Tag Archives | Freedom Of Religion

Slandering the Heretics

By on May 31, 2012 in News 40

Heretics“There is a war going on for your mind;” a war being fought on battlefields and on billboards, in universities and Sunday schools, in blogs and boardrooms, capitol buildings and city parks. From Wall Street to Main Street, from Kabul to Kansas City, the combined facts of seven thousand years of civilization and seven billion human beings struggling to eat, breathe, live and believe are all coming to a head. It has many names and many forms, running the gamut from Terror to Women to Drugs to Christmas—all inextricably linked by the immense power of ideas and the belief systems that propagate them.

In the United States, as we move unsteadily into the second decade of the new millennium, there are two reigning champions vying for supremacy over the American soul. These sometimes united, sometimes conflicting ideologies are called Christianity and Consumerism—the Pillars of Hercules for the modern age—shakily supporting the fading glory of the last of the global superpowers.… Read the rest

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A Pastafarian Is A U.S. Soldier (Finally)

By on May 12, 2012 in News 3

FSMThanks for the find from Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing:

Justin Griffith, an atheist in the US military, tells the story of how he ended up with ATHEIST/FSM on his dogtags. It all started when he enlisted as an atheist, only to have his recruiter record his religion as “Baptist.” Even switching recruiters didn’t end up with the error corrected. At boot camp, recruits were only allowed one “holy book” from their stated religion, so he brought The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which became the most-loved book in camp, much-borrowed and re-read by the other recruits. Even his drill sergeant liked it. Kinda.

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Republicans Rally Against ‘War On Religious Freedom’

By on April 3, 2012 in News 17

2012ValentinesTeaParty028-1AFP on the widespread belief that there is a war on Christianity in America:

Life has gone from bad to worse since Donna Sturdivant’s husband was laid off four years ago and now the thing which brings her comfort — her faith — is under threat. “We’re starting to see our religious freedom taken away. Our Christian faith is being stepped on. Like kids in the schools — they can’t talk about God,” Sturdivant, 60, told AFP. “There’s something wrong in America.”

At a recent rally in Wisconsin, Rick Santorum painted the upcoming election in stark terms: “The lights of freedom may well go out if we don’t win this election.”

Barry Dean, who like Santorum home schools his many children, is also deeply concerned about the direction of the country. “Christians are persecuted in many other countries and I think this is the next one,” said Dean, sipping a soda after the rally.

… Read the rest

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The JFK Speech That Made Rick Santorum Want to “Throw Up” (Video)

By on February 26, 2012 in News 19

I’m really wondering if the goal now of the Republican Party is to get Barack Obama re-elected. Scott Collins reports in the LA Times:

Rick Santorum has not been a frequent presence on the Sunday morning chat shows during his Republican presidential campaign. But when he shows up, he really makes an impression.

On Sunday, the former Pennsylvania senator told ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” that a 1960 speech by John F. Kennedy to Baptist ministers in Houston made him want to “throw up.” In the speech, Kennedy, then running for president, tried to reassure critics that, as a Catholic, he would not take orders from the pope and that he believed in “absolute” separation of church and state.

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10 Scariest States to Be An Atheist

By on February 21, 2012 in News 56

AtheistsInteresting article from Greta Christina on Alternet last year. How many people agree with the list?

Let’s be clear. It’s not like it’s easy to be an atheist anywhere in the U.S. Atheists are the most distrusted and disliked of all minority groups — more than blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims, immigrants, and gays and lesbians — and polls show that Americans are less likely to vote for an atheist than they are for a person in any other minority or marginalized category. And this hostility can have serious consequences, in the form of harassment, bullying, ostracism, vandalism, alienation from family, loss of jobs, and more.

But to be honest, there are parts of the country where being an atheist really isn’t all that awful. Heck, I live in one of them. There’s some bigotry, some discrimination, a fair amount of misunderstanding and even hostility … but all things considered, it’s pretty okay.

… Read the rest

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Atheist Girl In Rhode Island Faces Stream Of Death Threats

By on January 31, 2012 in News 299

Jessica Ahlquist is a 16-year-old self-described nerd who has garnered nationwide attention after successfully suing to have a giant banner emblazoned with an official school prayer removed from the auditorium of her public high school in Cranston, Rhode Island. The response has demonstrated the limits of Christian love — she has basically become the villain of her entire city, with her state representative, Peter Palumbo, called Jessica an “evil little thing” on the radio, and a sample of the online outpouring of hatred from other Cranston residents can be seen on JesusFetusFajitaFishsticks:

twitter… Read the rest

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The Filthy Little Atheist … Founding Father

By on December 30, 2011 in News 77

[Site editor's note: The following is an excerpt from the new Disinformation title 50 Things You're Not Supposed To Know: Religion, authored by Daniele Bolelli.]

Thomas PaineThe story of his life is richer and weirder than any fiction. Among his close friends were visionary poets such as William Blake as well as political icons like Benjamin Franklin. Napoleon slept with his books by his pillow, and told him statues of gold should be erected to him in every city in the universe (but the admiration was not reciprocated). Thomas Edison believed him to be one of the most brilliant minds in human history. Some of his writings rank among the greatest bestsellers of the 18th century. He participated in the two revolutions (the American and the French) that changed the political face of the modern world.

During the American Revolution, George Washington used his writings to inspire his troops to remember what they were fighting for, and even suggested that no other individual had done more for the cause of American independence.… Read the rest

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FBI Crime Maps Now ‘Pinpoint’ Average Muslims

By on October 26, 2011 in News 6

Islamic Cultural Center Of New YorkSpencer Ackerman reports on WIRED’s Danger Room:

It started out as a crimefighting tool. But over the years, an FBI effort known as “geo-mapping” evolved into something more expansive — a method to track Muslim communities, without any suspicion of a crime being committed.

Last month, Danger Room revealed that the FBI was training its agents that religious Muslims tended to be “violent” and that Islamic charity is merely a “funding mechanism for combat.” In response, both the FBI and the Justice Department promised full reviews of their training materials. But the geo-mapping effort indicates that the FBI may have more than just a training problem: The suspicion of ordinary Muslims promoted in those lectures may be spilling over into its counterterrorism tactics.

Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union acquired some of the FBI geo-maps (.pdf), like the one pictured after the jump, through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

… Read the rest

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Add Muslim College Students to the List The NYPD Has Spied On

By on October 16, 2011 in News 7

NYPDJoe Coscarelli writes in New York Magazine’s Daily Intel:

The Associated Press’s series on NYPD spying continues today with the news that Muslim students at colleges in New York were investigated covertly by the secret NYPD and CIA program that also monitored community centers, government allies, and entire neighborhoods in the years after September 11. The new report places NYPD undercover officers at schools including Brooklyn College, Baruch, Hunter, City College, Queens College, La Guardia, and St. John’s, where they sought out student radicalization. But according to experts, their methods “may have broken a 19-year-old pact with the colleges and violated U.S. privacy laws, jeopardizing millions of dollars in federal research money and student aid.”

“The government, through the police department, is working privately to destroy the private lives of Muslim citizens,” said Moustafa Bayoumi, an English professor at Brooklyn College.

“We come to the room, we talk, we chill,” said one 20-year-old student of his Islamic Society group at school.

… Read the rest

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