By Pat Condell

By Tim Whiston In common usage, the word cult refers to a group of social outcasts who practice some obscure religion. Often there is a pointedly negative connotation to the beliefs and practices of such a group. However, a more accurate application of the term would focus not on the bizarre nature of a group’s belief, but rather on the behavioral, cognitive, and organizational impact the belief system has on the participants. Whether a religion is built around the alleged spirits of giant mushrooms, or a carpenter from the Middle East , it can reasonably be called a cult when certain characteristics become evident among those who follow the faith. Here is a simplified list of “symptoms” that can be used to identify members of any cult: A belief in the core cult dogma that is independent of facts, logic, or even one’s own intuition. In other words an absolute and blind acceptance of any information provided by cult leaders and literature as undeniable fact. tendency to isolate from t...

By Courtney Here's my thoughts on atheism and intolerance, posted in my brand new blog, an amalgamation about anything and everything, at http://readaboutcourtney.blogspot.com . I'm a longtime fan of ex-christian and thought I'd finally post some of my thoughts on the site. -- Courtney -- Here's the thing: even the title will alert people that I'm going to be offensive, whether I am or not. In fact, just being an atheist is offensive to so many people in this country. Anytime an atheist asserts her views she has a unique disadvantage. Before she even begins explaining her position everyone is already on the defensive. It is seen as much more acceptable for a religious person to assert her beliefs with complete authority than for an atheist to do so. Atheists are one of the last groups it's still ok to slander. If an atheist says, "I believe you're wrong, and here's why," she will almost certainly be met with accusations that she's condesc...

by Valerie Tarico Within a few days of each other, on opposite sides of the world, on opposite ends of the wealth and privilege spectrums, the faithful filled two stadiums. In one, in Kismayo, Somalia, 1000 Muslim believers watched the stoning of a 13 year old girl—Aisha was her name--condemned for adultery because she dared to complain about being gang raped. In the other, in San Diego, California , thousands of Evangelicals sang and swayed and pledged their bodies and souls to the purpose of stripping gay men and women of equality under the law and specifically the right to marry. Like Aisha , those men and women have names. One of them is named Kent. Another David. Another Will. I know because I love them , as Aisha’s broken parents loved their daughter. The horror of imagining a thirteen-year-old raped and stoned is so enormous that it is hard emotionally to put the two events in the same bucket. And yet we must, if we are to understand what is happening to our country an...

A video series by TruthSurge An eleven-part series where TruthSurge shares his knowledge about the Jesus Myth theory as espoused by the likes of Earl Doherty .

By Azsuperman01 A series of videos looking at the most common arguments for the existence of God.

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.