The 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. John Adams stated that without his pen, Washington’s military victories would have been in vain. In France, the revolutionaries invited him to join the National Convention in charge of drafting a new constitution. His unconditional love for freedom, however, made him allergic to “revolutionary” totalitarianism just as much as he was opposed to monarchic totalitarianism. So, Robespierre and his proto-fascist cronies had him arrested and sentenced to death. But the blade of the guillotine missed the date with his neck thanks to a mistake by the jailer in delivering condemned prisoners. Before the mistake was fixed, a future American president, James Monroe, intervened on his behalf and had him rescued. And another president, Thomas Jefferson, personally offered him political asylum.

The man we are speaking of is Thomas Paine.

Even though his name is relatively well known, it is not nearly as celebrated as one may imagine given such a wild, intense existence, and such a deep impact on history. Paine was after all the man who came up with the terms “United States of America,” and is credited by many to be the ideological father of modern democracy. So why is his face not on the dollar bills? Why is he not hanging out with Jefferson & co. on Mt. Rushmore? Why is he not given his due among the greatest American heroes?

Paine’s problem is that he didn’t die in 1792. Had he done that, his place among the pantheon of beloved founding fathers would have been assured. But instead he lived, and wrote another book entitled The Age of Reason. The result? By the time he actually died in 1809, only six people attended his funeral. The most repeated of his obituaries by the newspapers read, “he had lived long, did some good and much harm.” His supporters found themselves under relentless attacks. Thomas Jefferson’s political opponents had a field day using over and over his friendship with Paine against him. Abraham Lincoln’s friends burned a booklet he had written, in which he defended Paine’s ideas, for fear that this would irreparably ruin his reputation. Over a hundred years after Paine’s death, Theodore Roosevelt still referred to him as a “filthy little atheist.”

What exactly was it about The Age of Reason that transformed Paine into a ghost among the founding fathers? Why did he turn overnight from popular hero into a hated villain? It’s because the man took on organized religion with a furor, in an age when doing so was neither fashionable nor conducive to good health.

As he wrote, “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches … appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”

When he had composed passionate defenses of freedom against political tyranny, the masses had loved him. But now that he had composed a passionate defense of freedom against religious tyranny, they hated him. Paine hadn’t changed. It’s simply that his audience was much readier to attack political rather than religious institutions. But for Paine tyranny was tyranny regardless which adjective was attached to it. To him, sworn enemies like the king of England and Robespierre, the pope and Martin Luther were but different faces of the same evil. Whether they called themselves monarchists or revolutionaries, Catholics or Protestants, whether they indulged in inquisitions or guillotines, didn’t matter much since they were all equally addicted to totalitarianism. The Age of Reason was Paine’s declaration of war against the religious dogmatism that had squashed individual liberties over the centuries.

The fame of being a godless atheist followed Paine like a shadow forever afterwards. But the punch line in all of this is that Paine was anything but an atheist. It was precisely because he believed in God that he despised organized religions since—in his view—these turned the divine mystery into bad mythology, and projected onto God their own psychotic hopes and fears. In Paine’s brand of freedom-loving spirituality, God was something greater than any religion. And this was the belief that cost Paine his place of honor among the founding fathers.

The above is an excerpt from the new Disinformation title 50 Things You’re Not Supposed To Know: Religion, authored by Daniele Bolelli.

After Christopher Hitchens passed away, the title of his book, God Is Not Great, started trending on Twitter. Here’s how some people, mostly “Christians,” reacted:

[Click above image for more Tweets]

Thanks to a $374,000 taxpayer-funded grant, we now know that inhaling lemon and lavender scents doesn’t do a lot for our ability to heal a wound. With $666,000 in federal research money, scientists examined whether distant prayer could heal AIDS. It could not.

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine also helped pay scientists to study whether squirting brewed coffee into someone’s intestines can help treat pancreatic cancer (a $406,000 grant) and whether massage makes people with advanced cancer feel better ($1.25 million). The coffee enemas did not help. The massage did.

NCCAM also has invested in studies of various forms of energy healing, including one based on the ideas of a self-described “healer, clairvoyant and medicine woman” who says her children inspired her to learn to read auras. The cost for that was $104,000.

More: Chicago Tribune

Some atheist scientists with children embrace religious traditions for social and personal reasons, according to research from Rice University and the University at Buffalo — The State University of New York (SUNY).

The study also found that some atheist scientists want their children to know about different religions so their children can make informed decisions about their own religious preferences.

“Our research shows just how tightly linked religion and family are in U.S. society — so much so that even some of society’s least religious people find religion to be important in their private lives,” said Rice sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund, the study’s principal investigator and co-author of a paper in the December issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

The researchers found that 17 percent of atheists with children attended a religious service more than once in the past year. The research was conducted through interviews with a scientifically selected sample of 275 participants pulled from a survey of 2,198 tenured and tenure-track faculty in the natural and social sciences at 21 elite U.S. research universities. Approximately half of the original survey population expressed some form of religious identity, whereas the other half did not.

Read more here.

In the never-ending debate over whether the United States is a Christian nation, recent events support the nay-sayers. I am referring to the troubles of Herman Cain and Joe Paterno.

How we respond to ethical conundrums often boils down to empathy. In the abortion debate, do you identify with the woman who wants an abortion or with the fetus? Concerning the federal deficit, do you identify with the wealthy person who might see his taxes rise or with the poor person who might see her unemployment benefits extended?

One purpose of the world’s great religions is to widen our circle of empathy beyond ourselves and our families to others in our community, and in the wider world. Christianity, for example, has long taught that we should empathize with “the least of these,” and particularly with the poor and oppressed (see Luke 4:18).

The morality plays we are now witnessing — the sexual harassment allegations swirling around Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain and the sexual assault charges swirling around the Penn State football program headed by former coach Joe Paterno — provide an opportunity to assess just where our collective empathy lies …

Read more here.

Michael Martin makes a few good points regarding the claim that without religion there is no basis for morality:

Is Theistic Morality Necessarily Objectivist?:

Let us assume for the moment that the Biblical position on rape is clear: God condemns rape. But why? One possibility is that He condemns rape because it is wrong. Why is it wrong? It might be supposed that God has various reasons for thinking rape is wrong: it violates the victim’s rights, it traumatizes the victim, it undermines the fabric of society, and so on. All of these are bad making properties. However, if these reasons provide objective grounds for God thinking that rape is wrong, then they provide objective grounds for others as well. Moreover, these reasons would hold even if God did not exist. For example, rape would still traumatize the victim and rape would still undermine the fabric of society even. Thus, on this assumption, In this case, atheists could provide objective ground for condemning rape–the same grounds used by God.

Let us suppose now that rape is wrong because God condemns it. In this case, God has no reasons for His condemnations. His condemnation makes rape wrong and it would not be wrong if God did not condemned it. Indeed, not raping someone would be wrong if God condemned not raping. However, this hardly provides objective grounds for condemning rape: Whether rape is right or wrong would be based on God’s arbitrary condemnation. On this interpretation, if atheists can provide no objective grounds for condemning rape, they are no worse off than theists. However, as we have seen, there is no reason to suppose that they cannot provide such grounds.

Read more here.

Once upon a time a very, very angry man named “god” created the world, got pissed off at everybody and killed them all with a flood, except for his buddy Noah and his 2 live crew.

Later God decided everyone is so lame that he chose his “chosen people” to give a plot of real estate to while telling everyone else to fuck off, ordered some ethnic cleansings to clear out the area and so forth.

Still finding nearly all people to be unbearable (and who can blame him, really?) this god person decided, out of the kindness of his heart, to send his only son to be brutally tortured and savagely murdered so that he won’t have to send us all into a lake of hell fire for all eternity …

More on Eric Allen Bell

As someone raised evangelical, I realize anti-evolutionists believe they are defending the Christian tradition. But as a seminary graduate now training to be a medical scientist, I can say that, in reality, they’ve abandoned it.

In theory, if not always in practice, past Christian theologians valued science out of the belief that God created the world scientists study. Augustine castigated those who made the Bible teach bad science, John Calvin argued that Genesis reflects a commoner’s view of the physical world, and the Belgic confession likened scripture and nature to two books written by the same author.

These beliefs encouraged past Christians to accept the best science of their day, and these beliefs persisted even into the evangelical tradition. As Princeton Seminary’s Charles Hodge, widely considered the father of modern evangelical theology, put it in 1859: “Nature is as truly a revelation of God as the Bible; and we only interpret the Word of God by the Word of God when we interpret the Bible by science.”

In this analysis, Christians must accept sound science, not because they don’t believe God created the world, but precisely because they do …

Read more here.

_______

Women are God-fearing and don’t challenge institutions. Men, on the other hand, are skeptical and rational, and go out of their way to publicly call bullshit on faith and religion — which is why today’s well-known secular thinkers, especially in the ranks of the New Atheism movement, are all male.

These statements should sound ridiculous because, of course, they are. From Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the founder of American Atheists, whose 1963 Supreme Court lawsuit brought an end to prayer in public schools, to Sergeant Kathleen Johnson, who started an organization for atheists in the United States military, to Debbie Goddard, founder of African Americans for Humanism, countless women have worked as successful atheist activists. They’ve penned books, run organizations, and advocated on behalf of religiously repressed citizens. But you might not guess that from the popular portrayal and perception of atheism in America, which overwhelmingly treats the contemporary class of non-God-fearing freethinkers (also known as secularists, skeptics, and nonbelievers) as a contentious, showboating boys’ club …

Read the whole story via Bitch Magazine

Poster A:  religion is stupid

Poster B:  YOU’RE stupid

Sometimes it’s a little more eloquent, but this is the bare bones of it. Not very useful, nor very informative. This I think we can agree on.  So how does one go about creating a better, more informative dialogue? Can it even be done? One side believes the other to be irrational, delusional, utilizing a sort of maladaptive coping mechanism to either protect oneself from the harsh realities of life or as an easy way to answer the hard questions with which life presents us. Coming from the other direction, one side believes the other to be narrow-minded, hypocritical (“atheism is just another faith!”) and every bit as dogmatic as their opponents. Is there any ground between the two camps wherein a discussion can be had?

I believe so, and I think I’ve got the way to do it. First one must ask why the discussion even needs to take place. When these discussions occur, one may hear an oft-repeated cry for tolerance: “Why does everyone have to argue about this? Why can’t you just believe want you want to believe and let others do the same?”

Well, the problem is person x may believe that everyone needs to believe as they do, or that the laws of the land need to reflect person x’s religious beliefs because they are the basis for all morality. Allowing people to believe whatever they want means allowing them to act however they want, which means allowing moral crimes to occur. Person y believes that person x’s beliefs infringe upon their personal freedom by influencing the policies of whatever organizations that have an effect on person y’s life. So to answer the question of “why can’t we just let everyone believe whatever they want to believe”, it is because other people’s beliefs will affect you in real ways. We all share this ball of mud hurtling through space, and the things we believe can dictate how we act and how we believe other people should act. Other people’s beliefs don’t just stay in their head.

So now that we agree the discussion is inevitable, how can we go about it properly? If our goal is to have an informed and informative discussion in which there is a frank exchange of ideas, opinions and facts, how can we ensure that happens?

A productive way to move forward is to lay out some questions that will get to the heart of the discussion in a lucid, easy-to-follow way. For your consideration I have borrowed a set of questions from a fellow I speak with fairly often on Liminal Nation, a message board devoted to an “intelligent and visible” discussion on religion, occultism and associated fields. I will provide my own meager answers as examples, as well as to hopefully begin a rational discussion on the topic.

1.  What was the origin of religion? Can its origin be meaningfully traced at all?

I often hear atheists describe the origins of religion as proto-men drawing pictures on the walls of caves, of legends and superstitions from a time when our brains were wired up different and we were hearing voices in our heads. Religion comes from a time when we really didn’t know a lot about the world around us so we filled in the gaps with ideas that, from the perspective of the 21st century, seem silly, out-dated, and most importantly false.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. “Religion” and “spirituality” are not synonymous. I grind my teeth when I hear people say “I don’t go for organized religion; I prefer a non-specific spirituality”. The reason is simple: there is no such thing as unorganized religion. Religion is an organized set of spiritual beliefs and rituals. It arose when mankind began to get itself more organized. There was a time when magic, science, and religion were considered the same thing and were generally handled by the same person. There is one religious tradition that all cultures on all continents share: Shamanism. The shaman was the person who would “travel” to the Other Worlds, returning with knowledge or power given to him by spirits or gods or whomever one runs into in the Other Worlds handing out knowledge and power. But at some point in the development of mankind, magic and religion began to separate.  It’s useful to consider when priests began to become separate entities from magicians. They became two separate jobs, performing different duties. The priest ran the rituals and served the public through the duties of an office in an organized religion.

The follow up question is very important, and it has quite a bit to do with what I was just talking about. Can this moment, this separation, be traced meaningfully? What if it can’t? More importantly, if religion IS a product of the past, why is it still around? Why is it still very, very popular? This leads us to the next question…

2. What functions does religion serve?

This is a difficult question to answer. There are many different religions, and many different people following these religions, and many different interpretations of the same religion. Attempting to answer this question seems to involve trying to get inside the heads of religious people.

Fortunately, there are ways to begin answering it. One can look to history to see what role religion has played in different countries at different times. I’ll leave this to others to investigate, but I can offer answers from my own experience.

When people ask me about my religious beliefs, I usually make a joke or brush it off or distract them or ignore it completely. I do this not because I don’t enjoy talking about religion, but because I don’t want to disclose that I worship Hermes Trismegistus, a fusion of the Greek deity Hermes and the Egyptian deity Thoth. Aside from the fact that it would break my dyed-in-the-wool Southern Baptist mother’s heart to learn I was involved with a *GASP* pagan deity, and thus am barely a step above worshiping Satan outright, in these times it is still considered odd to have a DIY religion or be involved with a deity whose worship insignificant numbers dropped off at least a thousand years ago.  It leads to dumb and occasionally insulting questions that I would prefer not to hear.

But the question is “what role does religion serve in my life”.  To be blunt, it helps me achieve my goals.  There is a style to Hermes Trismegistus, a way of operating, a style that I appreciate and want to incorporate into my own life. I find it graceful and a useful way to get what I want.  The objective existence of Hermes Trismegistus is unimportant; what matters is whether or not the things I do in regard to my religion actually help me accomplish my goals.

3. To what extent does religion serve as a psychological crutch for some people?  Does religion have legitimate functions other than as a psychological crutch?

I just told everyone that my own religion is basically a tool, a method for adjusting my behavior to get what I want, so I can’t deny that it functions as a tool. I wouldn’t call it a crutch; I can (and did for quite some time) get along without it with no adverse effects. I would not be limping along, psychologically-speaking. But what of other religions, specifically those that offer a “happy ending” for folks when they die?  What about those that offer (or demand) a set of behavior that takes care of a lot of decisions one runs into in daily life? How deep does that go, and is it a legitimate function of religion? Should it be? Marx’s famous phrase “Religion is the opiate of the masses”, is commonly thrown about. But few mention the sentence that is directly prior to that, wherein Marx calls religion “the heart in a heartless world”.

Since Abrahamic faiths are by and large the most popular in the west, it is obviously a good step to answer these questions as they pertain to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

4. Is there a significant connection between religion (as opposed to other aspects of human culture) and violence?  Between religion and morality?  Between religion and love?

This is similar to the question of what role religion plays in one’s life. This is a very meaty topic, so I won’t attempt to give any quick answers. I  hope this gets explored by others, though. These questions are important when one considers religion’s influence on morality and law, two areas where one’s religion intrudes on another’s religion (or lack thereof) and life in general.

5. Can Atheism be considered a faith?

This question, or rather answers to this question, are proposed very often here. Is the lack of a belief a belief, can atheism be considered a “belief” like Christianity?

Here’s a hint: no.

Militant atheists seem dogmatic, yes. They place a great value on reason and the scientific method, and since neither has produced any proof or anything close to proof, they don’t believe there is a god.  Is that the same as saying they believe there isn’t a god? Yes. Is it the same as a religion? No. The difference comes in the word “believe”, which is being used in two different ways when one says one “believes” in god and when one says one “believes” there is no god.  It’s a shame that one word can have two very different meanings, but that’s English for you.

For instance: I believe the sun will rise tomorrow. I have sufficient evidence for this. The belief is based on things like prior events and a heliocentric view of the solar system.  A belief in god relies on something very different, something called “faith”. Which leads us to the next question…

6. What’s up with faith?  I mean, what’s the deal there?

Okay, so it’s not phrased very eloquently. The same fella who offered these questions offered this quote from Sam Harris’s The End of Faith:

It takes a certain kind of person to believe what no one else believes. To be ruled by ideas for which you have no evidence (and which therefore cannot be justified in conversation with other human beings) is generally a sign that something is seriously wrong with your mind. Clearly there is sanity in numbers. And yet, it is merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts, while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window. And so, while religious people are not generally mad, their core beliefs absolutely are. This is not surprising, since most religions have merely canonized a few products of ancient ignorance and derangement and passed them down as though they were primordial truths. This leaves us believing what no sane person could believe on his own. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions.

Of what use is faith? Where does it crop up besides religion, and is it treated the same way when it does? Is it an essentially human thing? What is a life with faith like compared to a life without?

It is my hope that these questions lead to a discussion between atheists and those that follow a religion that isn’t based on insults and questioning the sanity of each other.

Philip Kitcher

Gary Gutting profiles the emerging brand of atheism espoused by Columbia University professor Philip Kitcher, in the New York Times:

Led by the biologist Richard Dawkins, the author of “The God Delusion,” atheism has taken on a new life in popular religious debate. Dawkins’s brand of atheism is scientific in that it views the “God hypothesis” as obviously inadequate to the known facts. In particular, he employs the facts of evolution to challenge the need to postulate God as the designer of the universe. For atheists like Dawkins, belief in God is an intellectual mistake, and honest thinkers need simply to recognize this and move on from the silliness and abuses associated with religion.

Most believers, however, do not come to religion through philosophical arguments. Rather, their belief arises from their personal experiences of a spiritual world of meaning and values, with God as its center.

In the last few years there has emerged another style of atheism that takes such experiences seriously. One of its best exponents is Philip Kitcher, a professor of philosophy at Columbia. (For a good introduction to his views, see Kitcher’s essay in “The Joy of Secularism,” perceptively discussed last month by James Wood in The New Yorker.)

Instead of focusing on the scientific inadequacy of theistic arguments, Kitcher critically examines the spiritual experiences underlying religious belief, particularly noting that they depend on specific and contingent social and cultural conditions. Your religious beliefs typically depend on the community in which you were raised or live. The spiritual experiences of people in ancient Greece, medieval Japan or 21st-century Saudi Arabia do not lead to belief in Christianity. It seems, therefore, that religious belief very likely tracks not truth but social conditioning. This “cultural relativism” argument is an old one, but Kitcher shows that it is still a serious challenge. (He is also refreshingly aware that he needs to show why a similar argument does not apply to his own position, since atheistic beliefs are themselves often a result of the community in which one lives.)…

[continues in the New York Times]

One response to the question is commentary on monotheism’s Apocalyptic “literalists” — people who sincerely want to see the world end and are actively trying to bring about its destruction.

Atheists see it as their moral duty to attack the root of such beliefs — which just happens to be belief in God. And it’s fair to say this is all part of the Atheistic consensus.

So atheists are literally trying to save the world … delusions of grandeur, anyone?

Time and time again I can’t help but notice the parallels between atheists and religious types: the bitter hostility towards anyone who doesn’t just choke down their ideology; the inconsistent belief system and subsequent rationalizations that sidestep the issue by exploiting our human emotions.

Let’s examine the so-called ‘facts.’ The [atheist] argument totally hinges on morality, principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior, that life has intrinsic value. But considering Science, that yardstick by which atheists tell us measures truth, has not provided meaning for the universe — logically, this must also apply to our very existence. So again, if life ends when you die, and the universe itself is going to ’starve to death’ from entropy, or collapse in on itself from the big crunch, then what are you clinging on to? What does it matter if we all die in a fiery Armageddon? Why do you care that people disagree with you? Atheists have yet to answer such a question in terms of: materialism, logic and objectivity. Because when you get down to it, respect for life (the foundation of morality) has no objective basis — its all rooted in subjective emotionalism.*

* What I find fascinating is that this is such a source of contention for nearly everybody (again I’m referring to atheists and religious types). No one wants to believe morality is essentially irrational. But why should that be a problem? Why can’t we be content with morality as self-validating; its own reward? What I find ‘illogical’ is the fear of being illogical. Everyone wants to believe in the objective supremacy of their beliefs — from their taste in fashion & entertainment to their ideas about God, the universe and everything. Everyone wants to be perfect. And isn’t it so much harder to feel perfect when you know someone out there thinks you’re 100% wrong about everything. The tacit assumption is that we can only have world peace when everyone believes the same thing. However, I would argue our behavior has more empirical consequence than belief itself; actions speak louder than ideas. IF people would acknowledge their feelings of empathy and act accordingly — then all the differing opinions in the world could never kill anyone.

Theologically speaking I can relate to atheism, theism & agnosticism. I can relate to the atheistic belief that self-accountability and autonomy are our most noble goals; I can relate to theism because I believe an intelligent force surrounds us, and I can relate to agnosticism because this intelligent force must have aspects that are beyond my current comprehension … so why bother having opinions about it? I consider myself a Pantheist and it doesn’t bother me I’m a minority — it’s not my mission in life to make you believe I’m right — because I believe the distinction between truth and lies is irrelevant. However, I do believe in morality, and it doesn’t bother me my beliefs are inconsistent; I’m not concerned with being perfect.

** As far as those Apocalyptic “literalists” go — you might worry about ‘what to do with all those ‘CRAZIES,’ but I say there is no revolution; ***because you can’t change people with force, intimidation or name-calling. . . all that can ever accomplish is make them more fanatical. DALE CARNAGIE. VINDICATED! lol — what/ev,

EPILOGUE: Post Observations.

If you sincerely want to show people the error of their ways, specifically in regard to the Apocalyptic “literalist,” you’re not going to do it by calling them “EVIL” — all name-calling will ever accomplish is make them more fanatical. The best you can do is espouse an alternate interpretation of the Apocalypse and hope for the best. Like maybe start by pointing out the original Greek translation of “Apocalypse” LITERALLY means “lifting of the veil”; a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind. Far from being a horrible experience, Apocalypse represents the revealing of the true nature of things. It ushers in an era of forgotten freedoms and unprecedented clarity. This “lifting of the veil” will set us free from the misery that has been a result of our ignorance in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception.

“Make the most of life on earth, because it will probably be the only one you get”. The Rev Klaas Hendrikse can offer his congregation little hope of life after death, and he’s not the sort of man to sugar the pill. Mr Hendrikse presides over the Sunday service at the Exodus Church in Gorinchem, central Holland.

It is part of the mainstream Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN), and the service is conventional enough, with hymns, readings from the Bible, and the Lord’s Prayer.

“Personally I have no talent for believing in life after death,” Mr Hendrikse says. “No, for me our life, our task, is before death.” Nor does Klaas Hendrikse believe that God exists at all as a supernatural thing. “When it happens, it happens down to earth, between you and me, between people, that’s where it can happen. God is not a being at all… it’s a word for experience, or human experience.”

His book Believing in a Non-Existent God led to calls from more traditionalist Christians for him to be removed. However, a special church meeting decided his views were too widely shared among church thinkers for him to be singled out. A study by the Free University of Amsterdam found that one-in-six clergy in the PKN and six other smaller denominations was either agnostic or atheist.

Dienie van Wijngaarden, who’s been going to Exodus Church for 20 years, is among lay people attracted to such free thinking. “I think it’s very liberating. [Klaas Hendrikse] is using the Bible in a metaphorical way so I can bring it to my own way of thinking, my own way of doing.”

Wim De Jong says, “Here you can believe what you want to think for yourself, what you really feel and believe is true.”

Churches in Amsterdam were hoping to attract such people with a recent open evening. At the Old Church “in the hottest part of the red light district”, the attractions included “speed-dating”.

Professor Hijme Stoffels of the VU University Amsterdam says it is in such concepts as love that people base their diffuse ideas of religion. “In our society it’s called ’somethingism’,” he says. “There must be ’something’ between heaven and earth, but to call it ‘God’, and even ‘a personal God’, for the majority of Dutch is a bridge too far.

“Christian churches are in a market situation. They can offer their ideas to a majority of the population which is interested in spirituality or some kind of religion.” To compete in this market of ideas, some Christian groups seem ready virtually to reinvent Christianity. They want the Netherlands to be a laboratory for Christianity, experimenting with radical new ways of understanding the faith.

Four years ago Sarah Phillips moved into her Sutton Lakes home and said she has never had a problem, until now. “We’ve had it out about a month. We haven’t had any complaints from the neighbors…, said Phillips.

Phillips has posted a Jesus sign in her yard and there was no reaction from anyone until she received a letter from the Sutton Lakes Homeowners Association telling her having it in her yard is a violation of the covenant. “It is basically telling us to remove the sign, under the bylaws,” she said. Phillips said she did sign the Covenant, Conditions and Restrictions, or CCR, but never agreed to allow the free exercise of her religion to be prohibited.

More on First Coast News

NEW YORK — The installation of a cross-shaped steel beam at the Sept. 11 memorial at ground zero is unconstitutional, a national atheist group argued in a lawsuit filed Wednesday, asking a judge to order it removed or request that other religions and nonreligious views be equally represented at the site.

The museum is a public institution and should not reflect a specific religion, said the American Atheists, a nonprofit group aimed at safeguarding separation of church and state that filed the civil lawsuit in Manhattan State Supreme Court.

The cross was found amid the wreckage from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by a construction worker who said he stumbled onto a miracle. It was moved to the ground zero site last weekend from a temporary post after a blessing by a Catholic priest and is to become part of the permanent collection of the National September 11th Memorial and Museum. The memorial will open this year on the 10th anniversary of the attack; the museum, which is mostly underground, will open next year.

The Rev. Brian Jordan, who was instrumental in the preservation of the cross, celebrated Mass under the twisted steel beams and said people from other religions came to pray collectively. He said the 2-ton, 20-foot-high T-beam provided comfort to hundreds of suffering people — and continues to do so.

Read More: Associated Press via the Wall Street Journal

A self-confessed atheist, Niko Alm first applied for the license three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons. Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.

After receiving his application the Austrian authorities had required him to obtain a doctor’s certificate that he was “psychologically fit” to drive.

Mr Alm’s pastafarian-style application for a driving licence was a response to the Austrian recognition of confessional headgear in official photographs. The licence took three years to come through and, according to Mr Alm, he was asked to submit to a medical interview to check on his mental fitness to drive but – straining credulity — his efforts have finally paid off.

More on the BBC

A group that has already criticized Texas Gov. Rick Perry for his involvement with a Christian prayer rally scheduled for Reliant Stadium next month went a step further Wednesday and filed a federal lawsuit in Houston to stop him from promoting it.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation claims Perry’s association with the “The Response: A Call to Prayer for a National in Crisis” breaches the separation of church and state.

The complaint, filed in the Southern District on behalf of five named individuals who live in Houston, notes the plaintiffs are “nonbelievers who support the free exercise of religion, but strongly oppose the governmental establishment and endorsement of religion ….”

The lawsuit seeks an injunction barring Perry’s official involvement. A Perry spokesman said he won’t back away from the event.

Read More: Houston Chronicle