There are two pressing crises tied to the state of religion in America today. A new style of atheism can help answer both of them.

The first crisis is rooted in an excess of religion. Christian theocracy is not far-off specter but an emerging reality in America. Fueled by a radically reactionary Supreme Court that is two-thirds Catholic, Thomas Jeffersons already-dilapidated and graffitied wall of separation between church and state is crumbling. The overturning of Roe v. Wade means the lives of women across the country are being held hostage by a conservative Christian conception of life. Kennedy v. Bremerton permits school officials to publicly pray and make students feel pressured to join in. Carson v. Makin allows taxpayer dollars to be used to fund religious education. And at the state level, Republican-led legislatures have invoked Christianity as they pursue a systematic assault on transgender rights, while abortion abolitionists convinced some Louisiana lawmakers that people who get abortions should be charged with homicide.

Atheism can address the social and spiritual vacuum emerging in the wake of the slow death of mainstream organized religion.

Scholars of the religious right are also sounding alarms over the emergence of Christian nationalism, a QAnon-addled authoritarian political movement whose champions breached the U.S. Capitol and prayed on the Senate floor on Jan 6, 2021. The church is supposed to direct the government, the government is not supposed to direct the church, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a leader of the diehard Trump wing in the House, said at a church in her home state recently. Im tired of this separation of church and state junk. She received a standing ovation from her audience.

The second crisis is tied, ironically, to the decline of religion. The religious right is securing more power in courts and legislatures and becoming more influential within right-wing culture, but its not becoming more popular. Instead there has been an accelerating American drift away from organized religion and most often toward nothing in particular. A rapidly increasing share of Americans are detaching from religious communities that provide purpose and forums for moral contemplation, and not necessarily finding anything in their stead. They're dropping out of church and survey data suggests they're disproportionately like to be checked out from civic life. Their trajectory tracks with a broader decades-long trend of secular life defined by plunging social trust, faith in institutions, and participation in civil society.

My belief is that an energetic, organized atheist movement which I propose calling "communitarian atheism" would provide an effective way to guard against the twin crises of intensifying religious extremism on one end, and the atomizing social consequences of a plunge in conventional religiosity on the other.

An organized atheist community can help agitate for and finance a secularist equivalent of the Federalist Society the right-wing legal movement that helped populate the federal courts with hard right jurists and helped get us into this mess to act as a bulwark against theocracy. There has been zero, and I mean zero, innovation in the doctrine of separation [of church and state] in the last 50 years, Jacques Berlinerblau, a scholar at Georgetown University and the author of Secularism: The Basics, told me. Atheists who consciously believe in their worldview have a particularly urgent interest in helping to lead a legal and political movement to protect against theocracy.

At the same time, atheism can address the social and spiritual vacuum emerging in the wake of the slow death of mainstream organized religion. This requires learning from religion, not indiscriminately attacking it. By putting together study groups, communities for secular meditation, and elucidating the meaning and joys of atheism without spewing venom toward all religion, atheists can build spaces for religion-skeptical people to find purpose, think about ethics, form community and consider more carefully how to build a better society.

My personal journey as an atheist which involved disillusionment with religion and mainstream atheism is a big part of how I arrived at this idea. It may help to share it.

Atheism opened up my world. But it didn't hold it together.

I was raised in a Muslim household in the U.S., but I turned away from Islam in my teens after a fateful conversation with my grandfather one hot summer day in Pakistan. My grandfather was a professor who delighted in thrashing me in chess and asking me vexing questions, and he once posed to me a version of what the Columbia University philosopher Philip Kitcher has called the argument from symmetry. He questioned why I adhered to Islam in particular when so many other religions made claims about the existence of gods, some of them fairly similar to Islam, some radically different. I froze. With no basis on which to distinguish between the validity of these various claims about the supernatural by definition, I could not know or prove which god was the right one I quickly confessed that my religiosity was a mere accident of birth.

Losing my religion was an unexpected moment of ecstasy. I no longer blamed myself for not understanding the emptiness I had felt when praying to a god. I also finally felt comfortable interrogating Islam as a vehicle for social conservatism and patriarchy. I knew the claim that a god exists could not be proven or disproven, but I could not believe in one especially as traditionally understood in the major monotheistic faiths without evidence or resolution of questions like the problem of evil. And so I became an atheist.

Some people think of atheists as rudderless and living in a cold, meaningless world. My experience was the opposite. Atheism enlivened me and spurred me to develop a broader skepticism of all manner of received wisdom. The displacement of heaven inspired me to think about achieving utopia on earth; my reading skewed in a radically left-wing direction, and I pivoted toward political activism. As a student at a high school that observed the practices and philosophies of Quakerism, a small Christian sect committed to egalitarian ideals, I didnt believe the Quaker saying that there was that of God in everyone. But I often enjoyed spending the weekly worship meetings, wherein we were required to sit in silence for around an hour, lost in thought about what a more fulfilling society would look like.

I didnt, however, always enjoy breaking bread with the atheists I encountered. My personal turn to atheism coincided with the rise of New Atheism in the 2000s and 2010s as a college student I watched polemical writers like the late Christopher Hitchens lecture about how religion poisons everything with great ambivalence. On one hand, I agreed with and learned from some of the New Atheist critique of religion as a force for stifling critical thought and purveying social traditionalism. On the other hand, I found that the New Atheists caricatured religion, and neglected to consider all the nuances of religious belief and the positive role it could play in peoples lives.

Despite my many objections to Islam, I had never shed my admiration for the capaciousness and airiness of a mosque.

The most consequential example of this blindness to complexity was the New Atheist fixation on Islam as an existential threat to humanity, which led to an affinity for the post-9/11 neoconservative project. Some of its proponents backed torture and neocolonial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and contemplated genocidal nuclear first strikes in the region. This group was so fixated on religion as the root of all evil and Islam as the most evil of them all that it failed to understand how Islamist terrorism might not just be about religion but also the specific political agenda of a group of extremists. As a leftist activist, and as a person who knew many liberal and fairly secular Muslims one of whom spurred me to become an atheist I found this political tilt repugnant.

The New Atheists also failed to appreciate how religion provides valuable things secular life often fails to find. As I got older I found myself circling back to the spiritual world, although in an idiosyncratically atheistic manner.

Despite my many objections to Islam, I had never shed my admiration for the capaciousness and airiness of a mosque. I found that when I was going through rough patches, there was nothing quite like the practice of mindful meditation, derived from Buddhist practices, that helped me find my footing and feel connected to the world. Living in New York, I found myself chanting Hebrew and joining hands with septuagenarians after group meditation sessions in my local Jewish community center. I started Googling Quaker meeting houses near me more often. This was not a search for god my atheism was not wavering but a desire to commune toward the end of something greater.

Political activism didn't quite scratch the itch. While I was deeply appreciative of the vital community provided by the political groups I was a part of, they didn't seek the exact kind of togetherness and quiet search for purpose I was craving. Politics, after all, is about power and justice, and needs to be balanced alongside extrapolitical quests for truth and morality.

Days after my grandfather died when I was 29, I felt unmoored. I strolled to a Quaker meeting in Manhattan, and watched towering trees gently brush against the windows of the old meeting house in the wind. One observes a Quaker meeting for worship in silence, but participants are encouraged to periodically stand up to share thoughts if moved to do so, and so after sitting for some time I shared some reflections on my grandfather. A few other people stood up and shared their own thoughts; there was little talk of god, but there was talk of the challenges and beauty of existence.

After the meeting, a few people shared announcements on study sessions, child care and organizing left-wing political activist trips. A bit later over tea and snacks, I made a few new acquaintances and learned that a former well-liked teacher of my high school was the now at the school affiliated with the Quaker meeting house I was attending. I felt nourished, and at home.

Communitarian atheism is the best of all worlds.

My case for communitarian atheism stems from my belief that atheism opens up radical new possibilities for critical thinking and freedom, but that it has a great deal to learn from religion and the religious right as well.

A quick note: I view atheism as a big tent. Atheism does not mean, as is commonly mistakenly believed, that one is certain of the nonexistence of gods. It means a lack of belief in them for evidential and sometimes logical reasons in a manner that is consistent with the popular use of the term agnosticism, which technically refers to limitations on what we can know. More important, I believe it is grounding and urgency-inducing to state, however tentative the belief may be, that our fate is in the hands of forces we can perceive or may be capable of perceiving at some point, and that we can assume no eventual refuge in an afterlife.The most urgent task for atheists right now is to guard against the astonishing uptick in the power of the religious right, with the Supreme Court favoring religious intervention in our political lives and an increasingly energized Christian nationalist alliance with the Trump wing of the party. Atheists have an intuitive understanding of and self-interest in pushing back against religious creep into the affairs of the state. If theyre more organized as an interest group, theyre more likely to help create a mandate for action.

Any such group would be well served by observing the successful activism of the far right. The Federalist Society, a right-wing powerhouse network that began as a meeting of conservative legal scholars and students at Yale in 1982, was instrumental in the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the transformation of Americas federal courts. Its networking, legal creativity, organization and provision of a Rolodex for reliably conservative jurists for the Republican Party to draw from has allowed the religious right to punch well above its weight and enact an agenda that wasnt popular or even high-profile.

Berlinerblau, the Georgetown professor, worries that liberal secular America has no counterpart to right-wing legal thinking and activism that advances the goals of the religious right. I wonder who the liberal jurists are that work together that meet for a retreat once a year in Verona or Lake Tahoe? This stuff happens all the time in conservative circles, Berlinerblau said. It's these all-expenses-paid things in beautiful places where people just network for two weeks, and they have workshops on the free exercise clause [of the First Amendment] and free speech. I know of nothing comparable, in liberal, secular America."

And that's why there's probably no innovation, he continued. Because there arent the deep-pocketed funders, and there's not the long-term vision, and there's not a command and control. We just don't have that.

This kind of enterprise is not only for atheists. It should appeal to anyone with secular and liberal inclinations, and its a space where there is opportunity for coalitions with people of faith who dont think religion should shape American politics and laws. But atheists can play a key role in sounding the alarms if they articulate themselves as citizens whose rights must be respected. Berlinerblau believes that the best hope for secularists is to push for equality under the 14th Amendment rather than continue to wage an increasingly hopeless battle over the First Amendment, which the right has found to be favorable territory by effectively expanding the idea of free exercise of religion. When the Christian right is allowed to tell us when life begins, that's an affront to the equality of a Jewish woman, or a Muslim woman or a nonbelieving woman, Berlinerblau said, explaining his argument for the 14th Amendment route.

But ultimately it is not enough for atheists today to define themselves through opposition to religious overreach. Atheists excel at critiquing religion and should continue to do so, respectfully but we flounder when it comes to thinking about how to meet human needs that are rarely supported by systems of secular life. Religion seeks to answer why we exist and what ethical and social obligations attend existence, and creates rich, evocative institutions and rituals around these questions. Atheists need to do this too not just view their lives as defined in negative terms by the absence of gods, but in positive terms about the world as we believe it exists.

Cultivating a welcoming and vibrant atheism could be a gateway for many Americans to contemplate important questions.

That means less time attacking religion and more time forming an attractive, inclusive alternative to it. Atheists should create deliberate communities, and this can take many forms. For example study groups for pursuing the great questions of existence by reading works of literature, philosophy and, yes, even religious texts. "Religion can be an inspiration, but it cant be an authority," Kitcher, the Columbia philosopher, told me in an interview, and argued religious texts must always be "subject to moral deliberation and moral argument."

Atheists should form secular meditation groups or explore something else that allows for contemplation if it's not their cup of tea. (I cant help but recommend visiting a Quaker meeting house, particularly since nontheistic Quakerism is a quiet subtradition within Quakerism.)

Organized atheists have an extraordinary opportunity to welcome "nothing in particulars" into a big tent. Roughly ten percent of the U.S. adult population identifies as atheist or agnostic, but the "nothing in particulars" constitute about 20 percent, according to a 2021 Pew poll. The nothing in particulars cite questioning "a lot of religious teachings" as the biggest reason they leave formal religious affiliation, and say that their dislike of positions taken by churches on social and political issues is the second biggest reason. Moreover, experts describe the increasingly intensifying political valence of Christianity as right-wing as a significant source of alienation for people who become "nothing in particular." It seems like a ripe opportunity for atheism to band together with allies.

Some people will always want to be nothing in particulars who wish not to publicly define their position on theism and religion. Theres nothing wrong with that at all. But cultivating a welcoming and vibrant atheism could be a gateway for many Americans to contemplate important questions, form community, and think about how to collectively better the only world we can be sure we have.

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A new style of atheism can counter Christian nationalism and the decline of religion - MSNBC

CLAY ROUTLEDGE: Atheism is typically thought of as being a binary idea: you're either a believer or you're a non-believer. To be an atheist is to entirely reject belief in the supernatural, or belief in a God or a deity. But I actually think that it's a much more complex, and much more interesting story. Even among atheists, there's lots of different ways of conceptualizing this idea.

For instance, some atheists say that it just means that they're not religious, and it doesn't even necessarily mean that they have no interest in spiritual ideas or practices, but that they just reject traditional religious dogmas. Other atheists actually can be thought of as being, what's referred to, as 'Emotional atheist.' They actually have a very negative feeling towards the divine, which is interesting because it suggests to be angry at something means, at some level, to have a concept of its existence.Other atheists are, what you might refer to, as, perhaps, 'Social atheists,' in that they feel like there's no reason to have a public religious tradition, or they have no interest in the cultural religious practices, but are themselves interested in spiritual questions and even questions of the divine. So there's lots of different ways that atheists think about themselves, think about each other.

There's lots of different ways that believers think about atheists. It's often a very abstract concept, even though it seems so simple. Teleological thinking is really any type of thought process that involves assuming that there's purpose or design. And so it turns out that, even though this really is a form of supernatural thinking, right- to assume there's some sort of grander purpose to things- that atheists aren't immune from this type of thinking. For instance, in studies of atheists who are asked to describe certain life events, they frequently use teleological language in their written description of those events.So for instance, they might say, "I didn't get this job, and it wasn't meant to be," as if there's a part of human nature, even if people consciously reject the supernatural, that pulls them to these ideas. In some instances, our own conscious awareness of something or our own conscious beliefs may not tell the whole story of the way our brains work.

There is some research focused on atheists and their lack of belief, and the implications of that. They asked atheists to say things that shouldn't bother them because they don't believe in God, such as wishing God would do harm to their friends. Now, believers don't like saying this stuff, and indeed, in these studies when believers were asked to say that, if they complied, they immediately expressed that that made them very uncomfortable. When atheists were asked to say these things, they reported immediately that it didn't bother them at all. But what's interesting about these studies is the researchers didn't just rely on people's self-report. They actually hooked them up to equipment that measures a physiological response. If you start to look a little bit deeper beyond self-report, a lot of times the body tells a different story than what we consciously report ourselves.When it came to measuring their physiological response, atheists looked indistinguishable from theists.

One of the biggest challenges that I think creates conflict between hardcore religious believers and hardcore atheists is a misunderstanding not just of each other, but of themselves. Hardcore atheists think that they're not at all guided by supernatural ideas and concepts, but we know from research that they do have a tendency to engage in teleological thinking, to see things in terms of design and purpose. Likewise, on the other side, hardcore believers often think that most of their life decisions are guided by their spiritual nature, when in fact, like atheists, they also rely on evidence and science, they often have the same struggles, religious questions and uncertainties that other people have. It's easy to divide people into groups over something that seems so powerfully different about people, such as whether or not they believe in a God or particular religious tradition, but if we take a step back and try to look beyond these surface-level differences that seem like they should divide us and turn us against each other, we'll see a deeper part of the human condition that really is a story of commonality- and a story about what it means to be a complete human trying to live a flourishing life.

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What kind of atheist are you? - Big Think

When discussing religious beliefs, the language we use often sorts people into rigid, binary groups. Youre either a theist or an atheist. A believer or a nonbeliever. But take a closer look at how people conceptualize God and the supernatural, and these distinctions begin to lose their meaning.

When somebody calls themselves an atheist, for example, what are they really conveying about their beliefs or lack thereof? Even though the dictionary definition of atheist is fairly clear someone who lacks belief in God or gods the term doesnt tell you much on its own.

To be an atheist is to entirely reject belief in the supernatural, or belief in a god or a deity, Clay Routledge, an existential psychologist and writer, told Big Think. But I actually think that its a much more complex and much more interesting story. Even among atheists, theres lots of different ways of conceptualizing this idea.

Watch our feature interview with Clay Routledge:

As religious affiliation continues to decline in the U.S. and other nations, its worth considering the different shapes that a lack of belief in the supernatural can take. While not an exhaustive list, here are a few ways to conceptualize what people mean when they use the word atheist.

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The nonreligious: One of the broadest types of atheism is simply not subscribing to a religion. Its often the case that nonreligious people arent necessarily rejecting the existence of the supernatural or God (after all, you can be nonreligious and still believe in forms of spirituality), but rather the dogmas of traditional religions.

Then again, not subscribing to a religion doesnt require you to actively reject any particular belief system. It simply means you dont subscribe to one. As such, disinterest might be a key factor for some people in this group; maybe they couldnt care less about grand questions concerning the other side.

In 2021, the Pew Research Centers National Public Opinion Reference Survey found that 29% of U.S. adults consider themselves religious nones. This nones group comprised multiple subgroups, including one that arguably best describes the disinterested nonreligious: people who said their religious identity was nothing in particular.

Emotional atheists: If the nonreligious are the nones, emotional atheists could be considered the religious dones. Emotional atheists are atheists whose lack of belief or active rejection of belief stems primarily from negative emotions.

One example is someone who has become understandably resentful of religion. Maybe they suffered abuse in the church, were disowned due to their parents beliefs, or experienced a tragedy so horrible that they cant understand why God would allow such a thing to occur.

The emotional atheist, driven by negative experiences, actively rejects God. Its a somewhat contradictory position to take, considering that, to be angry at something means, at some level, [you] have a concept of its existence, Routledge told Freethink.

Social atheists: This group might harbor varying levels of religious or spiritual beliefs in their private moments, but they dont care to share or broadcast them. Maybe they consider it rude. Maybe they dont care to participate in the cultural practices of religious life. In any case, the religious or spiritual beliefs are a personal pursuit to this group.

Antitheists: In addition to lacking religious beliefs, antitheists take an active stance against religions. One of the most famous and outspoken writers to argue this viewpoint in recent history was the late Christopher Hitchens, who once said:

Im not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful.

No matter the type, atheists are generally inclined to think God does not exist. But how closely do atheists self-reported beliefs match what they feel deep down?

That was one of the driving questions behind a 2014 study published in The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion. In the study, researchers asked atheists and religious individuals to read aloud statements that dared God to do awful things. Examples included:

When asked how unpleasant it was to utter statements like these, the atheists reported not finding it as unpleasant as believers did. Not surprising. After all, if you dont believe in God, these statements should be nothing more than empty words.

But less expected were the results of the participants skin conductance tests, which are used to measure emotional arousal. The results showed that both atheists and believers displayed high emotional arousal while reading the God statements. So, even though the atheists reported that daring God to do awful things wasnt too unpleasant, the physiological measurements suggested otherwise.

One explanation for why atheists experienced heightened arousal while reading the statements is that it would be emotionally unpleasant for anyone to utter such ugly sentiments, regardless of what they believe. However, the researchers also had participants utter statements that were offensive or which wished for bad things to happen, but didnt mention God.

The results showed that atheists were more emotionally affected by the God statements, according to the skin conductance tests. To Routledge, studies like this highlight our often surprising ambivalence toward big existential questions.

Hardcore atheists think that theyre not at all guided by supernatural ideas and concepts, but we know from research that they do have a tendency to engage in teleological thinking to see things in terms of design and purpose, he told Big Think.

Although binary categories like atheist and theist can make it seem like people are rigidly divided along the lines of belief, ambivalence and doubt might render us more similar than it seems. C.S. Lewis, the British writer who converted from atheism to Christianity after a late-night conversation with J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, once wrote:

Believe in God and you will have to face hours when it seems obvious that this material world is the only reality; disbelieve in Him and you must face hours when this material world seems to shout at you that it is not all.

Continued here:

These are the 4 types of atheism - Big Think

Mark Tooley is terribly vexed. The Statement of Principles signed by national conservatives (including myself) ahead of the NatCon3 conference in Miami is deeply concerning to the president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. Article 4 in particular, on God and Public Religion, is the focus of his suspicion in a recent essay over at Law & Liberty.

Tooley does not mind appreciation of the Bible as a pillar of Western civilization, nor integrating it into public-school curricula. To his credit, this distinguishes him from other right-liberals such as David French. But in Tooleys view, in the latter half of Article 4, things go awry.

That portion of the Statement of Principles reads, in part,

Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, which should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private. At the same time, Jews and other religious minorities are to be protected in the observance of their own traditions, in the free governance of their communal institutions, and in all matters pertaining to the rearing and education of their children. Adult individuals should be protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes.

Tooley wonders whether the national conservatives intend a Christian establishment. What does it mean for public life to be rooted in Christianity? he asks. What does it mean for the state to honor Christianity? And, by extension, he queries whether religious minorities would be subject to coercion. The answers to these questions are implied by the questioner: nothing good. The reader is meant to shudder.

In a Millian vein, Tooley warns that coercion, which presumably encompasses culturally cultivated social stigma, never works. As a good son of the Great Awakenings, he insists that only spontaneous revival will root the nation in transcendence. Any hint of state involvement therein, any governmental thumb on the scale, would be counterproductive, making religion forced, stale, or counterfeit. Best to not meddle as to not muddle.

Hypothetically, if national conservatives are establishmentarians, then we could call Tooleys position public atheism. This is not to imply that Tooley or Christians like himand there are manyare disingenuous or embarrassed by Christianity and the Bible. Rather, public atheism is a typical right-liberal posture akin to what used to be called practical atheism. Older Protestant theology maintained that sincere, full-throated denial of Gods existence was theologically impossible for anyone, the sensus divinitatis being a given per Romans 1 and 2. Yet people can suppress that inescapable knowledge and live as if God is dead. (Even then, as Nietzsche understood, people are not very good at it.)

Public atheism, for our purposes, is marked by suspicion of, and hostility to, whatever smells of formal, state-level recognition and privileging (i.e., honor) of Christianity over and against other faiths on offer. It decries public Christianity as an artificial limitation of the realm of possibility. It is, in a word, pluralism, insofar as it features a kind of religious market fundamentalism. For public atheists, free competition must be prioritized for two reasons: as a competition-based control against monopoly, and as an affirmation of the human faculty most valued by liberals generally, viz., unalloyed choice.

This is not a mere recognition of religious diversity on the ground, but a championing of pluralism as virtue. Usually, for public atheists, pluralism is coded as religious liberty. Specifically, a post-war, post-incorporation conception of the idea is in play. Within this paradigm, the state, the nation, must be neutral. Meaning that it must live as if there is no God, or at least in a way that no particular deity is prioritized to the discomfort of dissenters.

In defense of his position, Tooley appeals to the founding era for historical and, therefore, normative ammunition. A fine instinct, but the maneuver is largely superfluous in this case because Tooley discovers in the period only himself. In fact, the period, as it really was, would likely strike twenty-first century Americans as foreign.

In his narrative, Tooley distinguishes the United States from other nations by ascribing to it not mere tolerationthe prerequisite of which is an established churchbut religious freedom for all. To him, America has always been a pluralist and religious-liberty maximalist (and therefore publicly atheist) nation; ipso facto, national conservatives are an aberration, representing a departure from the nations history and character.

To demonstrate his claim, Tooley exhibits another good instinct: an appeal to state, as opposed to strictly national, activity in the early republic. This approach is correct because any assessment of the nations history must account for its federalist structure as a compound (not consolidated) republic in its original context wherein states served as the moral centers of the country (i.e., state police powers).

Still, his narrative is feeble in part because his source material is artificially limited to the usual suspects, viz., James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, and two Virginia documents: the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom (1786). Unfortunately for Tooley, two founders and two documents do not American history make.

We will ignore at this juncture the colonial background which conditioned the resultant American nation and which, as John Adams instructed, should therefore condition our understanding of the same. Instead, we will proceed to other American source material of the antebellum period.

At the outset we should realize, as Tooley does, that the point of reference for any religious talk in the early republic was Christianity. This is true of the Virginia Statute, wherein the Holy author serves as shorthand for Jesus Christ, as Tooley knows. Even in Jeffersons famous letter to the Danbury Baptists, the language is evidently limited by Christian understanding. Astute progressives too, like Justice John Paul Stevens, and even woke scholars like Khyati Joshi, understand this well, if begrudgingly.

The entire eighteenth-century socio-religious milieu was unquestionably and thoroughly Christian, and corresponding privilege was inevitable. When texts like the Northwest Ordinance (1787) or the Ohio Constitution (1803) reference religion, we know what they were up to. When the second president declared the Constitution fit only for a moral and religious people, what brand of morality and religion was he referring to? Simple: a people who profess and call themselves Christians, as his inaugural address put itdelivered the year after the Treaty of Tripoli, by the way. The same goes for Adamss 1798 address to the militia of his home state. These things must be read in their native context.

More explicitly, we should offset Tooleys Virginian supremacy by briefly surveying other states, which is always more revealing than the private correspondence of elites. Delawares 1776 constitution, for example, required public officials to profess faith in the Trinity and affirm divine inspiration of scripture, as did North Carolina. Georgia and New Hampshire limited officeholding to Protestants whilst reserving toleration for Christians generally. Pennsylvania required an affirmation of Gods existence and a future state of reward and punishment. As a class, New England states provided for public maintenance of Protestant parish ministers.

South Carolina was even more militant. First, the lower Carolinians expressed in 1776 an anxiety typical for the time: fear of Catholic encroachment on free Protestant English settlements via the Quebec Act, as Forrest McDonald noted, an admittedly conspiratorial catalyst for action, perhaps more so than the Stamp Act. Religious sectarianism was a key motivator for eighteenth-century Englishmen. Similarly, some founders, like the so-called Last Puritan Samuel Adams while defining the rights of colonists as Christians in 1772, excluded Catholics from tolerance for reasons of suspicion of insurrectionist tendencies.

And so, in 1778, South Carolina declared itself a tolerant state. Citizens acknowledge that there is one God, and a future state of rewards and punishments, and that God is publicly to be worshipped, shall be freely tolerated, the constitution read. But, as Tooley pointed out, toleration requires an establishment referent. Hence, The Christian Protestant religion shall be deemed, and is hereby constituted and declared to be, the established religion of this State. Any Protestant denomination in South Carolina would enjoy equal religious and civil privileges. Professing Protestants alone were permitted to incorporate religious bodies.

At minimum, this data hampers any clean narrative of religious liberty triumphalism. If states besides Virginia championed broad Protestant establishments and a posture of toleration toward all other sects, then Tooleys declaration to the contrary cannot be as comprehensive as he suggests. That is, it does not provide a sufficient characterization of the nation.

Sed contra, the picture painted by the history of the early republic is one of an ecumenical pan-Protestantism, the style of establishment varying from state to state, with a toleration of non-Protestant minority sects that were not demonstrably injurious to the peace, health, morals, security, and abundance of the nation. Even states without historically strong establishments, like New Jersey, typically limited civil participation to Protestants. The ubiquitous religious tests for office were informed by Reformational doctrinal standards.

To say that America, in its first decades, honored the majority Christian religion would be only half right. It more often honored a Protestant Christianity. Outliers like Maryland, famously governed by an aging colonial Catholic aristocracy, did not offer a real alternative. Knowing the state populace was primarily Protestant, Marylands framers opted for limiting religious liberty simply to the Christian religion. Only a non-denominational general tax for the faith was constitutionally acceptable. Non-Christian minorities were not considered in this regard. Among other things, these early constitutions provided the basis for Justice David Brewers contention in a 1905 lecture series that America was, indeed, a Christian nation.

In Whig historian fashion, Tooley would summarily dismiss the thoroughgoing establishments of Massachusetts or Connecticutor the iron Quaker grip on Pennsylvania, for that matterat the founding by dubbing their demise constitutionally foreordained. Of course, the U.S. Constitution did no such thing. As Justice Clarence Thomas has rightly clarified, the Establishment Clause is properly incapable of incorporation as a federalist amendment. The works of Philip Hamburger and Vincent Phillip Muoz confirm much the same. That is, the clause was intended to protect colonial customs and norms from national government intervention; otherwise no one would have ratified the thing. The process of disestablishment was long and complicated. In the former Puritan colonies, the Great Awakenings and missteps by the Federalist Party owed more to the disintegration of the Standing Order than any constitutional measures.

Tooley wonders what weight, within the American tradition, religious majorities should be given. Historically, the national conservatism statement gets it right. As I have written elsewhere, the Anglo-American common law tradition has always recognized Christianity as integral to its systemMatthew Hale declared it part and parcel with the common law in Rex v. Taylor (1676)but has also emphasized a majoritarian aspect to this analysis. The Supreme Court affirmed more than once general Christianity, or non-denominational Protestantism, as part of the common law. As a matter of social tranquility, then, public blasphemy against Christianity was outlawed, a rationale evident in cases throughout the nineteenth century such as People v. Ruggles (N.Y. 1811) and State v. Chandler (Del. 1837), among others.

To come full circle and answer Tooleys first question: what would national, governmental honor of Christianity look like? The history recounted above notwithstanding, national conservatives are asking for considerably less than a national church, much less the Handmaids Tale-style forced-conversion dystopia our opponents indulgently imagine. Rather, a recovery of those vestiges of our Christian founding only recently jettisoned would be a start. Take two examples: blasphemy laws and Sabbath laws, to say nothing of public architecture, civil rituals, and school curriculumthe expressions of cultural Christianity.

The enthusiastic enforcement of both types of laws is not foreign to America, but fell out of style, rather late in our late-stage republic. Blasphemy laws already mentioned, we may proceed to brief consideration of the Lords Day. Vermont, to take one example, codified observance of the Sabbath in 1793. Blue laws were ubiquitous in early America. Protection of Christian practice and the morals and health of the community, as one court put it in 1878, by enforced cessation of the worship of Mammon on Sunday, endured up through the twentieth century. Economic and cultural recognition of Christian living should be unobjectionable to a Christian majority, to say the least. Would such honor of what is even now the predominant faith really be too coercive, too establishmentarian for public atheists to stomach? It has not been so for most Americans in history.

Not to be overlooked is Tooleys attempt to root his aversion to coercion (state and social) in Christian anthropology. A rebuttal can be easily formed on the same basis. National conservatives cling to the pre-modern view that man is, by nature, both religious and social. Both horizontally and vertically, so to speak, he is not alone. No hypothetical radical autonomy exists, nor would it be desirable (Genesis 2:18). All coherent societies are always and everywhere centered on shared religion. It is simply a question of which operative orthodoxy is in play. It is only natural, then, that a societys underlying morality take shape not only in law but through symbols that render social being, as Henrich Rommen called it, visible.

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Everything from national anthems to flags to civic buildings to memorials express a moral and spiritual content. Whatever is so honored is what constitutes the proposed moral bond, the unitas ordinis, of the community. That the visible expressions of our national bond are still basically, like our populace, Christian is evident from the sheer fact that malcontents want to demolish them. We are engaged, as ever, in a battle over the national object of moral honor. Tooley prefers a neutral approach in this regard, a publicly atheist approach. National conservatives are tired of that defensive crouch and assert a historically and anthropologically positive vision of the national moral bond according to history, metaphysics, and justice. For social justice to the Creator and only just Law Giver is due before it can be afforded to men.

The liberty of conscience cannot, in fact or theory, be violated. We cannot pretend to peer into mens souls. No one is advocating a persecution of thought crimes. But the inescapable formal and informal public preference for a particular religion in law and memorial does not amount to forced conversion. National conservatives believe that public life should be formative (not passive) of public virtue. If Christianity and the Bible do not fuel that formation something else will (and lately has).

In 1663 John Davenport, the founder of New Haven, observed that the fact of establishment seems to be a Principle imprinted in the mindes and hearts of all men in the equity of it, That such a Form of Government as best serveth to Establish their Religion, should by the consent of all be Established in the Civil State. If this was the case in England, Holland, and Turkey, why would it not be so in New England vis a vis Christianity? Further, why would a Christian people not desire it? And so it was in America generally in the antebellum period.Historically and anthropologically, it is not the national conservatives, but right-liberals who are out of step. Article 4 of the Statement of Principles should not vex a Christian patriot. It is thoroughly, historically American. John Jay, in Federalist No. 2, identified shared religion as an indispensable ingredient for a coherent nation. The national conservatives are simply following suit.

See the rest here:

Against Public Atheism - The American Conservative

Stand-up comic, author and mom of six, Jen Fulwiler will bring her comedy show to the Scherr Forum at 7:30 p.m. Fri., Sept. 23 at 2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd.

Fulwiler was the host of the daily talk radio Jen Fulwiler Show on the national SiriusXM network. When she launched her own podcast, This Is Jen, it debuted in the iTunes Comedy Top 10.

She has been featured on The Today Show and CNN. Her standup comedy special, The Naughty Corner, is on Amazon.

Her first book, Something Other than God, a memoir about converting to Catholicism from lifelong atheism, was a finalist in the Goodreads Reader Choice Awards.

Her book One Beautiful Dream was a Wall Street Journal bestseller, hit the Amazon Top 25 and was a No. 1 bestseller at Barnes & Noble. Her newest title, Your Blue Flame, was featured on The Today Show.

For years Fulwiler has been a speaker for Catholic conferences and events. Additionally, she spent five years as a radio host for the Sirius XM Catholic Channel, and she found that her listeners enjoyed her show more when she used humor.

Fulwiler started dabbling in stand-up in 2018, doing open mic gigs at clubs in Austin, Texas, where she lives. In 2020 she started pursuing comedy full time with funny takes on motherhood and modern life.

Tickets are $40, available from Ticketmaster at (800) 745- 3000, or online at ticketmaster.com, or through the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza box office.

For more information, call (805) 449-2787 or go to bapacthousandoaks.com.

Originally posted here:

Atheist turned Catholic turns comic - Thousand Oaks Acorn

For the first time since Gallup began polling on the topic of religion, those who say they belong to a church, synagogue, mosque or congregation are now a minority in America. When Gallup first asked the question in 1990, 70% of all Americans indicated they belong to a house of worship. Now only 47% do, a seismic shift in the sentiments and the religious commitments of the country.

Whats more, one in three young adults indicated that they claim no religious affiliation at all. Since 2000, theres been an overall rise in those who say they dont identify with any religion from 8% to 21%.

Against this remarkable detachment from religious identity, an interesting dynamic has emerged: the religiously unaffiliated are increasingly serving as activists and leaders in movements for social change and justice.

Historically, social justice initiatives gained momentum and strength from those who were motivated by their religious convictions (think of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day and Desmond Tutu). But it is equally true that such religious beliefs are not necessary for participation in causes that defend human rights and dignity and oppose the mistreatment of the vulnerable.

Todays modern effort to reinstate legal protection for unborn children includes secular humanists, atheists, agnostics and otherwise non-religious people. To the surprise of much of the media, non-religious pro-life advocates have claimed an increasing presence in the pro-life movement despite being met with skepticism or being told they dont exist. When powerful national newspapers, like the New York Times, assert that the Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision was based on religious doctrine, and that religious people have imposed their belief system on the entire country, they ignore the voices and views of many Americans who have no belief system other than science.

Secular news outlet National Public Radio likewise concluded that when life begins is essentially a religious question eliminating debate or discussion of abortion on other grounds. Pigeonholing abortion as a religious question was even apparent during oral arguments in Dobbs, the Mississippi case that overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor pressed Solicitor General Scott Stuart: The issue of when life begins has been hotly debated by philosophers since the beginning of time. Its still debated in religions. So when you say this is the only right that takes away from the state the ability to protect a life, thats a religious view, isnt it? It assumes that a fetus is life at when?

Yet, religious leaders including Pope Francis, who studied chemistry following his graduation from high school, disagree. For me the deformation in the understanding of abortion is born mainly in considering it a religious issue, he wrote in a 2019 letter to an Argentine priest. The issue of abortion is not essentially religious. It is a human problem prior to any religious option. The abortion issue must be addressed scientifically, he noted (even underlining the word scientifically.).

Along with the pope, the nones dont believe the question of when human life begins is a religious one. Groups like Secular Pro-life (headed by an atheist), Rehumanize International (also atheist), the Equal Rights Institute and the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAUU) follow the science: the clear, long-established medical fact that human life begins at the moment of conception.

Medical textbook Human Embryology & Teratology agrees: Fertilization is an important landmark, because under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed, the textbook notes. And a recent survey of thousands of biologists from across the globe found that 96% likewise affirmed that human life begins at fertilization.

You absolutely do not need to believe in a God to oppose the intentional taking of human life, insists Herb Geraghty, executive director of Rehumanize. Many atheists, like myself, who embrace a consistent ethic of life, oppose abortion for the same reasons we oppose things like the death penalty, war and police brutality. Abortion is a human rights violation, and everyone should be working to end it.

Non-religious anti-abortion organizations embrace this scientific consensus, adding to it a human rights component and a desire to advocate for the most vulnerable human lives at the margins. These secular groups may have many different perspectives on other hot-button social issues than their mainline Christian colleagues, but all agree with the basic pro-life premise that every human life is worthy of protection, at all stages of development.

As an atheist, I believe the life we have now is the only one we get, said Monica Snyder, executive director of Secular Pro-Life. Im against abortion because it destroys humans. This is not a religious belief; it is a fact of biology. As organisms, we begin as zygotes. You, me, and every person we know was once an embryo, once a fetus. It is those who defend elective abortion who want to make this debate about religion, because biology doesnt support the pro-choice position at all.

Even after 50 years as settled law, Roe v. Wade never really settled into the hearts and minds of the American people. It may be easier to dismiss pro-life advocacy as belonging to the pages of Scripture or the stuff of Sunday sermons than to engage the scientific or human rights questions, but the growing presence of non-believers who worked (but didnt pray) to see Roe overturned speaks to one of the principal tenets of our countrys founding: that every human being has natural rights, present by virtue of his or her very humanity.

Mary FioRito is an attorney and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the deNicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame.

View original post here:

Atheists against abortion reject the religious narrative - Our Sunday Visitor

Republicans in the House of Representatives are demanding a briefing on a State Department grant program made available to groups supporting atheists and humanists.

The Biden administration announced in April 2021 that the State Department would distribute grants of $500,000 to groups in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central and South Asia dedicated to combat[ing] discrimination, harassment and abuses against atheist, humanist, non-practicing and non-affiliated individuals of all religious communities by strengthening networks among these communities and providing organizational training and resources. Republicans previously argued that providing money to religiously-identifiable groups would be unconstitutional in the U.S. and requested a breakdown of the programs expenditures.

Americans deserve to know why the State Department is committed to spreading atheism abroad, and which foreign, antireligious groups are receiving their tax dollars, 18 members of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), led by Chairman Jim Banks, wrote Tuesday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a letter obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller.

We would also like to request a phone briefing from the Acting Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Lisa Peterson to Republican Study Committee (RSC) members and staff as soon as possible to discuss our grave concerns with regard to this grant program, they added.

Read the letter here:

Banks letter final by Michael Ginsberg on Scribd

A spokesperson for the State Department did not respond to the Daily Callers request for comment.

Republicans have repeatedly expressed concern that the Biden administration is promoting left-wing cultural initiatives with foreign policy dollars. Notably, the federal government spent nearly $800 billion on gender equality programs in Afghanistan since 2002, despite inspector general reports finding that the programs were failing due to sociocultural norms. The State Department appointed a Special Representative for Racial Equity and Justice on June 17, with the goal of ensuring that racial equity is a part of all foreign policy initiatives.

Biden requested $2.6 billion as part of the FY2023 Budget for programs designed to promote gender equality worldwide. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: State Department Prepares To Announce Worldwide Racial Equity Chief, Leaked Email Shows)

The Biden State Department is hiding the extent of its woke radicalism. Their inexcusable support for atheist groups in Central Asia puts them in league with the Chinese Communist Party and violates Americans core principles. When Republicans retake the majority, we need to stop the radical left from spending Americans tax dollars on anti-American initiatives, Banks told the Daily Caller.

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EXCLUSIVE: House Republicans Demand Briefing On Grant Program For Atheist And Humanist Organizations - Daily Caller

Kristen Sanders thought her chances of a relationship with April Hill were pretty slim when she spotted Ms. Hills profile on the dating app Bumble in January 2020.

Aprils 5-foot-10 and covered in tattoos; Im 5-foot-2 and I look like a super goody two-shoes clean cut, no visible tattoos, preppy dresser, Ms. Sanders said before naming other differences between the two that stood out. Shes atheist. Im Christian. April is a vegetarian. Im a meat eater.

Though she figured Ms. Hill would take one look at me and say, No way, Ms. Sanders said she swiped right on Ms. Hills profile anyway because she was anyone unlike I had ever seen or dated.

To her surprise, they were declared a match. Ms. Hill, after seeing Ms. Sanderss photos on Bumble, had swiped right on her profile, too. Im just a sucker for long dark hair and light eyes, and Kristen has these piercing green-hazel eyes, Ms. Hill said.

At the time, Ms. Sanders was about two months away from finalizing her divorce from her ex wife, whom she had married in September 2019. She said that Ms. Hill was my only match on Bumble.

The same was not true for Ms. Hill. She had matched with other people on the app, but Ms. Sanders, 33, quickly became the only one that mattered, she said. Once Kristen and I matched and we had our first conversation, I really felt no desire to talk to anyone else.

Also divorced and 33, Ms. Hill wed her former husband when she was 18; their marriage lasted 18 months. Following her divorce, Ms. Hill continued to date men, including the father of her daughter Jaxyn, now 10. She came out as gay at 27. It took a long time to feel comfortable and to come out to my family, she said.

A couple of weeks after matching on Bumble, the women, who live in Fort Worth, had a first date. It began at True Food Kitchen, a restaurant in Dallas. Kristen had hummus for dinner because it was the only thing she recognized, Ms. Hill said. Afterward, they joined a few of Ms. Hills friends for a drag show at the gay dance club Station 4 Dallas. We sat and talked and had drinks before her friends came, Ms. Sanders said.

Wanting to be completely upfront with each other from the start, both came to the date prepared to discuss their past relationships.

I was nervous to talk to her about my divorce, Ms. Sanders said. She asked if I still had any feelings for my ex and I said no.

Said Ms. Hill, We were both ready for love. She added, It was a really good conversation for a first date.

So good was their conversation that a second date came the next day. After meeting for brunch, the two visited the Dallas Museum of Art, where Ms. Hills nervous excitement became evident to Ms. Sanders when she took Ms. Hills hand in her own. She claimed the museum was hot, Ms. Sanders said, but her hands were clammy from being nervous.

From then, their relationship quickly progressed. We truly just never wanted to stop talking or getting attention from each other, Ms. Hill said.

As the two grew closer, they discovered that their senses of humor meshed. We find the same things hilarious and spend so much of our days together laughing a ton, Ms. Sanders said. They also introduced one another to new hobbies. April definitely reignited my love for the outdoors, Ms. Sanders said. She took me on my first hike and camping trip since I was a small child.

Within a month of their first date, Ms. Hill introduced Ms. Sanders to her daughter. They played with kinetic sand together, Ms. Hill said. I remember Kristen being pretty nervous to meet her. It was cute.

The introduction made it a lot easier to hang out, Ms. Hill added. She enjoyed and accepted my kiddo no questions asked and is extremely supportive of co-parenting with Jaxyns dad.

Binge more Vows columns here and read all our wedding, relationship and divorce coverage here.

Ms. Sanders, who was raised predominantly in Weatherford, Texas, and graduated from Sam Houston State University, is a deputy sheriff for Tarrant County, Texas. But when she met Ms. Hill, she was working as a special agent for the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Police, after previously serving as an investigator in the human trafficking-child exploitation unit at the Tarrant County Sheriffs Office.

It was while the two were dating that Ms. Sanders had the realization that I wanted to go back to real policing and get back into investigations, she said, adding that she knew it takes a very strong person to be a police spouse.

Though Ms. Hill, who grew up in Waco, Texas, supported Ms. Sanders in her career, she admitted to it causing some anxiety. The not knowing what can happen on a daily basis can be scary, said Ms. Hill, who works as a makeup artist and also sells handmade sterling silver and gemstone jewelry on Instagram. I had reservations about it when I first met Kristen and learned she was a police officer, but she genuinely has a servants heart and wants to help people.

Any reservations Ms. Hill might have felt were not strong enough to stop her from falling in love with Ms. Sanders just a few months after their courtship began. I couldnt picture my life without her, she said.

Ms. Sanders fell for Ms. Hill just as fast. I remember pretty early on a moment in Aprils living room, she recalled. We were sitting on the couch holding hands, and I had just met Jaxyn not long before. She was playing with kinetic sand on the table, and I just remember being in that moment and thinking, This is all Ive ever wanted.

A year after they met on Bumble, in January 2021, Ms. Sanders moved into Ms. Hills apartment in Fort Worth. Two months later, Ms. Sanders proposed while the couple and Ms. Hills best friend were camping at Palo Duro Canyon State Park in Canyon, Texas.

I told Kristen that she had to propose to me on a mountain or not at all, and she definitely delivered, Ms. Hill said. We hiked a total of nine miles that day and she proposed to me at the Lighthouse, a famous rock formation in the park.

On June 18, they married cliffside on the grounds of a private property they had rented in Bushmills, Northern Ireland, near the ruins of Dunluce Castle. Emma Bailie, a wedding celebrant with Humanists UK, officiated before five guests, who included Jaxyn and Ms. Hills mother, Kathy Hill.

After seeing photos online of other weddings near the castle ruins, which date to the late Middle Ages, the couple said they knew that they wanted to get married there, too. But they soon learned that the property cant be rented because it is a public space, and that many events instead take place on nearby farmland. With help from a videographer they had found online, the couple contacted the owner of that land, Sean McKinley, and had a wedding date booked days later.

Ms. Sanders said that the location, which was also chosen as a nod to her Irish heritage, was giving off the Game of Thrones vibes, and were super into Game of Thrones. (Dunluce Castle, in fact, was used as Castle Greyjoy in the HBO series.)

It felt fitting for us with all of the lush green landscape and castle ruins, Ms. Hill said. We say our love is like a fairy tale and Ireland looks like a fairy tale.

Both brides wore dresses by the designer Maggie Sottero. Ms. Sanders donned a black lace ball gown, while Ms. Hill had on a fitted white dress with a halter neckline. Each revealed their ensemble to the other at a first look on a rock that jutted out over the North Atlantic, accessible only by a bridge.

Ms. Bailie then led the couple in a ceremony that included a traditional Celtic handfasting, in which their hands were wrapped in a handmade cord with a Celtic heart in the middle. A traditional handfasting ceremony symbolizes entering into the bonds of marriage, she said. Two partners join hands and their wrists would be tied, symbolizing the binding together of their individual lives.

It is from this practice we get the term tying the knot, she added.

The brides ended the ceremony by both drinking from a quaich, a silver cup with two handles that represents love and friendship, Ms. Hill said. It was perfect.

Afterward came more drinks, this time with Mr. McKinley, the owner of the land they were married on, near the castle ruins. He had glasses of Jameson for us, Ms. Sanders said. We stood at the castle and soaked it all in.

Later, they headed to the Central Bar, a nearby pub. We ordered Guinness, Ms. Sanders said. But after a waiter took their order and went to the bar, he quickly returned to their table.

The waiter told us that the manager said, You can come behind the bar and pour your own, Ms. Hill said. And so they did.

When June 18, 2022

Where A private property in Bushmills, Northern Ireland, near the ruins of Dunluce Castle.

Needle Needs The day before the wedding, Ms. Hills veil still needed to be finished. But the couple lost the needle they had packed for the task. With the local sewing store closed, they visited a thrift store, where they found what they were looking for. The store employees insisted on knowing why, Ms. Sanders said. One thing about the Irish, the ladies at the store told us, Were nosy.

Irish Inclusiveness The brides were delighted by the welcome they received as a same-sex couple. The people of Ireland are so nice, Ms. Hill said. Everyone was toasting us, even the old ladies that you think might be hesitant said, Oh how lovely. So romantic.

Read the rest here:

Near Castle Ruins, a Wedding with a Dash of Game of Thrones - The New York Times

Thank you Greg Kujala and his partner Phineas for bringing faith into the discussions about Ukraine. The majority of Americans believe their faith should have an impact on how they live their lives individually and corporately.

I'm not at all suggesting The Star become a confessional religious digest. Just that we readers occasionally bring up faith, religious or religious atheistic, as it applies to world, national and state issues.

I encourage people of all faiths, especially those with the strongest faith, i.e. atheist, to add to the discussion and pretend some of us are not people with presuppositional beliefs. I encourage you to make your beliefs known in the public square. Are you afraid that what you say will not be reasonable to the majority of citizens of America?

The Apostle Paul was not afraid to interact with those of different philosophies on Mars Hill in Greece. Why should any of us be afraid to share our world view, if we truly believe it and are willing to stand up for its implications, for evil or good.

We need to advocate and act on the beliefs that we find truthful and authoritative. Some believe they do not submit to any authority, but they are submitting to the least likely really truthful authority, namely their selves. Thousands of years with wrestling with various beliefs is more impressive to me that few decades of individual pondering.

You may disagree with many of the things I have said, in which case you should submit an editorial.

Andrew White

Winchester

Read the original post:

Letter to the editor: Reveal your faith in the public square - The Winchester Star

Ricky Gervais series After Life, which explores the concepts of life, death, grief and spirituality, saw its latest series air on Netflix earlier this year.On the podcast Under the Skin with Russell Brand, Gervais, who is a self-proclaimed atheist, said he sees the world with as much wonder as anyone who thinks God made it.

The comedian and actor spoke candidly with fellow entertainment professional and podcast host Russell Brand about spirituality, ranting on the bad perception atheists get.

He explained his view on religion saying: I say if you already know right from wrong you dont need the book.

Gervais, 61, also admitted he used to believe in God, but after considering the topic in depth, came to the conclusion: I feel I dont need a god.

However, Gervais revealed: The thing that I really object to is people assuming that you cant be a good person if you dont believe in a god.

There are good atheists and bad atheists, there are good Christians and bad Christians and a god has never changed that.

READ MORE:Gary Lineker forced to explain bra tweet about Lionesses as hes accused of sexism

You shouldnt judge people by their beliefs, you should judge them by their actual behaviour. I feel I dont need a structured guidebook outside of my own morality.

He insinuated this is one of the myths about atheism, explaining that by definition atheism is not the belief that there is no god, but rather theres no evidence of a greater being yet.

Deciphering this concept further Gervais reflected: If we agree that no one knows, were all atheists. Now, what do you think?

Believers will say I think there is a god and atheists say I dont think there is a god because I havent got any evidence yet.

As an outspoken atheist, Gervais revealed people have questioned him asking if evidence was found to prove God existed, would he become religious? He claims he would, but noted a potential issue.

He said: It wouldnt even be belief, it would be knowledge. But until we know, I dont want to live my life by a belief in something I have no evidence in, thats all.

Gervais went on to explain he understands and experiences all of the same concepts of wanting to understand the reasoning of life and connection to a greater power that religious people feel, but simply does it without the belief in god or gods.

Gervais claimed this was essentially spiritually, saying religion is something else.

DONT MISS:

He added: Someones belief in god has never bothered me, its what you do with it.

Its when theres suddenly an agenda that coincidentally favours the person.

Later in the podcast, the pair would discuss how this dogma of getting scripture to match ones argument has transcended religious conversations, now edging into politics and even pop culture.

Gervais explained this as potentially controversial situations where one side accidentally finds luckily, God agrees with them.

He continued: We know that everything thats ever started was written by, usually a man, with an agenda.

Its no coincidence that all those rules in the old testament sort of favour certain men.

Brand agreed with Gervais, saying: I really, firmly, deeply believe that spirituality is for me, not for me to tell other people: Oi I dont reckon you should be gay!.

Gervais has also recently made viral rounds on social media after his hometown named a garbage truck Ricky Gerwaste after him.

He tweeted an image of the truck in early July, captioning the post: Is there any greater honour than your hometown naming a garbage truck after you?

Go here to see the original:

Ricky Gervais explained religious views in wake of After Life: 'I don't need a god' - Express

Colin Anderson took a break from cooking another community meal last week to sit near a garden and talk about food.

What, he was asked, would prompt a self-identified atheist/Buddhist to take to the kitchen at St. Paul's Hamline United Methodist church and make a vegan dinner for up to 200 people? Or to start a vegan food shelf at another church nearby?

It's about improving food security and empowering community by introducing locally sourced, sustainably raised food in neighborhoods with limited food options, he said. Through his Eureka Compass Vegan Food initiative, the Midway resident also hopes to launch a vegan grocery store.

"For us, it's all about community. It's all about nourishment, whether it be your body or your mind," Anderson said. "I do these events at these churches because the higher power that I believe in is what we can achieve if we all start working selflessly and together."

Eye On St. Paul recently sat down with Anderson, who partners with local vegan chefs Zachary Hurdle and John Stockman through the Twin Cities Vegan Chef Collective, to talk about his work to improve community health and unity, one meal at a time.

This interview has been edited for length.

Q: What are you hoping to accomplish with these dinners?

A: We need to get Minnesota to a point where Minnesota can feed Minnesota.

It's in response to two desecrating corruptions of our food system: We are burning our environment and resources that the future will rely on and shipping nourishment to places that already have nourishment. We also have food that is so poisonous that we have diet-related disease and illness.

We have put the most unhealthy food in communities that have the worst effects of environment. Of racism.

Q: Tell me a little about Eureka.

A: I started Eureka Compass Vegan Food in 2017 as a correction of what vegan food was becoming as it became mainstream heavily processed, deep-fried junk food. They make food in a lab, then they wrap it in plastic and ship it around the world. If you look at Impossible Burger, it's literally genetically modified yeast that eats soy, which is just more mono-crop agriculture.

Q: It sounds like you're not just promoting vegan, but recognizable, sustainable, locally grown food.

A: Yeah. We're talking full-scope veganism. [For this meal] I biked to the farmers market on my cargo bike. I brought my own bags and my own box. Then I biked back here, put the food in the fridge. Nothing in plastic. Plastics manufacturing pollutes the environment, kills people every day. It's hard to remove ourselves from it, but if we're going to be full-scale vegan, we need to acknowledge that. We need to say, "That's not vegan."

And when I go to the farmers market, I look to buy the last of something, say the last of the cauliflower or the last of the red potatoes.

Q: Why?

A: There's an emotional aspect when you're vending something. And an efficiency. I have four small heads of cauliflower left. Well, that's kind of a nuisance. Now, they're able to consolidate.

Q: I imagine it feels good for them to sell out too.

A: Yes, yes! Too often, we refuse to acknowledge that is a human being right there. But that person standing there, at their table at the farmers market, if I can give that little victory, that's solidarity. That's community.

Q: What are you hoping people get besides nourishment?

A: That they see it. At each community dinner, the recipes are never repeated. If you want to know how I made that, I'll tell you. There are people who send me an e-mail later on, saying, "What was this? Because this is amazing." And I say here, this is how you do it.

I have a friend [a vegan chef and spoken word poet] who said, "We would rather witness a sermon than hear a sermon." You want people to eat vegan food? Serve them vegan food.

Q: Have you started a vegan food shelf?

A: Yes. Thursday [July 28], we will do the first all-vegan food shelf from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Zion Lutheran Church, 1697 Lafond, in connection with Arts on Lafond. We hope to get the support to do this every Thursday.

Q: You're spending a lot of your own money to buy food you're giving away. Why?

A: I work with creative food people [such as Co-op Partners Warehouse]. I'm spending $1,300 on an order of local produce I'm self-funding this until I can't anymore.

Why? Because I want them to be sustainable too. We get $356 a month from 56 patrons. But if we had 2,000 patrons contributing $2 a month? We could do this every week. We're not asking for donations. This isn't charity. This is solidarity.

Q: How do you keep from being discouraged?

A: I've been discouraged. I have terrible moments of frustration. To sit there and you can see 400 people on LinkedIn, or 1,000 people on Instagram, saw that post and not a single one of them clicked that [sponsor] link?

But I've already succeeded. The people who I get the privilege to be around are phenomenal. It's the feeling I get [when] somebody comes in and says, "Not only is this the best meal we've had all week, but my family, we needed this."

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Meet the vegan chef who wants to make St. Paul healthier, one meal at a time - Star Tribune

The truth about God has been made plain to even the most devout atheist. The invisible God has made himself visible through what you can see.

You can think of this as the wind. You cannot see the wind of a tornado, but when you see the cone-like shape touch the ground and cloud and debris circling around, you know to run.

We can say something similar about God. You cannot see him directly he transcends creation yet you can see his fingerprints on his handiwork all around you.

An article appeared in the New York Times last year titled A Guide to Finding Faith Proving the Existence of God. The author asked the reader to imagine themselves back in a pre-Darwinian time when it made sense for an intelligent person to believe in God. Things such as the apparent orderliness of the world, natural law, the complex systems that make life possible and the vivid beauty of nature all pointed to the existence of an intelligent transcendent being.

The idea that humans were fashioned in some related way to the Universes Creator explained why humans related to the world in a peculiar way. No simpler explanation existed.

The writer then pointed out that many people today view progress in science and technology as a reason for unbelief. However, science and technology have not proven anything to the contrary. The most recent scientific discoveries only further support the idea that a divine creator brought this all about.

Recent advances in physics highlight the peculiar fittedness of this universe to support human life on earth. Recent advances in neuroscience only sharpen the difficulty of explaining human consciousness strictly through physical processes. Such discoveries as these and more were given show that modern science has only increased our reasons for believing in the existence of God.

The real reason people refuse to believe in God is not logical, rational or scientific. People simply refuse to open their eyes and see what God has made plain.

The Bible gives an answer for this blindness: For [Gods] invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:20-21)

When you see a tornado coming, though you do not see the wind, you know what to do. Run! When your eyes are opened to the fingerprints of God around you, you then know what to do. Bow down and give thanks to God.

The Rev. Michael A. Birbeck is pastor of the First Presbyterian Church Wellsboro.

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Science and technology increase reasons to believe in God: Pastor Mike's Sermon Notes - The Wellsboro Gazette

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Richard Dawkins is perched on the edge of his sofa playing his Electronic Wind Instrument (EWI), a kind of digital clarinet. He pushes a button and it imitates the sound of a cello; another button turns it into a saxophone. He plays the theme from Prokofievs Peter and the Wolf and the melody fills the sunlit living room of his Oxford apartment. For a moment, I imagine him as The Pied Piper of Atheism calling the (un)faithful to his side.

He takes the instrument from his lips and shrugs off a compliment. Im trying to get better. Would he like to play with other musicians? I think I would. The novelist Alexander McCall Smith has founded something called The Really Terrible Orchestra. I wouldnt mind joining that.

Richard Dawkins at 81.

His ambivalence in regard to his musical talent contrasts with the certainty he exhibits in his lifes work: the study of evolutionary biology and the forensic debunking of religion. His bestselling books, The Selfish Gene (1976) and The God Delusion (2006), represent a formidable one-two punch. The former puts the gene at the centre of the evolutionary process and argues that organisms you and I, for example are merely vehicles for successful genes, the kind whose coded information remains largely unchanged over tens of millions of years. The latter book a sensation on its release uses science to argue belief in God, any god, is not just wrong, but potentially dangerous.

Dawkins is 81. Dressed in an untucked white shirt and blue Prince of Wales check trousers, he is handsome in a donnish way, but reticent, almost shy. He has been married three times, but spent lockdown with a new partner. His patrician accent and measured speech seem ill-suited to overt displays of emotion, although certain lines of poetry can move him to tears.

Age has not softened his beliefs or rather his lack of belief in a higher power; dont expect a deathbed apostasy. The eulogy he has chosen for his funeral the opening lines of his 1998 book, Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and Appetite for Wonder goes to the heart of his secular, science-based world view. We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.

What will happen after he draws his last breath? It will be just like being unborn, he says evenly. A great nothing. Or rather as much of a nothing as before we were born. He recites Mark Twains famous line: I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

Dawkins supported the first atheist advertising campaign in 2008 in the UK.Credit:Getty

Dawkins is not looking forward to the process of dying because unlike a dog, Im unable to go to the vet and be painlessly put to sleep. He could visit a clinic in Switzerland perhaps? Yes, and I may well do that.

In the meantime, Dawkins has plenty of living to do and books to write. He finished two during lockdown: Flights of Fancy, an exploration of human and animal flight through the prism of evolution, and a collection of essays and journalism called Books Do Furnish a Life. The Dawkins canon will expand further next year with the publication of another title, The Genetic Book of the Dead, and a speaking tour of Australia begins in Melbourne on February 17.

Dawkins had a stroke in 2016 and uses a treadmill to ensure his organism stays healthy. He watches TV while he exercises and has become a fan of Young Sheldon, the sitcom about an American prodigy based on the science geek from The Big Bang Theory.

He looks pained when I ask him if he was a prodigy at Oundle, the private school in England he attended after his family returned from Kenya. Oh no, certainly not. I was right in the middle of school.

A late developer then? I suppose I got enthusiastic in my second year at Oxford [he studied zoology at Balliol College]. In my first year, I still thought I was at school and thought in terms of textbook education. It was only in my second year I realised that a university education is about being a scholar never touching a textbook, but going into the library and reading original research papers and thinking for yourself.

He launches into a story about the water vascular systems of starfish, how the creatures use piped seawater to animate their limbs. He was told to write an essay on the subject and it triggered a Eureka moment. You can imagine that was a heady experience for a 19-year-old. The encouragement provided by the weekly tutorial meant you didnt just read about starfish hydraulics, you eat and slept it. I had seawater pulsing through my dozing brain.

It is clear he is most happy talking about science. Science, he explains, is mostly collegiate; the arguments are passionate, but generally respectful. The same cannot be said for atheism, the subject which has made him both revered and reviled. On several occasions, he has given jocular public readings of his hate mail, much of it written by American evangelicals who accuse him of doing Satans work.

I ask him if the letters and emails ever make him fear for his safety? No, he says firmly.

Dawkins would be aware, surely, that hate mail has changed in recent years. High-profile people who express controversial opinions can be subjected to physical threats as well as insults. I am aware of that, yes. I think of what J.K. Rowling has been subjected to [the author has been accused of transphobia and sent death threats] and I think its horrifying. I have a huge sympathy for her and I admire her bravery and the fact shes willing to speak out.

Dawkins, whose own social media posts in relation to Islam and transgender issues have occasionally landed him in hot water, has admitted he occasionally censors his public statements nowadays. But when I ask him about it, he falls silent. Lets talk about my books, shall we?

The subject is closed, or so I thought. Later, we return to the topic when I ask him how he reacts to criticism. Did it hurt when the American Humanist Association withdrew its humanist of the year award in 2021 because it felt Dawkins had disparaged trans people in a tweet that said: Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss.

The short answer: yes. Im what Americans would call a liberal Im of the left politically and I tend to see myself as a feminist humanist. So, criticism from people who I think of as my people hurts me in a way that criticism from religious people doesnt I dont give a damn about that.

Dawkins wearing a T-shirt from his Foundation for Reason and Science.

What about accusations of Islamophobia? Over the past decade his comments and tweets about Islam - suggesting the Muslim call to prayer is aggressive sounding compared to the so much nicer sound of church bells; holding Islamic doctrine responsible for the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting; calling Islam the greatest force for evil in the world today - have resulted in widespread criticism.

Dawkins doesnt flinch. I am not Islamophobic. What I am is phobic against throwing gay people off buildings, against cutting off the clitorises of young girls, of forbidding the enjoyment of music and dancing. And Im phobic about making young children memorise the Koran in a language they dont speak. Im not phobic against Muslims because they are the biggest victims of Islam.

There was a time when the New Atheism, championed by big beasts of disbelief such as Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett, was adopted as a mantra by many on the left when some of his more controversial statements, would pass mostly without comment. But in the woke era, the more inclusive instincts of the left sometimes butt up against the science-based rationalism of the atheists.

Dawkins knows times have changed. But he bridles at the idea of science making an accommodation with each generations shifting sensibilities. I dont really study trends, says the man who coined the term meme. Im not one of those people who talks about generation this or generation that. Science is about more eternal things than that things that have always been true and always will be true.

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Surprisingly, he does not consider himself particularly combative and insists he is not an evangelist for atheism. That may come as a surprise to some of his opponents. I hope Im always polite, he says calmly. If I talk nonsense, I expect someone to tell me so. One of the reasons people think [Im combative] is that weve been brought up over the centuries to give religion a free pass; we dont criticise it. So, when you hear someone using even fairly mild language the sort of language that would be thought mild if it was applied to theatre or a restaurant it sounds very aggressive.

There is some evidence Dawkins view is prevailing. The results of the 2021 Australian census show 43.9 per cent identifying as Christian, down from 52.1 per cent in 2016. Meanwhile, the number of Australians reporting no religion has risen to 38.9 per cent, up from 30.1 per cent in 2016. Similar results have been seen in Europe and even the United States, where belief in God has fallen to a record low of 81 per cent, according to a recent Gallup poll.

At the same time, religion is on the rise in Africa and Asia, a phenomenon Dawkins calls very discouraging. His explanation: Education in Africa is largely in the hands of missionaries both Christian and Muslim and getting to the children is historically what religions have been about.

Would he really like to live in a truly secular, post-religious society? Oh yes, I think the world would be a much happier place. He pauses. Interestingly, Christopher Hitchens said he wouldnt like that because he wouldnt have anyone to argue with.

An Evening with Richard Dawkins, Melbourne Plenary, February 17, and Darling Harbour Theatre Sydney, February 18. Tickets on sale now, http://www.tegdainty.com

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Why Richard Dawkins doesnt fear the great nothing that awaits at the end - The Age

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Heres a problem you never knew existed: Christian furries are worried people will come after them for being Christians.

Thats the premise of a Religion News Service article by Riley Farrell, who spoke with leaders of the Christian Furry Fellowship (Bringing the Good News to the Furry Fandom) about the two things they feel obligated to hide from people in their lives: their faith and their fursonas.

Its one thing to hide behind a costume where you can let your avatar represent you. But when you feel most at home in a furry subculture thats more atheist/agnostic than Christian, and very welcoming to and accepting of LGBTQ people, what happens when youre a conservative Christ-follower who believes most of the furries you hang out with are Hell-bound?

Christians in the furry community are cautious about who knows about both their furry and faithful selves. Christian furries interviewed for this story, including leaders of the group that calls itself the Christian Furry Fellowship, asked to be anonymous, fearing doxxing from within the largely secular furry community for their Christian identity and ostracization from their professional lives for their furry hobby.

My furry friendships are a blessing, said one CFF organizer with a red fox fursona who asked to be called F. And for that reason, I am sad to see so much grief within the fandom that could be helped by the knowledge of the Lord.

Yeah, spare a thought for the happy furries who need more Jesus in their lives

Im having a hard time feeling sympathy for the Christians whose only goal here is to infest a community that already has to avoid the wrath of Christians in every other aspect of their lives.

The type of people who often adopt fursonas and identify as LGBTQ have to deal with legal, personal, and moral attacks from Christians who wield incredible power. Yet these conservative Christian furries, who have the kind of privilege the rest of us can only dream of, want to come into this community in order to evangelize. And they have the audacity to whine about how hard things are for them?!

Please.

The furries wont dox them for being Christian. They respect privacy. But you can bet good money that conservative Christians will keep spreading lies about furries. (They already have.)

These Christians ought to be asking why theyre so unwelcome in this subculture.

This isnt just theoretical. Even though the Christian Furry Fellowship doesnt force members to adopt any anti-LGBTQ faith statement, its certainly implicit in their beliefs:

Like many conservative Christians, its members believe that engaging in same-sex sexual relationships is wrong; having homosexual feelings alone is not. Furries who disagree with this stance can still join, S said, as long as they abide by the groups rules.

They love gay people as long as they never do anything gay. Its the same policy many evangelical churches have adopted in order to distance themselves from anti-LGBTQ extremists even though its hardly any better. LGBTQ people and their allies know exactly where those church members stand.

One of the goals of CFF is to present a different face of their faith to their fellow furries. But when they hold bigoted beliefs, how do they expect to make inroads? Furries may accept these Christians, but they do so in spite of their beliefs, not because of them.

In a way, these Christians are like the Log Cabin Republicans who are fully convinced theyre liberalizing the Republican Party on the issue of LGBTQ rights, only to realize (long after everyone else) that theyre a joke to the very people theyve been trying to change.

Instead of trying to make the furry community more accepting of Christianity, the Christians should spend their time making evangelical churches more inclusive on matters of sexual orientation and gender identity.

I doubt itll work, but at least the furries will be left alone.

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Evangelical Christian furries are worried they'll be targeted for their faith - OnlySky

Joe Rogan is a stand-up comedian, podcast host, and UFC commentator who has never held back from sharing his thoughts, no matter how divisive they might be.

This was amply illustrated during the COVID-19 pandemic when Rogan resisted the mainstream medias narrative and, in the process, polarised audiences.

Francis Foster and Konstantin Kisin, hosts of the British podcast TRIGGERnometry, were interviewed by UFC commentator Joe Rogan in episode 1848 of his hugely popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. Rogan brought up the Catholic church and the fact that no one challenged the Vatican while talking about issues that people in the US and the UK rebelled about:

The outrage is not balanced what about the Catholic church? Why isnt everybody really freaking about I was just in Italy, and one of the things thats nuts is the Vatican is a country. Its a country filled with pedophiles. Its a country filled with pedophiles and stolen art. Its a small like 100 acre country inside of a city filled with pedophiles.

The guests on Rogans show noted that while such remarks would need to be supported by evidence in the UK due to libel laws, free speech is unlimited in America. This could be demonstrated, Joe Rogan retorted. According to a BBC article, an investigation concluded that since 1950, clerical personnel in the French Catholic Church had assaulted approximately 216,000 minors, primarily males.

Its important to note that Pope Francis changed the rules of the Roman Catholic Church in 2021 to forbid child sexual assault.

Rogan has largely regarded himself as an atheist despite being raised in a Roman Catholic family. The podcaster discussed atheists in an appearance on the Hotboxin with Mike Tyson podcast and remarked that they might mistake God for other things:

Thats what a lot of people believe the problem is. Its that a lot of people dont have God and they substitute God for other things that mimic the same kind of control that religion has. And ideologies are one of those things.

However, it should be noted that Rogan has nothing against atheists, spirituality, or even the idea of religion. He enjoys analysing all angles of a subject and making observations, describing things as he sees them.

Below, you can see Joe Rogan on Mike Tysons podcast:

In a previous video, Rogan was shown discussing his understanding of religion while criticising others who seemed to believe that their faith was the only way to live.

View the video below:

Also Read:Khamzat Chimaev promises to eat Nate Diaz for breakfast in their upcoming fight,

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"The Vatican is a country filled with pedophiles" - Joe Rogan wonders why there isn't a public uproar against... - The Sportsrush

There can be no doubt about it: Religion, especially Christianity while still powerful in American culture is in decline. Fewer than half of Americans even belong to a churchor other house of worship. Rates of church attendance are in a freefall, as younger Americans would rather do anything with their precious free time than go to church. As religion researcher Ryan Burge recently tweeted, "Among those born in the early 1930s, 60% attend church weekly. 17% never attend. Among those born in the early 1950s, 32% attend weekly. 29% never attend. Among those born in the early 1990s, 18% attend weekly. 42% never attend."

In response to Americans losing interest in faith, Republicans are in a full-blown panic, lashing out and accusing everyone else liberals, schools, immigrants, pop culture, you name it for this shift in religious sentiment. Worse, more are advocating the use of force to counter this decline. If people don't want religion, well, too bad. More Republicans are arguing that Christianity should not be optional First Amendment be damned.

"There's also growing hostility to religion," Justice Samuel Alito recently whined, in response to criticism of recent Supreme Court decisions meant to foist fundamentalist beliefs on non-believers, particularly the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Republicans are justifying this turn towards compelled religious performance by whining about the empty pews in their church.

As Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service reported, increasing numbers of Republicans are ignoring the plain text of the First Amendment which says the government shall "make no law respecting an establishment of religion" in favor of the tortured myth that there's no separation of church and state. FormerOhio treasurer and failed Senate candidate Josh Mandel, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and, most troublingly, Justice Neil Gorsuch have all dismissed the idea that such a separation is mandated by the Constitution.

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Christian nationalism, the idea both that the U.S. should be an explicitly Christian nation and that the laws should enforce fundamentalist Christian beliefs, used to be an unthinkable idea in American politics. Now it'snormal among the Trumpist branch of the GOP. As Heather "Digby" Parton writes, the GOP candidate in Pennsylvania's gubernatorial race, Doug Mastriano, barely hides his Christian nationalist views. Instead, he pals around with Gab CEOAndrew Torba, who openly says things like, "We don't want people who are atheists. We don't want people who are Jewish," because this is supposedly "an explicitly Christian country."

And, of course, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has made this crystal clear, recently declaring:"We should be Christian nationalists."

This term, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a high school football coach who wants to lead Christian prayers from the 50-yard line during games, which is a direct reversal of decades of jurisprudence against coerced religious displays in public schools. Gorsuch defended the ruling by claiming that the prayer was merely a private act, despite being held in public and done in a way to make players feel they would be penalized for not joining. But right-wing groups understand fully that the ruling was meant as an open invitation to forced Christian prayer in schools. As the Washington Post reportedthis week, "activists are preparing to push religious worship into public schools nationwide." Your kid may be Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist or otherwise non-Christian, but too bad. They better recite the Lord's Prayer in class or risk being punished or ostracized.

Since the churches won't reform to be more egalitarian and pro-science, they find that these younger people are walking away altogether.

As blogger Roy Edroso documents, Republicans are justifying this turn towards compelled religious performance by whining about the empty pews in their church. He points to an op-ed by David Marcus at Fox News in which Marcus complains about declining faith and argues that the recent Supreme Court ruling will turn things around. "[I]t will be a new day forprayer in public schools. And God will operate a bit more openly," Marcus gushes.

Mandated faith is morally reprehensible and in direct violation of human rights. But it's also wrong to pin this decline in religious fervor to laws and customs protecting religious minorities from such coercion. On the contrary, if Republicans want to know who is to blame for young people abandoning the church in droves, they should look in the mirror.

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As Robert Jones of thePublic Religion Research Institute told Salon in 2017, there's "a culture clash between particularly conservative white churches and denominations and younger Americans" over issues like science, education, and gender equality. Younger people brought up in these churches increasingly reject the sexism, homophobia, and anti-science views of their elders. Since the churches won't reform to be more egalitarian and pro-science, they find that these younger people are walking away altogether.

These trends will likely only accelerate in the wake of the Roe overturn, especially as Republicans grow more fanatical in their efforts to punish Americans for having sex. All but eight Republicans in the House voted againstthe legal right to use contraception. Fewer than a quarter of them voted to support same-sex marriage rights. Both of these rights are wildly popular. Eighty-four percent of Americans believe in the right to use contraception (and over 99% of those who have had heterosexual sex have used it). Over 70% of Americans believe in the right to same-sex marriage.

The more both Republicans and the Christian establishment reject these basic rights, the more they can expect to be rejected themselves, especially by younger people.

"[T]hese days it seems the people most likely to identify themselves as Christians tend to be Republicans as well the most vicious, hateful,un-Christian sons of bitches you'd ever want to meet," Edroso writes. Sure, some people respond by seeking liberal churches. But it's simpler and easier to just give up on being a Christian altogether, to drop all that baggage.

As an atheist myself, I really don't care if large numbers of people give up religion. On the contrary, it seems like a sensible choice to me. But if Republicans don't like people losing faith, well, they need to admit they did this to themselves. If they'd moderated their views and made their churches more tolerant and welcoming places, more people would be interested in attending. And all this talk of forced prayer and Christian nationalism isn't going to help matters, but will instead make ordinary people hate them even more. As with the GOP-led book bans only leading more kids to read the forbidden books, Republican attempts to foist their beliefs on others only causes more backlash against Christianity itself.

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The backlash to Christianity: Republicans are now panicked but they only have themselves to blame - Salon

Eric Cristofher is 26 years old and lives in Curitiba, capital of Paran. Since April, he has been working for an rideshare transport company. As a Seventh-day Adventist, on Sabbaths, he sets aside this day for communion with God and rest with his family. However, it was not always like this. Several challenges and trials are part of his trajectory.

An atheist for eight years, Cristofher met Jesus at 20, and after studying the Bible, he decided to be baptized. At the time, I understood that only Jesus saves, and that's why we live here, he highlights. His clinging to the side of Christ would bring him challenges and a life of daily evangelism in his future work.

Even at the beginning of his adult life, Cristofher felt a strong desire to buy a car to evangelize. Always attentive to promotions, he awaited the dreamed-for day when he could have his own car. At that time, he understood God always meets the needs of human beings and therefore made a deal with the Lord: God, I want to have a car to serve You. If [You] give me a car, all the songs played in it will be from Rdio Novo Tempo, Cristofher recalls. He understood life as a rideshare driver would also be a ministry of evangelization, and in this context of faith and fidelity, he managed to acquire a car.

Proof of Fidelity

In addition to his activity as a rideshare driver, Cristofher was looking for a second job. He managed to schedule an interview for the position of driver in a transport company. It seemed everything was heading towards the much-desired hiring until the secretary informed him that candidates selected for the vacancy must work on Saturdays.

As Cristofher left that place with a broken heart, he prayed to God, saying he would honor the agreement made and not accept the proposal. The same day, the company secretary called to say he had been accepted for the position. He rejected it in order to honor the Sabbath commandment. In response to the young Cristofher's position, the secretary declared, "The company does not [concede] Saturday."

A week after that call, the same company returned the contact and informed Cristofher that management had talked about his situation, as they were interested in his profile, and would give the young man the opportunity to work with Saturdays off.

Excited, still not believing what had happened, Cristofher thanked Jesus for the gifts He gives to those who are faithful.

My Work, My Ministry

Currently driving through the streets of Curitiba, Cristofher is the only employee for whom the company made an exception regarding Saturdays. The young man makes the most of his two jobs to evangelize. In a ride, the passenger was going to buy drugs. My car always runs with Rdio Novo Tempo tuned in. At that moment, all I thought about was saving that boy. That's when I started talking about Jesus. Soon he started to get emotional and gave up going to that destination, he says.

Crisofher has a motto in his heart: "The car is mine and Jesus'. We are partners." He concludes, "I'm passionate about cars and all this mechanical area. My big goal in having a car has always been to evangelize and save souls for the kingdom of heaven."

This article was originally published on the South American Divisions news site

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Ex-atheist Uses Car to Show Jesus' Love on the Streets of Curitiba - Adventist News Network

A French teacher dressed in drag, strutted his stuff before students at a Wisconsin high school.

In Michigan, state attorney general Dana Nessel mocked conservatives during a civil rights summit, saying that drag queens are not a problem for kids seeking a good education.

"Drag queens make everything better. Drag queens are fun. Drag queens are entertainment. And ya know what else I'll say that was totally not poll tested? I say this: a drag queen for every school!" Nessell exclaimed.

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In school districts throughout America, parents are demanding that teachers stop instructing children about gender fluidity and Critical Race Theory. They also want pornographic materials removed from school libraries.

The authors of the new book, Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation, say socialist beliefs like these weren't introduced overnight they started creeping into U.S. public school more than one hundred years ago.

"It happened gradually, and then it happened suddenly, as Hemingway would put it," Pete Hegseth explained.

Hegseth is a best selling author, and co-host of Fox and Friends Weekend.His co-author, David Goodwin is president of the Association of Classical Christian Schools. They write that educational reformer John Dewey advocated progressive teaching in the 1920's. And in 1935, after they fled Nazis Germany, Marxists from the Frankfurt School of Social Research introduced their views to students at New York's Columbia University.

"These were all atheists. These were all socialists, or almost all of them were and their goal was social change, and they knew the schoolroom was the place they could do it. And it started with the removal of God," Hegseth said.

David Goodwin believes the biggest change sidelining Christian education occurred when the U.S. Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, removed God from the classroom.

"They gradually took prayer out of school, they then took the Bible out of school, and they then forbid really any teaching of Christian instruction in school, " explained Goodwin. "But that was the kind of the capstone of a long effort. It wasn't the beginning, it was really the end."

Also, Goodwin and Hegseth contend that progressives intentionally replaced classical Christian education with American nationalism.

"We look at our Pledge of Allegiance at least we do as conservatives and patriots and say, 'Hey, that's a great thing under God.' Well, the original pledge was written in the late 19th century by a socialist who ultimately wrote it without under God, because the pledge was meant to shift kids away comfortably from God at the center of the class, from the cross, at the center to the flag at the center of the classroom, which was an easier sell to parents at the time," Hegseth explained. "And now, of course, fast forward to today, and they're happy to get rid of the flag."

So, do Hegseth and Goodwin believe that America's elites possess a well-devised spiritual strategy that transcends politics?

"You see, we fight in terms of politics now and may win incremental battles here or there. What the left understood is they had to go to the heart of what made us who we are. What do we value? What's our vision of the good life? What do we consider our virtues?" Hegseth explained. "And when they targeted that, they targeted at the foundation of who we really are, really the current underneath the top waters of the stream of cultures, the top waters, the current is paideia underneath, and they targeted that."

Goodwin explained further, "Yes, I think if we turn to Ephesians 6,really, it's a great chapter that kind of encapsulates the responsibilities and the upbringing of you know, pretty much all the classes of society at the time, but which says, 'Fathers raise your children in the' and there's a whole bunch of words that are used there education, instruction. The two that are most commonly used are fear and admonition. All of those are derived from the one word, 'paideia.' So, it's a command of our Lord to raise children in the 'paideia' of the Lord."

But many parents who want to raise their children up in the way of the Lord have discovered they cannot afford classical educational alternatives.

Many Americans are now being forced to choose between putting gas in the tank, or food on their table so, how can they afford it?

Hegseth said it's a fair question to ask during this challenging period of skyrocketing inflation.

"I'm going to start as a parent who has three of my kids and soon all seven of them in classical education, and I'll tell you, first and foremost, it's worth every dime and I have to sacrifice in any other place to make sure they can afford it. I will. I will say, first of all, look, look inside your life and the things you spend money on, the things you value and how much are the hearts, souls, and affections. How much are your kids affections work in your mind? Kids deserve to go to a school that reinforces what you believe and teaches them to be free thinkers. Education should be number one," Hegseth insisted.

"If you love God and you love this country, how we train up the next generation will determine whether we have a republic or not in future generations. Because right now, we're pumping out kids who don't know God and hate America, and their minds are captured by indoctrination that will not perpetuate a free society."

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'It Started with the Removal of God': How Atheist-Socialists Have Fought America from Within - CBN.com

Submitted in Decemeber 2020

I have a Christmas present for all you Christians out there. This atheists going to tell you whats wrong with your religion.

Mohandas Gandhi was a Hindu who read passages from the New Testament every day. When asked if he ever contemplated converting to Christianity, he said he had, and then I met one. Who the Mahatma probably ran into is one of the plethora of hypocrites who degrade a religion that, if its original precepts are strictly followed, would lead one to a pure and righteous life. The problem isnt Christianity. Its Christians.

In 1 Peter 4:8, the Apostle says, Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins, yet many of those who call themselves Christians hate their brothers because of their race, ethnicity, religion, politics, sexual preference, social standing, or any other feature thats different from theirs.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you, said the Prince of Peace in John 14:27, yet people who profess to be his followers kill their brothers in the name of Jesus Christ. Throughout history, religion has been a major cause of war and Christians have been at the forefront. Since the Reformation, Catholics and Protestants have gone at it repeatedly, both sides professing to represent the one true way.

The Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 6:10 writes, For the love of money is the root of all evil, yet so-called Christians worship the false god of money as if it will buy their way into heaven. The only time Christ lost his cool was when he threw the money changers out of the temple.

The vast majority of Muslims just want to work, support their family, and praise Allah, but a few murderous fiends grab all the headlines with heinous and cowardly acts of violence. But theyre not being hypocrites. Theyre just following the teachings of their religion. The Quran has over 100 verses advocating killing the infidel.

Of the five major religions, Buddhism and Hinduism are primarily about love while Islam and Judaism preach a lot of hate. Christianity is divided. The New Testament is one of the most beautiful expressions of love there is. Theres much hate in the Old Testament.

Refer to Samuel I and II. When King Davids army conquered a Philistine village, they killed every man, woman, and child in it. That might be appropriate for Game of Thrones, but I expect something more loving in the holy scriptures.

I quit believing in God the same time I outed Santa Claus, and for the same reason. I figured they were both imaginary figures my parents told me about to try to get me to be good. If I was bad, Santa would put a lump of coal in my stocking. For the same sins, God would damn me to Hell. Of the two, the lump of coal seemed much worse. What does a six-year-old kid know about Hell? Anyway, it occurred to me religion was just another form of government. The objective was controlling people.

About this time, my best friend and neighbor and I started taking early Sunday morning walks to the black neighborhood a couple of blocks away to listen to the music coming from the Koinonia Baptist Church. Black folks hold their meetings early, 7:00 a.m., while the honkies cant roll out of bed and get to church until ten.

After a while, an elder noticed us and invited us inside. We realized the congregation not only sang to the Lord, but they danced for Him, too. I mean, these people knew how to worship. They did it with such passion, you could feel the spirit of the Lord filling their breasts.

Later in the morning, my friend and I would go to our boring-ass white churches where the minister was droning on about how the congregation ought to put more money in the collection plate, while the choir was offering a lifeless rendition of Bringing in the Sheaves, which was almost drowned out by the snoring coming from the pews. Looking back, I think if Id grown up in black Baptist church, I might be a devout Christian today.

I went all through Sunday school, appreciating the Bible stories for their narrative value, but convinced they were fiction. During my high school years, I attended regular services, partially because a pretty teenager depended on me for a ride to church, but also because I soaked up the quiet, contemplative atmosphere.

Im an atheist whos read the Bible cover to cover and am guided by it. Obviously, the Bible doesnt always convict. In college, I took a course called The Literature of the Bible. It approached the Bible, not as a holy book, but as a piece of literature. I learned its a magnificent text containing fascinating stories with object lessons and words to live by that can and should guide your life.

A student of history, nobody has any more admiration for the Roman Catholic Church than I do, not even any Catholics. The history of the Western Civilization in the Middle Ages is the history of the Catholic Church because thats all there was.

It established the great institutions of learning and brought order to the chaotic period of feudalism. However, if the Catholic Church is going to take credit for all that, it also must accept responsibility for the many horrors, like the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and, implicitly, the Holocaust.

My grandmother, who I lived with for four years in the 70s, was the finest Christian Ive ever known. She lived her life like Christ. Not the least bit judgmental or evangelical, when I told her of my atheism, she responded, Oh! Thats interesting.

We proceeded to have a dispassionate discussion of the foundations of her faith and the reasons for my lack thereof. My grandmother led by example. She put her character on display; her compassion, her courage, her capacity for love, her serenity, her wisdom. The unspoken message was, if you admire those qualities, follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. For me, it was a powerful temptation.

During this Christmas season, I implore all you pseudo-Christian hypocrites (you know who you are) to examine your faith and ask are you living up to the standards set by your Savior. Gandhi would approve.

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The church of the hypocrites The Sopris Sun - soprissun.com

Elon Musk resurfaced on Twitter in a big way ... this time with a pic of someone arguably more famous than him -- the Pope!!!

There's Elon at the Vatican, mugging with Pope Francis and 4 of his 7 kids, saying "Honored to meet @Pontifex yesterday," adding, "My suit is tragic."

Here's what's interesting ... Elon's talked in the past that he's an atheist -- nevertheless, the Pope is the Pope so no reason not to shake hands and have a chat.

One of the kids who did not attend -- Vivian Jenna Wilson, previously known as Xavier, who announced a few weeks back she's a transgender woman and wants no relationship whatsoever with her dad.

As for Elon's religious history ... he was not raised a Catholic, although he did attend Anglican Sunday School. He has said in the past he is not Christian.

He seems to embrace elements of Christianity, once saying "I agree with the principles that Jesus advocated. There's some great wisdom in the teachings of Jesus, and I agree with those teachings," adding, "Things like 'turn the other cheek' are very important, as opposed to 'an eye for an eye'. An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind."

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Elon Musk and 4 of His Kids Meet Pope Francis at the Vatican - TMZ