By kucingnoire ~ H i Dad. First off, I'd like to say that I really appreciated our talks when I was home. For maybe the first time in my life, I felt like you really heard me. It's a credit to your maturity and wisdom that you were able to respond so graciously to me, wine-drunk and petulant as I was in certain moments. I truly appreciate that, and it was encouraging to me. When we talked about those conversations establishing a good foundation that we could build on, I meant it. So, let's build. Right now: I'm depressed. I have a hard time sleeping a lot of nights. I have a hard time getting up in the morning. I have a hard time getting excited about anything. I am anxious. I drink too much. I smoke too much. To borrow the phrase you used to describe the France years: I am treading water. This is not entirely your fault. I take responsibility for my decisions. I own my bad habits. I reference my current situation not to hold you responsible for it, but...

By Ben Love ~ “In each of us, two natures are at war—the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose—what we want most to be we are.” — Robert Louis Stevenson I 've been in enough dialogues with Christians to know that one of the mainstays of their argument is the distinction between “good” and “bad.” Specifically, the Christian maintains that without the standard provided by an all loving, benevolent God, we human beings could never know what “good” is. God sets the standard, according to their argument, and from that standard flows all moral knowledge. Without that standard, the Christian contends that we would be amoral monsters with no predilection for good over evil; we would be animals that followed whatever base instinct was driving us at the moment. As a result, the world would be a chaotic place where rampant selfishness and senselessness reign supreme. But, according to...

By Carl S ~ L et's talk about fundamentalists in every religion, since they have, well, fundamental traits in common. Fundamentalists insist that "God has a purpose for everything," and most important of all, "God has a purpose for you!” This is usually followed by the claimants telling you they have the answers to what your purpose is, which strangely, just happens to be found solely through their particular faith. (" The Purpose-Driven Life " became a best seller.) But wait a second. What is the purpose of fundamentalists themselves? To use their own claim, what purpose did their God create them for? For these answers we only need look at their overt actions, not their words. One purpose for fundamentalists is to be experts telling us how to live our lives. Every one of them is really committed to telling women how to live their lives, what clothing they should be wearing, the choices and decisions they should make, and how they must manage their...

By Carl S ~ W hat if we accept the premise that there is no god when we discuss evils enacted by humans? "God" is useful for rationalizing many acts of evil, and an excuse for avoiding personal responsibility and consequences. (And while we're at it, let's leave "Satan" out too, for the same reasons.) If we leave God out of the picture, we may be able to explain how pastors are able to preach one thing and live another. At the heart of their religion is the doctrine one cannot resist urges without supernatural help. This is predicated on another doctrine: that urges, feelings, doubts, and needs, can be evils in themselves. This is a pernicious doctrine that ignores reality, at peril to human wellbeing. It ignores the fact that urges, doubts, feelings, and needs, describe what it means to be human. All members of the clergy are commanded to preach their followers to resist urges, feelings, doubts, and needs, by appealing to help from "God...

By Anne Keye ~ T he other day I came to a funny realisation whilst talking to a recently de converted christian lady. We were laughing at the concept of hell that seems to scare so many believers. I said that it was never hell that scared or bothered me but the idea that I might have to be with my relatives forever. Now, that would mean their relatives and so on and that would be some big family to squabble with I can tell you! Well, I said that would be terrible and really depressing. Every day would be the same day with the same people. A sort of "Stepford wives" gone awol. Everyday with the same people forever! No escape! You can't get out. The rape victim plays with the rapist, the murdered hangs out with the murderer and the paedophile plays with children. Well, they all found jesus didn't they and he let them in. Oh dear no thank you. All those relatives that we secretly dislike and who dislike us secretly in turn. All those that caused us pain and suffer...

By Jack Boxer ~ S o I was about 11 I think when I realized god couldn't possibly exist. I just could not longer bring myself to the constant bouts of paranoia, depression and self-inflicted pain otherwise known as "repenting" and "hellmary". I simply became physically unable to engage in any further self-flogging. My emotions were shot, my body exhausted from all the constant gut wrenching choke-chaining from all the "apologizing" for thinking things, as if anyone can or has a right to read my thoughts, I had no ability to pose as a martyr with my hands nailed to something, thinking I had to "endure the pain" for christ, when I realized that Christ was supposedly the one who did it for me and that it was over? But alas, even if you believe you don't have to jesus christ pose yourself into fatigue every day of your life for having sexual thoughts about some well endowed girl you saw down the street, the doctrine of "christ...

By John Draper ~ F or hundreds of years, learned folks have struggled over the dichotomous picture of God presented in the Old and New testaments: Angry God, Loving God. Could you see the Prince of Peace leading the charge to exterminate the tick-ridden Canaanites ? It strains credulity, hence the hundreds of years of struggle—and cockamamie explanations/rationalizations/ allegories. Back when I was religious, I had a book titled  Show Them no Mercy, Four Views on God and Canaanite Genocide —the four views being “Strong Discontinuity,” “Moderate Discontinuity, “Spiritual Continuity” and “Eschatological Continuity.” The most common cockamamie rationalization among biblical literalists is that the Israelites   had  to exterminate the Canaanites lest they be swayed to follow their gods. They had it coming. In his  Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties , Gleason Archer apologizes for the Israelites thusly:  “Just as the wise surgeon removes dangerous cancer from ...