((Photo: Reuters/Brian Snyder))Local residents line the street as the funeral procession for Marine Lance Cpl. Walter O'Haire passes in Rockland, Massachusetts May 15, 2007. O'Haire was killed May 9 while on duty in Iraq.

An atheist group based in Rochester, New York has formed the "Better News Club" to combat the "Good News Club" Christian after-school program for children.

In a similar way to the Good News Club, the Better News Club in Rochester, New York has decided to offer an after-school program to elementary school students called the Young Skeptics Club. While the Good News Club teaches students about the Bible and Christianity, the Young Skeptics' Communications Director, Kevin Davis, has told The Christian Times that Young Skeptics is "an alternative to religion-based clubs and its leaders are opposed to the endorsement of any faith or religious ideology inside the walls of a public school."

Students wishing to attend the club must have written permission from their parents.

"The organization was created first as an alternative to the Good News Club, a Christian evangelical group who enters public schools to proselytize to children and, according to their own materials, declares them all sinners in need of salvation," the website for the Better News Club states.

The club goes on to argue that it sees its Christian counterpart as "a form of psychological abuse, akin to telling small children they're flawed or evil, and must subscribe to a dogma in order to avoid eternal punishment."

"Young Skeptics is not on a mission to challenge the religious views of children attending the group," the group's description continues. "Instead, our goal is to provide children with an alternative, and scientifically based, view of the natural world around them."

Kevin Davis, a father and local member of the Atheist Community of Rochester, told the Democrat & Chronicle that the purpose of the new club is to offer children an alternative to a Christian afterschool club.

"We're trying to keep it light and fun," Davis said. "Our focus is on showing them they're allowed to ask questions about things."

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Correction: An earlier version of this report described the Young Skeptics as an "atheist club." However, Kevin Davis, the club's Communications Director has since gone to lengths to contact The Christian Times to correct that Young Skeptics is "not an atheist club" and that "there will be no instruction or discussion regarding atheism or any religion."