Are There Human Rights in the Bible?

The BIGGEST Problem for Atheism?

Freethought Radio – July 23, 2026

The Trump administration is whitewashing American history in Philadelphia. Federal Judge John E. Jones tells the behind-the-scenes story of the 2005 trial leading to his landmark decision barring “intelligent design” from public school science classes.

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FFRF lambastes new DOJ guidance expanding religious privilege 

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is criticizing the U.S. Department of Justice’s newly issued guidance on religious liberty.

The Justice Department today released updated guidance replacing its 2017 memorandum on federal religious liberty protections and directing federal agencies to broadly accommodate religious exercise in employment, contracting, rulemaking, enforcement actions and grant programs. It also instructs agencies to proactively review regulations and policies for potential impacts on religious liberty and elevates religious interests throughout the federal administrative process. This is a sweeping effort to expand religious privilege throughout the federal government while further eroding the constitutional principle of church-state separation.

While the guidance purports to protect religious liberty, FFRF says it overwhelmingly emphasizes a favorable interpretation of the rights of religious believers and organizations while giving little attention to the constitutional rights of those who do not share those beliefs.

“This so-called religious liberty guidance is really a roadmap for privileging conservative Christianity at the expense of the constitutional rights of everyone else,” says FFRF Legal Director Patrick Elliott. “Rather than reminding federal agencies that the First Amendment protects both the free exercise of religion and the prohibition against government establishment of religion, the Justice Department has produced a one-sided manifesto that treats religious belief as a trump card over neutral laws, civil rights protections and government accountability.”

The updated memorandum repeatedly cites recent Supreme Court decisions to support expansive religious exemptions, endorses broad protections for religious organizations that discriminate in hiring and federal contracting, encourages agencies to accommodate religious objections whenever possible and instructs regulators to proactively consider religious liberty concerns throughout the rulemaking process. It also emphasizes parental rights over children’s religious upbringing and reinforces the doctrine of church autonomy.

“The Constitution protects religious liberty, not religious privilege,” Elliott remarks. “This guidance instructs agencies to keep stretching the law in one direction, toward broader religious exemptions, while giving short shrift to the constitutional rights of everyone affected by those exemptions.”

FFRF notes that the memorandum repeatedly privileges religious organizations in their dealings with the federal government. It directs agencies to preserve religious hiring exemptions even when organizations receive federal grants or contracts and states that religious entities generally cannot be required to choose between taxpayer funding and adhering to their religious beliefs. The guidance further embraces an expansive view of government religiosity, declaring that “religious activity in the public square and private religious expression by government employees cannot be proscribed via heckler’s veto” and citing John Adams’ oft-quoted statement that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people” despite the Constitution itself containing no religious requirement for citizenship or government.

The guidance also directs agencies to consult with the White House Faith Office and the Department of Justice on religious liberty questions before finalizing regulations or enforcement actions.

“The Constitution protects religious freedom for everyone, including the millions of Americans who are nonreligious,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Religious liberty means the government cannot favor one faith over another, or religion over nonreligion. This guidance instead elevates the demands of religious organizations above the public interest and the equal rights of others.”

FFRF warns that the guidance is likely to embolden efforts to seek religious exemptions from civil rights laws, workplace protections and other generally applicable legal requirements, allowing religious entities to claim preferential treatment while shifting burdens onto employees, beneficiaries and members of the public.

“The Department of Justice should be defending the First Amendment in its entirety, not transforming it into a tool for advancing Christian nationalist priorities,” Gaylor adds. “True religious freedom flourishes only when the government remains neutral on matters of religion.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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Secular Leaders Gather on Capitol Hill to Champion Reason, Constitutional Democracy

WASHINGTON – Members of Congress, national secular leaders and advocates joined together in a Capitol Hill reception room Tuesday evening for the third annual Congressional Reason Reception, celebrating the Congressional Freethought Caucus, reason, constitutional democracy and the growing visibility of nonreligious Americans in public life. The American Humanist Association, Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Secular Coalition for America hosted the evening filled with wit and humor, with leaders of the secular movement and keynote speaker Mary L. Trump.

The reception is a celebration of reason and joy in public life, serving as a secular alternative to the dour and sanctimonious National Prayer Breakfast, as debates over Christian Nationalism, religious exemptions and the separation of church and state continue to shape national politics. Organizers said the event demonstrates that Americans who value secular government are increasingly organized and visible on Capitol Hill. Rep. Jared Huffman, co-chair of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, has called it “a boozy alternative to the National Prayer Breakfast.”

“Our country was founded on freedom of religion and church-state separation. No wannabe king or theocratic sycophant hellbent on controlling people through religious extremism will change that,” said Freethought Caucus Co-Chair Jared Huffman. “Folks from all walks of faith – or none at all – came together to celebrate something far more American: a government run by reason, freedom of conscience, and the Constitution. That’s what the Reason Reception is all about. No matter how hard Christian nationalists fight to overturn democracy and force their extremism on the American people, we will be here defending church-state separation and our fundamental rights.”

“Every year, some of the most reasonable people I know assemble to highlight the essential role that reason plays in protecting democracy, liberty, progress and justice for all,” said Freethought Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Raskin. “The Congressional Reason Reception celebrates and revives the spirit of Tom Paine and Ben Franklin and our Enlightenment Constitution, which cast off centuries of religious fanaticism and dogma, Holy Crusades, witch trials, Inquisitions and theocratic rule to usher in a new era of self-government, reason and democracy. Congratulations to our honorees, Katherine Stewart and Alison Gill, who are doing fine work to champion reason and common sense in our own time.”

“All you need to do is read the Declaration of Independence to understand that our Founders did not want and did not intend for this to be a religious country,” said Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici in her remarks at the reception. “And now, when you look at what is happening with this administration and with Republican MAGA colleagues, they want this to be a white Christian nation. And it is not, and we will not let that happen. With your voices here and across the country we will stop that from happening. We want the next generation to know that this is a country where you are free to believe in religion or free to not believe in religion.”

“When I first came into Congress eight years ago, someone told me that religion is what politicians talk about when they don’t want to talk about ethics,” said Rep. Sean Casten in his remarks at the reception. “And there is a deep truth there. I think the inverse of that is equally true, that if you talk about ethics, people think you’re talking about their religion. And I think there’s a power there. There’s an ability there. What I think you challenge us to do, and what we have to challenge ourselves to do, is to speak about ethics and morality in a way that doesn’t fall back on those religious texts.”

“We’ve been on a very dark path for a very long time,” said Mary Trump in her keynote remarks. “So we need to do a better job of explaining to people why allowing religion and government to become intertwined is fatal to the American experiment on the one hand and detrimental to the pursuit of our freedoms on the other.

“We have the benefit, those of us in this room, of reason, of perspective. A lot of people who have made the choices they’ve made and voted the way they have voted don’t have those luxuries. So we, from the benefit of where we stand, need to extend these people grace, because that way I truly believe we can make common cause with people who, in the grand scheme of things, have suffered as much from their choices as others have. And I think that’s the way forward.”

“Thomas Paine called it ‘the cause of America’: the conviction that free minds, working together through reason, could govern themselves better than any king or church ever had,” said Fish Stark, Executive Director of the American Humanist Association. “The evening’s’s room, packed with members of Congress and humanists from across the country, was proof that cause is still alive. Now we take it to statehouses, school boards, and every corner of this country, and build the nation Paine imagined: one where reason and compassion govern together, and empathy is not a matter of faith, but of conscience.”

“The National Prayer Breakfast tells everyone who isn’t the right kind of Christian that they don’t quite count as Americans. We reject that,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “This country belongs to all of us, believers and nonbelievers alike, and no one needs to bow their head to belong here.”

“This reception is called the Congressional Reason Reception, and I think that’s fitting not because reason belongs to secular Americans alone, but because reason belongs in public service,” said Steven Emmert, Executive Director of The Secular Coalition for America.

The Congressional Reason Reception coincides with the growing strength of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, which now counts 37 members, and reflects a secular movement that continues to gain ground on Capitol Hill.

The evening also recognized recipients of the Age of Reason Award and Common Sense Award for their contributions to advancing secular government and freedom of conscience.

“I don’t need to tell you that 250 years after Thomas Paine helped launch the American Revolution, our democracy is in crisis,” said Katherine Stewart, recipient of the Age of Reason Award in her remarks at the reception. “This is no time for the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot. This is the time to fight like hell for our country and our founding ideals of equality, pluralism, reason, justice, and the rule of law.”

“We need courts that are fair, unbiased, and that will uphold the Constitution, and enforce our rights and protect our democracy–not ignore it to salute their political or Christian Nationalist agenda,” said Alison Gill, recipient of the Common Sense Award, in her remarks at the reception. “And the Congressional Freethought Caucus plays an especially important role in showing the harms caused by this Christian Nationalist agenda and pushing back against it. So I truly want to thank you all for this award, and I hope that together we will keep making progress to reform the courts and restore our democracy.”

Organizers said the growing attendance at the annual reception and the expanding Congressional Freethought Caucus reflect increasing recognition that Americans of every faith and none deserve equal representation in public life.

###

American Humanist Association:

The American Humanist Association (AHA) works to protect the rights of humanists, atheists, and other nontheistic Americans. The AHA advances the ethical and life-affirming worldview of humanism, which—without beliefs in gods or other supernatural forces—encourages individuals to live informed and meaningful lives that aspire to the greater good of humanity.

Freedom From Religion Foundation:

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

The Secular Coalition for America:

The Secular Coalition is a group of diverse organizations representing atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other nonreligious Americans. The Secular Coalition for America is a dedicated lobbying organization within the Coalition, whose mission is to advocate for the equal rights of nonreligious Americans and defend the separation of religion and government.

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Nearly half of Gen Z says Trump makes them less likely to attend church

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There’s at least one silver lining to Donald Trump being president: A hell of a lot of young people say they’re less likely to go to church because of his ties to Christianity.

That’s according to an unpublished study from the Billy Graham Center Research Institute, based out of (evangelical) Wheaton College, and cited by the Christian Post:

The Billy Graham Center Research Institute surveyed 2,365 Gen Z adults, ages 18-28, through NORC’s AmeriSpeak panel between Aug. 9 and Sept. 26, 2024. The study was funded by the Lilly Endowment.

According to the research, 48% of respondents said they agree with the statement “Christians’ support of Trump has made me less likely to go to church.”

That included 19% who “strongly agreed,” 14% who “agreed” and 15% who “slightly agreed.” By contrast, 52% disagreed, including 21% who “strongly disagreed,” 16% who “disagreed” and 15% who “slightly disagreed.”

Rick Richardson, professor of evangelism and leadership at Wheaton College and the study’s lead researcher, told The Christian Post on Tuesday that the research is yet unpublished and being adapted into a book.

It’s hard to say a lot about this study without knowing more about how it was conducted or what the nature of this book is going to be, though it’s important to note it was done before the 2024 election and Trump has only gotten more extreme and more corrupt since then—largely due to the Christian Nationalist sycophants who seem to defend his actions at every turn. If that many young people were turned off by him in 2024, you have to imagine the numbers are even worse today given his war of choice in Iran, his careless destruction of our economy, his suppression of the Epstein files, DOGE, the explosive diarrhea, etc.

But let’s assume these results are accurate. It would confirm what critics have been saying for years now, which is that white evangelical leaders chose short-term political gain over long-term religious success. They have prayed with Trump in the Oval Office, argued that certain victories (like the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade) are worth everything else, and convinced roughly 80% of white evangelicals to vote for Trump in each of the last three presidential elections.

The relationship between Trump and conservative Christians has always been transactional. Trump gave them whatever they wanted—credibility they never earned, federal judges who prioritized right-wing religious beliefs over a plain reading of the law, access to political power, etc.—and they gave him their votes. No scandals dissuaded them. No wars bothered them. No attempt to overthrow our democracy gave them pause. No amount of sinning in real time made them budge. They’re just as immoral as he is. It was a match made in Hell.

They’ve had countless opportunities to distance themselves from him and it would have been easy for them to justify it—with the Epstein files, the appointments of ignorant zealots to positions of power, the brazen ways he’s enriched himself at the expense of the country. They never did. They always argued that Democrats were the real enemy even as the argument became harder and harder to justify to a conservative base.

Not only were they silent in the face of moral disaster, they openly advocated for him even when they didn’t have to, insisting that Trump was one of their own. The now-dead abuse advocate James Dobson said in June of 2016 that Trump had become “born again,” adding that he personally knew the person who “led him to Christ.” Pastor Mark Burns (who famously lied about his own credentials) said in 2024 he’s “personally heard [Trump] profess his faith in the Lord Jesus.” Evangelical huckster Hank Kunneman claimed Trump was anointed by God. Souther Baptist preacher Robert Jeffress agreed Trump was “born again” and a Christ follower.

And those are just the preachers around him. Trump himself has said he identifies as a Christian, a move that allowed him to sell an overpriced cheaply made Bible plastered with his name:

Don’t forget when he held up a Bible in front of a church after his team used tear gas to drive away peaceful protesters:

To a large extent, his Christian cosplaying has worked. In 2023, Republican voters said Donald Trump was more religious than Mitt Romney and Joe Biden. They just overlooked the fact that Trump was a thrice-married racist who paid hush money to porn stars he was having affairs with when his current wife was pregnant with his fifth child. That he was the Two Corinthians guy. That he said he doesn’t need forgiveness. That he couldn’t even name his favorite Bible verse.

When you look at all of this holistically, Trump has hijacked evangelical Christianity the same way he hijacked the Republican Party. He took an already broken and extremely dysfunctional group of people bounded together by who they hate and brought them all together under his umbrella. You can’t separate Trump from the GOP any more than you can separate Trump from conservative Christianity.

I think there’s an argument to be made that if you ask young people if they want to go to church—especially a white evangelical, non-denominational megachurch—it’s like you’re asking them if they support Trump. Because that’s what church is now. It’s not about Jesus. It’s not about the Sermon on the Mount. It’s about culture wars and right-wing politics.

That’s the Faustian bargain that Christian leaders made when they sold their souls to prevent Hillary Clinton from getting into the White House. (To be fair, they lost their credibility long before then, but if there were any shreds of it left, they’re gone now.)

People under 30 have been watching all this play out their entire adult lives, so it doesn’t surprise me that nearly half of them now say Trump has dissuaded them from going to church. Most church leaders—certainly white evangelical and Southern Baptist ones—have never done enough to condemn this administration. In some cases, they avoided doing so because they didn’t want to alienate their already shrinking congregations.

If pastors can’t speak out against the moral atrocities of this administration when it’s this damn obvious, why would anyone trust their judgment on spiritual matters? If people went to church because they thought it would provide a moral backbone to their lives, the Trump administration has blown that argument right out of the water.

Even as Trump makes life harder for immigrants through his (mis)use of ICE, and even as National Association of Evangelicals President Walter Kim stressed that the administration’s deportation policies were literally harming churches, many Christian leaders with large platforms have either remained by Trump’s side or said nothing of value.

If you want to look for moral clarity these days, you’ll have a far easier time looking to the Muslim mayor of New York City than a Southern Baptist preacher in Texas.

Even if we can’t see the underlying research that says many young people are turned off of church because of Trump, we already know that that the push toward theocracy generates backlash wherever it happens, whenever it happens.

Christian Nationalists believed they could use their power to codify their beliefs into law. They never stopped to think about whether those policies were any good or whether Americans—including young people who might have been Christian leaders in the future—might be turned off by their willingness to cede moral authority to the least moral person to ever occupy the White House.

This isn’t going to end well for them. But instead of admitting they went down the wrong path, you can bet good money that Christian leaders will just double down on their support of Trump and his allies in the future. At this point, even they don’t care about the long-term success of their religion. They just want to cling to whatever power they can.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

Defending The Indefensible: God’s Endorsement Of Biblical Slavery

Pastor says U.S. is not a Christian country, but he’s wrong about why

Polite Christian thinks the star of David was a comet

FFRF demands that Fla. sheriff’s office stop coercive inmate baptisms

Screenshot courtesy of Christian Broadcasting Network

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is insisting to the Walton County Sheriff’s Office that a recent event where it baptized inmates was a grave constitutional violation. 

A Christian Broadcasting Network article reports that the Sheriff’s Office (headquartered  in DeFuniak Springs, Fla.) recently partnered with First Apostolic Church of DeFuniak Springs and New Life Church of Santa Rosa Beach with the apparent purpose of baptizing inmates at Walton County Jail and encouraging them to convert to Christianity. According to the July 15 article, 69 inmates were baptized at Walton County Jail in the coordinated “mass baptisms” organized by the Sheriff’s Office and the two churches. Furthermore, these churches have partnered to hold mass baptisms at other jails before, indicating that the Walton County Sheriff’s Office was aware of the churches’ intentions. The baptisms appeared to have taken place on jail property. Inmates are photographed in the article being baptized by Walton County Sheriff’s Office employees. 

The sheriff’s office public information officer, Corey Dobridnia, told reporters that part of the office’s “mantra” is “trying to make men and women who are incarcerated in our jail better people, and introducing them to the Lord. And then being baptized is sort of a rebirth for them.”

FFRF is demanding that the Walton County Sheriff’s Office immediately put a stop to this unconstitutional promotion of religion.

“By organizing and hosting inmate baptisms, the sheriff’s office is unconstitutionally favoring religion over nonreligion, and Christianity over all other faiths,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence writes to Sheriff Michael A. Adkinson Jr.

A correctional facility is an inherently coercive environment and inmates and detainees are literally a captive audience. When the Walton County Sheriff’s Office entangles itself with religion and makes it clear that it’s encouraging inmates to convert to Christianity, inmates will no doubt feel pressured to convert and participate in religious activities to be seen as cooperative and well behaved. Inmates and detainees who are aware of the Sheriff’s Office’s promotion of Christianity will not genuinely feel free to refuse to participate in its religious activities. This is constitutionally impermissible. 

Law enforcement must be even-handed and avoid any appearance of bias towards some citizens, and hostility towards others, the FFRF letter emphasizes. Walton County Sheriff’s Office employees can practice their personal religion any way they wish when acting in their personal capacities. However, they are not permitted to use the machinery of government and taxpayer money to promote their personal religion to inmates or the wider community. The Sheriff’s Office’s promotion of religion and conversion to Christianity needlessly marginalizes the 38 percent of Americans who are non-Christians, including the nearly one in three adult Americans who are religiously unaffiliated.

To comply with the First Amendment and to protect the rights of all inmates held in Walton County Jail, FFRF is asking that the sheriff’s office halt inmate baptisms.

“First Amendment violations in incarceration facilities are particularly egregious, given the abuse of a literal captive audience,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “The right to be free from religious coercion is not stripped from a citizen when they are in prison. These baptisms must stop immediately.” 

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With more than 41,000 members and several chapters across the country, including nearly 2,000 members and a chapter in Florida, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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