By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ N o, that is not a statement of my belief. That is the title of a 2004 book by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek that I have been reading. What’s different about this book is that its authors claim to believe that the available evidence proves there’s a god. They claim that because atheists are not following the trail of evidence in their insistence on a godless universe, then those atheists are making a leap of faith. Of course, these authors’ evidence for their god falls woefully short of proof. Despite their numerous degrees, these guys are by no means deep thinkers. (Although I may be getting this impression simply because they are not honest in what they say.) For example, they make this naïve statement (p.130), “The atheists/Darwinists/materialists believe, by faith, that our minds arose from mindless matter without intelligent intervention. We say it is by faith because it contradicts all scientific observation which demonstrates that an eff

By Rebel With A Cause ~ I was born and raised in a middle-class Christian home. We did the typical stuff most Christians do - church on Sundays and Wednesdays, Friday night prayer meetings and bible studies. I was OK with everything until I hit my teen years. My father was a pastor, so ever since I was a kid many things including certain cartoons and video games were banned because they were considered demonic. I wasn't allowed to date anyone who wasn't a Christian because it was considered a sin against God. In my early teens my father began to instill the fear into me and my siblings that if we left the faith, we would burn in hell worse than anyone else in the world, and if I stopped going to church, several demons would attack me and make my life worse. I did what I could to ignore the fear and just tried to keep the faith and continue to live the Christian life the best I could with a smile. Things got harder for me. He later taught me how the bible says we ha

By Ben Harmon ~ O ne of the main barriers to de-conversion from any dogmatic, narrow belief is clear: embarrassment at being wrong and not admitting it for so many years. I discovered this fact when, questioning my Dad’s narrow belief (and conspiracy theory), he was particularly stricken by my prediction that he would eventually be embarrassed at the number of decades he spent believing a narrow doctrine. A “doctrinarian” is someone who strictly adheres to a narrow doctrine, regardless of its impracticalities. Doctrinarians feel compelled to stand by a specific worldview, and reject any analysis that is contingent on another worldview, or even reject any analysis that is not explicitly part of their worldview. In the doctrinarian’s mind, if something is not in direct agreement with the claims of their ideology, it must be rejected as false (“that doesn’t make sense in my ideology, so that must be wrong!”) On some evenings when my Dad and I are around one another, he has an

By Daniel out of the Lion's Den ~ W hen a Christian attempts to convert a person to their religion by preaching the Gospel, then introducing the need to make a decision to either reject or accept their man-god, Jesus, into the would-be convert’s heart, they are exercising logic. Most Christians hate that word, since it is the application of logic to the tenets of their religion that result in many people leaving the faith. Nevertheless, they are in fact, knowingly or unwittingly using logic. They will say you have to make a decision: Yes or No. There cannot be a maybe; there is no gray area. The answer must be binary… 0 or 1, on or off, black or white, yes or no. Furthermore, they will extol the simplicity of this divinely hatched plan. All you have to do is say yes, and your eternal fate is sealed: Destiny Paradise! An answer of “no” results in dire consequences: Eternal Burning. Such a simple plan of salvation, it must be God-breathed. It doesn’t take much to illust

By Scaredy Kat ~ I was raised for my entire life in a strict Christian world. A world where outsiders are unwelcome and where Agnostics/Atheists are uneducated snobs who prey on the innocent and drag fervent Christian believers into the fiery pits of Hell. And I was one of them; I "am" one of them. And that's my problem. I am so afraid. I'm 17 and have the adventure of college ahead of me, and that should be liberating, right? College should be my chance to get away from my strict, Bible worshipping, anal nitpick family. But college isn't going to play that role for me. My parents have given me a deal or no deal situation to bear and I'm so afraid of the next 4 years of my life. This deal or no deal for me is: christian college, or no college at all. I have been content with my disbelief in god since about...July. For the last 5 years, I have lived as a non-Christian while at school, and have behaved as a proper Christian daughter at church and at

By Carl S. ~ L et us begin the adventure of Lucia, the brown, golden-eyed girl from planet Q. But first, a little background: Let us describe her character, for it is typical of the other inhabitants of her planet. All of them are what are called “innocents” here on Earth. Their sense of wander and curiosity might be compared to that of a human five year old. On planet Q, there are no concepts such as faith, belief, and dogma, because the beings there are only interested in finding out what is true, what is real. Inventing truths is a concept foreign to them, to their very natures. Our girl with the golden eyes has been sent to Earth because she won her school prize for being the most curious in her community. Before entering our planet, she pays attention to our space station, and notices that humans are living on board, and notes that they are starting to enter into space. It's a beginning, she thinks, so they must be intelligent. On Earth, she visits natural and histori

By Faithfulless ~ I wish I was brave enough to introduce myself, and tell the truth of my story, a little about my upbringing, my family, and my current struggles, but at this point in my life I am just too afraid of being exposed –a sad place to be in a “free country.” For those ex-Christians who are familiar with “small groups” -- those weekly meetings with friends to study the bible, pray and fellowship –- it seems that the deconverting could benefit from Small Groups too. In fact I would love to participate in a bible study that helped me to continue to understand both the truths and the fallacies. How does one actively search for something like that, especially while still living in the closet? But in the meantime, I just want to give a big thank you to those of you who take the time to post the details of your testimonies, debunking the myths that if you are a non-believer now, then you never were – or that you are only going through a rebellious stage. It's cle

By Luke ~ B efore I get too far ahead, or, get started at all... If you have not watched the YouTube series by username " Evid3nc3 " in a playlist titled " Why I am no longer a Christian ", than I strongly recommend giving it a look. It was because of this man's detailed journey from the faith I was able to begin to realize when I started mine, and piece together just how I went from "on fire" for God, to an agnostic , to an atheist over the course of... 5 years? Maybe. Just like Evid3nc3, it was while I was while I was living by Christian faith that my transformation was occurring. I was born into a church setting. I was baptized in water, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit , I was a tounge-talking servant of the most high God. I would worship God at the beginning of every church service, listened carefully during sermons, study the Bible when I could, (despite my A.D.D.) and probably did everything else you could imagine that the typical Chris

By summerbreeze ~ Roxana Rodriguez, circled, on the day she joined the order of the Little Disciples of Jesus   I 'm sure that you've heard the recent news about the Nun from the 'Little Disciples of Jesus' convent, near Rieti Italy, who gave birth to a bouncing baby boy. ( I'm glad that her convent wasn't named 'Little Disciples of Innocenti ')... now THAT would be embarrassing! She was another one of those women who said " I didn't even know that I was pregnant "....OH NO !...could this be another gift to the world from God ? His last gift, 2000 years ago, helped to screw things up big time, for rational people that is. The local Pastor in the town said "I guess she's telling the truth when she says she arrived at the Hospital unaware of the pregnancy"....totally ignoring the question of how a Nun could get pregnant in the 1st place. This is just more proof of how the Catholic Church pig-headedly clings t

By Carl S. ~ T he other day, I watched a DVD from an old comedy series. A man had an argument about his girlfriend's psychic abilities. Because he was a psychiatrist/skeptic, the two of them decided that she would take psychic tests to determine her alleged “abilities.” This was done in a neutral setting by a professional scientist. Just before the test results were to be announced, the boyfriend decided that they “really didn't need to know,” because he was already trusting in her. I suspect that there is quite a lot of this “really don't want to know” going on every day. Sometimes this must be simply out of caring for the beloved's feelings. But then too, the lover might not really want to know, but be content to wonder. The common explanation for this is “So what? No harm done. Let her or him believe seriously what we see as silly things.” Their delusions are usually seen as personality quirks in our society; the deluded are “offbeat, eccentric, or peculiar.”

By The Rev. Ex- Evangelist ~ I 'm almost sixty years old. In the last few years I've learned that a number of the people who had mentored me as a young Christian in my early twenties have passed away. The news of their passing has triggered many memories. Memories of being young, naive and gullible; of close friendships; wholesome fun and the excitement of "learning" that my insignificant life was really part of a big, cosmic, divine plan that "God" had developed before I was even born! Mental placebos can make you feel good about yourself. When I became a real born-again believer at age nineteen, I went from having no friends and feeling very alienated and rudderless to suddenly being warmly accepted and included by all kinds of people in the evangelical churches and ministries I was introduced to. I was touched by their interest in me and my problems and their basic decency and kindness towards me. They were good people; the proverbial &quo

By Slander ~ T o my loving, Christian parent, I did not stop believing because you didn’t live a ‘vibrant’ faith as an example for me. I saw how your belief in god helped you through those dark times—how you praised him during the good and bad. I know what it means to have a relationship with god because you showed me—it isn’t some wishy-washy thing—it’s very serious and I understand that, that’s why I can’t just ‘play the part’ and pretend to believe something I don’t. I can’t go to church and bow my head in prayer to a god I don’t believe in and take communion—that would make a mockery of something that is very serious to you. I refuse to be one of those people, and I know you wouldn’t want me to be. I did not stop believing because someone who claimed to be a Christian hurt me in some way or another. Yes, I have been hurt by Christians in the past—and agnostics and atheists and those with a very different opinion on what a Christian life looked like. We are all human, we