By Michael Runyan ~ N o one argues the fact that Christian prayers have consistently failed to result in the grow-back of amputated limbs. There is no reputable report of this ever happening. Given this universal agreement, the challenge is to explain why. For an atheist, the explanation is simple- the human body is not capable to regenerate limbs, other than a few minor items like fingertips. This ability was lost long ago in our evolutionary past. Our distant cousins, starfish and salamanders, have retained this capability. For the Christian, the explanation becomes more problematic, especially in the wake of scriptures like this: John 14:13 “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” The stock apologetic answer is that God does not want to perform acts that would not leave doubters a way to remain in their doubt, or remove the need for believers to have faith. So the only prayers he will answer are those that appea

By Michael Runyan ~ S ometimes the best way to assess the credibility of a story is to distill its elements down and present it in the customary fashion of a fairy tale. This washes away the veneer of authenticity that is provided by the inclusion of multitudinous details. So, for Christianity, its condensed version might sound something like this: A virgin woman who never had sex nevertheless became pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy. This boy grew up to be a man who was at the same time the creator of the entire universe. The man walked on water and talked to demons who obeyed his commands. He could change water into wine and heal any affliction. The man was killed, but he came back to life. Then he flew up into outer space and was never seen again. What part of this does not sound like a fairy tale? What part of this story reflects any semblance of the world that present-day people inhabit? If you had told this story to any person who had not been previously exposed t

By Dominic Omenai ~ CHAPTER ONE M y late mother was a devout Christian, a Catholic and my mum’s parents were Muslims, She only became a Catholic after marriage. She never missed Sunday mass or weekly devotion. She encouraged us, her children, to attend church regularly with her. It is interesting to note that my mother had to change her religion immediately after marriage, which she did submissively to please my father. Baptism was already done for us when we were babies in my household. We had to attend Saturday Catechism classes for first holy communication classes. I can remember me and my younger brother would be sleeping during the Catholic mass on Sunday. Years later, I will understand, why we were not awake during the mass. The Catechism classes was where I met my first love Helen, although, at that time I have not yet known what love is. I remember attending happily the church harvest and spending the time at the church harvest with Daniel, a friend from my Catechism cl

By Carl S ~ T here’s an old saying: "When the cat's away, the mice will play.” But what if... On a planet not so very far away, a Supreme Cheshire Cat watches every mouse on it. Although astronomers estimate there may be as many as two trillion galaxies in the universe, the mice claim that cat built this planet just for them, his favorites, the only intelligent beings in the universe. He is the ruler and judge, knowing the thoughts and feelings of each mouse, every mouse second. While the cat silently watches, the very thought of its presence deters the mice from misbehaving (or so it is claimed). They've been warned not to say or do anything to offend or provoke him. But the cat was never heard to say what those offensive words and actions are. Never being sure kept the mice emotionally agitated. This opened them to exploitation. Once upon a time, some of the mice appointed themselves his spokesmice-henchmice. They decided to speak for him, telling everyone every

By Carl S ~ S uppose you were a member of one of those evangelical/fundamental/Pentecostal/whatever sect-i-cal, congregations. You loved a god and felt abandoned by him. You were told, “Don’t feel that way; blame yourself.” You dived into a relationship with high elation. It went downhill. An overdose of good feelings, like anything else, can be toxic. Your illusionary “highs” crashed. But what is this trust lovers of a god have except trust in those who speak for him? They give the god's pushers freedom to exploit them. Usually these exploiters are well-fed dealers who enjoy deceiving, who sleep well at night with a clear conscience. It works. In these United States, we are having a national religio-opioid crisis. Faith is believing what they wish for is true. Faiths are imbibings of a group's wishful feelings. They're like drunks who prefer the company of drunks, and you can't reason with them. If a member no longer feels the spirits and says so, the others free

By Karen Garst, PhD ~ C lay figurines from 50,000 years ago may be our earliest example of the human understanding of the importance of childbearing. If the clan or tribe didn’t reproduce itself, it would not survive. Most of these clay figurines are of women. The ones with large bellies or breasts might have been made to resemble pregnant or breastfeeding women. How they were used in the life of the tribe will never be fully known, but it is not far-fetched to say they in some way show the awe and mystery about human life. Fast forward to 10,000 years ago to the development of agriculture. Fertility of the earth becomes as important of the fertility of the tribe. If the crops don’t grow, people die. Similar female figurines continue to be found in the earliest settlements where agriculture was practiced. Eventually, a pantheon of gods becomes the norm and it is usual the female deity that assume the role of fertility. The Greek goddess Demeter is known as the grain goddess f

By Karen Garst, PhD ~ H ad I been a more adventurous young woman or born at a later time, I am sure that I would have pursued biology as my field of study. I remember learning about evolution in my ninth grade science class in the 60s. I was hooked. I wrote a paper about early man – Australopithecus erectus, Homo Neanderthalensis, etc. that I held on to into late adulthood. As I was still a practicing Lutheran at the time, I rationalized that god probably breathed the substance of life into Neanderthal or maybe Cro Magnon. To this day, my husband and I watch many documentaries about the rise of mankind and I enjoy them thoroughly. Abby Hafer followed up on her passion for biology and became a university professor. She is also an atheist and writes an intriguing (and quite humorous) essay for my new anthology – Women v. Religion: The Case Against Faith – and for Freedom . I don’t want to reveal too much about what she wrote but the first section completely dispels the belief t

Disciple of Jesus Forever ~ G uys, this is a warning. Stop doing all of these before it is too late. I am not pointing fingers at anyone around here, but I am telling you the truth! God loves every single one of you and wants you to give your lives to Him. As it is written, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh to the Father, but by Him. If you give your lives to Jesus Christ, He will change your lives and use you greatly! This is all your decision here! God wants you to spend eternity with Him, and the only ones stopping this are you! Also, by doing what you are doing, you are actually working with Satan and you are bringing souls to Hell by misleading people. Please repent before it is too late! God really loves you, and I love you all as well. Just because you were probably disappointed before or just waited and did not get answered by God, it does not mean He is not real! All the truth is in the Bible, make sure you read the Bible as well! In order to

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ Y ou may have seen this recent article . It described a survey of Christian Americans undertaken by psychologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In the study, 511 Americans, roughly two-thirds male and three-quarters Caucasian, looked through hundreds of pairs of faces and chose which they thought looked most like god. At this point in the article I began laughing. Essentially, the researchers were asking what these people thought an invisible being looked like! Now, last I knew, “in-visible” meant not visible. So how could this god’s face be said to look like anything? And isn’t god supposed to be a spirit being? How does a spirit have a face? Anyway, the respondents thought god would not look like the most popular representations of an old, white-bearded, Caucasian male god, but rather, younger and friendlier – although still a male Caucasian. Even most women and many blacks agreed on this. I had to ask myself, wouldn’t the h

By Michael Runyan ~ C hristian worshipers often praise Jesus as being the Prince of Peace, even despite what he is alleged to have said in Matthew 10:34 (‘Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword’). But putting that aside, there are other scriptures that seem to support the peace meme. However, there is one aspect of his ministry that completely annihilates this colloquial moniker, and it is best expressed by this quote from Christopher Hitchens: The god of Moses would call for other tribes, including his favorite one, to suffer massacre and plague and even extirpation, but when the grave closed over his victims he was essentially finished with them unless he remembered to curse their succeeding progeny. Not until the advent of the Prince of Peace do we hear of the ghastly idea of further punishing and torturing the dead. In this one statement, we can see all sorts of problems with Christianity: A universal god