By BlackFreethought ~ O nce I took off the mask and removed the veneer of Christianity during this second deconstruction, the world became a more scary, challenging, and indifferent place. Within this deconstruction 2.0, because one deconstruction wasn't enough to wipe the slate clean, I lost my sense of specialness, my sense of being God's little raindrop, cascading on the earth below. I started to see myself first as one of the many humans who lived and died. I was no longer an actor in a cosmic drama; I was simply me, fated to exist on this pale blue dot in an unremarkable solar system, moving through the universe. Sometimes I feel fear like a child who is instructed by their parents to sleep with the lights off because that's what big kids do. I wasn't ready, but eventually I got used to sleeping with the lights off. Now, having deconstructed a second time, I am finally turning off the light of Christianity, and learning to sleep in the dark unknown of th...

By Blackfreethought ~ I t is such a relief to know my actions do not have eternal consequences. My mistakes will not condemn me to damnation and my good deeds will not propel me into heavenly bliss. I live each day recognizing the frailty of my humanity and that strengthens me to do the best I can to improve conditions in the world while I possess the mental capacity and vision. My life is much sweeter because I understand that I am responsible for its outcome, although many things lie beyond my control. The gods do not wrestle over the fate of my soul, since neither my soul or the gods exist. My existence is not a battleground for good versus evil, where my mind is the prize. I no longer attempt to justify life rules that do not fit my intrinsic values. I do not have to explain why I follow a religious system, largely responsible for the ills facing my community. I can freely embrace the historical facts and pursue other interests. My life is much sweeter because I understand t...

By Black Freethought ~ K nowing that there is no divine purpose for my life gives me a sense of freedom that I have never experienced before. I spent the first part of life looking to the Christian faith to help me discover what my life's purpose could be. After leaving the faith behind, I looked inside and outside myself for a clue of why I was put here on this earth. Then I began to think about this with rationality while avoiding sentimentality. By asking the question of why am I here on earth presupposes that my existence has a greater meaning than what it actually boils down to. My parents had sex, my mom got pregnant and decided to carry the fetus to full term. That's the real reason that I'm here. I am simply one out of an estimated seven billion people on this planet. My life is like one grain of sand on a beach glimpsing the infinity of the vast ocean in front of me. When I die, I will only be remembered until the last person who knows me dies, then all m...

By BlackFreethought ~ D uring this last foray into Christianity I held more progressive views of scripture than before. I now realize that I spent a lot of time in self-deception. In trying to discover an alternative or progressive view of scripture, I told myself that what I read wasn't really what I read. In other words, this scripture does not mean what is written or how it has been traditionally interpreted; it means something completely different. The more I tried to find different interpretations of certain Bible verses, the more I could see how the traditional positions carried more weight in the church. The irony is the more I studied the Bible, the more faith it took to believe the claims it produced. As I took the scriptures out of the esteemed philosophic ether and placed it into a historic context, I saw a book edited and written with various agendas in mind. It was already going to be difficult for me to be a Christian who no longer believed in the devil, heave...

By Black Freethought ~ I t's been awhile since I last wrote. During that time, I started to wrestle again with returning to Christianity. I thought I could deal with the cognitive dissonance by taking a more progressive view of the ancient faith tradition. I read materials from leading progressive Christian thinkers which basically told me that I could maintain and practice a non-supernatural version of the faith. After previously leaving the faith behind, I could no longer believe in those miraculous events. I discovered the "Ground of All Being" God concept from progressive theologian Paul Tillich. I thought that it was abstract and obtuse enough for me to be able to hold to the "good parts" of the faith while maintaining a non-supernatural outlook. Hence, in 2016, I tried to practice Christianity by simply trying to follow the moral teachings of the Bible. However the deeper I got into the moral teachings, the more I realized how immoral at worst or nom...

By BlackFreethought ~ I have many facets to my identity. Here are just a few: Blerd, Afrogeek, Blatheist, or if you prefer, Black Nerd, Black Geek, Black Atheist. I am a non-conforming individual fighting against the religious status quo . At least that's what I would like to think. The reality has much more complexity than it would seem. I love comic books and the ideas about secret identities and alter egos. I especially like the X-Men . With it's thinly veiled allegory about being "the other" and the challenges that come with it, allow me to insert my experiences into the stories. The "other", referred to in the X-Men by the term mutants, have abilities, powers, and skills that set them apart from everyone else. These folks were born with their powers. Some mutants look very different from normal humans and have a difficult time with acceptance due to their appearance. Other mutants look like normal humans and can fit in as long as no one disc...

By BlackFreethought ~ I n the Black American community, our culture has a definitive Christian undertone to it, due to 400 years of indoctrination and a violent separation from our indigenous African roots. This insidious aspect plays out when it comes to the role of the church in the community. Many in the Black community feel like they could not have made it without God. The narrative of historical oppression spoke of by family members coupled with the reality of racism that shows up in every day life, gives this particular view a life of its own. Songs with these refrains speak to this viewpoint: "If it had not been for the Lord on my side, where would I be?" "Never would have made it, never would have made it without You..." This philosophy, reinforced through Sunday sermons and church Bible classes over generations, uses guilt theology to keep congregants believing this untruth. Ergo, any time a person reaches a particular milestone or accomplish...

By BlackFreethought ~  http://blackmaleatheist.blogspot.com/ B ack in 2012, I began to realize the difficulties of swimming against the current. Although in this case, the current represented christianity. For most of my life, I identified as a believer in jesus christ and all of my social, professional, and familial relationships had connections through the church. To walk away from that significant network took courage, but down this new road of freedom, I found myself looking back. As I stated in another post, I experienced great difficulty in the dating scene as a non-believing atheist. During the fall of 2012, I started to come up with reasons why I should go back to church. In the African-American community, the church has social, political, economic, as well as spiritual significance. I felt like I was missing a part of my cultural heritage , not to mention that the odds of finding a non-believing African-American woman in Metro Detroit were slim to none. Maybe I co...

By BlackFreethought ~ This is part 2 of an essay I submitted back in 2012 . O nce I walked away from the faith that I once loved with all of my might, I quickly discovered that the world no longer made sense in the way that it once did. The universe seemed to turn on its head. It felt like learning how to ride a bike again for the first time. The old rules that I lived by no longer applied to my current state of affairs. This feeling of awe mixed with slight trepidation made for an interesting learning process in every area of my life. Having a strong, virtuous, Christian woman used to take precedence when I looked for a potential love interest. Even after my deconversion, I still tried to date strong Christian woman... As a Christian I knew exactly what kind of woman I wanted to have a romantic relationship with: A Proverbs 31 woman. In modern Christianity, this chapter epitomizes what kind of woman every Christian man would want to have.However now that I am no longer a Christ...

By BlackFreethought ~ R ecently, I reflected on my christian days and thought about how if my former self could see me now, he would be in total shock! I was a blood washed, tongue talking, prophesying, tithing, church attending christian. I had a strong bias against any belief that would "exalt itself against the knowledge of god." I thought I was being compassionate when I told people that "god has a plan for your life, accept jesus into your heart or face an eternity in hell!" Now that I have left my former life behind, I realize how nasty of a person I was for saying those things. I thought I was showing people the unconditional love of christ, but what I really did was alienate others from me. Eventually, even as I became seemingly more tolerant as a Christian, I still harbored those thoughts in my heart. I would tell people that all faiths are good to live with, but Christianity is the only one that you could die with. I thought that my belief was superi...

By blackfreethought03 ~ O ne of the biggest issues I have with 21st Century Christianity deals with how it focuses on living for the future as opposed to living in the present moment. The doctrine teaches things such as god has a special plan for your life, god will exalt you in due time, if you don't lose heart, your blessing is on the way, keep holding on until your your change comes, god is faithful to his promises. While a person waits on these supposed promises, they believe that god will come through for them. When he doesn't, they have a built in excuse for god's failure to grant them their request. Christians usually say that god has something better for them or it is not time for them to have this particular blessing yet. These unfortunate souls waste their lives away waiting for future glory as opposed to living in the present. Instead of being passive about their lives, these folks need to be active in living. For example, if someone desires better employ...

By black freethought ~ I write this essay to talk about how difficult dating is when you are an ex-christian in the black community. Although I realize for a lot of us in the atheist community, dating can present many challenges. According to a recent survey, over 70 percent of Black woman see the Christian faith as an important part of their life. (June 2012 The Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation ) After my divorce and later deconversion from Christianity, I started toying with the idea of getting on a dating website. After many months of having a basic profile, I decided to upgrade to the paid subscription. The first thing I noticed was that there were very few females who identified as atheist, and none of them were black. This didn't surprise me because I am the only black atheist I know. Many black women identified themselves as christian who were looking for other Christians. I also ran into this phrase while reading their profiles, "He must belie...

By blackfreethought ~ I t seems like Christianity is obsessed with human sacrifices and virginity. It is more specifically concerned with virgin male sacrifices. Allow me to first discuss a few major examples of human sacrifices. In the book of Genesis, Cain sacrifices an offering of crops and God rejects it. Abel offers a virgin lamb and God accepts his offering. So Cain decides to offer his brother's life as an offering to God. Then something strange happens. Instead of God ending Cain's life for sacrificing his brother, he allows Cain to live and build cities. The descendants of Cain were the originators of metallurgy, music, and herding livestock. Looking at the story from this vantage point allows one to see Abel as the first human virgin sacrifice. (Genesis 4) Later on in Genesis, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his virgin son Isaac , but God changed his mind allowing Isaac to live. One can also think of Joseph being thrown in the pit by his brothers as a figur...