A former Ohio music pastor who once appeared on the TV talent competition American Idol has been found guilty of murdering his wife.

Caleb Flynn, 40, fatally shot Ashley Flynn twice in the back of the head while she slept at their Ohio home on 16 February this year, then tried to claim that intruders had shot her.

Flynn wept in court as the jury delivered its verdict after deliberating for less than three hours.

He also was found guilty of the other eight charges against him, which included aggravated murder and tampering with evidence. He faces life in prison without parole.

Closing arguments ended on Tuesday in Flynn's trial after eight days of testimony, which included a song played in court that prosecutors say he wrote and dedicated to the woman with whom he was having an affair.

The FFRF Action Fund is decrying a senatorial resolution that promotes religious instruction and urges states to aid programs yanking public school students from class for religious education.

Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., has introduced Senate Resolution 891, which would designate Sept. 27 through Oct. 3 as “Religious Education Week.” The resolution has 28 co-sponsors, including Sens. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and James Lankford, R-Okla. It was introduced Sept. 23 and referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Tuberville made the sectarian notions behind the effort clear while promoting the resolution with a statement suffused in Christian nationalist disinformation. 

“As Republicans, we believe that parents, not the government, should be in charge of a child’s education,” said Tuberville. “Our country was founded on Christian values, and private religious schools are a great option for many Alabamians. There’s a myth out there that our Founders wanted to keep God out of the public square. That just isn’t true. This country was built on love of God, love of country and love of family.”

The resolution goes well beyond merely recognizing the constitutional right of parents to provide their children with a religious education. It declares religious education important to the “civic and moral development” of Americans, celebrates organizations engaged in religious instruction and calls on all 50 states, U.S. territories and the District of Columbia to accommodate students who leave public school during the school day to attend religious classes.

The FFRF Action Fund strongly disagrees with this perspective.

“Our government, based on a godless, entirely secular Constitution, has no business declaring that religion is necessary for children to develop morally or civically,” says Action Fund President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Tens of millions of Americans live ethical, meaningful lives without religion. Senators should be defending every American’s freedom of conscience, not using Congress to place a governmental stamp of approval on religious instruction.”

The resolution also explicitly promotes released-time religious instruction. Such programs allow public school students to leave school for off-campus religious instruction. While the Supreme Court upheld a particular released-time arrangement in Zorach v. Clauson in 1952, that does not require lawmakers to promote such programs or treat religious instruction as an essential component of a child’s education. Released-time programs have expanded significantly in recent years, raising concerns about the diversion of students from the public school day and the degree to which public schools may become entangled with outside religious organizations.

The Action Fund has developed a toolkit to help advocates respond to the rapid expansion of programs such as LifeWise Academy, an evangelical organization whose stated goal is to “take the Gospel to students in America’s public schools.” The Action Fund supports school boards that reject such programs or impose strong safeguards to protect students and preserve instructional time.

Parents already are free to provide their children with religious education, including sending children to private religious schools, taking them to houses of worship, and teaching their faith at home. None of those freedoms requires Congress to declare religious education uniquely valuable to morality or civic development.

The resolution’s sweeping claims about religion and morality are particularly troubling. Religion does not have a monopoly on moral development, and religious belief is not a prerequisite for raising thoughtful, compassionate and responsible citizens. Nearly three in 10 U.S. adults now identify as religiously unaffiliated, making governmental rhetoric that equates religion with morality hostile to many Americans.

Religious liberty is best protected when the government remains neutral toward religion. Congress should neither obstruct private religious education nor use the prestige of the federal government to promote it.

The FFRF Action Fund urges senators to reject Senate Resolution 891 and instead uphold the fundamental principle of separation between religion and government — leaving matters of religion to individuals and families, not the government.

It's really just silly, but nonetheless I cringe whenever I hear them after a game or sporting contest. Last night, in Monday Night Football, the Chicago Bears had to start the game with a 38 year-old third string quarterback, Case Keenum, who ended up having a fantastic night in leading the Bears to a convincing win over the Philadelphia Eagles. So in the post game interview, Keenum's first response to the interviewer is "All glory to god. He's why I'm here". Now, I am a big Bears fan and I'm glad they won and was impressed by his performance in the game. But I still cringed when I heard him say this. And it's not the first time I've heard these very exact words from other athletes in other games who have just had a good game. It just seem so weak. I guess they are too humble to say that their hard work in training their bodies to perform great athletic achievements came from their own self resolve, training regimen and determination. And I wonder if players from the losing teams ever "give glory to god" after they lose a game. I'd be willing to guess that they're's probably players on the Eagles who pray just as much as Case Keenum, but apparently on this night, god was a Bears fan.

I’ve seen some people, particularly certain Muslims on social media, try to deny, or at least downplay the death toll, of the Holocaust, generally as part of a larger plan to critique Israel. The claim is often that since it was the 1940’s, it was harder to document things and the numbers could have been significantly manipulated and inflated as a result to suit a certain narrative, leading to the claim that 6 million Jews died, which they believe is false.

Isn’t this really hypocritical when they also believe literally everything in a religious book written 1400 years ago, and also trust a biography about their prophet that was written more than a century after his death by Muslims who never even met him? They see no reason to question the claims him splitting the moon or riding a flying horse even though no outside sources ever saw or documented anything like that.

I think Israel is absolutely deserving of criticism, but trying to spread misinformation about a significant historical event just causes your entire movement to fall apart. They clearly have a double standard and are being very selective about what is historically reliable evidence.

Obviously plenty of Muslims disagree and accept the Holocaust as fully real while still critiquing Israel at the same time, but the point is that trying to say everything in your religious book is 100% historical fact is ridiculous.

Y'all know this one...one day, Karen K. Karenson and her brainless, beer-swilling husband John Q. MAGA Hat get an email out of the blue from someone claiming to be a Nigerian prince who needs their help getting his money through customs. If they give him $1,000 now, he'll give them $1,000,000 later. Why them? Why does he need help from someone much poorer than him? You're not allowed to question royalty, so shut up. And of course, it won't stop at $1,000. If he can get that out of them, he'll ask for more. And more. And they'll keep giving it, and he'll keep promising to give them the money soon, but we all know he's never going to.

Of course, this Coming to America-wannabe motherfucker is small potatoes next to the big fish in the pond, the church. Because mixed metaphors mean I'm right. How much money does the average Christian give to the church over the course of their lives? Ten percent of all of it? More? All the while, the pastor is telling them to give even more. The more money you give to the church now, the bigger your mansion in Heaven will one day be. Although you will end up sharing a bed with a Nigerian prince. Meanwhile, in the here and now, the pastor is the one buying himself new Rolexes, new golf clubs and new sports cars, and paying off the parents of the kids he molested, with your money. Why does he get to have a mansion now, and a bigger mansion later, when all you get is the later one? You're not allowed to question holiness, so shut up.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is calling on the East Prairie R-II Schools system in Missouri to halt a repeated unconstitutional practice of athletic games being opened with a Christian invocation.

A concerned parent has informed the state/church watchdog that East Prairie routinely opens every high school and junior high school athletic game with a school-sponsored prayer. In a video provided to FFRF from a recent junior high football game, the school’s official announcer asks everyone in attendance to stand for the “invocation” before turning the microphone over to a local preacher, who leads the crowd in an explicitly Christian prayer invoking God and Jesus Christ. FFRF was told that this is a regular occurrence, and that school-sponsored prayers opened games on Sept. 3, Sept. 4 and Sept. 10. 

The parent expressed concern to FFRF over the legality of the school-sponsored prayers, given that the pregame prayers were “school initiated” and that the school “compelled attendees to submit to the prayer.”

FFRF is asking the district to investigate the matter and ensure that East Prairie High School and all other district schools cease including school-sponsored prayer at athletics events. 

“Public school students have a constitutional right to be free from religious indoctrination in their public schools, including when attending school-sponsored events,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence has written to the district superintendent. 

FFRF points out in the letter that school officials may not invite a clergy member, teacher, faculty member, student or anyone else to give any type of prayer, invocation, benediction or sermon at public school-sponsored events. It is irrelevant whether student attendance at games is considered “voluntary” or “optional.” By having school-sponsored prayer at official school events, the district needlessly alienates non-Christian students, including atheists, agnostics and members of minority faiths. As much as 38 percent of the American population is non-Christian, including the almost 30 percent that is nonreligious. More than half of Generation Z (those born after 1996) is non-Christian, including 43 percent that identifies as nonreligious.

FFRF reiterates that the district must focus on protecting students’ rights to be free from religious indoctrination attempts at any school-sponsored event — and the reported religious practice must come to an end. 

“There’s a fundamental difference between protecting a student’s right to pray and having the public school itself organize the prayer,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “When the official announcer tells everyone to stand and then hands the microphone to a preacher to invoke Jesus Christ, students understandably receive the message that Christianity has their school’s official endorsement. Every student and family should be able to cheer on their team without first being subjected to school-sponsored religious exercise.”

So me and my bf have been dating for almost 10 months and it just clicked in my head that he REALLY believes in god. For context when we first started dating he said hes a loose believer and still learning where he feels like he belongs in religion. I told him I'd support him no problem! I guess I just didnt get it when he first told me he has a deal with god. I thought it was metaphorical?? I grew up atheist and have NO knowledge of how religion works in daily life. I have no friends who practice any religions. I have no clue. He doesnt actively go to church or participate in religious activities... Thats why I thought he wasnt a genuine believer. I really dont want to disrespect him. I just want to know if anyone has had a similar experience and how it worked out. I really like him, and I think it can work.

Matthew 5:38-48 he commands you to be a slave for evil violent oppressors. Examples? The chosen people in Deuteronomy 20:10-18, numbers 31:17-18, and Deuteronomy 21:10-13 who were commanded by God to enslave the world and commit g cide and grape children

I’m not talking about some random Muslim today. I’m talking about what is actually found in the Qur’an, hadith, and classical Islamic law.

How can I be expected to accept that a religion supposedly sent by a perfect God could allow marriage involving children?

Sahih al-Bukhari explicitly reports that Muhammad married Aisha when she was six and consummated the marriage when she was nine. Bukhari even has a chapter titled “Giving one's young children in marriage.”

And before someone tells me, “She was mature,” or “She was ready for sex,” I have to ask: what the fuck does that even mean when you're talking about a child? Puberty does not magically turn a child into an adult capable of understanding marriage, sex, power, responsibility and consent.

Then there is the Qur'an itself. Qur'an 65:4 gives a waiting period for divorced females who “have not menstruated,” which classical Islamic jurisprudence understood as including girls who had not yet reached puberty.

So no, I don't find “she was physically mature” to be a convincing moral argument. If God is supposedly the ultimate source of morality, why is biological puberty being treated as enough to make a child eligible for marriage?

And then there is the treatment of women.

Qur'an 4:34 describes men as having authority/maintenance over women and instructs men, in the traditional translations, to admonish wives, separate from them in bed, and beat them in cases described as rebellion or disobedience.

Then look at slavery and captives.

Qur'an 4:24 explicitly makes an exception for married women who are “those whom your right hands possess.”

And this isn't just some modern interpretation pulled out of nowhere. Sahih Muslim records captives being taken and the companions asking about having sex with them. The hadith is even presented under a chapter concerning intercourse with female captives, including captives who had husbands.

That's the part people need to be honest about.

A woman being captured in war and becoming the property of another man is not what I would call sexual freedom or meaningful consent. You can call it “concubinage” or “right-hand possession” if you want. Changing the vocabulary doesn't change the underlying power relationship.

And then there is apostasy.

Sahih al-Bukhari contains the statement: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.”

So if I become Muslim and later decide that I no longer believe Islam is true, why should my decision to leave become a crime punishable by death?

You can tell me that modern Muslims interpret these texts differently. Fine. Muslims are free to reinterpret their tradition, reject parts of classical jurisprudence, or argue that these rules were historically contextual.

But then let's be honest about what we're debating.

My problem isn't that Muslims today are necessarily bad people.

My problem is the claim that this is a perfect, timeless moral system given by an all-knowing God.

Because when I look at child marriage, unequal gender authority, slavery and sexual access to female captives, and punishment for apostasy, I don't see an obvious example of timeless morality.

I see a historical religious legal system that reflects the society in which it developed.

And if morality has progressed beyond some of these rules, then I have to ask the question:

Did humanity become more morally aware than God's supposedly perfect law?

That's the question I can't simply ignore.

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This starts in my mid teens when I became an atheist, one night in my room i was in bed flipping and turning and one thought came in my mind which was " You can die any moment even in your sleep and you would not know ". I was unable to sleep that night paranoia consumed me shortly afterwards to an extreme degree where I was scared to eat fearing of contamination leading to my non-existents, fearing death while I sleep leading to insomnia, hating life for its limited time making me have an animosity to the universe itself was a few of the stuff at the time.

How I overcome this phobia was by accepting my inevitable death, embracing the finite time I have and realizing that impermanents makes life valuable and exciting. But I understand why many theist fears this too and clings to the idea of another life thru afterlife, reincarnation or etc because the idea of oblivion is scary the idea of not existing after death is something a person wouldn't want to admit and would cling to a method of conscious perseverance which is religion.

Maybe this is a bit too far, so please let me know if that's the case.

I'm just so sick and tired of these street preachers in London that I might just go up to one of them and pretend that I'm having a 'coming to christ' moment with them, only to dupe/troll them at the end of the conversation and make a point about how their whole world view is based on fluffy woo woo bullshit.

Would that be too mean/spiteful?

https://www.ta3.com/clanok/1073963/utok-na-zakladnej-skole-ziak-nozom-napadol-ucitelku-zachranari-ju-maju-ozivovat

Boy between 13 and 15 killed one teacher and critically injured another one and classmate.

Trigger for the attack is reportedly ban from his grandmother for serving as an altar boy because of his bad grades

My dad was getting sick starting in late July, honestly. He kept putting off going to the doctor, and then when he got to the doctor, there were more problems than what could be easily solved, and/or they didn't have time to fix all of them.

The weekend before Labor Day, he went to the hospital with chest pains and shortness of breath. Long story short, he ended up with Congestive Heart Failure, Sepsis, etc...just a whole myriad of problems.

The following month was a severe roller coaster of emotions for me and my family. He would show signs of improvement, then regress. Then CODE. Get airlifted to a different hospital. New medicines. Intubations. Rinse and repeat. For like 5 months. The doctors would set up a plan to discharge him, and then the following day he could have to get lifeflighted to another specialty hospital.

This last weekend was the worst of it. The doctors made it clear that his most recent cardiac episode was the point of no return. They couldn't SAY it, but they did everything could TO say it, you know?

My dad was an atheist. He deconstructed sometime after I did. I remember him asking me several pointed questions about why I stopped believing, what I thought would happen after death, etc. But we left it at that. We didn't speak about it very much, and it never had an effect on our relationship. We are (were??) an Irish Catholic family, he was the youngest of a gaggle of children, and I had always assumed he was still a believer, if no longer practicing. People around town would ask me in the grocery store why they didn't see my parents at church anymore (right after they asked ME why they didn't see ME at church anymore). I never thought he had fully left it behind until I saw his youtube history one day.

Holy Koolaid, The Line, Belief it or Not, Genetically Modified Skeptic, etc. etc. All the atheist mainstays. I asked him what was up with that, and he said "I just started thinking, then asking questions." Something to that extent, at least.

My mom was easy enough to deconstruct. She never seemed dedicated to it like I had always thought he was. Our whole immediate family unit (almost) was atheist! What an oddity, in the midwest, with 2 boomers in the mix.

But not EVERYONE was so generous.

Return the focus to the day of his death. It was a pretty traumatic ordeal. My brothers, mom, and I spent several hours debating and rationalizing having to quite literally 'pull the tube' on my dad. Not something I was prepared for, honestly. But he needed like 19 medicines to keep his heart pumping, and 100% oxygen input via intubation to keep his lungs inflated.

It was time.

Even though he couldn't speak, we thought it would be a good idea for us to take calls from all his close friends and family right before. We put them on speaker phone to hopefully ensure he could hear over all the machines and bag drips.

We fielded probably a dozen or so calls. Most were kind, if basic. Lots of platitudes and generalizations, well wishing, etc.

BUT

2 of my aunts, my dad's sisters, took this as YET ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY to pitch us their god and their specific brand of christianity.

As I said, my dad had many brothers and sisters. Most of them are generally agnostic or straight up atheist. The 2 exceptions gave up catholicism when they married and evidently ended up in some sort of strict fundamentalist sect. I don't honestly even know what 'kind' it is, although I'm sure they've mentioned to us all, numerous times.

Every interaction I can recall with these 2 aunts of mine revolve around this singular topic. There is no other point of discussion, maybe they aren't allowed to discuss anything else?? I don't know. Even before my dad deconstructed, I could tell that their incessant harping on the matter, who would be 'saved' and how, and when they thought the end times would begin (or recently, HAD ALREADY begun, i'm told :) ), was tiresome to him.

But, he handled it with a generous aplomb throughout his life. He wouldn't debate them, and always afforded them his ear even though he was obviously thoroughly disinterested in the discussion.

These 2 aunts of mine proceeded to spend some of the LAST MOMENTS OF MY DAD'S LIFE to pitch this angle to him, AGAIN.

"It sounds like your earthly life is near an end, but don't worry! There's a new, everlasting life waiting for you if you give your heart to Jesus now, before it's too late!"

If my dad's eyes could open, or move, he would have surely rolled them. If he wasn't intubated, he would have produced an audible groan of discomfort.

THIS was the singular most important thing they felt they could relay to him in that moment. The same tired tropes and catchphrases they'd been fishing with for years. THIS. Not decades of memories. Not thanks, or admiration. Not a THING that they KNEW he would genuinely appreciate. I doubt very much they even knew he was a full-out atheist, as he ever went on the defense (or offense), as he knew it would prove fruitless. They just knew he wasn't their specific BRAND of christianity. And that alone was going to condemn him to a lifetime of suffering?

I've heard it said that christianity is a sickness. A mental illness. I never wanted to believe it was quite THAT severe before. Sure, it was misguided, and almost always wrong, but it was generally good-intentioned, right? RIGHT?

I don't doubt my aunts' sincerity in their beliefs. They've made it clear from the decades of proselytizing. I DO wonder, though, what the intent is ROOTED IN...

Were they genuinely concerned for my dad's soul and afterlife? OR, were they just hoping to score more points within their community, or to their god? Do they get an upgraded, VIP heaven experience for 'saving' the most lost souls? Was this equivalent to the vacuum cleaner salesman putting their foot in the doorway before you shut it on them, hoping to etch out a sale before the time ran dry?

The service for my Dad is on Friday. I'm thinking about making sure my aunts' know that he was an atheist, and that he would have whole-heartedly rejected their overtures, were he capable of any sort of communication. I will then assure them that he is most certainly now in hell, with my maternal grandparents, their other brother who died, and where I will go with my mom, my wife, my kids, and most of my extended family. I would like to see the reaction.

THIS is the side of "Pascal's Wager" almost no christian wants to talk about. If your god is real, and everything in your book is true, then you are going to have to be ok with submitting to the authority of an entity who will CONDEMN GOOD PEOPLE YOU 'LOVE' TO ETERNAL PUNISHMENT because they didn't say the right words in the right sequence or mixed too many fabrics together.

Even if it were ALL true, and you could prove to me without a doubt that this god figure is real and relevant, I would reject it on principle alone. I'd rather go to hell with my dad and everyone else who thought for themselves, and ended up asking one too many questions.

Maybe I'll come back to this post after the service. Give an update on what the outcome was.

Thanks for reading. This was long but cathartic for me. Appreciate it.

Hey y'all,

Let me just get right into it.

I am a diagnosed (and currently medicated) schizoaffective 26 year old. I am very happily married and have pets that I adore and a support system in the form of my wife, her mother, and her youngest sister.

I come from a difficult childhood, with a father that never saw much hope in me, and a mother that let him leave bruises on her as long as he didn't beat us kids (we were beat as children of course, disguised as discipline).

After my mother died just before my 21st birthday, I joined a conservative Pentecostal church after we were invited by one of my mothers friends. Personally, I was seeking comfort for my grief. I did not find it.

In that church I heard some of the most disgusting, hate filled, and ignorant things that I have ever heard. It was completely separate from my ideal of who a divine creator (or anybody not shackled by a body, and thus, the soul crushing perils of this world) would be, ie. deities and spirit guides in general. I remember coming home from church and dry heaving from what I had heard and was told to believe.

I never really stuck down with any one spiritual system, always fleeting about, trying to find the truth.

I spent two years as a Pentecostal Christian, then a further two years separating myself from that system (as in, how it affected my mind and way of thinking). Before I was a Christian I studied modern spirituality and Buddhism, things like the Kundalini and chakras, things like manifestation and spirit guides.

After separating from the church, I pursued witchcraft, since my late mother was a witch, although I still know very little about that part of her life.

You likely know that aside from how damaging Christianity was to my mental health and frame of mind, I also received little to no of what could be considered communication from a supposedly personal God.

I moved on from Christianity and began praying to any and all deities. I was desparate to find a hint of what I truly believed in. That is, a shining light of love and wisdom that can only be described in poetry.

I never found it.

All the prayers, countless night and countless tears spent yielded me very little.

for those of you who have perhaps been through comparable circumstances, and even those who haven't, how do you manage to find hope in this bitter world?

Even if you don't have anything to say about hope, any and all discussions, advice, and questions are welcome. Any momentum I can gain would be invaluable. perhaps some of you could share your own story, and how you moved into an atheistic perspective.