The Fountain of Eternal Life in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, via Wikipedia By CHARLES M. BLOW In June, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life published a controversial survey in which 70 percent of Americans said that they believed religions other than theirs could lead to eternal life. This threw evangelicals into a tizzy. After all, the Bible makes it clear that heaven is a velvet-roped V.I.P. area reserved for Christians. Jesus said so: “I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” But the survey suggested that Americans just weren’t buying that. The evangelicals complained that people must not have understood the question. The respondents couldn’t actually believe what they were saying, could they? So in August, Pew asked the question again. (They released the results last week.) Sixty-five percent of respondents said — again — that other religions could lead to eternal life. But this time, to clear up any confusion, Pew asked them to specify wh...

The Freedom From Religion Foundation plans to replace a sign that disappeared from the Illinois Capitol and will add a biblical warning this time: "Thou Shall Not Steal." Annie Laurie Gaylor heads the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation. She says the sign protesting the display of religious symbols will be replaced. The apparent theft from the Capitol's rotunda overnight Monday was reported to police. The sign referred to religion as "myth and superstition" and stood near a Nativity scene sponsored by a Springfield group. An identical atheist sign in Washington state was stolen and recovered, and one in Wisconsin was vandalized. The replacement Illinois sign and the Nativity scene soon will be joined by a Hanukkah menorah to mark the Jewish holiday. STORY LINK Here's some commentary from December 18, 2008 on FOX & Friends : In other news: The Freedom From Religion Foundation last week placed a sign protesting the display of religio...

Human Embryonic Stem Cells Image by anwer2007 via Flickr Sent in by Sean The Vatican issued its most authoritative and sweeping document on bioethical issues in more than 20 years on Friday, taking into account recent developments in biomedical technology and reinforcing the church’s opposition to in vitro fertilization, human cloning, genetic testing on embryos before implantation and embryonic stem cell research . The Vatican says these techniques violate the principles that every human life — even an embryo — is sacred, and that babies should be conceived only through intercourse by a married couple. The 32-page instruction, titled “ Dignitas Personae ,” or “ The Dignity of the Person ,” was issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , the Vatican’s doctrinal office, and carries the approval and the authority of Pope Benedict XVI . Under discussion for six years, it is a moral response to bioethical questions raised in the 21 years since the congregation last issu...

Countdown 's Keith Obermann makes his case that Bill O'Reilly is really fomenting intolerance and radicalism by his War on Christmas . Related articles by Zemanta Bill O'Reilly's War on Christmas and Keith Olbermann's Rebuttal Olbermann: Bill O'Reilly 'disagrees with Bill O'Reilly' about 'mistreatment' at Guantanamo Bay. Atheists sign near nativity scene disappears Missing atheist sign found in Washington state Reason's Greetings How Can Atheists Win the War on Christmas?

Image via Wikipedia PITTSFIELD — The pastor of a New Ashford church is accused of shoplifting merchandise at the Carr Hardware he worked at in Pittsfield . Joseph D. Slonski, 53, of Windsor Road, Savoy, was charged with shoplifting by concealment after allegedly stealing a chainsaw chain valued at $25.99, according to Police Capt. Patrick F. Barry, head of the department's detective bureau. Slonski pleaded not guilty to the charge Tuesday in Central Berkshire District Court . The date of the alleged crime was not immediately available, and Carr officials had little to say about the incident when contacted by a reporter on Wednesday. "I cannot comment at this time," said Bart Raser, an owner of Carr Hardware/Just Ask Rentals on North Street. Police said Slonski was an employee of the North Street hardware store . He also is pastor of the Christian Harvest Center , "a full gospel church" located on Mallory Road in New Ashford. "(Slonski) was ...

Prop 8: The Musical , created by award-winning Hairspray composer Marc Shaiman , features stars such as Jack Black and John C Reilly lampooning backers of the constitutional amendment, which limits marriage to a union between a man and a woman. The ban was passed by voters during the November election, five months after gay weddings were legalised in the nation’s most populous state. A number of legal challenges are seeking to overturn the amendment, which was opposed by Hollywood heavyweights including Brad Pitt and Steven Spielberg as well as President-Elect Barack Obama and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger . Its passage sparked protests nationwide. Prop 8: The Musical , directed and staged by Hairspray director Adam Shankman , features well-known stage and screen actors taking part in a Sacramento community college threatre group production. It opens with the colourfully-dressed “California Gays and The People That Love Them” dancing and celebrating a “brand new bright...

The message is but eight words divided into two short sentences set against puffy white clouds on a blue and black background. One of the men behind the billboard message says his life has been threatened because of it, which seems an odd thing since those doing the threatening all profess to be Christians. Just eight words: "Don't believe in God?" the upper left of the billboard reads. "You are not alone," the lower right says. I have no idea how many times I have passed the sign in the days since it went up at Colfax Avenue and Quebec Street on Nov. 17, but I never noticed it until someone pointed it out the other day. I don't get the fuss. And yes, I appear to be alone in this. The billboard is one of 11 in Denver and Colorado Springs paid for by a group that calls itself the Colorado Coalition of Reason, a self-described coalition of "freethinker, atheist and humanist" groups. The sole purpose of the ads, the group maintains, is what it say...

Pastor Gerald Thompson from Salem Baptist Church said 28-year-old Melissa Jones came to him last Thursday crying. She confessed to having sex with a 16-year-old member of the youth ministry that her husband runs. Prosecutors say the affair started in September. Jones faces up to 7 years behind bars for aggravated criminal sexual abuse. "The Bible says be sure your sin will find you out. And her sin found her out," said Thompson. It's a sin the congregation at Salem Baptist Church is trying hard to forgive. "What she did was a betrayal. She betrayed my trust in her, betrayed the churches trust, betrayed her husbands trust and betrayed the trust of the teenagers. And there's absolutely no excuse for what she did," said Thompson. Now parents like Gary Perry struggle to tell their teens about Melissa Jones. He says her actions should not tarnish the youth group. But he doesn't understand why she did it. " Your first instinct is not believing it. If ...

Rob Foster was 16 when his family unraveled. He had told his parents that he wanted to leave Calvary Temple , the Pentecostal church in Sterling the family had attended for decades. But church leaders were blunt with his parents: Throw your son out of the house, or you will be excommunicated. And so that December two years ago, Gary and Marsha Foster told Rob that he had to leave. They would not see him or talk to him. "I was devastated," he said. For more than three decades, hundreds of families have been coming to Calvary Temple, a sprawling, beige stucco complex that sits unobtrusively behind the suburban strip malls and subdivisions of Leesburg Pike. As conservative Christianity flourished in Loudoun County and across the country in the 1980s, Calvary thrived. Under the leadership of longtime pastor Star R. Scott, Calvary opened a school, television and radio ministries, and satellite churches around the globe. The local congregation at one point numbered 2,000. Scott...

A billboard in Rancho Cucamonga asking viewers to "imagine no religion" was taken down this week after residents and the city complained about its message. The Freedom From Religion Foundation advertisement was first installed last week causing local conversation and complaints. The pressure quickly built up and the General Outdoor sign company took it down . The foundation's co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor was not so happy, as expressed in a statement they sent out: "Are religionists so thin-skinned they must squelch free debate? One small freethought billboard in the immense state of California is such a threat to insecure religious egos that it must be censored? With local freethinkers' help, the Freedom From Religion Foundation would love to plaster the valley with our message. Let's fight back!" STORY LINK

Related text story: 'Why Believe in a God?' Ad Campaign Launches on D.C. Buses

Dan Barker , prominent atheist and ex-preacher, tells UC Davis his story Written by PATRICK McCARTNEY Dan Barker, a former preacher who has become an outspoken atheist, told his story to over 300 members of the campus community on Friday night. Barker, the author of the recently-published Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists, spent most of his two-hour talk explaining how genuine his religious feelings and convictions were - and how they became undone by the time he was 34. "Religion at its core is divisive; religion creates an in crowd and out crowd; the chosen versus the damned," said Barker, 59, during the opening of his discussion. "Getting rid of religion won't solve all our problems, but it'll be one less reason to fight among ourselves." Barker became a born-again Christian during high school and delivered his first sermon when he was 15. He said he felt a calling into ministry and majored in religion at ...

Ted Haggard, evangelical pastor brought down by sex scandal, says he was abused as a child Disgraced evangelical pastor Ted Haggard says he was sexually abused as a child and that the experience "started to rage in my mind and in my heart" when he was caught up in a sex scandal involving a male prostitute . Haggard made the remarks in two recent sermons in Morrison, Ill., ABC's " Good Morning America " reported Wednesday. Haggard said one of his father's employees "had a sexual experience with me" when Haggard was 7, according to audio recordings of the sermons posted on the ABC News Web site. Haggard said he later became "a conservative Republican, loving the word of God, an evangelical, born-again, spirit-filled, charismatic, all those things. "But some of the things that were buried in the depths of the sea from when I was in the second grade started to rage in my mind and in my heart," he said. In 2006, Haggard was fired as p...

JENSEN BEACH, FL -- Parishioners at St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church stopped a Connecticut man from leaving Saturday morning Mass after he “attempted to steal a handful of communion wafers from the priest,” according to an arrest report. Martin County sheriff’s deputies found six to seven parishioners holding down John Samuel Ricci, 33, of Canton, Conn., when they arrived around 9:30 a.m. at the church, located on Northeast Savannah Boulevard. Ricci had tried to leave the church after grabbing the communion wafers, but “the enraged and offended parishioners stood in his way,” the report said. Ricci got angry, cursed at the parishioners and even pushed two of them to the ground, according to the report. One suffered minor injuries, while another was taken to the hospital complaining of chest pain. Deputies arrested Ricci and charged him with two counts of simple battery, theft and disruption of a religious assembly. Story Link Related articles by Zemanta Communion-wafer caper:...

Ads proclaiming, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake," will appear on Washington, D.C. , buses starting next week and running through December. The American Humanist Association unveiled the provocative $40,000 holiday ad campaign Tuesday. In lifting lyrics from " Santa Claus is Coming to Town," the Washington-based group is wading into what has become a perennial debate over commercialism, religion in the public square and the meaning of Christmas. "We are trying to reach our audience, and sometimes in order to reach an audience, everybody has to hear you," said Fred Edwords , spokesman for the humanist group. "Our reason for doing it during the holidays is there are an awful lot of agnostics, atheists and other types of non-theists who feel a little alone during the holidays because of its association with traditional religion." To that end, the ads and posters will include a link to a Web site that will seek to connect...

Mary is a pretty five-year-old girl with big brown eyes and a father who kicked her out onto the streets in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. Her crime: the local priest had denounced her as a witch and blamed her "evil powers" for causing her mother's death. Children from Crarn accused of being witches and wizards, protesting outside the Governor's headquarters. Ostracised, vulnerable and frightened, she wandered the streets in south-eastern Nigeria , sleeping rough, struggling to stay alive. Mary was found by a British charity worker and today lives at a refuge in Akwa Ibom province with 150 other children who have been branded witches, blamed for all their family's woes, and abandoned. Before being pushed out of their homes many were beaten or slashed with knives, thrown onto fires, or had acid poured over them as a punishment or in an attempt to make them "confess" to being possessed. In one horrific case, a young girl called Uma had a t...

Israeli police have broken up a brawl among rival monks in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre , believed the site of Jesus's crucifixion, burial and resurrection. The church in Jerusalem's Old City , one of the most revered sites in Christianity, is home to six different Christian sects who frequently fight over the rights to maintain and worship in different sections of its hallowed halls. This time, the fight followed an Armenian procession marking the fourth-century discovery of a cross believed to have been used in Jesus's crucifixion. Greek Orthodox monks had apparently wanted to post a monk inside the Edicule, a structure built on what is believed to be Jesus's tomb, and blocked the procession when the Armenian clergymen refused. Riot police broke up the fight and arrested a bearded Armenian monk and a Greek Orthodox monk bleeding from a gash on his forehead. Story Link Related articles: Monks brawl over one of Christianity's holiest shrines Church Brawl in Jer...

Image by andyofne via Flickr Growing up in America’s most hated family The mattock, a close cousin of the pickaxe, is used to dig through tough, earthy surfaces—it loosens soil, breaks rock, and tears through knotted grass. Its handle is a three-foot wooden shaft, twice the density of a baseball bat and its dual-sided iron head is comprised of a chisel and a pick. It was Pastor Fred Phelps’s weapon of choice when beating his children according to his son, Nate Phelps. “The Bible says ‘spare the rod, spoil the child,’” explained Nate, “and he would be screaming that out as he was beating us.” One Christmas night, Pastor Phelps hit Nate over 200 times with a mattock’s handle, swinging it like a baseball player. Nate would hide out in the garage with his siblings, where he could escape his father’s wrath. What he couldn’t escape, however, was the fear of going to hell. He suffered much abuse growing up under the roof of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church (WBC)—he still suffers today. ...