No Longer offering MY blood for God's binge drinking ~ I've sobered up! by Vyckie @ No Longer Quivering ~ T hen my daughter saw the cover of my copy of " Drunk With Blood: God's Killings in the Bible ," she asked, "So are you becoming a Satanist now?" Drunk With Blood really is a horrible book ~ and what makes it such a horror is that it enumerates the sheer number of people whom God either killed Himself or else approved of their deaths ~ straight from the Bible! From the back cover: Who has killed more, Satan or God? (Biblical numbers only, no estimates.) Satan 10 God 2,476,633 That's slightly less than 2.5 MILLION people killed by God in the bible, folks. In the introduction, author Steve Wells, explains how he came up with the numbers ~ he only uses the actual #s from the bible. For instance, in the story of Job ~ God gave Satan permission to kill all of Job's children & servants. The bible says he had 10 children. Since...

by Mandy ~ I would like to start by saying that I have not come to this decision lightly. I have done my research. I have pondered the consequences. I still have things to learn. Image by ♥KatB Photography♥ via Flickr When I was in high school, I was "on fire" for "the Lord." I prayed every day, went to church three times a week, and went to all the Christian concerts and volunteer efforts. I tried to do what I thought "God" wanted me to. It worked for me then. Looking back, I feel like I was devout because I hadn't really experienced much of the world (which, admittedly, I still haven't). I only knew what I had grown up around, which was fundamentalist, conservative Christianity. I *knew* that homosexuality was a sin, hell, even *thinking* a "bad thought" was a sin. As a result, I felt guilty all the time. I fell into a deep depression because I felt like I wasn't "fulfilling God's given role" on this earth. Maybe...

Pastor Darryl Todd slideshow A Wagram minister was arrested this week on charges he had sex with a minor, police say. Darryl Todd, senior pastor of Spring Branch Missionary Baptist Church , is accused of statutory rape , according to Capt. Kim Monroe. Todd was released on a $50,000 unsecured bond. The 32-year-old is charged with three counts of statuary rape involving a 14-year-old girl, according to arrest warrants . All three incidents occurred in April and May, according to police. The warrants listed a Pembroke address, but Todd gave officers a Columbia, S.C. address. He could not be reached for comment. Monroe declined to say how Todd knew the minor, noting it was not through church. It is the policy of The Laurinburg Exchange not to print the names of victims listed in reports on sexual assaults. Calls to the church were not returned by press time. He is still listed as the pastor on the church's website, www.springbranchmbc.org . Acc...

A letter from Gary ~ And you think Christians have a gimmick? Donate to your page for what? Believers (sincere, true, honest believers) offer life and life more abundantly through Jesus who is the Truth, the Way and the Life. What do you offer other than cynicism and emptiness? You need to reconsider life in God. I've seen God do incredible things in my family, all to HIS GLORY. My mother, aged, dying and in a coma, revived for 15 minutes to tell us of the glory of Heaven, to worship, and then went back into the coma and died. My mother had been "raised from the dead" as a young woman who bled out after surgery. My father was healed of Wegner's disease , necrotic tissue in his lungs regenerating (impossible) and confirmed by Mayo. I was healed of arthritis. I was healed of hypertension . I was healed of anxiety disorder. I take no meds for any of the above. Can I see through a glass eye like Ronald Coyne you write about? No, I don't have a glass...

By ooglyman ~ A fter leaving home I stayed away from church for several years. I had no pleasant memories of being raised by fundamentalists, and didn’t want to waste any more of my life inside church walls. After some time I married a lapsed Catholic who expressed less interest in religion than I did, and I thought I’d grow old with her. Within a few months she began attending mass at the local parish chapel and laying a head trip on me that I was in need of god. Image by Christolakis via Flickr It also annoyed her that I was writing poetry and short stories which were being accepted for publication by alternative and new age focused magazines. I was also smoking a great amount of weed and drinking beer with my friends. We were together for three years, and then we split immediately after our son was born. I followed my ex back to our home town so I could stay in my son’s life. I had him with me on most weekends. One day when my son was two he asked me to take him to church. I ha...

By BraveLittleChicken ~ H aving grown up listening to Dobson and reading LaHaye and various other Christian psychologists (including that old Bill Gothard !)... I wonder what is actual fact, and what is religious mishmosh put out there to preserve the "way it should be." For instance, I am a firstborn. Female. I was told it wasn't appropriate for me to be upset that my parents elected to have my younger brother be the executor of their will... because, see, god had determined that the firstborn female didn't count... god gave all the blessings and birthrights to the males (Adam, Abraham , Moses--let's not discuss poor Esau --it was his own fault!--and of course Joseph with his coat was a special exception...oh, and the whole Ishmael/Isaac thing can be explained if you just follow the story properly!). Firstborn females are supposed to be dedicated to god, and they count...sort of. Like, well, really they don't count, but they sort of do, but it's, we...

By darklady ~ P rayer is one of the most destructive lies of Christianity. Firstly, it promises much and delivers nothing. Matt 21 v 22 says ‘And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive’. Obviously this is a lie, the hours, the days spent in prayer, and not one supernatural intervention by god. How many times did I, did you, cry out to god, in desperation, in anguish, in belief. How many times was there an answer? Image by alison scarpulla via Flickr Secondly, and perhaps most damaging of all, it traps a person into non action, into a pattern of passive waiting, of believing they are not able to control their lives, of waiting on someone/thing else to solve problems. To the extent that some people are unable to make any decisions without first ‘waiting’ on god. How many people are trapped in destructive marriages waiting for god to ‘heal’ their partners, to change their personalities, to ‘make’ things better. How many wait for years, praying f...

By Sam ~ W ell here I am, 41 years old, writing on ExChritian.net -- not because I want to tell you how wrong they are, but because I agree. If someone would have told me that I was to do this 20 years ago, I would have laughed (and prayed for you). Image by Nicholas Kennedy Sitton via Flickr I grew up in a large loving Italian-Catholic home. My parents had great faith. My father worked three jobs at times and we struggled every step of the way. The whole time we would all wonder why we had to struggle all the time. We would help people, but would never get anything in return. My father was a mechanic and would always do favors for people who claimed that they couldn’t afford to pay him. (They could have. They were Christians). He, like always, just did it. He was a good man. I guess we assumed that if our time wouldn’t come here on earth, then it would in heaven. I remember my father scraping together a few dollars on Sunday mornings to put in the collection basket. Well, my fa...

By Dharma ~ I recently found myself thrust into the unnatural habitat of the xtian jungle. And unfortunately I was privy to a cult ritual commonly carried out by so many of the xtian tribes. First, allow me to give a little back story. I will try to keep it tasteful. And I sincerely apologize for any confusion I may cause by starting somewhere in the middle, but at the beginning of the end. I sat in my chair hugging my knees to my chest and trying to watch one of my favorite evening shows. From the corner of my eye I could see him lying on the couch with one hand down his lounging pants. This had become the routine. Every evening he would lie on the couch and scratch all things below his waistline, while pretending not to read the steady stream of texts on his cell phone. Every now and again, he would glance in my direction to see if I was looking and then he would run his fingers under his nose and continue texting. Occasionally he would make a random comment about the c...

Hat's off to Parse for finding this song by Voltaire that helps us understand what God thinks.

By Neal Stone ~ S o on August 4th I had what I thought would be a routine visit with my cardiologist about my mitro-valve prolapse. Pardon my spelling, ain't no doctor. My heart has always been good and strong and even with this condition I was never in any danger of serious heart problems. Unless the heart chamber grew, then it would be surgery. On August 2nd just before my doctor appointment, I started having problems with my heart pounding, tightness in my chest and dizziness. I've had heart palpitations before, just not like this or this bad. So it scared me! I never had a heart attack, but sure felt I was having some serious problems. We decided to go to the ER to be safe. After a few hours I was released with no serious problems. I was never in any danger. NEVER GOOGLE SYMPTOMS, JUST CALL THE DAMN HOSPITAL! So on the 4th I see my doctor and he was concerned. He started talking about the possibility of surgery. But to be sure he wanted to do some tests a...

From Carm ~ I have a grandson who will be baptized in a couple weeks. Image by Mark Cariaga via Flickr His parents have NO intention of raising this child in the Catholic Church. It's just to placate the mother's maternal grandparents and have a nice party. My husband, my sons-including the baby's father, and I are all Atheists. What is the best way to participate in a religious tradition when you are NOT a believer any longer? Same with funerals- I have about 10 aunts and uncles in their 80s and 90s...

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ My latest offering to the Letters page of a local weekly newspaper here in Maine was published today. It is reprinted below for your amusement. Many on this site have asked what sort of responses I get to my letters. Usually, there is no response, and when there is a response it is almost always by a fundamentalist nut case who makes such a fool of himself that I feel no need to respond to him. In the most recent such case, the man mentioned that he had told me over the phone that a witch’s coven was located in a neighboring town and I could have checked it out myself but that I had just hung up on him. What he said was true. I have yet to waste my time checking out his story. He also said that if sodomy was a capitol crime, as it should be, then there would be no AIDS. He and his superstitious madness is one of the reasons I keep writing these things. Why I Write R ecently a friend mentioned that he had discussed with others some of my letters to...

CLEVELAND - It wasn't the television debut for which most Evangelists hope. 43-year old Rodney Stewart appeared on a big screen in a Cuyahoga County courtroom for his first appearance before a judge on three charges of importuning, possession of criminal tools and disseminating materials harmful to a juvenile. Sheriff's deputies from Franklin County , working undercover as part of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force say the married father of four took the bait when they went on line posing as a 15 year old girl and her 36-year old mother. "He's having sexual, very sexual conversations sometimes with the mother, what he believes to be the mother, sometimes the daughter, sometimes with both of them," said Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, who also chairs the statewide task force. Mason says Stewart used a webcam to send the 15 year old girl a picture of his private parts. Stewart was arrested after Broadview Heights police and a Franklin ...

By TheThinkingAtheist Image by TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ via Flickr Believers worldwide thank God for His divine hand of protection in their lives. In this video, we examine several recent cases where God's intervention was desperately needed.

By A Clever Name ~ I 'm dealing with my spiritual identity and after reading a few posts around here, found this place to be a place of comfort of sorts. Image by kevindooley via Flickr Like many others, I was raised in deeply Christian home and my particular flavor was that of the speaking in tongues and getting lost in the spirit. While the emotional state of those encounters were undeniably great(sorry for the lack of a better description), there was nothing to the religion. I've since moved beyond that hyperactive view of Christianity and taken the position of doing what's right because it's the right thing to do. Granted, things are often what you put into them, but either way, at 27 now and married for 4 years, I find myself searching and Christianity is showing itself to be more and more empty. It should be noted that I remember the first crack in my faith was around 13 or 14 when we had a evangelist come in and say that there were other gospels floati...

BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- The former pastor of a church in Bethlehem was charged today with sexual assault for a relationship he allegedly had with a teenage girl. Police said Santos Adiel Rosado had sex with the 14-year-old girl during a relationship that apparently lasted for as long as two years. Police said the victim and her family were members of the Bethlehem Community Fellowship Church on Marvine Street. They said she and Rosado would meet in both their homes. Rosado was already free on bail on charges stemming from contact police said he had with other juveniles. Rosado was also arrested in February on theft and conspiracy charges for allegedly making fraudulent casino player cards while working at the Sands casino in Bethlehem. Police said Rosado gave the bogus cards to another man, who used them to rack up nearly $1,500 in winnings. STORY LINK

By Carl S ~ A s a writer, I try to be very careful to know the meaning of the words I use. This involves not only articulation, but verification. As someone once pointed out about Western civilization, the phrase, “the Word was made flesh” has significant importance in our development, and so has the phrase, “the pen is mightier than the sword.” When in doubt, I consult the dictionary, usually finding more to the word than I expected. Image by zampano!!! via Flickr One word that’s getting a lot of usage lately is “seminal.” Just what are they talking about? In the contexts of commentaries and discussions, it means, “providing a basis for further development.” It also means “creative,” and, get this, “of or relating to semen .” On the same page are found “seminary” (school for the training of priests, rabbis, ministers), “seminar,” again, same Latin root word, semen, a seminar being a “seed plot.” According to the searchable bibles at Biblegateway.com , the word “seed” appears 25...

By "When St. Francis Failed" ~ I was raised by Mennonite missionaries in a typical Mennonite home. When I was very young, I felt called to "Sanctification." This is an Anabaptist term denoting piety and obedience. Of course, it does not exist. Image by Never Was An Arrow II via Flickr I was only about 11 or 12 but I was so into this madness that I stopped playing with friends and became unstable in my quest for holiness. Prior to this, I was not withdrawal or unhappy and this was not an emotional cry for help. I simply heard sermons on it and wanted to please God. As part of this quest, over about a years' time, I began to stop eating. I thought of it as a fast, a way to control my sinful nature. The professionals I eventually saw called it Anorexia. But it was not about fat, weight, food, but directly linked to my desire to please God. Far sicker than anorexia. Once it became obvious that I could die, my parents and I decided to pray. No treatment...

By Jbuilder ~ I grew up in a Christian home. However, I was 21 before I joined the Baptist Church and got "saved". Life was great and I was in love with my new savior. I jumped deep in the water of Christianity and it became my life for 13 years. I led Sunday School classes, became a deacon, led Men's retreat weekends, went witnessing during outreach and was an assistant part time pastor for a new Church Plant. I even felt called to the ministry full time and was planning on attending seminary to eventually start new churches in Canada. I was the Christian everyone looked up to. I was the guy who would have taken the bullet to the head, if asked to deny Christ or die. When I started having doubts: I guess it got started after the demise of a church plant that I was involved in. I had a man that told me it was God’s will that he start this church. Also, God gave him a vision that this church was going to grow into an equipping center that would start church...