By RT ~

Aristotle remarked that self command can be achieved when "obedience to reason becomes habitual". We now know that new ‘front brain experiences' i.e. those first experiences we have, will eventually be stored deeper within the brain after repetition, thereby forming habits. After playing high level sport for most of my life - going to the gym now is like tying a shoe lace or brushing my teeth. Good things can be practiced for good habits to be formed and of course the same can be said for the opposite.

Christians often don't realize how much religious conditioning can form harmful habits, psychological strongholds and even problematic addictions. Sadly, the whip cracking servility so characteristic of religion is often mistaken for piety, devotion or spiritual depth. These ‘practices’ however can cause long term psychological harm. After many years of pastoring a Charismatic church - and then being forced to retreat because of a personal crisis (seen as failure by the judgmental majority) - I noticed how long it took me to overcome obsessive compulsive tendencies, emotional instability and vulnerability.

What makes me really cringe now - as an outside observer - is the churches awful reliance on 'pseudo psychology' or‘psycho babble’ and crass marketing to capture their clientele. Note the clever sounding phrases, the terminology, the alliteration, the words that frame powerful images and ideas of utopian domination and which unapologetically seek to lure, control or even addict people. 'Modern' churches have dropped biblical terms (not surprisingly) for cool sounding psych-speak. This really is no different to commonly known cults such as Scientology. The modern church realizes it must stay relevant in a society which has an ever decreasing appetite for outdated biblical norms. Further, given that our superficiality in society is at an all time high - church leaders have lowered their message to infomercial tackiness hoping to give the impression they have something truly intellectual yet common to offer.

The hardest part for the ‘ex-mega churchian’ is accepting that life actually is more about grey areas and uncertainties. The stark reality is the ‘repent or go to hell’ message doesn’t really fit a world of science and knowledge. Apart from extremists, the church isn’t going to attract members with such banal idiocy. Therefore, the church name and website must offer something that grabs the more sophisticated (yet just as vulnerable) members of our species. Hence terms such as empowerment, wholeness, vision, values, 'overcoming', 'organic life', 'planting', mandate, breakthrough, heights, victory, power, presence, community are spewed forth ad nauseum and designed to tickle the intellect. Sunday just isn’t Sunday without hyper-positivism either. The come down from this isn’t so different from the day after one too many G&T’s.

The church name no longer serves to differentiate locale and broad flavor; now it must have a powerful 21C enticement to draw the people in for more power and more ‘abundant life'. Even the church of 30 can claim to be ‘international' with a stroke of a pen. And then there’s the cool 'music', the cool clothes, ear piece mics, the pre-service hype, the exaggeration...the faces taut with ‘smilosis’.

The sheer arrogance of this falsity is cultish, controlling and psychologically disturbing. When things don't work out, as most often is the case - when there isn't victory, when there isn't 'empowerment' - people can be psychologically scarred for years. They believe they have failed. Personally. They have been rejected. God promised it. God’s presence has gone. For these people even the risk of reason is too high.

People invariably move on in this environment - because they have to. Failure is embarrassing in this guaranteed victory and power 'churchianity' but of course there is always a ‘god reason’ for moving on. Its been statistically shown that people average about 3 years per church. Approximately the same as changing over motor vehicles.

The term commonly used by the new church that receives these ‘try again’ types is 'transfer growth'. Transfer growth is the ultimate for the growing church – its like getting more business simply because the business up the street closed down. Humbly the church pastor never admits to wanting transfer growth, but secretly they delight in getting it.

New vision statements are common of course and these are changed regularly to fit but again it’s always just as the Lord instructed. That’s when Joshua and Isaiah are dusted off and quoted all over again. "Behold I am doing a new thing, do you not perceive it?. New alliterations spring forth, new maxims, new aphorisms abound. The deep ingraining has occurred. No one questions the constant ‘on the precipice’ dictum, year after year, after year. And sadly, new members don't realize what they have just signed up for.

The hardest part for the ‘ex-mega churchian’ is accepting that life actually is more about grey areas and uncertainties. Life is generally fairly mundane with some treasured moments. That’s what makes them treasured i.e. they are not every day. It’s healthy and real. False utopias create immature dependencies, not unlike the 20 yr old today who wants a never ceasing ‘experience’ without the responsibility.

Thankfully, reason rescued me from unreality. Thank you Aristotle.

Submitted by exrelayman ~ 

Saw a wonderful comment that I felt merited submission here as a short article. Not able to contact Billyjobob for approval, but assume by the public forum in which it appeared and by its nature, that Billyjobob would be pleased to see it given more attention. The first line gives credit, the rest is the comment/article:

Billyjobob, comment in Miami Herald article 2/17/2011 about a Richard Dawkins lecture:

---

See the magic

When you look at different religions, they usually contain "magic." For example:

The Mormon religion contains the magical golden plates, the magical angel, the magical seer stones, the magical ascension of the plates into heaven, etc.

The Muslim faith contains the magical angel, the magical flying horse, the magical voices, the magical prophet, etc.

The Christian faith contains the magical insemination, the magical star, the magical dreams, the magical miracles, the magical resurrection, the magical ascension and so on.
The presence of "magic" is a clear marker for "imaginary." For example, how do we know that Santa is imaginary? Because (among other things) he has eight magical flying reindeer. How do we know that Jack and the Beanstalk is a fairy tale? Because (among other things) the story contains magical seeds. In the same way, how do we know that God is make believe? Because God is surrounded by magic.

According to believers, God is an all-powerful being who has the divine, magical power to do anything. How do we know that this belief is a fairy tale? One way to know is to try to invoke God's magical power. For example, as described in , the Bible tells us in many places that God answers prayers. However, whenever we try to pray, we notice that nothing happens . That tells us that God is completely imaginary. The magical powers ascribed to him are a fairy tale.

Another way to know is to read the stories of magical events in the Bible. There is the magical flood, yet we know with certainty that the flood never happened. There are the magical miracles of Jesus, but (predictably) none of these miracles left behind any tangible evidence . There is the magical resurrection, yet there is zero evidence that it ever occurred and no reason to believe it

God is identical to Leprechauns, mermaids and Santa. God is a magical fairy tale creature. The magic surrounding God tells us that God is imaginary.

By Free From Faith ~

This letter is a response to the writings of Bishop Edward J. Burns, in the Juneau Empire, titled “Abuse Hurts and so does the “Truth”.

Mr. Burns, if I may, I’d like to take a moment to paint a historical picture. I believe this picture will illustrate the hypocrisy of your suggestion that “together we will do whatever is necessary to make our families, churches and societies safe places for our young people and those dear to us”.

Envision an institution that has centers established across a nation, several nations, in fact. People are brought to these centers because of their religious beliefs and the religious beliefs of those who imprisoned them. These centers are secured with high walls fortified with barbed wire and shards of glass. Well posted guards and heavy gates make escape unthinkable. Anyone who does escape is returned by the public or local authorities. This is not a prison in the legal sense of the term as all of the captives are here by mechanisms that are outside of the law.

During their incarceration, each inmate is completely dehumanized with any trace of individuality and self esteem removed. They are required to wear rough, drab, grey smock type clothing. Any relationship, conversation or even the slightest personal intimacy with other inmates is forbidden. Names are changed to something symbolic and more pleasing to the overseers. Name changes also make it difficult for family members that want their loved ones returned to find them. Brutal, tedious work is done without pay. The monetary benefits of these labors go only to the institution. Rape, beatings and psychological abuse are not uncommon. Of course, there is no medical care, no compassion and no logic to this situation. The inmates find themselves locked up without a term to their sentence. Often they are moved from one work center to another so that their relatives cannot claim them.

I will ask you sir, and the readers, to give a name to these insidious places. I think that most of the readers will be wrong. I think that you, sir, will know.

They are not the Nazi concentration camps of the Third Reich.

They are the Magdalene Laundries.

These centers, established by the Catholic Church in France in 1641, took the name from the biblical figure Mary Magdalene (who was supposed to have been a prostitute turned penitent in church mythology). Ostensibly and charitably, these institutions were first established as a refuge for “fallen women”, offering these women a place to reform themselves via hard work and religious instruction.

The orders that ran the institutions in Ireland, the Good Shepherds and the Sisters of Mary, shortly began to steer a new course. Induced by the profitability of the centers, the nuns began to evolve a process whereby the women would be intimidated to stay in the centers/asylums to prevent them from walking out. The women would be reminded that they must wash away their sins while earning money for their keep and for the maintenance of the convent that presided over them. The longer the nuns could keep them women at the institutions, the more thoroughly the life of drudgery and pain would break any spirit of independence. The fallen women would become a profitable means within the network of the Magdalene Laundries.

The cash flow potential of the laundries, combined with the unique anti-sex, misogynistic zeal of the catholic overseers, eventually encouraged mission creep. By the 19th and 20th centuries, the title of “fallen” had grown to include victims of incest, rape (violations by the church leadership were included), women who had children out of wedlock, young ladies who spoke back to their parents, the homeless and girls whose beauty was considered to be a potential temptation to men.

When confronted with the horrors of the Catholic Church’s Magdalene Asylums, the church found itself, after facing the truth of mass graves where the broken women were buried and the consistent testimony of many survivors, unable to ignore it. So the church took the next step and denounced it. True to the church’s nature, the descriptions in the media, however factual and well substantiated, were described and misrepresentations and anti-catholic propaganda.

Mr. Burns, your writings seem to hope for some variation in the Stockholm syndrome in which the victims of sexual abuse by the church will embrace their captors to help the healing process. In fact, your article reeks of cognitive dissonance, dissimilitude and obfuscation.

Sir, no one, absolutely no one, and no member of a clear thinking society, would regard the perpetrator of a vicious and sadistic sexual attack as part of the healing process. There is no togetherness in the way that you describe it. The acts of a pedophile priest maim and injure their victims for life, often leaving them unable to trust, embrace their families and communities, enjoy intimacy and live spiritually. These evil men have taken something that can never be given back. In short, they have murdered the soul.

Mr. Burns, the only contribution that is required of rapists that pose as members of the community is their absence, preferably while serving lengthy prison terms. Their actions are not “inappropriate”. They are not sins. They are felonies. We have laws to protect us from these evil people. And these people deserve to go to jail.

I remain, sir, your vigorous opponent.

By Carl S ~

Who hasn't, when watching a movie, shed a tear when a really fine person, especially a young woman, dies? You can relate to that person as yourself. Or you take special pleasure in the wedding scene in the movie, “The African Queen." All such films contain fictional characters like the fish Nemo, Atticus Finch, Jesus.

One day, my Christian Right sister-in-law told my wife about the character of a TV series. She was upset about a decision that person was making, and shouted, "Don't do it Lexiel", only realizing shortly after that the character wasn't real. Real or not, we do get involved, because we empathize. Guys, by design, take girls to romance movies to get them closer.

Lately I've come to hate those heart-rending, feel-good, everything turns-out-really-good-in-the-end productions. And I hate reading the DVD jackets at the library, because way too many of the plots involve "an event that changed their lives forever." (Why can't it effect their lives for awhile?)

You might ask what all this has to do with religion, or maybe you have already figured it out. Of all the churchgoers I know, I've noticed their particular preference for these aforementioned entertainments. I'd say they prefer them for the same reason I find them off-putting: they play with the emotions, frequently with some "message" attached. Right at home and comfortable, churchgoers welcome having their emotions manipulated. That's disturbing because they're unaware, or don't care about this. It's just too easy for some glib, heart-tugging televangelist, guru, dictator, or any "messiah" to step right in, not missing a beat, to use them. In the real world, the words of Rudolf Hess echo, "Do not seek Adolf Hitler with your mind. You will find him through the strength of your hearts!" It is disturbing to watch those you care about support and defend their manipulators.

It's a psychological matter. Ask any woman what really aggravates her about budding relationships, and expect to hear the words, "Being played, toyed with, taken advantage of, and emotionally strung along. Maybe he's just saying those things to get me into bed." And yet most churchgoers are women, and I strongly suspect that much the same approaches that get a woman involved with a man are exploited by religions, like chick magnets. Religion is, to be honest, about emotions. And those who, "know in their hearts" are trusters of those who tell them what is "in their hearts."

I'd conjecture that men go to church mostly for other reasons: for their wives and kids, to justify their prejudices and rationalizations, to look good in the community, duty, tradition. Unless they’re radical to begin with, there isn't that much involvement. (Also, men create religions which are bullshit, and deep down, perhaps know intuitively this is what it's about, I suspect.)

Religious belief systems appeal especially strongly to those who are desperately in need of being loved and reassured, and those, also, who feel worthless. There is a very old adage: Love is blind. The loved one can do no wrong. The lover is too close to the trees to see the forest; too involved, committed, invested. The lover believes he/she cannot be a fool because only the lover can see for real and really understand and know the beloved. "The heart knows what the mind cannot understand." To point out faults of the loved one, whether spouse, child, grandchild (especially grandchild), is to be attacked by a fierce defender. One doesn't go there. One dare not challenge the primacy of emotions. This all makes sense; obviously the lioness and mother bear will defend her cubs. You better not even imply a threat.

Not surprisingly, religious belief systems appeal especially strongly to those who are desperately in need of being loved and reassured, and those, also, who feel worthless. Often the very basis of a religion is that the individual is worthless to begin with, ergo, in need of the "wisdom and saving" of the belief system. Of course, the psychologically healthy response to this must be, "Bullshit!" But the heart-mind manipulators won't accept this, even in their own hearts. Ever attentive to the believers’ feelings, needs, however neurotic, for attention, the systems take advantage, to be answered with gratitude, leading to blind, dedicated commitment. Such susceptible persons are lied to and exploited, illusion-bound. Because of these things, they love all the more; still "in love" as if from first awakening.

It is remarkable how entangled in the heartweb the entrapped can become. Even after children are killed in cults, are molested by religious figures, and people are shown outright the hypocrisies and contradictions in the religion, still the victims remain immovably intransigent, defending with tooth and claw, following the heart which has betrayed them, refusing to even consider a divorce. They will continue to be "faithful" to the primrose path, following their hearts.

Love is blind. And God can do no wrong.

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~

We atheists are frequently subjected to this question - or criticism. Often, it appears the questioner thinks she already knows the answer, and is simply implying that we’re angry out of defensiveness, as one gets when he is backed into a corner with no arguments left. It’s not that simple.

But I want to offer an answer to the believer who is genuinely curious and really wants to know. Now I can’t speak for everyone, but I think most atheists would agree that we get angry for a great number of personal and social or civic reasons.

You see, we all grew up in a god-saturated society, everyone does. No one is born believing in a god. We were all indoctrinated in belief, to one degree or another, if not by our parents, priests, or pastors, then by our peers and society at large. We all began hearing about this god when we were toddlers, just old enough to understand a bit of our native language. We were told that there is a very powerful, invisible man in the sky, and he is very uptight about how we should act. We were told he not only knows everything we do, but he listens in on our every thought.

Most of us also got the standard stick-and-carrot lesson, as well. See, there’s this kind of deal we have with this god, even though we were never asked and never agreed to any deal. If we largely do what people and the bible tell us what god wants (he never speaks to any of us directly, of course, so we have to take their word for it), then we can go to heaven after we die, to live again. If we don’t do what they tell us he wants, then we go to this god’s concentration camp after we die, to live again, in eternal torment.

Many of us took all this stuff quite seriously. We were only kids after all. But, over time we began to have questions about this god and what he supposedly did and wanted. And we got too many unsatisfactory answers. Very often, we were shocked at what we found in the sillier (Leviticus) and nastier (Exodus) parts of the bible. As just one example, it simply made no sense to most of us for a god to create humans, if the majority of them were destined to suffer eternally in hell. We treat our children better. If we knew that most of our children were destined for such a future, we wouldn’t have them in the first place. Why would a god do what we found so repugnant, and so immoral?

For others of us, we simply saw no logical necessity for a god in this universe, and saw no credible evidence of one, so we simply abandoned that hypothesis.

Now, where the anger comes in, is that once we see the light, once our reason tells us there is no god and never was, we feel that we have been had, been fooled, hoodwinked. Ask yourself, do you get angry when you feel you have been lied to, or cheated, played for a fool? Anger is a very natural and expected response in such situations.

Many atheists feel that their society has been unfair to them in subjecting them to religious indoctrination before they had developed fully developed brains and enough maturity and confidence to question what grown-ups told them. Watch some little children for awhile and see how often you hear them yell, indignantly, “But that isn’t fair!” A sensitivity for fairness is hardwired into all of us, and in many other animals, too. Chimpanzees, for example, have been observed to become downright vicious with members of their tribe who have treated other members unfairly.

Many atheists also get angry at the way believers throw their weight around in the public square against abortion rights, gay marriage, the teaching of evolution, and such, when all of their arguments are ultimately based on ancient writings by primitive tribesmen.

Many of us feel the anger of helplessness since the system is stacked against us, as most people are god-believers. We are convinced that religions are based on falsehoods, and decisions based on false premises are usually wrong. For instance, I get angry that people lobby against gay marriage simply because some primitive people wrote that god abhors homosexuality. The same book says god abhors eating shellfish and people who work on the Sabbath, too, but believers conveniently ignore the obvious fact that the bible preaches a very primitive “morality” which our own legal systems have sensibly outgrown. We have no laws against any of these things that god supposedly abhors (or thinks are “abominations,” if you prefer the exact biblical language).

We get angry that politicians can’t be honest about their lack of belief and still get elected. Fifteen percent of Americans are non-religious (even more among those with higher education degrees, such as those in Congress), but only one member of Congress admits to being an atheist. Now there are 535 members of Congress, so there should be at least 80 who are non-religious, but they dare not admit it. And if the hidden non-believers in Congress are opposed to religion-backed legislation, they have to be very subtle or be found out and not re-elected. And are they justified in keeping the secret of their non-belief? Absolutely! Without them, we non-believers would have no representation at all.

We atheists also get angry that we are forced to subsidize religion through unfair taxation; churches in America pay no property tax and there is a housing tax benefit for clergy for which the rest of us don’t qualify. We get angry when we think how stupid our governments are, in this 21st century, to provide special benefits to some, solely because they are pushing ancient superstitions onto the populace.

We get angry that the members of each religion are convinced that all other religions are mere fantasy, yet they cannot see that that in itself is a clue that they are ALL just fantasy. They ignore the fact that no on has ever had enough evidence or proof of the truth of any one religion to cause the disappearance of all the other religions. And they never will! All religions are based on blind faith, not evidence gleaned from the real world, yet the believers of each all persevere in their smug assurance that they alone know the Truth. They’ve made their guess, and they’re stickin’ to it!

We get angry that our national Pledge of Allegiance had a “god” put in it in the 1950s, that our government promotes such a divisive superstition. We get angry that here in America, we have the most powerful military in the world, the CIA, the FBI, SWAT teams, the border patrol, billions worth of new airport security all over the country, and yet all of our money says, “In God We Trust.” Given the facts of the matter, doesn’t that motto ring kind of hollow? We certainly aren’t trusting in any god for our security. There’s a blatant lie in all this.

We get angry that various god beliefs have made our world such an unsafe place, with Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and others all fighting each other in various combinations all over the world, sometimes involving different sects of the same religion (Sunni vs. Shia, Catholic vs. Protestant), and for century after century. And, perhaps most of all, we are angry that defenseless children are still being indoctrinated in these ancient superstitions; and many of these children will be on the front lines of religious terrorism and the religious wars of the future. All in subservience to man-made, make-believe gods which never existed. Doesn’t it frustrate and anger you that millions of helpless little children are being indoctrinated into that silly, and false, Hindu religion? Now, do you begin to see how we atheists feel, since we think all religions are false?

Now, if you asked another atheist why atheists are angry, you would get a different list, and hers may well include some things that are not part of my experience; things like the waste of thousands of their dollars in collection plates, thousands of hours wasted in church, Sunday school, helping out with church benefits, etc., and the hypocrisy they encountered in their congregations. And, likely, their anger includes a frustration with themselves for not seeing that it was all based on a lie. They know now that it’s extraordinarily unlikely that a man died 2,000 years ago, and then got up several days later and walked away (they no longer believe in zombies). The “evidence” couldn’t be any weaker. That they believed it just because the story was written in the Gospels (and nowhere else), in a superstitious, pre-scientific age, now seems almost unbelievable to them.

Now there are some atheists who say they don’t get angry, and that appears to be true. And that is their business. But, for myself, I believe the anger most of us feel is absolutely necessary to achieving positive change in the god-saturated world we live in. Anger is a great motivator. Anger gets things done. Without anger there would have been no American independence, no end to slavery, no women’s voting rights, no civil rights for blacks, no broad acceptance of gays, and this is obviously just the short list. Passive people don’t fight for change.

Atheists are fully justified in their anger, and that anger may be the last, best hope for our species surviving our own ignorance and gullibility. If religious forces ever manage to quell our anger, then they will have won the battle . . . and lost the world.

By Colin ~

This morning, I was driving my three year-old-daughter to school. All of a sudden, I was asked "Do you love Jesus?"

A little background: I am an atheist. Yes, I was a fundamentalist Christian once, but deconverted ages ago. I have even submitted my testimony on your site (September 2007) so you have heard my story before, but I am not a regular contributor: I find that to give a meaningful contribution, one needs to spend a lot of time on this site, time which I do not have. I have a very demanding job and work long hours, and what little free time I have is taken up by my family, especially my daughter. Even just reading all the posts that I want to read here is just not possible, let alone getting involved in discussions. I have posted comments occasionally, but inevitably I cannot follow up. I guess some might see me as a troll, but I do not post to elicit an emotional response or stir trouble: I simply do so because I have something to say. My apologies to your members and contributors if it irritated them at times.

Back to my daughter's question (her name is Megan, by the way): I have never told her a lie, not even a little fib to get her to go and bath or eat her vegetables. The only exception I make is to pretend that Santa Claus exists - I simply do not have the heart to deny her the magic of Christmas (even though there is absolutely no religious connotation to our Christmas - she sees it as a time when the whole family, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends and grandmother gets together, give each other presents and generally try and spread the loving feeling as far as we possibly can. Yes, my wife's entire family are Christian - the non-fundamentalist type - but they know that I am an atheist and they respect my position on religion: as long as I do not try and deconvert them, they do not try and convert me or my daughter: we just don't discuss religion).

I always try and give her the facts, but I must confess that I sometimes simplify my statements and answers to her questions so that a three-year old can relate to it. She is an intelligent child, with a vocabulary that astonishes her teachers at school and she is very likely to skip a grade this year. You can therefore imagine my surprise at the question this morning: do I love Jesus?

My answer was as honest as it was automatic: it was a simple "no". To my great surprise, she got extremely upset. She repeated the question several times, but I would not change my answer.

The school she goes to is the best that I can afford: it is a private institution, with a superb academic record. It is called Trinity House, but despite the name, it is not a Christian school: it is supported and attended by a significant minority of Muslim and Jewish parents and children, and while the values they teach can be seen as 'traditionally Christian' (especially by Christians), it is sufficiently toned down that the Muslim and Jewish parents that I have come to know do not feel uncomfortable leaving their children in its care. On inspecting the classrooms, I found that there are lots of decorations, but very, very little of it is Christian in nature: you really have to look for it to see that it is there. And of what little there is, no reference is made to Christ, only to God - I suspect this is specifically to not offend the Muslim and Jewish sensibilities. I therefore feel (felt?) quite comfortable in entrusting her education in their care.

As Megan was getting downright rude to her daddy about him not loving Jesus, I scolded her, and she immediately took a more respectful and friendly tone. But when I was about to leave her in class, she loudly told everyone including her teacher that daddy does not love Jesus. I merely shrugged, made a few joking remarks to her teacher, gave her a hug and took my leave.

I cannot tell you how upset I was. Even as I type this, I feel as if my heart is breaking, along with an irrational rage that some person, whether a teacher or even a fellow scholar, would try and manipulate my three-year old daughter into 'loving' some imaginary piece of shit who will only accept followers who hate their fathers and their mothers! Hebrew idiom, anyone?

Don't get me wrong, I am not a raving atheist missionary (at least not until today). I do not hate Christians or any other religious people - among my frieds I count a dedicated Muslim (who happens to be one of the most gentle, considerate people I know), and another who is working towards her doctorate of divinity at a local Baptist campus, and yet another who is a Pagan! At worst, I consider most religious people to be misguided souls who have not taken the trouble to think critically about what they believe (and unfortunately this seems to include 80% of the world's population). However, if I get preached at, I respond: like most ex-Christians, I have a deep understanding of religious thought and a comprehensive knowledge of the Bible and the Quran - any Christian or Muslim who approaches me with intentions of conversion or proselytizing is in for a very rough time!

I discussed the matter with my wife. My major concern was: has the brainwashing started? My wife told me not to worry: though Megan is mostly a well behaved child who is an absolute pleasure to be with, she is going through a somewhat difficult phase, where she forgets herself at times (as most three-year olds do). She can become very vocal when she hears things she does not like (such as "No! you cannot have more candy!" or even "Bathtime!"). My wife seems to believe that there is no religious brainwashing going on: Megan getting upset about my non-love of Jesus is merely more of the same, she merely did not like me saying that I do not love Jesus, and she reacted as a normal three-year old would when she does not get her way. And when I got home earlier tonight, my wife and a friend of hers (also an atheist, whose daughter is in the same school) explained to her that it is OK not to love Jesus, and she seemed to accept that. But I am still very worried.

I need advice. I am not planning on storming into the headmistress's office and taking her head off (as I believe this would be counter-productive, not to mention illegal), but I do feel I need to do something. Again, don't get me wrong: I would prefer that Megan becomes an atheist like her daddy (simply because life is so much easier and understandable), but if she wants to become a Christian or Muslim or whatever when she grows up, this is fine with me. But I would like her to choose her religion (or preferably lack of religion) based on her own free will, after careful thought, and not based on undue influence presented to her when she is at this most susceptible age.

I have seen some books on atheist parenting advertised on this very website and all of them look good, and I certainly intend purchasing some of them. But I would also like to hear from you and your contributors about their parenting experiences. Living in South Africa, I am fortunate that fundamentalist Christianity is not as widespread as it is in the US. I therefore imagine that you and your contributors have had a much harder time keeping your children away from its harmful effects than I am likely to have, so I would consider your experience invaluable. I would also be grateful if you can recommend some of these available books, relating to my specific situation? As such, I will have no objection if you publish my plea on your website - in fact, I would very much appreciate it if you would.

I am taking my family out of the city to a game lodge for some family time this weekend - it is the first weekend in a long time that I will not be working, and I fully intend to introduce Megan to some zebra, giraffes and perhaps the occasional rhino - no big cats like lions and leopards at this lodge, fortunately! So please don't expect to hear from me until Monday night. I promise to be a bit more diligent in answering any questions or responding to comments when I get back.

Yours sincerely,
Colin

By Neal Stone ~

First off it has been mentioned by some of you that I've been missed. Sorry for being so quiet, just been a little busy this past year. I promise to try and write more in the near future.

The following is an ideological idea of what a loving father would be. In reality I have yet to meet someone like this. But then this is what god is supposed to be and that is what this is about.

Someone may try and put me on the spot by asking me if I am a father. No, I am not. But it doesn't take a lot to understand what a good father should be like. It's called common sense.

So growing up I heard a lot about this loving father called god. So I sat down today and thought I would draw up what a real loving father should be like. Let's see if god fits the bill.

First off a loving father is there from the very beginning and makes his presence known sometimes before the child is even born. He takes great care to see that the woman carrying the child is safe and well taken are of and when the child is born he is offered the same courtesy.

As the child grows up the father is always there. Providing for every need, answering every question and insuring the child has a good and fruitful life. When the child calls for his father, the father replies in an instant that he is there. There is no mysterious silence with the child left to doubt and guess about the presence of his father.

When the child has a question, even a tough and challenging question, the father provides an answer that the child can understand. The answer will be a real answer too, not some over baked generic excuse like “god has his reasons”. A loving father will provide the answers and information his child needs to live a good life.

When the child breaks the rules the father punishes the child in a way that no harm comes to the physical or mental well being and that punishment will be clear enough to the child so he will understand what he did wrong. The punishment should be equal to the wrong committed. The father will also provide for a way for the child to learn and grow from the experience and be better for it.

A loving father does not cause harm to his children, make them sick on purpose, kill them or their family or friends to teach them a lesson. He does not send them to the hospital after causing them to have a serious accident. NO! Such a father would be put in jail for a very long time. No sane person would accept this kind of father in today's society. This kind of father is a hideous monster.

I real loving father is there from day one. He talks to you, listens, provides answers and takes care of his children. There is no guess work at what he wants for his child's life. There is no guess work if he is even there at all. There is no guess work for his reasons as he explains them clearly to his children. He doesn't write a bunch of notes in a book and then sit back and expect his children to figure it out.

Any father who ignores his children's requests, even if he has to say no, punishes them with illness, physical harm, death or mental anguish, kills or harms friends or family, causes financial ruin and does anything devastating to his children is just a plain sick tyrannical monster. Out of love or not, it's still wrong to treat your children this way.

Read the Bible and look around your church and see what god is really like. When one out of a hundred are cured of cancer (after months of treatment of course) it is not a miracle. Where is the miracle for the other 99?

“God has his reasons!” Whatever!

God sucks as a father, plain and simple.

By M.M. Perez ~

I grew up in a church that we, as members, referred to as "the church". My mom believed in raising her family as Christians, as she was raised.

Image by Lutz-R. Frank via Flickr

All our lives we gave large amounts of what little money we had to the church, filled our lives with bible studies, clean ups on Saturdays, choir practices, youth group activities, and much, much more. My parents, my mom especially, truly and with all her heart, until the day she died, believed firmly in this church as a mediator to her salvation, her peaceful rest in heaven. She waited her whole life for the moment she could give her life to God, after giving her whole life to the church. As a member, I didn't feel like a fanatic and I certainly didn't view the church as a cult.

It's against the church to marry someone who doesn't already belong to the church. There are exceptions, depending on how well liked you are or how much money your family has, or how connected you or your family are to certain officers. In essence, deals can be made. Fast indoctrinations and baptisms are not uncommon so that you can stay a member, despite certain transgressions, for those select few that are deemed worthy of that mercy. I was even one of them.

I was a devout member and an officer all my life. But by the time I was 22, I started to feel like I hadn't lived much. I started drinking, smoking and started dating guys outside of the churh, and having sex. And I wasn't alone. That's right, I partied with other church members. In my mid-20s I got pregnant, with someone who wasn't in the church and my mom immediately reported me to the church administration, believing it her duty to present my case.

They allowed me to stay in the church on the contingency that I behave myself from then on. Had my boyfriend been a member I would have been forced to marry him or be expelled. With the church's blessing, I continued to go to church during my pregnancy, and after my son was born.

Certain members were understanding, and others were judgmental. My mom was no longer allowed to remain as an officer in the church. Since she obviously couldn't control her own daughter, she was in no position to advise others in their faith.

Being a single mother in the church was difficult. Even though there were people who were still kind, most people viewed me now as a bad influence, which was ironic since I had decided to be more devout since I was given a chance by the church. I was the local church's cautionary tale.

Be good or you'll end up like me, rebellious and in a state to be pitied. Strangely enough, I didn't feel like that except when I was in church. My mom couldn't help but love me and my son and she was supportive and stood by me. And despite being black listed at church, I felt blessed. My son was and still is a blessing in my life.

Being a single mother in the church put me in an awkward position. I couldn't date outside the church, but no one in the church would be interested in me because I'd been branded. I prayed and prayed for a good husband so I wouldn't be this Hester Prynne-esque pin up doll of sin anymore. I

stopped drinking and smoking and really really tried to be what I should have been all along. My friends, the ones in the church, who were still drinking and having fun started to drift away from me.

Eventually, I met someone online. He noticed an obscure band in my profile and emailed me. It started off as a really cool friendship, and we fell in love. He wasn't in the church. But I was really honest with him, and told him about church and what we believed. I asked him if he would consider going to see what he thought, knowing that if it wasn't for him, I'd have to break up with him. Being a single mother, I wasn't just dating anymore. I was looking for someone to marry and help me raise my son. In a hasty move, I asked him to move here to see if it would work. I thought he could stay with me and find his own place after he found a job. I figured, if he was here, he'd be more prone to go to church because that's where I would be. I honestly didn't see it as moving in together. But obviously, that's what it turned in to. So now I was in trouble. But I'd already used up my chances by getting pregnant. The church was not keen on helping me out again, seeing as I was, in the church's eyes "living in sin" and with a non-member to boot. And I really believe that his race, being different from my own and the majority of the church, was a MAJOR issue.

My fiance went to church and attended the bible studies required to become a member. He disagreed with some things but agreed that the basic Christian philosopy, if correctly followed, was not a bad thing: be nice to people and be fair. They strung us along with no real intention of letting him get baptized so we could get married. Finally, after 3 years of this, we finally gave up and stopped going. I didn't make the decision lightly. I was pissed, but I had grown up in the church, believing in the teachings, praying and living in the belief that God guided my life and would save me. My family valued faith and membership more than wealth, but also more than education. Growing up, nothing mattered more than "remaining faithful."

I read and studied. I thought and prayed hard for months before we actually quit going. My fiance and I talked and talked and talked about religion and politics and philosopy and what the church believes and what makes sense. I had to be sure I was making the right decision for myself and especially my son. After all, according to the church, we're damned to hell if I'm not a member of the church. I would be, in the eyes of the church, turning my back on God and salvation, trading the promise of heaven for "things of this world". Logically and after a lot of thought and reading, I came to the conclusion that love was more important than the church's red tape and bureaucracy. There's even a bible verse to support that. Of course, there's a bible verse for everything you're arguing for and everything against it. So it's been nearly a year since we stopped going. We tried other churches and we liked a Unitarian church for awhile. The Unitarian church even supported a gay rally in our city so we liked it a lot. At the time, I felt like I had to go somewhere. But eventually, I realized that if church, even one as good as the Unitarian Church, was just a moral compass then I didn't need to go to a Sunday sermon to remind me how to be a good person.

Now I just concentrate on loving my family and trying to be a good person, and raising my son to be a good person. Every day is a blessing to me, and I've never been happier. My son is 9 years old, intelligent, funny and talented. I have friends I love who are fun and supportive and even come over regularly for game nights, because they understand that I'd rather stay home than be out on the town away from my family. My fiance and I are getting married in August, we're debt-free and both have full time jobs that we enjoy. The only regrets I have about leaving the church and finding my lack of religion, is that I didn't find it on my own before I was forced to, and that I didn't leave the church and religion sooner. That, and that my mom felt like she had to be a part of that church to feel like she was a good person, when the truth is, she was a much better person despite of it.

My mom passed away last week. There was no sermon and no minister. The minister was out of town and the church no longer offers services for the dead, as I was told, by the minister. The minister seemed really sincere and I know my mom liked him. But I'm feeling a lack of payoff for all the time, money and sacrifices she gave. In the end, there wasn't even the lie. There wasn't even the pretense that she is guaranteed a place in heaven for her life in servitude to "the church". And now I have all these members who I haven't heard from in nearly a year, trying to get me to go back, to honor her wishes and go back to a church I don't believe in. Some argue that being among church people will make me a better person. But I never saw so much intrigue, drama, hypocrisy and sexual deviance in my whole life, as when I was a member growing up in the church. And by sexual deviance, I mean one girl sleeping with several guys, all of whom are in the choir every Sunday. I mean, shocking amounts of infidelity and sometimes even rape and incest. On top of that, I worry about the stories I don't know.

Some of these people advising me and trying to help, hiding under their thinly veiled self-righteousness haven't even spoken to my mom in years, and now they are telling me what she wants. And I just feel like, at this moment in my life, living with this pain and grief, of not having her in my life, how dare they bother me with this? Shouldn't they be busy tending to their own homes, like Christians are supposed to?

I don't believe in religion anymore. There was a time, shortly after we stopped going to church when I missed the feeling that I'm special, that God loves me and chose me above all others. Now I see how arrogant that is. I see how Christians are sometimes less "Christianly" than someone who just tries to be a good person and do the right thing.

I know people find comfort in their beliefs, and I don't hold it against them. But the fact that they hold my beliefs against me I feel is unfair. I don't need to think my mom is in one place or another to find peace. She's in a grave, and there is no life in her. I find peace in the fact that she survived cancer for 9 years, that she loved her family and a few close friends, and now she is no longer in pain.

By Slow Break ~

Have I told you I hate Christians (most of them anyway)? Let me set the stage:

It’s three months after I stopped pastoring St, Michael's church in Asscrack, South Carolina. I’m working at a second rate car dealership full criminals, liars, and thieves. I fit right in. Fraud is being committed on an hourly basis by salesmen falsifying documents so that lenders will give car loans to the people using food stamps to buy an eight ball from the guy who sits in the desk next to me. I’m living in a borrowed pool house where my son is sleeping in a closet. I have not sold a car in weeks because I’m white and I don’t know enough crack addicts. I have no money, no future, and no idea where I’m going to move my family when we have to move out of the borrowed pool house.

This is not my finest hour.

I am filling my car up with gas to make a 2 hour drive across the toilet bowl they call South Carolina, so that I can meet with the Credentials Committee who will decide if I can become an Ordained Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For those lucky enough not to know what a Credentials Committee is, this is basically a group of old pastors who make sure that young pastors meet all the qualification and have all the correct beliefs in order to be considered an ordained minister.

So I drive to some shitty diner, in some shitty small town, in the shitiest of all states so that I can sit in front of a group five spectacularly unsuccessful pastors who will judge my progress in the ordination process and determine if I can continue.

I have little or no idea of what is going to happen in this meeting but after all, how difficult could it be? I knew who would be there and I was relatively sure that this was not going to turn into the IQ Olympics. I’m quick on my feet. I can handle this.

One detail, just so we can all experience this little story together.

Probably eight months prior to this exercise I was asked to answer a series of questions on various topics salient to the church. Theology, Church governance, lifestyle questions, you get the picture. I was shooting for total honesty when answering these questions, just like now only without the colorful language and the “I’ve finally broken free of the brain washing” attitude.

I wait for a few moments and I’m called back into the private room they have reserved for their meeting. I pour myself a glass of water and wait for the fun to begin. In front of me is a small packed of papers with my name on front and I notice that each of them have something similar in front of them.

There are five people sitting around the table. I don’t remember most of their names but for the sake of the story let’s give them titles. On my right is The Educated Lady, to her right is the Elderly Black Pastor (EBP), to his right is the leader who we can call Mac, to Mac’s right is a man whose contributions were so limited I don’t recall him speaking so we will call him Silent Bob and leave it at that. Finally, to my immediate left is a guy I’ll call Doughboy.

Now let’s be clear, I’m fat. But I’m the kind of fat that if you pissed me off I could flip your car over with you in it. And in my defense I could have called him “Closetboy” but that would be mean.

Mac thanks me for taking the time to come meet with them and asks me to tell everyone how I’ve been doing since I left the church and what I’ve been up to, what I’m doing for work, etc. I answer their questions, leaving out the part about the crack heads I try to sell cars to.

This is generally socially accepted small talk that is likely to start any meeting, so I’m felling relaxed and comfortable. I grew up in the church, these are my people.

The next question seems innocent enough.

Mac: “Where are you and your wife going to church?”

Walter: “We are going to a wonderful church down the street from us named The So and So Baptist Church. “

Mac: “Hmm.”

Doughboy: “Do you mind if I ask a question?”

Walter: {In my head} Oh Shit…

Doughboy: “Why aren’t you going to Pastor Jones’ church that in your town. It’s a Church of God and doing very well. Is there any particular reason you decided to attend a church outside of your own tradition?”

I’m quick on my feet so this is what I consider to be a softball pitch. A lesser man’s attempt to sound important. This can’t possibly be a real issue.

Walter: “Well after going through what I just went through at St. Michaels I felt like me and my family needed a little space. We needed to worship in a place where no one knew who we were. Honestly, I just wanted a healthy church where people would have no idea I was once a pastor.”

EBP: “I see, are you aware of their theological differences from us?”

Walter: {In my head} “No, the degree on my wall is for decoration only”

Walter: “I’m guessing that you are referring to Eternal Security?”

EBP: “Yes, that would be the main difference.”

Ok, for those of you who have a life and don’t understand the argument surround Eternal Security let me break it down like this. If you believe in Eternal Security you believe that once you have a genuine salvation experience with Jesus Christ that nothing you do or say can cause you to loose your salvation. You are Eternally Secure. Obviously, if you believe the opposite you believe that through your actions you can loose your salvation. Baptists believe in Eternal Security and the Church of God (my particular tradition) does not.

Lets continue

Walter: “Yes, there is a difference on that one point of theology but this is a bible believing and bible preaching church. They aren’t preaching heresy and they have a great children program for my son.”

At this point we move and on and I consider the issue closed.

We move on to my answers to the question on the form I filled out almost a year ago. At this point the Educated Lady takes over. They have no issues until we reach the final two questions. These may not be exact reproductions of the questions but close enough.

“Do you now, or have you ever partaken of alcoholic beverages?”

“Do you now, or have you ever used tobacco products.”

On the questionnaire I answered yes to both questions and in the spirit of honesty I chose to elaborate so as not to cause confusion. Mac decided to read my responses aloud.

“Yes, in college there was a time when I drank quite heavily but I have not done so in many years. However, I do on occasion enjoy a glass of wine.”

“Yes, I do enjoy a cigar from time to time. I would guess I smoke roughly four cigars a year.”

You could feel their ass holes pucker when I said “Yes, those are truthful answers”

Doughboy: “Obviously you don’t see anything wrong with that since you are being forthcoming.”

Me: “No, I don’t have any issues with it. You asked a question that I answered honestly.”

The next three comment came in quick machine gin fashion

EBP: “Have you considered that these liberal ideas you have could have influenced your preaching and your congregation picked up on them and that is what caused the problems at St. Michael?”

Doughboy: “How often do you smoke?”

Educated Lady: “You know we believe in Holiness”

I received a letter a month or so later telling me that they could not recommend me for ordination at this time. They did however, outline a process I should work through in order to clear up the issues in my life and with my theology. They provided a long list of books I should read and asked that I meet with Doughboy on a monthly basis for further counseling.
So let me vent for a moment.

I’m living in a town 10 miles from the church I once pastored and they want me to attend the sister church of that congregation because my choice to attend a Baptist church shows that I have unresolved theological questions. I drink wine on rare occasions and smoke a good cigar on a quarterly basis so I am obviously morally bankrupt. I can go out and spend $19.95 online to get ordained but these wind bags have decided I don’t meet their criteria.

Have I told you that I hate Christians?

They assign me a list of book to read. Not only have read every single one of these books previously. I’ve read the source material that these authors plagiarized because I am smarter and more intellectually curious than all 5 of these “scholars” put together. Then they want me to spend time with Doughboy, the closet homosexual who wants to “nurture” me back into the fold. Thanks but the visual imagery is bad enough, I’ll pass.

Here’s a list things I should have said in that meeting:

“Which kind of holiness? The church down the street thinks if women don’t cut their hair then they are holy, but a man must cut his hair in order to be holy. Maybe I should have just lied on the form then visited my barber.”

“Let me be clear, I am no longer the pastor at St. Michaels because half the people who attend are racists strait out of the movie Mississippi Burning, and I decided to preach a sermon where I talked about the evils of racism. You would have liked it, my main illustration of racism was when a member of my congregation said to a five year old black kid, and I quote ‘Someone put that dog back on its leash’.”

“If by liberal you mean that I reject the notion that when the Bible says Jesus drank and created wine it was really talking about grape juice, then you Sir are correct, I am a flaming liberal”

I don’t really think it would have mattered what I said to them because what small minds these folks possessed were already made up before I arrived.

This is one of the episodes that cemented my position as highly critical and pessimistic about the Church.


Post Script – I must add that I do not hate all Christians. My wife is a Christian as are most of my family and I love each of them very much. There are still precisely 3 pastors that I respect. One of them died several weeks ago but I haven’t found many likely candidates to fill his spot.

By agnosticator ~

In October, 1991, two young boys were killed when a tire from a truck driving in the opposite direction flew off, bouncing over the median, and through the front of a school bus full of fourth graders in Miami, Florida.Was this an accident or God's will? Was it coincidence or God's plan? If we believe God intervenes supernaturally to save us from accidents, disease, natural disasters, even crime, what about those who suffer and die? Doesn't this thinking make tornadoes tools of God's whim and criminals his lackeys? By the way, don't blame Satan or God will lose His power!

This news story has stayed with me, reminding me of the insanity I once embraced called Christianity. Americans perpetuate the manipulative objectives of the New Testament authors by teaching their children this nonsense.

By portraying God as desiring people to be unthinking, submissive, blank slates to write His Will upon, the N.T. writers launched their agenda of deception and tyranny. The authors' recipe for deceit lay in their obsessive accusations of all others as evil and corrupt, mixed with rhetoric about salvation and God's love. By accusing the rest of the world of what they themselves were guilty of, they deflected their faults away from their followers' awareness and onto non-believers. Espousing Christian doctrine, they maintained their power and control over believers. Belief in New Testament writings successfully alienates believers from others who might expose the deception as the propaganda it really is.

What is taught to a child will be blindly followed as an adult unless it is strongly, consciously challenged. Since Christianity is socially reinforced and taken for granted as being beyond reproach, it is difficult and even taboo to examine it objectively. Our problem is that the N.T. teaches passive acceptance rather than thoughtful reflection, blind obedience in place of understanding consequences of belief, release from responsibility for our actions, and disrespect of wisdom. The result is crazy thinking! It's time to tell it like it is. Enough is enough!

By Patrice ~

Today is 2/11/11, my 28th birthday is 2/13/11. I've been journaling for quite some time and it has been quite helpful. Therapy has been very helpful also. I notice the gradual change from frantic, scared and not believing in myself to the opposite of that. I believe or I should say I know, that things will continue to get better. I've been learning a lot about the Inner Critic through my readings. Here's an excerpt from my journal from yesterday:

2/10/11

This "voice" has been here for ages-it just grew as I grew. It was there when I used to have bad thoughts about my Mother getting into an accident while going to work (3rd grade). I would then feel like a horrible child for thinking these thoughts, as if I were a monster, as if something was wrong with me. I believed Jesus would take it away...he didn't. I'm not super mad with him anymore, pretty much got over him these past months. It was there when I was going through puberty. The barrage of thoughts about AIDS, Cancer (Especially after my grandmother died of Breast Cancer). I had fears of abandonment, of not being able to have children, of my husband dying before me (6th grade). I don't know why I had all the fears that I had, but at the time they were vivid. They came with their own vivid movie trailers too. It was all too real in my mind and since it was inside of me, there was no escaping it. Of course there was the nagging angry anxious voice that beckoned me to argue with it and after these long bouts of mental circular reasoning I'd get depressed and sleep in order to escape the torment. The "voice" pulled a Janus face on me when it condemned me for having the thoughts. I didn't know who else to blame but myself.

A few years of fresh air (15 years old). No voices, high self-esteem, stable friendships and a seemingly bright future. I accredited everything to me staying on the straight and narrow (breeding ground for my current perfectionism). Unconsciously, I became incredibly narrow minded. I had a sense of entitlement, I thought I was better than most, especially young girls that couldn't seem to harness their "natural" sexual urges like me (trying to be so damned perfect). I judged everyone, that is, until I had a huge introduction to my own human infallibility (In the sexual realm), it all came crashing down. My inner critic was merciless. College, the "voices" return, stronger than ever. My first serious relationship. The "voices" closed in. They scrutinized everything I did, every move I made. Every decision made without their or my partner at the time's consent had a huge price-GUILT. I don't think it was all his fault in retrospect, but he did unconsciously contribute to fattening the critical monster in my mind. I crawled back to church due to fears of having a nervous breakdown.

Back in the bosom of Christianity (20 years old). I thought things would get better but they subtly stayed the same, just morphed around my religious experience (religion sucks). I slowly gave clergy and other members authority to my reasoning faculties. I didn't realize something was wrong...until now (27 years old). So now I am free, but the "voice" still lingers. I don't see it as God now but, it still screams. I recognize it, but I realize it's NOT me. It's irrational, one sided, paranoid, unrealistic, cold, mean, manipulative, anxious, unloving,a perfectionist, calculating and most of all, afraid. I see it's there, now I must be patient and love myself unconditionally through the process of separating from it.

By Ken ~

OK, I was raised in a Christian home I guess. My parents would drag me from church to church depending on their mood. When I was in my mid teens I didn't feel like going so they would take my sister and then go out to do something fun after church in an attempt to blackmail me into going, didn't work by the way.

I actually got pretty into being a "Christian" for a while. But then I started asking questions about things that were in the bible and nobody had any answer other than the standard "It's god's will" or "The lord works in mysterious ways". Needless to say I got away from the whole mess.

Now, in my mid 20's I was in the US Army and was deployed for Operation Desert Shield/Storm. While there I saw so many hypocritical bible-bashers it was disgusting. People that I knew were cheating on their wives, alcoholics, spouse abusers, were singing to high heaven about how holy they were. This of course was being done due to the fact that they were hedging their bets. I guess I was the rare "atheist in a fox-hole".

Now, after my military service ended in 2001, I joined a police department. I don't think people understand how hard this job is and the stresses that we have to endure. I look at things this way, I see god's work everyday now. I see the beaten wives and kids, the dead children, the homes broken into, the families torn apart, and I wonder, how could any god allow things like this to happen. I know that if this work is the result of one supreme being, then I am sure he/she is an idiot!

The only problem that I have right now is trying to decide how to tell my still Christian parents that I am no longer "in the flock". I have a feeling they know but are not quite sure. It is hard to confront my father due to the fact that I found out he molested my sister on three separate occasions. But of course he says God has forgiven him and therefore I should as well. Sorry, not gonna happen. I refuse to kneel before anyone or anything that allows something like that to be forgiven!
So, if there are any ideas as to how I should handle this, I welcome the advice.

by Ben Hillman ~


Evolution Made Us All from Ben Hillman on Vimeo.

By RickO ~

Fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat. It serves as a vital survival mechanism triggering the fight-or-flight reaction in most living creatures, ourselves included, when faced with imminent danger. We feel fear physically as our bodies release chemicals like adrenaline.
We can sense it in others in a way that is often compared to the sense of smell. We have adapted it for use it as a weapon, not only to intimidate, but to motivate. Fear is one of the most powerful copy drivers used in marketing. And we’ve all seen the political campaign ads where the opponent is cast in grainy black and white while his or her positions are grimly outlined by a deep sinister voice intended to make us afraid.

Fear is also defined as a sense of awe and reverence, a profound respect, such as the common term, “Fear of God”. But these two uses of the term “fear” are not mutually exclusive. In fact they are directly related. For example, one can feel awe, reverence and respect for a brilliant scientist or a brutal dictator simply because of what they have managed to accomplish; the nature of those accomplishments an altogether different matter. While I cannot imagine a reason for anyone to fear Albert Einstein (apart from his students, perhaps) I certainly understand the complex feelings people had who lived under Saddam Hussein.

The dark nature of fear raises the question: can someone genuinely love what they fear? Sure. It’s true that many people (I, for one) love Great White sharks, but are reluctant to jump in the water with one because of the obvious risk. Sharks are not evil, but the really big ones are indeed fearsome. But what I’m talking about is love as a relationship. Again, though, the answer is yes. Many people go through life terrified by a violent and abusive spouse, twisted into grotesque emotional contortions because of their love for that person, a feeling often impossible to justify, but real nonetheless. Psychologists spend a great deal of energy trying to understand how this works. A well-studied paradoxical phenomenon called “Stockholm Syndrome” is a psychological state in which a hostage develops positive feelings toward their captor, despite the danger and potential violence of their situation A striking example of another sort is the fictional, yet infamous, Ministry of Love, imagined by George Orwell. The Ministry of Love was a place where loyalty to the dictator was enforced through terror and torture. It was a windowless building where bright lights were never turned off. “The place where there is no darkness.” As the story goes, the victim was exposed to such intense fear that they learned to genuinely love their abuser because, ultimately, the two physical emotions were made indistinguishable from one another and, given the choice, love was the more desirable feeling. Orwell was not inventing something new. He was merely fictionalizing, to an extreme, the application of a real human capacity for psychological manipulation. One needn’t look further than the cult-of-personality found in North Korea to see a real example of Orwellian love.

Religion has always relied on fear as its own strong nuclear force. Fear, more than any other characteristic, is what perpetuates religion and keeps it from falling apart. The bible uses the word “fear” more times than the word “love” although, to be fair, there are two different uses. One use is as in “fear God” and the other as in, “fear not”. However, it is merely two uses of the same word and, in both cases, it has the same meaning. Why fear God? He is all powerful, capable of great wrath and terrible vengeance if you don’t show him the proper respect. But if you give him what he wants, namely unconditional devotion, you won’t need to fear other perceived threats. By the way, this is how a Mafia protection racket works. But ask virtually any Christian and they’ll tell you they love the Lord. Fear is masked by love.

In my own pursuit of answers, decades spent “Searching for Certainty”; I became very aware of the absurd logical fallacy of my adolescent Christian beliefs. And as I read the bible in more detail, I began to question why anyone would love this deity, let alone feel any real admiration beyond the natural feelings of awe toward something that had such power; a power expressed so often through terrifying malevolence. But I also had that familiar taste in my mouth; the fear of coming to my own conclusion, using the best of my ability to think and reason; the fear that the conclusion I reached would not be pleasing to this deity. I was already beyond belief and certainly absent any love for it, but the fear lingered like a now-exposed raw nerve that had always been there.

Religion has always relied on fear as its own strong nuclear force. Fear, more than any other characteristic, is what perpetuates religion and keeps it from falling apart. I would often wonder: As we who once bleated worn and rote platitudes among the incurious flock of compliant Christian sheep become awakened to the truly comforting reality of our temporal lives in a natural universe, free from the bondage of unknown terrors that lie in wait for the slightest miscalculation of dogma or the insufficiently penitent, can we ever indeed be free from the physical harm done to our young developing minds, instilled forever with abject irrational fears, yet seemingly hard-wired to carry them for life, despite our better knowing?

Fear is the last tactic of the prognosticating evangelist. When all else fails to make an adequate case, an appeal to the most primitive and highly-tuned aspect of our animal firmware is either what keeps someone in the fold or causes one to consider hedging their bets to be on the safe side. No matter who we are, fear is one of our lives’ earliest emotional experiences and certainly one of the last we will have. We are all too often easy prey for those who would use fear as a weapon of coercion. Fear shouts over reason’s murmurs. When we do, at last, walk away from the fictions of belief, we cannot expect those instilled fears to remain behind. They stay with us longer than our feelings of love, our desire for social acceptance and our false hopes for that strangely nebulous eternity. Our best therapy is to continually reinforce our reason with knowledge and thoughtful observation. Over time, fears of angry gods will go the way of monsters under the bed.

By Lisa Kerr ~

"Vampire Christ" by D.W. Frydendall

In August, 2010, Anne Rice came out and said,

"I quit being a Christian. I'm out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being a Christian. Amen" (link).

I couldn't have agreed more with her decision. For quite a few years, I've spent time deconstructing my own faith and came up with a very similar conclusion.

I can no longer call myself a Christian.

Ironically, I think this is a very "Christ-like" decision, since I don't think modern Christianity represents Christ and the teachings of modern preachers seem to me very unintellectual, simple, and money and power hungry. I think if "Christ came back" he'd say WTF?!

But, I don't blame the state of the Church on preachers themselves. I think each individual who accepts the teachings of pastors also has some part in the state of the church. Accepting the state of the church as anti-gay, anti-science, anti-feminist is something I did for years. I became a reverend in that state. I didn't question the under educated pastors who were passing on terminology and ideas that hadn't been well-thought out or deconstructed. They hadn't been doubted by them, or criticized. They just slopped it into my bowl and I drank from it.

I resigned from being a reverend in 2003. I still continued to do ministry until 2005, and there I started attending college. A secular college. The deconstruction of my faith came during my college years, but not necessarily because of them. Immediately after leaving my cult, the slop just tasted terrible. I started recognizing that most of it was b.s. and I'd questioned it BEFORE Master's Commission, and needed to revert back to that time before I entered into a mind-control environment. It was hard to get in touch with who I was before Master's and the ministry, but I did it. I found a girl who was guilt-free, lacked a constant condemnation, and thought a lot about everything. That girl was normal (for the most part), listened to secular music, watched Rated R movies, and read all kinds of different books. I resumed my life there.

I'm not a Christian anymore. I didn't lose my faith. I decided to get rid of it.

My faith was cumbersome to my personal growth, to my well-being as a human being, and to my desire to be a compassionate person who loved the world as it is.

I was wrapped up in fundamentalism for years. Someone said:

"Fundamentalism is a form of organised anger in reaction to the unsettling consequences of rapid social and religious change."

I don't believe fundamentalism is representative of all Christianity or all Christians, but what I believe doesn't coincide with either belief system.

I'm not a Christian anymore. I didn't lose my faith. I decided to get rid of it. What I believe now is that there is no heaven or hell. Those are scare tactics taught to us by pastors around the world to pressure us into a relationship with God. Sometimes this is for their own "number game." Sometimes it's so that they can say their church is growing and the Holy Spirit is moving. Sometimes it's for the perpetuation of something they learned was "right" and just kept doing without questioning whether it was right or godly or not.

I believe the Bible is not inerrant. It's complicated. It's a historical document, filled with interesting stories and myths. Did God create Eve out of Adam's rib? Probably not. In fact, that's the exact type of thing I'm talking about. That myth perpetuates the idea that Eve is less than Adam. She also tempted Adam and caused them to get kicked out of the Garden. Those early Genesis teachings are anti-women and reinstate patriarchal power structures that are harmful to male and female alike.

The Bible is also filled with the promotion of slavery, more oppressive language toward women, gays, and it can be a dangerous tool in the hands of fundamentalist Christians inciting violence and war rhetoric (the "army of the Lord" fighting against the "ungodly").

I don't believe America is or should be a Christian nation. First, there are a lot of Christians who disagree on things such as abortion, gun control, the environment, etc. I believe the United States is a nation of Jews, Muslims, and multiple other religions, ideologies, and beliefs. America also contains a group of citizens who are anti-theist, atheist who are not "heathens" or "evil" or even wrong. They're human beings. They're not going to die and call out to God on their death bed. They're satisfied with their lives.

I respect science and scientists. I believe evolution is more plausible than any of the other theories of why we exist today. I think it's necessary to learn and educate ourselves about how we've evolved as a biological being and anthropologically.

I believe that women are not sub-human to men. We don't need to submit. We are not superior, but equal to men. I disagree with men and women who oppress women using the Bible, political and cultural ideologies, etc. This use of the Bible to promote the "gentle-spirited" woman is harmful for women; it doesn't consider us individuals capable of being wild; and it's oppressive to men, promoting the idea of a "manly man" as the only ideal of a godly man. These teachings (explicit and implied) harm people's confidence in themselves, pervert individual traits, and control sex and gender roles.

On that note, I'm strongly against patriarchal religion. I don't believe that God or gods are a Father. I don't think God is a Him, and this language and idea oppresses women and men.

I share all of this with you because I'm ready to come out as Anne Rice did. I'm tired of putting on pretenses that I am someone I'm not. I'm proud of how I've evolved into the woman I am today, the relationships I have with people who support me (and a pretty awesome family who loves me through all of this) and like me for who I am rather than what I believe or don't believe. I'm also really excited about drafting the plans to my own life, following some and discarding others based on what I think is right, not what someone tells me is right (or God's voice). My life has become a journey filled with heartache, and pain, growth and critical thinking, and embracing the wild and exciting part of myself.

I'm happy with my quirkiness, my ability to make people laugh, and the unique way I form a thought, feel things deeply, and care about people.

I like me.

By Seth Strong ~

I read a lot of testimonials on this site after stumbling on it a few months ago. Keep those coming if only to vent something that you may not be able to say in mixed company.

I think religion-free people have a way to be right that is more process oriented. Instead of getting a book of divine providence and the comfort of knowing the man behind the curtain, we have to dedicate ourselves (in my opinion) to something more than simply being correct that there is no Christian god. Saying there are no gods isn't enough either.

Our information is no longer infallible, coming from church elders from God. Our information comes from the whole gamut of people which includes the informed, the delusional, the mistaken, and the liars. Our mission, if I might be so bold, is to continue to educate ourselves so that we can uncover the informed from among those.

You may not have time for continued guided education. But now that you've thrown off faith, what is your basis for justice and how does that affect civic duty? Living and let living is great for respecting other people's beliefs. But are you going to sit back while a subset of Christians weakens our modest science courses and undercuts our "faith" in science.

I don't mean to say you should have my values in politics, or my opinion of everything within the umbrella of science, or even my religion. We may all be exchristians, but I'm an atheist. I don't even mean to presume all of us have gone that route. What I want you to think about is how you're going to keep your information sharp. How are you going to defend to yourself that what you know now is the right information and you've done your due diligence to stay informed.

Our information is no longer infallible, coming from church elders from God. Our information comes from the whole gamut of people which includes the informed, the delusional, the mistaken, and the liars. Our mission, if I might be so bold, is to continue to educate ourselves so that we can uncover the informed from among those. Sure, we're busy. And a lot of you probably are doing things that continue your education. That's awesome. Just keep in mind, we can't be sheeple anymore. We have a beef to pick with the idea that information is distributed in a top down manner from god to us. We need to stay sharp and be prepared to show that post-religion things get better.

Thinking for yourself is a fine way to go if you've taken the time to ensure that you're thinking is a quality process. Find your way to take your exchristianity to the next level your way. We don't need to be righteous to help right our communities. Exchristian.net was here before you got here. What are you going to build for the next person?