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Atheists Are Banned From Holding Public Office In Seven US States

If you’re an atheist and interested in becoming a city council member or a juror in Maryland, well you can forget it: the East Coast state is one of seven in the US, which thanks to long-standing provisions in their state constitution, prohibits those who don’t believe in God from holding public office.

Atheists are up in arms about the old-fashioned restriction, which also affects non-believers in Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, and are trying to get rid of the bans.

Rob Boston, director of communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told VICE News that these laws are “outdated provisions from a more bigoted time” but that they send a worrying message to atheists and non-believers.

The Pope Wants You To Believe In Climate Change

Pope Francis wants to save not just Christian souls, but the Earth, too. The pontiff has written a 192-page religious text warning the world that more needs to be done to tackle climate change.

‘The government invites you to be wary of those who do not eat baguettes’

On Wednesday the French government launched a website to counter terrorism in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Its message of national unity, aimed at young people who could be radicalised as well as the general public, quickly made a splash on the internet. The site was liked 17,000 times on Facebook; its official Twitter hashtag (#StopDJihadisme) was used 12,000 times; and a slick video meant to counter jihadist recruiters got over half a million hits.

Op-Ed: Wearing faith on your sleeve

Strangely this term, as I dutifully participate in the various and very important seminars, lectures, library sessions necessary to the not-unpleasant-finalities of final year, I have started to notice many many more familiar unfamiliar faces flitting around the Sidgwick Site than I had previously thought existed. Of course, one is invariably unobservant. English students are often recluses, I tell myself, and with heads in books the only thing one really notices with any interest in the Faculty is a particularly avant-garde hair-do.

But, no, there is something happening…there is a new bunch of beaming students that I have never seen before. It’s a mystery but one that is revealed in a lightening bolt revelation one sleepy 9am. The new bunch of beaming students are not what is grabbing my eye, it is the bright blue hoodies catapulting their wearers to the front of my early morning still-asleep attention. In matching turquoise outfits complete with a term calendar of events on their backs, a human sandwich board of doctrinal goodness, I have discovered previously camouflaged members of Cambridge’s Christian Unions.