Weekend Religion and Free Thought Report

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abortion, atheists, AU, big bang, christian, churches, creativity, david rives, electioneering, evangelism, gaza, genitals, glenn beck, hobby lobby, hypocrisy, immigration, indiana, integrity, iraq, ireland, irs, ISIS, islam, israel, jewish, mexicans, michigan, myths, nones, nursing homes, ohio state, polyamory, poverty, prayers, religious, rights, school, science, theocracy, women

Sorry Mr. Mayor, But Atheists Have Rights, Too

The residents of Warren, Michigan, visit their city hall on a regular basis to pay taxes, to vote, and to visit the library branch and the farmers market that are located there. Since 2009, they have also been able to visit a “Prayer Station” in the building’s large atrium. [Read more]

How Americans Feel About Religious Groups

Jews, Catholics and evangelical Christians are viewed warmly by the American public. When asked to rate each group on a “feeling thermometer” ranging from 0 to 100. [Read more]

The Christian Theocratic Agenda Imposed on the Bodies of America’s Poor Women

In 1986 Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid’s Tale. The novel portrays a dystopian vision of the U.S. in the “near future”, a country transformed by religious extremists into a totalitarian theocracy, renamed the Republic of Gilead. It’s organizing principle – One Nation, Under One God. [Read more]

IRS Promises To Target Churches – Eventually

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has scored another victory, kind of.  It had taken on the IRS over the agency’s apparent reluctance to do anything about church politicking. [Read more]

The Christian Right’s Obscene, Defining Hypocrisy

For the masochists among us who tune into right-wing media, you soon learn that the all-time favorite fear pundits and preachers love to trot out is that “they” are coming for your children. [Read more]

Why I Can No Longer “Stand Up” For Israel

I love Israel. I have studied, lived, and served in Israel and cannot wait to return to do so again. Further, many of my dearest friends are Israeli or are ardent supporters of Israel. [Read more]

Atheist “Churches” Gain Popularity—Even in the Bible Belt

On a clear, Sunny July morning, as churchgoers all around Houston take to their pews, dozens of nonbelievers are finding seats inside a meeting room in a corporate conference center on the city’s west side to listen to a sermon about losing faith. [Read more]

U.N. Rights Body Criticizes Ireland on Abortion, Church Homes

A United Nations human rights panel has told Ireland it should revise its highly restrictive abortion laws and that allegations of abuse of women and children at Catholic-run homes must be better investigated. [Read more]

Science Stumbles onto a Creativity Pill

When Parkinson’s patients treated with a synthetic dopamine-precursor pill, levodopa, showed high upticks in creative activities from writing novels to painting portraits, their doctors began to wonder at the causes. [Read more]

In 30 Countries, Heads of State Must Belong to a Certain Religion

A new Pew Research analysis finds that 30 of the world’s countries (15%) belong to a unique group of nations that call for their heads of state to have a particular religious affiliation. [Read more]

Muslim Extremist Arrested for Murder of Gays in Seattle

Authorities have arrested Ali Muhammad Brown in New Jersey for executing two homosexuals in Seattle. He is reportedly a radical Muslim and received jihadist training in California in April. [Read more]

Americans United, Allies Challenge Michigan City’s Rejection Of Atheist Display

In an effort to protect the First Amendment rights of all Warren, Mich. residents regardless of their religious or philosophical beliefs or non-beliefs, the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Freedom from Religion Foundation have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the city’s ban on an atheist booth in a city-hall atrium where the city has allowed a prayer station. [Read more]

UK Prime Minister Urges Global Ban on Female Genital Mutilation

Long-term solutions to end female genital mutilation and child marriage are essential to ensure progress towards ending harmful practices, the British agency, Christian Aid says. [Read more]

Debunking Four Myths About Polyamory

Polyamory — the practice of having multiple sexual/romantic relationships with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved — is currently going through that stage that all “alternative” lifestyle practices must go through: the one where journalists discover their existence and have a field day. [Read more]

Pastor: Homosexuals Are Possessed By Putrid-Smelling Demons

In the seemingly never ending battle over homosexuality in the church, a common chorus I often here repeated from those opposed to marriage equality is that their opposition, no matter how intense, is in fact an act of love. Unfortunately, that “love” often looks a whole lot like hate. [Read more]

Obama’s Next Contraception Coverage Accommodation Won’t Satisfy Litigants

The Obama administration plans to tweak its accommodation under the Affordable Care Act for religious non-profits who object to providing their employees with health insurance that covers contraceptives with no co-pay. [Read more]

Indiana School District Halts Teacher-led Prayers

The Vigo County School Corporation in Terre Haute, Indiana, is telling teachers and other staff they can’t lead prayers during school-sponsored events. [Read more]

Rev. David Rives and the Dragon

The Drool-o-tron™ gave only a half-hearted grunt over this one, and it didn’t bother signalling us with its usual blaring sirens and flashing lights. But the blinking letters of its wall display said WorldNetDaily (WND), and our computer was locked onto WND’s presentation of the latest video by the brilliant and articulate leader of David Rives Ministries. [Read more]

Christian Right-Winger Wants to End US Space Program Because the Aliens Are All Going to Hell Anyway

On Sunday, Ken Ham, president and founder of the creationist organization Answers in Genesis (best known for debating Bill Nye), wrote a blog post calling for the end of the U.S. space program. [Read more]

Editor Who Used ‘Gaystapo’ Claims Religious Discrimination

An Iowa newspaper editor fired after publishing his views on homosexuals is claiming he was the victim of religious discrimination by his former employer. [Read more]

Where is the God of Elijah?

Elisha, the prophet who succeeded Elijah asked, in 2 Kings 2:14, where if the God of Elijah? Christians of today should be asking the same question. Elijah’s God is one that sent fire from heaven and killed the prophets of Baal. [Read more]

No, an Ohio State Class Did Not Teach That Christians Are Dumber Than Atheists

According to an article on the conservative site Campus Reform, a recent online quiz for a Psychology 1100 class at The Ohio State University asked students: Theo has an IQ of 100 and Aine has an IQ of 125. Which of the following statements [would] you expect to be true? [Read more]

On ISIS, Gaza and More – Holding On to Our Humanity as Muslims, as Humans

It’s tempting to be an ostrich right now and bury one’s head in the sand to avoid the atrocities, horrors, difficulties and inhumanity we are witnessing around the world. [Read more]

ISIS Decrees All Women Must Be Sexually Mutilated

Genital mutilation usually means a back alley or home clitorectomy. Cutting off the clitoris. Because those dang unclean women might have an orgasm, and then seek to temp honorable Allah-fearing men into unauthorized sex. Talk about sick projection. [Read more]

A Bold Critic of the Big Bang’s “Smoking Gun”

In mid-March, a panel of four astrophysicists working on an experiment to probe the first moments of time held an extraordinary press conference at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass. [Read more]

“Nones” on the Rise

The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated today. [Read more]

U.S. Religious Leaders Embrace Cause of Immigrant Children

After protesters shouting “Go home” turned back busloads of immigrant mothers and children in Murrieta, Calif., a furious Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, sat down at his notepad and drafted a blog post detailing his shame at the episode. [Read more]

Obama Government Looks to Satisfy Religious Groups on Obamacare

The Obama administration is developing a method for religious organizations opposed to contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act to opt out of providing the coverage in their health plans without filling out a form. [Read more]

Fight the New “Hobby Lobby” Religious Order: Get Ordained

Like many of you, I’ve been spending much of July fuming over how to properly vent my frustration with the disturbing implications of SCOTUS’s Hobby Lobby and Wheaton College rulings. [Read more]

I Always Thought The U.S. Was Christian/Jewish/Other. Nope. Check Out This Surprising Map

We all know the U.S. is more Christian than anything else, but this map shows the second-most popular religion in each state. Wow. Look how how widespread Islam is and how Buddhism is such a widely practiced religion. [Read more]

With Mosul’s Christians Gone, Islamic State Troops Take Over 4th-Century Monastery

A day after most of Mosul’s Christians fled, Islamic State fighters stormed the fourth-century Mar Behnam Monastery near the city. They forced two priests, a monk and a guard taking refuge there to leave the Syriac Catholic compound, residents said. [Read more]

Government-Sponsored Prayer

It was on this date, July 12, 1995, that President Bill Clinton, in a talk to students at James Madison High School in Vienna, VA, advocated school-prayer guidelines. [Read more]

‘Trojan’ Report Finds Deliberate Action to Promote Intolerant and Aggressive Islamist Agenda in Schools

A report commissioned by former education secretaryMichael Gove in April to investigate claims of a plot to takeover state schools in Birmingham has uncovered evidence of “co-ordinated, deliberate and sustained action to introduce an intolerant and aggressive Islamist ethos into some schools in the city”. [Read more]

N. TX Atheist Group Makes Appeal to Hispanic Non-Believers

A North Texas group of atheists has debuted a new billboard campaign on I-30 in Grand Prairie, making an appeal to non-believers. The group behind the billboard, the DFW Coalition of Reason, has targeted Christians and African Americans in the past, but it’s especially making an appeal to Hispanic non-believers now. [Read more]

As Gaza Burns, Jews Disagree, Protest & Pray

Human rights groups methodically tally each man, woman and child killed in Gaza (797 as of this writing, most of them civilians, 5,100 wounded), while the media arm of the Israeli Defense Forces offers counter-tallies. [Read more]

The World Must Respond to the Cry of Iraq’s Christians

The last Christian has now been expelled from Mosul. The light of religious freedom, along with the entire Christian presence, has been extinguished in the Bible’s “great city of Nineveh” — the centre of Christianity in Iraq for two millennia. [Read more]

‘They Are Savages,’ Say Christians Forced to Flee Mosul by Isis

Iraqi Christians who were forced to flee the northern city of Mosul under threat of forced conversion or execution by jihadists have spoken of their terror as churches were turned into mosques and their homes and property confiscated. [Read more]

Pope Francis Holds ‘Very Affectionate’ Meeting with Sudanese Apostasy Woman Meriam Ibrahim After She Arrives in Rome

A Sudanese Christian woman spared a death sentence for apostasy after an international outcry, met Pope Francis in the Vatican today. Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag, 27, appeared to beam with relief as she stepped off a plane at Rome’s Ciampino airport yesterday morning. [Read more]

Nursing Home Evangelism: Preaching at the Last ‘Bus Stop to Eternity’

Rhonda Rowe and her team gathered around a diagram of the nursing home’s floor plan and determined how to split up to avoid praying with anyone twice. [Read more]

Evangelical Group Focusing on Children, Opponents Say

An evangelical group’s decision to focus its ministries on young children at Portland parks, apartments and soon after school programs has some people upset. Opponents of the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) claim the group is using scary and misleading tactics to recruit children as young as 5-years-old. [Read more]

One Hour Compilation of How Islam is Ruining Europe and America

Countless footage and evidence of how Islamic immigration to Western society will inevitably destroy it. No one can deny that Islam is a dangerous religion after watching this video.

[Read more]

God Is Calling On Glenn Beck To Stand With Israel And He Needs A Plane

Glenn Beck announced that God is calling him to go to Israel, which he will be doing in the next week or so in order to publicly take a stand with Israel and its people and ensure that “the genocidal maniacs don’t get control of a Jewish state,” declaring that  “they will have to roll the tanks over me” before he allows another genocide to take place.

[Read more]

Case Study: Acting with Integrity

Building trust is simply good business. It leads to productive long-term relationships, stronger partnerships, and reduces turnover rates.

[Read more]