Sins of the (Pumpkin) Flesh

By Klym ~

Every day I find new reasons to be glad/relieved that I am no longer imprisoned by Christian theology. Here's a fine example that was posted on my Facebook news feed just yesterday. A former student of mine who became a Christian in her teenage years posted some Bible verses that had her really upset about celebrating Halloween. A "friend" of hers posted the following on her timeline---and I copy it verbatim:

"When I taught little kids Sunday school class...we made a jack-o-lantern...but used it as a teaching tool about salvation. How we are all dirty & yucky on the inside(sin) & how if we ask Jesus to forgive our sins...He cleans out all the yucky stuff...and puts His light inside of us...so others will come to know Him from His light shining in us. Our classrooms didn't have windows...so once I put a candle in it...we turned off the light and saw just how much light one little light could give off. And we sang This Little Light of Mine. Also made a construction paper Jack-O-Lantern for each child to take home...orange with eyes, nose, mouth cutout...then glue yellow piece to the back to be the light. On the eyes, nose, and mouth we wrote Jesus is the Light of the World. You can't keep kids from seeing jack-o-lanterns this time of year...but you can help them associate it with something good! It's never too early to start pointing your children to Jesus."

OH MY GOSH---there is so much WRONG in the twisted story above---where do I begin?? First of all, what's up with all the ellipsis?? And then, the assumption that pumpkin flesh is "dirty & yucky". In my world, pumpkin flesh is delicious!! Add some sugar, spices, milk, and eggs and you've got pumpkin pie--yummy! Then there's pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bread, pumpkin seeds roasted to perfection, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin egg-nog, and my all-time favorite---the exquisite pumpkin ROLL! That's pumpkin cake rolled up with a spiral of gooey, delicious cream cheese inside---not only is it beautiful displayed on a plate; why, it's a culinary orgasm just waiting to happen with the first creamy bite! So why is this Christian bashing an innocent piece of fruit and making it into a symbol of sin? Why not just leave the poor pumpkin alone and let it be itself.

Oh, she answers later:

"it's because it's never too early to start pointing your children to Jesus."

So, when young, impressionable, naive children see a Jack-O-Lantern, what will they think? Well, if it were me, and I was three years old, I would be thinking about what a piece of yucky crap I am and that I need my insides scraped out so that Jesus can light a fire inside me. OUCH!! Why is Jesus so mean? Were my insides really so dirty and yucky? Why does he want to burn my insides? Oh, yeah, because he loves me. That's right. Hmmm, not a real comforting story for me, because that's how I thought of things when I was a toddler. Very literally.

Fellow Ex-C'ers, you might be wondering what I posted on that news feed. Well, I posted that I am no longer a Christian because of similar hateful, scary lessons I was taught as a child. I said that it took me 50 years to overcome the damage that was done to my heart and psyche by such a mean-spirited theology. I stated that if I offended adults with my stance, then so be it. I also said that wrong is wrong, and that to teach little children that they are pieces of excrement and to scare them with a non-existent hell is mental and emotional child abuse, period. Another person then posted that we needed to be civil and polite, even though we have dissimilar beliefs. To which I replied, "I will be civil and polite as long as young children are not being abused by a sick and twisted theology. I will advocate for the children, regardless of whether I come across as civil or not."

I have hidden in my closet for so long. I have been afraid to come out as an atheist now for years. But maybe I need to stop hiding and come out for the children. How much longer will I stand by and let this ignorant nonsense proliferate? I think I am about ready to inch open the door and leave my closet. Maybe our world needs more thinking atheists like me (and many of you)to stand up once and for all for the children. Or, maybe I just need to stop reading Christian posts on Facebook???

Comments

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~ S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden – Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~ A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins Accepting Christ as Savior Frequently reading the Bible Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules) Attending church services Partaking of the Lord’s Supper Tithing Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc. Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro

Search This Blog