By Carolyn Hyppolite ~ I n the venerable tradition of making crap up as you go along, Christians have been trying to allegorize and sanitize the embarrassing fact that their loving God is planning to roast most of his creation in perpetuity. Unfortunately for them, we can read. When I ask, how am I supposed to enjoy Heaven knowing that most of my fellow human beings are locked in a torture chamber, mostly for misdemeanors, I am told that Hell is no such thing. It is in fact a place of separation from God, or a place of darkness, or just eternal annihilation. None of these description of Hades can be justified by the Christian’s primary text—the Bible. Nothing remotely close to “eternal separation from God” is ever mentioned in the New Testament. Darkness might be the very place one might expect to find God since he has been known to speak in it (Deuteronomy 5:22), make it is his canopy (2 Samuel 22:12), and to dwell in it (1 Kings 8:12). There is some Biblical warrant for the ...

By Carolyn Hyppolite ~ L ast week I received a phone call about a part time job. The man on the phone had my resume in front of him as he spoke to me and he seemed quite pleased with what he was reading. “This is exactly what I need,” he said. “Can you come in for an interview this afternoon?” We set up a 2p.m. appointment for that day and I was certain that I was heading there to be offered a job. That’s not what happened. As I sat waiting for him, I wondered what kind of name is Ephraim. There is a St. Ephrem in the Catholic and Orthodox Church but I have never met anyone who used that name. Perhaps, Egyptian, I wondered, Coptic Orthodox ? I had not been wondering for too long when I saw a bearded man wearing a yamaka. Of course, Ephraim, one of the tribes of Israel , I said. It’s very easy to forget those original worshippers of Yahweh . When my interviewer arrived, I reached out to shake his hands. “ I don’t shake hands ,” he said. “It’s my policy. I said the same...

By Carolyn Hyppolite ~ W hen I was a believer, I received a lot of positive attention for my excessive piety. My life was filled with hours of prayer, Bible study, frequent liturgical attendance, volunteering at pro-life “clinics,” evangelizing, etc. I even tried self-flagellation a few times. It was not a habit. I hate pain. Before you judge me too harshly. It has great precedence in the Western Tradition even in our times. John Paul II is said to have used it for penance. “You are a great servant for God,” They said. “It’s great to see such a young woman who loves God.” Now, that I have left. I confess I found all of this exhausting and unrewarding. You know that moment when you are sleepy and you place your head comfortably on a pillow and then you realize that you have not said your night prayers, and you get up and perform whatever ritual you do at that moment? I don’t have those moments. Instead, I have found myself relishing the fact that I don’t have to get up at this...

Carolyn Hyppolite ~ T hink about any nativity you have passed by around Christmas, what are the components? Mary adoringly staring at her son, Joseph standing behind her oozing with paternal confidence, farm animals surrounding the humble Jesus, Shepherds on bended knee, and wise men bearing gifts. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, supposedly the place of Jesus' birth (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) As a Christian, you assume that is one part of one coherent Biblical account. As you read the Gospels, you forget the details from Matthew that are not found in the Gospel of Luke and vice versa. The Christmas Crèche is a compilation of stories that reflects none of stories reflected in the Bible and that’s just the beginning of the problems found in the Nativity narrative. Neither Mark nor John’s Gospel report a nativity story. This is odd given the important events that allegedly surrounds Jesus’s birth. First, he was born of a virgin—that doesn’t happen everyday; it’s n...

By Carolyn Hyppolite ~ O ne of the indicators that the Bible is the product of self-interested men is how it treats the issue of testing, both God’s testing of human beings as well as the nearly total injunction against testing God, except when it comes to tithing. Throughout the Bible God is said to be testing his people to see if they will remain faithful. I am not going to dwell here on the obvious question of why an omniscient being would need to test his people. It does not seem that the Scripture writers, especially the writers of the Old Testament , reflected a great deal on this obvious conflict. Presumably because the notion God’s omniscience is a later theological development. When God says to Abraham,  “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me,” (Genesis  22:12 ) it is best to take the text literally. Now, God knows something that h...

By Carolyn Hyppolite ~ I f you have ever been in argument with a theist, you have experienced two frustrating moments. I know what you’re thinking—just two? Well, at least. Here you are doing your atheist thing, pointing out the self-contradictory nature of the Christian God, arguing that no fossil in the record has ever been discovered in the wrong strata, demonstrating that the resurrection accounts in The Bible are conflicting, etc. You’re feeling pretty good about yourself. You are certain that you have nailed it and now any moment your interlocutor will admit the error of his ways. But that’s not what happened. Your faith in reason was not able to move this mountain. Instead, the theist asserts that she has faith. She believes in these things. God has spoken to her heart, QED. Suddenly you find yourself separated by a seemingly unbridgeable chasm. There is no reasoning with “I have faith.” What do you do when someone admits that she chooses to believe regardless of the ...

By Carolyn Hyppolite ~ E very January, the Catholic Church dedicates a week to praying for Christian unity. For eight years—even after I had left Catholicism—I joined them in that prayer. As a believer in Christ, I knew how instrumental Christian discord is in sowing doubts in the minds of outside observers. For if Christians cannot bring themselves to agree on what mandates of God are, is it not at least an indication that they are not guided by the same omnipotent deity but rather by their own interior preferences and prejudices? Christians are often defensive about this charge, quickly discounting their deep differences, and insisting that they are in agreement about the key issue—Jesus Christ. However, it is not just pesky atheists who think that Christian division poses a threat to the faithful’s credibility. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus knew that the faithful’s disunity raises doubts: “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will be...

By Carolyn Hyppolite ~ S o you’re an atheist now. You have left behind one of the many gods that humanity has invented to comfort themselves and control others and you look askance at the pious proclamations of your former co-religionists , shaking your head in exasperation that people could be so irrational. Isn’t obvious that you can’t possibly place all the animals on the planet in one ark? *Face palm*. And then you remember that not too long ago this was you. Not too long ago, you espoused propositions that are indisputably mad. Surely, I was not this bad you say to yourself. Yes, I was a believer but I asked questions; I was engaged in a sincere quest for the truth; I was open-minded; I was progressive. Admit it. You were like that—judgemental, naïve, and certainly, credulous. You believed things that were undeniably insane. I remember once a few years back, I was having a debate with a secular Jewish employer about evangelicals who were supporting Israel because th...

By Carolyn Hyppolite ~ I am probably doing the Church of England no favors by praising them. After all, I am an apostate. I am now part of “the world.” The very fact that I should consider their actions laudable is proof to their conservative detractors that this church has sold out to the world and is under demonic influence. But I can’t help myself. Church of England has taken some important progressive steps this month—they promoted women and demoted the devil—and they deserve the recognition. After years of struggle and a few compromises with conservatives in their church who cannot countenance the thought of a woman having authority of men, the Church of England has finally decided to allow women into the bishopric . If you an atheist, like me, and you are tempted to dismiss this, I get that. So what!? Exactly how grateful should we be that the Church of England has finally caught up? Thanks for joining us in the 21st century! Okay, okay. But let’s face. Religion, par...

By Carolyn Hyppolite ~ T here was never a time when the question of God was not important in my life. As a child, I was disinclined to believe. I was appalled by the story of the testing of Abraham—God tests Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son. I was eleven years old when I read that story and I decided that this was the kind of deity that I should stay away from. Despite my natural skepticism, there is another part of me that has found something appealing in the Christian story. At its best, it is a story about sacrificial love and the restoration of a broken world into something whole, just and beautiful. Perhaps, all of us can find some attractiveness in such ideals. In 2005, I had what I believed to be an encounter with the divine—a calling from God. I fell in love with Jesus. It transformed me radically. I became a zealous and conservative Christian . From that day, everything in my life had religious significance. I became obsessed with what God’s plans were for my p...