U.S. Hits Pakistan Again, At Least 12 Reported Killed

(CBS/AP) The main opposition party called Friday for parliament to meet in joint session to devise strategy on how to deal with cross-border attacks after the latest suspected U.S. missile strike killed 12 people in northwestern Pakistan.

American forces in Afghanistan are stepping up their efforts to hit Taliban and al Qaeda militants in what they call safe havens in Pakistan's wild border regions, despite stiff protests from Islamabad.

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Bush OK'd Secret U.S. Strikes In Pakistan

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7 Years Later, No Closer To Bin Laden

In Hunt for Bin Laden, a New Approach

U.S. Suffering Deadliest Afghan Year

(AP) Insurgents killed two U.S. troops in Afghanistan on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks Thursday, making 2008 the deadliest year for American forces since U.S. troops invaded the country in 2001 for sheltering Osama bin Laden.

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U.S. "Running Out Of Time" In Afghanistan

Pentagon admits Afghan strategy not succeeding

FFRF's Full Page Ad In Today's New York Times Imagines A World Free From Religion

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has placed a full-page in today's New York Times (p. A17), featuring a photograph of the intact pre-9/11 Manhattan skyline juxtaposed with the words: "Imagine a World Free From Religion."

"One of the lessons of 9/11 is that there is no greater source of terrorism, strife, bloodshed, persecution or war than religion," the Foundation ad points out.

"John Lennon was right," comments Freedom From Religion Foundation co-president Dan Barker, author of the new book, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists (Ulysses Press).

"If there were no religion," Dan added, "it would not automatically solve all our problems, but it would make them so much easier to address."

"In this approaching seventh anniversary of the terror attacks, the role religion plays in creating terrorism and division is that proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the room," said Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor.

The ad points to "the growing threat of religious fanaticism here at home," the de facto religious test for public office being imposed on candidates, and asks: "Is the American public flirting with theocracy?," adding: "Don't let it happen here!"

The ad promotes membership in the Freedom From Religion Foundation, points out that FFRF is the largest national association of freethinkers, recounts FFRF achievements and touts the Foundation's significant 30-year history of litigation to keep state and church separate.

"We came into the office today to find the phones ringing off the hooks, and already have been contacted by many very interested prospective members from all over the nation," said Dan.

"We thank the original East Coast FFRF member who suggested this ad and contributed $10,000, and the other members who contributed toward this national statement," added Annie Laurie.

View ad here

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., is a national association of more than 12,000 freethinkers (atheists, agnostics) that has been working since 1978 to keep church and state separate.

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Humanists Praise Bold New York Times Ad

Billboard Targets Ex-Mormons In Valley; Draws Controversy

A billboard in Chandler is drawing attention from Mormons and former followers alike.

The Utah-based group Post-Mormon has placed a billboard at the corner of Gilbert Road and Chandler Boulevard in an attempt to reach out to ex-Mormons who feel abandoned by their friends and family.

It features a family with a note that reads, "You're not alone!" as well as the web address postmormon.org.

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Ban On Political Endorsements By Pastors Targeted

CHICAGO -- Declaring that clergy have a constitutional right to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting several dozen pastors to do just that on Sept. 28, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules.

The effort by the Arizona-based legal consortium is designed to trigger an IRS investigation that ADF lawyers would then challenge in federal court. The ultimate goal is to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship.

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Americans United Commends Ohio Clergy For Opposing Pulpit Partisanship

Scientists In Switzerland To Do The Monster Smash

(AP) Scientists will launch an experiment in a tunnel deep beneath the French-Swiss border Wednesday, hoping to find evidence of extra dimensions, invisible "dark matter," and an elusive particle called the "Higgs boson."

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Powerful telescope 'looks back' 4.6 billion years

Anthropologists Develop New Approach To Explain Religious Behavior

ScienceDaily -- Without a way to measure religious beliefs, anthropologists have had difficulty studying religion. Now, two anthropologists from the University of Missouri and Arizona State University have developed a new approach to study religion by focusing on verbal communication, an identifiable behavior, instead of speculating about alleged beliefs in the supernatural that cannot actually be identified.

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Biologists On The Verge Of Creating New Form Of Life

A team of biologists and chemists is closing in on bringing non-living matter to life.

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Ancient Trees Recorded In Mines

Spectacular fossil forests have been found in the coal mines of Illinois by a US-UK team of researchers.

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Devolution In Education

This summer and fall, the science curriculum comes under scrutiny. But far from being a yawner, the review may turn out to be a key battleground between scientists and science teachers on one hand and the religious right on the other.

The basic fight is expected to be over what kids are taught about evolution -- which takes up only about three days of teaching in a 180-day school year. But scientists and teachers argue there are much bigger things at stake: the intimidation of teachers and the possible beginning of biblical beliefs being taught as science in Texas public schools.

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Atheist At Fort Riley Reports Death Threat

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - An atheist soldier at Fort Riley who's suing the military is reporting that he has received a death threat.

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'Heretics Barbecue' Gathers Skeptics

There was a time when Mark Boyd's truck sported a "Darwin fish," which is a parody of the Christian ichthys symbol. Then somebody ripped it off, broke it into four pieces and put it under one of the vehicle's windshield wipers.

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Man Indicted For Allegedly Seeking Heavenly Tax Refund

A Marion man, who allegedly claims to be a citizen of heaven rather than a U.S. Citizen, has been charged in federal court in Cedar Rapids with making a false claim on his taxes.

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Pope Orders Disciplinary Measures On Priest Over Sex Scandal

Pope Benedict XVI has authorised severe cautionary and disciplinary measures against Fr Tomislav Vlasic, the former spiritual director to six children who said Our Lady was appearing to them at the site in Bosnia.

The Franciscan priest was suspended after he refused to co-operate with a Vatican probe of scandalous sexual immorality "aggravated by mystical motivations".

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Church Obsessed With Gays - Tutu

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has accused the Anglican church of allowing its "obsession" with homosexuality to come before real action on world poverty.

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Football 1, Religion 1

There was no clear winner as two of Northern Ireland's great passions - football and religion - clashed on the streets of east Belfast.

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Church Of Scientology Faces Fraud Trial In France

A French judge has ordered two branches of the Church of Scientology and seven of its leaders to stand trial for fraud, in the latest of a series of French legal battles against the organisation promoted by celebrities such as Tom Cruise.

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Lawmaker Candidates Face Koran Test In Indonesia's Aceh

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's Aceh province will begin testing candidates for next year's provincial elections on the Koran from Monday, an election commission official said.

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Sikhs And Hindus Accuse BBC Of Pro-Muslim Bias

Hindu and Sikh leaders have accused the BBC of pandering to Britain's Muslim community by making a disproportionate number of programmes on Islam at the expense of covering other Asian religions.

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Russian Prosecutors In Bid To Ban South Park

Moscow prosecutors began legal proceedings aimed at the cartoon series South Park today in a bid to kill Kenny in Russia.

--snip--

A statement by Moscow prosecutors read: "It offends the honour and dignity of Christians and Muslims alike." It could just have easily included Jews, Scientologists, Catholics, Mormons and Moonies all of whom have been mercilessly targeted by American series.

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