By EJ ~ W e all lose things. We all have to let go. Small things like the fleeting expressions on your tongue when that sushi slides down your throat. But also bigger things, like your new shiny phone that drops on the floor and cracks all over. Sometimes though, it gets huge, and we desperately want to hold on. Ever seen the response of parents to the news that a child has died? Chances are you will hear “no, no, no, no” for a long time. Such big news takes a time to process… I have had the same type of loss. And it took me years to process the news. Five long years of saying “no, no, no, it can’t be true” to myself. Who did I lose? My BFF It was a friend so close to me, so deep in my heart, we were like BFF, Best Friends Forever . Literally. Forever. He moved with me wherever I went. He taught me the value of life, introduced me to all his other friends, and basically shaped my entire existence from early childhood on. We went out on adventures together, hooked up wi...

By Textual Critic ~ I was born into a Christian home or in my opinion I was born to parents who profess to be Christians. My personal opinion is they are Christians in name only but NOT in deed. Most of my Christian brainwashing came mother. Because during my formative years that's who I spent most of my time with. I mentioned not because I'm trying to slander them but it's another reason why I don't believe in religion. They don't even follow their own religion yet condemn me to hell for not following it. That's extreme hypocrisy. It's kind of like when cops break the law while either on or off duty and then turn right around and give people tickets or arrest them for the very same behavior. We started off in the Calvary Chapel and we were very active in Sunday school. I can remember as a little boy going to Sunday school until the time I was ready for adult church which I guess was around 10 years old. I really did not like going to church for the m...

Carl S ~ M y escaped-from-the- Soviet-Union Czech co-worker was a skeptic. He was very frank about things and asked bold questions. One time, he and I were riding with the foreman, and asked him about eternal life . The foreman said, "We hope for eternal life." The Czech said, "You hope?!" and scoffed. Religious hope is like a spouse who day by day and hour by hour poisons her husband. Every day, "nursing" him, she administers the poison, each time telling him he's getting the care he needs, he’s getting better. And he believes and trusts her. This is how the poison of religious hope spreads, slowly poisoning minds. Isn't some beauty too much to handle? Aren't some out-of-the- ordinary experiences so overwhelming, so mysterious, that your body shakes from them? Tears aren't just for sorrow and mourning, but for joy. Happiness can bring weeping. The body that suffers is the same body which enjoys. The joy of sex is both sweet and s...

By Pearl_Posts ~ S o I just wanted to get this off my chest. Everyone I know is religion and wouldn't approve of my opinions. I wish they could read this... Let's start off with the war. Over religion, people have died. The loss of one life may not seem like a lot. But it's surely enough for people to realize what they're doing. Next, the money. People have wasted their own money for "offerings". These go to the spreading of warlike ideologies. So some people are literally paying for an idea that has CAUSED DEATH. Oh, and the fact that religion is totally insane. Please, I'd like to hear the reasoning behind the zombie-Jesus that saved you by committing suicide because some naked lady ate a magical fruit. And why do people think that a magical being in the sky is controlling us all? If I understand correctly, this magical being can control our thoughts. So... If he wants people to worship him, why doesn't he just magically mind control us? Hu...

By Saganist ~ I 'm a senior citizen with still a lot to learn. I don't have a problem sharing my experiences with younger people, or with listening to theirs, or even asking for their advice. On this site we help each other. We all have some things in common, and if you're a regular visitor, particular problems. Many of those problems are ongoing. A lot of them are because, although we've resolved them or are working them out satisfactorily by ourselves, we love others who aren't even close to beginning to work theirs out. That’s sad, for both them and us. "Extreme Unction", part of The Seven Sacraments, by Rogier Van der Weyden (1445). (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) What disturbs me right now is not a personal problem with the "comfort" faith is supposed to endow on believers. It's in knowing just the opposite. So, let me get to the heart of this. I've been married for over twenty years now. My wife has been a Christian all of that ...

By summerbreeze ~ I 'm on here to gripe again ( but it feels so good to vent, venting to rational free-thinking people that is!) Probably you have read about what bad shape my Husband is in. (100% disabled and a victim of Agent Orange )....well, last month we decided to get away from it all and take a genuine vacation, the first in a long time. No camping this time, because he can't handle it, just 2 weeks in Motels and Inns. We brought along his big oxygen converter, and he uses his Inogen machine ( the size of a purse ) for when he's out. We were helped by a lot of nice, and strong people along the way, moving that big thing in and out of Motel rooms. Three fourths of the way thru our vacation, my husband used our credit card at a gas station and it was denied. He called the card company to find out why, and received the splendid news that someone had been fraudulently using it (since we started) ... we cancelled the card, actually they said we HAD t...

By Ashley Brown ~ M y entire family is extremely religious. They go to church every Sunday and God is the center of their lives. My grandparents would often talk about Jesus with me and would continuously express their fear that I would someday stop believing. They warned me about "evil atheist professors" who would teach evolution and bash Christianity. ​I was raised to believe that atheists and pretty much anyone who wasn't a christian was an evil person. I was the girl in school who invited my friends to church if they didn't believe in God and would try to convert them. I had an obsession with praying; I prayed for every single thing that I could. I had anxiety that something bad would happen if I didn't. Once freshman year of high school came, I started to step back and look at my obsession with prayer. Whether I prayed or not, bad things would happen to me. I was severely bullied in high school, and even though I prayed desperately to God, nothing...

By Klym ~ A s I was walking across the parking lot and into the jail lobby, I noticed some men at a table shouting, "Free hotdogs, chips, and water." I had not seen them before on my prior visits, so I continued on into the jail with my ten year old cousin (actually, she is my cousin twice-removed ) and her mother (my cousin once-removed). We were there to visit her son (the ten year old's brother) who has been incarcerated for the past two months because of problems related to his drug addictions. Twenty years prior to this I had been a caseworker at the nearby MHMR (mental health mental retardation) center and I had visited this jail occasionally to counsel inmates who had mental health issues. I thought that that long ago experience had prepared me to visit my relative, but I was wrong. It is one thing to serve a client and quite another to visit a child I had watched grow up from a wonderful, brilliant young boy to become a troubled teenager mixed up with drugs ...

By Cecelia ~ M y conversion from nominal believer to born again Christian was sudden and dramatic. I had been in deep meditation when a voice said to me. "Get baptized ." What a profound and powerful message. I had never had such an experience. The words were almost audible. At the time, I just knew it was the voice of God. But, now that I longer believe in God, how do I make sense of that experience and my interpretation of it? It has taken me a long time to, finally, accept that it wasn't the voice of God but my own voice. It was my sub-conscience. I had said it to myself. The idea of the message being from God would be more credible if it had told me to do something totally out of the blue, something like, "Go to a Muslim mosque." The idea of getting baptized was totally consistent with all the thoughts that had been running around in my head for weeks. I had been reading about Jesus. I had been reading about baptism. I had believed, ...

By Ben Love ~ W hen it was announced that the shooter on the Oregon college campus specifically targeted Christians, a few people sent me messages saying, in effect, “See? Nonbelievers are monsters.” As a (relatively obscure) spokesman for atheism and humanism, allow me to respond. First of all, while I will spend most of my life writing about and campaigning against the evils of religion in general and Christianity in particular, I have never, to the best of my knowledge, ever endorsed the hatred of believers as people. I hate the belief, yes. I freely admit that. But I do not hate the believers. I tire of them occasionally, yes. And at times I might wish I could deconvert all of them. But hate them? No. Wish them ill? No. Want them dead? No. Only a psychopath would want that, and at that point it matters little what such a person believes or disbelieves anyway, since psychopathy is a neurological problem, not a theological one. I may be an atheist, but I am also a humanist. ...

By Lisbeth ~ M y deconversion began last month, when I realized half of my anxiety and stress was due to the very religion that had promised me peace. I took a few weeks' break from it and then when I realized the freedom I felt, I began to doubt God's existence. He didn't try to reconvert me. All I heard from the bible was the same old stuff I'd been hearing since I was four. My mom tried to tell me that every good thing that happened to me was him telling me he loved me, but I could t help feeling it was pure chance. The real journey started this month. I was reading the comments on Jessa Duggar's Instagram page, a guilty pleasure of mine; I find internet arguments to be very amusing. The comments often degrade into debates about spirituality and religion. A few things that I read disturbed me. Firstly, I began to realize that most of the Christians arguing with non believers were far more closed-minded than the atheists and agnostics. Secondly, I also...