By critical thinker ~ Abstract T he structure of the essay is as follows. First section is the summary of Biblical creation story . Here we establish the peaceful and herbivore nature of original natural world. We also establish that after the Curse many animals became carnivores and the world transformed into the state we find it today – violent and cruel. In the Section 2 we pose several important questions about the behavioral and anatomical changes that must have occurred in the world and who/what caused them; these questions are the subject of discussion of the subsequent sections. In Section 2 we also attempt to discuss these questions from the point of view of traditional church. Section 3 provides an overview of differences between herbivore and carnivore animal and highlights the difference between the two on anatomical level. Section 4 describes some predation adaptations found in modern natural world. It emphasizes the harming nature of these adaptations and points

By Griffin9857 ~ W hen I was a kid I belonged to a relatively conservative but non-religious family. We may have been to church twice in my childhood – both times for specific people/events. Needless to say my religious upbringing never really happened, until later. When I was fifteen my family moved to Fiji as my father had a job lined up there, we were to be there for three years while I went to school along with my siblings. We packed up our stuff into little boxes ready for the tropics and off we went. Nothing overly religious occurred there apart from the occasional conversation or argument that crops up in an international school where most of the students are from one religious group or another. Really, all of us were more interested in who was dating who or what was likely to happen in the weekends. Our time in Fiji was cut short, it was a year and a half later when we moved back to Auckland , the city I grew up in. Prior to Fiji we were living in the capital,

By Josh ~ I officially decided to abandon Christianity one year ago. At that time I felt a huge burden of relief, but I still find myself trying to cleanse my brain of years of conditioning that leaves me with constant guilt, self-doubt, and indecisiveness. I feel a deep need to share my story as I continue to bring closure to this aspect of my life. I was born into what I now see as a perfect case example of a fundamentalist cult-like subculture of America. My father was a youth pastor and my mother was a stay-at-home homeschool mother. I was raised to believe Evolution was an anti-God conspiracy, Christianity is under attack in America, sexual thoughts are the equivalent of adultery, and kissing before marriage is shameful. There never was any question of whether I was a Christian or not, it was just part of my assumed identity whether I liked it or not. I always knew this and felt this burden. I knew that whether I believed it or not, it didn't matter to my family. It was

By Incongruous Circumspection ~ A week ago, my one-year old daughter dumped a scalding hot thermos of coffee down the front of her shirt. It was entirely my fault and I was devastated. Luckily, her burns were only minor with two small spots where it burned through to the fourth dermis layer. It has healed quickly and she is on the fast track to recovery. Unfortunately, the lasting effect is that we have to monitor the worst areas for the next two years so they don't get sunburned. Then, we're home free. The doctors do not expect any scarring, which is the most important factor to me. The outpouring of support we received was phenomenal. Relatives called from all over the country, friends contacted us from overseas. Inquiries were made to relatives of our relatives to check up on their little granddaughter. It warmed me from the ends of my rarely clipped toenails to the tips of my graying locks. But, my wife did receive one letter that made me fall out of my

By Carl S. ~ O h how I love the power of words! The poetry and clear honesty they can convey, the images and thoughts they can bring to mind, and provoke to think about what they say. Most of all, those which stay with us, repeated and passed down through generations. . . It became inevitable that I would embrace the word usage of Lewis Carroll . Yes, dear freethinkers, rationalists, and morally committed of all ages who are trying to use all means at our disposal to "get through' the superstition-irrationality all about us, to us Lewis Carroll has bequeathed something we can use; a vocabulary like that of computerese, slang, internet argot, using Carroll's wordplay. In his " Through the Looking Glass ," we find the poem, " Jabberwocky " - one of my perennial favorites - which begins, “Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.” It isn't until later in the book, when Alice has some of these words explained by Humpty

By ByronFish ~ I woke up this morning around 2am with a little bit of indigestion from the pizza we had for dinner last night. As I tossed and turned, I had the usual things running through my mind, like...what I needed to do at work in 5 hours, what bills needed paid before we go for vacation in 2 weeks, etc...and then I started thinking of my middle son who is currently in basic training for the Coast Guard. As I continued to drift in and out of sleep, memories of my son as a child went through my head. I remembered when he was about 10 years old and wrote a heart felt note about missing his grandmothers, grandfather and aunts who had recently passed away. I remembered how he hid that note in his room and how my wife and I cried when we read it after coming across it years later when we moved from that house to our next. I thought about my son's wedding day a few years ago and how tough being married and getting into the military in his mid 20's must be. As I started bac

By Goldcrest ~ H ave you ever watched one of those movies where, after maybe an hour and a half, the story seems to have reached a natural ending, and you expect to watch the credits roll any moment, only to find the story takes another turn, and then another, and your still watching an hour later? My deconversion journey is like that at the moment. I get to a stage where I think “Yes. That’s it. I’m through with religion for good now. I can get on with my life.” Then something happens. I run into an old friend from church, and I find myself missing the place. Or sometimes I just feel lonely and want to be back there again. I think to myself, “Surely it wasn’t all that bad. Okay, you were unhappy as a Christian. But you’re not happy now…you’ve got nothing to lose by going back.” Some days I go down a whole imaginary road of how I’m going to go to church again. Not straight away, though. First I’ll call one of my old friends and meet up and have coffee and a chat. Then maybe go to t

By Hoopy Frood ~ A t what point should we give up on someone? I am speaking primarily about Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church . They are the most hateful, intolerant, fear mongering people you will ever meet, but should we give up on them? By give up on them I mean give up reasoning with them to try to show them that what they are doing is wrong and extremely harmful. I fully support reasoning with someone to try to come to a peaceful and reasonable solution, but where do you draw the line? When is someone beyond helpable? WBC 20051202 sacco-topeka7 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I believe that this may be the case for the WBC but I really hate just giving up on anyone. I am willing to listen to and consider anyone else’s POV as long as they are willing to sit down and have a civil conversation and listen to mine as well. But after you watch and listen to the WBC for a while you realize that most, if not all, members cannot be reasoned with. I am afraid these

By DavidBroman ~ T his is for my children when they are older -- to help keep you free from superstitious thought and culture. It's for my friends and family who often invite me to church or ask me why I don't go to church anymore. In this video, I explain why I am no longer a Christian, why the claims of Christianity are not true, why many people still hold on to religion, and why the world is a better place without religion.

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ T his article is intended as a little head-to-head talk with Christians concerning their “deal” with the faith. As you surely understand, your acceptance of the Christian creed is essentially a deal to abide by and support the Bible as the founding document of Christianity. When people get involved with movements or religions it usually means they have bought into the belief system and objectives of the movement or religion (unless they have been coerced). Of course, as a practical and moral imperative they should periodically reconsider their involvement. As new information becomes available, or a person’s outlook or goals change, he should consider whether there is a deal-breaker involved; that is, a piece of information that causes the person involved to decide that he can no longer support and promote the beliefs and objectives of the movement or religion. I will illustrate all this with reference to Nazi Germany, but I am not implying that N

By Hatuey ~ A fter reading atheistnurse’s piece on Noah’s Ark I decided to revisit the story myself to get a better understanding of it the way she did. Once I began reading, I noticed something in those passages that stood out from all the rest. I also noticed that the particular subject that those verses dealt with were not covered in atheistnurse’s piece. So with a curious mind, a healthy dose of skepticism, and a boatload of information that I gathered from the internet and a few books I decided to show you all the fruits of my research, but if any of you find fault with something do let me know. I would like to use this against any Christian that thinks that the Bible is infallible and I wouldn’t like to be on the losing side of that argument due to having done improper or shady research. Now then, let us have a little biology lesson. The verses that I was referring to can be found in Genesis 6: 19-20 and they clearly state Biblegod’s intention: “You are to bring into the

By Incongruous Circumspection ~ A fter openly moving out of Christianity and becoming an agnostic, concluding that the Bible is nothing more than a fascinating mess of paper and ink, I have been asked the following question again and again: "Why do you bother talking about God or the Bible when you don't even believe in it?" Actually, it usually doesn't come in the form of a nice question but rather an angry command to quiet my voice. Of course, I won't pretend that what I write has much of an influence outside of the few who read it, but you would think, by the potency of the words coming at me, I was akin to the Anti-Christ. I'm not going to lengthily address the question of why people might do this because the answer to that is quite simple. When someone is wholly devoted to something that completely defines their life, or more importantly, defines their life after death, anything that questions the logic of the crumbling pillars that props that

By Tim McGraw ~ G rowing up I was an only child of a single mother in a radical pentecostal church, there were a few men who tried to be a “father figure” in my life. I always wanted to find my biological father, my mother told me, “you have fathers and you know they love you.” The first thing that is wrong with that is fathers plural. There was never just one, they were all there to “help” from time to time. But they really only cared if they thought “my soul might be in danger.” In other words, they were only there for negative. They only cared about correcting me and preaching to me. They, for the most part, did not want to show actual fatherly love in the sense that a young boy would have craved. As I got older, I was deemed a misfit. At 14 I was a danger to the community; they told me was unable to have contact with any of my peers for fear that I would “poison them.” They did not care about ME, they only cared about their dogma. They only cared whether or not I would comply w

By Stephen ~ S ome people collect stamps; I critique Christian blogs for fun. So it was that I came across this little gem from the ever-delightful “Resurgence” site (yes, the stomping ground of that delightful man, Mark Driscoll), entitled “All Truth Belongs to God” [http://theresurgence.com/2012/04/11/all-truth-belongs-to-god]. Oh, I thought, this is going to be good. The very second sentence in the blurb was the most astonishing nonsense I’d heard in months: “Nothing that is true ever contradicts God’s revealed word in the Bible.” If that isn’t Orwellian doublethink, then what is? The author (Matt) might as well just come out and say, “Whatever the Bible says is true... even if it isn’t”. It reminds of a statement I recently read from the Pope (quoted in http://bigthink.com/ideas/the-radicalism-of-obedience?page=2) in which he spoke of the “radicalism of obedience” (what in the metaphorical-god’s name is that?) It concerns me more than a little that Christians can reach a point