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Godless Comedy From That Mitchell And Webb Look

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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See also:

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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See also:

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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See also:

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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See also:

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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See also:

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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Concerns Raised About Lodi Sidewalk Mosaic Containing Religious Symbols

Councilwoman JoAnne Mounce is raising questions about a public art project that will contain religious symbols, saying she is concerned about blending faith and government.

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Holy Lawsuit! Communion-Wafer Flap Lands In Court

A holy war of sorts has broken out in the communion-wafer-dispensing space.

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Former Minister In Texas On Trial For Wife's Death

WACO, Texas (AP) -- A minister's wife told her therapist a few days before she died that she thought her husband was going to kill her and was having an affair, her therapist testified Wednesday at his murder trial.

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Reynolds, Harper Both Heading To Prison

Four days after Reynolds was murdered, Floyd County police arrested his wife Michelle Reynolds and the Hollywood Baptist Church's youth minister Richard Scott Harper, charging them with the murder and also alleging they had an affair.

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Judge: Roeder Can Seek Manslaughter Defense

WICHITA -- A Sedgwick County district judge today refused to prevent Scott Roeder from pursuing a defense of voluntary manslaughter.

--snip--

Roeder is charged with killing Wichita abortion provider George Tiller on May 31 at the doctor's church. Roeder has admitted to the shooting but said he killed to protect the unborn.

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See also:

Jury selection ongoing in abortion slaying trial

Expert wary of private juror questioning in Scott Roeder trial

Judge Rejects Personhood Petition; Ruling To Be Appealed

CARSON CITY -- An initiative petition that could ultimately prevent abortion is so vague in its true intentions that it cannot be circulated among voters, a judge decided today.

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Oregon City Trial Raises New Questions In Faith-Healing Debate

When an Oregon City couple go on trial this week in the faith-healing death of their son, the case will raise a new wrinkle in Oregon's debate over religious freedom:

Can a juvenile's right to obtain medical treatment absolve parents of responsibility for providing health care to a sick child?

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Little Rock Pastor Resigns Amid Sex Charges

A Little Rock pastor steps down after police say he had inappropriate contact with a 15-year-old boy. Members of The River Church, which recently ran "bar church" this past Easter Sunday, say they're saddened by the news. Police are investigating 42-year-old Shane Montgomery.

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Judge Orders $500K For Each Of Preacher's Victims

TEXARKANA, Ark. (AP) -- Five young women who testified last year that evangelist Tony Alamo took them as ''wives'' and sexually assaulted them when they were minors are entitled to $500,000 each from his multi-million-dollar ministry, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

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"Ministerial Exception" In Maryland Court

A jury ruled in favor of Linklater and awarded her over a million dollars in damages after she proved that she was unlawfully terminated by the church as its music director after complaining about the pastor's repeated sexual harassment of her.

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Church Liability At Issue In Abuse Suit

A national debate over the extent to which a religious group can be held liable for sexual misconduct by its clergy or its volunteers has made its way to the doorstep of the Nevada Supreme Court.

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Delaware Catholic Diocese Must Face Bankruptcy Trial

Delaware's Roman Catholic churches may be forced to share $76 million with victims of sexual abuse, depending on a ruling by the judge overseeing the bankruptcy of the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington.

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Ex-Priest Convicted Of Rape Denied New Trial

BOSTON - A key figure in the Boston Roman Catholic clergy sex-abuse scandal who claims his rape conviction was based on "junk science" lost his bid for a new trial Friday when Massachusetts' highest court validated his victim's claim of recovering repressed memories.

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Priest Attempts Suicide After Abuse Claim

(AP) -- CHICAGO - A Roman Catholic priest who was removed from his suburban Chicago post because of an abuse allegation was in intensive care Thursday after apparently trying to commit suicide by jumping from a church balcony, officials said.

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Accused Joliet priest remains in ICU

New Spokane Priest Abuse Trial To Start Soon

A new era of clergy sex abuse cases is about to begin in Spokane. Preliminary hearings are underway in a case of a man who claims he was molested at a Catholic group home for boys.

It's the first of what could be as many as 20 trials to be held during the next two years.

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Former Milwaukee Bishop: I Did My Best

In his e-mail Weakland apologizes for any sexual abuse. He says he did his best with the cases with the knowledge and experience he had. He says God will be his judge.

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Former Milwaukee bishop: I did my best

Gay Teen Worried He Might Be Christian [Humor]

LOUISVILLE, KY -- At first glance, high school senior Lucas Faber, 18, seems like any ordinary gay teen. He's a member of his school's swing choir, enjoys shopping at the mall, and has sex with other males his age. But lately, a growing worry has begun to plague this young gay man. A gnawing feeling that, deep down, he may be a fundamentalist, right-wing Christian.

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Bradley Byrne Says 'Every Word' Of Bible Is True

HUNTSVILLE, AL - "I believe the Bible is true," Republican gubernatorial candidate Bradley Byrne said here Wednesday. "Every word of it."

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See also:

Only Biblical Literalists May Be Alabama Governor

And...

Farouk Shami says he felt God's call to run for Texas governor

Palin Believed Candidacy 'God's Plan'

Mormon Faithful Most Conservative Religious Group In U.S., Poll Finds

SALT LAKE CITY -- Using data compiled from its 2009 surveys, the Gallup Poll has confirmed what some have long seen as an honor and others as a criticism -- members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints comprise the most conservative of the major religious groups in the United States.

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Restoration Of Lost Scientology Materials Complete

Clearwater, USA - More than 1,000 unreleased recordings of lectures by L. Ron Hubbard and reams of corresponding writings have been unveiled in the culmination of a 25-year project to locate, restore and transcribe lost pieces of the Scientology founder's work.

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In Hasan Case, Superiors Ignored Their Worries

WASHINGTON -- A Defense Department review of the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, has found the doctors overseeing Maj. Nidal Hasan's medical training repeatedly voiced concerns over his strident views on Islam and his inappropriate behavior, yet continued to give him positive performance evaluations that kept him moving through the ranks.

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Atheism Is Killing Creation, Says Pope

Pope Benedict XVI this week intensified his efforts to convince the world that protection of the environment is necessarily connected to protection of human dignity and must be seen in the light of a universe created and governed by God.

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Killing Freedom And Cartoonists

A 28-year-old Somali Islamist allegedly tried to murder the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard with an axe on New Year's night. It was Mr Westergaard who drew the most controversial of the 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad commissioned by the Arhus-based daily Jyllands-Posten in 2005. His was the one showing a bearded man in a turban shaped like a bomb. Publication of the cartoons led, months later, to riots across the Muslim world. Danish embassies were burned in Iran, Syria and Lebanon. More than 200 people died.

The threats against Mr Westergaard, who is 74, have not abated since.

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Iris Robinson: Mrs. Robinson's Affair With Teen Rocks Northern Ireland

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- A political scandal riveting Northern Ireland has a certain cinematic feel: an affair by 58-year-old woman named Mrs. Robinson with a 19-year-old male lover.

--snip--

But there is a serious side to the story of Iris Robinson, who also happens to be a member of Parliament and the wife of Peter Robinson - Northern Ireland's government leader.

The BBC reported that Iris Robinson allegedly solicited 50,000 pounds ($80,000) from businessmen so her young lover could open a restaurant - without disclosing the fact to lawmakers.

--snip--

Even before the scandal, Iris Robinson had caused her husband political problems when she condemned homosexuals as revolting and called on them to seek help from psychiatrists and Christianity.

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Rabbi Suspected Of Making 1,200 Obscene Calls To Children

A Modi'in Ilit rabbi was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of making 1,200 obscene phone calls to children, Channel 10 news reported.

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Jihadists Groom Children In The UK Under 10

Police have identified children as young as seven being groomed for terrorism, with some expressing a wish to become suicide bombers.

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Human Sacrifices 'On The Rise In Uganda' As Witch Doctors Admit To Rituals

One man said he had clients who had captured children and taken their blood and body parts to his shrine, while another confessed to killing at least 70 people including his own son.

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See also:

Uganda rows back on draconian anti-gay law after western outrage

Solar Eclipse Over India, Africa

(CBS) Thousands of people in Africa and Asia viewed an eclipse Friday as the moon crossed the sun's path blocking everything but a narrow, blazing rim of light.

--snip--

But others in India were gripped by fear and refused to come outdoors. Hindu mythology states an eclipse is caused when a dragon-demon swallows the sun, while another myth says the sun's rays during an eclipse can harm unborn children.

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Indians Brave Cold Ganges To Celebrate Festival

HARIDWAR, India - Hundreds of thousands of devotees bathed in the icy waters of the Ganges river Thursday as a monthslong Hindu festival expected to attract more than 10 million people kicked off in one of northern India's holiest cities.

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See also:

Seven killed in Hindu festival stampede

British Woman 'Arrested In Dubai After Being Raped'

A 23-year-old British woman on holiday in Dubai told police she had been raped, only to be arrested herself for having illegal sexual intercourse.

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Malaysian Churches Attacked

Four Christian churches in Malaysia have been attacked amid tensions over the use of the word "Allah" by non-Muslims in the country.

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See also:

Attacks after Malaysian court rules Christians can worship Allah

MALAYSIA: Religious Intolerance Threatens Secular Foundation

'Religious War' Fears After Seven Are Shot Dead At Midnight Mass

Clashes erupted between Coptic Christians and Muslims in several southern Egyptian towns yesterday after an attack that left seven Copts dead.

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See also:

Christian-Muslim fighting resumes in Egypt

And...

Piety, skill key to making team, Egypt coach says

Al Qaeda Threatens To Kill French Hostage In Mali

(CNN) -- Al Qaeda's north African wing has threatened to kill a French hostage unless four of its members are released within 20 days.

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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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See also:

At least 7 people killed in two Iraq attacks

Taliban 'Killing Thousands Of Civilians'

More Afghans are dying in their country's bloody insurgency than at any time since 2001, a new UN report says, thanks largely to the Taliban's use of indiscriminate roadside bombs and suicide attackers. The findings released yesterday came as at least six civilians were shot dead in Helmand and a series of bomb attacks around the country killed or wounded bystanders.

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Suicide bomber hits Afghanistan market

15 dead in Afghanistan market bombing

Quran desecration claims cause anger in Afghanistan

3 U.S. troops among 6 killed in Afghanistan

British journalist killed in Afghanistan

The Godless States Of America

The polling organization recently released rankings on the religiosity of the states, based on 2007 survey responses to four questions: the importance of religion in people's lives, frequency of attendance at worship services, frequency of prayer and absolute certainty of belief in God.

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29% of Americans say religion 'out of date'

The New Atheism: Taking A Stand For Science And Reason

In this new book, Victor J. Stenger, whose God: The Failed Hypothesis was on the New York Times bestseller list in 2007, reviews and expands upon the principles of New Atheism and answers many of its critics. He demonstrates in detail that naturalism--the view that all of reality is reducible to matter and nothing else--is sufficient to explain everything we observe in the universe, from the most distant galaxies to the inner workings of the brain that result in the phenomenon of mind.

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Secular Coalition For America 2009 Briefing

2009 has been a banner legislative year for the Secular Coalition for America.

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Kepler Planet-Hunting Mission Finds 5 New Lightweight Worlds

WASHINGTON -- The list of known exoplanets in the galaxy just got bigger, thanks to the first observations of NASA's Kepler space telescope, which found five new lightweight worlds orbiting distant stars.

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In All the Universe, Just 10 Percent of Solar Systems Are Like Ours

Hubble Reaches 'Undiscovered Country' of Most Distant Primeval Galaxies

Hubble peers back 13.2 billion years, finds 'primordial' galaxies

Wired Science News for Your Neurons Top Scientific Breakthroughs of 2009

Burial Cloth Found In Jerusalem Cave Casts Doubt On Authenticity Of Turin Shroud

Archaeologists have discovered the first known burial shroud in Jerusalem from the time of Christ's crucifixion - and say it casts serious doubt on the claimed authenticity of the Turin Shroud.

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Sumerians Look On In Confusion As God Creates World (Humor)

Members of the earth's earliest known civilization, the Sumerians, looked on in shock and confusion some 6,000 years ago as God, the Lord Almighty, created Heaven and Earth.

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Biblical Scholar's Date For Rapture: May 21, 2011

Camping, 88, has scrutinized the Bible for almost 70 years and says he has developed a mathematical system to interpret prophecies hidden within the Good Book. One night a few years ago, Camping, a civil engineer by trade, crunched the numbers and was stunned at what he'd found: The world will end May 21, 2011.

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'Jesus Christ' Reports For Jury Duty In Alabama

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Jesus Christ was called for jury duty this week in Jefferson County, but was sent home for being disruptive.

--snip--

Efforts to reach Christ were unsuccessful.

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Spiritual Spud? Crosses In Potatoes Appear To Online Sellers

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - Move over, Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese. Step aside, Fish Stick Jesus.

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Woman sees Jesus Her Bruise

Scientology Sees Historic Growth

In a tumultuous year in which most religious groups scraped by or tried to hold their own, the Church of Scientology reported its biggest expansion in history in 2009.

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Lawsuit Calls Yoga Chain A Cult

Lee, a South Korean businessman, is the founder of a national chain of yoga and wellness centers called Dahn Yoga. The company teaches that its physical exercises "can restore the vibrations of the body and brain to their original, healthy frequencies," according to a video introduction on its Web site.

But Dahn Yoga is now defending itself from allegations by former employees that it is "a totalistic, high-demand cult group" that demands large sums of money from its followers and enshrines Lee as an "absolute spiritual and temporal leader."

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Americans United Warns Louisiana Education Board Not To Adopt Review Policy That Favors Creationism

A new policy under consideration by the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is slanted to favor creationism and should be revised, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

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Louisiana Activist Barbara Forrest Counters Religious Right Attacks On Public School Science Classes

South Windsor, Under Pressure, Moves Graduation Out Of Cathedral

SOUTH WINDSOR -- The board of education has sidestepped a legal fight over the separation of church and state by changing the location of South Windsor High School's 2010 graduation.

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Faith-Based Victory: Florida Court Greenlights Case Challenging Religion Subsidies

A Florida appellate court ruled yesterday that public funding of a "faith-based" prison program may violate the state's constitution.

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Baptist Agency To Take Funding Case To Supreme Court

A Kentucky Baptist children's home says it will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging a lower court affirmed ruling giving a green light to a taxpayer challenge of state funding to the faith-based agency.

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Americans United Urges Army Officials To Alter 'Church Retreat' Program At Missouri Base

U.S. military officials should make further changes at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri to ensure that soldiers are not subjected to unwanted religious proselytism, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

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In Defense Of Foxhole Atheists

It's no secret that conservative Christians dominate the U.S. military, but when higher-ups start talking about conversion missions, it's time to worry. The author meets a group of soldiers who aren't having it.

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Professors, Students Bring Lawsuit Against Religious Proselytism By Southern California Community College Officials

Mathematics professor Karla Westphal has seen enough.

After years of protesting invocations at numerous events at Saddleback Community College in Mission Viejo, Calif., this fall the faculty member witnessed the school's most offensive behavior yet.

At the August 2009 Chancellor's Opening Session, officials included a presentation of slides accompanied by the song "God Bless the USA." The last two slides concluded the presentation with images of uniformed service members carrying a flag-draped coffin.

The superimposed text read: "Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you. Jesus Christ and the American G.I. One died for your soul, the other died for your freedom."

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Delaware Government: Critic Questions Official Prayers

Wilmington man challenges long tradition at public meetings.

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FFRF Asks Tampa Council To Stop Sectarian Prayers

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has sent a letter to the mayor and City Council in Tampa, Fla., to object to the long-term practice of opening council meetings with prayers, and particularly prayers that are geared to Christians only.

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Nonprofit group protests religious invocations at Tampa City Council

Court: FFRF Can Sue Over S.C. School Religious Education

A U.S. District Court in South Carolina has ruled that a Freedom From Religion Foundation lawsuit against the Spartanburg County School District may proceed to the discovery process and to trial.

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Judge: Michigan County Can Ban Median Manger

Charleston Brouhaha Over FFRF's Lighted Cross, Nativity Complaint

Federal Court Hears Oral Arguments In Newdow v. Roberts

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments today in Newdow v. Roberts, a case that challenges the infusion of religion into presidential inaugural ceremonies. With the support of the Appignani Humanist Legal Center, the legal arm of the American Humanist Association, lead plaintiff Michael Newdow argued today that the United States District Court for the District of Columbia erred by failing to follow Supreme Court precedent when it previously dismissed Newdow v. Roberts.

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Brit Hume To Tiger Woods: Convert To Christianity To Recover From Scandal (VIDEO)

Fox News' Brit Hume gave Tiger Woods some personal advice Sunday morning, telling the scandal-plagued (and Buddhist) golfer to 'turn to Christianity' to make a full recovery.

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Argentine Ex-Archbishop Gets 8 Years In Sex-Abuse Case, Court Reports

(CNN) -- A former Catholic archbishop in Argentina has been sentenced to eight years in prison for sexual abuse of a seminary student in 1992, a court report said Wednesday.

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Paedophile Monk Allowed To Strike Again At Abbey School

A Benedictine monk who abused children at an independent abbey school in west London was allowed to strike again despite senior officials in the Catholic church and regulators being warned about his record as a paedophile, an official inquiry has revealed.

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Church Accused Of Disregarding Complaints Of Priest's Child Abuse

THE CATHOLIC Church in Germany has been accused of ignoring abuse complaints against a priest who reportedly shared beds, saunas and showers with boys and young men.

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Irish Bishop Donal Murray Resigns Over Cover-Up Of Child Sex Abuse

A bishop accused of covering up the serial sex abuse of children by priests resigned yesterday and a second said he was ready to stand down as the Roman Catholic Church sought to clean up its tarnished image.

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2nd Irish bishop resigns in sex-abuse scandal

Catholic abuse scandals

Irish Atheists Use Bjork, Mark Twain To Challenge Blasphemy Law

(CNN) -- An Irish atheist group has published a series of quotations on religion in an attempt to challenge a blasphemy law that went into effect on New Year's Day.

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Irish Befuddled By New Blasphemy Law

The Atheist Bus Campaign Has Kicked Off In NZ

Atheism is a positive statement about the limits of knowledge. Rather than taking a religious-like leap of faith and saying that there definitely is a god or definitely isn't a god, atheists just say that there's as much evidence for the Christian God as there is for Zeus or any other supernatural thing. That is, zilch.

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Latin America Sees Its First Same-Sex Marriage

Buenos Aires, Argentina (CNN) -- Less than one month after a Buenos Aires court derailed the marriage of Alex Freyre and Jose Maria di Bello, the couple wed Monday at the southern tip of Argentina, making it the first same-sex marriage in Latin America.

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Mexico City legalizes same-sex marriage, adoptions

Americans' Role Seen In Uganda Anti-Gay Push

KAMPALA, Uganda -- Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about "curing" homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda's capital to give a series of talks.

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Spiritual Awakening

Globalisation has been good for gods in the Indian subcontinent. As the region has remade itself, it has grown more devout, and its religions are becoming ever more entangled with politics

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Bangladesh bans religion in politics

Malaysian Court Rules Non-Muslims May Call God Allah

A court in Malaysia has ruled that Christians have a constitutional right to use the word Allah to refer to God.

The High Court said a government ban on non-Muslims using the word was unconstitutional.

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Assassin Shot In Cartoonist's Home Has Links To Al-Qaida, Say Police

Danish police admitted yesterday that a Somalian caught breaking into the home of a cartoonist whose work sparked riots across the Muslim world five years ago was a would-be assassin with links to al-Qaida.

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Religious Hatred Simmers In Terror Suspect's Homeland

AbdulMutallab is the 23-year-old Nigerian being held for allegedly trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day. While much attention has focused on his privileged background, less has been said about the religious conflict in his homeland.

Christians and Muslims have been killing each other in Nigeria for much of AbdulMutallab's lifetime. At least 10,000 Nigerians have died during Christian-Muslim riots and ethnic violence during the past decade.

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List of Islamic Terror Attacks For the Past 2 Months

Reports: Islamists Spark Deadly Fighting In Central Somalia Town

(CNN)-- Al-Shabaab rebels attacked a town in central Somalia early Saturday, sparking an intense firefight between rival Islamic groups, according to eyewitnesses and local journalists.

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West warns that Somalia is becoming a haven for international terrorists

Clashes Kill 73 Saudi Security Force Members, Official Says

(CNN) -- Fighting that has spilled from Yemen into Saudi Arabia has killed 73 members of the Saudi security forces since November 3, a Saudi spokesman said Tuesday.

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34 killed in Yemen terror raids

Taliban Blow Up School In NW Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Taliban militants blew up a girls' school in Pakistan's Khyber district Monday, officials said, as two soldiers and seven insurgents were killed in clashes in the northwest tribal belt.

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Suicide car bomb attack in market kills 33 people in Pakistan

Pakistan: Taliban brainwashes kids with visions of virgins

Blast in Pakistani Kashmir kills three

Death toll rises in Pakistan game blast

Death toll rises in Karachi suicide attack

Blast kills Pakistan official, 5 of his children

Suicide bomber strikes in Pakistan

14 Terror Suspects Mistakenly Kill Themselves

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Fourteen suspected terrorists died Tuesday night when the bus they rigged with explosives blew up prematurely, police said.

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Attacks kill 8 purported CIA employees, 5 Canadians in Afghanistan

Pilgrims Killed In Baghdad Bombing

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- Two Shiite pilgrims were killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad on Saturday afternoon, the latest strike targeting people marking Ashura, one of the most important annual holy periods for Shiite Muslims across the globe.

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Car bombs kill four in Baghdad

Al Qaeda in Iraq 'shifting its tactics'

Tale Of Two Cities Illustrates Battle For Israel's Soul

While the rest of the world focuses on the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, a divide is growing within Israel. Religious and secular Jews are increasingly at odds, and nowhere is the split more obvious than in Israel's two main cities: Tel Aviv, known as "Sin City," and the holy city of Jerusalem.

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Factions clash over Israel's buses

Defying U.S. urging, Israel to build homes in Arab East Jerusalem

Israeli troops kill 6 Palestinians

Humanists Launch First-Ever National Godless Holiday Campaign

Celebrating a new kind of holiday tradition, the American Humanist Association has launched a new advertising campaign similar to the one that ran in the nation's capital last year, which made headlines around the globe. Only this year, instead of the campaign focusing on a single location, ads will be blazoned across transit systems in five cities--including Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco--marking the first-ever nation-wide humanist holiday advertising campaign.

"No God?...No Problem!" proclaim the ads, featuring an image of several smiling, Santa hat-clad individuals. The ads will kick off in Washington, D.C. in time for Thanksgiving weekend, running inside 200 buses, fifty rail cars and on the side or tail of twenty buses. The campaign will continue with ads appearing on select buses in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco starting in early December.

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Godless Billboard Near Houston's George Bush Airport

"Don't Believe In God? You are not alone."

These words are part of prominent billboard slated to go up in Houston today. It will be located west of I-45 on Farm-to-Market Rd. 1960 near Ella Blvd. and will be viewable by westbound traffic. Sponsored by the Houston Freethought Alliance with funding from the United Coalition of Reason, the billboard's message is superimposed over an image of blue sky and puffy white clouds.

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Tulsa's Godless Groups Organize With Billboard, Book Tour

"Are you good without God? Millions are."

These words are slated to appear today on a prominent Tulsa billboard, located on I -44 West at Elwood. It will be visible to westbound traffic and is sponsored by Tulsa CoR, the Tulsa Coalition of Reason.

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Group Organizes To Be 'Good Without God'

Teresa Cherry was out running errands when she saw the question floating over Interstate 95.

"Are you good without God?" the electronic billboard asked. "Millions are."

The Baltimore woman does not believe in the existence of a supreme being. And in that moment, she did not feel so alone.

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Baltimore's Nontheistic Groups Organize with Billboard Campaign

Atheist Billboard Stirs God Debate

It was supposed to be a meeting for the Atheists of Florida to recruit more members, but it turned into a debate with Christians about whether or not God exists.

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Humanists Pleased With Inclusion Of Nontheists At Colorado Holiday Event

The American Humanist Association announced today they were pleased that nontheists were included in a government-sponsored holiday event in Colorado this past weekend. The Colorado Coalition of Reason (COCOR) was permitted by Larimer County Sheriff James Alderden to participate in the "Apparently Annual Politically Incorrect Christmas Tree Trimming Party," which was held outside the Larimer County Sheriff's Office Administration on Saturday. COCOR, with legal advice from the American Humanist Association, had asked to be included in the celebration amidst concerns that the event was going to unlawfully promote Christianity.

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Atheist Display at Sheriff Alderden's Nativity Scene

Atheists Need A Different Voice

We all know the names (Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens) of those angry white men who tend to antagonize the world's believers. But the most persuasive voices for the 'new New Atheism' tend to be women.

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We macho atheists need a little woman to calm us down

Social Scientists Build Case For 'Survival Of The Kindest'

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive.

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It Seems Biology (Not Religion) Equals Morality

Recent discoveries suggest that all humans, young and old, male and female, conservative and liberal, living in Sydney, San Francisco and Seoul, growing up as atheists, Buddhists, Catholics and Jews, with high school, university or professional degrees, are endowed with a gift from nature, a biological code for living a moral life.

This code, a universal moral grammar, provides us with an unconscious suite of principles for judging what is morally right and wrong. It is an impartial, rational and unemotional capacity. It doesn't dictate who we should help or who we are licensed to harm. Rather, it provides an abstract set of rules for how to intuitively understand when helping another is obligatory and when harming another is forbidden. And it does so dispassionately and impartially. What's the evidence?

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The Chronic Dependence Of Popular Religiosity Upon Dysfunctional Psychosociological Conditions

Abstract: Better understanding the nature, origin and popularity of varying levels of popular religion versus secularism, and their impact upon socioeconomic conditions and vice versa, requires a cross national comparison of the competing factors in populations where opinions are freely chosen. Utilizing 25 indicators, the uniquely extensive Successful Societies Scale reveals that population diversity and immigration correlate weakly with 1st world socioeconomic conditions, and high levels of income disparity, popular religiosity as measured by differing levels of belief and activity, and rejection of evolutionary science correlate strongly negatively with improving conditions. The historically unprecedented socioeconomic security that results from low levels of progressive government policies appear to suppress popular religiosity and creationist opinion, conservative religious ideology apparently contributes to societal dysfunction, and religious prosociality and charity are less effective at improving societal conditions than are secular government programs. The antagonistic relationship between better socioeconomic conditions and intense popular faith may prevent the existence of nations that combine the two factors. The nonuniversality of strong religious devotion, and the ease with large populations abandon serious theism when conditions are sufficiently benign, refute hypotheses that religious belief and practice are the normal, deeply set human mental state, whether they are superficial or natural in nature. Instead popular religion is usually a superficial and flexible psychological mechanism for coping with the high levels of stress and anxiety produced by sufficiently dysfunctional social and especially economic environments. Popular nontheism is a similarly casual response to superior conditions.

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Creating God In One's Own Image

For many religious people, the popular question "What would Jesus do?" is essentially the same as "What would I do?" That's the message from an intriguing and controversial new study by Nicholas Epley from the University of Chicago. Through a combination of surveys, psychological manipulation and brain-scanning, he has found that when religious Americans try to infer the will of God, they mainly draw on their own personal beliefs.

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Dear God, please confirm what I already believe

More U.S. Christians Mix In 'Eastern,' New Age Beliefs

Elements of Eastern faiths and New Age thinking have been widely adopted by 65% of U.S. adults, including many who call themselves Protestants and Catholics, according to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released Wednesday.

--snip--

The percentage of people who call themselves Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation, and so many people declined any religious label that the "Nones," now 15% of the USA, are the third-largest "religious" group after Catholics and Baptists, according to the American Religious Identification Survey last March.

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Entropy Alone Can Create Complex Crystals from Simple Shapes; Tetrahedra Packing Record Broken

Entropy is a measure of the number of ways the components of a system can be arranged. While often linked to disorder, entropy can also cause objects to order. The pyramid shape central to this research is the tetrahedron---a three-dimensional, four-faced, triangular polyhedron that turns up in nanotechnology and biology.

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Large Hadron Collider Makes History With 1.18 TeV Protons

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has made history and become most powerful particle accelerator on the planet.

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Just After the Big Bang: Hubble's Deepest View of Universe Unveils Never-Before-Seen Galaxies

ScienceDaily -- The new Wide Field Camera 3 aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken the deepest image yet of the Universe in near-infrared light. The faintest and reddest objects in the image are likely the oldest galaxies ever identified, having formed between only 600-900 million years after the Big Bang.

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The Big Dipper Gains a Star

Hunt for new worlds goes into overdrive

Black Hole Caught Zapping Galaxy Into Existence?

War On Solstice? Celebrate!

'Tis the season for celebrating, and we should all rejoice, according to American Atheists, Inc. As President Ed Buckner notes, "Claims abound that both Thanksgiving and Christmas are Christian in origin, but in fact both are grounded in non-Christian ideas and rituals that the churches have co-opted for their own purposes.

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'Tis The Season For Battles Over Holiday Displays On Public Property

This is the time of year when disputes over holiday displays on public property and be expected. Here is a sampling of the most recent.

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Atheists Take Softer Approach With Capitol Display

A Seattle-based atheists group asked state officials Friday for permission to display a placard outdoors on the Capitol Campus over the holidays.

Jerry Schiffelbein, the treasurer for Seattle Atheists and an activist in other "free-thought" groups that advocate for separation between church and state, said the sign's message is less provocative than those that the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation put up last year.

The proposed 18-by-30-inch sign says, "In this holiday season let us remember that kindness, charity and goodwill transcend belief, creed or religion."

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Tenn. City Drops Bible Text Reading At Tree-Lighting Ceremony

MARYVILLE, TENN. -- Acknowledging it is "terrifying to stand and go against the courts," Samuel David Duck, a Maryville resident and father of two, did what city officials had decided not to do.

He read an account of the birth of Jesus Christ from the Bible at the city's tree-lighting celebration Monday night at the Greenbelt.

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How The Religious Right Stole Christmas

Every year during the holiday season, right-wing pundits and Religious Right groups rally their followers by claiming there is a "war on Christmas." These groups are outraged annually by holiday displays, parades, music and anything else that has to do with the December holiday -- unless a large dollop of Christianity is included.

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Uphill Political Battles In Washington Have Religious Right Leaders Foaming At The Mouth

Americans United Praises Senate Vote Against Nelson-Hatch Amendment

Americans United for Separation of Church and State today commended the U.S. Senate for rejecting a religion-based amendment to the health-care reform bill that would have limited women's access to abortion.

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Soledad Cross Back On Court's Agenda

A federal appeals court today takes up an issue it is very familiar with -- whether the Latin cross at a veterans memorial atop Mount Soledad violates the U.S. Constitution.

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Redding Woman's Christmas Carol Initiative Picks Up Allies

Merry Hyatt has found allies in her quest to put an initiative on the ballot next year requiring public schools to play Christmas carols.

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Six FFRF "Yes Virginia..." Signs Censored In Las Vegas

Apparently there's no room at the inn for an irreverent billboard saying "there is no God." ClearChannel Outdoor company in Las Vegas has taken down six Freedom From Religion Foundation billboards that had a jolly Santa stating, "Yes, Virginia... There is no God," just one to two days after placing them around the city.

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FFRF Creates Solstice Mini-Blitz in Las Vegas

"No Gods" Solstice Sign Returns To Illinois Capitol

The Freedom From Religion Foundation's Winter Solstice display is going up during December in the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield. The Madison, Wis.-based Foundation is the largest national association of freethinkers (atheists and agnostics), with about 14,000 members nationwide and more than 500 in Illinois. The Foundation works to protect the constitutional separation between religion and government.

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Freethinkers' Winter Solstice Sign Up in Madison

Rights And Religion Clash In Court

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from a Christian student group that had been denied recognition by a public law school in California for excluding homosexuals and nonbelievers. The case pits anti-discrimination principles against religious freedom.

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Judge Denies Pastor Intervention Status In FFRF Case

U.S. District Judge William B. Shubb, Eastern District of California in Sacramento, denied a local pastor the right to intervene in the Freedom From Religion Foundation's challenge of tax benefits for "ministers of the gospel," commonly known as "the parsonage exemption."

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Bakersfield Council Prayers Too Christian?

Bakersfield is the second city in Kern County to have prayers at city council meetings challenged by the Freedom From Religion Foundation Inc., a Wisconsin nonprofit with a membership of mostly atheists and agnostics.

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FFRF Challenges Prayers at City Council Meetings in Bakersfield, Calif.

Magistrate Says Sectarian Invocations At N.C. County Commission Meetings Are Unconstitutional

For many years, members of the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners in North Carolina have opened their meetings with invocations offered by guest clergy. Most of the time, the preachers would pray "in Jesus' name" or include other overtly Christian content.

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Board may press case

Federal Judge Says South Carolina Legislature Crashed Into The Church-State Wall When It Mandated A 'Christian' License Plate

When the Rev. Dr. Neal Jones heard that the South Carolina legislature had voted to create a special license plate bearing Christian symbols and the words "I Believe," he took alarm.

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ACLU Decries Conn. Graduation Venue

The ACLU is demanding that school officials in Enfield, Connecticut, stop holding high school graduation ceremonies at a Christian church, arguing that the public school system should not "be in the business of embracing particular faiths or religious viewpoints." The graduation location is also disputed as the ACLU feels that public schools should respect religious diversity "when making decisions about where to hold important events such as graduation."

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Group Complains That Too Many Christian Clergy Open City Council Meetings In Cleveland

CLEVELAND (AP) -- The Americans United for Separation of Church and State organization complains that opening prayers for the Cleveland City Council are too often said by Christian clergy.

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Calif. College Sued Over Prayer At Group Events

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- A community college is Southern California faces a federal lawsuit for opening its public ceremonies with an official prayer.

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Federal Appeals Court Blows Whistle On Wisconsin Sheriff's Religious Proselytism

A federal appeals court made the right call today by striking down religious presentations given at mandatory meetings at the Milwaukee County Sheriff's office, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

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FFRF Pursues National Day Of Prayer Case

The Freedom From Religion is vigorously defending its groundbreaking federal challenge of the National Day of Prayer.

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Critics Of Cecil Bothwell Cite N.C. Bar To Atheists

ASHEVILLE -- North Carolina's constitution is clear: politicians who deny the existence of God are barred from holding office.

Opponents of Cecil Bothwell are seizing on that law to argue he should not be seated as a City Council member today, even though federal courts have ruled religious tests for public office are unlawful under the U.S. Constitution.

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Asheville, NC Atheist Runs for City Council Seat; Opponents Use His Beliefs Against Him

Fewer Americans Give Clergy High Honesty, Ethics Ratings

Only half of Americans rate the honesty and ethics of clergy as very high or high, a new Gallup poll reveals.

A fall from 56 percent of Americans last year, the percentage is the lowest it has been in the last three decades.

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Rift Flares After US Episcopal Church Elects Gay Bishop

Conservatives insist the Bible unequivocally outlaws homosexuality whereas liberals believe the Bible should be reinterpreted in the light of contemporary wisdom.

The row led to the formation of a conservative breakaway Episcopal movement in the US - the Anglican Church in North America.

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Holy Cow? Farmer Sees Divine Sign In Bovine

A calf with a white marking on its forehead in the approximate shape of a cross was born last week at a dairy farm in Sterling, a small rustic town on the Rhode Island border.

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10 strangest Jesus sightings of 2009

Man Dies After Sitting In Recliner For Eight Months

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (NBC) -- Believing his faith would heal him, a Greenwood County, South Carolina man sat down in his recliner after an injury in March and never got up.

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Atlanta Minister Accused Of 'Modern Day Slavery'

ATLANTA -- An Ellenwood minister and his wife were arrested and charged after authorities said they made a woman work for them and their friends for little or no money.

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Trenton Roman Catholic Diocese Pays $325K Settlement In Sexual Assault Case

JAMESBURG -- The Roman Catholic Diocese of Trenton has paid $325,000 to a 32-year-old woman who says she was sexually assaulted by a former diocesan priest, the late Rev. Ron Becker, who died in January.

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Bishop To Defrock Priest Who Filmed Abuse Of Boy

A SENIOR Catholic bishop is preparing to hold a secret ecclesiastical trial in his diocese to defrock a priest who filmed himself sexually abusing a school boy on his mobile phone.

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Parish Shocked By Priest Probe

Many parishioners of Kirkinriola, which includes All Saints, Crebilly and Harryville, left Mass looking visibly shocked and some were in tears after hearing that Fr Paul Symonds was the subject of a police investigation.

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Former East Lancashire Teacher In Abuse Probe

A ROMAN Catholic priest who used to teach at an East Lancashire college has been arrested on suspicion of child abuse.

Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Force's Child Abuse Investigation Team investigating the alleged sexual abuse of a boy in the 1970s, have arrested former Stonyhurst College teacher Father Paul Symonds.

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Irish Church Accused Of Abuse Cover-Up

A damning report into child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese has criticised the Catholic Church hierarchy for covering up the abuse.

The report investigated how Church and state authorities handled allegations of child abuse against 46 priests.

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See also:

Report Reveals 'Reprehensible' Role Of Diocese

Irish Church accused of abuse cover-up

Four archbishops colluded to cover up child sex attacks

The Brothers grim

Weakland shredded copies of sex abuse reports, documents say

Why Ireland Is Running Out of Priests

'Family Values' Bishop Michael Reid Had Two Secret Affairs

A BISHOP who preached strict family values secretly had two affairs, an employment tribunal heard yesterday.

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Pope Benedict Replaces Antigonish Bishop Facing Child Porn Charges

Vatican City (AHN) - The Vatican has replaced the Canadian bishop facing child pornography charges. Pope Benedict XVI named on Saturday Sault Ste. Marie Auxiliary Bishop Brian Joseph Dunn as the replacement for Antigonish Diocese Bishop Raymond Lahey.

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Catholic Counsellor 'Sexually Abused Boy'

A SYDNEY Catholic boys' school teacher who allegedly sexually assaulted a student in the 80s has been allowed to continue teaching for more than 20 years because the incident was deliberately covered up, a court has been told.

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Indian Nun Claims Sex Is Rife Within Catholic Church

Bookshops throughout India's Christian communities in Kerala have already sold out of Amen, the autobiography of Sister Jesme, who has alleged that priests and nuns not only broke their vows of celibacy with each other but regularly forced novices to have sex with them.

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Italy: Vatican Bank 'Accused Of Money Laundering'

Rome -- The Vatican bank is under investigation for suspected money laundering via accounts held at one of Italy's largest banks, the UniCredit Group, according to the Italian investigative weekly Panorama.

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Atheists Feel Cold Shoulder

ATHEISTS have accused the Brumby Government of discriminating against them by refusing to fund the movement's global conference in Melbourne but giving $2 million to a religious conference.

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Atheists cross as religious forum secures taxpayer funding

Untying the knot of church and state

Faith Leaders Call For Calm As Murdered Priest Is Buried

A murdered Russian Orthodox priest was laid to rest in Moscow yesterday, amid fears of rising religious tensions between Christians and Muslims in the country. Father Daniil Sysoyev was shot dead inside his own church last week, in a killing that many suspect was by Islamic radicals.

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Islamists Claim Russian Train Bombing

MOSCOW -- A militant Islamist group claimed responsibility Wednesday for last weekend's deadly Russian train bombing, as investigators said the well-planned attack resembled tactics used by Chechen rebels.

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It's No Miracle, I Could See But Now I Am Blind

FIVE people who stared at the sun in the hope they might be witnessing religious apparitions are being treated for serious eye damage, a top eye surgeon has revealed.

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Swiss Ban Building Of Minarets On Mosques

GENEVA -- In a vote that displayed a widespread anxiety about Islam and undermined the country's reputation for religious tolerance, the Swiss on Sunday overwhelmingly imposed a national ban on the construction of minarets, the prayer towers of mosques, in a referendum drawn up by the far right and opposed by the government.

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'Men Sought To Kill Woman For Adultery In Spain'

SPANISH police have arrested nine men suspected of seeking to have a woman killed after they accused her of adultery, claiming they were following Islamic law, authorities said.

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Islamic law in Socialist Spain

Muslim Numbers Soar In Latin America's Islamic Resurgence

"ALLAH Akbar" blares from the loudspeakers as hundreds of Muslims file into the mosque for prayers. Outside, halal meat stores line the street as in Damascus, Cairo or Baghdad, but this is the working-class neighbourhood of Bras in Sao Paulo, Brazil -- the heart of Islam's Latin American rebirth.

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Hindu Sacrifice Of 250,000 Animals Begins

The world's biggest animal sacrifice began in Nepal today with the killing of the first of more than 250,000 animals as part of a Hindu festival in the village of Bariyapur, near the border with India.

The event, which happens every five years, began with the decapitation of thousands of buffalo, killed in honour of Gadhimai, a Hindu goddess of power.

--snip--

Chandan Dev Chaudhary, a Hindu priest, said he was pleased with the festival's high turnout and insisted tradition had to be kept. "The goddess needs blood," he said. "Then that person can make his wishes come true."

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Hindu Leaders Are Blamed For Mosque Plot That Led To Carnage

The destruction of a mosque by Hindu radicals that led to some of the bloodiest religious riots in India since Partition was "meticulously planned" by politicians including a former Prime Minister, according to a leaked report of the official investigation.

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Call to protect secular India

Buddhist Extremists Shatter Peace Of Catholic Church

A Catholic Church in Sri Lanka has been attacked, with suspicions falling on Buddhist extremists.

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Uganda Proposes Death Penalty For HIV Positive Gays

Britain and Canada protested yesterday over a proposed law that would result in gays in Uganda being imprisoned for life or even executed.

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Have your tax dollars helped Evangelicals set stage for gay execution bill in Uganda through Bush's ''AIDS Relief'' program? [video]

An Unholy Alliance Of Church And State

When Fiji's regime brought the Methodist Church under its thumb, a fundamentalist rival joined forces with the police.

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TV Presenter On Death Row For Witchcraft

Ali Sibat is not even a Saudi national. The Lebanese citizen was only visiting Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage when he was arrested in Medina last year.

A court in the city condemned him as a witch on November 9.

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Baghdad Car Bombs Cause Carnage

A series of car bombings has killed at least 127 people and wounded 448 in the centre of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

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Al-Qaida claims deadly Baghdad blasts

Scores dead as car bombs rock Baghdad

Bombs shake Iraq before Muslim holiday

Pakistan Militants Launch Deadly Attack On Rawalpindi Mosque

Suicide attackers have swarmed through a Pakistani mosque frequented by senior army officers, shooting randomly, killing worshippers at close range and exploding bombs in a frenzied attack that killed at least 40 people.

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Dozens dead in Pakistan mosque attack

Deadly blast hits near Pakistan's ISI

Dozens killed in Pakistan market blasts

Suicide blast near Pakistan naval headquarters

Bus Explosion Kills, Wounds Dozens In Syria

(CNN) -- An explosion killed or wounded dozens of passengers in a bus in the Syrian capital, Damascus, Thursday morning, an official in the president's office said.

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Blast Kills 2 In Southern Thailand, Police Say

Bangkok, Thailand (CNN) -- An explosion killed at least two people Monday in a city in southern Thailand, a police official who is familiar with the investigation said.

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Report: Scores Of Albinos In Hiding After Attacks

(CNN) -- As many as 10,000 albinos are in hiding in east Africa over fears that they will be dismembered and their body parts sold to witchdoctors, the Red Cross said in a recent report.

The killings of albinos in Burundi and Tanzania, who are targeted because their body parts are believed to have special powers, have sparked fears among the population in the two countries, the report said.

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Somalia Graduation Ceremony Blast Kills 23

(CNN) -- The death toll rose to 23 on Friday in a suicide bombing attack at a Somali graduation ceremony, which killed three members of Somalia's U.N.-backed interim government, according to an independent media report.

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Arrest Highlights Clergy's Role In Rwanda Genocide

So far, four Catholic priests have been indicted by the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Human rights activists say the small number of indictments do not accurately represent the church's role in the genocide.

By failing to issue swift condemnation, the church opened the door for slaughter in the name of God, according to the global group Human Rights Watch.

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Wednesday, February 03, 2010