By David H Hi Everyone, I'd like to share a narrative I wrote for my writer's group, the objective was to write a piece describing God as if he were sitting in front of you. Under His Robes God is sitting across from me, his long, generous robes and silky white hair flowing to every edge, so no part of the chair is visible; he appears to be floating. I squint, scrutinizing his visage. Nearly invisible, are tiny jutting angles at various points all over his body, which is very curious, so I ask, "May I?" Reaching over to lift one of the folds in his robe. "If you must." He responds. So I very carefully raise a portion where one of the jutting points is visible. The fibers stick to, but easily lift from, very small wooden braces that look like wooden rollercoaster scaffolding. Curiosities taking hold of me, I keep pulling the fabric away, muttering, "This can't be real," and revealing only more and more latticework. His face and hands now appe...

By Neal Stone Benny and Dana : You came to our website the other day and proceeded to put us down and call us foolish. I am sure that this was in Christ's love you did this, and you were only concerned for our souls and wanting to save us from our sins. You and another poster proceeded to put us down. Why? Because we believe differently from you? Because we say what you don't want to hear? Perhaps it's because you can't handle that Christianity isn't perfect after all? You said we were angry, resentful and had issues. You are right on all accounts. But we are at least honest and open about this. We are also working to resolve these issues as well. That's why we have this site. Christians have tons of sights for the same exact reason, to find resolution to the issues in their lives. Our issues were caused by the religion we were taught to live and most importantly, by people like you. We were told if we served the Lord that the following would happe...

By Valerie Tarico, Ph.D. When moral and spiritual ideas were handed down via oral tradition, they could evolve with the cultural and technological context in which they existed. Some stories were repeated often around the fire while others, less favored, eventually faded into the hazy past. Uninteresting details might be omitted by a storyteller, others elaborated. New implications might be extracted—rules, roles, and ideas about the natural world--depending on the needs of the era. The gods themselves matured. The advent of writing changed this. On the one hand, writing was one of humanity’s most powerful inventions. It allowed information to be transmitted directly between people who didn’t know each other. It allowed knowledge to accumulate. But it also allowed ideas –especially those that couldn’t be tested—to stagnate. Written words are frozen in time, a snapshot of the mind of the writer at a specific point in history. Allegiance to a set of civic, moral or spiritual writings all...

Image of Sam Singleton Annotated by God, through Sam Singleton Atheist Evangelist One of my beloved sisters was thoughtful enough to deposit on Brother Sam's mental linoleum the following inspirational message tracked in from the Web. Instead of shit-canning it like the rest of the bilge that washes anew across the bow of the 700-foot floating studio and transmitter MV Sister Singleton (from which broadcasts the 100,000kw pirate station the Voice of the Ozarks as it plies international waters), I felt led of God to annotate that motherfucker in his name. God did the actual analysis; I just took it down word for word. The inspirational message ( sic throughout) starts out: As you might know, the head of a company survived 9/11 because his son started kindergarten. And God says: 9/11? Whuh? I don't remember anything major ever happening on any 9/11. Are you sure you've got the date right? Hold up. It's coming back to me. There was a fire or something. That guy's k...

By TheOtherRainMan The following is an article from my blog ' The Deist Fool ' that I wrote a while back. I added some more info and personal commentary. Andy Sachs: That's not what I... no, that was different. I didn't have a choice. Miranda Priestly : No, no, you chose. You chose to get ahead. You want this life. Those choices are necessary. - The Devil Wears Prada This conversation between Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep 's characters come at the end of the film, The Devil Wears Prada. Hathaway's character (Andy Sachs) is responding to a comment made by Miranda Priestly, editor-in-chief of a famous fashion magazine (Streep's character), who said that Andy was becoming a lot like her. The quotes above are Andy defending against the statement, and Miranda saying in a hatshell, you picked this path. I find this similar to what Christians call " God 's Will". For those who have no clue what "God's Will" is, it can be summed up li...

By Neal Stone We've all heard that said before. How imitation is the best form of flattery. In the Buybull (Gee, finally spelled that right.) we are told Christians aught to "come out from among them" and that Christianity is pure and to avoid the world. Yet many of the aspects of Christianity are influenced by worldly traits and activities. Let's start with hymnals. Sung in churches for decades and still sung by churches who do not want worldly Christian Rock in their churches. Yet the majority of hymnals are taken from old bar songs that were sung in pubs. This was to attract worldly people to church so they could be "saved." Many churches justify this by saying that people's lives are changed for the better. The fact is ANY organization that makes it a goal to help others can actually do so religious or not. And we all know about Christian Rock. This also came about for the same reason as above. Blend rock and Christians music to attract oth...

Jonathan Haidt is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia . He studies the emotional and intuitive foundations of morality. His current work is based on the idea that morality is a team sport and that political liberals don't understand the game the other side is playing. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis and is currently writing The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion . This video is approximately 30 minutes long.

Image via Wikipedia By Neal Stone In the Bible we read how God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice Issac his son. Of course God stopped him, but that is beside the point. God actually asked one of HIS followers to kill his own son as a test of faithfulness. Sick, just plain sick. What is even sicker is that Abraham was willing to do it. This is the same God who supposedly ordered the genocide of races who practiced ritual human sacrifice . Then we have the story of Job. God placed a bet and then allowed Job to be brought near death after losing his family, possessions, and even his health. All because God wanted to test another follower. There is nothing wrong with your life. You are in control. You control the horizontal. You control the vertical. You control the direction. YOU CONTROL! If your spouse asked you to kill one of your kids to prove yourself faithful, you would have your spouse locked up, or at least leave that person and take the kids with you. Daily, Ch...

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we're left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most. Read Haidt's article by clicking here .

By Lance OK, so how many of you have been in a discussion with a Christian and you get so some point where their religion simply does not makes any sense? Oh, of course; like all the time. Things such as, how could a good and loving god send his children to eternal torment? Or, how could a loving god order his chosen people to commit genocide on a regular basis? Or to flip it around, how could a loving god allow someone else to commit genocide on his own chosen people, aka the Holocaust ? How could a good god condone slavery? How exactly does killing things, animals or Jesus, make this god happy when we do things he does not like? That is just weird. I think you get the point. The contradictions, logical fallacies , and general weirdness of the bible and the Christian religion go on and on and on. We all know that this stuff does not make any logical sense whatsoever. But here is the funny thing. We all knew this in some way even when we were Christians, and current Christian...

If you're a Christian, the husband goes to work and the woman stays home with the kids -- PERIOD! Don't believe me? Well, Pastor Mark Driscoll insists that anything else would be non-Biblical! Hey Sarah Palin ! Are you listening? What are your thoughts on stay at home dads if the woman really wants to work? Or even if both want/need to work? This question was posed to Pastor Mark Driscoll and his wife Grace at the end of Pastor Mark's sermon called Sweet To My Taste, which can be found at http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/t...

Sent in by Christopher Something has occurred to me as I am following the race for the American presidency . Jesus would be ashamed of the Christian right -- straight up mortified by them. Jesus (if he even existed as he supposedly reported in the bible), was all about selflessness and discarding worldly pursuits to help out his fellow mankind, no matter how lowly that person was. Have you ever seen a conservative Christian do that? Ever? I haven't. Would they ever give up their new SUV, $250,000 home, and all their toys to follow in the example of the man that they worship and call Lord and savior? No. Not in a million years. Would they ever be seen offering a prostitute love and taking her to the doctor to get be checked up and get any medicine that she needs at his/her expense? No. Would they invite a crack dealer to their homes or the homes of their friends and cook the dealer a fine meal out of kindness? Hell no! A multitude of other examples could be named, but you get the i...

By JohnLArmstrong Conservative Christians love Palin but how do the reconcile their support for her bid for office in the face of what the Bible says about a woman's "place" in society.

By JohnLArmstrong There is no middle-ground. Either the Bible is the Word of God or it isn't. Here's why the "relative to the time" argument falls apart as a justification for the moral and scientific problems of the Bible.

Posted by Valerie Tarico Image by Getty Images via Daylife Reprinted from the Daily Kos. If you are a member there, please recommend this article so that it will get more discussion time! Dear Sarah, As a former fundamentalist, I'd like to call you on what you are doing. The media has found you "opaque" about your religion. Why? You have not been honest about the most important thing about you: the fact that you are a born-again charismatic on a mission from God. Most people who have never been entrenched in the subculture of fundamentalist Christianity may not understand what this really means, but I do. Like you, I was raised in the Assemblies of God and I was a zealous part of the Jesus Movement . Like you, my life was consumed with seeking God's will for my life and awaiting the imminent return of Jesus. Former fundamentalists like me know that your worldview is so encompassing, authoritarian, and powerful that it defines who you think you are, the way you vie...

Image via Wikipedia By Neal Stone In Acts Chapter 4 we read the story of Ananias and Sapphira . First off we find the believers of one heart and mind. Try and find that in today's church. As the story continues we find people who had houses and possessions and would sell them to help those who are needy. How awesome. Today you wouldn't even think of doing that. Not because we are selfish, but because we can't trust those in charge of churches to handle that kind of money. If we were to do this today a majority of the money would go to "administrative costs." Churches today are big money machines. As the story goes on, Ananias and Sapphira decide that they would sell their possessions but keep half while claiming to give all. They had in fact lied to the church and put on a show to impress the other church members. We all know that NEVER happens today. NOT! One of the reasons I quit church was I was tired of the show offs. They would be praised as spirit...

My family's spiritual journey By Sam Singleton We took up with Brother Vernon Redstart's little band of pilgrims meeting in one end of the Quonset hut , out on the River Pike, where he had his auto repair and salvage business. The Glorified Temple of the Blessed Redeemer. That's where I saw Ronald Coyne, the Man With No Eye. And of all the people that ever frightened the feces out of me, he produced the greatest amount in pure poundage. If my family's spiritual journey had been an actual trip, we'd still have been driving some beat up old heap like the Chevy. Our spiritual journey was just like that car, all crappy. And no matter how many times we had to get out and push, always in the rain or snow, my folks wouldn't quit and admit that they had no fucking idea how to get where they were going or if their destination even existed. My father would be the only one driving and he'd all the time be getting mad about something he heard or saw along the way and ...

By Neal Stone Before: Unhealthy and unattractive. Couldn't get a date to save my life. After: In great health and married. Before: Insecure and unsure of my future, career options and life. After: Able to stand on my own, more secure in myself and have a great job and a great life. Before: Never fit in and always was alone. Always sat alone in the break room. After: Have plenty of friends and my co-workers like me. Before: Frustrated with my life and the way it was going or not going. After: happy as could be with my life. Before: Depressed and unable to find God's will and my place in his will. After: Happy go lucky me. Enjoying life and living by my will. Before: Always guilty feeling and afraid. After: Love life and filled with happiness. What's to be afraid of? Before: Always asked God to show me the way and answer my problems. After: Make my own way and solve problems as they come. Before: Judgmental and critical of those who did not believe what I bel...

Crossposted from " The Calladus Blog " If you read Atheist blogs, you've probably come across the blog "Atheist in a Minivan". If you've recently tried to read it, you'll notice that it has been set to "private". Here I explain how one of the best family-centered Atheist blogs on the net was hounded offline by a group of people who displayed a cult-like behavior. - Calladus - - - - - One of my favorite blogs went dark this week. The following is my attempt to explain what happened, and it is also a rant about the cult-like rabid fan-club that is responsible. Background : The author of one of my favorite blogs was raised as a Roman Catholic and started her journey toward Atheism sometime before 2004. Before her de-conversion to Atheism she tried hard to be a "good Christian", and even wrote about it in an earlier online journal. But she came to a point where she couldn't stomach the hypocrisy, couldn't resolve biblical c...