Don't Judge a Book by It's Contents

Lately I have been receiving polite requests to promote either a web page or a book by some author or other. I thought the following book was interesting in that it is written by an ex-minister of the gospel.

Here is an excerpt:

    "As a recanted Christian minister, the greatest loss for me, besides the lack of fellowship with people who believed the way I once did, was not being able to hear from God through the bible. You don’t lose your faith in the church, its teachings and the fount it draws its convictions and teachings from, and then go back to it for solace and direction.

    Even though I rejected the church, its teachings and its book, I still very much loved God and wanted to live by the lofty message I once preached. It became my heart’s yearning to know: how do I hear from God, how do I speak to God and how do I experience the wisdom of God’s word in the vacuum my decision left?"


Now, while I am not necessarily endorsing either the premise or the conclusion of this book, I am interested in getting feed back on what others that frequent this site may think. I am sure the author would also appreciate any constructive insights as well.

So, if this tid-bit intrigues you at all, READ MORE.

They Didn't Recognize HIM! why not?

by William F Henness

There were at least 12 different people who did not recognize the risen Jesus of Nazareth, assuming he did rise.

"Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw him, the worshiped him; but some doubted." (Matt. 28:16,17)

The "some" could have been between two and more. But they had lived with him three and a half years, but "some" when they saw him, doubted it was really he. Why?

"But their eyes were holden (restricted) that they should not recognize him." (Luke 24:16)

These were two disciples on the road to Emmaus, who no doubt knew him but did not recognize him at all. Why not?

"And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus." (John 20:14)

This was Mary Magdalene, who was probably the closest disciple and the one who loved him most, and yet, she saw Jesus and did not know who he was. Why not?

"But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore; but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus." (John 21:4)

These were seven close disciples, namely, Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel, James, John and two other unnamed. It was morning light. (John 21:2) Why?

When Jesus was allegedly ascended up into the heavens, two angels said to his watching disciples:

"..., ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." (Acts 1:11)

Question. Which "same Jesus" will come again? Was it the one who lived with his disciples for three and one half years, or was "this same Jesus", the one that those closest to him did not recognize?
Now, there is one final twist to Jesus' appearance after his alleged resurrection. John describes him one more time.

"His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were like a flame of fire; and his feet like fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice like the sound of many waters...; and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword; and his countenance was as the sun shineth in its strength." (Rev. 1:14-16)

I want to purpose a question. Is it possible that the reason so many close disciples did not immediately recognize him after his death, was because it was someone else pretending to be the resurrected Jesus? And then there is the description in Rev. 1, by John, which was probably the result of hallucinations.
I'll tell you one thing. If I met someone that I knew very well, after they died, I would know them. Unless that person was someone else.

Disingenuous !?!?

Recently I have had the "pleasure" of being accused of attacking the world view of Christians everywhere. I was told that having this web site was a direct attack on Christianity and therefore an attack on Christians. Now this person presented this allegation in a rather indirect way, and I am not so sure that he was really aware of exactly what he was doing. In the exchanges I had with this young man, he would continually posit his positions on things as being presuppostionally true and therefore attempting to create the appearance that I was the one that held the responsibility to offer irrefutable proof to support each and every statement posted on this site. He would claim that since I was the one attacking the basic premises of Christian faith, I was the one who must present unquestionable evidence to support my observations on the weaknesses of the "faith" delivered to the saints.

This is a neat trick being bandied about in Christian apologetic circles presently. Perhaps the most prolific of apologetic authors to use this approach is Ravi Zacharias, although I am sure there are many others of equal reputation using a similar tact. There may already be a name for this style, but I want to define this type of debating technique as the reverse or the upside-down method.

Let me explain. I set this web site up as a place to help those trying to deprogram themselves from Christianity to realize that they are not alone. Not only that, the articles and links here are in support of a rational and experimental approach to reality as opposed to a fantastic and unverifiable belief system. Rather than create a static web site, I design this site to be interactive. Visitors here can post comments on articles, in the guest book and in the forum discussion boards. I realized, of course, that aggressive Christians who stumbled on to this site would not be able to resist posting some quip or another. I have never denied any of them from posting just about anything they want. In a way, the often ignorant and more often vitriolic posts from the Christian visitors help support my foundational premise as outlined in my testimony that Christianity has absolutely no miraculously magical effect on people's behavioral patterns. It may be that before becoming a Christian, Bill was a pathetic aggressive alcoholic. Now as a Christian he is not an alcoholic, but he is a pathetic fighting fundie. He traded one asinine addiction for another.

So, I did set it up to be interactive, and so having fundies post is to be expected. That is not really the issue I am addressing here. What I want to address here is being accused of attacking someone's world view by way of this site.

Let's analyze this a bit. If I were trolling an interactive Christian web site posting refutations of Christianity and "stirring the pot" in Christian bulletin boards, could I in all honesty describe myself as a defender of rational thought. In reality would I not be viewed as an antichristian infiltrator, or perhaps as an evil atheist apologist, or something. Regardless of how I viewed my purpose in disrupting a Christian internet sanctuary, I am absolutely sure that my agenda in doing so would not be appreciated as anything but confrontational and rude. Christians set up discussion groups all over the internet as a place to pray, discuss theology, or just hang out with other internet junkies. Should I understand that these site as a direct attack on my world view? Should I view such sites as an affront on rational thinking people everywhere? By the definition of my fundie sparring partner mentioned earlier in this post, that is indeed exactly what I should be doing.

The fact is, this site is a sort of online sanctuary for EX Christians. People who for one reason or other have made the huge decision to leave their religion, are in desperate need of support. It is no easy task to readjust years long thinking patterns, life time daily habits and social associates, especially if the person has been in the cult for a very long time. Believe me, I know. When some fundie posts his or her rhetoric here, they are absolutely attacking us. To insist that Christians who post here are "defending" their god is disingenuous. They are attacking something they do not want to exist. The vocal apostate is by far the worst thing a believer has to contend with. An apostate knows all about the religion, has been a past faithful adherent to the religion and has decided it is not true. Apostates present a dynamic threat to the presuppositional premises of true believers.

Now no one has been coerced into clicking on to this site. Those who have found their way here, did so by searching for it or by hearing about it from others. I personally know of hundreds of Christian sites, but never bother with any of them since leaving my fantasy life in phoney religion.

Now does that mean Christians are not invited to browse the site and post as they see fit? No, everyone is freely encouraged to post whatever comes to mind. Sites such as this assisted me in my own detoxification from illogical thinking. Also, I do not ascribe to an exclusionary world view. Unlike fundamental Christianity, I think it is in the best interest of thinking people everywhere to encourage dialog between opposing viewpoints. Talking is far superior to the intolerant approach usually taken between conflicting religious, or lack of religious, convictions.

What this whole rant is intended to be about is being disingenuous. This is ExChristian.Net. If you want to post a contrary viewpoint to the ones promulgated here, by all means do so and do your best to support your viewpoint. BUT, at least be honest with yourself when you do so and admit that you are not defending your world view when you come to this part of the internet, you are attacking ours. We are the defenders here, and you, Christian, are the aggressor.

Agree or disagree?

Why the interest?

"Does anyone else find it odd that atheists are just as passionate about religion as Christians?

I mean... if you don't believe, why are you so passionate? Why do you care?

This question has been put to me quite a few times since starting this website, so I thought I would try and address my take on it here.

Since Jesus was fond of answering questions with questions, I want to ask a few myself. If someone has never run for political office, why would they be passionate about politics? If someone has never played a musical instrument why would they be passionate about music?

Or better yet, if someone once held political office, and then quit politics for one reason or another, shouldn't they stop caring about the political process? Or if someone used to play a musical instrument and then quite, why would they ever have an opinion about music?

It seems to me that people are just plain interested in the things they are interested in. While that may seem a simplistic explanation, I challenge anyone to easily dismiss that reason. While it may seem to the fundamentalist that a lack of belief in their particular god would necessitate a total lack of interest or at least a lack of passion about the subject, I totally disagree.

Quite often thoughtful people find themselves in the ranks of one religion or another. Because they are thoughtful, they research and study their particular faith with a vengeance, and with passion. If, like many who visit this site, they come to have doubts about their chosen cult, they may become even more passionate. They might even get mad - mad at themselves and at those who either from ignorance or intent have misled them.

It seems to me that the same thing that made me passionate about Christianity is the same thing that still makes me passionate about Christianity. I simply have an insatiable appetite and curiosity about the things I am interested in. Christianity is definitely one of the things that has caught my attention throughout my life.

Of course the fundamentalist thinks of these things in the frame work of supernatural forces, natural man and spiritual man and so forth. The natural man is blinded to the things of GOD, so why in the world would they even show the slightest concern, unless of course they are being controlled by some miscreant demon.

I feel no quilt or confusion at still being interested in Christianity. Christianity is a huge force which has made dramatic changes to human history. While the modern fundamentalist believes it has been an ultimate force for good, a real study of the past 2000 years reveals simply a force for intense mind control. For most of the Christian Era, resistance to Christianity was met with the same type of behavior exhibited in our own day throughout the middle east under the banner of Islam. To contradict the ruling flavor of Christianity in any country for over 1000 years and you could kiss your ass goodbye.

While I was a Christian, I noticed that very few Christians were even minimally interested in Christianity per se. They were more interested in feeling good, feeling important, feeling loved, feeling the spirit move, feeling high on Christ, feeling, feeling and more feeling.... Not a whole lot of brain work going on in that camp, from my experience, just searching after a god high. And that "high" can be quite addicting. "Just put your mind on hold, do what you're told and open a cold refreshing "chick tract."

A thoughtful atheist should be passionate about Christianity and every other form of theism because it is a direct threat to a thinking person's freedom. Far from being anti-passionate when it comes to religion, people who use their brains recognize religion for what it potentially and really is - a mind numbing drug.

What do you think?

Why I Am An Agnostic

by Clarence Darrow

An agnostic is a doubter. The word is generally applied to those who doubt the verity of accepted religious creeds of faiths. Everyone is an agnostic as to the beliefs or creeds they do not accept. Catholics are agnostic to the Protestant creeds, and the Protestants are agnostic to the Catholic creed. Any one who thinks is an agnostic about something, otherwise he must believe that he is possessed of all knowledge. And the proper place for such a person is in the madhouse or the home for the feeble-minded. In a popular way, in the western world, an agnostic is one who doubts or disbelieves the main tenets of the Christian faith.
I would say that belief in at least three tenets is necessary to the faith of a Christian: a belief in God, a belief in immortality, and a belief in a supernatural book. Various Christian sects require much more, but it is difficult to imagine that one could be a Christian, under any intelligent meaning of the word, with less. Yet there are some people who claim to be Christians who do not accept the literal interpretation of all the Bible, and who give more credence to some portions of the book than to others.

I am an agnostic as to the question of God. I think that it is impossible for the human mind to believe in an object or thing unless it can form a mental picture of such object or thing. Since man ceased to worship openly an anthropomorphic God and talked vaguely and not intelligently about some force in the universe, higher than man, that is responsible for the existence of man and the universe, he cannot be said to believe in God. One cannot believe in a force excepting as a force that pervades matter and is not an individual entity. To believe in a thing, an image of the thing must be stamped on the mind. If one is asked if he believes in such an animal as a camel, there immediately arises in his mind an image of the camel. This image has come from experience or knowledge of the animal gathered in some way or other. No such image comes, or can come, with the idea of a God who is described as a force.

Man has always speculated upon the origin of the universe, including himself. I feel, with Herbert Spencer, that whether the universe had an origin-- and if it had-- what the origin is will never be known by man. The Christian says that the universe could not make itself; that there must have been some higher power to call it into being. Christians have been obsessed for many years by Paley's argument that if a person passing through a desert should find a watch and examine its spring, its hands, its case and its crystal, he would at once be satisfied that some intelligent being capable of design had made the watch. No doubt this is true. No civilized man would question that someone made the watch. The reason he would not doubt it is because he is familiar with watches and other appliances made by man. The savage was once unfamiliar with a watch and would have had no idea upon the subject. There are plenty of crystals and rocks of natural formation that are as intricate as a watch, but even to intelligent man they carry no implication that some intelligent power must have made them. They carry no such implication because no one has any knowledge or experience of someone having made these natural objects which everywhere abound.

To say that God made the universe gives us no explanation of the beginnings of things. If we are told that God made the universe, the question immediately arises: Who made God? Did he always exist, or was there some power back of that? Did he create matter out of nothing, or is his existence coextensive with matter? The problem is still there. What is the origin of it all? If, on the other hand, one says that the universe was not made by God, that it always existed, he has the same difficulty to confront. To say that the universe was here last year, or millions of years ago, does not explain its origin. This is still a mystery. As to the question of the origin of things, man can only wonder and doubt and guess.

As to the existence of the soul, all people may either believe or disbelieve. Everyone knows the origin of the human being. They know that it came from a single cell in the body of the mother, and that the cell was one out of ten thousand in the mother's body. Before gestation the cell must have been fertilized by a spermatozoon from the body of the father. This was one out of perhaps a billion spermatozoa that was the capacity of the father. When the cell is fertilized a chemical process begins. The cell divides and multiplies and increases into millions of cells, and finally a child is born. Cells die and are born during the life of the individual until they finally drop apart, and this is death.

If there is a soul, what is it, and where did it come from, and where does it go? Can anyone who is guided by his reason possibly imagine a soul independent of a body, or the place of its residence, or the character of it, or anything concerning it? If man is justified in any belief or disbelief on any subject, he is warranted in the disbelief in a soul. Not one scrap of evidence exists to prove any such impossible thing.

Many Christians base the belief of a soul and God upon the Bible. Strictly speaking, there is no such book. To make the Bible, sixty-six books are bound into one volume. These books are written by many people at different times, and no one knows the time or the identity of any author. Some of the books were written by several authors at various times. These books contain all sorts of contradictory concepts of life and morals and the origin of things. Between the first and the last nearly a thousand years intervened, a longer time than has passed since the discovery of America by Columbus.

When I was a boy the theologians used to assert that the proof of the divine inspiration of the Bible rested on miracles and prophecies. But a miracle means a violation of a natural law, and there can be no proof imagined that could be sufficient to show the violation of a natural law; even though proof seemed to show violation, it would only show that we were not acquainted with all natural laws. One believes in the truthfulness of a man because of his long experience with the man, and because the man has always told a consistent story. But no man has told so consistent a story as nature.

If one should say that the sun did not rise, to use the ordinary expression, on the day before, his hearer would not believe it, even though he had slept all day and knew that his informant was a man of the strictest veracity. He would not believe it because the story is inconsistent with the conduct of the sun in all the ages past.

Primitive and even civilized people have grown so accustomed to believing in miracles that they often attribute the simplest manifestations of nature to agencies of which they know nothing. They do this when the belief is utterly inconsistent with knowledge and logic. They believe in old miracles and new ones. Preachers pray for rain, knowing full well that no such prayer was ever answered. When a politician is sick, they pray for God to cure him, and the politician almost invariably dies. The modern clergyman who prays for rain and for the health of the politician is no more intelligent in this matter than the primitive man who saw a separate miracle in the rising and setting of the sun, in the birth of an individual, in the growth of a plant, in the stroke of lighting, in the flood, in every manifestation of nature and life.

As to prophecies, intelligent writers gave them up long ago. In all prophecies facts are made to suit the prophecy, or the prophecy was made after the facts, or the events have no relation to the prophecy. Weird and strange and unreasonable interpretations are used to explain simple statements, that a prophecy may be claimed.

Can any rational person believe that the Bible is anything but a human document? We now know pretty well where the various books came from, and about when they were written. We know that they were written by human beings who had no knowledge of science, little knowledge of life, and were influenced by the barbarous morality of primitive times, and were grossly ignorant of most things that men know today. For instance, Genesis says that God made the earth, and he made the sun to light the day and the moon to light the night, and in one clause disposes of the stars by saying that "he made the stars also." This was plainly written by someone who had no conception of the stars. Man, by the aid of his telescope, has looked out into the heavens and found stars whose diameter is as great as the distance between the earth and the sun. We know that the universe is filled with stars and suns and planets and systems. Every new telescope looking further into the heavens only discovers more and more worlds and suns and systems in the endless reaches of space. The men who wrote Genesis believed, of course, that this tiny speck of mud that we call the earth was the center of the universe, the only world in space, and made for man, who was the only being worth considering. These men believed that the stars were only a little way above the earth, and were set in the firmament for man to look at, and for nothing else. Everyone today knows that this conception is not true.

The origin of the human race is not as blind a subject as it once was. Let alone God creating Adam out of hand, from the dust of the earth, does anyone believe that Eve was made from Adam's rib--that the snake walked and spoke in the Garden of Eden--that he tempted Eve to persuade Adam to eat an apple, and that it is on that account that the whole human race was doomed to hell--that for four thousand years there was no chance for any human to be saved, though none of them had anything whatever to do with the temptation; and that finally men were saved only through God's son dying for them, and that unless human beings believed this silly, impossible and wicked story they were doomed to hell? Can anyone with intelligence really believe that a child born today should be doomed because the snake tempted Eve and Eve tempted Adam? To believe that is not God-worship; it is devil-worship.

Can anyone call this scheme of creation and damnation moral? It defies every principle of morality, as man conceives morality. Can anyone believe today that the whole world was destroyed by flood, save only Noah and his family and a male and female of each species of animal that entered the Ark? There are almost a million species of insects alone. How did Noah match these up and make sure of getting male and female to reproduce life in the world after the flood had spent its force? And why should all the lower animals have been destroyed? Were they included in the sinning of man? This is a story which could not beguile a fairly bright child of five years of age today.

Do intelligent people believe that the various languages spoken by man on earth came from the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel, some four thousand years ago? Human languages were dispersed all over the face of the earth long before that time. Evidences of civilizations are in existence now that were old long before the date that romancers fix for the building of the Tower, and even before the date claimed for the flood.

Do Christians believe that Joshua made the sun stand still, so that the day could be lengthened, that a battle might be finished? What kind of person wrote that story, and what did he know about astronomy? It is perfectly plain that the author thought that the earth was the center of the universe and stood still in the heavens, and that the sun either went around it or was pulled across its path each day, and that the stopping of the sun would lengthen the day. We know now that had the sun stopped when Joshua commanded it, and had it stood still until now, it would not have lengthened the day. We know that the day is determined by the rotation of the earth upon its axis, and not by the movement of the sun. Everyone knows that this story simply is not true, and not many even pretend to believe the childish fable.

What of the tale of Balaam's ass speaking to him, probably in Hebrew? Is it true, or is it a fable? Many asses have spoken, and doubtless some in Hebrew, but they have not been that breed of asses. Is salvation to depend on a belief in a monstrosity like this?

Above all the rest, would any human being today believe that a child was born without a father? Yet this story was not at all unreasonable in the ancient world; at least three or four miraculous births are recorded in the Bible, including John the Baptist and Samson. Immaculate conceptions were common in the Roman world at the time and at the place where Christianity really had its nativity. Women were taken to the temples to be inoculated of God so that their sons might be heroes, which meant, generally, wholesale butchers. Julius Caesar was a miraculous conception--indeed, they were common all over the world. How many miraculous-birth stories is a Christian now expected to believe?

In the days of the formation of the Christian religion, disease meant the possession of human beings by devils. Christ cured a sick man by casting out the devils, who ran into the swine, and the swine ran into the sea. Is there any question but what that was simply the attitude and belief of a primitive people? Does anyone believe that sickness means the possession of the body by devils, and that the devils must be cast out of the human being that he may be cured? Does anyone believe that a dead person can come to life? The miracles recorded in the Bible are not the only instances of dead men coming to life. All over the world one finds testimony of such miracles: miracles which no person is expected to believe, unless it is his kind of a miracle. Still at Lourdes today, and all over the present world, from New York to Los Angeles and up and down the lands, people believe in miraculous occurrences, and even in the return of the dead. Superstition is everywhere prevalent in the world. It has been so from the beginning, and most likely will be so unto the end.

The reasons for agnosticism are abundant and compelling. Fantastic and foolish and impossible consequences are freely claimed for the belief in religion. All the civilization of any period is put down as a result of religion. All the cruelty and error and ignorance of the period has no relation to religion.

The truth is that the origin of what we call civilization is not due to religion but to skepticism. So long as men accepted miracles without question, so long as they believed in original sin and the road to salvation, so long as they believed in a hell where man would be kept for eternity on account of Eve, there was no reason whatever for civilization: life was short, and eternity was long, and the business of life was preparation for eternity.

When every event was a miracle, when there was no order or system or law, there was no occasion for studying any subject, or being interested in anything excepting a religion which took care of the soul. As man doubted the primitive conceptions about religion, and no longer accepted the literal, miraculous teachings of ancient books, he set himself to understand nature. We no longer cure disease by casting out devils. Since that time, men have studied the human body, have built hospitals and treated illness in a scientific way. Science is responsible for the building of railroads and bridges, of steamships, of telegraph lines, of cities, towns, large buildings and small, plumbing and sanitation, of the food supply, and the countless thousands of useful things that we now deem necessary to life. Without skepticism and doubt, none of these things could have been given to the world.

The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.

The modern world is the child of doubt and inquiry, as the ancient world was the child of fear and faith.

I just couldn't resist


Now if that offends you, remember to turn the other cheek~!



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