sent in by Timotheus email: elpoeta at dmailman dot com During my time as a fundamentalist inerrantist christian, I subscribed to various apologetic newsletters, most of which I still continue to receive. Prior to the beginning of my journey to deconversion, I greatly enjoyed reading this material, and eagerly anticipated receiving and devouring each issue for the purpose of defending the faith. These collections of propaganda I have amassed include news journals from Koinonia House Ministries (Chuck Missler), Answers in Genesis (Ken Ham), Times Square Church Pulpit Series newsletters (David Wilkerson), and Harvest Ministries (Greg Laurie), to name a few. At the time, I was unaware of any criticism of the ideas expressed in these mailings, and had no reason to doubt the truthfulness and accuracy of them. I truly believed that the holy spirit was working through these men to help equip christians to "be prepared to give an answer for the hope you have...." (1 peter 3:15)...

Recently former Christian minister and author John W. Loftus contacted me and sent me a copy of his new book, “From Minister to Honest Doubter: Why I Changed My Mind.” Let me start off by stating categorically that this book is an absolute “must have” for anyone who has left the Christian faith or is having serious intellectual doubts about the Christian religion. While the book starts out explaining some of his experiential reasons for leaving Christianity, the 216-page volume goes far beyond a mere personal testimony and dives deeply into the elemental contradictions and concerns that weaken the underpinning of “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” (Jude 1:3) Most readers will not find Loftus’ book one that can be adequately absorbed in an evening. Written in the style of a collegiate thesis, the plethora of scholarly works referenced in this publication places it amongst the better resources for the honest student. To do the volume justice one must be willing to ...

see all three episodes at Channel102.net This is a large file. If you have a broadband connection, no problem If you are on dial-up, I'd recommend passing it by. Right-click (PC) or Ctrl-click (Mac) to save file: download

provided by Edward T. Babinski 1) PROMINENT CHRISTIAN EVOLUTIONISTS 2) CHRISTIAN WEBSITES THAT DEFEND EVOLUTION 3) E-MAILS FROM PROFESSORS WHO ARE CHRISTIAN EVOLUTIONISTS 4) HUMAN EVOLUTION (CREATIONISTS MAKE ADMISSIONS) ~~~~~~~~~ 1) PROMINENT CHRISTIAN EVOLUTIONISTS DR. RICHARD G. COLLING Dr. Colling is a fundamentalist Christian and chair of Biology at a fundamentalist Christian college, and also author of Random Designer: Created From Chaos To Connect With Creator. According to Dr. Colling, "It pains me to suggest that my religious brothers are telling falsehoods" when they say evolutionary theory is "in crisis" and claim that there is widespread skepticism about it among scientists. "Such statements are blatantly untrue," he argues. "Evolution has stood the test of time and considerable scrutiny... What the designer designed is the random-design process," or Darwinian evolution, Colling says. "God devised these natural laws, and uses evo...

sent in by The Happy Humanist An excerpt from "Introduction to Psychology" 4th ed. by James W. Kalat: "Beginning with the Renaissance period in Europe, people began looking for scientific explanations for the phenomena they observed. One of the key points of this Scientific Revolution was a shift toward seeking the immediate causes of an event (what led to what) instead of the final causes (the ultimate purpose of the event in an overall plan). Scientists analyzed the motion of objects in terms of pushes and pulls, and other laws of nature. That is, they made an assumption that everything that happens has a cause, or determinant, in the observable world. Is the same true for human behavior? We are, after all, part of the physical world. Your brain and mine are made of chemical compounds subject to the same laws of nature as anything else. According to the determinist assumption for human behavior, everything we do has a cause. Clearly, at least some of those causes...

Recently an article was posted with a link to an audio "Does God Exist" debate...which really sucked (the Atheist was very ill-prepared, etc). So, I went searching for some better ones, and found a web site with tons of good stuff. The website URL is: http://www.rctr.org/ap5.htm In particular, there is a good "Does God Exist" debate located here (in four parts): 1) http://server.firefighters.org/fernandes/36004.mp3 2) http://server.firefighters.org/fernandes/36005.mp3 3) http://server.firefighters.org/fernandes/36006.mp3 4) http://server.firefighters.org/fernandes/36007.mp3 Just a little pre-info about the debate: The Atheist debater is Dan Barker, author of Losing Faith In Faith. This debate should be fun for all of us at Ex-Christian.net to listen to, that is, if you post either this message, or the information pertaining to the links contained in this message. Thanks, Bimmu

NCPC's Paul Manata debated Derek Sansone on the topic “Does The Christian God Exist?” on Friday April 22, 2005. The debate was hosted by North City and moderated by Gene Cook, Pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in San Diego. Recordings of this event are available for purchase ($2 for Audio CDs and $5 for DVD). See Shawn Dollar to request a copy. Derek Sansone was raised a Roman Catholic in Syracuse, New York. At age 29, in 2001, he “became a born again Christian” and was an ardent student of theology, church history, philosophy and apologetics. In the spring of 2004, Derek declared himself an atheist. He represents the philosophical position of strong atheism and has participated in many debates with Christians. Paul Manata is an ex-atheist who became a Christian in 1999. He has lived in California for 27 of his 29 years. He is a member of North City Presbyterian Church. Paul is a student of reformed theology, philosophy and apologetics. Paul takes classes at Bahnsen Theological Se...

from WKYC-TV Cleveland, OH JACKSON TOWNSHIP -- A Stark County man thinks he may have a miracle sitting in his garden. He says images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary mysteriously appeared on two of his garden rocks this week. It’s hard to miss the Hartman’s house in Jackson Township. It’s surrounded by a white picket fence. And it has a beautiful garden complete with a miniature train track. It was in the garden that Robert Hartman said he made a miraculous discovery. Hartman says he was “tinkering around” when he saw the image of Virgin Mary on a rock. Then another stone caught Hartman’s eye. He says it bears an image of Jesus. He says it’s a sign from god. The other thing that’s so interesting about these rocks is that one of them has a dark patch. It’s actually a film or oil-like substance. And it has a very distinctive smell. In fact, it smells like flowers. Hartman’s mother, Ethel, told Channel 3 News the night before the images appeared, a mysterious flash of light awakened her. “It ...

© 2005 Tim Simmons Contrary to what Christians claim, one can never reclaim the years the locusts have eaten. Time lost is time lost. There is no time machine. I often recall the times in my youth that I now consider to be wasted and wish I could somehow get back that time. Not all idle time was wasted but how many times did I hit the replay button on my Super Nintendo system? Most people don’t dwell on the past and I suppose that isn’t a bad thing but often it is a good thing to look back with the advantage of hindsight and see if you can piece together some truths that may help guide your future. The saying that those who forget the errors in history are bound to repeat them is true. Am I wasting time typing this? If I didn’t have an overall goal then it’s possible. Perhaps it falls under the category of therapy. If you can postpone the urge to yell “hypocrite” for a moment, I’d like to make my point. How much total time has been wasted in prayer since Christianity began? ...

Dave8 wrote: Well, thought I would look at some history and see what the predictions were for the Fundies about ten years ago... The U.S. Army War College published an article "How Vulnerable is the U.S." within the Strategic Studies Institute... So, ten years ago... http://nsi.org/Library/Terrorism/usterror.htm "The threat posed by fundamentalist religious groups of all faiths cannot be discounted. Not only Islamic extremists, but other "true believers" of a variety of faiths are likely to engage in terrorist acts against American targets. These groups might be supported or joined in their operations by domestic religious extremists. In addition, they might also seek alliances with a variety of cultists, survivalists, or neo-fascists who, for their own reasons, reject the existing social, economic, and political order and await their own versions of Armageddon." One could say hindsight is 20/20, but there are many sharp people who knew the threat, but l...

by George Carlin - Here’s my problem. Why are there 10 Commandments? You don’t need 10. The list of Commandments was deliberately and artificial inflated to get it up to 10. It’s a padded list. Here’s what they did: About 5000 years ago, a bunch of religious and political hustlers got together to try and figure out how to control people and how to keep them in line. They knew people were basically unintelligent and would believe whatever they were told. So they announced that God had given them some Commandments up on a mountain.........when nooooooo one was around. But why did they pick the number 10? Why not 9 or 11? I’ll tell you why - because 10 sounds official, 10 sounds important. They knew if it was 11, the people wouldn’t take them seriously. What, are you kidding me? The 11 Commandments? Get the F*&#K outta here! 10 is the basis for the decimal, it’s a decade, it’s a psychologically satisfying number. The 10 most wanted, the 10 best dressed. So having 10 Co...