By Neal I recall many years ago about a family in the church I was attending had lost their child. He wandered off and was found face down in the mud. I recall listening in on the conversation with one of the church leaders and the pastor. I then heard the one comment I can't stand to this day — "Only God Knows..." What? Really? Huh? So why isn't he telling then? Does not the Bible say that if we ask we shall receive? Does not Jesus tell us we will receive wisdom and understanding just for the asking? Doesn't the Holy Spirit live in Christians and guide them and provide them wisdom? So why is it after 2,000 years of Christianity and all the millions who have studied it and that in this "enlightened" age, this is still an answer to most tough questions? What really baffles me is that many church leaders, prophets and other supposed "spirit filled" religious leaders will make some prediction about the end times or make some other prophecy a...

By Mc Pickard Now that you've gone to service, said your prayers and gave God a few Franklins - it's time for a sermon from the other side of the aisle. The other day, I was at the K-Mart in Oconomowoc , on a little visual research expedition. As I was strolling through the book section, How to Hear from God: Learn His Voice and Make Right Decisions by that church lady from the 700 Club caught my attention. I quickly scanned the back. The book promises to teach you how to hear God's voice in every daily action so you can do "His Divine Will." All for $19.31! For whatever reason, this goofiness interests me. I did a quick Google and this subject is almost a genre unto itself. The believer is duped into thinking that a non-stop circle jerk of sanctimonious, self-affirming, ego-stroking is somehow a Bat-Phone to God. This site not only features a downloadable lecture, but "4 Main Keys" to secure direct communication with God. This belief is predicated o...

Sent in by Brian I was raised in a very Christian home, and went to church my whole life. I never had a reason to believe otherwise - there is a God, he is all powerful, and you DO NOT question it. I can remember a few times kind of wondering "Is this for real?", and then praying for some kind of sign - which of course I never got. After I did not receive confirmation of his existence, I immediately prayed and asked for forgiveness for my lack of faith. Who was I to question God? When you start thinking about the whole question in a logical manner, it is very hard to remain faithful. There are simply too many facts against religion. Well at the age of 24, I started listening to some very intelligent people. I would debate with them about the existence of God, but the entire time, I would feel like I was losing the debate. I would throw out fake "Facts" to back up the existence of God, and bring up faith.. They would be visibly frustrated by my lack of understanding....

By Astreja As much as I enjoy the dialogue at Ex-Christian.net, I've noticed something that's a bit worrisome. I have become a BibleBotherer-Seeking Missile with an extremely short fuse. My own experiences with Christianity are somewhat milder than the norm. Although nominally a liberal Protestant in childhood, I didn't get the fear of Hell beat into me by parental units, teachers, friends or neighbours. I didn't invest decades of precious life time in the Christian cult, although I did later deconvert from another belief system and can identify with the pain of going from belief to non-belief. So what's with the intense, blood-boiling fury that I've been feeling lately? One possible explanation: Uninvited proselytizing and evangelizing is abuse , psychological torment, and what I'm feeling is natural -- Counter-aggression in the face of a perceived attack. At this point, I would expect one of our Christian visitors to say "Attack? But we're onl...

With all due respect. By Pat Condell

Bill Maher asks Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor whether or not he believes in evolution. This is a clip from the movie Religulous Religulous is a documentary directed by Larry Charles and starring American comedian Bill Maher , host of Real Time With Bill Maher on HBO . According to Maher, the title of the film is a portmanteau derived from the words "religion" and "ridiculous," implying the satirical nature of the documentary that is meant to mock the concept of organized religion and the problems it brings about. Religulous is scheduled for release on October 3, 2008

Part I: Part II: This is a round-table interview with John W. Loftus author of " Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity ." John is the founder of Debunking Christianity . Robert M. Price talks about his book " Top Secret: The Truth about Today's Pop Mysticisms ." Robert is also author of " The Reason Driven Life ," and many other greats. Discussion topics here include: the New Atheists, family values of Jesus, prosperity gospel, Joel Osteen, Creation museums, New Thought, New Age movements, Oprah, Genesis, modern science, etc. Part one is approximately 90 minutes long. Part two is 30 min.

A meaningful dialog between Dinesh D'Souza , Christopher Hitchens , and Dennis Prager . The debate was held in the spring at the Bat Yahm Synagogue in Newport Beach , and the audience was predominantly Jewish, with a fair representation of Christians and atheists. Video is approximately two hours in length.

The sexual abuse of children by ordained clergy may now be combated using this convenient spray repellent.

Sent in by Geoff Cars move because Elves push them. How come we can't see any elves? --Their magic makes them invisible. How come they don't leave any fingerprints? --They wear gloves. Elves are little aren't they? They couldn't possibly have enough strength to push a car. --They work in teams. I happened across this on a message board on myspace, all credit goes to this person: LINK . --Geoff-- Still... some cars can go over 200 mph. Nothing can run that fast. --They're magic, remember? But humans invented cars didn't they? It's nothing to do with elves. --The Elves INSPIRED people to build cars. If Elves push them, why do they have engines? --It amuses the elves to make us think we need engines and fuel. Isn't that a bit evil of them? I mean this is a multi-billion dollar industry that ravages the environment. --The ways of the Elves are not our ways. So all those engineers and scientists working on hydrogen engines and electric cars are wasting their ...

He is known variously as Vissarion , The Teacher, and Jesus of Siberia and his followers believe that he really is the Messiah. From Wikipedia : Sergey Anatolyevitch Torop (Russian: Сергей Анатольевич Тороп), (born January 14, 1961) known by his followers as Vissarion (Виссарион), is a Russian mystic. He founded and heads a religious movement known as the Church of the Last Testament with its head church in the Siberian Taiga in the Minusinsk Depression east of Abakan, in the southern Siberia Kuraginsk district of Krasnoyarsk territory. He has around 4,000 followers (called Vissarionites) in around thirty villages in the immediate vicinity of his base at Sun City, while having approximately 10,000 followers around the world. Vissarion claims to be a reincarnation of Jesus. He teaches reincarnation, veganism, and the impending end of the world, or at least of civilization as we know it. In May 1990, aged 29, Vissarion claims to have experienced a mystical revelation. He first spoke publ...

By SConnor I, recently, had a heated debate at the excellent blog, Debunking Christianity, http:// debunkingchristianity. blogspot.com/2008/07/genesis- 221-25-woman-from-rib-and. html?showComment= 1217981580000# c2183258380688335035 with a zealous, Pastor Harvey Burnett, http://www.blogger.com/ profile/15315686602819371111 . I wanted to share with you some of the exchanges, I had with Harvey, to illustrate, what lengths, some delusional, Christians will take, to protect their feeble beliefs. As you will see, Harvey -- not being able to refute the specifics of my germane, arguments -- habitually, relies on absurd, non-sequiturs, hemorrhages equivocations and diverges, at any cost, including disparaging me and my relationship with my son Connor. For those who do not know my story; my ten year old son died from a heart attack, related to leukemia -- a devastating blow, that has left me emotionally crippled and overwhelmed my family with grief. http://exchristian.net/ testimonies/2...

A review of scientific studies on intelligence in relation to religiosity. From RationalistTube.Com

By Marlene Winell, Ph.D. I get this question so frequently, I’ve decided to make a better effort to reply. To be honest, I don’t like the question because it presumes we know what those words mean. Here are some responses, touching on more or less serious aspects of the topic. 1. Which god? Do you mean Zeus, Baal, Athena, Shiva, Allah, Jehovah, or some other? If you mean one of those, then no. I am not a theist. I don’t believe in an individual being that created and now controls the world. 2. What is belief? Is it a cognitive conclusion that I have reached basic on logical consideration of evidence? That would assume I have access to all the information, and I do not. Is it an emotional feeling for something beyond myself? Well, my emotions vary, and some days are hopeful, other days are dark. Emotions are a rocky basis for “belief.” Do I make a leap of faith, not knowing anything really, but simply wanting to “believe,” and putting stock in a “scripture” to give it su...

Blogger corrected the error and even sent an apology (below): But first, I would like to thank everyone for the positive feedback. I really appreciate the kind words, especially from people who understand why I would create such a blog. Christians tend think I'm just slamming them for the fun of it or that I'm a hateful fuck working for satan or something. But most of you understand that the real reason is to spread truth, not lies. Thank you for your support! -DocMike Message from Blogger: "You Are Not Spam August 2, 2008 — permalink You knew that already, and now we do too. We have now restored all accounts that were mistakenly marked as spam yesterday. (See: Spam Fridays) We want to offer our sincerest apologies to affected bloggers and their readers. We’ve tracked down the problem to a bug in our data processing code that locked blogs even when our algorithms concluded they were not spam. We are adding additional monitoring and process checks to ensure that bugs of t...

Hello everybody, A while ago I sent you a notice about this weekend workshop for recovering from religion. I'm pleased to say that we have some space available for some "pay what you can" participants. The room and board would still be $125 but beyond that is negotiable. So get in touch soon if you'd like to come! Warmly, Marlene Winell Here's the notice again. LEAVING YOUR RELIGION? It's not the end of the world! Join us at a recovery retreat. "RELEASE AND RECLAIM" August 15-17, 2008, with Dr. Marlene Winell Do you feel alone in your struggle for healing? Come to a supportive and powerful weekend with others who can understand you -- an oasis from dogmatic teachings and judgmental groups. We'll rant and rave, tell our stories, discuss the issues, visualize, role-play, dance and draw – whatever it takes to think for ourselves and reclaim our lives. A joyful, empowered life is your birthright and you can start now. WHEN: FRIDAY, Aug. 15,...

By Calladus Originally posted April 2007, in the Calladus Blog I was pretty active in church as a teenager (that was a long time ago now). We had Lock-Ins (where the youth group would spend all night at the church), retreats, summer camp, conferences. It was pretty good being a teen in the church. I once attended a youth conference at Texas Christian University that was interesting and fun. There were a lot of teens there – it felt like thousands. We would have speakers in the main auditorium with all of us in attendance, and we also had some smaller groups with speakers. I was in a smaller group that had a speaker who was traveling across the country to tell his story. This speaker was very eloquent, and the message was one of salvation. He was a young-ish man, perhaps late 20's – who exuded “coolness” from his sunglasses, pony-tail and motorcycle to his ripped physique. I don't recall much of the actual message, but I do recall this gentleman relating his past. His past was s...

By DocMike I started By The Book Comics in March of 2007 because I'd met so many Christians who had absolutely no idea of the injustice, absurdity, cruelty, violence, intolerance, and contradictions the Bible contains. And still, they consider it to be the inerrant word of God. Since then, I've posted 45 comics (with commentary) that point out (using humor) some of the many weaknesses of the Bible. I've promoted the blog by posting here at ExChristian and by responding to posts on this and other Atheist-related blogs. I have links to other Atheist sites, blogrolls, etc. I'm definitely not running a spam site. I get maybe 50-100 hits per day. Just a law-abiding US citizen exercising my right to express my opinions... Today, I got this email from Blogger: Your blog at: http://bythebookcomics.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a potential spam blog. To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at (removed link) Your blog will be deleted within...