Mr. Deity is questioned by Larry about his plans for the Promised Land.

By Vyckie @ No Longer Quivering I've skipped church four Sundays in a row now and I'm feeling slightly guilty. It's freezing-ass cold here in Nebraska , and I just have been too lazy to scoop the driveway and drag myself and my children out in sub-zero temps. Considering that I stopped believing in God over two years ago, it seems rather weird that I still spend my Sunday mornings attending the local Salvation Army worship services. So why don't I just quit going? I didn't leave Christianity because of any failure of the people. For the most part, I found the Christians I knew to be sincere, generous and supportive. Misguided and unrealistic, maybe - but hey, that was me too. It was the Bible and Christian doctrine which I finally recognized as ridiculous and even abusive. Through the years, I had become more and more fundamentalist in my beliefs and practices. My diligent study of the scriptures led me to adopt the strict gender roles and patriarchal f...

By Kalos “There are tons of religions in the world… but only ours is right?” I asked my mom, I couldn’t have been much older than five years old. “Yes.” she said, and then smiled and chuckled in a way that seemed to say she was uncomfortable sounding so smug but she did believe what she said. For some reason that explanation was enough for me for so many years to come… Hello, I am a person that knows the Xian community very well. Like many of you I grew up in the church, the Southern Baptist church to be specific. Like anyone I had no idea what I was doing until I was older so I will quickly skip to what Xians would call my testimony. To set the stage I had never really fit in with the kids at my church but my parents pushed me into the youth group. I’m actually happy for that part because it expanded my social comfort zone but that’s a different story. I had a couple friends from school but they were not that close, we just hung out without really talking about anything importa...

By Sean Image via Wikipedia A few old friends ask me why I'm an atheist. Anyone who knew me growing up remembers me as a faithful and religious teenager. What could have possibly happened to the kid who led prayer group every morning before school, organized Chrysalis weekends and professed to love Jesus Christ with all his heart, mind and soul? It was a slow processes, but I'd like to share it and what atheism means to me. Let me set the stage: I have read the Bible cover to cover multiple times and studied some of the most popular modern Christian thinkers like Dobson, Campolo, Colson and many others. I was the 'go to' guy for Biblical information in high school and college. My faith limited or false: at the age of 15, I kneeled and prayed the Sinner's Prayer and asked Jesus Christ to forgive my sins and rule over my life. I spent the better part of a decade working on that relationship, praying daily, trying to be more Christ-like and coming closer to Christ....

Bu Bob R of A Priori Blues Image by borkur.net via Flickr A merica is adrift in a sea of propaganda. Depending which brand of propaganda you like best, you tune in dutifully, become convinced that They are evil and We are good. Everything that They say is false, everything that We say is true. I use the word "brand" to refer to our favorite forms of propaganda purposely, because that's technically what information has become. In a media saturated world, which is conversely a world predicated on advertising, everything is about the "brand." This is why a football stadium can be named after a bank, or a shaving cream, or any number of things which have nothing to do with football. As long as you create a brand, and then create brand awareness, you are successful. That is the endgame in today's world. A brand is like a dogma or a creed. Once crystallized, it cannot be deviated from or tampered with. Cursed is he who adds to or subtracts from words like the...

By Carl S A co-worker used to watch Saturday morning cartoons with his grandson, and would repeat some of the incidents on them to me. One of his favorites was of an older dog teaching a pup “dog traditions.” The adult dog says, “We fetch sticks, chase cats, and bury bones. I don’t know WHY we do it, but we do.” I think many believers are that way. For example, they keep praying as if prayers actually worked. Reminds me of that old joke about the man waving a blanket around on Times Square, to “Keep the elephants away.” When informed that there weren’t any elephants for hundreds of miles around, he said, “See, its working!” These things are funny and harmless, but how do people get into them in the first place? The topic herein is addressed to not only those who are ex’es, but all humans visiting this site. (Churchgoers, does your pastor know you are here? Wouldn’t he tell you it’s a no—no? After all, one of the regular contributors here was carrying on a discussion with a believe...

By Ayhwh F aith healing, divine wonders, and miracles are a significant part of religion’s shtick. A miracle supposedly subverts nature causing unexplainable supernatural things to happen. Pastors and evangelists use the idea and promise of miracles to swindle the masses into giving them cash and obedience. Miracles do not exist, but science brings amazing cures! The Bible abounds with miraculous events, from the beginning to the end. The myth makers who desperately wanted to add authority to their stories put them there. What better way to add authority, than by having the hero heal the paralyzed, cause the blind see, and the deaf hear? If we could pray and have limbs grow back, then there would be no better way to prove god’s existence. There would also never be an ex-Christian because no one would walk away from something so obviously true and powerful. This leads us to a problem. The fundamentalist Pentecostal tradition I was raised in, the Assemblies of God, holds divine he...

By John Image by Brent Nelson via Flickr I was a Christian for a dozen years. The following is my attempt to summarize in a nutshell what I read in the Bible: God creates the universe. Billions of years later, he tells humans that he did it in six days: first the earth, then light, and then the sun and stars to serve as calendar. God forbids the knowledge of right and wrong to Adam and Eve . Then, he blames them for their wrong choice, and condemns them and all their offspring to death. Ever since Adam and Eve’s fall, God hides himself from most of mankind. But he blames anyone doubting his existence. God drowns all living creatures in a flood, including koalas, giraffes, kids and grannies, minus the eight members of Noah ’s family and couples of every species. Later, he provides the commandment “You shall not kill.” Abraham is willing to sacrifice his son at God’s command, and God praises his faith. Later, Jesus blames believers for blindly observing God’s commandments, sa...

By Andrea Image by Mr.OutdoorGuy via Flickr Growing up surrounded by only Christians is strange thing. My parents were Christians and they home-schooled me and my younger sister. Church was like a second home and all our friends were there. I knew a few other home-schooled kids that didn't go to my church, and they were Christians too. I know my parents were only trying to do what they thought was best for me, but I was in a kind of bubble. Since I never talked to anyone with a different opinion, it was really difficult to deal with the teachings in the Bible sometimes. I was terrified of going to hell and really didn't like the teaching of the bible. I mean, hearing that God sent a flood to cover the entire earth and kill everyone except eight people is not very comforting. After short periods of doubt I would put my questions aside. No one had an answer and I had to get along with my family and friends, so I just decided this God must be good after all. In high school...

By Valerie Tarico Image by Toni_Chacheres via Flickr W hile Doctors without Borders was struggling to get anesthetics for amputations into Haiti, an Albuquerque group queued up aid of their own sort: 600 solar powered talking Bibles. Eve now, food, water, and medicine are having trouble reaching Haitians because of damaged transportation facilities and supply lines, but the missionary group says some of their Bibles are on the way. I first read about the solar powered Bibles after a friend forwarded an article from an Australian news source--the point being that half way around the world people found the story controversial enough to be newsworthy. Why? Because it is morally troubling, even for most Christians. According to the gospel writer, Jesus says "I was hungry and you gave me bread," not "I was hungry and you gave me Bibles." How can anyone see pictures of crushed buildings, blood covered children, and people begging for food, and think of it as an...

By Chas Warren Image by Brian Hillegas via Flickr This is going to be long and rambling, but not intentionally. The topic is clearly stated in the title, but in this introductory paragraph, permit me to amplify slightly. In this article, I intend to chart the route of my own non-theism. Call it descent or ascent, but know that I have felt like a mountaineer, struggling towards one peak, only to have another suddenly rise before me, beckoning me to climb again. But the path has never been straight. It has always been circuitous. That’s why this literary map will belong and rambling. I didn’t possess a natural inclination to believe in God. My father decided not to convince me to believe in Santa Claus, and I don’t rue his decision. I still enjoyed Santa, but I understood that he was a pleasant fiction, like Bugs Bunny . It occurred to me by the time that I was in the fourth grade that God might also be a fictitious creation. Of course, this was accompanied by apprehension and fea...