By Bill J Some Christians believe the church should resort to the old ways of the New Testament. They believe the church needs apostles, prophets, teachers, missionaries, pastors all working together in some spiritually accountable system. They fail to see outside of their own belief system. Belief is truth and if they just believed or established the true church everything would fall into place. They put their belief before evidence. Does this remind you of other religious systems? They are desperately trying to establish what they believe is the right way or method to usher in the Kingdom of God. An old friend of mine from California, who wanted me to take over his church when I was a practicing Christian, is under this type of delusion. His life's work is tied to his vision of establishing an apostolic ministry so the true Kingdom of God can be ushered into the church. I'm sure he believes that once this is done all the signs and wonders will really accompany the church and...

By Bill J I've had some interesting experiences during my Christian life. I was directly involved with a couple of exorcisms on people in our church. One involved a lady in her 50s who came to me for marital counseling. About the second session I'd asked her to recall some of her childhood. She told me a horrific act of child abuse perpetrated by her father. At some point she changed the subject, so I asked her to repeat something she'd said earlier. She tried to avoid my question, but I asked her again. Then she told me she didn't know what I was talking about. I wasn't sure what was happening, but I later discovered she was suffering from a dissociative disorder. She had slipped into a dissociative state and was talking to me as if she was a child again. It was fascinating, because in another session I asked her to write some of her story, and her writing was like that of a child's. I also noticed that when she was in her childlike state she took off her thick...

by Tyrone Williams If there’s one thing worse than an evangelical Christian, it’s an evangelical UNBELIEVER. Someone who insists on preaching the "good news of UN-belief." Sheesh. Will it never end? There must either be something in the water, or something in our genes, but for some reason every human being, at one time or another, believes it is their (forgive me) “god-given” right to tell someone else how to live/what to do. Why do we often believe that WE have the “right answer” for everyone else? Why do we find it so damned difficult to just shut the hell up and leave other people alone? Why do we derive so much carnal satisfaction from assuming the role of Authority Figure in everyone else’s lives? From governments to parents to teachers to best selling authors to comedians to friends to spouses to neighbors to co-workers, everybody seems to get off on being “right” and correcting someone else’s alleged deficiencies. And if there weren’t enough know-it-alls roamin...

Sent in by Bob K How many young Earth creationists believe that methods used to date fossils and rock strata that rely on the decay of radioactive isotopes do not give reliable results. In my limited understanding creationist thought, this would seem to pose some very serious problems for modern technology. If the physics on which the use of radio-isotopes to date fossils and geological strata is "wrong," to use common parlance, then how do the myriads of devices that rely on this erroneous theory work? The challenge to Young Earth Creationists: if radio-isotope dating is based on erroneous physics, THEN how are MRI's, smoke detectors, lasers, quantum computing, and the like to be explained? For any of my readers who are familiar with the relevant physics, what would have to be different about the world for the results from radio-isotope dating to be not only wrong but more or less consistent with a 10,000(+/-) year old earth? Think of it as speculative fiction. As for th...

Posted by John Loftus . Click on the play button above to see Part 1, which will introduce you to the participants in this debate. Then you can see the debate on evil we had on October 7th 2006, at the Old Dominion University, in Norfolk, VA, by clicking here , in four additional parts (just click on the next part to keep watching). When I give my opening statement just ignore the slide show for the first 3 1/2 minutes, because it was out of sync. Make sure you turn up the volume, and please, we want to know what you think. You can read my initial comments on the debate here , and David Wood’s comments on the debate here . To see our ongoing debate after that night you can see it here , and in the archives here . To monitor comments posted to this topic, use .

By Sean Prophet of "Black Sun" The diagram represents the "Knowledge Paradigm" of science. Click here to see the full size image. It says simply and visually: We have a very limited scope of knowledge. Everything we know about our universe, we have learned through the scientific method. That which is outside our circle of knowledge, we seek to discover. We do not accept any new information about our universe into this circle of knowledge without sufficient evidence, and we only accept that evidence when instrumentation or multiple observers thoroughly corroborate it. In this manner, we seek to carefully and prudently expand the boundaries of our circle of understanding further into the great unknown. We accept that no matter how far we expand that boundary, there will always be much more to learn. Therefore we accept and make peace with the unknown, for it will always be with us. As reasonable and sufficient as the Knowledge Paradigm sounds, there are those ...

By DagoodS As I drive to work I see dozens of cars with Christian bumper stickers and fish symbols, and at times it strikes me how amazing that is. A man lived 2000 years ago and died. Some other people wrote stories about that man and a religion grew. And here we are, 2000 years later, and for $6.99 I can buy a gold plastic fish to honor this man. Who is dead. I think of all those people who spent this morning talking and reading and listening and spending time attempting to communicate to a man who is dead. Buried. Decomposed and his atoms are now integrated into the rest of the world. I pass by church after church that spent millions of dollars to build and operate all because of one man who doesn’t hear a word they say. Because he is dead. I recall the governments that were raised and wars fought, and ideologies imposed. The families that are torn apart, friends divided, people that refuse to speak to each other for decades. Because of their belief in a man who died 2000 ...

By Dano I have boiled my theology down to one sentence: NO ONE KNOWS WHAT GOD IS. So,my answer to most questions about God is "I DON'T KNOW AND NEITHER DOES ANYONE ELSE." I don't exclude the possibility of a supreme intelligent force behind the creation of the universe, but I see no evidence that it cares one way or another what I do or think, or that it ever interferes with the course of my life. UNLESS, it made me in such a way that I would care, which of course it did. I know a lot more about what I don't believe though. I don't believe in the Christian God, because I could never believe in a God that got his shorts all in a knot about what I believed. If he didn't like the way I believe, he, being omniscient, could have made me to believe differently when he made me. And, being omnipotent, he could reorganize the neurons in my brain any time he wanted to. This pretty much makes the Bible nothing but a book about mythology for me, which I find to be ext...

By Lorena Jannah’s post reminded me of something I knew well when I was a Christian: Pastors know pretty much everything dark that goes on with the flock. They are usually aware of women who are regularly beaten by their husbands, children who are ,or have been, sexually abused by a caregiver, and extra-marital affairs church members are involved in. The good shepherds are also quite aware of which members are addicted to drugs and alcohol, who struggles with gambling and pornography, and even of people with obscure business endeavors. The higher a person is in church leadership, the more he or she knows about how un-saintly the churchgoers are. Yet they dare to stand in front of the congregation, twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday, to tell the naïve followers of 1 Peter 2:9, “ But you are a chosen generation , a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare his virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” I can u...

Written by Paotie I grew up in a religious family. As a child, my mother dragged me to faith healers who showed up once a month in Albuquerque and tried to “cure” my deafness. The faith healers themselves, while varied in the way they delivered their healing sessions, almost always shared the same routine. They would prop me up on stage in front of the church, and begin yelling something to the effect that I had somehow been wronged. By whom exactly was never answered, though I once asked a pastor, “If God made me deaf, why do we need faith healers to fix what God has done? That doesn’t make sense.” (My pastor immediately started praying, though I never got an answer). When I moved to Colorado Springs some time ago, the very first thing I noticed were the number of multi-colored neon signs with the word JESUS prominently displayed on the side of buildings throughout the city. Almost all were multi-colored, although a few were in one or two colors only. As an atheist, I was curious abou...

By Bob P While it isn't logically possible to prove the nonexistence of anything, it is possible to show how unlikely it might be. The title of this, while illogical and inaccurate, is based on getting your attention by using an old religious concept called misrepresentation (lying). Lying is unethical, but if it works for them (religionists), it should work here. I apologize for lying, which is something religion refuses to do. I doubt I'll be able to show anything the great philosophers and thinkers haven't already shown, but perhaps the brevity of this will make it more readily palatable in a very busy age of too many unwanted emails. I'll rely heavily on Occam's Razor rather than lengthy prose. What is Occam's Razor? CLICK HERE. 1: There is no god: There never has been. I have never seen, heard or felt one (or many). That alone should be sufficient evidence for a reasonable conclusion. If anything exists, there is evidence to support it, period! 2: If...

by J.C. Samuelson I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God. - George Bush, August 27th, 1987 In a world in which faith and supernaturalism have always ruled, being an atheist (in the broadest possible sense and including naturalists of many stripes) has never been easy. Classically, the individual claiming that title (or one like it) risked alienating his/her entire social circle and, depending on prominence, society at large. In other words, choosing atheism seemed to be - and perhaps still is in some places - a choice to be alone. Recently, however, atheism has a new public face and a new campaign seems to be underway with the objective of upsetting the status quo. Authors such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Victor Stenger, Daniel Dennett, and more have breathed new life into arguments against religious faith. Other long-standing skeptics, such as James Randi and Michae...

Posted by aspirin99 The other day, I was trying to recall what it was that started me down the path of free thinking (which ultimately resulted in my leaving Christianity). One thing that did it was my realization that hell could not be real. This video summarizes how I came to this conclusion. It compares the doctrines of free will and eternal punishment, and concludes that they cannot coexist. To monitor comments posted to this topic, use .

Posted by Valerie Tarico Can we find a way to move beyond tribalism and superstition in our quest for meaning? Can we build spiritual communities that are morally and intellectually accountable, rooted in what we know about ourselves and the world around us? Even moderate people of faith seem to defend their religious texts and traditions as packages. And interfaith work that seeks to transcend tribal boundaries says blythely that "it's all good." Nick, a commenter at Radio Open Source suggests a first step toward something truly different. It's definitely what I want! Here's his article: How to make Chris Hitchens and his 'neo-atheist cabal' lose interest in their current anti-religion activism. Imagine a new global, ecumenical convocation of the three Abrahamic faiths. All of them, from Branch Davidians to Greek Orthodoxy, from Hassidim to Islamists. And they end their massive convention by issuing the following statement: We are appalled by the violence...

Michael Shermer travels to Laurentian University in Sudbury, Canada , to strap on the " God Helmet " in neuroscientist Michael Persinger 's lab that duplicates out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, alien abductions, and other paranormal phenomena. To monitor comments posted to this topic, use .

By DagoodS The idea that I would ever be convinced Christianity was false was…well…preposterous. My parents taught it and lived it as a reality. So, too, my friends, their families, and all the people I associated with. There was never a question of whether the God of Christianity existed. Laughable. I could understand, and even sympathize with theists who didn’t quite get it. They were close, but off the mark by a bit. Maybe they had the Abrahamic God, but took a slightly wrong turn into Judaism. Or Catholicism. We even felt that many were so close it was possible they were saved! I could understand the heathens, too. Hey, I was just as human as the next person. At times it would have been fun to suppress the knowledge of God and engage in some hedonistic pleasure. But I knew the eventual guilt I would feel (and they must be as well) and that their conscience was being seared. It did seem a little odd that they would be so gung-ho on avoiding God. I liked God. I appreciat...