Comments about ‘atheists’ put off nonreligious voters Newly elected Austrailian prime minister Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female prime minister, is not a religious person. President Barack Obama is the first U.S. president to acknowledge nonreligious Americans in his Inaugural Address. However, Gov. Mitch Daniels, who is being considered by some as a candidate for president [...]

The unbelievers – What happens when a minister decides there’s no God? Walk into a church on a Sunday and you might find that a few of the people in the pews are atheists — there because they like the old hymns or the comforting murmur of the liturgy or because their spouses insist. Or [...]

Irish atheists challenge blasphemy law An atheist group in the Irish Republic has defied a new blasphemy law by publishing a series of anti-religious quotations on its website. Atheist Ireland says it will fight any action taken against it in court. The quotations include the words of writers such as Mark Twain and Salman Rushdie, [...]

LAPD Ends Relationship with Boy Scouts, Cites Anti-Gay Policy A youth program associated with the Los Angeles Police Department will no longer be affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America, due to the BSA’s policy of excluding gays, atheists, and agnostics. The Explorer’s Program, which the Boy Scouts created in 1949, has served since 1962 [...]

Blair discusses threat to world religions World religions are threatened by forces both from within themselves and from the wider world, said Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, today. Mr Blair, speaking at Georgetown University in the US for the Common Word conference of Muslim and Christian scholars, said the key to harmony in [...]

Richard Dawkins launches children’s summer camp for atheists The evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion, who stepped down from his post at Oxford University last year, has subsidised the five-day camp in Somerset. Camp-goers will be given lessons in rational scepticism, as well as sessions in moral philosophy and evolutionary biology. There will [...]

Devoted Atheists Grow in Numbers, Goals Valerie Celeste Coffey is a woman on a mission. For six years, her small group of local atheists has gathered to exchange bemused stories about the things Christians do in worship and swap tips for raising confident skeptics. But on a recent Wednesday evening here at the Java Room [...]