by MtlRedAtheist Last week was the 9th anniversary of my grandmother's passing. She died on my mother's birthday. I decided to visit her grave site for the first time since the funeral 9 years ago. I needed to have some alone time to remember her. The circumstances surrounding her death were rather terrible, but I needed to revisit them. I needed to say a final farewell and set her to rest in my own mind. Aware she could not hear me, I still shared a few personal words with her. I felt I owed myself the therapy. I loved her very much. Sometimes I get emotional, when I see her strong features in my children's faces. I see her in my father and his sisters and when I look in the mirror and a sadness comes over me, because I miss her. It took many years following her death before I felt I had the strength to visit the site and have that much needed moment alone with my thoughts and memories. The reason it took so long dates back to my childhood. When I was 6 years old, my paren...

by Patricia Image via Wikipedia Some of you might of seen me around posting from time to time on a few things, but not really know who I am or what I am about. Well let me start by saying my mum is a Catholic , born in Egypt where most of the country is Muslim who hate Christians (she claims) and would say disgusting things to her. In the end she immigrated to the land down under where we enjoy the black salty yeasty brewers tar known as vegemite . Well for as long as I can recall, my grandmother (her mother) had lived with us until her death a few years ago, my parents had long separated. I was born with serious heart and birth defects and was baptised in the hospital because the doctors thought I would not make it, and then once I was well enough, I was baptised in a church. I did my sacraments of confession and communion. My Mum’s Brother is a priest, her sister is a nun and another brother was studying to become a deacon. As you can see the religious side of my family runs very d...

A tribute to some famous televangelists. Would Jesus Wear a Rolex , performed By: Ray Stevens . Written By: Chet Atkins and Margaret Archer . Related: “Would Jesus Wear a Rolex™?”

by agnosticator O nce again, I am reminded of the primary difference between a "true" Christian and the rest of us. Here is a quote from a Christian in the forums: "Christians are capable of greater levels of love than unbelievers. Not because of who we are; but because of God's work in our hearts." This is an example of a common belief shared exclusive to believers. They are better than anyone else because God touched them and made them special. But not only special, God makes them superior in every way. They magically become more empathetic, more honest, more loving, and morally superior. Simultaneously, they possess a mean streak; an attitude that is palpable to those unlike themselves. This is the arrogance of faith. The New Testament inspires this attitude through the doctrine of salvation. But this is only the beginning. The scriptures are riddled with words of arrogance masquerading as love and concern. There is a mean-spirited bitterness permeating the N...

by Jon Castro Image via Wikipedia T o His Majesty the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, For years and years we asked, yet did not receive. Sought, yet did not find. Knocked, yet were never answered. Did we not ask enough? Seek enough? Knock enough? Truly you are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you have not scattered seed. In vain we rose up early, and in vain we sat up late. Your ear did not attend to our cries and in you we found no mercy. You set us in slippery places and cast us down to destruction. Truly you are no Saviour of souls. In you there is not a shred of compassion – only a heart of hate. Jacob you may have “loved”, but Esau you hated. Billions like him have dropped into hell, ignored by you all their lives. Yet who was it who left the devil roaming around in the garden to tempt Adam and Eve? Who was it who put that tree there? You! In your massive foolishness, questionable omnipotence and sheer lack of benevolence, you presid...

by Sharon Image by davidsilver via Flickr O ral Roberts, the 91 year old founder of Oral Roberts University, now semi-retired, has taken to reminiscing on the Christian TBN network, about how he founded the University that bears his name. His fond remembrances of how "God" revealed to him the "seed faith" theology (a coin he termed), is enough to make any fiscally responsible persons' blood boil ! Oral Roberts founded the 263 acre University campus in 1963 in Tulsa Oklahoma. The current endowment rests at 33 million dollars, off of which Oral Roberts earns $83,505 per year for his retirement. In addition the University Board of Regents used millions of dollars of endowment money in 1988 to purchase property in exclusive Beverly Hills for Oral Roberts West Coast home and office, which also included a country club membership. In addition he also maintained an exclusive residence in the St. Andrews Country Club in Boca Raton Florida (until 1992), which he ...

by Godless Vagabond Image by TimOve via Flickr My life has been the epitome of cognitive dissonance. When I was a little girl in church I remember wondering why there wasn't a goddess because it didn't seem fair that the boys had a divine role-model and I didn't. I also knew that women are moms and if we were all children of god and if he is father in heaven and if we were made in the image of god then there should be a goddess mother somewhere. I thought later that it was the Earth was our mother but still there was no mention of her in the bible. But still I liked that idea since I loved nature. I read a lot as a child. I loved fairy tales and mythology and fantasy and sci-fi. I saw the similarities in all the mythologies, including the one I was told was real. I fell in love with horses and Native Americans and read their legends and read about the different tribes and how they held respect for nature. How they saw themselves as a part of nature instead of apart from...

by TheWrathofDog I grew up in a religious household. I don't mean that we were Fundies or any such nonsense, just that we were a typical middle-class family living in a " Leave It to Beaver " suburb and we attended church and Sunday School every week until I was 10 years old. My mother taught Sunday School for years and wanted us to grow up as Protestants , as she said, "To give you a sense of reverence," although why this was automatically supposed to be a good thing, I don't know. My dad worked for the Government and his bosses felt that having the family in church was good PR. So we went. I and my siblings learned all the usual stuff about the Creation, the Fall of Man , God's picking the Hebrews as his favorite team, the coming of Jesus and the whole Passion Story . And I believed. I remember lying in bed at night pleading with God to forgive my sins should I not wake. I held on to the belief that nothing i did in this world was important compared t...

The young man in the following video interview on the Tyra Show is no longer gay , he says, because an unclean spirit was cast out of him one day at church . After listening to this young man talk, what do you think? Is he still gay? And what do you think about his "pastor?"

by whydowebelieve Whydowebelieve 's plans for a lovely picnic at Huntington Beach are interrupted as Ray Comfort shows up to tell him that knowing Jesus is like knowing Comfort's wife. We felt compelled to expose these falsehoods to his gathered audience in the same way our blog challenges religious beliefs in other arenas.

Bart D. Ehrman discusses the history of the word of Jesus and Stephen Colbert offers him irrefutable logic. (5:30) Books by Erhman available here: ExChristian.Net Bookstore

by Louisa May Image via Wikipedia I have heard this argument so many times. But, to be honest, it did not take me much time to invent my own theory. I am not very good at physics , but it is generally accepted that the universe is expanding , with solar systems bursting in and out of existence all the time. The Earth is the perfect distance from the sun to support life, and the Big Bang needed the right pressures and angles (and so on) to create the Earth as we know it. I accept this as fact. Yet, if solar systems are continually being made and destroyed, wasn't our solar system statistically bound to happen eventually, coincidentally, anyway? There doesn't need to be a God -- or a Creator -- just a continually expanding universe. And considering the fact there would be no universe if it were not expanding... So, despite the fact I am a Christian, the moronic nature of the cosmological argument has forced me to score a point against myself and score a point point for a crea...

by Neal Stone C hristians love to use the watch maker analogy to prove God exists because it takes an intelligent being to create something complex. I guess Christians don't watch much Red Green and if you've ever watched it you know what I am talking about. Let's take a look at a watchmaker shall we? A watchmaker can be proved to exist. We only need to go to the nearest mall to find one or evidence of his work. The evidence isn't questionable and left for us to interpret for ourselves either. His stamp is clearly marked on all his creations. We can also talk to the watchmaker and get a clear answer to our questions and problems we may have about our watch. After all, only the watchmaker knows right because he works in strange and mysterious ways right? WRONG! God is all guess work and theory. Even creation as proof can be questioned. Take a watch, broken or working, to any watch repair shop and each one can correctly diagnose the problem or tell you CLEARLY h...

by WizenedSage I finally figured it out. I’ve wondered for the longest time why you believe the silliest religious nonsense imaginable. And it’s so simple. It’s really not because it makes sense to you. No, you believe because you were told to believe; most of you as children, since we are all hardwired to believe authority figures when we are children. After all, it’s not like you read the Bible and found it compelling. You know as well as I do that the stories of the Bible are not only NOT compelling, they’re not even plausible. But, from the beginning, you were told to believe these stories. Whether you heard them first from your parents or from Sunday school teachers, you were instructed to take them seriously, as gospel even. It’s not like you reached a point in life where you thought you ought to check out this religion thing you kept hearing about. It’s not like you sat down with the Bible, the Quoran, the Bhagavad Gita , and a compendium of the Buddha’s greatest aphorisms in ...

by billybee Image by giveawayboy via Flickr D ear Jesus, Hi. You probably won't remember me, but I use to be a member of your body on earth. I know you've seen millions of folks come and go and I was nobody special that you would have noticed me. Most of the time I just did the minimum stuff that all of the other guys were doing (i.e.; praying, believing, tithing, fearing,..etc,etc...). That's why I feel so awkward ask for a special favor from you. I only devoted around 30 years of my life to serving and believing in you, so it is pretty brazen of me to expect you to do anything for me... But still, I'm thinking to myself; "Oh, what the hell. All He can say is- "NO!" So, here goes.... Will you please, please, PLEASE hurry and rapture your church to heaven? Come get them RIGHT NOW! Don't wait another minute, day or year. Do it...Clap your hands..blow the horn...twinkle your eye...WHATEVER it is that your gonna do, do it and do it NOW! The rest of ...

By Valerie Tarico Image by [Filhi][bahthi] photography ( camera damaged ) via Flickr A couple of years back, I dragged my agnostic husband, Brian, to a Calvinist megachurch. Calvinist means God preselected a few humans for salvation and the rest for eternal torture. We sat there for an hour, goats among the sheep. Brian’s reaction? “That was the best indie rock I’ve heard in a long time!” Christians have a love-hate relationship with popular music. I came of age during a hate phase. Rock was diabolical. In my generation, Alice Cooper , missionary kid , played out his parents’ fears about rock music , chopping up baby dolls and screeching about necrophilia while dressed as a 17th Century witch . Having dabbled on the enemy side of a fantastical spiritual war that supposedly encompasses us all, he now attends an evangelical mega in Scottsdale, Arizona. Music can be a path out of insularity. In his youth, Alice had to choose between edgy rock and Jesus. By contrast, my nephew (raised by...

by William Howard Agnew, OD Hello all. Praise the FSM and pass the parmesan. My story is completely different than most I've read on this site so far. I cannot believe the horrors described by most of the testimonials I've read here. How people who think themselves to be loving creatures of their god can be so hateful to anyone, let alone a family member, is beyond the comprehension of anyone without the psychic disease of religion. As Blaise Pascal (of the infamous wager) himself said, "Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious conviction." I was never really indoctrinated with christianity, but I believed as a child and young man. My parents, a lapsed Catholic and an indifferent Methodist , got married and decided on the middle ground of Episcopalianism. We moved to Harrisonburg, VA and joined the emmanuel episcopal church, where I aattended sunday school. Chapel service was reserved for the adults except on major holidays, when...

by Kristyn Rosato Image via Wikipedia I like to tell people that I was birthed in the church, and it’s pretty much the truth. My mother’s water broke when she stood for the final benediction. I’m sure if the Bible held a clause about the importance of birthing a child within the walls of a church, she would have made sure it happened. I say this to impress upon you the fact that I was indoctrinated with Christianity since I was a small child. I was raised in Church and in private Christian schools. The path I took from what I was taught growing up to where I am now has been the biggest struggle of my life. When I tell people I don’t believe in God, they tend to believe it’s just a phase. That it’s a period of doubt that “everyone” goes through. To me, this was initially offensive. They were saying that I didn’t have the logic and integrity to reason through something and be true to myself. They thought it was just something that I wanted to do because I didn’t want to be a good person....