It was on this date, June 23, 1858, that 6-year-old Edgardo Mortara was kidnapped from his Jewish parents in Bologna, Italy, by agents of the Inquisition, under the Dominican Father (Pier Gaetano) Feletti. The parents, Momolo and Marianna Mortara, later learned that their Christian maid, Anna Morsi, had secretly baptized the boy when he was […]

Read about churches and animal cruelty, religious discrimination and the “Sherbert Test,” Alphonse Laveran, José Rizal, Salman Rushdie, Catholic “toleration” in Maryland, Jean-Paul Sartre, Galileo recanting before the Inquisition and more …

It was on this date, June 17, 1963, that the U.S. Supreme Court decided 7-2 in Sherbert v. Verner (374 U.S. 398 (1963)), creating the “Sherbert Test,” and saying that adherents of minority faiths cannot be disadvantaged by government without a compelling interest in limiting free exercise of religion. When a textile mill worker was […]

Read about peace activist Bertha von Suttner, the Treaty with Tripoli, the religion of Alexander Bain and Hugh Laurie, Wat Tyler’s Rebellion, the religion of William Butler Yeats, adding religion to the Pledge of Allegiance, condemning Martin Luther from a glass house, and more …

Read about Religion vs. comets, Religion vs. geology, Religion vs. votes for women, the religion of Angelina Jolie, Adam Smith, Religion and dueling, Muhammad dies of a stroke, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and more …

Read about Anne Boleyn and Adultery, politically divergent son Ron Reagan, Alexander Pope, Richard Wagner, non-divine Dante, God’s servant Samuel F.B. Morse, Sir Ian McKellen, and more …

Read about George Carlin, Pope Gregory and calendar reform, creating Israel, churches vs. workers, Lady Mary’s skeptical letters from Turkey, journalist Studs Terkel, getting scared sacred with “Godspell,” Bertrand Russell, and more …

Read about John William Draper’s “Conflict,” Sigmund Freud, David Hume, Edward Gibbon, The Pill and freedom for women, book burning by Nazis and other fanatics, Irving “God Bless America” Berlin, and more …

Read about fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett, ye Age of Chivalry, George Washington, the churches vs. working people, Catherine the Great of Russia, Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg, Darwin’s Bulldog, and more …

Read about religion vs. science in “Inherit the Wind,” “In God We Trust” on US coins, Shakespeare and God, churches vs. libraries, godless DNA described, H.C. Bastian, General Grant vs. theocracy, Mary Wollstonecraft vs. sexism and more …