By Cheryl Ensom Dack ~

Contrary to common Christian belief, the average atheist is not in fact someone who needs to have the Gospel presented to them in a clear way. They don’t need to have “the bridge illustration” doodled on a napkin for them. The average agnostic is NOT “not sure about God” because he or she doesn’t want to think too hard or is chronically fickle. In fact, according to an article in today’s L.A Times, “a survey that measured Americans’ knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics knew more, on average, than followers of most major faiths.”

Say, what? Yup…you read that right. Why, you ask, would an atheist or agnostic know more about religion than a Christian?

The L.A. Times interviewed Alan Cooper, the associate director for research at the Pew Forum, the organization that released this survey earlier this week and he answers this very question. He thinks the reason atheists and agnostics know more about religion than those who ascribe to those religious beliefs is because they are more likely to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and went through a process of reading, reflection and decision before leaving that tradition. In other words, atheists and agnostics are not in fact people who don’t want to hear about, read about, or understand the “Gospel.” Rather, they are people who have grappled with it in a more serious way than the average believer; their atheism and agnosticism is something they came to thoughtfully.

“These are people who thought a lot about religion,” Cooperman said. “They’re not indifferent. They care about it.”

The study also found a correlation between atheism/agnosticism and being well-educated. However, this is not to say that the most educated people became atheists and agnostics, since Christians with similar education levels still knew less about their beliefs than non-believers.

The L.A. Times article also quotes Rev. Adam Hamilton, a Methodist minister and author who, commenting on the survey’s findings said, “I think that what happens for many Christians is they accept their particular faith, they accept it to be true and they stop examining it. Consequently, because it’s already accepted to be true, they don’t examine other people’s faiths.”

I’m someone who, as an evangelical Christian, assumed that, if atheists/agnostics just examined Christianity, they would get on board with it. I also told myself that atheists and agnostics liked sinning and therefore found their unbelief more “convenient.”

Today, as a not-atheist-and-sort-of-agnostic-but-definitely-not-Christian, I can say, looking back at my former thought process, that I couldn’t be more wrong. I’m not interested in finding an excuse for sinning. I ate, drank, breathed and lived the Christian gospel for the first 30 years of my life and very thoroughly understand it. I have beyond-average knowledge of biblical facts and Christian theology. I wanted to believe it, more than anything I’ve ever wanted.

When I say I’m not a Christian, this is not something I say lightly. It’s something I say a little sadly, because I wanted so much to believe it. I can’t. That’s not because I want to live in a certain type of “sinful” lifestyle and need to believe things that make that lifestyle o.k. If only it were that simple. My belief/unbelief came at a high cost. It’s something I wrestled with for decades. My saying that I’m not a Christian is very simply, honest.

These days I’m reluctant to publically state that I’m not a Christian anymore, mostly because my hard-won belief/lack thereof is immediately written off by most Christians as “lack of understanding.” I can’t even explain the process I’ve been through without a Christian trying to “better explain” the Gospel in a condescending voice, no less. I’m not stupid, believe it or not, and neither are most other atheists, agnostics and otherwise “un-believing” folks. More knowledge about the Bible or Christian theology isn’t going to convince me to change my mind. That’s because, according to this survey, chances are I understand Christianity better than the average Christian does and, with brain intact, I’ve opted out.
  
How do you score on religious knowledge? Take the Pew Forum Knowledge Quiz by clicking here. 

By Johan de Haan ~

The clerical cacophony that clattered forth from red-faced religious leaders in response to the recent comments of Stephen Hawking concerning the scientific explanation for the origin of the universe, can only be described as a rush to the exit, not in honest admission of their own flawed profession, but as a desperate attempt to retain what remains of their flock by bolting down the church doors and recanting whatever weak spirited hymns still resonate with those gullible enough to lend an ear. The broad based religious rant tellingly did not even attempt to suggest that any of their number had taken to time to read the work of Hawking, but clearly instituted their act of self-preservation almost as soon as Hawking went public with the fact that he had written it. Even more significant was that none of the religious leaders who claimed to have a substantive response to present bothered to raise the creation myth of their religious text of choice but shamelessly dusted off their philosophy books to seek some quasi-intellectual comment to make, rather unoriginally settling on the only argument that a religious believer still believes they can turn to, that “something cannot come from nothing”.

Naturally, it was the wailing welsh sheep, Archbishop Rowan Williams, who waded into the fray in the most clumsy of fashions, seeking desperately to put on an intelligent face in claiming that, “Belief in God is not about plugging a gap in explaining how one thing relates to another within the universe. It is the belief that there is an intelligent, living agent on whose activity everything ultimately depends for its existence“. Its been some time since such defeatism was heard from the Archbishop, indeed it’s the most uncomfortable and lost the Archbishop has appeared since his flaying attempts at reconciling the homophobic tenants of his holy book and the secular demands of the more enlightened members of his flock. What does leave a somewhat sour taste in the mouth is the smugness with which believers will utter such nonsensical drivel and then lean back smugly as though some point has been made. One would be almost tempted to forget that we are talking about the Christian Church, once so convinced of its ability to tell the world precisely “how one thing relates to another within the universe”, that it would put to death any unholy heretic do dared to suggest otherwise. Yet to forget this unfortunate truth would require us to shed such comments of all meaning, to absolve the religious leaders who responded to Hawking‘s work of having ever commented at all. Of course within the context of ignorant men who claim to know the will of god and butter their sandwich with ill-gotten gains obtained from such claims, that just will not do.

The self-evident objection to the religious response to Hawking is that all semblance of theist faith has been eroded without a scriptural reference relied upon, without a prayer tendered in the appeal for some rational godly retort to the heretic whose work not only renders “God” unnecessary, but necessitates an unnecessary “god”. The first port of call in light of the failure to invoke religious explanations for the origins of the universe would logically lead to the question of why the religious leaders, in their public objection to claims about god, are taking a deist position. For the unschooled among the audience, a deist position is one in which no religious or theist claim is made but rather the assertion is made that the evidence for an undefined god is observable in the natural world. Hopefully, for the perceptive amongst you, it will be clear that the statement of the Archbishop goes beyond even deism because it claims that religion does not even allege the existence of such evidence in nature. Karen Armstrong, a well known apologist and author of the book "A Case for God" was more forthright about what it was that religion was supposed to represent, noting that “religion was never supposed to provide answers to questions that lay within the reach of human reason“. It truly stretches the very limitations of credulity to consider the implications of such comments, for to say that religion does not provide answers to questions which lie within the reach of human reason is effectively to claim that nothing reasonable can be said about “God”. To say that religion does not have anything to say about how things relate to each other in the universe is to say that “God” has nothing to say about the universe.

Let us be frank and resist the temptation to argue that anything sensible remains in the realm of religion if the most ardent apologists and the very leaders whose income depends on defining faith make such admissions. The proposition of Stephen Jay Gould that religion could be assigned its own magisteria, free of the criticism of science was met with sighs of relief by the masses of believers eager to furnish new lodgings for their bronze age hang-ups. However, if there is a magisteria other than science in which religion reigns supreme, it is populated by an emptiness not accessible to human intelligence, which even if it was, would not explain how one thing relates to the other in the universe. The acknowledgement that the elusive magisteria, if it did exist would be void of anything worthy of our consideration, has for a considerable amount of time been held up by the illusion that religion has the unique claim to determine our moral values. Yet this claim has been flawed ab initio, for the religious texts upon which such morality is premised is composed of mere codified bronze age morality, the cherry-picking of which is no more impressive than selectively browsing the pages of Mein Kampf, or the Directorium Inquisitorum, and claiming that an isolated line, an inkling of reason or a spattering of compassion represents evidence for the absolute goodness and perfection of the author. That sphere of religious teaching which does tender morality not entirely repugnant to our modern sensibilities is by no means any more valuable than the moral teachings of Aristotle, Plato, Mills or Hume and unlike its secular competition, is wrapped up in an archaic brand of bronze age wish thinking. As such, the claim that there is a second magisteria is flawed, both in essence and in substance, and it would by admission of the religious be entirely superfluous if it did.

As is seemingly always the case, the shepherds, themselves frank and honest about the fact that they have neither a crook nor pen, and that the dogs of dogma are but hollow threats premised on a shameless fraud, are considerably less honest when addressing they wooly eyed flock, either that, or the flock lacks the moral fortitude to question the purpose of their woolen blindfold. Whatever the cause for the perpetuation it is remarkable how the foot soldiers of religious faith are immune to either the intellectual objection to the premises of religious faith, and will steadfastly remain unmoved by either revelations of clerical abuse of their obedience or when the scientific knowledge of our age has illuminated their darkness unlike any Kodak miracle Agnes Bojaxhiu ever had the benefit of exploiting. What makes this lack of religious transparency and honesty all the more distasteful is the fact that not only is the objection to the works of Stephen Hawking made from a position of intellectual inferiority and scientific ignorance, but it is done in circumstances where the right cheek of Stephen Hawking has achieved more in the fields of science and cosmology in a lifetime than 2000 years of Christian theology. Not only do such comments cross the border of a non-existent magisteria but they intrude there where they have no business being, anymore than the inquisition had either the moral or intellectual authority to deny the findings of Galileo.

Whilst our endeavor for scientific understanding is a never-ending pursuit of a goal we dare not claim to have reached, the idea that the universe is explainable and comprehensible stands at the heart of rewarding efforts to pursue it. In doing so we can, as Victor Stenger so conclusively illustrates in his book “the Comprehensible Cosmos” , disregard the vainglorious claim that the bronze age nomadic ancestors who preceded us were, by virtue of divine revelation, privy to a creation myth that would claim otherwise. So too can we disregard any attempt to reconcile such a worldview with our scientific understanding and the self-serving suggestions of those who still retain a wish-thinkers zeal for such nonsense. In truth the nonsensical opposition to the work of Hawking is no more significant than the clerical opposition to Franklin’s lightning rod, and the unfortunate consequences for the bell-ringers no more deplorable than the retarding consequence of religious opposition to science, however, this does not absolve us from acknowledging both the significance of the scientific contribution to our species and resisting all attempts by the remnants of mysticism to inhibit it.

For as long as the clergy have a flock, through indoctrination or fear, any claim by the clergy concerning the workings of the world or human efforts to understand it will have consequences for those unable to shed primitive superstitions, and those who share their society with the deluded. In the same way Charles I of Spain was implored to not let the property of the condemned feed the Holy Office, lest they not eat for want of burning, so too we should guard with great skepticism against any clergyman claiming to comment on the world in the name of God, against any criticism of human progress beyond the dictates of human interest and ridicule of our scientific understanding of the natural on baseless appeals to the supernatural.

By David B. ~

This originally started out as a short answer in verse to a Christian 'guest' on the testimonial "Leaving Pentecostalism." Not long after I posted it several more verses occurred to me, so here is the extended edition.

By Valerie Tarico ~ 

One of the most striking aspects of the Protestant clergy sex abuse pattern is that most people don’t realize it is a pattern. The Catholic Church has taken a well deserved beating in the courts and in the court of public opinion as former altar boys, orphans and ordinary parishioners have come forward with appalling stories of sex abuse. Yet equally egregious violations by Protestant clergy have failed to generate the same level of outrage. Why?

You might guess that the problems in the Catholic Church are uniquely wide spread, but that would be the wrong answer. Last week’s Eddie Long scandal, in which one of the nation’s most politically connected and homophobic mega-ministers was accused of strong-arming gay sex out of teens, was just one tip of an enormous Protestant iceberg. The news monthly Freethought Today has a regular feature called “Black Collar Crime Blotter”--typically a two page sampler of fraud, theft, and sexual abuse taken from the media across the country. They just turned their archive over to the Kinsey Institute. A website called ClergyGoneWild provides links to recent crime stories, including child abuse (206 articles) and internet solicitation (18).

This problem is nothing new. The first book on clergy sex abuse in this country, Betrayal of Trust, was published in 1988. The perception that Catholic priests are overrepresented among offenders is correct. They do offend at a higher rate. But because this country is predominantly Protestant, more children are abused by Protestant ministers than by Catholic priests. In 1990, the Freedom From Religion Foundation issued a study on pedophilia by clergy. At that time, two clergy per week were being arrested in North America for sex crimes against children. Fifty eight percent of them were Protestant.

The reality is that power is arousing for many male humans.Why do we largely overlook the horrific pattern of Protestant pedophilia and sexual exploitation? Here are a few factors to consider:

• The Catholic Church is easier to think of as a monolithic entity. That means it is easier for the press to cohere the abuse incidents into a single story and our brains to grock it. The idea of one big conspiracy appeals to us: “The Church” did it and then covered it up.
• The centralized hierarchy of Catholicism makes Catholic offenders easier to sue and guarantees deep pockets. The lawsuits in turn both generate their own news cycle and bring victims out of the closet.
• Since most Americans are Protestants, the Catholic Sex Abuse scandal is a story about “them.” Protestant Pedophilia is a story about “us,” which makes it less gratifying and more uncomfortable.
• Most Americans find the idea of celibacy peculiar at best. It makes for a more interesting narrative than a generic story about abuse of authority.

Has the priestly pledge of celibacy contributed to a pattern of inappropriate and exploitative sex by Catholics? Probably. But a look at the behavior of politicians and Protestant ministers—even just those iceberg tips that actually emerge into daylight--should tell us that celibacy is a small part of the story. The reality is that power is arousing for many male humans (and that male power and status are arousing for many females). The pattern is plain as day in Hollywood dramas, rape statistics, D.C. dramas, sexual fantasies, and clergy sex abuse. (Where is the university research on the topic?) And yet we continue to delude ourselves that Protestant ministers are somehow exempt from the endemic, that the incidents are isolated. We say that “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and yet we give ministers a level of deference that is unparalleled—and expect our vulnerable children to do the same.

When Annie Laurie Gaylor wrote Betrayal of Trust twenty two years ago, the pattern in Catholic congregations was to huddle the wagons around accused clergy. She quotes one defense witness who described the abuse as “one drop of ink in crystal clear water.” Today, after years of repeated exposure, Catholics are less likely to rally to the side of pedophiles, turning potentially devastating ire and scorn on the victims. To Gaylor, the New York Times stories this week of Eddie Long taking the pulpit amidst standing ovations and catcalls of love is déjà vu. “Some Protestants are where Catholics were twenty years ago,” she says. “We have a long ways to go.”

By Cheryl Ensom Dack ~

I would not say I’m an atheist and I resist labeling myself as an agnostic, mostly because I can’t stand labels anymore. But I definitely am not a Christian. I’m at a place where I no longer feel the need to believe or disbelieve anything. I know what I’m experiencing. I’m honest about it. I don’t need to label it. I don’t need to change or move. I’m where I’m at.

Because the shifts that have gradually occurred in me didn’t happen overnight, I think it’s important to write about the various stages I went through in the deconstruction of my Christianity. I know I am not alone in the feelings I have or had, but I often feel like there is a lot written from a Christian stand-point and a lot written from an atheist or agnostic paradigm, but not a lot written about the “process” people go through in between. What about the places in between belief and unbelief? Lots of people are there, but unless they read something about someone else’s similar experience or feelings, they inevitably feel alone.

Who do you talk to about the “in-between” places? Sometimes it feels like everyone – Christians and atheists, alike – would have you “hurry up and get on board, already!” There has to be a place for the process. In fact, I think I always WILL be in process and I don’t see myself ever pigeon-holing myself as “this” or “that.” I want to just be where I’m at and be honest about it, from here on out.

In the effort to talk about the in-between places, I’d like to share something I wrote about a year ago, when some questions began to surface that I think are important in the “deconstruction” process for a lot of people. Where I was at the time, it made sense to me to frame them like this:

Winter 2008 –

What if religion is the world’s effort to package up God in a manner we can offer to another at arms' length...we don't have to get too close, don't have to get the weepy, hurting friend's runny mascara on our clean shirts and we don't have to love in a palpable way that makes a difference in their circumstances?

After all, we aren't loved that way by others, so why should we get messy for someone else when no one is getting messy for us? Religion was handed to us at arm's length.

Many of us received religion as a neat and tidy package we didn’t dare unwrap. Religion was like a DVD still in the package we based our whole lives on even though we never opened or watched it ourselves.


Everybody we know gives and receives the same DVD in its' sealed form; we have forgotten there is something inside. Instead we talk about the DVD as if we've watched it. We repeat the little summary from the back cover, talking and acting as though we have seen it ourselves, when in fact we have not. We, along with our fellow-unopened-DVD owners, make special clubs we advertise as a place to talk about the DVD in depth. Instead, the clubs all go the same way: everyone repeating the description from the back cover in all the same ways. We forget the DVD is anything but the package it's inside of.

We all feel a vague discomfort- a feeling that there is something missing. Every once in awhile we might have a tiny flash of insight: what if we open up the DVD and actually watch it? What if, when we watch it, we find the story is different than our simple little clubs had interpreted it as being? What if, after actually watching it for ourselves, we can no longer stomach the "pat" conversation at our clubs? What then? This line of thinking is so uncomfortable, we more often than not push it from our minds.

We are too busy, too tired, too....afraid. We know deep inside that watching the DVD would change our lives, change our relationships, change how we do things. We, like the rich young ruler Jesus challenged to actually act on his beliefs, are willing to buy and distribute copies of the DVD to the world, stand in front of crowds and recite the blurb on the back cover and attend every single club meeting discussing the DVD. But open it up and watch it, knowing it could potentially change everything...hell, no. That is far too scary.

We give this same DVD to our children. We teach our impressionable children to memorize the blurb on the back of the DVD. We at least imply, and sometimes overtly teach, that if our children and/or other DVD-less acquaintances do not take the DVD we offer them and attend the discussion clubs, they will quite possibly go to hell. They are made to understand that if that happens, they are in danger of losing not only God's approval, but perhaps even our love.

When our children reach an age where they begin to think independently, they of course begin to doubt the "magical powers" of the DVD we touted: the rest of the world is watching all sorts of interesting DVDs, talking about them and don't live with the fear and numbed-out brains our children inherited from us. Why should they risk opening and watching the DVD for themselves; they already know the basic plot by rote, thank you very much, and they're frankly not impressed. Everywhere they look people are living their lives and watching fascinating DVDs.

And even if they had the gumption to open and watch the DVD we gave them, they'd likely meet with disapproval from us, as well as from our clubs, anyway. So why bother? It's much easier, more attractive and less of a bother to dump our DVD entirely and just subscribe to Netflix like everyone else in the world. Who cares what the movies the world watches are about; at least they WATCH them!!

What if we watched the DVD rather than leaving it unwrapped and having silly, shallow discussion groups about what someone else decided to say ABOUT the movie? What if we watch the movie, running the risk that it could change us? What if we were always meant to live in the truth the movie so beautifully pictures? What if there is no need for clubs? After all, why talk about watching it with other people, when we could be WATCHING it with other people?

Perhaps God created the movie TO change us as we watch it. If so, we shouldn't be standing arm's length from people, telling them ABOUT the movie and expecting them to be changed because they know what it's about. What if it's a movie only appreciated, only understood and only life-changing because the individual watches it themselves?

Perhaps watching the DVD yourself rather than basing your life on someone's tidy little summary would mean that the movie relates differently, personally and specifically to each individual. What if God made this movie specifically for each person, knowing exactly what that person needed to hear, see and feel? To give someone my interpretation or tell them about my experience is only helpful if they have already experienced it and been impacted by it in the way that is specific to them. If they already know the movie, they would enjoy hearing how it impacted me, what was personal to me and the individualized message I uncovered in it.

I can be told I am loved every day and twice on Sundays but until I am loved in a palpable, personal, wipe-your-snot-on-my-new-sweater-while-I-listen-to-you kind of way, others' statements of love are worth nothing to mePerhaps the main difference between reading the description on the back cover and actually watching it myself is, quite simply, love. I can be told I am loved every day and twice on Sundays but until I am loved in a palpable, personal, wipe-your-snot-on-my-new-sweater-while-I-listen-to-you kind of way, others' statements of love are worth nothing to me; in fact their emptiness eventually hurts so much, I numb out to it. And yet, am I doing anything different when it comes to my interactions with others?

To be handed the DVD while the person offering it sits and watches the DVD-less person's child cry because she's hungry is insensitive and even hateful. And you better believe that when that person shouts, "goodbye!" over the deafening cries of that hungry child, the DVD-less person will be throwing their DVD, unopened, into the next rubbish bin. If she is given a DVD about African salamanders, while the cries of her child and her own tears rolling down her cheeks are ignored, the giver is worse than those that walked right by her, pretending they don't see her plight. In her world of pain, she has no use for DVDs...doesn't matter whether they are about salamanders or love. Same thing in her reality. The tidy giver doesn't see her; he or she doesn't care. They just want to go back to their happy little club and tell all their buddies how many DVDs they distributed this week.

"She wasn't very receptive," he or she will tell their friends, when asked about what the person they offered the DVD to did and said when given the DVD. These friends shake their carefully-coiffed heads sadly.

"We'll just pray that she looks at it. That's all God asks of us, after all," they say. "We've planted the seed..."

How despicable is it to distribute a DVD about love in an unloving way. We might as well replace the real cover with a new one that is entitled, "Fuck You." At least that cover is honest about what the giver really thinks and feels about the person who doesn't own the DVD. I know for a fact that such a person would rather they just ignored her. But instead we shout over the sounds of her cries what will happen to her if she continues to refuse what we are offering.

What if we just toss the DVD altogether? Or maybe we watch the DVD ourselves and then put it away. What if we meet one another, DVD-less, and simply offer the compassion, support, acceptance and love we all want? Who needs to watch a DVD about something when they can experience it themselves? I enjoy a good love story, but I'd much rather experience one than watch a movie about it.

By Carol Putnam ~

I can’t really blame my mother for what she did. My father was an abusive alcoholic. I had seen him hit her on numerous occasions; once hard enough to make her mouth bleed. My sister and I were punished with a belt or backhanded. Yet despite what happened during the week, we still made it to church every Sunday morning. On that particular day we were all “good Christians."

Life for my mother was a living hell. (It was no picnic for us kids either.) But like I said, I can’t blame her. She was born in a small, backwater town in the North Dakota badlands during the Depression. Hardship was just a way of life, and a “good Christian woman” had to endure without complaining. The nuptial phrase “for better or worse” meant literally that. Divorce was viewed as a one-way ticket to Hell. At the very least, it was a scandal no decent woman could abide.

Over the course of our lives my mother tried desperately to find spiritual comfort in a variety of religious sources. My sister and I got dragged to more different churches than I can recall:  Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist. (Since, in my mother’s small-town estimation, Jews and Catholics were destined for damnation, she eschewed their doctrines.)  She even indulged in the wacky writings of Edgar Casey, Scientology and the Church of Religious Science. All this in the name of finding inner peace and some greater meaning to life’s adversities.

Then one day some new neighbors moved in next door. They were an elderly couple who had been missionaries in Africa for nearly 50 years. Their home was a veritable museum of cultural artifacts. (I was very much into the “Daktari” TV show back then, so of course I was instantly enchanted with their tales of life in the Congo.)  In addition to being very kindly and hospitable people, they were also Seventh-Day Adventists. This was a faith my mother had not yet explored, so she of course became enchanted for an entirely different reason.

From the time I was eleven until I was nearly fourteen I was compelled to attend Bible study in their home and Saturday service at their church. (SDAs hold Saturday as their Sabbath as part of their adherence to Old Testament law. Additionally, they subscribe to the ancient Hebrew belief that certain kinds of food are “unclean,” e.g. pork, shellfish and anything not having a cloven hoof.)  This was a difficult teaching for my mother to swallow, figuratively speaking. Still, she did her best to comply with this oddball, superstition-riddled culinary requisite, refusing to serve her family many of the foods we had grown up loving. (This certainly did not help matters between her and my father, a man who dearly loved his morning pork chops or bacon.)  Even worse, she began bringing home “SDA approved” non-meat, pseudo-food products packaged and promoted by the corporate church. The term “god-awful” was never more apropos than in reference to these vegetable by-product manifestations of malnutrition.

But gastrointestinal peculiarities and Sabbath swapping are not the reasons why I wrote this article. There is another Seventh-Day Adventist doctrine whose message is so vile, so racially and sexually perverted that the church has gone to great political and social lengths to deny that it ever existed. But it did exist. It does exist. It’s called “amalgamation." This is the twisted belief, invented and publicly endorsed by so-called SDA prophetess Ellen G. White, that Negroes (actually any human beings of darker skin tone) are the result of Jehovah's “perfect” people having sex with apes or other animals.

Some background:  White was born in Maine in 1827. Though slavery had been outlawed there since the late 1700s, rum manufacturers in Maine made a financial killing trading their “liquid gold” in African ports in exchange for Negro slaves, which were then sold for a handsome profit in the West Indies or the southern American states where slavery continued to thrive. Thus, the good—presumably Christian—merchants of Maine could “keep their hands clean” and still reap some hefty rewards. Even so, pro-slavery agitators in Maine continued to press for the re-legalization of slavery. And while White herself did denounce slavery as an institution, her language regarding “colored people” is far from egalitarian.

She wrote,

"God cannot take the slave to heaven, who has been kept in ignorance and degradation, knowing nothing of God, or the Bible, fearing nothing but his master's lash, and not holding so elevated a position as his master's brute beasts. But He does the best thing for him that a compassionate God can do. He lets him be as though he had not been." Ellen G. White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 1, p. 193.

So basically, she is contending that the uneducated black man (or woman) isn’t even as good as a “brute beast." Therefore, the “compassionate god” will simply let him rot in his grave in the same manner as a beast. (Note, it is no small coincidence that White frequently equated “colored people” with beasts. In fact, this comparison lies at the very core of her amalgamation theory.)  So, what is it?  White herself gave the definition:

"But if there was one sin above another which called for the destruction of the race by the flood, it was the base crime of amalgamation of man and beast which defaced the image of God, and caused confusion everywhere." -Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 3, p. 64, 1864.

"Every species of animal which God had created, were preserved in the ark. The confused species which God did not create, which were the result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the flood. Since the flood there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the endless varieties of species of animals and certain races of men."- Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 3, p.75, 1864. 

In essence, humans had sex with animals, thus creating whole new “confused” species. Even in White’s day, this was known in scientific circles to be a genetic impossibility. Still, the SDA church then as now staunchly contends that Sister White spoke nothing that did not come directly from Jehovah  . (Not surprisingly, these very passages were removed from later revised publications, presumably because they caused the church considerable political embarrassment.)

But wait, doesn’t the Bible itself speak of such creatures?  The books of Deuteronomy, Numbers, Job and Psalms all speak of unicorns. In Isaiah and Jeremiah we read about the cockatrice, a creature half-snake and half-chicken. And the satyr, the famous half-man, half-goat, which appears in Greek and Roman mythologies as well, is featured in Isaiah. In truth, superstitions the world over are rife with many colorful examples of "amalgamations."

Now let's get to the ugly heart of the matter:  Racism. The modern SDA can deny it all they like, but I vividly recall listening to that kindly old couple tell us how there was "scientific proof" that the black man's brain was considerably smaller than a white man's. Then too, the shape of his skull, nose, lips and jaw—similar to that of the gorilla—clearly indicated his primate ancestry. White herself stated that the results of amalgamation are evidenced in "certain races of men." Her crony and co-leader of the SDA movement, Uriah Smith, went so far as to name them specifically:  African Bushmen, Hottentots and even the American Digger Indian.

Perhaps White's ignorance—and that's a mighty big "perhaps"—can be forgiven considering the racist period in which she lived or her own medically unbalanced psyche. However, this perverted doctrine was still being preached during my childhood. And that was the year 1966! If you visit the official SDA website today, you will see they claim to abhor all forms of prejudice. How convenient. And how very "politically correct" for an institution that wishes to keep enjoying its tax-free status. If you ask rank-and-file SDA members about amalgamation, many of them won't know what you're talking about. That still doesn't belie the fact that this "religion" supported and promoted one of the most despicable and degrading concepts known to humankind.

As I stated earlier, I can't blame my mother for what she did, exposing me to all this nonsense. If anything, I owe her a debt of gratitude! Her curiosity, doubt and desperate thirst for answers inspired my own quest for truth. The pain of an abusive childhood taught me the meaning of hypocrisy and gave me the audacity to ask "why?" The latter has proven to be my most powerful tool in tearing asunder the ultimate "amalgamation" of lies, superstition, bigotry and intolerance that define the parameters of all religions.

End

Author's Note: My mother never did join the SDA church. Despite her personal trials and restrictive upbringing, she was still a woman of considerable intelligence, and I'm certain she saw right through their hogwash. After divorcing my father, she found her own form of "spiritual peace" in painting beautiful landscapes.

by Jody ~

I wasn't looking for it. In fact, it caught me blindsided. After "losing my religion" and leaving my 27-year marriage, I was pretty much labeled a heretic and loser by former Christian friends. Occasionally, I was met with a friendly hello in the grocery store, but mostly, people didn't want much to do with me. That's OK. I realize what I did rocked their tiny little world a bit too much.

I managed to move to another part of town and become involved in community events to fill the social gap left in my once full calendar. But, never in a million years could I have been ready for what came next. One night, while I was on Facebook, a longtime Christian friend sent me a shout out from the chat box. Sweet! That didn't happen often. It started out OK, the expected, "How are the kids? the job? your new life?" etc., and then his tone changed. He called me beautiful and wanted to encourage me as a newly single woman. OK. I think. I managed to end the conversation rather abruptly, not really sure what had just happened. Then, it happened again the next night. And the next. Each message got more personal. I am not stupid. I finally asked him to leave me alone. I would have been flattered, if not for one little detail. He is the husband of one of my former best friends, and a former pastor as well. I, the lost lamb from the fold, was being "hit on" by a man of the cloth.

Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. I should have seen it coming. But it shook the former underpinnings a bit further, and I lost even more respect for the organization and faith I so firmly clung to for most of my life. It was one of those "it won't happen with my friends" kind of moments.

But, it had happened. And in that moment of emotional infidelity on the part of this "man of god," my roots in freethinking grew a bit deeper. With self respect in tact, I turned and walked the other away.

By a searching soul ~

Like many of us, I was raised Christian. My mother is the youngest of five. Her father was a Baptist minister, her mother a chaplain and both retired missionaries (mother was actually born in Brazil while the family was still evangelizing there). My father is the youngest of six. His father was a Methodist minister. Both of my parents are still Christians (though neither attend church). My brothers are Christians; my aunts and uncles are Christians; my cousins are Christians. I believe I'm the only one who has been anything but.

Like every other child raised in a Christian home, I never questioned my religion. I went to church and Sunday school happily enough. I read my Bible; I memorized my verses. Then middle school came. This was the turning point in my life that made me question what I was doing and who I was. As a result, I studied different religions and belief systems.

Since then it's been a rocky path. I've practiced many religions, including Wicca, Satanism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and neo-paganism. I have a deep respect for all belief systems and still hold the study of religion close to my heart. I've just never been able to find the one for me. I never understood why until i really sat down and thought about whether I believed a deity or deities actually existed or not. The thought of not believing in a god was and still is mind-blowing. I've always been one to question things, but I'm very child like in that I hold on to hopes and ideals even if I suspect that they could be wrong.

Is there a god? Who knows. For me the proof is all around us. The proof IS us. But the progress of science cannot be denied and the theory of evolution cannot be declared simply outrageous, no matter how hard Christianity shouts. I feel as if I'll spend my whole life simply not knowing. But at least I know there are others out there that have come from the same place as me and have ended up here as well.

Thank you for this website. It's really a comfort.

Former pastor Travis J. Gandy was charged Friday with 31 felonies based on explicit photos and text messages he allegedly exchanged with two teenage boys from his church.


A criminal complaint said Gandy exchanged more than 4,000 messages with the boys — ages 15 and 16 — and sent one boy sexually explicit pictures of the other.

Gandy, a Town of Sheboygan resident, was charged in June with one felony related to each boy, but a forensic examination of his computer led to an additional 24 counts of possession of child pornography and seven counts of sexual exploitation of a child. The charges carry a maximum combined penalty of 535 years in prison.

Gandy, the former pastor of music ministries at Praise Fellowship Church, knew both boys from church and kissed one boy in the church attic, court records show. He was fired the day the first complaint was issued and remains in jail in lieu of cash bonds totaling $20,000.

The complaint filed Friday said Gandy used an e-mail account to send messages and pictures to the boys’ cell phones, and they in turn sent messages and pictures he could view on the computer. Those messages numbered 4,240 between April 30 and June 14.

Many of the messages contained graphic descriptions of sex acts, as Gandy described to each boy sex acts he wanted to perform or had performed, the complaint said. Some of the images had been downloaded to Gandy’s computer, which also contained various family photos.

The exploitation charges stem from a flurry of messages sent late May 30 into the early morning hours of June 1. Records show Gandy solicited nude pictures from both boys, sent out nude pictures of himself and sent explicit pictures of the 15-year-old to the 16-year-old.

Earlier in the day of May 30, Gandy had brought the 16-year-old to his apartment and performed a sex act on him while Gandy’s wife was gone, records show. That was the basis for one of the June charges, a count of felony sexual assault of a child by a person who works or volunteers with children.

The other charge, felony exposing a child to harmful material, was based on explicit pictures Gandy exchanged with the 15-year-old boy. Gandy also arranged two rendezvous with the 15-year-old in the church attic and repeatedly asked the boy to have sex with him in early June, but the boy refused.

Gandy’s previous attorney, Kirk Obear, said during an August court appearance that Gandy planned to enter a plea agreement on the two initial charges, but that was put on hold after attorneys for both sides were told additional evidence had been uncovered. John Hawley, Gandy’s current attorney, declined comment Friday on how the new charges may affect a potential plea deal.

“We got the complaint a minute before the hearing started, and I think it would be premature for me to say anything else about it,” Hawley said.

STORY LINK

By Carl S ~

Scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Tomorrow, my wife wants me to go with her to a lunch and rewards benefit for visitors to her church. She asks if I have any objections to being with them, and I can’t upset her by saying that the last time I was in that setting, my stomach was in turmoil for days afterward. Since her pointing out the fact that we wouldn’t be sitting among them, I feel better about this, since it gives her so much pleasure to have me with her to share with her. She’s told members that I’m an atheist, but I don’t think this has sunk in with them. The visitors aren’t aware of this though, and, for all appearances to me, are rather more strident in their convictions than the members. ( Two nights ago, I had a dream where I opened her church doors from inside, to find at least a thousand tee-shirted men outside, with crosses on the shirts!) Because I doubt that my feelings are unusual, let me be more specific.

Anyone who has seen the original (1953) version of the film “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” knows what I’m talking about. Whenever I am amongst true believers, there is an air of fantasy land. I am uneasy and want to escape their presence.

A made-for-TV movie, based on a true story, starred Tyne Daley as a social worker assigned to a teenage boy. The young man had been ruled mentally ill, and it was her job to prepare him to live in society. In her investigation of his history, she found out that he was not mentally handicapped, but was mimicking those he had grown up with around him, for he had been raised in mental institutions, acting out what was “normal” there. (Wouldn’t this be the same for cult children?) No way was he prepared to confront the real world after that.

In tightly-knit religious communities, there is no basis for comparison, no reality checks among its members, and none wanted. Therefore, the unreality is self-enforcing. To any “outsider,” this is evident. Indeed, the WAY OUT for those who are raised in or who unsuspectingly entered into such communities, has come through investigating other belief systems and the nature of beliefs themselves.

For me, returning to a religious venue is to realize that what was familiar at one time is now foreign; that I am now a stranger in a very strange land. I am reminded of how I felt when I returned to the monastery after a one year absence and asked myself, “What did I EVER see here that compelled me to invest so much of my emotional life in this place?” To re-enter it would have been a violation of my own conscience and survival instincts. Those taken over by the Body Snatchers, as I once was, have no comprehension of what I mean. They are comfortable in their captivity, without knowing it, and won’t escape unless they begin to look around and develop some curiosity.

Comparing religious upbringing to being raised in a mental institution may not be all that far-fetched. There are degrees of mental illness, just as there are degrees of religiosity, which floats somewhere in an otherworld; a world which is impervious to rational discussion and where all seeing is done in a mirror, merely reflecting the cult back onto itself.

I was raised in a Catholic and alcoholic environment, with the emphasis on alcoholic. (My oldest brother died from alcohol poisoning.) Every holiday involved a drinking binge, frequently with arguments going long into the night. This was “normal.” (As the “drunk on Jesus” must have been for others.) My friends were children of alcoholics. It wasn’t until my 22nd year that I met a non-dysfunctional family: considerate, caring, non-judgmental, non-sarcastic, un-argumentative and grudge-holding. So THAT’S what family is supposed to be!

It’s been said that most families are dysfunctional, and if so, we might consider it normal, as we become adults, individuals, independent thinkers, to abandon or leave behind those influences contrary to our natures - or it should be normal. People often reject the drugs of choice of the previous generation. Yet, there are many who don’t even think about this, and don’t grow up. But it is NEVER too late to do so.

The first steps to freedom can be awkward and scary, like toddling, and while liberating, even joyful, many don’t want to take those first steps, or leave the cage. There’s a song from the musical, “Sweet Charity,” called “Where am I Going?” that’s just great about this subject, with the words, “looking inside me, what do I see? Anger and hope and doubt, what am I all about? You tell me.” Yes, anger, hope, and doubt are the ways of freedom.

They say that the road of true faith is a narrow one, and few make it to the intended destination. In contrast, the road to freethinking has rough spots, but it’s reality, adaptable to our needs, and wide open.

I really wish they would stop lying to the children about serious matters. “Tradition” is a poor excuse to continue ignorance.

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~

While perusing my file of past letters-to-the-editor recently, I came across one which was published in the Rockland Free Press (Maine) Oct. 8, 2009, but never submitted here, as I often do. Re-reading it, I was a bit surprised that it got published. I suspect it was mostly the humor angle that did the trick. Perhaps the editor was amused? Anyway, I offer it here that you may have a chuckle, too. As you might guess, I think Sunday schools are one of the greatest scourges ever invented for the corruption of youthful minds.

This is written in response to a letter in last week’s Free Press which thanked folks for their contributions to the new Sunday school program in Camden. Now education is important, but I’m sure the leaders of this program don’t want it to turn into outright indoctrination. After all, true education teaches children how to think, not what to think.. Also, one suspects that children learn better if the lessons are about children. With those thoughts in mind, I’d like to suggest several biblical passages which might be included as units in the overall program.

How about the testimony of Leviticus 27, where the fair prices to be paid for slaves are laid out? For instance, “And if it be from five years old even unto twenty years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male twenty shekels, and for the female ten shekels.” According to the complete verse, depending on their age, females are worth one-half to two-thirds as much as males. These verses then provide two valuable messages about the Bible; one is that slavery is OK according to the bible, and the second is that girls are worth about half as much as boys.

Of course, the little girls in class will surely be amused by Paul’s lesson in 1 Timothy 2, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” Actually, the boys will probably get a bigger kick out of that one. I’m sure that none of the teachers in this Sunday school are women; that would be sending absolutely the wrong message.

And, since little girls grow up to be women, they certainly should learn early that giving birth is unclean, according to the bible. In the words of Leviticus 12, “If a woman conceive seed, and bear a man-child, then she shall be unclean seven days.” Of course, she is not to enter the church (“temple”) during this time. And, surely the girls will understand the need for the follow-on verse, “But if she bear a maid-child, then she shall be unclean two weeks.” That goes without saying, right?

Now some might tell you that these Old Testament verses were superseded by the New Testament, but if they really knew their bible, then they would know about Isaiah 40:8: “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand forever.”

Actually, the more I think about this, the more I think that I may be wrong. Maybe we should just let children grow up a little, to a point where they have the knowledge and confidence to question the opinions of adults, before we force them to attend schools which teach only our own religious views. Why do we need to fill their trusting, curious minds with ancient myth and superstition? Why not just send them out to play on Sunday morning? I guarantee they will enjoy it more, and learn much more about how the world really works.

By Valerie Tarico ~ 

Also available at the Huffington Post: God's Emotions - Why the Biblical God is so Human.


Do you remember the joke about the little Scottish boy who refuses to eat two nasty, shriveled prunes on his plate? His mother cajoles and pleads. Finally she tells him, as she has many times before, that if he doesn't obey her, God will be angry. Usually it works, but this time the stubborn child holds out, and the mother, herself angry, sends him straight to bed. No sooner does he get there than a storm sets in, with lightning and thunder crashing around them. Feeling contrite and thinking that her child must be terrified, the mother sneaks to her son's room to reassure him. She opens the door quietly, expecting to find him burrowed under the covers. But no, he is at the window, peering out into the night. As she watches, he shakes his head and says in an incredulous, reproving voice, "Such a fuss to make over two prunes!"

In the Hebrew Bible, in the book of 1 Samuel, the Philistines are battling with God's chosen people, the Israelites. The Israelites have a very special object, which you might recognize from the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is the Ark of the Covenant, a box made of wood covered in gold, with sculptured angels on top and a golden jar inside. Maybe it contains manna -- food that dropped from heaven. Or maybe it contains fragments of stone tablets. At any rate, the Philistines capture it in battle. The Israelites are angry, and God gets angry, too. No sooner do those Philistines cart off the box than plagues befall them -- a plague of mice, for example. Then the ark is taken from town to town, but the men of each town get hemorrhoids, which must have been particularly wretched in the days before toilet paper and Preparation H. (Don't miss the full story; the resolution is awesome. See 1 Samuel 6: 1-15.) Mice and hemorrhoids -- such a fuss over a golden box!

In other stories from the Bible, both Old Testament and New, God gets angry and does things that strike us as a rather big fuss. In 2 Kings, for example, the prophet Elisha gets mad because some kids (boys, of course) are making fun of him and calling him Baldhead. Elisha curses them, and apparently God is mad, too, because he sends two female bears out of the woods, and they maul and kill 42 of those boys (2 Kings 2: 23-24). In the book of Matthew, Jesus is traveling along and he sees a fig tree. He is hungry, so he goes over to it. But it is bare because -- as the writer tells us -- figs aren't in season. So Jesus gets angry and curses the tree, and it withers and dies on the spot (Matthew 21:18-19).

In all of these stories, what jumps out at most of us is a sense of disproportionality. God's reaction seems so out of scale with the transgression! That is what makes us laugh at the joke, because the little boy notices it when his mom doesn't expect him to; and it is what makes biblical literalists squirm about the other stories. We expect God to not be the kind of guy who needs anger-management classes. He shouldn't need to breathe deeply and leave the room lest he, heaven forbid, do something he will regret. (Note: If you research these stories, you will find all manner of convoluted apologetics arguing that God's reactions were in fact proportional. Those 42 lads were Crips and Bloods carrying switchblades, for example...)

Adolescent psychologist Laura Kastner recently wrote an acclaimed book about parenting during the teen years. The book, Getting to Calm, is about "emotional regulation," getting yourself into a modulated, sensible mental space so that you can teach self-regulation to your kid, whose frontal lobe isn't quite all there yet. According to Kastner, calling in the she-bears means that we, as parents, have failed at our own mission -- we're in meltdown right along with our teens.

We expect God to be good at emotional regulation, even better at it than Dr. Kastner asks parents to be when faced with teens gone haywire. (If I have to "be the adult in the room," then God does, too; after all, He should have this stuff mastered.) Another way of saying this is that we expect God to have a very high "E.Q." (Emotional Quotient). When this seems to be violated, we experience dissonance, and we may laugh, question our beliefs, or make intellectual moves to restore a sense of consistency.

What doesn't strike us as bizarre, in fact, what we tend accept without thought, is the storyteller's assumption that God has emotions. We don't expect Him not to have emotions, or that would be crux of the joke: Isn't it funny -- the kid and his mom think that God gets angry! We simply expect Him to have a sense of proportion. The idea that God has emotions seems so natural that most people who believe in gods never question it. The God of the Bible gets angry, has regrets, gets lonely, loves, has loyalties, is jealous, feels compassion, and is vindictive. In the incarnation of Jesus, he also is afraid and weeps.

We expect God to not be the kind of guy who needs anger-management classes.For a psychology nerd like me, that is fascinating, and I think when you finish reading this series you'll understand why. Starting just from abstractions or the evidence of the natural world, it isn't a given that the force that designed the DNA code would get mad or sad or jealous. Or rather, I should say that it isn't a given in the abstract. We will see that once we add a human interpreter, the idea that God is loving or angry or lonely become as natural as the idea that angels have two legs. We can understand our god-concepts only if we understand ourselves.

In religion, people make guesses about what is real based on highly ambiguous evidence. If the evidence weren't ambiguous, there wouldn't be so many disagreements -- literally thousands of branches of Christianity alone. But those same ambiguities that make it so hard to come to any agreement about God make religion very interesting from the standpoint of understanding our own psychology. In some ways, the concept of God is like an ink-blot test. The blot is there, but what you see in it depends on who you are.

All of us engage in a process that Sigmund Freud called "projection," and in fact, those ink-blot tests are known in the trade as projective tests. Projection, by definition, is a matter of mistaking internal realities for external realities. If I look at a random ink blot and I see exploding bombs, a therapist might wonder if I am angry or worried (or living in a war zone). Projection happens particularly in social situations, and when we are faced with ambiguities. We are angry, so we assume family members are angry at us. We feel rejected, so we assume our colleagues feel rejecting. We are dishonest, and so we mistrust the people we deceive.

How about our images of God? Which ones come from something outside us and which are projections of our own psyches? Answering this question is a process of elimination; to come any closer to knowing what is out there, we need to start by scrubbing our god concepts of anthropomorphism -- or projection. We now know quite a bit about the human mind, how it constrains our imaginations by forcing information into boxes called ontological categories, and what kinds of cognitive errors (including projection) it is prone to. Two years ago I wrote a series entitled "Christian Belief Through the Lens of Cognitive Science." This article is intended to complement that one by examining another chunk of what is known (or at least highly probable) about the human psyche, in this case human emotions, and looking at the biblical god-concept through that lens.

You have probably heard the saying, "In some ways I am like no other person, in some ways like some other people, and in some ways like every other person." For anyone who has a god-concept, all three of these dimensions shape it:

• Your personal upbringing and present state of mind. If you have more authoritarian parents, you are more likely to see God as a strict parent. If you are lonely, you are more likely to see god as wrathful (Schwab & Peterson, 1990). If you feel good about yourself you are more likely to see God as loving (Benson & Spilka, 1973).
  
• Your culture. If your culture is bellicose, your God likely approves of war. If it accepts homosexuality as part of a natural spectrum, you God is likely to become less disapproving of it.
  
• Your species. If your species has a mammalian, primate, homo sapiens sapiens mind, your God probably does, too. Not that we have a great sample to consider. We have one species with god-concepts on this planet, to be exact. What we can say is that across cultures, regardless of what physical form gods may take (male/female, animal, tree, spirit) these deities have strikingly human psyches. (Pascal Boyer, Religion Explained).

It is this third dimension that will be the focus of this series. Specifically, we will be looking at how God's emotions are depicted in the Bible, what is now known about emotions as physical and social phenomena, and how these two intersect. In the process, we may learn something useful about ourselves. Coming segments will address the following topics:

• Part 2: What Is Psychology Capable of Telling Us About the Mind of God?
  
• Part 3: Emotions 101 - Form, Function and Evolutionary Psychobiology
• Part 4: God's Temper - Social Hierarchies and Anger
• Part 5: What Pleases God (and High-Status Humans)?
• Part 6: Jesus - Perfect Friend or Stepford Friend (Love, Narcissism, and Introjected Parents)
• Part 7: God Cares about People to the Same Degree I Do (Cognitive Dissonance Theory and Projective Processes)
• Part 8: If God Were a Dog -- Or a Homo sapiens sapiens

If you don't want to miss this series, you can subscribe to Valerie Tarico at this blog, or email her at vt at ValerieTarico.com with the word "Subscribe" in the subject line.

By Southern Man ~

I am a man in my 40s who lives in the South. I was raised by loving parents and attended a small denominational country church as a child. This church was a fundamentalist - holiness based group. I would be remiss if I did not recognize a few positives about this upbringing. Hearing the message of Jesus Christ did teach me to be humble and to love others as myself. However, I was also exposed to a constant barrage of hellfire and brimstone sermons, altar calls, speaking in tongues, and all the other things that have become so typical of fundamentalist Christians. As a young man entering college I remember writing term papers for political science class based on a world view that Christ would soon return and that prophecy explained lots of world events like the rise of this powerful leader from the Soviet Union who I was sure was the Antichrist.

As with most people I left the church once entering college. I was very tired of the salvation message, the strict lifestyles that must be adhered to and the unforgiving, non-compassionate nature of many christians that I new. I would feel guilty about not participating but at the same time enjoyed being away from religion.

As time marched on I found myself a father in my late twenties and like any good dad returned to the church with my young family in tow. We did Sunday school, Bible school, retreats, youth group, mission trips, etc. I taught, sang, mentored and counseled. I belonged to a Methodist Church and enjoyed more of the message of grace rather than damnation. I really thought I had found the better ground. No hell fire and brimstone sermons, educated ministers, a more socially tolerant denomination, etc. However, I found that the more I got involved the more I grew uneasy. It was as if nothing satisfied my desire to be closer to God, fulfilled, to connect with people of faith in an idealistic Christ-like way. Well you can probably guess where this is heading.

I worked, prayed, studied, sacrificed and became lay person of the year as a father of two and vice president of an engineering company. Between work and church I was never home. Conflicts arose with the parents at Youth Group and our Youth Pastor. He ended up stepping down and I volunteered to lead the Youth. The parents still were never happy. They seemed to ignore almost everything God and Christ was telling us through the bible and scriptures. It was me first, my child first, go through the motions, play favorites, etc. I worked harder thinking that just sacrificing as Christ did, it would all work out. People would change. The holy spirit would sweep down and make all things new in me and everyone else. Yet Sunday after Sunday I left the Church after giving it my all, surrounded by tons of people, as the lonliest man on earth.

So I have left the Church and the Christian faith. I am a much happier person because of it. All this work, service, and God was still so distant so quite. Soon enough another controversy arose and out went our Senior Pastor with only a year of time at our church. I grew more and more frustruated and bitter in the way my fellow Christians were behaving particularly the ministers who in my opinion were only interested in the career ladder of appointments and power in the organized church.

I grew very depressed and had an extremely rough year. A new youth pastor was finally hired, and I finally started slowing down. However, the parents soon began to turn on this new pastor and I made a grave mistake and unloaded several years of frustruation with them all in an email tirade. To make a much too long story a little shorter, I was alienated by the parents and my guilt was off the charts high. I had to take a break from the church and all the drama that I had created in pursuit of a Christian ideal. People loved that person who gave it all. Those same people were the same ones who nailed me to the cross I had been carrying all those years.

After trying to heal from the depression I began to explore the things that motivated my and my faith. I soon learned how deeply my fundamentalist upbringing created a overwhelming sense of guilt in me. I then began to question God and understood that ultimate perfect love from God would never be satisfied.

So I have left the Church and the Christian faith. I am a much happier person because of it. I realize that my dedication to the cause was not very healthy for me, made me angry with others who did not share my zeal and devotion and who would not simply be anything but human. I became a christian al queda member a fundamentalist. I was right and everyone else was wrong. I was angry.

Today I see the danger in fundamentalism. I see what it helped do to me. With my experience I can see the 911 attacks being justified in the mind of a fundamentalist of any religion. I am largely quiet about my self discovery and new found beliefs. I am having to work to build a new social network and system of friends based on a new healthy and real world view. And finally I have found the peace I was looking for all along.

Reaction to the lawsuits alleging sexual coercion against Bishop Eddie Long reverberated both locally and nationally Wednesday morning -- and that was before a third suit was filed Wednesday afternoon.

The third suit was filed in DeKalb County Superior Court, said a spokeswoman for attorney B.J. Bernstein.

Bishop Eddie Long

Long was not immediately available Wednesday, but is holding a news conference Thursday morning.

CNN and Good Morning America both ran pieces on the lawsuits, as did the local TV news shows.

It was a major topic on local urban-themed radio stations. On the "Frank and Wanda Morning Show" on V-103, host Frank Ski held off on discussing the lawsuits until after 8 o'clock because, he said, "we're going to get the kids off to school" first.

Ski is a 12-year member of Long's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia. In an interview with the AJC, Ski said his reaction is one of "extreme support."

"It's difficult for me because Bishop Long and I are very close," he said. "I'm one of these people who's really old school. When you're a friend and I support you, I support you. Right now it's allegations."

Two men, ages 20 and 21, filed lawsuits in DeKalb County alleging Long coerced them into having sex in exchange for trips, cars and cash.

The plaintiffs say Long began having inappropriate relations with them when they were 16. They are seeking a trial by jury and unspecified damages.

Long adamantly denies the allegations.

Ski said the reaction he's heard from fellow church members has been disbelief of the claims. But the reaction Ski's gotten from the public at large has been far more mixed. "It's going to cause a lot of destruction in our community," a caller told Ski. "I just hope it's not true."

Across the radio dial on Kiss 104.1, Roland Martin interviewed the plaintiff’s attorney, B.J. Bernstein, on the nationally syndicated "Tom Joyner Morning Show."

Bernstein said that when she first got a phone call from one the alleged victims, “the chills went down my spine because I immediately knew the seriousness…and I knew the stature of Bishop Long in this community and across this nation. I got the boys in and spoke with them and that’s when I knew that I had no choice but to get involved. I was shaken by the seriousness of these allegations.”

Bernstein told Martin that she would be subpoenaing Long’s phone, e-mail and travel records as the case moves forward.

“To say to the world as a young man that you had that happen[to you], the ridicule and scorn that these young men are willing to put themselves through for the truth, is extraordinary,” Bernstein said.

She said that last May, one of the plaintiffs approached Long for counseling after his best friend died. “Instead, the bishop makes a move on him.”

Martin said he would be talking with a spokesperson for Long on Thursday morning, and attempted to set up an interview with Long.

Afterward, Joyner said if that he were Long, he would be immediately making radio appearances to try and clear his name. “I would have beat me to work,” Joyner said. “I would have been in my studio before I got here.”

Church spokesman Art Franklin did phone interviews with CNN and the "Frank and Wanda Morning Show." He strongly denied the allegations but declined to get specific when pressed, saying the lawyers had yet to look at the full lawsuits. "It's really unfortunate these two men have decided to take this course of action," Franklin told Ski. "The plaintiffs, these are not innocent victims. ...I just caution people to consider the sources and their motives."

On CNN, Franklin said the plaintiffs were motived by "retaliation" and called it "a shakedown for money."

One plaintiff, 20-year-old Maurice Robinson, was arrested in June in connection with a burglary at the church. The allegations also were a hot topic on the Internet.

Among trending topics on Twitter, Bishop Eddie Long was No. 1 in the Atlanta area Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. The website for Long's church, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church -- www.newbirth.org -- has been inaccessible since the story broke Tuesday evening. The reason for the site's problems were not immediately known.

STORY LINK