Australian atheists are under attack, with the websites of both the Atheist Foundation of Australia and the Global Atheist Convention knocked offline in a major cyber attack yesterday afternoon.

The attacks may be related to the Global Atheist Convention, which is being held in Melbourne in March next year.

A series of controversial billboards recently displayed throughout Metro Detroit is drawing curious stares and criticism from the local faith community.

The seven billboards read “Imagine No Religion” and “Praise Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief” with a stained-glass window motif. They are sponsored by the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom from Religion Foundation, a nonprofit group that touts itself as the largest free thought association in the nation.

The billboards, at various Detroit locations, are part of a monthlong campaign aimed at provoking debate about the role religion plays in daily life and public policy, said Annie Laurie Gaylord, co-president of the foundation.

But many in the local religious community consider the billboards offensive.

The number of atheist or agnostic student groups on U.S. campuses has more than doubled in the past two years — from 80 to 162 — according to the Secular Student Alliance (SSA), the national organization for the secular student movement.

The rise of the secular student movement parallels that of the broader secular demographic in the U.S.

Philip Pullman, the children’s author, is set to cause controversy with a new book – called The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ – denying that Jesus was the son of God.

Publisher Jamie Byng said that Pullman’s book, which will be published next Easter, “strips Christianity bare and exposes the gospels to a new light”.

Lord May, the president of the British Science Association, said religion may have helped protect human society from itself in the past and it may be needed again.

Speaking on the eve of the association’s annual conference, the committed atheist said he was worried the world was on a “calamitous trajectory” brought on by its failure to co-ordinate measures against global warming.

He said that no country was prepared to take the lead and a “punisher” was needed to make sure the rules of co-operation were not broken.

The former Government chief scientific advisor said in the past that was God and it might be time again for religion to fill the gap.

“If there were no religious advertising, there would be no atheist advertising,” said Ariane Sherine in a phone conversation from her home in London. Sherine is a journalist who spearheaded the idea for ads saying, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

From a marketing perspective, however, the problem with the atheist brand may be that it is essentially selling nothing; not God, but no God. [video]

A devout Christian has become the first driver to refuse to get behind the wheel of a bus bearing an atheist poster declaring God probably does not exist.

“There would be no way buses would be able to drive around with an anti-Muslim message like that on the side mentioning Allah. There would be uproar,” he says.

Alongside a Nativity scene at the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, a sign put up by an atheist organization celebrates the winter solstice. But it’s the rest of the sign that has some residents and Christian organizations calling atheists Scrooges for attacking the celebration of Jesus Christ‘s birth.

“Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds,” the sign says in part.

British atheists announced Tuesday a high-profile advertising campaign to put posters on London buses that say: “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

“We wanted it to be a positive message,” said Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, which plans to advertise on buses starting in January. “It’s about telling people that it’s okay if you don’t believe in God. If it raises a smile, too, good.”

Denver’s secularists wanting freedom from religion have taken over one corner in the public square to make the point.

They’ve emblazoned a billboard six blocks from the state Capitol with the message, inscribed over faux stained glass, “Imagine No Religion.”

Ever since Lord Baden-Powell founded the 100-year-old organisation, the promise by scouts to do their duty to God and the Queen has been as much a part of their movement as jamborees, woggles and the three-fingered salute. Now, however, it has become the latest target of secularists when the National Secular Society and the British Humanist Association complained to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. [video]

The Vatican newspaper said the film and Pullman’s writings showed that “when man tries to eliminate God from his horizon, everything is reduced, made sad, cold and inhumane”.

A foundation that has sued the U.S. military alleging widespread violations of religious freedom said it has evidence showing that soldiers are pressured to adopt fundamentalist Christian beliefs.

Is “The Golden Compass” movie anti-religious or anti-Christian? Unless you have read the book or already know about the controversy, probably not so that you would notice.

The Archbishop of Canterbury responded to critics of religion by arguing that atheists had missed the point and failed to understand what Christians really believe in.

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