Despite pressure from Newdow and his ilk, Barak Obama took his presidential oath of office by placing his right hand on the Bible – the very same Bible that President Lincoln used in 1861. I for one am glad Obama wasn’t deterred by Newdow’s latest series of lawsuits against the US government in an attempt to stop all references to religion and god at the inauguration.

I didn’t know this but according to an article found at http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=154337 the new president is not required by the US to swear in on a Bible. Even so, Obama proudly took the oath of office on the Bible and also allowed prayer and mentioned God’s name several times during his speach. I’m sure Obama has a political agenda for what he did during his inauguration, but I’m glad that we have a president who isn’t deterred by pressure from those who would deprive us of our rights and religious freedoms.

In The News

I’m sitting here reading about Michael Newdow’s latest lawsuit against “Chief Justice John Roberts in federal court for an injunction barring the use of ['so help me God'] in the inaugural oath.” (read the full story here) and I’m thinking to myself, ‘why can’t atheists just be satisfied to not believe and leave those who want to believe alone?’ Do all atheists feel this way? Please tell me they don’t and that Newdow is nothing more than a fundamentalist (for lack of a better term) in atheism!!!

This attempt by atheists to remove all references to God in public is simply absurd. How ridiculous to spend time and energy fighting for the removal of every mention of God in public simply because YOU don’t believe. How selfish!!! Get over yourself. In case you didn’t know Newdow also has a lawsuit pending to stop the President from taking the oath on the Bible. What a pathetic life it must be to have nothing better to do than bring a lawsuit against everyone that mentions God in public.

I’ve said it time and time again. This only goes to show how hypocritical atheists can be. Atheists are notorious for their complaints about the intolerance and proselytizing behaviors of believers in God, but then go out and show their intolerant towards believers.

I usually don’t get so emotional about this topic, but something just struck me with this latest lawsuit. Enough already! I admonish atheists to leave believers alone and ‘live and let live’ as atheists are always so ready to tell me. Atheists would appear much more credible should they followed their own code – or ‘practiced what they preach’ – pun intended.

I know this isn’t much of a logical argument, but I just needed to vent. I wish some of those religious lawyers out there would wake up and fight back. I wish Christians would stop being so passive and stop allowing people like Newdow to use them as door mats to walk all over. Isn’t there someone with legal knowledge who can bring a lawsuit against Newdow and the people like him to stop him from wasting the tax payer’s money on frivolous lawsuits like this?

I would do it myself, but I lack the resources. If there is someone reading this who wants to step up to the plate contact me and lets see what we can get going. I for one am tired of the games. Lets put a stop to Newdow and his ilk once and for all.

In The News Newdow

Humanist parents create congregation
Friday, January 2, 2009 3:16 AM
By Robin Shulman
Washington Post
BOSTON — They are not religious, so they don’t go to church. But they are searching for values and rituals to use in raising their children, as well as for a community of like-minded people to offer support.

Dozens of parents came together on a recent Saturday to participate in a seminar on humanist parenting and meet others interested in organizing a kind of nonreligious congregation, complete with family activities and ceremonies for births and deaths.

“It’s exciting to know that we could be meeting people who we might perhaps raise children with,” said Tony Proctor, 39, who owns a wealth-management company and attended the seminar at Harvard University with his wife, Andrea, 35, a stay-at-home mother.

Humanism is both a formal movement and an informal identification of people who promote values of reason, compassion and human dignity. Although most humanists are atheists, atheism is defined by what is absent — belief in God — and humanists emphasize a positive philosophy of ethical living for the human good.

The seminar’s organizers wanted to reach out to people like the Proctors: first-time parents scrambling for guidance as they improvise how to raise their daughter without the religion of their childhood.

“I’m often told that when people have kids, they go back to religion,” said John Figdor, a humanist pursuing a master of divinity degree who helped organize the seminar. “Are we really not tending our own people?”

Religious observance hits a low for people in their mid-20s and steadily increases after that, “in conjunction with marriage and children,” said Tom Smith of the General Social Survey at the University of Chicago.

Religious congregations are good at supporting parenting, said Gregory Epstein, the humanist chaplain at Harvard who organized the seminar. Although most humanists do not believe in God, he said, they do believe in sharing their lives with like-minded people.

Most Americans are religious and believe in God, but a growing number have no religious affiliation. In 1990, 8 percent of respondents in the General Social Survey said they identified with no religion. In 2006, the last year for which statistics are available, the figure had doubled to 16 percent.

For the Proctors, especially for Andrea, who grew up in a Catholic household, arriving at the seminar took a lifetime of questioning.

The Proctors found themselves making decisions about religion when they had a daughter last year. Andrea said her parents asked, “Of course you’re going to baptize her, right?” She answered, “Actually, no.”

Instead, Epstein officiated at Sienna’s nonreligious ceremony, Andrea said, while both sets of grandparents spoke about their hopes and dreams for the child.

Atheism as a Religion, In The News

A Special Thank You from David Berlinski

As one of the scholars who has been “expelled” by the scientific community for espousing heretical doubts about Darwin, I’d like to say: Thank you. Thank you for having the chutzpah to stand up for your fellowheretics by signing Discovery Institute’s Academic Freedom Petition (www.academicfreedompetition.com). 

 

Although Darwinism is very often compared favorably to the great theories of mathematical physics on the grounds that evolution is as well established as gravity, very few physicists have been heard observing
that gravity is as well established as evolution. They know better and they are not stupid.

Among evolutionary biologists, the problems with Darwin’s theory are well known. In the privacy of the
faculty lounge, they often tell one another with relief that it is a very good thing the public has no idea what the research literature really suggests.

“Darwin?” a Nobel laureate in biology once remarked to me over his bifocals. “That’s just the party line.”

Alas,

Darwin’s theory serves as the creation myth of our time, and it demands an especially militant form of advocacy, as anyone can attest who has had the misfortune to pick up such churlish volumes as The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins or Letter to a Christan Nation by Sam Harris. In the view of these modern witch-hunters, anyone who disagrees with Darwin must be burned at the stake.

That is why I so value my friends at Discovery Institute, who have supported my research and writing for nearly a decade now. Discovery Institute serves as the international hub for scientists and other intellectuals
who are raising serious doubts about Darwin’s theory, including scholars who are are making sophisticated arguments for the theory of intelligent design. The fact that the Institute has been vilified by all the right people is a special sort of satisfaction to me.

I am writing you this note because I hope you might be willing to open your pocketbook–even in this time of economic distress–to support the Institute’s important work.

Unlike the Darwinists, the dedicated scientists and staff of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture receive no taxpayer funds. They rely instead on support from private donors who aren’t afraid to support intellectual freedom. Next year they can use a lot of help, because 2009 is the bicentennial of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species.  The usual suspects (Dawkins, Harris, et. al.) will be out in force peddling their wares. But with your help, Discovery Institute would like to use the Darwin anniversaries to spark a genuine debate about the growing scientific challenges to Darwinism. With your help, the Institute can:

I hope you can join the heresy and help us out. You won’t be disappointed. You can donate easily and securely through PayPal by clicking here.

Au Revoir,
David

P.S. For a gift of $50 or more, Discovery Institute will send you The Incorrigible Dr. Berlinski, a DVD featuring an hour-long conversation with me about the accumulated failures of Darwin’s theory. For a gift of $200 or more, you will receive the DVD plus a hardcover copy of my recent book The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions (while supplies last).

Emails Received, In The News, Science darwin myth, darwin's dilemma, darwinism, David Berlinski, discovery institute, expelled

Wake Up America! Don’t Let Activist Atheists Rewrite History

Article found at www.foxnews.com

Get pumped up. Kill a pine tree. Paste paper snow flakes on your picture window. Take time off from work. Shop ’till you drop. For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people; in the Northern Hemisphere we are about to celebrate the Winter Solstice—the moment the sun’s position in the sky is at its greatest angular distance from the observer.

This is the very boring message professed by a group of modern-day Scrooges, dressed in the cloak of militant atheism. Indeed, they love December, but their tidings of joy have nothing to do with nature’s seasons or the position of the sun.

Their secret reference point is the same as ours, December 25th, the day on which Christians worldwide celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Prince of Peace.

Last night, a representative from the “Freedom From Religion Foundation”—sour representatives of the many honest seekers in our country who call themselves agnostics and atheists—had the chutzpah to play the Winter Solstice card with me during a joint appearance on FOX News’ “America’s News HQ.” To read the transcript, click here.

He did it to defend his group’s placement of an anti-religion sign next to the Nativity Scene at Washington State’s Capitol building. Their sign reads:

“There is only one natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

Thanks to the wisdom of our God-fearing founding fathers and their respect for the sacred dignity of every human being in this great country of ours, we will continue to defend the right of non-believers to express their opinion, as reasonable and considerate, or silly and disrespectful, as the case may be.

And we will prolong their wisdom by speaking out every time this right is abuse.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is today’s example. Their stated goal is to “promote the constitutional principle of separation of state and church.” How do they do this? By freeing us from all religion—as the Constitution obviously intended, but forgot to mention. Besides the posting of anti-Christmas signs in honor of the Winter Solstice, their most recent efforts include campaigns to:

A) stop people from voting in churches

B) force the Boy Scouts of America (a private, religious organization) to accept non-religious members (as unconstitutional as that would be) and…

C) pressure cable channels to cut off religious programming

Wake up America! If we allow these activists to re-write history, they will. They will deny the faith of our fathers and offer blasphemous interpretations of our Constitution. They will start with their own version of the separation of church and state, then move on to whitewashing the public square to rid it of all religious expression, and finally arrive at an atheistic indoctrination of our children.

When this happens, we will not be a more tolerant, pluralistic, or diverse country. We will, in fact, be much like the atheist regimes of past and present that must empty culture of its richest forms only to fill it with self-protecting ideologies of one kind or another.

If these are difficult times, it is not because there is too much religion. It is because there is not enough of it — the real kind — the kind that makes us free.

God bless,

Father Jonathan

Father Jonathan Morris is author of the new book, “The Promise: God’s Purpose and Plan for when Life Hurts.” For information go to www.fatherjonathan.com

Atheism Evangelism, In The News