November 22, 2009 – ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – Messages questioning religion are popping up across the city of Albuquerque just weeks before the biggest religious holidays in the world. The Freedom from Religion group sponsoring the billboards said they are paid through next month. Even if some find them controversial, the group said they arent about to take the billboards down. Many times religion is a crutch that doesn’t do as much good as people think it does, Freedom of Religion member Ron Herman said. We paid for the space, just like people paid for their space in newspapers advertising their services.” The colorful messages are on 10 billboards around Albuquerque. One billboard reads Imagine No Religion and Keep Religion out of Government. via atheistmedia.com –

The University of Notre Dames Tocqueville Program held its inaugural two-day conference Feb. 4-5, 2009: Freedom for, Freedom from, or Freedom of Religion: The Meanings of Religious Freedom in America. Day one of the event, Feb. 4, began with a debate between Nicholas Wolterstorff, Noah Porter Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology, Fellow of Berkeley College at Yale University; Mark Lilla, Professor of Humanities, Columbia University; and Bill Galston, Senior Fellow & Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution. The following day, Feb. 5, a panel of Notre Dame faculty responded to points made during the debate. The panel included David Campbell, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science; Rick Garnett, Professor, Notre Dame Law School; John McGreevy, IA O’Shaughnessy Dean of the College of Arts and Letters; and Mark Noll, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History. At America’s founding three different and sometimes competing visions of religion in American political life were planted in American soil:freedom of religion, for religion, and from religion. These three distinct conceptions converged at the time of the American founding in the form of the religion clauses of the First Amendment, as well as the many parallel provisions in the state constitutions. Yet Americans do not always agree on the role religion should play in American public life. Should it be excluded from the public sphere or restrictions placed upon its use in …
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