By None the Wiser ~ I can't seem to let it go. I lost my faith when I was maybe 13 or so. I'm nearly 28 now. I've finally come out the other side of ten years of major depression and battling addictions and all the wonderful stuff that comes from losing one's faith and choosing to think for oneself. I've been on the path of healing and transformation for over 2 years. But I can't let go of the pain. I can't let go of the hatred. I fucking /despise/ Christianity. And I don't want to. I fear how much I hate it, and how easy it is for me to dehumanize Christians in my mind. I hate especially the Christian defilement of Truth and Reason and the prizing of belief over knowledge. I find the very way that Christianity teaches people to think about things and submit their will to be despicable. And the audacity with which they parade their self-deception in public under the banner of truth... I feel dangerously close to bigotry. I value empathy and comp...

By Carl S. ~ T here was a time when "mystical" was in vogue. Now, "spiritual" has taken flight in popularity, following the ascent of Zen , the Dalai Lama , and New-Age gospels. Outside of the multitudes of preachers everywhere, with their traditional biases, "spiritual" isn't necessarily "religious" anymore. It’s more personal, less social. That word now applies to vampires and zombies as well as angels, and perhaps to the souls of science fiction androids, in our own times. A phrase we are hearing quite a lot of is "surreal experience," usually spoken by those who experienced natural and man-made destruction. Individuals who have abandoned or are indifferent to religions still claim to be "spiritual." Books and magazine articles by individuals claiming near-death, after-death, and out-of-body experiences spread like wildfire and are often accepted as true without question. Meanwhile, books of scientific evidence exp...

By Carl S. ~ O ne thing I find out when talking to believers: they aren't interested in truth. About the most disconcerting thing you could ask a believer is, “How do you know that what you believe is true?” The usual non-thought-out answer is, of course, “Because it's in the bible.” To which we might mention, “Just because it's in the bible, that doesn't make it true.” Strangely, all believers claim to possess the truth, while asserting that all one has to do is give in to blindly believing to have it. (This reminds me of an encounter I had with a Christian man, shortly after the 9/ ll attacks. He said “they” were mistaken, “because they did not have the truth.” I couldn't laugh in front of him then, even as I thought how “they” also would say, with the same cocky assurance, those same words about him.) I have tons of information about scriptural, dogmatic, theological matters, and miles of proofs for evolution, hallucinations, and scientific evidence. I won...

By undercover agnostic ~ I promise I will move on in my story, but I need to still lay some foundational groundwork so that future excerpts make sense. This chapter introduces the theme of domestic violence and how my rose colored glasses distorted reality such that I viewed it simply as another tool god was using to shape my character and teach me submission. I hope the message conveyed is how Christianity interferes with our own sense of right and wrong, causing us to mistrust our most natural instincts. I t doesn’t take long to hit rock bottom when one’s highest pinnacle is not a mountain top, but rather a stepladder. Still we teetered on the bottom wrung for several months until we finally hit the ground with a dull, throbbing thud. The pastoral counselor gave us little hope, pronouncing our marriage practically dead on arrival and explaining that if our relationship was to be resuscitated, it needed a radical overhaul. The remedy? Bible studies. Homework assignments. Accou...

By Rico the atheist ~ W ell, since my last post a lot has changed in my life. Let me start with this first before I go any further into this new subject. First, I may have been harsh and one sided in my last post. In other words, I was being bias. I should have been a little more harsher on myself in that post. Second, I have not been in contact with my best friend, well former best friend in a while now. I think it has to do with the fact that he chose me as his best man and that was when I was a doubting believer. Well anyways, after a month or so after the wedding I avoided contacting him because I was afraid to admit to him that I became an atheist. Well I did tell him, I think it was in March of this year. Well he asked me in a text message is that why I avoided him, well I did tell him yes and that I was busy with school. I was having a hard time with college algebra, but I manage to get "A" in that class. He did not response after that. It was difficult for me,...

By freeatlast ~ A t the grocery store in the canned goods aisle, I hear a young voice, “Deedus duvs me, dis I no!” and then I see her as her mother rolls the grocery cart around the corner. A little girl with pigtails and conviction, she glares at me with blue eyes, as if daring me to disagree with her. “Des, Deedus duvs me! Da bibul dels me so!” And so Christianity spawns another evangelist, this one with lace socks and pink sandals. Not even three years old, she can recite the party line that already lines the grooves of her cerebrum: Some important guy named Jesus, who is strong, loves her, even though she is weak, and she knows this because an important book called the bible tells her so. Unless some event in her life causes her to question otherwise, she will likely believe this fiction the rest of her life. Watching her and her mother with equal parts interest and sadness, I see myself 25 years ago: a slender, earnest young mother, clad in Levis and a white shirt, ...

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ M y good friend, Carl S., came across some articles on religion in prisons and sent them with a note to a neighbor of his who works in one of those programs. The man, I shall call him Mr. P, responded in a letter with some very interesting views, so Carl shared the letter with me. Now, I’d like to share with you my take on Mr. P’s views. Mr. P. wrote, “So, Carl, what is a church and what is not? . . . In my case, it goes deep into my roots: my mother, who faithfully took me and my sister to church every Sunday, and mother and I sang in the choir. My mother gave me all the love she could in every way she could, so God and church and mother go together. For me, church is God is mother. Nothing will ever change that.” So, church provides him with pleasant memories and reminds him of his mother. Notice he never said anything about whether anything he “learned” in that church was true or not. It’s almost as if that really doesn’t matter to him. Then he ...

By Valerie Tarico ~ F reedom to discriminate with impunity? It's worse than that. Almost universally, the religious freedom claims pursued in the U.S. over the last two decades seek the freedom to do harm, most often the freedom to harm queers, women, children or religious outsiders, or America's secular government institutions. It’s Not Just About Bigotry and Homophobia In recent years, religious believers have sought and largely won a cascading array of rights, privileges, and exemptions from laws that otherwise apply to all. The right to discriminate in public accommodations and hiring practices The right to interfere with a religious outsider’s family formation, sexual intimacy, and childbearing decisions The right to interfere in a religious outsider’s dying process The right to use public funds and other assets to propagate the values and priorities of the religion itself The right to freeload on shared infrastructure without contributing to the same Th...

By Valerie Tarico ~ D uring its first month, the Recovery from Religion Hotline was swamped with calls. An interview with Sarah Morehead, who spearheaded the effort. Americans are leaving their religions at a faster rate than ever before, and that means more are looking for help with the transition. People who are casually religious may walk away and not look back. But for others religion is at the very heart of their identity, worldview and community; and having a safe place to process doubts can be a metaphorical godsend. “Reclaimers,” meaning people who are actively working to rebuild their lives after a period of religious immersion, may struggle with harmful ideas and emotions from the beliefs they once held or the behavior of fellow believers. Alternately, they may find that leaving itself is lonely and disorienting. Dr. Marlene Winell, a human development consultant who assists people leaving their religion, coined the term Religious Trauma Syndrome to describe a pattern ...

By Ronna Russell ~ I inadvertently married a closeted gay man. In my defense, I was asking the question, but not getting a straight answer. This guy had no reason to not come out. His family was atheist, extremely liberal Californians and had been wondering about their son’s sexuality for years. He would have gotten nothing but support from his family, along with relief at knowing. He went to college in San Francisco and Santa Cruz, for crying out loud. We met when I was 21-ish and he was pushing 30. The fact that he had a minimum wage job as a courier and I was technically his boss should have given me pause. He was a writer in his spare time and fancied himself a movie maker, as well. There is no doubt he had a brilliant mind; that is what suckered me in. At first, we mostly had a great time with after work drink dates, a shared sense of humor and a high degree of friendship chemistry. Coming from a lifetime of irrelevance, I had no idea what treatment to expect i...

By awake2reality ~ H ow do you encapsulate the last 35 years into a small paragraph or two? Here goes my feeble attempt. I grew up in a small, southern town securely fastened by the bible belt. Going to church was a given and I suppose mom and dad were doing their best to make sure that my sister and I were focused on the "narrow road" ahead of us. That enlightened gaze became somewhat cloudy as I ventured off to high school because you could say that I gravitated more toward the "rowdy" crowd. After several parental confrontations I was sent away to a rehabilitation facility for several months to contemplate my actions. As it turns out this was the best advice given to my parents from a "godly" counselor. After my stay I was enrolled in a private christian school where I came back to the safe fold of believers. After graduating from high school I can honestly say that I had an experience at a revival at the local baptist church . From the best of ...