Man Asks For Omaha Street Sign Honoring Famous Atheist

Raymond Zbylut has asked the city to erect a commemorative street sign for Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the founder of American Atheists and the plaintiff in the 1960s U.S. Supreme Court case that ended daily prayer in public schools.

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Pilot 'Breakdown' Diverts Flight

An Air Canada flight made an emergency landing in the Irish Republic after a pilot apparently suffered a breakdown.

A passenger said the pilot was carried from the plane shouting and swearing, saying he wanted to talk "to God".

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Why Is Secular European Society Doing So Much Better Than God-Fearing America?

Why is Secular European Society Doing so Much Better Than God-Fearing America? Let's Start With Sex.

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Morality And The 'New Atheism'

A common criticism of the so-called "new atheists" ...is the "problem of morality": how, many religious critics ask, can we be good without God?

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Religion As Virtual Reality

It has been said that the holodeck will be the last thing humans ever invent. The "holodeck" was a device on Star Trek that generated a fully immersive, perfect simulation of whatever sort of reality the user desired. The argument is that once people had access to such an immersive form of virtual reality, they would never want to leave. The futuristic equivalents of World of Warcraft and Second Life would easily out compete mundane reality as the places people would want to spend their time.

While the claim may be a bit exaggerated, it is still true that we spend billions of dollars each year on temporary escapes from our daily lives. Entire industries--movies, novels, role-playing games, computer games--are built around meeting this need. Of course, it is quite possible to have exciting adventures in real life. The problem with this is that being in an "action scene" for real is usually more terrifying than fun. There is also no assurance that the adventurer will come out of it without some horrible injury, or not make it at all.

In fiction, we can vicariously experience the excitement and thrills in complete safety. Even if the protagonists die, the audience walks out of the theater unharmed. In a game, the player can always select "New Game" and go again. Most of the time, we can expect a happy ending for our protagonist. It's all great fun, but it has a major flaw: at some point, you reach the last page of the novel or the credits roll, and then it's back to the workaday world you were trying to get away from in the first place.

What if there was a way you could have all the benefits of a good fiction, but never reach a last page? What if you could import the elements of an exciting story into your daily life so that you could become a protagonist in an exciting drama, but without additional risk, and have the adventure hero's assurance of a happy ending?

You can: it's called religion.

With religion, you can engage in "spiritual warfare," joining the great cosmic struggle between Good and Evil. You can develop your psychic powers or help prepare the Earth for contact with the Galactic Federation. You can learn how to cast spells and invoke spiritual powers to aid you.

With some religions, the great climax of the story is always just ahead. Jesus is going to return any day now to rapture His faithful into everlasting bliss, in time to escape the part with all the explosions and death. The starships of the Galactic Federation will arrive when the moment is right and usher in a new age. Come 2012, the world will be completely transformed, to Utopia or Apocalypse, whichever you prefer.

Then, like some jerk talking in the theater, along comes some skeptic, some debunker, some atheist or freethinker to tell you that none of it is real. Booooooo!!! Right? Here at FreeThoughtAction, we offer a flier entitled "Get Real." It provides a concise set of principles you can use to become more attuned to reality and operate more successfully in it.

Perhaps I'm biased, but I happen to think it's a very nice flier, and the world would be a better place if people practiced the principles it offers. However, if you think of the injunction to 'Get real,' it's hard not to hear it coming out in a disparaging tone, crushing some pleasant fantasy or other. 'Reality' has some pretty negative connotations, when you think about it. We're all familiar with the phrase 'too good to be true.' There is no commonly used figure of speech equivalent to 'too bad to be true.'

When you get down to it, organizations like this one exist to promote adherence to reality. Reality is, in a sense, our product. How can we sell something people spend billions of dollars (not counting money spent on religion!) to get away from? This is one of the great challenges secularists like us face in confronting religion.

If we think about what aspects of reality we use things like fiction, religion, and intoxicants to escape from, we can pretty much boil it down to two things: misfortune, and boredom. Developed societies have done a pretty good job of dealing with the first. Unlike most of our ancestors throughout history, we have to worry about obesity, rather than starvation. One of the reasons that Europe is so much more secular than the United States could be the fact that European nations offer much more comprehensive social safety nets than can be found in the U.S.. There is less perceived need to turn to faith as a means of warding off misfortunes such as illness and injury, or for solace when the misfortune comes.

This leaves boredom. By 'boredom,' I am referring to non-interesting, non-meaningful times in our lives. For many of us, 'work' is a prime example. We spend about half of our waking time doing something we would never do if it weren't for the paychecks. If we have to commute long distances to get there, it swells beyond half, the additional time spent in traffic jams.

Is it possible for us to re-think our economic and social systems and our place in them as individuals? Can we find ways to transform our lives so as to fill them with real meaning and purpose, rather than finding those things within a fictional gloss of religion?

The Sun Economy

Buckminster Fuller used to promote the concept of the 'Sun Economy.' Imagine for a moment that we had a currency backed by energy. A dollar = 1 kilowatt-hour. Under such a system, money would literally shine down from the sky every day. All that would be necessary to have a continuing supply of free money--a 'Sun Income'--is the technology to collect the Sun's energy and turn it into useable electricity.

We have technologies that do this now, and we could certainly have far better technologies if we applied our economic resources and genius to the task of developing them. The United States currently spends as much money on military force as the entire rest of the planet combined. Unless we consider ourselves to be at war with the entire rest of the planet, is such expenditure really necessary?

Consider for a moment the amount of human ingenuity poured into projects like the F-22 Raptor, an incredibly advanced jet fighter craft being built by a nation that has not fought against an adversary with an air force in a generation and has no plans to do so in the foreseeable future. The countries with air forces capable of challenging ours also have nuclear weapons and ICBM's, making conventional war a no-win scenario for all.

If the United States decided to spend only half as much as the entire rest of the planet on weaponry, and put the other half into research and development of technologies designed to enhance the quality of our lives and those of the people with whom we share our planet, what might we be able to accomplish?

Take a moment to imagine an economy modeled on the natural world. A basic, guaranteed income for all would rain down from the sky each day, and blow in the wind. Using personal fabrication devices like '3-D printers,' or later in the century, nanotechnology to make the 'stuff' we need and want by using and re-using recycled materials. The goods themselves could be designed with recycling and reuse in mind, so-called 'cradle to cradle' manufacturing.

A forest is able to generate all sorts of 'goods and services' for the community of organisms that live there and the planet as a whole (e.g. oxygen, and carbon sequestration) and do so sustainably. Trees pay no energy bills. Squirrels don't pay rent on the trees or income taxes on the nuts. A 'Sun Economy' based on renewable energy and 'cradle to cradle' manufacturing could conceivably overturn the assumption of scarcity on which current economics is based.

Advancing automation could be cheered as a way of eliminating more and more 'work' for humans, freeing human time for more creative and meaningful tasks. Instead of the Protestant work ethic, our model could be the ancient Greek leisure class, a leisure class consisting of an entire society rather than a small elite.

Of course, I'm making this sound much simpler than it is. However, we have a planet packed with Intelligent Designers. Could we not do at least as well as natural selection's trial-and-error in creating the economic, political and social 'forest' we live in? Even without such a system in place, can we find ways to imbue our real lives with meaning, purpose, and value, so that we will not need a spray-on coating of religious fiction to make our lives worth living?

If we set that as our goal, the techniques we need to make it happen are right there in that aforementioned 'Get Real' flier:

Gather information
Entertain new ideas
Test assumptions

Require objective evidence
Employ logic and reason
Accept personal responsibility
Live for the here and now

Believers' Favorite Arguments Are Admissions Of Defeat

If you watch debates between noted Freethinkers like the "Four Horsemen" (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens) and prominent theists, you will quickly notice a trend. Whenever theist debaters attempt to argue for the existence of gods, they keep going back to the same arguments like swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano:

1. The "First Cause" Argument.
2. The claim of "fine-tuned" cosmological constants that require a Designer.
3. The claim that the creation of the first life required a Designer.

Whenever a theist resorts to these sorts of arguments, they are confessing that they cannot show that their god du jour is real and active today. When the theist is a representative of one of the Abrahamic faiths this really amounts to a complete capitulation to the Freethinker's position.

Why? The Abrahamic religions are "revealed" religions. That is, they are based on the claim that God has revealed his existence, personality, power, and commands to humans through certain books. These books contain numerous truth-claims concerning their featured deities and the nature of the universe itself. They are not content to cram God into the confines of the infinitesimally tiny Big Bang singularity, or assert that he once meddled with a few proteins and enzymes to put together a working bacterial flagellum motor.

To the contrary, they describe a God who--if he existed--would be the woolly mammoth in the living room of the Cosmos, a being of immense supernatural power who isn't afraid to use it openly. And he isn't alone. The Abrahamic revelations posit a whole supernatural bestiary populated with angels, demons, djinn, and powerful wizards working astounding magic.

For example, the Book of Exodus tells us that ancient Egyptian sorcerers had the power to transmute wooden staffs into living serpents (Exodus 7:10-12). Magic is such a potent and dangerous force that its use is prohibited to the faithful. Can we know if Egyptian wizards ever wielded such powers? Thanks to archaeology, we actually know quite a bit about ancient Egyptian magic. We have recovered spells complete with incantations and lists of necessary components, and actual magical tools and implements such as wands, amulets and figurines.[1]

We have numerous mummies of pharaohs and high officials, which reveal the kind of ailments and health problems these people suffered and by extension, the limitations of medical treatment available to them. From this it should be possible to experimentally demonstrate an Egyptian spell in action, or at least determine whether or not the pharaohs had access to modes of healing that could not be produced by ordinary means available to the Egyptians. Magical power capable of transmuting dead wood into living reptiles ought to be capable of lesser tasks like transmuting a decayed tooth into a healthy tooth. There is no evidence that Egyptian sorcerers possessed such wondrous powers. The bodies of the pharaohs themselves testify to the contrary.

Perhaps the achievements of Egyptian sorcerers were overstated. After all, they were Pagans, serving gods modern theists reject as non-existent. Perhaps it is only the faithful of the One True God who can work great wonders, through His grace and power. The story of Elijah and the Prophets of Ba'al (1 Kings 18:20-38) provides a powerful illustration of the sort of things we could expect to happen if the Abrahamic God existed. In this famous story, the prophet Elijah goes to the northern kingdom of Israel and challenges the prophets of Ba'al to a contest: each side shall set up an altar with a sacrificial bull, and the side whose god can light their altar with miraculous power validates that their god is the true god.

And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD [be] God, follow him: but if Baal, [then] follow him. And the people answered him not a word. (v. 21) And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken. (v. 24)

And they [the prophets of Ba'al] took the bullock which was given them, and they dressed [it], and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But [there was] no voice, nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar which was made. And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he [is] a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, [or] peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked. And they cried aloud, and cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them. And it came to pass, when midday was past, and they prophesied until the [time] of the offering of the [evening] sacrifice, that [there was] neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded. (vs. 26-29)

The first thing we notice about this story is that Elijah's God sanctions a very open and unambiguous test of miraculous divine power. Notice also the way Elijah mocks the fruitless prayers of the prophets of Ba'al. From this we can see that:

1. It is OK to set up a scenario calling for unambiguous proof of a deity's power.
2. It is also OK to have some fun mocking the faithful when their prayers have no effect.

Notice also the verdict: "There was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded." If you're a believer, ask yourself: has that ever happened to you? Have you ever prayed, especially for something urgent, and received "neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded?" The recently-released letters of Mother Teresa (someone widely hailed as a very "holy" person) reveal this exact situation in her life.

According to the tale in 1 Kings, Elijah was luckier than Mother Teresa:

Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou [art] the LORD God, and [that] thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that [was] in the trench. (vs. 37-38)

Here, we are told that God can and will actually deliver unambiguous public demonstrations of miraculous power. It does not violate "free will" or any other ethical principle of God's for people to "know that he is the Lord God." This is a fully testable claim. So, are there any believing Christians who would be willing to conduct such a demonstration today? If we were to set up two altars, one for the Christians and one for a team of scientists equipped with technology, like a megawatt-class laser, a cruise missile, or set of reflecting mirrors of the type used in a solar furnace, would there be any Christians who would be willing to come forward and demonstrate the superiority of faith over science? Would any Christians be willing to bet their faith on their god's power to light an altar against the ability of science and technology to do the same?

If you want to argue that animal sacrifice is obsolete, we'll leave out the bulls and just worry about lighting the fire. For those Christians who sneer at the idea of conducting such a test of divine power ("God is not a genie!" "Thou shalt not put the LORD thy God to the test"), take note that the skeptical technique Elijah uses to debunk the existence of Ba'al is exactly that--putting God to the test. Do you have as much faith in your god as the prophets of Ba'al had in theirs (or Elijah had in his)? Or will you make excuses?

The bottom line: this story establishes the principle that a god that cannot unambiguously demonstrate miraculous power is not a god at all. It is only if the proposed deity can demonstrate his existence that we have any reason to, in the words of Elijah, "let him be God."

Theists today do not for a moment consider putting their own faith on the line in this manner. This is ironclad proof that even believers devout enough to gladly give their lives for their faith know that the miraculous super-being of their holy books simply does not exist and manifest his power as claimed. They live in the same godless universe we do.

Instead of demonstrating the truth of their holy books' claims, modern intellectual theists avoid their own "Scriptures" like the plague, offering "sophisticated" arguments borrowed from Pagan Greek philosophy. Even if theists could demonstrate that once upon a time, the Demiurge dialed in a set of "fine-tuned" cosmological constants before hitting the red button to trigger the Big Bang, and perhaps engaged in modest little interventions to give evolution a hand in making DNA molecules, complex proteins, and flagellum motors, this does nothing whatsoever to validate belief in the Abrahamic deity and his grandiose magical cosmology.

To the contrary, this sort of argumentation is an abandonment of the cosmologies of the desert faiths and a rejection of their claims about the nature of spiritual reality. The "divinely inspired" holy books were wrong about recent miraculous creation, wrong about the reality and power of magic, wrong about demons being the cause of disease and psychological disorder, wrong about the existence of a deity who works Cecil B. Demille miracles on a grand scale, wrong about weather and natural forces being weapons in the hands of an angry God. Nearly every believer implicitly agrees with this, even if they'd never say so openly. They show this every time they rush a sick or injured child to the hospital instead of to the elders of their church (James 5:14-15).

Now, if the divinely-inspired holy books are wrong about every testable claim they make, why should we take seriously any un-testable claims derived from their doctrines?


NOTES:
[1] Magic in Ancient Egypt by Geraldine Pinch, University of Texas Press, 1995

Israeli Forces Arrest Militant Leader; Sources Say Teen Killed

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli forces arrested the local head of a Palestinian militant group in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Monday night, Israel Defense Forces said.

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Roadside Bomb Kills 5 U.S. Soldiers In Iraq

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Scientists Oppose ICR Certification In Texas

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Experts Urge Florida Education Board To Adopt Creationism-Free Science Standards

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U.S. Woman Abducted In Afghanistan

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--snip--

Traveling around Kandahar city has turned increasingly dangerous in the last year, as the Taliban insurgency has spread throughout southern Afghanistan. Western civilians who operate there often travel with armed guards and with extreme caution. The area is rife with Taliban militants and also with criminals linked to the country's booming opium poppy trade.

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Europe Terror Plots Trace Back To Pakistan

(CBS) Five European countries are investigating suspected terrorist plots, which track back to al Qaeda's sanctuary in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

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Blast Kills Lebanese Terror Investigator

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Jesus In A Potato?

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Humanist Legal Center Acts To Stop Funds For Religious Training Camp

(Washington, D.C.) The Appignani Humanist Legal Center sent a demand letter today to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Honorable Alphonso Jackson, advising Secretary Jackson not to follow Congress' instructions to distribute funds to a sectarian religious group. The letter also declared the AHLC's intention to sue if the letter goes unanswered and funds are allocated in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

"A recent spending bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush sets aside $595,000 for Morning Star Ranch, a Christian-only evangelist training camp," said Mel Lipman, president of the American Humanist Association. "This is a sectarian religious camp where no Jews need apply, nor any other non-Christians, including humanists. Providing this operation taxpayer dollars is a clear and outrageous violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."

According to the Morning Star Ranch website at http://www.worldimpact.org/ministries/camps/msr.php, the ranch belongs to World Impact, an evangelical Christian mission organization, and is primarily used for the group's "Christian Leadership Training Program," a two-year program for "single, urban young men, ages 18-25, who have made a commitment to Christ." The facilities, located in Florence, Kansas, are also "available to other Christian groups." The earmark was sponsored by Senator Sam Brownback and Representative Jerry Moran, both of Kansas.

The spending bill that contained the earmark in the House-Senate Conference Report was signed into law by President Bush on December 26, 2007.

"Religious groups aren't barred from receiving federal funds so long as there is some guarantee that the tax monies will be used exclusively for secular purposes," said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association. "But there is no guarantee of that in this case, and it in fact appears as though the federal funds will be used to repair buildings that will be employed exclusively by Christians for a sectarian purpose. That is why we're writing to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to advise them of this problem and to stop the flow of funds for unconstitutional purposes."

The letter asks that Secretary Jackson inform the AHLC by Wednesday, February 6, 2008, of any money granted to or plans to grant money to Morning Star Ranch. The letter also informs Jackson that if word has not been received by that date then the AHLC will seek redress in federal district court.

LINK

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Teacher Crosses Line Between Church, State

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US Scientists Close To Creating Artificial Life: Study

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Secrets Of Bird Flight Revealed

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Evolution's Status May Be Debated By State Board

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Albany Pastor Arrested For Burning Church

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"These findings demonstrate that the distinction between lesbianism and bisexuality is a matter of degree rather than kind," writes University of Utah psychologist Lisa Diamond in the January issue of the journal Developmental Psychology.

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Taliban Killings Of Afghan Students Triple

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Death Sentence For Afghan Student

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The Devilish Church Practice Of Exorcism

This December, Father Gabriele Amorth, official exorcist of the Rome Diocese, and friend of the "Holy Father", announced that the Pope will soon undertake a new campaign to unleash a fresh batch of 400 exorcists on the world, in addition to the thousands already in operation. "Thank God," he said, "we have a Pope who has decided to confront the devil head-on." (One representative of this evil, he added, is Harry Potter.)

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New Findings Confirm Darwin's Theory: Evolution Not Random

ScienceDaily -- According to Darwin's theory of evolution, individuals in a species pass successful traits onto their offspring through a process called "deterministic inheritance." Over multiple generations, advantageous developmental trends -- such as the lengthening of the giraffe's neck -- occur....

...snip...

...the findings of an international team of biologists demonstrate that evolution is not a random process, but rather occurs through the natural selection of successful traits. The collaborative study by researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Israel, the U.S, France and Germany is published in the November 2007 issue of Current Biology (vol. 17, pp. 1925-1937).

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See also:

Pacific Islanders' Ancestry Emerges in Genetic Study

7th Circuit Won't Rehear Ind. Legislative-Prayer Case

INDIANAPOLIS -- The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals declined this week to reconsider a ruling that threw out a lawsuit challenging the practice of sectarian prayers in the Indiana House.

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City To Pay $760K To Settle Cross Dispute

The attorney who took San Diego to court over the Soledad Cross can expect to receive a large financial settlement after the City Council agreed to the payment.

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Some See Jesus On The Cross In Granite Slab

TAMPA, Fla. -- A granite distributor in Florida expects to fetch a good price for a 400-year-old slab that he says bears an image of Jesus Christ pinned to the cross...

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Jesus 'Tomb' Controversy Reopened

When the Discovery Channel aired a TV documentary last year raising the possibility that archeologists had found the family tomb of Jesus Christ in the hills behind Jerusalem, it caused a huge backlash among Christians. The claim, after all, challenged one of the cornerstones of Christian faith -- that Jesus, after his crucifixion, rose bodily to heaven in his physical form.

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Banned From Church

On a quiet Sunday morning in June, as worshippers settled into the pews at Allen Baptist Church in southwestern Michigan, Pastor Jason Burrick grabbed his cellphone and dialed 911. When a dispatcher answered, the preacher said a former congregant was in the sanctuary. "And we need to, um, have her out A.S.A.P."

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Dow Jones Launches Faith-Based Indexes

Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider and Dharma Investments have joined hands to launch the Dow Jones Dharma Indexes.

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Three Suicide Bombers At Large In Anbar Province

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. planes bombarded al Qaeda in Iraq safe havens on the southern outskirts of Baghdad on Sunday, hours after a suicide bomber carrying explosives in a candy box killed six people in Anbar province.

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Prophet Mohammed Cartoon Publisher Jailed

BELARUS - Belarus on Friday jailed for three years an editor of an independent newspaper who reproduced cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that first appeared in Denmark in 2005 and caused mass demonstrations across the Muslim world.

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'Secret' terrorist gets life in embassy plot

Israeli Attack Levels Hamas Building, Kills 1

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israel Defense Forces carried out two airstrikes on an old Hamas Interior Ministry building in Gaza City on Friday, killing one Palestinian woman and injuring 14 people, Palestinian security sources said.

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Terror Cell Held In Spain Swoop

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Spanish police arrested 14 people early Saturday who they say are linked to an Islamic terrorist cell, the country's Interior Ministry said.

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Survivor Describes Yemen Attack

(CNN) -- Suspected al Qaeda militants opened fire on a convoy of tourists in a remote desert mountain valley Friday, killing two Belgian women and their Yemeni driver.

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Dozens Dead From Iraq Fighting

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Fifty-six people were killed and 70 were wounded Friday when fighting broke out in Basra and Nasiriya between security forces and members of a violent Shiite messianic cult, authorities said.

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Scores Dead In Pakistan Gunbattles

(CNN) -- Pakistani military forces clashed Friday with Islamic militants in mountainous northwest Pakistan, in battles that left at least 90 militants dead and four military personnel wounded, a military spokesman told CNN.

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CIA agrees with Pakistan on who killed Bhutto

Humanists To Honor Lead Imaging Scientist On The Cassini Saturn Project

(Washington, D.C.) The American Humanist Association announced today that planetary scientist Carolyn C. Porco, leader of the imaging science team for the Cassini space mission to Saturn and director of the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS), will be honored with the Isaac Asimov Science Award in Washington, D.C., in June. "It is important to show the world how a humanist philosophy, inspiring and nontheistic, can motivate significant achievements and major contributions to society," declared American Humanist Association Executive Director Roy Speckhardt. "We feel proud that humanism has influenced and attracted people of Dr. Porco's caliber."

Upon announcement of the award, Porco said, "I think there is a deep need today to spread the word, that science is a positive transforming feature of human culture and has shown us, with great clarity, our place in the magnificent scheme of universal evolution. And that knowledge, along with a secular moral guiding philosophy emphasizing goodness over evil, can be empowering, spiritually fulfilling and form the foundation of a meaningful life spent on this planet. That, in my mind, is what humanism is all about, and I'm honored to be included, with this award, in the ranks of its celebrated citizens."

Past recipients of the Isaac Asimov Science Award are Dr. Herbert A. Hauptman, mathematician and Nobel laureate in chemistry; Dr. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education; and Dr. Joe Nickell, folklorist and investigator of paranormal claims.

Porco first rose to prominence during the 1980s as a planetary scientist on the Voyager Imaging Team. She was among the first to study Voyager's results on the rings of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and made germinal contributions to the understanding of the interactions between planetary rings and moons.

Her work as leader of the Cassini imaging team has led to many discoveries at Saturn, including new structures and phenomena within Saturn's rings and atmosphere, new Saturnian moons, uncovering the surface of Saturn's largest haze-enshrouded moon Titan and imaging the geysers of the small, icy, geologically active moon Enceladus.

Some of her imaging efforts have been directed at home. Along with Carl Sagan she was co-originator of the idea to take a "Portrait of the Planets" with the Voyager spacecraft and participated in the planning, design and execution of those images in 1991, including the famous Pale Blue Dot image of Earth. And in 2006 her team was responsible for the breathtaking image of a dot-like Earth seen from Saturn during a total solar eclipse, recently voted as the most spectacular Cassini image taken thus far. (Cassini, and Voyager, images can be found at the official Cassini imaging team website at http://ciclops.org/.)



She is also an imaging scientist on the New Horizons mission on its way to Pluto.

Porco was interviewed in the current January/February 2008 issue of The Humanist magazine, published by the American Humanist Association, in an article entitled "Science and Spirituality."

The Isaac Asimov Science Award comes in the wake of other recognition. In 1999 Porco was selected by the "London Sunday Times" as one of 18 scientific leaders of the 21st century and by "Industrial Week" as one of "50 Stars to Watch." Also, her pioneering contributions and leadership in the exploration of the outer solar system were recognized with the naming of Asteroid 7231 Porco.

The World Humanist Congress at which she will be honored has as its theme "E Pluribus Unum: Reclaiming Humanist Values" and will bring humanists together from nearly every continent. Conducted jointly by the American Humanist Association and the International Humanist and Ethical Union, the event will take place June 5-8, 2008, and will also feature "The Golden Compass" author Philip Pullman, Congressman Pete Stark, Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal and Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin.

Other leading humanists are being lined up as speakers and will be announced on the American Humanist Association Web site at http://www.americanhumanist.org/ as they are confirmed. Porco will receive her award and speak Saturday evening, June 7.

LINK

Palestinians: Israeli Military Kills 6 In Gaza

GAZA CITY (CNN) -- The Israeli military carried out two airstrikes Thursday on vehicles in northern Gaza, killing six Palestinians -- including two civilians, Palestinian security sources said.

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Canadian Planned Attacks In U.S.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Canadian who has pleaded guilty to charges including conspiracy to kill Americans and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against U.S. property will be sentenced Friday, his lawyer said.

--snip--

Jabarah, also known by the nickname "Sammy," also allegedly pledged allegiance to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

More...

See also:

Feds: Al Qaeda Figure Plotted Killings in Captivity

CIA chief places blame for Bhutto assassination on Al-Qaida

'Al-Qa'eda death threat' to Gordon Brown

Al Qaeda Claims Its Space On The Web

Creationist Museum Auctioning Mastodon Skull

DALLAS, Texas (AP) -- A Texas museum that teaches creationism is counting on the auction of a prehistoric mastodon skull to stave off extinction.

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Cruise Extols Scientology In 2004 Video

(CNN) -- Tom Cruise expounds on his beliefs in Scientology in a 2004 video that made its way onto the Internet this week.

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The Video

Pope Has Say In Row

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI was to have said he was the "voice of moral reason" in a speech he decided not to give at Rome's secular La Sapienza university, according to a text released Wednesday by the Vatican.

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Archbishop Pleads Guilty To Perjury

ATLANTA (AP) - Court officials say the 80-year-old leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch pleaded guilty Wednesday to a charge he lied under oath. Cobb County Superior Court Judge Frank Cox said Archbishop Earl Paulk of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church was sentenced to 10 years probation and a $1,000 fine for the felony charge.

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Catholic Brother Accused Of Child Abuse

A 75-year-old former teacher at Canberra Marist College has appeared in court accused of sexually abusing six students in the 1980s.

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Humanist Leads Biodiesel-Fuelled Convoy To Sundance

(Washington, D.C.) This morning, humanist and AHA member Michael McOmber drove the lead vehicle in the Biodiesel-Fuelled Convoy launching the Fields of Fuel National Edutainment Action Tour (NEAT). The trip, going from Flower Avenue in Venice, California, to Park City, Utah, is tied to the release of the documentary, "Fields of Fuel" at the Sundance Film Festival. The vehicles in the convoy were of various makes and models, all fuelled on B100.

Josh Tickell, the creator of "Fields of Fuel" and the man who drove across America in a Winnebago fueled solely through used cooking oil from fast food restaurants, officially launched the convoy with a speech to inspire his supporters. He declared: "You are not going to Sundance to promote a film. You're going to Sundance to lead the world in a peaceful energy revolution. You are the leaders, the soldiers selected to carry our message to millions of people, starting at Sundance. Few other revolutions have been this peaceful. No other is as important as this one today. What we're talking about is a global shift in consciousness."

The convoy is expected to arrive in Park City tomorrow afternoon, Wednesday.

The American Humanist Association is a partner and fiscal sponsor of the 90-minute documentary that chronicles one man's search for an alternative to America's dependence on foreign oil. Filmed over the past 12 years in 5 countries by a team of scientists and filmmakers lead by Tickell, who is an alternative energy activist and humanist, the documentary explores fossil fuel production and its impacts and provides innovative, ethical and practical solutions. Most importantly, it empowers individuals to change their own energy use as well as the energy use of their communities.

LINK

Congress Aims To Dumb Down History, Pushes Fiction Of Christian Nation In Public Schools

Washington, DC - Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) and 31 other Representatives could bring House Resolution 888, introduced December 18, 2007, to a floor vote as early as this week. H. Res. 888, "Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation's founding and subsequent history" specifically proposes an "American Religious History Week" to be taught in public schools each May.

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Evangelical Christian Film Is Inappropriate For Public School

A church-produced evangelical Christian movie is aimed at evangelism and is inappropriate for public schools, Americans United for Separation of Church and State has told Alabama educators.

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Scientists Create World's Blackest Black

CHICAGO - Researchers say they have made the darkest material on Earth, a substance so black it absorbs more than 99.9 percent of light.

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Scientists decode dogspeak

Fossil remains of 2,000-pound rodent found

Mercury's hidden side revealed

This palm tree is set to self-destruct

Why Incest Makes Us So Squeamish

It isn't taboo in nature, but we may have evolved cues to avoid behavior.

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Texas Delays Decision On Offering Science Degree At Creation College

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board said Tuesday that it will wait until April to decide whether the Institute for Creation Research can offer an online master's degree in science education. The board was supposed to take up the issue next week.

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Woman With Bomb Kills 6

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A woman suicide bomber set off a blast on Wednesday in an outdoor market in Iraq's Diyala province, killing six civilians and wounding seven, authorities said.

--snip--

It was the fourth such suicide strike carried out by women in the province over the last three months, said Col. Ragheb al-Aumairi, the spokesman of Diyala military operations headquarters.

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Hamas Mourns Israeli Raid Victims

GAZA CITY (CNN) -- Hamas leaders in Gaza have declared a three-day mourning period after an Israeli raid on eastern Gaza City left at least 17 dead and more than 20 wounded.

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Israelis kill senior Islamic Jihad leader

Al Qaeda In Lebanon

The Iraq War Spreads

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Bin Laden: Saudis Are Main Enemy In Iraq

WASHINGTON (UPI) -- As President Bush visits Saudi Arabia, al-Qaida leaders now say the kingdom, not the U.S military, is their main enemy in Iraq.

In an hour-long audio message last month, Osama bin Laden told Iraq's mujahedin that their main enemy was now Saudi Arabia, rather than the U.S military, according to a new analysis.

More...

See also:

Bin Laden Identifies Saudi Arabia as the Enemy of Mujahideen Unity

Militants Escape Control Of Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan's premier military intelligence agency has lost control of some of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy, two former senior intelligence officials and other officials close to the agency say.

--snip--

The growing strength of the militants, many of whom now express support for Al Qaeda's global jihad, presents a grave threat to Pakistan's security, as well as NATO efforts to push back the Taliban in Afghanistan.

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See also:

Militants abandon Pakistan fort

Indiana Jones Meets The Da Vinci Code

Islam watchers blogged all weekend about news that a secret archive of ancient Islamic texts had surfaced after 60 years of suppression. Andrew Higgins' Wall Street Journal report that the photographic record of Koranic manuscripts, supposedly destroyed during World War II but occulted by a scholar of alleged Nazi sympathies, reads like a conflation of the Da Vinci Code with Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail.

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Senator's Inquiry Into Megachurch Money Hypocrisy

Consider Bishop Eddie Long, who pastors a megachurch in Lithonia, Ga. With a salary approaching $1 million a year and a nine-bathroom mansion situated on 20 acres, Long's choice of vehicles reflects his opulent lifestyle: He drives a $350,000 Bentley.

Far from casting out money changers, Long is likely to join them. In a 2005 profile in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he defended his high-flying ways, insisting, "I pastor a multimillion dollar congregation. You've got to put me on a different scale than the little black preacher sitting over there that's supposed to be just getting by because the people are suffering."

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'Islamic Jesus' Hits Iranian Movie Screens

A director who shares the ideas of Iran's hardline president has produced what he says is the first film giving an Islamic view of Jesus Christ, in a bid to show the "common ground" between Muslims and Christians.

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Amnesty urges Iran to stop stoning executions

Daughter 'Threatened If She Denounced Islam'

A GOLD Coast man threatened to kill his daughter and himself if she denounced Islam for Christianity, a court was told yesterday.

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Israel 'Back Of The Bus' Rule Sparks Religious Row

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Every time Israeli student Iris Yoffe takes the bus to Jerusalem, she has to be ready for abuse from ultra-Orthodox Jews who say she should be kept off because she's wearing trousers.

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Knesset approves reestablishment of Religious Affairs Ministry

Harry Potter Condemned In Vatican Newspaper

An article in the Vatican's official newspaper has condemned JK Rowling's Harry Potter books for posing a danger to children by promoting witchcraft and the occult.

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Scientists Protest Against Pope

Sixty one Italian scientists have signed a letter protesting against a planned visit this week by Pope Benedict XVI to Rome's Sapienza University because of his stated views on Galileo.

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UPDATE:

Pope Cancels University Visit

FreeThoughtAction Is Off The Ground -- Literally

After years of planning and discussion FreeThoughtAction is finally in action. Our first billboard is finally up on the New Jersey Turnpike just outside of NYC. (For those in the area who are interested, it's facing southbound traffic just north of exit 18 near the Meadowlands.) It carries the following simple, positive and provocative message: "Don't believe in God? You are not alone."





Although the first billboard just went up, we have already received a lot of attention. We have heard from hundreds of people across the country and around the world who support this project to raise the profile of nontheists in the United States.

The key to the success of FreeThoughtAction is generating positive momentum by using ads, press and word-of-mouth to generate more donations which results in more ads, press and word-of-mouth... and so on. Thanks to all of you who have already contributed. Of course, we would love you to contribute as much as you are comfortable with to help us make the biggest splash possible. Remember, every dollar you send goes toward our ad campaign and is tax deductible to the full extent of the law. In addition, anything you can do to spread the word helps create buzz including telling your friends, bringing up FTA at your freethought meetings, posting on discussion boards or blogs, and so on.

We are still working on polishing up the site, adding new links and content, responding to inquires, and looking at locations for our next billboards. Help us spread the word and be a part of helping America evolve into a more rational, less superstitious society.

Our press release and more information is in the post below....

NJ Turnpike Billboard Speaks To Nonreligious

A bold message towers high above the New Jersey Turnpike on a new billboard outside of New York City. "Don't believe in God? You are not alone."

The ad was placed by FreeThoughtAction, a new organization using traditional advertising and the internet to market secularism in a positive and provocative way. FreeThoughtAction is planting a few billboards and other ads around the country to "seed" a grassroots movement raising the profile of "freethinkers," a broad term that includes atheists, agnostics, humanists, secularists, skeptics and others who do not have a belief in the existence of a God or gods.

The billboards promote the website FreeThoughtAction.org where internet visitors can find out about the initiative and contribute to the campaign. The site provides a range of resources including links to dozens of freethought groups, research material on religion and freethought, a news and views blog, plus materials nonbelievers can purchase to help spread the word. FTA will also work with groups and individuals to place local ads in their market.

Jan Meshon, the group's founder, is optimistic the action plan will garner support. "So far, response has been overwhelmingly positive. People are thrilled to see their view expressed in such a visible way. Just the other day someone saw the ad for the first time and whipped out their checkbook on the spot." One of the strengths of the program, according to Mr. Meshon, is how easy it is for supporters to join the action. "There are no meetings to attend. Everyone doesn't have to agree on every point of philosophy or what to label themselves. You can contribute and know that your voice will be heard."

The billboard has only been up a couple of days and already dozens of people have contributed and/or signed up for the email list. FTA has received dozens of thank you emails from around the country - and even a few from as far away as Britain and Israel - expressing their appreciation of the effort. To quote one: "The billboard is absolutely fantastic and so desperately needed in every community across America. Thank you so much for this." Freethought blogs were abuzz with word of the billboard with very positive reaction like the following: "Bravo... billboards like these help non-theists feel less alone and less alienated."

FTA sees itself as a small counterpoint to aggressive, well-funded efforts by religious groups to increase the role of religion in American society and government. Mr. Meshon believes that a little marketing push for a strong "product" will help move America to a tipping point where secular Americans are as readily accepted as the religious. "For all the attention given to religion lately, the number of secular Americans is booming. The tide is definitely turning." The American Religious Identification Survey (City University of New York) supports this view. Nonreligious Americans doubled from 1990 to 2001 while the number of religious Americans actually decreased.

---

FreeThoughtAction is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and an independent adjunct of the American Humanist Association. FTA creates marketing and public relations programs to increase the size and influence of the freethought community.

---

Earlier Press Release by the American Humanist Association HERE.

Earlier coverage:

God's skeptics get comfort from above

Beware of the fruit of the 'Tree of Knowledge'

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

Sign of the times?

More to come...

Hat tip to the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, NJ which is the nearest humanist organization to the billboard. This organization is a family-oriented community that offers a humanistic Sunday school and is a member of the American Ethical Union (AEU).

They referenced our billboard on their Society's blog HERE.

Texans Report Seeing UFO

STEPHENVILLE, Texas (AP) -- In this farming community where nightfall usually brings clear, starry skies, residents are abuzz over reported sightings of what many believe is a UFO.

--snip--

"People wonder what in the world it is because this is the Bible Belt, and everyone is afraid it's the end of times," said Steve Allen, a freight company owner and pilot who said the object he saw last week was a mile long and half a mile wide. "It was positively, absolutely nothing from these parts."

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The Enduring Mysteries Of Mercury

NASA's Messenger probe will be the first spacecraft to image the whole planet, making its initial flyby of Mercury Jan. 14 as part of a long process to settle into orbit.

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Doctors Create Tiny, Magnetized Disease Fighters

By injecting tiny magnets into your body, doctors hope to treat diseases without using chemicals or hormones.

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Tinkering extends life of organism by 10-fold

Columbus blamed for syphilis spread

Mayor/Pastor Accused Of Seeking Sex With Girl

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - A small-town mayor and church pastor was in jail Monday on charges of soliciting sex over the Internet from a police detective posing as a 13-year-old girl.

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'Absolute Power'

It is one of the darkest chapters of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. More than 110 children in Eskimo villages claim they were molested between 1959 and 1986, raped or assaulted by 12 priests and three church volunteers. Families and victims believe that another 22 people were sexually abused by clergy members but have since killed themselves. The Jesuit Oregon Province, which includes Alaska, has agreed to pay $50 million in damages. It is believed to be the largest settlement ever against a religious order.

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Sharif: Pakistan Is "Drowned In Blood"

In the latest violence, suspected pro-Taliban militants ambushed a military convoy in a tribal region close to the border with Afghanistan, sparking a clash that left 23 fighters and seven troops dead, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad.

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6 Dead In Afghan Luxury Hotel Attack

Taliban Takes Responsibility For Kabul Blast, Gunfire Killing 6, Including 1 American

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See also:

3,200 Marines Headed To Afghanistan

House Passes, Considers Evangelical Resolutions

A Republican congressman, who has spent the better part of the past two years on a mission to ensure Jesus Christ has a place in all aspects of federal government, has introduced a resolution to designate a week every year to honor the nation's "rich spiritual, and religious history."

House Resolution 888, sponsored by Congressman Randy Forbes (R-Virginia), is currently before a House committee and has 31 co-sponsors. It purports to be free from singling out a specific religion, yet contains dozens of proclamations with clear fundamentalist Christian overtones. Five pages of footnotes cite specific Bible passages, the Gospels, churches, and include Biblical references taken from historical monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial.

--snip--

"House Resolution 888 is perhaps the most disgraceful, shocking and tragic example yet of the pernicious and pervasive pattern and practice of the unconstitutional rape of our bedrock American citizens' religious freedoms by the fundamentalist Christian right," said Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of MRFF [The Military Religious Freedom Foundation], a nonprofit watchdog group that aims to keep a close eye on the military to ensure it abides by the law mandating the separation between church and state. "Its myriad tortured and deliberate historical fictions, fused by it's Congressional-member drafters into a sorry screed of fascistic Christian exceptionalism and triumphalism, clearly illuminate its private sector and legislative sponsors' unbridled lust to spare absolutely no effort to complete the transformation of our country into "The United Christian States of America."

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Conservative Pastor Urges Buying Microsoft Stock To Fight Its Gay Rights Efforts

A conservative Christian pastor plans to launch a high-profile campaign Tuesday urging religious followers to load up on Microsoft Corp. stock, in an attempt to force the company to "stop financing ungodly ventures."

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