By Carl S ~ N otes! I have notes of importance to write about lying around, from every which way to never. Like musical notes looking for a melodic format, they haven't found their longer extensions. (As a consolation, I tell myself that Beethoven did the same thing with his musical themes, and he was a whole lot messier than I could ever be.) Because there are others who could enlarge on these ideas, I'm distributing them to you, readers, to think, argue about, and discuss. They're in no particular order. Where are the dragon fossils? Dragons are mentioned in the bible, they're depicted on Chinese walls, plates, statues, etc. They're even in Christian stained-glass windows , etc. Did they perish with the dinosaurs? Surely, with all the belief in them, they must have existed! Has anyone searched for them, like they do for the Bigfoot , the Loch Ness Monster , and Noah’s ark? If you absolutely know what the future brings, there is nothing you can do to change...

By Carl S ~ H ave you thought about the incompatibility between what clerics and other Christian-morality figureheads preach and their private behavior? Since access to information of clergy immorality is available as never before, we see by what's exposed good reasons to doubt they actually believe what they’re preaching. How can pedophile clergy continue to rape children, cheat on their spouses, and lie outright as if truth has no meaning, meanwhile trusting they will get away with such behaviors? Do they really believe that an all-seeing deity-judge is watching them? How could they dare? Christians may give us explanations in order to forgive and rationalize clerical perpetrators, as they did immediately following the first revelations of pedophilic clerical acts. They'd look at me, as one young man did, say "Carl, you just have to understand..." (Such believers, I've found, aren't interested in my points, but are preaching to me. And why do I ...

By Carl S ~ Compassion: Deep awareness of the suffering of another. Sympathy. Tenderness. Empathy. S omething that rankles me is the fundamentalist attitude of "Tough S**t" for the misfortunes of others. For example: I remember one discussion, initiated by a member of Teen Challenge , where I brought up the inefficiency of prayer, citing the fact that thousands of babies and children died every day in Africa while they were being prayed over. The teen, echoing what he'd obviously been taught, said this was due to the fact the people of Africa were being punished for their "immoral promiscuity." His breezy answer impressed me for its heartlessness, but it shouldn't have; after all, he was only repeating a fundamental Christian belief. Consider the rationale: Punishment is his God's knee-jerk answer to most problems he has with humanity. If the human race deserved to be drowned nearly out of existence for its "immorality" - even that of...

By Bullwinkle ~ I'm going to check this out. Your site disclaimer encourages people to have an open mind....so we'll see. I am a Christian, 25yrs now. Don't know if I would have ever started this journey if I had known what I would go through.....but I'm still here....Its heart wrenching to read some of the testimonials of people who have had terrible experiences because of deceivers, spiritual abusers, charlatans, and just plain crazy, weird interpretation of scripture, from people who should know better, but don't. Yet I also find on this site some of the same behavior(just saying). Weird, crazy interpretation of scripture in some cases and explanations that twist my ignorant high school mind, lol. Come on people, keep it simple and please keep your ego out of it, open mind remember! Jesus: Is he real or not! Did he exist, or not.? Did he do the things the Bible records him doing, or not? Was he crucified or not? Did he come back from the dead, or not? The...

By John Draper ~ B ack when I was religious, I couldn’t get enough of the Bible. Its mysteries just prodded me to dig deeper. Soon enough, I found a series of books put out by one of the mega-Christian publishing houses devoted to the most well-worn doctrinal disputes. It was called the Counterpoints Collection and included such titles as “ Five Views on Sanctification ,” “ Four Views on Eternal Security ,” and “Four Views on the Lord’s Supper .” And I read’ em all. Like I said, I couldn’t get enough. The volume I want to talk about was “ Five Views on Law and Gospel ,” its existence engendered by the fact that the New Testament seems to speak with, at least, two voices about whether or not Christians must follow the Law of Moses. Sometimes the New Testament seems to say yes, sometimes no. The volume boasted the thoughts of five theologians: One of whom posited a “non-theonomic reformed view of the use of the law. One who argued for a “theonomic reformed approach.” One w...

By Carl S. ~ R eligions are parasites on societies, involved in their own survival and perpetuation. As such, they are anti-democracy. They will and do support any type government which is not a democracy, including those of Russia's tsars, Germany's Hitler, Spain's Franco, Russia's current Putin, etc. They will support Donald Trump or Ted Cruz , if they believe they will achieve their goal of purging this nation of undesirables through denial and repression of rights. When Franco waged his civil war supported by the Vatican, he attempted to wipe out "communists, Jews, Muslims, atheists, democrats, Freemasons, anarchists, and homosexuals." (How many people do you know who fit on that list?) An estimated two hundred fifty thousand innocent civilians were killed. According to Franco's chief of staff, "it was a victory of Spain against the enemies of her independence and of her faith...a crusade in defense of the Catholic faith..." When the c...

by Astreja Y es, we’ve heard these before:   “Even if God appeared right before you, you wouldn’t believe.” “You just want to sin." " I used to be {a drug addict | angry at God | a pagan atheist Cthulhu-worshipping gay prostitute who traded junk bonds on the Internet}…” That could lead to even more dangerous questions – I just have this to say about that:  So what? What if it  were  true that the sudden arrival of a god would not move us to belief?   So what?   What do you propose we actually do about it –  pretend  to believe?  Wouldn’t your all-knowing deity see right through that ploy? As for wanting to sin – generally by preferring wine to water, chocolate to carrots, or heavy metal to contemporary Christian praise music –  so what?   Thank you for the brilliant observation that our tastes are different from yours.  Thank you also for a heads-up that life in heaven may not be to ou...

By Tess ~ I f you told me two years ago that how someone that loves God so much can one day lose their faith in Christianity, I would have thought that would be impossible.... 2 years later, today at the age of 22, I am struggling to tell my family and friends that I no longer believe in God. When i think about telling them I worry about losing my best friends who are all Christians , disappointing my parents and losing the love ones around me. For the past year or so I had continued to go to church and small groups just to see my friends and pretend that I am a great Christian though in my mind bible studies, praying and worship means nothing to me. It has been a long time of pretending and I know that eventually I need to tell the truth. It's painful to think about the outcome and every time I think of telling them I cry. So instead I have avoid it. It all started at the age of 19 when I went through some difficult times at university, stress and anxiety. I started making l...

By Carl S ~ H ave you thought of removing the words, "so help me, God" in ending the oath witnesses and defendants take after swearing to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" What would happen? One veteran court recorder remarked that, in his experience, "so help me, God," was no deterrent to perjury: people still went on to lie in the witness box. Defendants have been known to say things they know aren't true, sometimes several times at a hearing. You would think it would be quite the opposite, judging by the gravity of the situations involved. Why isn't this so? Is it that they know their God doesn’t care? But before we consider this question, we might look at oath-taking involving God. One biblical scholar ( John Allegro ?) has said that the 2nd commandment alone, "taking the Lord's name in vain," does not refer to blasphemy. It has to do with using the name of God as one's witness to support lyin...

by WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ I n our regular Sunday morning meetings of the “Church of the Angry Apostates,” Carl S. and I have found ourselves repeatedly coming back to an interesting question: how do clergy commit egregious crimes against humanity, if they really believe they are being watched and judged by an all-powerful god? A few examples from the “ Black Collar Crime Blotter ” of the Freethought Today newspaper, published by the Freedom from Religion Foundation , will serve to set the stage. Loan Pop, a Romanian Orthodox priest, was convicted and sentenced for sexual assaults on 8 young adult women between 1999 and 2013. One woman testified that she was molested after seeking help from Pop while her husband was in a coma after a car accident. Henry L. McGee, lead pastor at first Baptist Church in Austin, Texas , is accused of committing sexual acts with a girl starting in 2014, when she was 13. The girl told detectives that McGee had sex with her more than 15 time...

By Tina Rae Collins ~ M y name is Christi. I worship the god Hewhay and have faith in his son Auhsey, my savior. Auhsey loves me and has promised to marry me soon. Since he is royalty, I'll become a princess! Auhsey will bestow upon me amazingly expensive gifts, including a huge mansion. I'll even rule with him over my fellow human beings. What joy that will be! It will especially be nice to have authority over the humans who don't like me (payback time!). My best friend is Athea. Athea was raised by parents who aren't followers of Hewhay and Auhsey, so Athea can't bring herself to believe in a supernatural being who can see her when she's sleeping, knows when she's awake, and knows when she's been bad or good. When Auhsey comes for me, he's going to torture Athea. He says he'll put out both her eyes, break her legs so that she can never walk again, and beat her in the head till she has the mind of a two-year-old and will sit around d...