By dealdoctor ~ H ave you guys seen the child and baby preachers? If you don’t think that religion brainwashes little children you need to take a look at this: What we see here with the phenomenon of child preachers did not happen overnight but the preaching behavior of these children is the result of many days, weeks and months and a few years of observation of their parents and respected church leaders. Observation was followed by the adoption of approved behavior which resulted in attention and parental praise for the child. Think rats learning tricks to earn the cheese. This child preacher stuff has got to be the Christian’s secret weapon held for the end times. Baby preachers flat out need other babies in the congregation who really get into worship. I mean these child and baby preachers do not want lukewarm baby Christians but turned on really committed “true believer” both feet into the worship experience baby Christians. I am not talking about new Christians. I...

By PinkRangerV ~ D ear Yahweh, I've read the Bible, listened to the ministers, and tried to be Catholic. And I've come to a conclusion--You hate me. Not just hate; this is a rage I've never heard of You extending at anyone (except the gay, of course). But at one point, I was Your daughter. So I'm just asking that, in the name of our past relationship, You explain. Because, really, I just don't understand. I don't understand why You hate my sexuality. When I was little, I read about a captive princess, and the sheer sensuality of the dialouge made me feel...funny. And I *liked* that feeling. But You didn't. And I loved You more than I loved myself. So I tore out part of my mind. I don't understand why You hate my gift. I'm psychic. When I trance out, I 'jump' into the future; when I sit next to someone, I feel what they feel; when I focus on a bit of tinfoil I balance on a needle, it moves with nothing but my mind. But Your Book sa...

Recommended by Atheist Tooth Fairy (ATF) ~ There must be a divine artificer because the universe is so complex and so fine-tuned for our survival. OR Since the universe came billions and billions of years before we did, the universe isn't fine tuned for us. We developed in such a way so as to survive within the bounds of the natural laws of the universe in which we find ourselves.

By Carl S ~ S uppose you woke up tomorrow morning and there was no more religion. Would the world be a better or worse place to live in? Maybe societies would crumble without a God or gods to invoke and look up to for moral examples? Image by epha via Flickr Or, on the other hand, would the world be better off? Maybe we ought to think about this more clearly and humanely; there's a lot at stake. What if? Start with the simple things, like pork. Those who have not enjoyed a hot dog or ham sandwich will find out what they've been missing. Those who live and starve because they haven't eaten cows that are "sacred" will be able to do so. (Any “lower” carnivore, like a lioness, would look at that cow and say, "My children are hungry, and I'm going for it.” But no - here we have Homo sapiens saying, "No, my faith is smarter than the lioness's smarts." Duh!) Those who have been forbidden to taste wine, beer, coffee, may do so and enjoy. Those ...

Created by Leaders&Flares ~ Image by mtsofan via Flickr Mega-churches have used religion as fund-raising tool for too long. They shower their followers in sanctimonious platitudes, then clamor for their cash. This video encourages a new definition of tithing by giving to causes with accountability. The New Tithe from Justin Wilson on Vimeo .

By sola veritas ~ U nlike many who have shared their stories here, I did not lose my faith because I was mistreated by anyone in the church. In fact, ever since I was baptized as a teen – some 30 years ago – I have received nothing but love, support, and kindness from those in the church. This is particularly true in the church where I now attend with my wife and children – a church that emphasizes community, peace-making, and social justice, and where even the evangelical element is devoid of hellfire and brimstone. In a way, this makes my loss of faith even harder. Nor did I lose my faith because of any trauma, or because of any particular event. My faith simply leaked out of me when I could no longer ignore the doubts, and when I finally confronted them, head on, in an honest search for the truth. Over the course of a few years I read close to 100 books by non-believers new and old (e.g., Paine, Russell, Ingersoll, Twain, Darwin, Sagan, Dawkins, Hitchens , Harris, Dennett ,...

By DRC ~ The following is part 2 of a letter I am writing to my family to explain my doubts to them. Part 1 can be found here: http://new.exchristian.net/2010/12/letter-to-my-family-part-1-prayer.html C hristianity is founded on the Bible. For Christianity to be absolutely true, three things must be established about the Bible. It must be the inspired word of God, our translations must be infallible, and our interpretation of it must be correct. Curiously, this topic is never covered at any of the churches I’ve attended. It is simply assumed that everyone agrees with these three things. This is a very strange assumption, indeed. If I walked into a library and picked up a random book, my immediate assumption would be that a person wrote it, rather than an invisible spiritual being. Superficially, the Bible looks like any other hard cover book made of ink and paper, so the conclusion that it was inspired by God must be accompanied by some remarkable evidence. Divine inspiration cert...

or, The Sermon That Made Me An Agnostic    By Bud ~ "We sit outside and argue all night long About a God we've never seen, but never fails to side with me." - Primitive Radio Gods , Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand I delivered a sermon once in which I described four categories of understanding, or knowledge columns as I called them. The purpose of these columns, as I'll explain in more detail later, is to address the question of how well we understand god, his will, doctrine, and how we understand ourselves in light of all this. I came across some old notes from that sermon - notes from a sermon I preached in the year 2000 - and that got me thinking about the intellectual and spiritual journey I've been on since I preached this sermon over a decade ago. I began my sermon by explaining the dichotomy between the noumenal and the phenomenal in Immanuel Kant's epistemology (Sounds like I was a boring preacher, I ...

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ I n 1997, noted biologist and author Stephen J. Gould wrote an essay titled, Nonoverlapping Magisteria (sometimes abbreviated as NOMA) ( http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html ). In it, Gould claims that science and religion should be able to peacefully coexist because of, “. . . a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise - science in the empirical constitution of the universe, and religion in the search for proper ethical values and the spiritual meaning of our lives.” However, it is perhaps a fatal flaw of his essay that he never establishes that religion actually has a legitimate “domains of professional expertise,” he merely states it. Magisterium is defined as a “domain of teaching authority.” As Gould put it, “No such conflict should exist because each subject has a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority.” The short version of my response to Gould’s NOMA thesis is, “Bollocks!...

By religiousantagonist ~ In 6 Minutes, I demonstrate just what is wrong with religion. Visit my Facebook Page.

By DealDoctor ~ O ur good friend Valerie Tarico in her excellent recent article “ Heaven, Hell and Sam Harris ”  which responds to Sam Harris’ new book Image by ganesha.isis via Flickr The Moral Landscape said: "For those of us who find traditional dogmas inadequate to answer the complex ethical questions before us, and I am one, Harris has opened a conversation we need to have." I could not agree more with smart Valerie. I would go on to say when we reject dogmatic Medieval religion and then find liberal religion to be only a tap dancing cop out which lacks the courage to just let it go and move on because of habit, tradition and social structures those facts do not mean that science has all the answers moral or otherwise for human situation. Harris is correct that it does have many. I remember in the movie " Dead Poets Society ” Robin Williams saying something to the effect that subjects like math, physics, and chemistry help us make a living but that poetr...