assets to satisfy claims stemming from sexual abuse by priests.

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Prosecutor: Former Youth Pastor Tried To Hire Hit Man To Kill Witnesses

Johnson County - A former youth counselor, already charged in a sex scandal, is now accused of trying to hire a hitman to kill witnesses in the molestation case against him.

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Oak Park Pastor Investigated In New Rape Case

A Sacramento sex crimes task force is investigating an Oak Park pastor on allegations that he raped a woman before he was arrested last month for failing to properly register as a sex offender.

Meanwhile, The Bee learned Friday that two registered sex offenders worked as ministers on Pastor Calvin Lee Little's staff at the nondenominational In a Sweet Way Ministries.

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Retired Pastor Arrested For Molestation

Gibson. PA (WBNG Binghamton) Another allegation against a retired priest from Susquehanna county.

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Pastor Charged With Sexually Assaulting Child

RIVER ROUGE -- A reverend from a Detroit church was charged this morning with repeatedly molesting an underage boy.

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Queens Priest, Msgr. Michael Dempsey, Is Target Of Feds' Kid-Porn Probe

The feds have opened a kiddie-porn probe of an elderly Queens cleric, who has been suspended from his priestly duties.

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Inside Germany's Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal

The Catholic Church in Germany has been shaken in recent days by revelations of a series of sexual abuse cases. Close to 100 priests and members of the laity have been suspected of abuse in recent years. After years of suppression, the wall of silence appears to be crumbling.

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Abuse allegations mount at German Catholic church

Two New Books Tell The Gruesome Reality Of The Very Unholy Crusades

Two new books on the subject, Holy Warriors by Jonathan Phillips, and The Crusades by Thomas Asbridge, have just appeared in as many months, and the spell exerted by these extraordinary clashes between Cross and Crescent shows no sign of waning.

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Hindus Pierce Bodies At Religious Festival In Malaysia

North of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (CNN) -- Beating drums accompany hundreds of thousands of Hindu worshippers as they inch their way toward the entrance of the Batu caves just north of Malaysia's capital for the festival of Thaipusam.

The festival is celebrated under a full moon and many Hindus come to ask Lord Muruga for good health and peace for the year, to help them find a job or to cure a sick relative.

Some pierce their faces with metal spikes and have hooks inserted into their bodies while in a trance before climbing the 272 steps to the temples inside one cave.

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Don't Celebrate Valentine's Day Warning To Muslim Couples

Urusetia Menangani Gejala Social Pulau Pinang (Unggas) coordinator Nurfitri Amir Muhammad said the National Fatwa Council had in 2005 passed an edict that Valentine's Day is not Islamic; that the celebration has Christian elements and thus, should not be celebrated by Muslim couples.

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Turkish Girl Buried Alive For Talking To Boys

The body of a 16-year-old girl who police say was buried alive by relatives in an "honor" killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys has been discovered in Kahta, Turkey.

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Shots Fired In Guinea Town, Religious Tension Rises

CONAKRY (Reuters) - Gunshots were fired on Saturday in the southern Guinean town where Christians and Muslims clashed earlier this week, witnesses said.

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At Least 9 Die In Somalia Clashes, Group Says

(CNN) -- At least nine people have been killed and 14 others wounded in heavy shelling in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, according to a human rights group.

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Report: New Al Qaeda Threats Against U.S. From Extremist Leader

A new posting on an extremist website claiming to be from the deputy leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Said al-Shihri, has him making new threats again U.S. interests around the world, according to Arabic-language news network Al Jazeera.

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Three Marines Killed By Boy With Wheelbarrow Of Explosives

Three Royal Marines were killed by a boy suicide bomber who wheeled a barrow of explosives alongside them as they stood on a bridge in Afghanistan.

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Car Bombs Kill 32 In Iraq

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- Car bombs targeting Shiite pilgrims killed at least 32 people and wounded 154 others south of Baghdad on Friday, an Interior Ministry official said.

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Move to ban candidates sparks political crisis in Iraq

Death Toll Rises In Twin Bombing In Pakistan

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- The death toll has risen to 33 in Friday's twin blasts in Karachi, authorities said Saturday.

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Pakistani Taliban claim bombing that killed 3 Americans

Sources: Pakistani Taliban leader is dead

Goel Ratzon, Tel Aviv 'Savior,' Accused Of Enslaving Women

JERUSALEM -- The women tattooed his name and portrait on their bodies and gave their children his name -- Savior.

They spoon-fed the bearded, one-time healer as if he were royalty, brushed his shoulder-length white locks, sent him text messages when they were ovulating and slept with him at his bidding.

They turned over wages and welfare payments to him and lived in cramped, rundown Tel Aviv apartments with the children they bore him. According to police, he fathered some of his own daughters' children.

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Godless Comedy From That Mitchell And Webb Look

Is God done for? [Video]

Fish Caught Evolving Into Three Different Species

The King demoiselle is not just one type of fish, but three distinct groups that recently split from each other, according to a new study.

By essentially catching one species in the process of turning into three, the study suggests that conservation efforts might be failing a variety of species that have yet to be identified.

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Atheists -- Naughty And Nice -- Should Define Themselves

I was somewhat taken aback recently when I found myself on a list of "kinder, gentler atheists"--most of them women--compiled by a religious historian attempting to distinguish between socially acceptable atheism and the presumably mean, hard-line atheism expounded by such demonic figures as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett. This nasty versus nice dichotomy is wholly an invention of believers who are under the mistaken impression that atheism is a religion in need of a good schism.

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This Interesting Chart

Waiting For Armageddon

America's 50-million strong Evangelical community is convinced that the world's future is foretold in Biblical prophecy - from the Rapture to the Battle of Armageddon. This astonishing documentary explores their world - in their homes, at conferences, and on a wide-ranging tour of Israel. By interweaving Christian, Zionist, Jewish and critical perspectives along with telling archival materials, the filmmakers probe the politically powerful - and potentially explosive - alliance between Evangelical Christians and Israel...an alliance that may set the stage for what one prominent Evangelical leader calls "World War III."

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Church-State Watchdog Group Urges Obama To Keep Promise To Fix 'Faith-Based' Initiative

President Barack Obama should honor his pledge to reform the "faith-based" initiative by banning job discrimination in tax-funded programs and making it clear that public funds cannot support proselytizing, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

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Non-Christians need not apply

Americans United Speaks Out Against Intolerant Agenda Of National Prayer Breakfast Sponsor

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today deplored the intolerant agenda of "The Family," a secretive Religious Right group that sponsors the annual National Prayer Breakfast.

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Nothing Fails the Constitution Like a National Prayer Breakfast

At National Prayer Breakfast, Obama to Address Shadowy Christian Group Tied to Uganda's 'Kill the Gays' Bill

Lancaster, Calif. Is Not A Christian Community!

The Freedom From Religion Foundation wrote a letter today condemning remarks by the mayor of Lancaster, Calif., R. Rex Parris, in his recent State of the City address, that he wants residents to help "grow a Christian community." He later told a reporter for NBC LA: "In a Christian community, neighbors love their neighbors. . . . This is a Christian community. We should live like it. We should act like it." The mayor said that the majority of the Lancaster community is Christian, so it's only natural that the majority of government invocations invoke the name of Jesus.

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Money For Prayer Trials Best Spent Elsewhere

Federal Judge James Beaty Jr. of the U.S. Middle District of North Carolina ruled Thursday afternoon that the practice of allowing sectarian prayer violates a clause in the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment regarding the establishment of religion and free exercise thereof.

Beaty's ruling, of course, could have the opposite effect and cost hundreds of thousands in tax dollars in a protracted legal appeal. Is that really the best use of taxpayer money?

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Atheism Lawsuit: Illinois Politician Claims Atheist Sign Is 'Hate Speech'

William J. Kelly, a Chicago Republican, is suing the Illinois Secretary of State for allowing an atheist sign to be placed next to a nativity scene in the state capitol.

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Suits Charges FFRF Sign In Capitol Violated Establishment Clause

Westboro Baptist Church Protests, Gets Protested Outside Twitter

Yesterday, the Westboro Baptist Church and their subtly named picket group, God Hates Fags, brought their dog-and-pony show to San Francisco. That's right -- the freaky people came to freak out the freaky people.

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Ad Campaign Promoting Gay Acceptance Hits Long Island

Woman Who Shot KS Abortion Doc Warns Of Violence

WICHITA, Kan. -- The woman who shot and wounded Dr. George Tiller in 1993 has warned that abortion providers will "continue to be stopped," despite a Kansas jury's first-degree murder conviction of the doctor's confessed killer.

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Ore. Parents Found Guilty Of Neglecting Ill Son

OREGON CITY, Ore. -- An Oregon couple who practice faith healing testified they did everything they could for their 16-year-old son before he died, but a jury decided it was not enough, especially just months after the death of their granddaughter.

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James Ray Arrested In Sedona Sweat Lodge Deaths

Controversial spiritual leader James Arthur Ray was arrested today and charged with three counts of manslaughter connected to the deaths at a Sedona, Ariz., sweat lodge in October.

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Man Says Pastor Beat The Hell Out Of Him

(CN) - A church pastor beat the hell out of a student when he complained that the church's home-school high school diploma program was not accredited as advertised, the student says in the Cleveland Court of Common Pleas. The man claims that Community of Faith Church pastor Jeffrey Sanders threatened him with a stick, cussed him out, punched him and "slammed him into a table four times" after he had paid good money to get his diploma.

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Many Children Taken By Americans Not Orphans

CALLEBAS, Haiti - Parents in this struggling village above Haiti's capital said Wednesday they willingly handed some 20 of their children to American missionaries who showed up in a bus promising to give them a better life -- contradicting claims by the Baptist group's leader that the children came from orphanages or distant relatives.

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Uganda, White Supremacy And Evangelical Blood Money

White evangelicals have taken their corrupt "traditional family values" racket to Africa and hit paydirt. Over the past several months, Uganda's terrorist anti-Homosexual Bill has been exposed as not just a symbol of African homophobia but a symptom of American evangelical influence-peddling. While the legal battle over same sex marriage has reached epic proportions in the United States, American evangelicals have been quietly wielding "moral" influence over African public policy, spearheading a rabid call for retribution against gays and lesbians in their missionary pilgrimages. During a March 2009 trip to Uganda, evangelical activists Scott Lively and Don Schmierer warned Ugandan leaders of a gay agenda to "take over the world." Lively and Schmierer have been roundly condemned by human rights and social justice organizations for galvanizing Ugandan politicians to develop the legislation.

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Secularism On The Rise In UK

New research from the National Center for Social Research (UK) paints a promising picture of rising secularism in Britain.

The survey of more than 4,000 people across Britain found that the number of people describing themselves as Christian has dropped in the last 25 years from 66 percent to 50 percent.

The national center said most of that drop was due to defections from the Church of England, with only 23 percent of those surveyed describing themselves as Anglican today in comparison to 40 percent of the population in 1983.

The number of Britons saying that they do not belong to any particular faith rose from 31 percent in 1983 to 43 percent today.

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Germany Shaken By 'Systematic' Sexual Abuse At Berlin Catholic School

A priest last week admitted in a statement to Spiegel he had abused a number of pupils at an elite Berlin high school run by Jesuit priests. In recent days, around 20 former students have come forward alleging they were sexually abused by priests at the school. The director of Canisius College has described the years-long abuse as "systematic".

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India's 'Untouchables' Declare Own Religion

New Delhi, India (CNN) -- In an event considered rare, one of India's low-caste communities has declared its own distinct religion.

Followers of a 14-century spiritual figure, Guru Ravidass, will now have their own holy scriptures, a flag and a greeting, sect officials said.

The new holy book compiles Guru Ravidass' writings, which until now were predominantly found in sacred Sikh scriptures that the sect placed in its houses of worship.

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3 U.S. Special Forces Die In Pakistan Bombing

Three U.S. special operations forces helping train Pakistan's embattled paramilitary corps were killed today when their vehicle was destroyed by a remote control bomb, the deadliest ever attack on Americans in Pakistan.

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Foreign aid workers killed in Pakistan blast

Motorbike Bomb Kills 20 In Iraq

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- A motorcycle bomb killed 20 people and injured 117 others south of Baghdad on Wednesday, the Interior Ministry said.

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Petition Urging President Obama To Recognize Darwin Day

We need our elected leaders to speak out about the importance of scientific knowledge and its contribution to the advancement of humanity, and send a signal that religious infiltration into our science classrooms will not be tolerated. That's why we're asking you to sign our petition urging President Obama to recognize Darwin Day.

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Godless Billboards Appear Around Tampa Bay

"Are you good without God? Millions are."

These words are part of prominent, 14' x 48' billboards that have just gone up on both sides of Tampa Bay. The one on the Tampa side is near the University of South Florida along East Fowler Avenue near 17th Street, visible to westbound traffic. On the St. Petersburg-Clearwater side the billboard is along Ulmerton Road just east of U.S. Hwy. 19, viewable by eastbound traffic heading toward the airport. Sponsored by the Tampa Bay Coalition of Reason with funding from the United Coalition of Reason, the two billboards carry their message superimposed over an image of blue sky and puffy white clouds. The cost of the campaign is $7,600.

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Humanist Chaplains Head To The UK

You can't fault Epstein's enthusiasm and dedication. He's probably done as much for humanism in the US as Dawkins has done for it in the UK. His book, Good Without God, has just made the New York Times bestseller lists. And yet, despite 30 years' hard work, there are only three humanist university chaplains in the US -- at Harvard, Rutgers and Adelphi. Stanford and Columbia have had them in the past, but the posts are currently vacant and Tufts is campaigning for one.

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Can One Be Good Without God?

Why Atheists Don't Turn to Religion When Faced with Death or Disaster

Poll: Majority Of U.S. Disapproves Of Marriage To Atheists

(RNS) Most Americans accept interracial marriage, but many people of faith say they would be troubled by a family member's decision to marry an atheist, the Pew Research Center reports.

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Does insecurity promote faith?

Teen Pregnancy Rate Rises. Are Abstinence-Only Programs To Blame?

Teen pregnancy rates plummeted in the 1990s, largely due to increased access to contraceptives. However, the trend stabilized in the last decade and now there's evidence that teen births are rising again.

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The Weird World Of Occult America -- How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation

If witch-burning Puritans are the original jocks of American history, then the mystics surrounding Johannes Kelpius are the first goths.

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Military Re-Thinking Policy On Gay Troops

(CBS/AP) Defense Secretary Robert Gates is tapping two seasoned Pentagon officials to lead the military's first in-depth study on allowing openly gay service members and promising to try to spare more troops from being dismissed in the meantime.

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Air Force Academy Adds Chapel Space For Earth-Centered Faiths; Talks With Secular Student Group

...the Air Force Academy's Freethinkers group has apparently gained consent of administrators to affiliate with national Secular Student Alliance and move out from the Academy's Special Programs In Religious Education.

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State Constitutions And Religious Bigotry

Eight states retain provisions in their constitutions limiting public office to people who profess belief in God.

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'No Religious Test' Tested

While working as a journalist covering municipal government in Asheville, N.C., Cecil Bothwell carefully watched members of the city council and came to a simple conclusion: He could do their job.

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Atheist Group Blasts Postal Service For Mother Teresa Stamp

An atheist organization is blasting the U.S. Postal Service for its plan to honor Mother Teresa with a commemorative stamp, saying it violates postal regulations against honoring "individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings."

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Ohio Judge Has No Right To Push Religion In Courtroom, Says Americans United

An Ohio judge should remove a poster displaying the Ten Commandments from his courtroom, Americans United for Separation of Church and State has told a federal appeals court.

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'Philosophy' poster containing Ten Commandments gets judge back in spotlight

Arizona Capitol Commandments Monumentally Bad Idea

A state/church watchdog is blasting what it calls "the monumentally bad idea" of Arizona State Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa (with cosponsors Rep. Judy Burges, R-Skull Valley, Steve Court, R-Mesa, and Carl Seel, R-Phoenix) to plant a Ten Commandments monolith in front of the original 1898 Arizona Capitol by 2011.

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Theocrats In Maryland

Several bloggers (such as Jesus' General) have picked up on a story from the Church of Critical Thinking about Margaret Sayre, 70-year old member of the tax-funded Anne Arundel County senior center in Maryland. The centre provides meals for the elderly, and after 9/11 a moment of silence before eating was introduced. However, this has since evolved into the saying of Christian prayers, and while Sayre has no problem with a generic message acceptable Jews or unbelievers like herself, she found the enforced Christian praying too much and so wrote to her representative in the Maryland House of Delegates, Don Dwyer. Dwyer, however, is a hard-core theocrat, and responded that:

If the atheist (sic) of Maryland want something different then I would suggest building an atheist Senior Center where you won't have to hear any prayers but leave my people alone.

He added to the local newspaper, "What is the violation of church and state?... There is no separation of church and state in the Constitution that the atheists profess it to be." He also triumphantly told a Virginia AU member who objected to his dismissal of Sayre:

Fortunately in Maryland our constitution under the Declaration of Rights article 36 still states that in order to serve in elected office you have to believe in God. Isn't that great!!!

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Religion, Politicians Fiery Combo In Lancaster

Lancaster officials became embroiled in religious controversy this week after the mayor spoke of trying to make the Antelope Valley city a "Christian community" and a councilwoman wrote on Facebook that beheadings are what Muslims "are all about."
Mayor R. Rex Parris made his comments Tuesday in his State of the City speech as he urged Lancaster voters to approve a municipal ballot measure that would allow prayers - even those invoking a specific deity, such as Jesus - at city meetings.

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The Battle Of Hastings

Michael Flynn couldn't be prouder of his alma mater. Hastings College of Law, where Flynn graduated in 2006, has stood up for his rights and the rights of his classmates -- defending them all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Federal Court Strikes Down Sectarian Prayers At Forsyth County, N.C., Commission

A federal court has struck down a North Carolina county's policy of opening board meetings with sectarian prayers.

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Council Weighs Prayer Opening

Elmhurst, IL -- The Elmhurst City Council meeting Tuesday, Jan. 19, took an interesting turn during its final minutes, when praise for newly ordained Bishop Joe Siegel, formerly pastor of Elmhurst's Visitation Parish, segued to a proposal of a potentially controversial council practice.

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Enfield's Decision To Stop Using Cathedral For Graduations Appeases ACLU

ENFIELD -- The American Civil Liberties Union said a lawsuit against the school district is no longer necessary since the board of education has decided to move graduations back to the individual high schools.

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TN Tells High Schools How To Teach The Bible

Starting next fall, Tennessee high schools that want to teach students about Noah, Moses and the Prodigal Son will have a state-approved road map to do so.

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When the Bible goes to school, the tug-of-war begins

Tax Exemptions Favoring Clergy Defy Constitution

Due to the fact that only ministers are allowed to apply for the housing tax exemption, while other non-profit organization employees such as teachers and day care workers are barred, there is an unwarranted favoritism toward religious workers in the law.

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Sussex County Mother Is Convicted Of Starving Her Kids, Believing God Would Provide

A woman who made no effort to feed her four starving children, telling them God would provide for them as they grew weaker and hungrier by the day, was found guilty of child endangerment charges today in a Sussex County courtroom.

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Marci Beagley Defends Choice To 'Wait It Out' In Oregon City Faith-Healing Case

OREGON CITY -- Marci Beagley acknowledged Thursday that her son took a serious downturn about 12 hours before he died and defended under intense questioning her and her husband's decision to "wait it out" rather than get medical treatment.

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'Slain In Spirit' Case Might Impact Church Leaders

Judith Dadd sued her pastor after she was injured while "slain in the Spirit" - falling backward after being "overcome by the Spirit of the Lord" - during a rally at Mount Hope Church in Delta Township in 2002.

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Abortion Doctor's Killer Found Guilty Of Murder

WICHITA, Kan. - A man who said he killed prominent Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in order to save the lives of unborn children was convicted Friday of murder.

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Conviction angers anti-abortion militants

Former Pastor Plans To Appeal Murder Conviction

WACO, Texas (ABP) -- A former Baptist preacher sentenced to 65 years for murdering his wife plans to appeal his conviction.

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Why Would The Pentagon Ignore Ft. Hood Shooter's Ties To Islam?

The Pentagon report into the massacre at Fort Hood that left 13 dead is a joke. There is no mention of the suspect's views of Islam. None.

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EHarmony Settles Class-Action Suit Brought By Gays And Lesbians

The website, founded by clinical psychologist Neil Clark Warren, who is an evangelical Christian, did not provide same-sex matching services from its founding in 2000 until last year, contending that the company's closely guarded compatibility models were based on studies of married heterosexual couples.

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Hate Church To Protest High Schools, "RENT" Performance Friday In Sacramento

SACRAMENTO - A group notorious for picketing various political events tied with the gay community as well as the funerals of deceased American soldiers will be making a pit stop in Sacramento and Davis this week.

The Westboro Baptist Church, which runs the websites GodHatesFags.com, will protest at two Sacramento high schools -- Rosemont High and McClatchy High -- as well as several Jewish places of worship and the Sacramento Community Theatre's showing of the Broadway musical "Rent" on February 5th.

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Movement Behind Uganda's "Kill the Gays" Bill Organizing In Newark

PrayforNewark was founded by Newark suburb resident Lloyd Turner, who in October 2008 spoke at an Argentina conference of the International Transformation Network (ITN), whose CEO Ed Silvoso wrote, in his 2007 book, Transformation: Change the Marketplace and You Change the World, that homosexuality is caused by demon possession and that HIV and AIDS can be cured through faith healing and prayer. According to Silvoso, the entire national police force of the Philippines is being indoctrinated in this ideology.

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Disgraced Pastor Is Freed Of Gay Urges, Wife Says

It has been more than three years since charismatic pastor Ted Haggard left his megachurch in disgrace, mired in a scandal involving drug use and a male prostitute. But the woman who stood by him says now that the experience has brought them closer together than ever.

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The ex-gay files: The bizarre world of gay-to-straight conversion

Baptist Camp Hires Interim To Replace Director Charged With Pedophilia

HERTFORD, N.C. (ABP) -- A Baptist association in North Carolina has hired an interim replacement for a camp director arrested last summer on molestation charges.

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New Series Of Clergy Sex Abuse Cases Opens In Spokane

A new chapter is opening in Spokane's ongoing saga of sexual abuse cases involving Catholic priests. A Spokane judge is presiding over the first of what could be a series of trials against a Catholic group home for boys. Many former residents now claim they were molested there as children. For Spokane's Catholics, the trial reopens old wounds. A warning: some details in this story might not be appropriate for children.

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Man testifies he was paid hush money

Diocese Seeks To Pay Accused

When he was a Catholic priest in Delaware, Francis DeLuca molested boys after bingo games, on a trip to Italy and in the den of his living quarters, he said in an April 2009 deposition.

He admitted abusing so many boys in Delaware from 1962 to 1993 he couldn't remember all of them, according to court records.

--snip--

Now, the diocese, which was forced to file for bankruptcy in October under the weight of civil lawsuits alleging clergy sexual abuse by DeLuca and others, wants to pay about $10,000 a month in combined benefits to him and five others accused of abuse. The money would come from the diocese's bankruptcy estate or pool of assets.

Bankruptcy lawyers say it is the first time a diocese in bankruptcy has asked permission from a federal court to provide benefits to priests accused of sexual abuse.

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Archdiocese: Abusive Priests With Ireland Ties Worked In Boston

BOSTON -- For the first time, the Boston Archdiocese has confirmed that some abusive priests with ties to Ireland worked in Boston. An Irish government report last year outlined rampant clergy sex abuse in Ireland, but the Boston Archdiocese has never before acknowledged that any of those priests worked here.

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Armfield Requests Prostitution Charge Be Dismissed

A local reverend and former Greenwood County Council member who recently was accused of soliciting a prostitute has filed a petition to have the charge against him dismissed.

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Catholic Priest Charged With Embezzling $200,000

PRAIRIE DU CHIEN, Wis. -- A priest at St. Mary Catholic Church in Gays Mills and St. Phillip Catholic Church in Soldiers Grove has been arrested on a charge of embezzling up to $200,000 from those parishes.

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Crystal Cathedral Makes Deep Cuts As Revenues Drop

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. -- Blaming a struggling U.S. economy, the megachurch founded by Robert H. Schuller Sr. is pulling its signature TV program "Hour of Power" and taking other measures to offset a nearly $8 million drop in revenue.

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Jefferson County Pastor Arrested For Disorderly Conduct During Church Eviction

The church was evicted today after years of running behind on debts.

A foreclosure was completed on the building in September 2007 after the church defaulted on payments, according to Jefferson County court filings. The church then reached a lease agreement but fell behind on payments.

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Catholics Reel As A Diocese Whittles Its Parishes

Most Holy Redeemer Parish will offer its final Sunday Mass. After that, the building will go mostly unused, reflecting an era of dwindling churchgoers and vanishing priests.

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Church Of England Congregations Fall Again, And Half Are Pensioners

The Church of England has been hit by a new slump in its congregations, with the latest figures showing its fifth year-on-year decline.

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Average age of churchgoers now 61, Church of England report finds

Stuyvesant Town gamble costs Church of England

Catholics Cry Foul As Celebrity Cruises Drops Priests From Voyages

Celebrity Cruises this month quietly ended its long tradition of carrying Catholic priests on ships in a move that has some Catholics crying foul.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights in New York has issued a statement of protest saying the line has given in to "bigots" that had complained about the presence of priests on ships.

The Catholic League cites a letter Celebrity sent to priests affected by the change that said the line had received "a great deal of negative feedback pertaining to the selective support" of one particular religion.

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Haiti And The Hypocrisy Of Christian Theology

We know what caused the catastrophe in Haiti. It was the bumping and grinding of the Caribbean Plate rubbing up against the North American Plate: a force of nature, sin-free and indifferent to sin, un-premeditated, unmotivated, supremely unconcerned with human affairs or human misery.

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Haitian preachers speak of fire and brimstone after disastrous quake

Haiti earthquake: voodoo high priest claims aid monopolised by Christians

Between God And A Hard Place

In the 18th century, the genre of "earthquake sermon" was good business. Two small shocks in London, in 1750, sent the preachers to their pulpits and pamphlets. The bishop of London blamed Londoners' lewd behavior; the bishop of Oxford argued that God had woven into his grand design certain incidents to alarm us and shake us out of our sin. In Bloomsbury, the Rev. Dr. William Stukeley preached that earthquakes are favored by God as the ultimate sign of his wrathful intervention.

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Problem of evil and religion's double standard

Idaho Baptist Adoption Suspects Planned to 'Gather' 100 Haitian Orphans, Cross Border

(ChattahBox) -- Kidnappers for Jesus? A group of Evangelical church folk from Idaho, led by personal shopper Laura Silsby, Executive Director and Founder of New Life Children Refuge, descended upon the earthquake ravaged country of Haiti last week, to snatch and grab 100 orphans off of the streets and from orphanages. The Baptist group's mission statement was to "share God's love with these precious children, helping them heal and find new life in Christ." However, they were only able to "gather" up 33, some of whom weren't even orphans. The evangelical do-gooders became alleged kidnappers and child traffickers when they loaded the Haitian "orphans" on a bus and attempted to take them across the border to the Dominican Republic to the New Life Refuge orphanage, with no documents from the Haitian government. Well, the so-called orphanage turns out to be a 45-room hotel at Cabarete, a beach resort in the Dominican Republic that the group was renting.

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Haiti: U.S. Baptists Knew They Were Wrong

Baptists Offered Kids Pool, Tennis Courts

Scientologists 'Heal' Haiti Quake Victims Using Touch

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Amid the mass of aid agencies piling in to help Haiti quake victims is a batch of Church of Scientology "volunteer ministers", claiming to use the power of touch to reconnect nervous systems.

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How to Spend $150,000 on Scientology: The Larry Anderson Story

Scientology defector tells all

Joan Of Arc 'Relics' Confirmed To Be Fake

The so-called "relics of Joan of Arc," overseen by the Archbishop of Tours in Chinon, France, do not contain the charred remains of the Catholic saint.

Rather, the artifacts consist of a mummified cat leg bone and human rib, both dating to the 6th-3rd century B.C., according to a new study.

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Global Atheist Convention - Sold Out!

Tickets for The Rise of Atheism, 2010 Global Atheist Convention are now sold out! The Convention, to be held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre 12 - 14 March 2010, has attracted substantial Australian and international interest and tickets have sold out more than five weeks before the Convention starts.

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Italy Appeals School Crucifix Ruling

Italy has appealed against a European rights court ruling that displaying crucifixes in Italian schools breached the rights of non-Catholic families, the court says.

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117 In Hospital After Drinking Holy Water

MOSCOW -- Authorities in Siberia say more than 100 Russian Orthodox believers have been hospitalized after drinking holy water during Epiphany celebrations in the eastern city of Irkutsk.

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Attack By Militant Group Leaves 12 Dead In Somalia

(CNN) -- A militant Islamist group associated with al Qaeda attacked areas controlled by government troops and peacekeepers in Somalia early Friday, leaving 12 dead and scores injured, witnesses said.

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Somalia Islamist group bans video games

Christian-Muslim Violence In Nigeria Warrants Probe, Rights Group Says

Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) -- Reports of at least 150 Muslims killed in recent religious clashes in Nigeria should be investigated, a human rights group urged Saturday.

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Rapist Spared, Victim Lashed

Bangladesh -- Eight months after being raped, a 16-year-old at Khargor of Kasba upazila in Brahmanbaria had to receive 101 lashes as "punishment".

A village arbitration found her guilty and issued the 101 lashes fatwa (religious edict) but amazingly left alleged rapist Enamul Mia, 20, untouched.

The arbitration also fined the victim's father Tk 1,000 and issued another fatwa that her family would be forced into isolation if he failed to pay up.

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Malaysia Charges Three Over Allah Row Church Fires

Prosecutors in Malaysia have charged three Muslim men with firebombing a church in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, earlier this month.

They are the first suspects to appear in court in connection with a series of attacks on Christian places of worship.

The violence began when a High Court judge ruled that a Roman Catholic newspaper had the right to use the word Allah to refer to the Christian God.

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Iran Puts 16 On Trial After December Riots

Five of those on trial, including two women, were accused of "moharebeh" -- or defying God -- a charge that could carry the death penalty, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported.

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Female Suicide Bomber Kills 54 In Iraq

A female suicide bomber detonated her explosives inside a way station for Shiite pilgrims Monday, killing 54 people and rattling security officials who are struggling against a possible rise in violence before key elections next month.

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Iraq suicide blast at eatery kills 3, wounds 25

Car bomb kills 18, injures dozens in Baghdad

Blasts near hotels kill 36 in Baghdad

Al Qaeda-linked group claims Iraq bombings

Suicide car bomber strikes Baghdad police forensics office

Coalition Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan

(CNN) -- Two British soldiers and a Spanish soldier were killed in separate incidents in Afghanistan, the British and Spanish Defense Ministries said.

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Taliban claims 25 dead in attack near U.S. base

Insurgents kill 3 Afghan women

U.S. intelligence briefing: Taliban increasingly effective

Insurgents Stage Comeback In Pakistan Tribal Area

KHAR, Pakistan - Pakistani troops killed eight Islamist militants Tuesday in an Afghan border region where insurgents are staging a comeback after a military operation there was declared a success, a local official said.

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12 killed in suicide attack in Pakistan

Humanist Charity Funds Disaster Relief Effort

Humanist Charities, an adjunct of the American Humanist Association, is funding a relief effort to provide food, water, medical supplies and rescue tools to the people of Jacmel, a Haitian city that has been devastated by the earthquake that struck the country last Tuesday but which has received little media attention.

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Non-Believers Giving Aid: A Religion-Free Way To Help Disaster Victims

Spurred by the horrific suffering in Haiti, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS) has joined forces with 13 other freethought groups or associates, to collect donations to non-religious relief organizations. Those participating are Atheist Alliance International, Atheists Helping the Homeless, Atheists United, The British Humanist Association, James Randi Educational Foundation, Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, New Humanist magazine, Pharyngula, Rationalist Association, Reasonable New York, The Reason Project, The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, The Skeptics Society and Unreasonable Faith.

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Atheist Richard Dawkins aids Haiti, touts God-free giving

Secular help for Haiti

Bowling for Atheists: Haiti Proves that Nonbelievers Care Too

Natural, not supernatural, disasters

Many Haitians' Religious Faith Unshaken By Earthquake

Perhaps few personified that deep belief better than 11-year-old Anaika Saint Louis, who was pulled from the rubble Thursday night and later died. Her leg had been crushed, and doctors thought they might have to amputate her feet. She said she didn't care.

"Thank you, God, because he saved my life," she said. "If I lose my feet, I always had my life."

She was rescued too late. She died.

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Religious Haitians see hand of God in earthquake

Religious Lunacy: Haitian Rev. Eric Toussaint, "Give Thanks To God"

Voodoo faith 'could hinder Haiti's recovery from quake'

Haiti: After The Warmists, Christians And Occultists, The Scientologists Arrive

Earthquake Survivors Get Solar-Powered Bibles

As international aid agencies rush food, water and medicine to Haiti's earthquake victims, a US faith-based group is sending Bibles to Haitians in their hour of need.

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Kenneth Copeland Accused of Humanitarian Aid Fraud

Why God Hates Haiti

Prop. 8 Challengers Highlight Religion's Role In Campaign

San Francisco - Challengers of California's ban on same-sex marriage tried to show Wednesday that religion has promoted discrimination against gays.

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Action Alert: Protest Mother Teresa Stamp

The U.S. Postal Service announced with great fanfare in January that among the 2010 stamps it is releasing will be one honoring Mother Teresa. What's wrong with honoring this nun with a U.S. postage stamp? Plenty. Only about 25 new commemorative stamps a year are selected using 12 criteria. It is against these postal regulations to "honor religious institutions or individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings or beliefs."

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Humanists Applaud President Obama For Including Nontheists In Religious Freedom Day

The American Humanist Association today commended President Obama for his continued acknowledgement and inclusion of nonbelievers when speaking about the role of religion in American life. "...It was the genius of America's forefathers to protect our freedom of religion, including the freedom to practice none at all," President Obama said while delivering a speech declaring Saturday Religious Freedom Day.

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Group Advocates Church And State Separation With Billboard

A state group has sponsored a temporary downtown billboard emphasizing the importance of separation of church and state.

The billboard at Third and Cass streets through February is part of the Wisconsin chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State's two-month advertising push. The campaign, which also involved similar signage at Milwaukee bus stops, advocates the constitutional separation of religion and government.

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'God Is' Ad Campaign To Hit 1,000 NYC Subways

Pro-God ads will hit some 1,000 subway cars throughout New York City beginning Friday, announced the New York church sponsoring the campaign.

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President Of AHA On Alan Colmes Radio Show

David Niose, President of the AHA (American Humanist Association), was a guest on the Alan Colmes radio show with the Executive Director of the Traditional Values Coalition. David did a wonderful job representing and defending those of us who proudly call ourselves nontheists.

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Video: Bertrand Russell on God

CBS Approves Focus On The Family's Super Bowl Ad, Despite Its Policy Against Advocacy Spots

Last week, conservative organization Focus on the Family announced that it planned to air a 30-second "life- and family-affirming" television ad during the Super Bowl on Feb. 7. The ad will feature 2007 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam, who will "share one of their many positive personal stories." Specific details about the ad haven't been released, but the AP notes that it is "likely to be an anti-abortion message chronicling Pam Tebow's 1987 pregnancy."

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No More Jesus Rifles

Trijicon, the gunsight maker that has imprinted Bible verse numbers on its scopes, has announced that it will no longer imprint the verses on the sides of scopes intended for the U.S. military, and will also provide clients with the kits to remove the Bible verse numbers from existing scopes.

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Jesus Rifles Stopped!

Earlier...

Wixom company defends Biblical rifle sights

Pentagon: Bible-verse gunsights don't violate rules

Freedom From Religion Foundation Objects to 'Jesus Rifles'

Propaganda fear as our troops in Afghanistan are given U.S. guns carrying secret Bible codes

Muslim anger over military 'Jesus' scopes

Stephen Colbert on Jesus rifles and Bible Grenades

'Survival of the Cutest' Proves Darwin Right

ScienceDaily -- Domestic dogs have followed their own evolutionary path, twisting Darwin's directive 'survival of the fittest' to their own needs -- and have proved him right in the process, according to a new study by biologists Chris Klingenberg, of The University of Manchester and Abby Drake, of the College of the Holy Cross in the US.

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Chimp and Human Y Chromosomes Evolving Faster Than Expected

New Theory on the Origin of Primates

Monkeys Go Out On A Limb To Show Gratitude

Evolutionary biologists Filippo Aureli of Liverpool John Moores University in Liverpool, UK, and Gabriele Schino of the Italian National Research Council's Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC-CNR) in Rome, have now combed through dozens of previous studies to quantify how often primates groomed relatives and non-relatives, and how often the favour was returned. They found that, contrary to the prevailing view, primates were more likely to groom others that had groomed them, regardless of their relatedness. Publishing their analysis in Ecology Letters1, the researchers report that reciprocity alone explained about 20% of the variability in grooming behaviour in 14 different species of primates, whereas kinship alone explained only 3%.

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Americans' Bias Against Jews, Muslims Linked, Poll Says

A poll about Americans' views on Islam concludes that the strongest predictor of prejudice against Muslims is whether a person holds similar feelings about Jews.

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ADF Sponges Off FFRF'S Lawsuit

The Alliance Defense Fund, an extremely wealthy Christian right legal group, sent out a four-page fundraising letter this month to its supporters begging for money to fight Freedom From Religion Foundation's important federal lawsuit challenging the National Day of Prayer.

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Questions Raised About Anti-Abortion Groups Getting Va. License Plate Fee

When a Virginia driver purchases a specialty "Choose Life" anti-abortion license plate, $15 of the $25 processing fee goes to Heartbeat International, a Christian group that distributes the money to pregnancy resource centers located across the state.

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Oregon City Faith-Healing Trial Opens With Starkly Different Views Of Boy's Death

OREGON CITY -- As Neil Beagley lay dying on his grandmother's bed, his parents did not take him to a hospital or call 9-1-1 or make any lifesaving efforts, a Clackamas County prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.

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Church members thought Neil could die

Kansas Judge In Abortion Case Comes Under Scrutiny

WICHITA, Kan. -- The judge overseeing the trial of the man accused of gunning down a Kansas abortion doctor is a practicing Roman Catholic who once courted the endorsement of an anti-abortion group - but who has insisted the case won't be about abortion.

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Ex-Pastor Who Killed Wife Gets 65-Year Prison Term

WACO, Texas (AP) -- Jurors on Thursday sentenced a former Texas minister to 65 years in prison for murdering his wife and trying to cover it up as a suicide.

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Mistress testifies that Baker told her how he killed his wife

Speakers Blast Tampa City Council Over Opening Prayers

TAMPA -- People who oppose starting government meetings with invocations pleaded with City Council members Thursday to end the practice.

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Should Prayer Before City Council Meetings Be Allowed?

Independence, MO --

"...that Independence will be a light that shines for you, and we'll give you all the glory and praise as we ask in your son's name, Amen."

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Lake Local Students On A Mission For God

Since August, Lake Local school officials have wrestled with the phrase "belief in God," which has been in the district's value statement for years.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation contends that using the phrase violates the First Amendment of the Constitution. Saying they represent Lake Local residents, the foundation has told the district to remove the phrase or face a court battle.

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No Supreme Court Hearing For Mom Who Asked To Read Bible To Son's Class

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to hear the appeal of a Pennsylvania mom who sought to read five verses of Psalms from the Bible as part of her son's 'All About Me' classroom assignment.

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Teacher With Bible Divides Ohio Town

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio -- Most people in this quiet all-American town describe themselves as devoutly Christian, but even here they are deeply divided over what should happen to John Freshwater.

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Liars For Jesus

The religious right's attempt to rewrite U.S. history.

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Church Leaders Struggle To Protect Kids From Sex Abuse

The Rev. Kay Doyle, dismayed by the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the U.S. Catholic Church eight years ago, felt some comfort in distance. A pastor of a small Carmichael church, she didn't worry about such problems in her congregation. And then the distance closed.

Her church organist was accused of sexually molesting a minor and arrested in October. Doyle, pastor of Gethsemane Lutheran Church for 13 years, was unprepared. James Charles Jordan, 53, was charged with six counts of lewd acts upon a child under the age of 14.

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The Silent Screams of the Victims of Sexual Abuse by Catholic Priests

Priest Made Schoolgirl Say 10 Hail Marys After Assault, Court Told

A priest in the Republic of Ireland gave a girl penance after abusing her in a confessional room, a jury has heard.

Father Maeliosa O Hauallachain (72), of Seafield Road, Killiney, Co Dublin, pleaded not guilty to three charges of indecent assault on dates between July 31, 1981, and August 2, 1982, when the complainant was between 13 and 14 years old.

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Gabriel Byrne Tells Of Childhood Sexual Abuse

The Irish actor Gabriel Byrne has revealed that he was sexually abused by Christian Brothers as a child.

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David Baddiel's New Film Courts Controversy

David Baddiel, the comedian, is courting controversy with his first feature length film, about a British Muslim who discovers he was born a Jew.

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Muslim Critic Geert Wilders Goes On Trial In Netherlands

Amsterdam - Did Islam critic Geert Wilders violate Dutch law by calling the Koran a "fascist book" and Islam a "backward culture?" This is the question an Amsterdam court will have to answer when the leader of the Freedom Party PVV goes on trial Wednesday.

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Geert Wilders: 'I want Muslim fanatic to speak in my defence'

A Dark Day for the Enlightenment

West Turns Africa Into Gay Battlefield

Western evangelists and gay rights groups are stoking Africa's bitter rows over homosexuality.

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Hairdos Now In Indonesia Muslim Clerics' Crosshairs

JAKARTA (Reuters Life!) -- To straighten or not to straighten? Women's hair styles have become a hot topic for Indonesia's Muslims after calls from some Islamic clerics to have the procedure banned on the grounds it invites moral danger.

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Security Increased At Christian Churches As Allah Row Divides Malaysia

Malaysian Christians will attend services in guarded churches alongside plain-clothes detectives tomorrow after another week of unsolved attacks on religious institutions provoked by a controversy over the use of the word Allah.

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Religious Riots Spread Despite Nigerian Troops

Almost 500 believed dead after clashes between Muslims and Christians.

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Scores die in Nigeria religious violence

Fighting In Somalia Displaces 63,000 People

(CNN) -- In just the past 19 days, an estimated 63,000 people have been displaced from their homes in Somalia by fighting involving government forces and militias, combined with "general insecurity," the United Nations' refugee agency said Tuesday.

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Pakistan: Targeted Politician Injured In Explosion

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- A bomb detonated, injuring a provincial lawmaker and three others in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, police said.

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Al-Qaeda trying to spark India-Pakistan war, says Robert Gates

Afghanistan's Holy Violence

The Taliban attacks on Kabul show that in Afghanistan's cycle of violence, murderers and victims become religious 'martyrs' alike.

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Militant attack kills 5 in heart of Kabul

Militants, troops killed in Afghan fighting

Triple Bombing Kills At Least 25 In Iraq

(CNN) -- At least 25 people were killed and 72 were wounded in a triple bombing at a crowded market Thursday in Najaf, one of Iraq's holiest cities, an Interior Ministry official said.

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Gunmen kill aid workers in Baghdad

Godless Billboard Appears North Of Downtown Seattle

"Don't believe in God? You are not alone."

These words are part of prominent, 14' x 48' billboard that has just gone up on Lake City Way NE near 78th Street. It can be seen by motorists traveling southwest to I-5 and Seattle on the commuter route from the Lake Washington area. Sponsored by the Northwest Freethought Coalition with funding from the United Coalition of Reason, the billboard carries its message superimposed over an image of blue sky and puffy white clouds. It cost $6,700.

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New billboard pops up on Lake City Way

Atheists May Have No Faith in God, But They Have Great Faith in Advertising

North Seattle billboard preaches to the faithless

"Godless" billboard at Lake City Way

Humanism On The Move

Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe, a new book about humanism that was written by Harvard Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein, made this week's New York Times Best Sellers List in the nonfiction category. The book, which debuted in October 2009, is about to go into its fourth printing.

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Pat Robertson's Comments Unconscionable, American Humanist Association Says

Washington, DC--The American Humanist Association today condemned Pat Robertson for gross insensitivity after the TV preacher claimed the calamitous earthquake that recently struck Haiti was brought on by curse. The comments were made on the "700 Club," a show on Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, on Wednesday.
"Pat Robertson's comments were unconscionable," said Roy Speckhardt, Executive Director of the American Humanist Association. "Tens of thousands of people are dead or dying, thousands more displaced from their homes, and Robertson is blaming this horrible act of nature on an alleged deal with the devil. This situation calls for the application of compassion, reason and science, and superstition only distracts the victims and the responders from recovery efforts."

Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, was hit by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Tuesday. The Red Cross projects between 45,000 and 50,000 are dead and 3 million hurt or homeless. The public infrastructure has been decimated by the quake; in most areas there is still no electricity or sanitation, and little food and water.

Humanists were gratified amidst reports that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett have rebuked Robertson's comments. Gibbs said Robertson's statement was "stupid" and Jarrett said it was "a pretty stunning comment to make," and left her speechless. Speckhardt responded that "public officials are right to and should use their office properly to dispel such myths and rally behind people in need."

"The correct response to this situation is to mobilize a relief effort to assist the victims, not blame them for their tragedy," Speckhardt added. "That's why the American Humanist Association is mustering humanists and other freethinkers to support relief efforts through our charitable arm, Humanist Charities."

See: http://www.humanistcharities.org/ for more on this secular response to the earthquake in Haiti.

More...

See also:

Pat Robertson links Haitian earthquake with "pact with the devil"

Pat Robertson Cites Haiti's Earthquake As What Happens When You 'Swear A Pact To The Devil'

Pastor Robertson blames Haitians for calamity

Americans United Condemns TV Preacher's Callous Statement on Haitian Earthquake

Haiti legend cited by Pat Robertson a 'fabrication,' scholar says

The Televangelist Misuse of Haiti's History

Pat Robertson Haiti Comments Continue to Draw Ire

Report: Haiti Deaths Estimated at 200,000

Cartoon draws Robertson as devil

FFRF Donates to Doctors Without Borders

Camp Quest Camp Sessions In Summer 2010 - US Dates

Camp Quest sessions in summer 2010 in the US. Here is a list of their dates, locations and websites for more information.

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Why Not Ask God For Moral Guidance?

In my previous blogessay I claimed that we can make moral judgments on which religions are really better or worse, and that the source of this moral judgment is transcendent but not supernatural. How can this be? Before I disclose my answer (if you've read my book The Science of Good and Evil you already know the answer), what's wrong with the supernatural answer? That is, why can't we just ask God? Virtually every believer you know believes that "without God anything goes." There are three problems with this source of moral judgment: (1) Euthyphro's dilemma, (2) Silence, (3) No longer applicable.

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Across The Multiverse: Physicist Considers The Big Picture

ScienceDaily -- Is there anybody out there? In Alejandro Jenkins' case, the question refers not to whether life exists elsewhere in the universe, but whether it exists in other universes outside of our own.

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Adam's Family Jewels

A professor of Semitic languages at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles Zevit posits that the Hebrew word tsela (literally "side," but traditionally translated as "rib") employed in Genesis refers in fact to Adam's member.

Zevit, author of the forthcoming What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden?, argues that, etiologically, "rib" doesn't make much sense in a story pregnant with sexual innuendo; nor is there precedent in ancient Near Eastern mythology for it to feature as an instrument of creation. Instead, tsela was likely a euphemism for the baculum, or "penis bone," found in the males of most mammals. The Bible uses various euphemisms for male genitalia but never a specific word: two of them, "bone" and "flesh," in the pertinent verse may be double entendres when Adam welcomes Eve as "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" (Gen. 2:23).

Despite macho boasts of having a "boner," there's of course no bone in the human male's reproductive organ. According to John Kaltner, Steven L. McKenzie and Joel Kilpatrick's recently published compendium of titillating biblical tidbits, The Uncensored Bible, where Zevit's suggestion receives prominent treatment, the authors of Genesis believed that the human male lacked this specific part of his anatomy precisely because the first man's had been removed to create Eve.

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There's An App For That

If you ever argue with creationists, you know that the Index to Creationist Claims is an incredibly useful site, as is the book version, The Counter Creationism Handbook. Life just got a little sweeter: it is now available as a smartphone app for the blackberry and iPhone (just get into the App Store and search for 'creationist'). Well, sweeter for us; creationists will find themselves a little more readily refuted now.

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Atheist Students Silenced

The college denied the formation of the student organization Concordia Atheists-Secular Students at Concordia College on the basis that atheism is not in compliance with "college standards," despite the support it received from the Campus Ministry Office.

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No Atheists Need Apply

High School Blues Or The Hassles Of Starting A Student Atheist Group

High school student Skyler Curtis wanted to start a Fellowship of Atheist Athletes group at Rising Sun High School in North East, Maryland. That shouldn't have been a problem since there's already a Fellowship of Christian Athletes group at the school.

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Student, Community Groups Bring Together Non-Believers, Free Thinkers

Tony Kiegel works on aviation radar and communications systems for the Federal Aviation Administration in Evansville. He is, he says, a product of an evangelical Christian education and upbringing.

And he is an atheist.

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Everybody's A Blasphemer

I'm certainly no fan of that old time religion, but I do prefer that old time blasphemy to the new version that purports to be more tolerant. The old kind criminalized critiques of the one True religion, with a capital T. The new Irish kind criminalizes critiques of any religion.

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Diverse Groups Reach 'First-Ever Consensus' On Religion And US Law

When you hear about members of groups like the conservative American Center for Law and Justice or the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission meeting with the ACLU or the First Freedom Center, you're unlikely to think it's because they agree on anything... but that's what just happened. On January 12, representatives of these groups and others held a press conference at the Brookings Institute in Washington DC to announce the signing of a document entitled RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION IN AMERICAN PUBLIC LIFE: A Joint Statement of Current Law.

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Christianity's Role In History Of U.S. At Issue

When the State Board of Education meets this week to tackle revisions to the social studies curriculum in Texas public schools, some of the most contentious public debate is likely to center on recommendations by two men who want more emphasis on the role of Christianity in how the nation was formed.

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Another trip down biblical lane thanks to State Board of Education

State Board of Education gets an earful about social studies in school

The Rehabilitation Of Joseph McCarthy? Texas Textbooks Process Grinds On

Appeals Court Reverses Grayson Ten Commandments Decision

Posting a copy of the Ten Commandments in the Grayson County Courthouse did not violate the U.S. Constitution, federal appeals judges ruled Thursday.

The decision clears the way for the county to return a copy of the commandments to the courthouse wall, where it once hung in a display with other documents such as the Declaration of Independence and a picture of Lady Justice.

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Pa. Welfare Wins Case Over Religious Child Care

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- A state appeals court has sided with the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare in a dispute over its authority to regulate religious child-care facilities, a battle with roots in the 1960s.

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Court Dismisses Atheist's Lawsuit Regarding Fort Riley

TOPEKA -- A federal judge in Kansas dismissed a lawsuit Thursday by an atheist soldier who claimed his rights were violated because he had to attend events where prayers were said while stationed at Fort Riley.

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Mayor Reimal Stands Up For Public Prayer

Independence, MO -- Mayor Don Reimal said Thursday he is prepared to go to court for his belief that prayer should continue prior to Independence City Council meetings.

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2nd Group Asks Tampa City Council To Halt Invocations

TAMPA - Another group is calling on the Tampa City Council to abolish its decades-old tradition of opening public meetings with prayer.

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Prayer at council meetings challenged

Atheist Group Wants Lawmakers To Stop Praying Before Session

DES MOINES, Iowa - Monday's legislative session began like most sessions; with a prayer. But the group "Iowa Atheists and Freethinkers" wants to put an end to the practice by sending lawmakers an e-mail demanding the prayers stop.

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Lawmaker Wants Religious Element Required In Oath

Iowa lawmakers would be constitutionally required to say "so help me God" when being sworn into office under a proposal by a Mount Auburn Republican.

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