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Morality Research Sheds Light On The Origins Of Religion

2010-02-09T23:25:00.000-08:00

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.

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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

2010-02-09T23:23:00.000-08:00

"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

2010-02-09T23:22:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T23:21:00.000-08:00

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'

2010-02-09T23:13:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T23:11:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T23:09:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T23:08:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T23:05:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T23:03:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T23:00:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T22:58:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T22:57:00.000-08:00

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"

2010-02-09T22:56:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T22:52:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T22:51:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T22:49:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T22:46:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T22:44:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T22:42:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T22:40:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T22:37:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T22:35:00.000-08:00

"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

2010-02-09T22:33:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-09T22:32:00.000-08:00

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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