When religious operatives attempt to bend law and public policies to coincide with their dogmas, they at times put forth nonreligious “facts” to support their desired goal. This makes their maneuvering look less like religious imposition or outright animus. Problem is, these facts are often fictions.

Over the past dozen years, the term “New Atheism” has come into vogue, often understood as a label for a more assertive brand of nonbelief in God. In some forms it includes attempting to literally disprove God’s existence and/or aggressively criticize nearly all of religion’s influence on individuals and society.

The concept has been excoriated by conservative religious believers, as would be expected. Less expected is seeing it criticized by folks politically more moderate and liberal who see this highly visible atheism as being insufficiently concerned with social justice issues like women’s rights, racial equality, and the environment. So does atheism in general not care about such issues?

Do perceived levels of personal and societal security affect the importance of religion and religious behavior? Compelling data says “yes,” as revealed in the Existential Security Thesis (EST) of religion.

After NFL running back Arian Foster announced publicly in 2015 that he does not believe in God, one Colorado sportswriter penned a commentary saying that while he admired Foster’s honesty, “cultivating faith demands more labor than discarding faith. Foster walks the easier route.”

Nos pensées et nos condoléances vont aux victimes de la violence politique à Bruxelles.

Freethinkers of Colorado Springs

March 23, 2016

Inside the Minds and Movement of Amerca's NonBelievers 

by Joseph Langston

Sunday, April 17 at 1:30-3:30 pm
 Pine Room, Penrose Library, 20 N. Cascade Avenue 

Free and open to the public.

False choices By Ken Burrows

Conservative columnist Star Parker, who’s known for embracing creationism over evolution and who has called public schools godless “cesspools,” is fond of declaring that America faces mutually exclusive religious vs. secular existential alternatives, and only the religious option can save the country. Of same-sex marriage, she wrote in 2013 that it contradicts biblical tradition, which she insists our laws must be based on, and concluded: “We have only two options. Turn back to where we belong or watch the continuing collapse of our country.” Implying we “belong” in a biblically dominated state.

Tragedy by Groff Schroeder

Imagine a 1960’s Twilight Zone episode in which a physician discovers that a popular and profitable home safety product is actually a deadly macroscopic communicable disease agent. Despite horrific public events, more and more people find the marketing so compelling, and the product so attractive, that they not only seek out the pathogenic agent but also pay handsomely for it.

Using RFRA to abuse liberty

by Ken Burrows

Former Supreme Court justice clerk and noted church-state scholar Marci A. Hamilton is a leading spokesperson on the dangers of overinterpreting the meaning of “religious freedom.”

In the wake of the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decisions on contraceptive coverage and same-sex marriage, there has been a proliferation of efforts to invoke “religious freedom” as justification to be exempt from laws citizens must generally follow.

Nos pensées et nos condoléances vont aux victimes innocentes de la violence politique à Paris.  

Freethinkers of Colorado Springs

November 14, 2015

Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, who heads up the Pray in Jesus Name (PIJN) Project, is known for incendiary rhetoric, which he defends on biblical grounds. He suggested divine retribution might explain an infamous crime in Longmont earlier this year in which a pregnant woman’s fetus was cut from her womb (the mother-to-be survived; the fetus did not). Klingenschmitt compared this to a Bible passage about pregnant women of Samaria being ripped open because, he said, “they have rebelled against God.” He wondered if the Longmont crime was an example of God cursing America for what he (Klingenschmitt) terms our own rebellion in not protecting the unborn.

Klingenshmitt is also a Colorado state legislator, and he was widely criticized for insensitivity. He eventually apologized, admitting his words “were not compassionate.” He did not back away from the premise that God visits violence on the innocent to express his wrath over the transgressions of others.

The Colorado Springs Gazette, in a September 8 editorial, criticized Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis’ refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples by observing this is a case of “a public official essentially banning civil marriage in her county.” That’s a fair characterization.

It is also, of course, a case of using a claim to “religious freedom” to discriminate against other citizens in the name of religion.

The man was fast asleep, the clock on the wall gently ticking away the seconds until sunrise. As it chimed three, the witching hour, he awoke with a start. Something was horribly wrong. He tried to sit up, to orient himself, when he realized the problem—every muscle in his body was completely paralyzed.  Flooding with terror, the man desperately began to recite a prayer inside his head. But, before he reached “amen," it materialized on top of his chest from the deepest pit of hell: The Demon.

Rowan County Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis refuses to grant Constitutional Equality Under the Law by issuing marriage licenses to every qualified couple seeking a marriage license who applies in her office.  Speciffically, she cites "religious liberty" in her statements and says that having "[her] name affixed to the [same sex wedding] certificate would violate [her] [apparently Christian] conscience" - even though the bible says nothing about gay marriage.   The United States Supreme Court has refused to stay a Federal Court Order instructing Ms. Davis to issue the marriage licenses or quit her job as Rowan County Clerk.

Like the 1967 Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision regarding interracial marriage equality, the June 26, 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalizing same-sex marriage upholds equality under the law with regard to equal access to marriage. Both cases were decided under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment that was ratified in the wake of the Civil War.