Posts

Shift in Spirituality, a New Beginning

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By Nema ~ Hello. I'm glad to have stumbled upon a website like this so I can share my story with those who are going through the same thing. It's really tough...believing in something for so long and convincing yourself it's real...only to find that you don't agree with it anymore. You just cannot go on believing something that clashes with your morals/opinions/views/etc. Your whole perspective shifts to something new and rather unexpected. It's kind of saddening in away, like when you were a kid and you found out Santa Claus wasn't real, even though your parents told you he was real for years. I was upset for a while when I first found that out. Anyways, let me share my story.... I was not raised in a Christian home, though my grandparents are Christians. As a kid I believed in God, even though I didn't really understand the Jesus story. I felt that something greater than myself was inthe sky when I looked at the stars at night. I just believed it ...

My Battle with St. Augustine

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The memoirs of a former fundamentalist pastor who left religion (but not God) and battled Depression, Addiction, Unemployment, Hearing Voices, Divorce, Co-dependency, Dating and Adult Aspergers with humor and good books. By August Stine ~ A s a young unmarried man I read Saint Augustine 's views about original sin, women, and sex. His Confessions book made me very angry. I thought to myself, "Someday I will write a book of to offset his views." This is it; however, as I set out on my determined quest to enlighten the church, I noticed an unhealthy trend of being overly serious as I described my victim/hero stories of leaving Christianity. So, I decided to sprinkle this book with religious and other humor to maintain a healthy balance. Humor has been a major factor in my getting well again. My Battle with St. Augustine is a serious look at extreme religion along with a laughable look at my faults and Augustine's as well. Because of this I added the humorous Rat...

The Heart of an Antheist

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By Ben Love ~ English: Military dog tags with religious (belief system) designation: ATHEIST. Dog tags posted on Flickr by sister of military member and uploaded to wikipedia with permission of both the member and his sister. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) W hen most people, who are otherwise decent people with regular everyday lives and dreams for the future that are not unlike mine, learn that I’m an atheist , they seem to treat me as though I have the plague. I don’t think they even know they do it. I think it is so ingrained within everyday Americans, even the ones who aren’t particularly passionate about religion, to think that an absence of belief in God simply must translate into a dark, unhappy existence. I don’t know if it is like this in other countries. But I know that, here in America, when the average Joe or Jane encounters an atheist like me, this unspoken (and sometimes rudely spoken) sense of regret almost takes them over, as though they are in the presence of someon...

Over the Hill?

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By Carl S ~ H ere in Maine, our local newspaper, the Lincoln County News, features a column called, "View from over the Hill." It's written by a 73 yr. old ordained priest. Lately, most of his topics are about his background and past experiences. The subject of a recent column (7/30/15), is quite different because he wrote it to be read before an annual meeting of his bishops as it deals with the future survival of his particular small church. After reading it, I sensed an unintended pre-mourning for the passing of religion itself. The priest is upset because religion does not have the nostalgic meanings for others as it does for him. He seems to be unaware that church attendance was in past times mandatory and/or community-bonding. (Currently, these kinds of gatherings only happen whenever a tragedy such as a mass shooting occurs.) Attendees HAD to get together, HAD to pretend to believe, and HAD to be polite to one another, because every Sunday they would meet up...

It's a relationship, not a religion

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By Tim Wolf ~ “Christianity is a relationship, not a religion.” I ’m guessing you have heard this said many times. Neil Carter of Godless in Dixie wrote anice blog aboutthis subject. Neil nicely presents the fallacy of this statement. What I recently realized and want to discuss, it how this slogan for Jesus began a long process of deconversion for me. I previously posted my extimony and talked about how reading the entire bible was instrumental in leading me to atheism. But I have had time since then to think about what happened before reading the entire bible that planted that first significant seed of doubt. That seed was a phrase I repeated many times: “Christianity is a relationship, not a religion.” One reason this phrase was so important to me was that unlike many other Christians who gave lip service to ideas like this, I really believed it. I was an evangelical, so our relationship with Christ was all-important. To me, “religion” was a dirty word. Religion applied to...

An Atheist Explains His Atheism (Part One)

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By Ben Love ~ I t’s been my experience that many Christians, though not all, simply cannot understand why a human being would choose atheism, although it may seem somewhat easier for them if the atheist in question did not come from Christianity. What seems to particularly perplex them, though, is when a believing Christian rejects his faith, renounces his religion, and then becomes an atheist. That’s what  I  did, and I seem to find myself repeatedly answering questions as to why it happened. Many times, some of the friendlier believers give me the benefit of the doubt on the surface, but I know that underneath they’re thinking that something terrible must have happened, something that particularly disappointed me or hurt me, and thus they think my atheism must be a kneejerk reaction. Other less friendly believers don’t hide these thoughts; they just come out and say them. Very, very few believers actually listen to the intellectual reasons for my atheism and concede tha...

The Missionaries

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By Carl S ~ T wo Assembly of God missionaries , John and Theresa Foud, came to investigate and convert one of the many tribes previously exposed to Western cultures, so that most of its members could communicate with them. There was a suspicion in their denomination of a new religion among these tribes which was “spreading like wildfire." The following are excerpts from writings they recorded during their encounters. "We began by greeting the villagers with our salutations of the Good News in Christ Jesus." They shrugged and said, "Maybe you mean Jesus. He's lived and taught among us, and he did warn us about missionaries. False prophets, he called you. He told us never to leave you alone with our children. He said you would frighten them by your words, and that some of you in secret harmed them so that they became not our same children anymore. He said that you would take our gods away, and make your god our ruler, but we must never let that happen. OUR ...

How can anyone LOVE a HATEful God?

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By Klym ~ "I have no right to judge anyone. It's God's place to judge." T his statement was made by my best girlfriend, who I will call Friend 1, to me and another friend (Friend 2) during a conversation about religion. We were on our annual summer chick trip and were having a delicious lunch at a restaurant just outside of Austin, Texas . This conversation started when Friend 2 stated tearfully that she didn't think she was good enough for god. Now, let me say that her statement completely and totally broke my heart in two because I could so relate and because this friend is the most gracious, kind, and loving person you can imagine. She has overcome tremendous and unfair odds in her life to become a wonderful educator, friend, mother, grandmother, and mentor to many young people who adore her. To think that someone as fabulous as her feels inadequate because of Bible God made me angry and overwhelmingly sad. Both my friends know that I am a non-believe...

Backsliding toward belief?

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By Sam ~ I recently (toward the beginning of this year) gave up the faith I had been raised in and which I had tried fervently to practice as a young adult, after a sort of mental breakdown in which I suddenly decided that the God I had been praying to and trusting was just an imaginary friend, and all the guilt I had been wallowing in was unnecessary. Prior to this point, I had been obsessed with getting victory over "sin" in my life. Filled with despair and hopelessness at times, I was constantly living in fear about being out of control and being judged by society and by God. There is more, but I will spare you the sordid details of what my "faith" almost drove me to do. Since turning my back on the "God" I had previously tried to know and to please, and since embracing that part of myself I had been repressing for so long, I feel as if things have changed for the better. I am no longer wracked with guilt and fear, and there is no longer the o...