By Tyler ~ L uckily, I was not born into a religious family! However, I was born into a family that lived around religious Catholics and Jews. Oh no! When going to school with people who were primarily Jewish, I was ridiculed all the time and heard their silly jokes to each other, which I never understood. They were all well dressed, totally materialistic and did not make sense to the rest of us who did not grow up with their religion. One actually came to my house, stole something and tried to put the blame on me. Then we called his mother. She tried to blame it on us too! Same thing happened to my sister: false accusations. I think they secretly think everything belongs to them, much like their Catholic and Christian enemy/brothers. Anyway, I eventually went to a community school with a Roman Catholicism class. Uh Oh! I was sitting in the first seat in front of the teacher and he immediately looks at me and tells me, "Come out of her my people." I did not say a wor...

By Webmdave ~ I retired a couple years ago and people are still asking me what I do with all my time. Responding I am working on personal improvement seems to assuage most curiosity. What I am tempted to tell them is I spend my time the same as everyone: living life.  It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested...  ― Seneca, On the Shortness of Life Until recently my mindset resembled that of my inquisitors. I believed that a person who spends the day playing video games or watching television is wasting time. Further, I believed that if a person isn’t actively pursuing a goal such as career advancement, acquiring a degree, travelling the world, etc., then they are also just wasting time. In fact, spending time doing anything not measurably productive could be labeled a waste of time. Someone I know, when she ...

By Sean ~ I became a born again Christian when I was in the Air Force in 1986. I didn’t have a big, spiritual conversion experience. I was told to pray for God to reveal himself to me and told he would. So I did. I prayed and said, essentially, “I don’t know if you are real but if you can prove to me somehow in the next 30 days, I’ll follow you for the rest of my life. If you are there and real, amen.” How I got to that point: About two weeks earlier I was given a copy of a book about Armageddon and Revelations called “ There’s a New World Coming ” by a guy named Hal Lindsey . I devoured that book. It was amazing and Hal was quite convincing. So I went to the bookstore in the town near the Air Force base and bought a Bible. I wanted one that didn’t look like a Bible at all. I found a paperback New American Standard Version Bible that fit the bill. From Hal’s book I learned enough to believe that I should read the New Testament first. So I started reading the gospels. ...

By Carl S ~ I t's that time of year when people hear the story of a star traveling right above Earth, leading men to a structure, where it stops and hangs around for hours! ( Global Positioning Star, or Ancient UFO?) The reason for the Christmas story is said to be of utmost importance: It's claimed (no witnesses), the first humans did something naughty by following the advice of a Talking Snake! This “evil” was enough to punish the entire human race, forever. In order to pay the penalty for it, the child born on the first Christmas had to be tortured to death for three hours! This gory “solution” is preached as the greatest example of love! If you're willing to accept this package: would you believe all animals on Earth, predators and prey, could live peacefully packed together, on a boat, for over a hundred days? Would you believe only a few people on Earth worth saving were the ones standing by watching their friends and neighbors drown? What about five loaves of br...

By Ellie ~ Hi all. I'm a UK journalist and ex-Christian with experience of UK purity culture in the Church of England and evangelical church/events. I'm keen to speak to men and women 25-40 who experienced purity culture at church as children or young people about its impact on them, with a view to sharing those experiences anonymously in a feature for a UK title. Your stories would run alongside coverage of a story-gathering project at a major US university about the impact of purity culture, and a research PhD about the UK experience of purity culture. Sharing experiences of UK purity culture feels important to me, and seems like something that hasn't been done yet. I can share a bit more about my portfolio and experience as a journalist if you'd like to hear that before going ahead but to summarise, I have about 10 years' experience as a journalist, and three or four years' experience working closely with case studies on personal stories.   If you'd lik...

By Carl S ~ O ne man made a very astute observation. He said before the ten commandments came to be, there were tribes. Mankind, therefore, already had social laws in place. People co-operated, loved, cared for, and supported one another. So who needed commands from one more invented invisible deity? All of this natural morality existed before the ten commandments. But what happened after them? What about that Golden Calf story? It's in Exodus 32, if you're wondering. Long story short, after the Israelites are delivered out of Egypt, they make a stopover near Mt. Sinai, and Moses, the leader, goes up the mountain alone to speak with the “god” no one has seen. He's up there so long, it looks like he's skipped out on them. They're bored, and ask the second-in-command man to fabricate this god upstairs into an image representing that “god.” After he does (here again, according to Moses alone), the “invisible god” on the mountaintop tells Moses he's pis...

By Valerie Tarico ~   P erhaps it’s been years or even decades since you left biblical Christianity behind. You may have noticed long ago that there are human handprints all over the Good Book. It may have dawned on you that popular Christian versions of heaven  would actually be hellish . You may have figured out that prayer works, if at all, at the margins of statistical significance—that Believers don’t avoid illness or live longer than people who pray to other gods or none at all. You may have clued in that Christian morality isn’t so hot and that other people have moral values too. (Shocking!) You may have decided that the God of the Bible is a jerk—or worse. But some habits of thought are hard to break. It is a lot easier to shed the contents of Christian fundamentalism than its psychological structure. Here are ten mental patterns that trip up many ex-Christians even when we think we’ve done the work of moving on. None of these are unique to former Christians, but they ...

By Blackfreethought ~ I t is such a relief to know my actions do not have eternal consequences. My mistakes will not condemn me to damnation and my good deeds will not propel me into heavenly bliss. I live each day recognizing the frailty of my humanity and that strengthens me to do the best I can to improve conditions in the world while I possess the mental capacity and vision. My life is much sweeter because I understand that I am responsible for its outcome, although many things lie beyond my control. The gods do not wrestle over the fate of my soul, since neither my soul or the gods exist. My existence is not a battleground for good versus evil, where my mind is the prize. I no longer attempt to justify life rules that do not fit my intrinsic values. I do not have to explain why I follow a religious system, largely responsible for the ills facing my community. I can freely embrace the historical facts and pursue other interests. My life is much sweeter because I understand t...

By Yak ~ I want to talk about anger. Just a short spin through these forums reveals a constant undercurrent of strong anger. I don't believe that our anger is misplaced, and I think it is definitely justified. Real or threatened loss, including betrayal and deception is a strong basis for anger. But, being both a mildly introspective non-theist and counseling professional, I have to ask questions about our anger.   My questions are: (don't spit blood; read it through) Are we angry because we wish it (god) really exists? Are we really angry because we were told that there was a real "father" who actually "cared" for us, the way we had hoped as children? Perhaps like a dad who would back us up and soothe our hurts, listen and dispense wisdom when we were confronted by the vagaries and ugliness of life? But then, we inevitably discovered or finally admitted to ourselves that what we were told isn't true. In other words, we were deceived, got let down or ...

By Rational Logic ~ S ome Christians say that the atheist viewpoint on life is that it is ultimately meaningless. They quote Richard Dawkins in Unweaving the Rainbow who hints at such when he says “We are going to die…. how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state…? That prior state he is referring to, is of course is nothingness. If you ultimately return to nothingness and the whole universe will one day be nothingness does that mean life is ultimately meaningless? To many Christians, William Lane Craig included, feel that if there is no god with no ultimate purpose then everything is ultimately meaningless, even “depressing” according to Dr Craig. And yet, when you look at a beautiful red sunset and a tear rolls down your eye, or you listen to music that uplifts your spirit, or watch children at play and smile, do you feel that life is meaningless? Of course not. It is these very things that give life meaning. Christians have a different problem on their hands....

By Carl S ~ D o fundamentalist Christians buy vibrators, condoms, birth control pills, pornography? Amazon, ebay, Paypal and Home Shopping Network won't tell. Do they have abortions? But they'll show up in force when they want to make public statements against their own personal choices. After mass tragedies, families and community members buy huge amounts of stuffed animals and flowers, purchased in mourning, to honor the victims. Those are primal responses, originating long before the burial practices of ancient Egypt! And not one Christian is aware the pagans initiated this response: toys and implements were originally buried with the deceased to be used in their afterlives. Now, thousands of years later in a market economy, lamentation, grief, and loss are sales opportunities for businesses taking advantage of the lucrative business of religion. (Doesn't this remind you of Christmas?) After these things, comes the ceremonial praising of a god by survivors, the prattl...