By exPenty ~ I have a friend named Daniel, whom I have known for many years. Dan lives in Australia , which of course is on the other side of the world, but that's OK because in this technological age distance is no barrier to friendship. In fact, Dan and I get on really well, and he's one of my best friends. I e-mail Dan at least once every day, telling him what I've been up to and asking him how things are going with him. His life in Australia is so exciting, it's hard to explain! Dan is always there for me when I need him. I just feel like I can tell him anything. That's the sort of friend he is. He's helped me through many difficult times, just by listening to me when things got tough. He's never too busy to listen. Although I e-mail Dan regularly, I have never actually had an e-mail back from him. I've never met him in person either. Nor has he ever written to me, and he's never actually spoken to me on the phone either, although I am...

By ExPenty ~  A t this time of year, lots of children’s dreams are shattered by adults and other children who tell them that Santa Claus does not exist. This is, of course, a wicked lie. As such, I shall now refute some of the most common arguments used to “prove” that Santa does not exist. 1. Santa is based on the myth of Saint Nicholas This is not true. There are some similarities between the story of Santa and the story of Saint Nicholas, it’s true, but they are just coincidental. Just because two stories share some similarities, it doesn’t follow that one was based on the other. The stories about Saint Nicholas are interesting to believers in Santa, but they are irrelevant to Santa’s existence. The stories about Santa are undoubtedly true, whereas the stories of Saint Nicholas may well be mostly legends. 2. Your Christmas presents are really delivered by your parents Your parents may well bring you some presents, because it’s natural to want to give presents to those...

By ExPenty ~ N ow that I'm out of the closet as an atheist and used to thinking with an atheistic mindset, I've found myself more and more looking at the past with a mixture of nostalgia, incredulity and regret. I gave more than 20 years of my life for a cause in which I no longer believe, and I have many regrets. True, in the course of my Christian efforts I did meet my wife, but that's the one good thing I can really say about it. Looking back, I regret all the time I wasted trying to convert others to Christianity. I regret all the hours wasted in prayer to a non-existent deity, naively believing that I had an intimate relationship with him even though he never so much as spoke to me. I regret all the effort I put into church activities. I regret giving up playing rugby because training clashed with prayer meetings and bible studies. Most of all, though, I regret the big things I did as a result of believing God was calling me to serve him in a deeper way. I ...

By exPenty ~ I would think that everybody who knows me or spends at least some time with me is now aware that I'm an atheist. I've hardly been secretive about it; in fact, I've done everything but shout it from the rooftops. I used to be a sincere, committed Christian; now I'm a sincere, committed atheist. Image by Thomas Hawk via Flickr I've had various responses to this change in my worldview, ranging from the positive to the condemnatory, via apathy. One interesting phenomenon that's cropped up is the way some Christians have tried to take me to task for being "too vocal" about my atheism. "It's up to you what you believe," they say, "but why keep on about it?" Ha. I used to be a full-on Christian, of the Pentecostal variety. And of course, Christians are well-known for keeping quiet about what they believe, aren't they? Well, no, actually. When I was a Christian, a huge emphasis was put on sharing your faith w...

By ExPenty ~ I 've been out of the closet as an atheist for a comparatively short time - a matter of a few months - though it's been a long time coming and the signs of which way I was headed have been there for a while. Image via Wikipedia Even in such a short time, I have received lots of comments and questions from well-meaning Christians, some of them friends, that only make sense if you take their worldview as true. As an example, I've had people tell me "God still loves you and wants you to come back to him." That one's pretty innocuous, but then there are the more unpleasant ones such as "You'd better stop rebelling against God or you'll burn for eternity." There have been plenty of other comments that are in between the two. Whatever the message and whatever the motivation, though, the one thing all these comments have in common is that they only make sense from within a Christian worldview. Once I believed everything about Ch...

By ExPenty -- I posted a “coming out” message on Facebook a while back, which I also posted here: http://new.exchristian.net/2010/07/open-letter-to-those-who-know-me.html Image via Wikipedia Most comments were positive and even those who disagreed with me did so constructively and respectfully, but then a Christian acquaintance of mine took it upon himself to reply. I’ve reproduced some of the ensuing “discussion” here to serve as an object lesson: never get bogged down in trying to have a rational discussion with someone who has signed his brain away to Jesus. Apologies for the length, but this is the trimmed-down version! Names have been changed to protect the guilty. Xian: HI EXPENTY, HOW ARE YOU ... XIAN HERE HAVEN'T SEEN YOU FOR AGES,YOU MENTIONED GOD AND RELIGION QUITE A BIT BUT NO MENTION OF JESUS , WHO DO YOU THINK JESUS WAS AND WHAT WAS HIS INTENTION WHILST HERE ON EARTH...WE WILL ALWAYS KEEP PRAYING FOR YOU AND MRS EXPENTY , TAKE CARE XIAN :-) ExPenty: Hiya, X...

By ExPenty -- I n my day-to-day existence I’m a schoolteacher. My school has children ranging in age from 3 to 11. Image by Getty Images via @daylife I should explain for American readers that our schools system here in the UK is rather different from that in the USA . For one thing, as there is no separation of church and state here, it is compulsory by law for every publicly maintained school to have a daily act of worship of “broadly Christian character”. It is technically permissible for parents to have their children exempted from this, but in practice most don’t bother. It is also technically permissible for teachers and school staff to be exempted from this if they object on religious grounds, but in practise this rarely happens. For one thing, most teachers, even if they disagree with religion, don’t want to rock the boat, as it could have a detrimental effect on their career if they’re seen as not being committed to all aspects of school life. Usually these acts of ...

By ExPenty -- (I posted the following open letter on my blog recently. This is a quick plug for http://atheos-godless.blogspot.com ) Image by Robert Hruzek via Flickr W hat I am about to say may well surprise some of you. It may even shock some of you. However, it is important to me that I am honest with you and that I don’t live a lie just to spare people’s feelings. No, I’m not coming out of the closet as a gay man. I remain firmly heterosexual and happily married. Rather, I am coming out of the closet as an unbeliever. After more than twenty years of Christian belief, theological study and religious activism, I have examined the evidence for God and found it lacking. I now believe that there is almost certainly no God. This is not a decision that I have reached lightly. I didn’t suddenly wake up and think to myself, “I don’t think I’ll bother to believe any more.” Rather, it has taken me years to arrive at this point. Trust me when I say that a lot of thinking, agonising a...