By David Barker ~ A s a child, like most children subjugated to religion today, I was indoctrinated in the religious beliefs of my parents. It was nothing sparkling with magical insight, no epiphanies or God filling my heart. Neither was it a torturous affair for me. Well, outside the torturous realities of any, or I should say, most, any kid who wants to get out of bed on a Sunday morning to get all "dressed up." In any case, for anyone who may be reading this and was wondering; my exposures to Christianity was as typical as most Americans are today and for that matter, most everyone else's, regardless of the whereabouts of their birthplace. It's just the way it is. The way it almost always is. Nearly 100% of people are born into their religion. Plain and simple. I know there are exceptions to this rule, outliers on the curve but the facts, however, do not lie. Facts are still true whether you believe them or not. Science is truisms, whether you believe them or...

An Introduction By Alexis Record ~ M agic spells, witches, and my devotedly conservative Christian parents are okay with it? Wow! I had a lot of restrictions growing up in the 80s and 90s during the height of my experience with evangelical culture. Leaders in our religious tradition considered many books, types of music, and television shows to be influenced by the devil. Anything with witchcraft, magic and other “satanic” powers were forbidden. Smurfs had a wizard so it was satanic, Power Rangers used “powers” and therefore was too magical, and Ghostbusters had ghosts which my mom considered demons. Only the Holy Ghost was allowed in our home. Yet when it came to The Chronicles of Narnia , Christian propaganda in the form of children’s stories, all of the sudden magic and witchcraft were sanctioned. I was at my friend Amanda’s house from elementary school the first time I saw the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle live-action movie. Splinter had been kidnaped and the tu...

By Black Freethought ~ I t's been awhile since I last wrote. During that time, I started to wrestle again with returning to Christianity. I thought I could deal with the cognitive dissonance by taking a more progressive view of the ancient faith tradition. I read materials from leading progressive Christian thinkers which basically told me that I could maintain and practice a non-supernatural version of the faith. After previously leaving the faith behind, I could no longer believe in those miraculous events. I discovered the "Ground of All Being" God concept from progressive theologian Paul Tillich. I thought that it was abstract and obtuse enough for me to be able to hold to the "good parts" of the faith while maintaining a non-supernatural outlook. Hence, in 2016, I tried to practice Christianity by simply trying to follow the moral teachings of the Bible. However the deeper I got into the moral teachings, the more I realized how immoral at worst or nom...

By Ben Love ~ S tretch your imagination with me. Let us suppose that somehow the Christian God (Yahweh, the God of the Bible, the “Father” of the Jesus Christ) has not only been located but that he has been charged with “atrocities” and “crimes against humanity.” Imagine the courtroom atmosphere of such an event; the jury, the judge, the witnesses, and the lawyers… Imagine God sitting on the witness stand (just for fun, let us assume he looks a bit like Morgan Freeman, who played God in two films). So yeah, imagine a Morgan Freeman dude who represents the Christian God sitting in the witness stand. Let us enter that courtroom as a fly on the wall and take the scene from there… ------------------------------- PROSECUTING ATTORNEY: “State your name for the record, please?” DEFENDANT: “Uh, God. Well, Yahweh.” PA: “And where is your place of residence?” DEFENDANT: “Heaven.” PA: “And where is that, exactly?” DEFENDANT: “It’s sort of everywhere, but it als...