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...

By Lance I'm in a bit of a pissy mood right now, so I thought I'd have a little rant. Many Christians that visit this site complain how poorly Christians have been treated by atheists; now and throughout history. Most of the responses from rational people have noted that if Christians were indeed persecuted, it was for political reasons and not solely because the persecutor did or did not believe in a god. I agree. The Christians tend to bring up Hitler and Stalin a lot, but we can find plenty of evidence that Hitler thought he was doing god's work, and the Catholic Church had a big hand the Nazi regime . Similar evidence shows that Stalin killed all sorts of people for political and power reasons; not because he did or did not believe in a god. Note to Christians: Stop your whining. We could argue forever about who was persecuted and why, but that is not my topic for today. My point has to do with Jesus' teachings on this kind of persecution. I don't believe t...

By ReligionIsACrutch You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.

By Dave, the WM "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion ..." from the Treaty of Tripoli , signed by John Adams, June 10, 1797. The death knell to my Christian faith was sounded in the face of Christian Theonomy /Dominionist /Reconstructionist theology. Christian Reconstructionism seeks to establish the theocratic rule of God over America through political manipulation. Unlike the Baptists who led me to Christ and taught me that Christianity and American politics were forever separated, "The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine." George Washington Reconstructionists and Dominionists taught me that it is the ordained duty of all Christians to aggressively inject religion into every aspect of the political process and into every political, legislative, and judicial decision. I know Reconstructionist Christians who currently hold political office in the Ohio State legisla...

By Neal Stone Dear Christian Leaders, For 20 plus years I lived a miserable life. A life of dead end jobs that went nowhere, living with my parents well into my 30s, no seeking school or paid-for training programs unless they were Christ-based, because seeking a career was selfish and not a godly desire. Not seeking a mate or dating because I was to focus only on the Lord and he would provide if it was his will. My life was a mess and quite lonely. But that was OK with you, because I was serving the Lord and that was all that mattered. You didn't care about my life being a dud just as long as I was serving Jesus. For nearly a quarter of a century my life meant nothing and went nowhere because of the advice and guidance I got from you. I tried to find this will of God and was often left with no answers and no direction, empty. I really thought what you taught me was right and the truth and that you really knew what was right for me. So I continued to follow your advice and gu...

Here's a third infomercial for the Texas Freethought Convention . That's October 26, 2008 at Saengerrunde Halle , next to Scholz's Garden on San Jacinto St. in downtown Austin , Texas. Many thanks to Paul Martin, the Aspiring Atheist for the use of his song " Planet of the God s" in this video. Please check out: http://www.myspace.com/aspiringatheist