By Valerie Tarico ~ A fter an autumn of Bible-based gay bashing, and Religious Right candidates with “rape Tourette’s,” and End Times aficionados gunning for Armageddon rather than peace in the Middle East, some nontheists may be finding it a little tough to feel warm and chirpy about the birth of the baby Jesus. As conservative religious leaders like the Catholic Bishops and Southern Baptist  Albert Mohler vow to double down against women and gays, the cards start arriving. I’ve got one here that says, “This Christmas, as you consider all the awesome things that have come to you through Jesus, God’s perfect gift, remember that it is but a taste of all the good things that are yet to come.” Really. The combination can be a little hard to take. Especially with folks like Pat Robertson on the airwaves leveling the kind of self-fulfilling accusations that could make even a saint feel a tad grinchy: “The nation comes together, we sing Christmas carols, we give gifts to each other...

By Lizabeth ~ I currently have the cold and am in bed. I have, therefore, taken this opportunity to finally tell my story. I have been lurking around this website ever since I became an ex-Christian which was about 5 months ago. I find it hard to believe that it has been so long. At the same time I find it hard to believe how much I have changed in such a short period of time. I am from a lovely Caribbean island which is a predominantly Christian country. I attended church from before I can even remember. I loved the idea of God. I did not, however, love my church. I did not like how I could predict what would come next in the church service as it followed the Book of Common Prayer . I also felt out of place at Sunday School. Perhaps I was a little bit stuck up but I thought that all the other children there were only present because their parents or grandparents forced them to go. I got a sense that they hated being there. I, on the other hand,liked hearing to know more ab...

By M ~ I don't want to be atheist, but don't want to be Christian either because of the way they often have such closed (if not imposing) minds. Almost like "their way or the highway..." I've always been the kind who would like to have a mind "opened by wonder rather than closed by belief". What if I just innately want to believe that all the universe is like a cloth, and god is the thread? What if I think we mistook an alien for God? I try to read the bible, and usually agree with Jesus' basic teachings on being a good, conscientious person, but I have trouble right off the bat with chapter one! Whats up in this Genesis ? "Let us create man in our image" Who is "us" and "our"? Then I read on and see this God totally regrets creating us - doesn't like our behavior- so he selects one family ( Noah 's) then wipes everybody else out. THEN, well then he's sorry, and promises not to do that to us a...

By Rev. Ex-Evangelist ~ T oday is Sunday, December 16, 2012. The first Sunday since the horrific massacre of - at last count - of twenty children and seven teachers and staff at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut. We are all grieving and stunned at what happened. I've had to turn off the TV coverage because I am overwhelmed with the magnitude of it all. While sitting this Sunday morning in my favorite coffee shop, sipping my Pumpkin Spice flavored, holiday brew, and reading the paper, it hit me that if I was still in the ministry my job this morning would be to spin the tragedy so that no one would question their faith. On the surface, my pastoral duty would be to offer comfort and solace to all who grieve. But the heart of my agenda would be to (1) get "God" off the hook for not preventing the carnage and (2) to short-circuit anyone who might be having doubts about church dogma, such as: God's direct and personal oversight, care, love of ...

By Paul So ~ W e often hear the claim that “ absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence ”, which is famously quoted by Carl Sagan . WizenedSage made the argument to the contrary and I must agree with him. However, I want to go to the very specific and fundamental reason for why it could be the case that absence of evidence is the evidence of absence. I want to show that the claim must be sufficiently testable in order for the absence of evidence to mean that the claim is implausible (if not false in the strict sense). evidence of absence (Photo credit: Genista ) So what do I mean when I say that the claim must be sufficiently testable in order to decide whether the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence? What I mean is that the claim is something that we could either confirm or disconfirm with any kind of relevant evidence. Additionally, the claim must be able make implicit or explicit predictions on what kind of data we would find if the claim is true. I...

By Ivan B ~ R eading various stories on exchristian.net has been very helpful to me as I realize that there are many other people who are going through the same experiences and thoughts. I do not feel so alone although in my day-to-day life I basically am very alone. I would like to share my story and elicit your comments and suggestions. Throughout my life, I have had many epiphanies. My learning style is: Get curious, go to the library, read, read, read, read, think, think, think... epiphany! For some reason I have difficulty making sense of the smaller facts that accompany a concept until the missing piece drops into place, and voila! I have the whole picture. I have learned many things this way-- concepts of science, business, human relations. One thing I did not learn this way was my Christian faith. I learned it from my mom. And from other folks in the Mennonite church that I belong to and have attended basically every Sunday for my whole life. I learned it slow...

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ My latest offering for the ‘ Letters to the Editor ’ page of a local weekly newspaper was published yesterday. Because it dealt with such an extraordinary incident, I wanted to share it with ExChristian.net readers: ‘Perturbation to fascination’ revisited S ally Gardiner-Smith is to be commended for writing the fascinating article which appeared in the November 29 issue of the News. She is the high school exchange student who wrote “Perturbation to fascination” about her adventure in Thailand . Gardiner-Smith described a bizarre parade that she and her fellow students witnessed. The chaperone explained that they “were going to see a traditional Thai parade where men were possessed by god.“ As she described, these men had mutilated themselves, making slits through their cheeks through which they placed knives or other objects such as umbrellas, guns, or fruit. Apparently, the point for the mutilated men was to appear unaffected by the pain. Th...

By Carl S ~ T he first thing this morning, I turned on the TV, and the words “soul search” appeared on the screen. The subject was the Republican Party ’s defeat in the 2012 elections. The chief speaker was a very close adviser to Mitt Romney on campaign strategies. What was obvious to me is the fact that his party is still in shock and denial, nearly two weeks after the election, and still unbelieving that they were out of touch with the majority of Americans. He thought they should have stated their causes stronger, for one thing. My wife woke up soon after, and I told her something about this discussion. She had a different take about the Republican Party’s not dealing with their defeats, which prompts me to write this response. She said, “They did what they believed in, and they should stick with what they believe in. Or else, what do they stand for?” Did she realize what she said? I don’t think she realized what she said, but I've been thinking about it ever since....

By Klym ~ W hile I like Andy William's classic song, which I perverted for the title of this article, I always dread this time of year for many reasons. For one, I can't get through a day here in the Bible belt without hearing someone talk about God and how wonderful he is during the other eleven months of the year! But in December, it's like a full blown epidemic of having to be exposed to all kinds of crap in the name of Christianity. Everywhere I look and everywhere I go, I have to steel myself against this cultural phenomenon of greed in the name of Bible God. How did a pagan tradition turn into a celebration of the birth of Jesus anyway? It's cognitive dissonance of the worst kind. I wish somehow I could vaccinate myself against this onslaught of forced gaiety and joy in the name of a god that most of the rest of the world never even heard of. Aren't they the lucky ones? Also, my mother killed herself in December right before Christmas twenty years ago. ...

By NYdiva ~ I t was the end of a busy week and I was going home on the New York City subway . On 116th Street , two young men and an older woman got on the train. The woman sat next to me. As soon as the train’s doors closed, one of the young men starting preaching. He said we all needed a savior because we were sinful and that God sent Jesus to die for our sins. Before I could check myself, I said very loudly, “What evidence do you have there is a God?” Everyone looked at me. New Yorkers are used to subway preachers, but no one expected a black grandmother to challenge one. The young man looked at his friend and they smiled nervously at each other. The young man turned to me, “I know God is real because I feel him in his heart. I used to smoke weed and now I don’t smoke or gang bang anymore. I paused. If this boy from the “hood” was really a former gang member, I didn’t want to criticize his attempt to rehabilitate himself. For better or worse, the inner city church has d...

By Valerie Tarico ~ S ometimes courage means quitting. Blake Page, a 24 year old cadet in his 4 th year at West Point , created a storm on November 19 when he announced he was leaving in protest over religious discrimination and church state boundary violations. In his letter of resignation he stated, “I do not wish to be in any way associated with an institution which willfully disregards the Constitution of the United States of America by enforcing policies which run counter to the same.” In an op ed published at the Huffington Post on Monday, Page minced no words: “Countless officers here and throughout the military are guilty of blatantly violating the oaths they swore to defend the Constitution . . . through unconstitutional proselytism, discrimination against the non-religious and establishing formal policies to reward, encourage and even at times require sectarian religious participation .” Page is a Humanist and president of West Point’s Secular Student Alliance . He s...