AOL News has a new home! The Huffington Post.
Click here to visit the new home of Politics Daily!Hot on HuffPost:
Controversial Book On Obama Appears To Have Lifted Key Quote
Walker Recall Effort Struggles To Gain Momentum
atheists
Atheists Demand Equal Time at New D.C. Mayor's Prayer Service
By David Gibson - Politics DailyHere's a brain-teaser for the day: The capital's leading lobby of atheists and humanists is complaining because they have been excluded from an ecumenical prayer service on Sunday morning that will launch inaugural festivities ahead of Mayor-elect Vincent Gray's swearing-in. "We would prefer that a government function such as an inauguration not be entwined with religion," said Amanda Knief, government relations manager for the Secular Coalition for America (SCA). "However, we find it overtly discriminatory when we request to be part of an ecumenical prayer service that is supposed to unite ...
Does a New Life Form Mean God Is Dead?
By David Gibson - Politics DailyThe discovery of what is apparently an entirely new form of life -- a bacteria based on toxic arsenic rather than phosphorus, one of the six building blocks of all life on Earth -- has set the scientific world abuzz, prompting White House inquiries to NASA and threatening to upend longstanding beliefs about biology. But some say the announcement also signals an end to religious faith, or at least the beginning of the end, because it implies that life can spring forth unexpectedly on Earth or even on other planets, and in unexpected forms -- developments that seem to run counter to literal ...
Atheist Advertising -- or Evangelizing? The Holiday Ad Blitz Starts Early
By David Gibson - Politics DailyIt's two weeks before Thanksgiving and atheists who have tried to counter the religious reasons for the season with good tidings of godlessness have outdone themselves this year: They've launched publicity campaigns with a bigger ad buy than ever. The largest is a $200,000 effort by the American Humanist Association (AHA) that includes a television spot that aired on NBC's "Dateline" Friday evening as well as other television commercials -- a first for such an organization -- plus advertisements in national and regional print media. This year's AHA campaign differs from last season's more ...
Atheist Christopher Hitchens Vows to Fight Religion, Cancer, and Deathbed Conversion
By David Gibson - Politics DailyUnrepentant despite the ongoing ravages of esophageal cancer and the chemotherapy that is supposed to keep it at bay, atheist and controversialist Christopher Hitchens is vowing to "continue to write polemics against religious delusions, at least until it's hello darkness my old friend." One of the delusions he targets in his regular column in the latest edition of Vanity Fair magazine is the notion that the cancer is divine retribution for his irreligious spoutings, and in particular a punishment aimed at his voice, which has for years been the famously plummy medium for many of his ...
Secularist Schism Widens, Threatening a Movement's Finances -- and Future?
By David Gibson - Politics DailyFor decades, and long before the recent arrival of ballyhooed and bully "New Atheists" like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, Paul Kurtz and the secular humanist movement that he birthed in the 1970s represented the gravitational center of unbelief in America. While atheist leaders like the late Madalyn Murray O'Hair ("Mad, Mad, Madalyn") grabbed headlines with her court battles against prayer in schools -- and almost any other fight she could pick -- Kurtz, a retired University of Buffalo philosophy professor with a scholar's bearing and 50 books to his name, was developing a ...
Atheists Promise to Care for Pets After Rapture
By David Knowles - AOL News(Feb. 14) – If, as millions of fundamentalist Christians believe, the Rapture is imminent, who will take care of the pets of those who are suddenly spirited away to heaven? Derived from an interpretation of passages of the New Testament (most notably 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17), Rapture prophecy posits that Jesus Christ will return to Earth to gather his disciples for eternal life in God's kingdom, while leaving behind those who have not met a standard of piety to face the rule of Satan. Unfortunately, pets may not be eligible for eternal salvation. eternal-earthbound-pets.com A New ...
Mother Teresa: Should a Saint Get Postal Service's Stamp of Approval?
By David Gibson - Politics DailyIf anything qualifies as a no-brainer, it would seem to be honoring Mother Teresa of Calcutta on a stamp. Not really the biggest laurel the late Nobel Prize winner and sure-fire saint will ever merit, but nothing to sniff at -- especially given the price of a stamp these days. But of course, you knew someone would find something objectionable about the decision, and in this case it is The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a leading atheist organization that is organizing a boycott and letter-writing campaign against the stamp, which was one of 23 new issues the United States Postal Service ...
Ho, Ho . . . Whoa! Secularists Get the Holiday Spirit
By David Gibson - Politics DailyPerhaps the moral to this story is, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." After years of waging the so-called "Christmas wars" -- on the side opposing religious displays in public spaces -- it seems non-believers are getting into the spirit of the season. The American Humanist Association unveiled its holiday ads on Monday, and they feature a bunch of smiling revelers wearing Santa caps in a pitch that looks like just about every other holiday come-on, complete with red-and-green color scheme. But the giveaway is the jolly message broadcast in capital letters: "NO GOD?. . . NO PROBLEM!" The ...
Atheism's Rebirth -- Just in Time for Christmas
By Delia Lloyd - Politics DailyFirst, there were the summer camps. Then came the de-baptisms. Next up? A best-selling book entitled "The Atheist's Guide to Christmas." Is it just me, or does atheism seem to be enjoying a renaissance?At first, I thought it was just a U.K. thing. It started last January when a non-profit group, The Atheist Bus Campaign, went on-line to solicit donations to equip 30 buses in Great Britain with the slogan: "God Probably Doesn't Exist: So Stop Worrying and Enjoy Life." Its founders were fed up with the "Jesus Said" billboards that ran on British buses in June 2008 (apparently condemning ...
When Your Pet is 'Left Behind'
By David Gibson - Politics DailyNo, this isn't about some end-of-vacation nightmare with the family dog. It's about the Rapture -- that is, when Jesus returns in glory in the Second Coming and sweeps all those who are saved up to Heaven, leaving the rest of you -- er, maybe us? -- despairing. Or confounded. Or finally cooking on that awesome backyard grill your Christian neighbor (now happily Raptured) would never let you borrow while he was around. The theology (eschatology, really) of pre-Tribulation beliefs, or Premillennial Dispensationalism, or Postmillenialism gets as complicated as it sounds. (Or see this graphic if ...
Follow Politics Daily
POPULAR
- Nancy Pelosi Confirms House May Skip Up or Down Vote on Senate Health Bill
- Debrahlee Lorenzana: A Double Take on Those Double D's
- Palin Earnings Estimated at $12 Million
- Campbell Brown Quits CNN With Shockingly Frank Farewell
- The Five Most Racist Obama Cartoons?
- Soraya M., Stoned to Death for Being an "Inconvenient Wife''
- Jimmy Carter Leaves Church Over Treatment of Women
- No posts are available.
News From Our Partners
- Dragon arrives at space station in historic 1st
- Picking new leader, Egyptians search for superman
- Egyptians vote in first free presidential vote
- Moon chips from Vegas casino mogul sent to NASA
- Egyptians vote to rid nation of autocratic rule
- More Stories »
- Romneys at Home in Elite World of Dressage Riding
- Rudy Giuliani: Mitt's Great. I'm Just Better
- 'Masters of the Universe' Sure Have Fragile Egos
- Romney: My Mistakes 'Haunt Me'
- Newt Lauds Romney: He's Like Eisenhower
- More Stories »
- The 7 Best Moments from Sunday Talk
- Know Your Enemy
- Cannes’s Mischief Maker
- Cut It Out, Internet Bullies!
- Cut It Out, Internet Bullies!
- More Stories »
- Ambition Counteracting Ambition
- Robert Blagojevich Speaks Out
- In Iowa, Obama Calls Romney's Words 'A Cow Pie of Distortion'
- In Iowa, Obama Calls On Congress to Act on Clean Energy Tax Credits
- Romney Has Interesting Morning in Inner-City Philly
- More Stories »
Top News
More News
More on Aol
Local News
More Blog/Sites
Sites and Services
HuffPost Politics