A French appeals court has upheld fraud charges and a €600,000 fine against the Church of Scientology for cajoling followers into paying large sums for bogus personality tests and cures.

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A Christian group has been banned from claiming that God can heal illnesses on its website and in leaflets.

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In a land of faith and flag, Justin Griffith is challenging the US military to abandon its religious ties.

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The Freedom From Religion Foundation is protesting an unconstitutional resolution naming 2012 the “Year of the Bible,” unanimously passed (193-0) in the Pennsylvania General Assembly this week.

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Newt Gingrich described himself as a visionary when he unveiled plans Wednesday to create a mammoth new space program, including a permanent colony on the moon within the next nine years.

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Excerpt:

“She is 16, the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, a self-proclaimed nerd who loves Harry Potter and Facebook. But Jessica Ahlquist is also an outspoken atheist who has incensed this heavily Roman Catholic city with a successful lawsuit to get a prayer removed from the wall of her high school auditorium, where it has hung for 49 years. “

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The Obama administration has rejected a broad exemption sought by the Roman Catholic Church for the coverage of contraceptives for Catholic hospitals, colleges and charities.

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Free schools that teach ‘intelligent design’ as science will lose funding.

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Do Mormons believe in Christianity?  Well, not really.

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Friday the 13th: watch Richard Dawkins’ 2007 documentary ‘The Enemies of Reason’ expose how superstition “impoverishes our culture”.

Habitable planets may be in orbit around billions of stars in the Milky Way, a long-term study has suggested.

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Christian congregations that are weeks away from expulsion from New York City’s public schools are focusing on more-religious tools in their arsenal: prayer, fasting and repentance.

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An Indian Muslim leader has demanded Salman Rushdie be banned from the country’s biggest literary festival, warning that an invitation to the novelist who endured a fatwa will add “salt to injury”.

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WSJ op-ed celebrating the Supreme Court’s ruling that religious organizations should be partially exempted from laws banning discrimination in employment.

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It has been nearly 50 years since the Supreme Court ruled that officially sponsored prayer in public schools violated the separation of church and state. But in some corners of the country, open prayer and Christian symbols have never disappeared from schools.

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Roman Catholic bishops in Illinois have shuttered most of the Catholic Charities affiliates in the state rather than comply with a new requirement that says they must consider same-sex couples as potential foster-care and adoptive parents if they want to receive state money.

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Naama Margolese has become the face of a conflict over the influence of extremists in Israel after her story of being accosted by ultra-Orthodox men was reported in the media.

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Despite Supreme Court rulings in 1962 and ’63, prayer and Christian symbols are still present in some schools.

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When people find out I’m an atheist, the question often comes up about what I do during the Christmas holidays. There is an assumption that atheists don’t ‘do Christmas,’ so they are surprised when I say how much I love it.

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Christopher Hitchens died Thursday at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He was 62.

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