Agnostics

Italian atheists have lost a bid to run "no God" advertisements on city buses after strong opposition from conservative political parties, a member of the group said. The ads reading, "The bad news is that God doesn't exist. The good news is that you don't need him," were to have been put on buses in the northern city of Genoa, home to the Catholic cardinal who is head of the Italian Bishops Conference. A publicity agency changed its mind and said the ad could not run because it violated an ethics in advertising code, according to Giorgio Villella of The Italian Union of Atheists and Rationalist Agnostics.

When Parachini continually casts the debate in terms of censorship instead of sponsorship and identifies participants with labels more befitting the editorial pages, my skepticism alarms go off. Opponents of public funding of the arts are labeled conservatives of the far right , while proponents are presented simply as art lovers . Though opposition is based on philosophical or legal grounds, Parachini frequently paints it...

Our Constitution forbids our government from establishing a national religion and, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, that means there should be a "wall of separation between church and state." I have no quarrel with that, but I do take issue with what appears to be hostility toward religion. I can find no "hostility" clause in the Constitution. I part company with other atheists (or agnostics) who complain about the crosses on Mt. Soledad and Mt. Helix. Atheism means without God, not anti-God, and these complainers are giving atheism a bad name.

Re "Boy Scouts Decision Goes Against Atheists, Agnostics," Dec. 7: The Supreme Court's ruling on Welsh vs. the Boy Scouts of America has profound implications. It doesn't matter whether or not the Scouts are "an establishment that serves the public" (the court wrongly says they are not). The central issue is that the same exclusionary justifications currently being used against nonbelievers is identical to that used in earlier times in countless "private club" situations to exclude blacks, Jews and other minorities from their ranks.

A federal judge Wednesday ordered county officials to remove an 82-year-old Ten Commandments plaque from a courthouse, calling it an unconstitutional display of the biblical text. The 50-by-39-inch bronze plaque at the Chester County Courthouse is inscribed with a version of the Ten Commandments from the King James version of the Bible.

Re "Multiple-choice God," editorial, Sept. 17 The survey results on God's attributes, provided by the John M. Templeton Foundation and Baylor University, offer a multiple-choice selection of only four attributes: authoritarian, benevolent, critical and distant. The option missing was "All of the above." Trying to define God the infinite with the finite human intellect is like pouring a trillion pounds of sugar into a one-pound bag. AKHTAR H. EMON Rancho Palos Verdes The Times editorial states that 85% to 90% of Americans say they believe in God. This means that 10% to 15% of Americans are nonbelievers, atheists or agnostics.

This has been a busy week in the faith community -- a time of national meetings, grappling with divisive issues and the release of a public opinion poll on perceptions about "radical Christianity." The nationwide survey by the Ventura-based Barna Group reported that 56% of atheists and agnostics believe that "radical Christianity is just as threatening in America as is radical Islam."

Real-life action figure Chuck Norris is blasting President Obama for allegedly working behind the scenes to create a "pro-gay Boy Scouts of America. " Norris -- an action star and well-known conservative and gun-rights activist -- made the charges in a piece posted Tuesday on Ammoland.com , a site dedicated to shooting-sports news. Norris suggests that Americans take a closer look at the recent headlines made when James Turley, a Boy Scouts of America national board member, announced that he will work from within the scouting organization to change its long-standing position barring gay Scouts and gay Scout leaders.

"If the whole universe had no meaning," C.S. Lewis once wrote, "we should never have found out that it had no meaning. " Pithy observations like that - rooted in logical argument - have made the writer one Christian whom many agnostics and atheists accept and enjoy. "Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis," Sigmund Freud once wrote. "Mankind will surmount this neurotic phase, just as so many children grow out of their similar neurosis. " A pithy observation like that is one reason many people are stimulated by Freud's writing, even if they regard his psychology as dated, oversexualized nonsense.

I am appalled that Mr. Peloza has had such a long opportunity to distort young students' views of science. His assertion that evolution is the religion of atheism is clearly meant as a derogatory remark against individuals who choose not to believe in a supreme being. Atheists and agnostics generally do not press their views on others the way fundamentalist Christians such as Peloza do. His belief that the theory of "abrupt appearance" is equal to that of evolution is clearly ridiculous.