by Valerie Tarico A re you an atheist, agnostic, humanist, freethinker or some such who cringes at the thought of people being given the Four Spiritual Laws along with disaster relief? Do you think that promoting “eternal salvation” to five year olds is exploitative? Do you hate it that poor parents send their kids to Muslim or Christian madrassas because that’s the only way they can get them pencils and paper? Does it irritate you when fancy creationist museums are better funded than real natural history museums? A new website with a January 1 launch date, may be just your thing. Religious people tend to put their money where their mouths are—more-so, it would appear, than the rest of us, and evangelical fundamentalists even more so than open inquiring people of faith. Yes, I understand the cult recruiting aspect of the whole thing, but the bottom line is that they get things done. In order to advance their tribal truth claims, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, and other fund...

by  Charity of Shatter Nicely Image by Cayusa via Flickr I came across an article, post, whatever, the other day titled, There’s No Such Thing as a Former Christian , by someone named Charles Smith. Hmm, I thought, that sounds interesting.  And by interesting , I mean, wrong .  I am a former Christian, am I not? Needless to say, upon reading the piece, I determined that it needed a good fisking. If you scour the world-wild-web for any amount of time using atheism as your search term, you will undoubtedly find pages and pages of sites laced with the famous proclamation, “ I used to be a Christian .” While this may be intriguing to the seeker, desiring a glimpse at the testimony of a formerly professing believer turned cynic in hopes of discovering reasons to remain religiously repulsed by Christendom, or possibly the opposite – looking to see if their retroversion experience is sensible – one thing is certain… there’s no such thing as a former Christian. Exce...

by Cowboy I'm lucky in many ways. If I were still Christian, I would probably say that I've been blessed. I was lucky enough to attend a public school, whereas many of you out there attended Christian schools for your entire school career. At 11 years old, I was the kid in elementary school who was getting into trouble with some frequency. I was quite smart, towards the top of the class, but I got bored and stirred up trouble. It didn't help that I was excessively overweight (I actually weigh less today at 20 than I did then), so I was constantly a source of jokes for my classmates. And at 11 years old, my parents, who up until that point taught me Christian beliefs, never took me to church, decided it was time. Well, the story goes better at that point actually. I made a few friends who accepted me, on my own I began to loose weight, and the Baptist church and God gave me a source of comfort if nothing else. I was saved at 12 years old and baptized. Many ha...

by WizenedSage Image by Jason McKim's Old Account via Flickr T his is a gentle reminder for those Christians who may have happened upon this heathen web site by accident or out of curiosity. My message is simple, don’t use your head if you want to keep your faith. Whatever you do, don’t let these people make you think about it. As you and I know, salvation can only be yours through Christ, and the Bible is very clear on this. Remember: “By grace are you saved, through faith" (Eph. 2:8). When asked, "What must I do to be saved?" the apostles answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved" ( Acts 16:31). "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Rom. 10:13). The Bible, in its wisdom, tells us exactly what to think, and then instructs us very clearly not to use our heads on such matters. As Proverbs 3:5 says, "Lean not on your own understanding.” True, the claim that Jesus was dead for tw...

by exfundy I f you have read any of my past posts you know that one of my biggest grievances against my former religion is that it intentionally squashed my natural curiosity. A Christian needed only blind allegiance to their pastor, church, and denomination. The day finally came that I had taken as much of Fundyland as I could possibly take. I could no longer suppress the questions. I had to start asking them. At that point the first question seemed to be obvious: "Why the hell have I never been allowed to ask the tough questions?" Even though no one was around to hear me the question made me nervous. For one thing I was going against everything I had ever been taught. For another I might have pissed god off by saying hell in a way that I had always been told was inappropriate. Nervous or not though I had just let the genie out of the bottle and there was no way I was going to turn around. At this early stage I wasn't even close to questioning Christianity ...

by WizenedSage O n December 26, thousands gathered on Asian beaches and in mosques to pray, marking the fifth anniversary of the Asian tsunami which killed 230,000 people. Will it do any good? No one can say for certain and that is the frightening thing about religion that few believers care to think about. I distrust religion because of one very important and inarguable fact; there is no reality check. This is in part because it is uniquely armored against criticism. If one suggests that a genuine, compassionate god wouldn’t allow the destruction of 230,000 innocent men, women, and children on Asian beaches, the believer answers that god works in mysterious ways, or that we shouldn’t expect to understand the mind of god, etc. To these believers, god doesn’t have to be logical and thus no evidence is accepted against their god hypothesis. The unique danger of religion is that it ultimately depends “…on belief in invisible beings, inaudible voices, intangible entities, undetectab...

by Adam Sometimes you are just left wondering... did that really just happen to me? I look back on the past two years of my life and I ask that question, seeing how my social network has completely changed, friends have made continuing relationships with them impossible unless I believe what they believe, and how ridiculous my coming out processes were...all because of Christianity. It was a double-whammy; not only did I come out of my faith, but I also came out of the closet . I became a Christian at the age of 13. I'm 20 now. It makes sense now as to why I chose to become part of the faith; I had almost no friends in school at that time, and my parents took me to church where I met all sorts of potential friends...who were all extremely serious about their faith. I think now I see it also as a way for me to have hidden the fact that I was gay...after all, no one who was THAT big of a Christian could POSSIBLY be gay right? And by BIG Christian I am not exaggerating at a...

by Leslie Image by that_james via Flickr I was born and raised in the church while growing up in the South; a place where fundamentalist Christianity is seemingly (and quite correctly!) ubiquitous. My family and I wound up in Texas and I lived there through high school. We attended a Methodist church in Mississippi and Arkansas and Texas, but in small towns in the South, a Methodist church often has the same doctrines and is run like all of its fundamentalist neighbors. From an early age (under 4 as we were still in MS) I remember my well-meaning dad reading from an illustrated Bible story book at bedtime each night. I didn't think of these stories as any more valid than my other story books, but I was often dismayed and sometimes frightened by their content. Specifically the story of King Solomon, in his famous wisdom, threating to cut a baby in half. I felt the same way about Moses almost killing his son because God asked him to. I thought God must be pretty scary. These w...

by MichaelRix Image by daveblume via Flickr For me Christ-insanity was like a drug. I was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition, I lost my faith after an incident at the church got me questioning. My youth pastor suggested I read the bible to find my answers. I read Joshua : the genocidal atrocities committed were enough for me to leave the church and become an agnostic . After a time I became a Satanist, but that didn't last long. It became obvious that I was still playing in the same playground just on a different team. Later in life when I learned I would be a father, I gave Christ-insanity another go, thinking maybe I just didn't really understand what I had read; God wouldn't really promote genocide. Well I became a full blown Jesus Freak; throwing away "evil" things and living the "righteous" life. This, understandably, caused strife with my wife and children. It came to the point of choosing between Jesus or my family. Well I chose my fa...

by Ashley R Image via Wikipedia I'm new to this site and just thought I should share my deconversion story with you guys. Im just 21 years but Ive had maybe 15-16 years of total brainwashing in my religious faith. My mother was unable to become pregnant even after doing all the medical stuff. When she attended an open air crusade, the "pastor" told her that she would have a child before the year was done. I was born on the 29th Dec. Because of this I was drowned in Christianity -- church every Sunday and all that BS. I grew up in the Pentecostal faith with all the trappings- shouting, being filled, speaking in tongues , etc. I never thought much about it except that if I sinned I would go to hell. I was scared shitless about doing the wrong thing. In my family so many "miracles" were performed -- from my sister being deathly sick and how many ever specialists could not figure out what was wrong with her and then when they took her to church she was h...

Mr. Deity thinks he's finally proved the existence of other magical beings.

by Marlene Winell T he full-blown fundamentalist version of the “Christmas story” is truly pernicious. In the last couple years, I’ve thought about the imagery of Christmas (the child archetype) and the traditions we all enjoy which can be separate from Christianity ( See previous articles ). This year, I read a piece by Billy Graham called “ You can know the Christ of Christmas ,” and was reminded of all that is wrong with this religion, and how it can taint so much about life. I felt so sad reading this because as a humanist, it seems so wrong to denigrate who we are as human beings. His article was all about how hopeless the world is and how helpless and sinful we are. According to him, the Christ child is great news because of the dark horrible world that needs saving. He says repeatedly that all our human efforts will fail miserably because we must have help from outside ourselves. Graham writes, “Christmas emphasizes the glorious truth that salvation is provided apart from...

by NonStampCollector We always hear about the many amazing things that Jesus of Nazareth apparently did, but nobody ever asks about the things that Jesus supposedly COULD have done, being omnipotent , but either didn't bother to do or didn't think were all that important. You know, things like... reducing human misery and suffering... that kind of thing. It occurs to me that if indeed the miracles recorded in the bible were in fact true, and really did happen... then that only shows Yahweh/Jesus to be an even MORE malevolent and cruel being than we see in the old testament , and that's saying something. If the miracles somehow prove that Jesus WAS in fact a god in human form, but all he could be bothered to do was turn water into wine and heal only a few hundred, or even a few thousand people with his magic saliva, then really - what is the use or good of such a god? Think of what a visiting, omnipotent deity COULD have done - but in this case, apparently, chose not ...

by Carl S Image via Wikipedia W hat are the universal criteria for judging the judges? We could probably all agree the criteria should include fairness, impartiality, knowledge, experience, and an insistence on weighing all of the evidence on both sides in all disputes and claims. In short, we should demand a dedication to, respect for, and a rigid pursuit of the truth. In addition, the judge should, under mitigating circumstances, administer justice with mercy. With these simple criteria, we can ourselves judge whether the judge is honest or corrupt. Let us apply these criteria to the clergy, who claim to be seekers not only for truth, but actually possessors of it, to determine whether they fit into the column of honest or corrupt. It is no wonder then that there is so much trouble in this world since the clergy are so accustomed to being the kangaroo courts of societies and continue to insist on and get privileged status. The clergy not only ignore, but withhold and even suppr...

Image by onkel_wart via Flickr by Michael I opened the mind I have today And I stopped Praying when I saw it was just the same It got me thinking what is up above Its your God and its not the God of mine The Problem of Suffering, yeah The Problem of Competence Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind Yet the brain is of the devil, and its requests denied Its need for nourishment is not from communion But from the words of Jefferson, Spinoza , and not men of faith This is a cry to all Think about the harm The young ones trapped in chains Walking on eggshells Poisoning the Brain All you need is faith but is not true that what you can't know can harm you Faith the chain of the mind The shunt to progress The poor give hardily The Rich Prosper Churches grow grander The Poor grow hungrier All to waste to the eyes of God You should be ashamed Your Flock is crooked I believe I heard a promise To prevent that Do you care to cash in on it Or...

by Paul Image by Antony Pranata via Flickr I grew up in Fundamentalist Baptist and the ultra fundy semi- Mennonite "holiness" denominations and schools. A family heavy involved in the ministry. I am the only one out of five siblings and two sets of parents to have left Christianity. The other day I calculated I have heard at the minimum, 5000 Baptist flavored sermons in my lifetime! YES, I get it already! It's all about having a dysfunctional relationship with your ego and convincing yourself it's a personal relationship with an invisible 2000-year-old Jewish Zombie! Einstein said " Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Madness and Dysfunction reigns in fundamentalist churches. I grew up with pastors, pastors kids, and missionaries . I saw the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in the church -- the overwhelming undercurrent of sadness, stagnation, guilt, abuse, depression, and the never-ending pu...

by Summerbreeze Image by Kurt Magoon via Flickr T his morning, I, a non-believer for some time now, had an unusual reaction to a very religious Christmas song. I was driving alone in a light snowfall, on my way to a neighboring town. The Pine trees were so pretty and sparkly with the fresh snow on their boughs. I was listening to a radio station with non-stop Christmas music, which alternated between religious carols and non-religious Christmas songs. Listening to Gene Autry 's " Rudolf the Red nosed Reindeer " and Burl Ives ' " Have a Holly Jolly Christmas " got me thinking about Christmas's past when my kids were small and believed in Santa...it was a happy/ sad reflection. Then " Mary did you know" sung by Kenny Rogers came on. It's a lovely song, the music is haunting and moving. ( but improbable lyrics ). As I was listening to it, towards the end of the song, I suddenly felt an actual shudder go throughout my body, and th...