A n original song by " sbGault ," of the atheist/objectivist band Galt Aureus Free mp3: http://www.galtmusic.com/mp3/download... There was no autopsy in 1947, just a man in his flat in Camden ; What of the Aztec crash, and the Hills' missing past? Did the Phoenix Lights fall from the sky? Is the truth hidden safe? I'd settle for knowing there is a truth. I want to believe, though I know there's nothing to be seen. It's a dark night and an empty sky, and a world full of restless minds. You hear of the coverups in a silent undercurrent, men who disappear for good; But we've been warring for about ten thousand years, and you'd be wise if you assumed: If those grey men land, they'll possess sense enough to flee. The truth is out there: we're stark, dead alone; The truth is out there, if we're stark, dead alone; The truth is out there, and we're stark, dead... You might want to check out the Arrogant Atheist clothing line - created by Susan...

Submitted by The New Heretics S o, Jesus and I finally broke up. I really thought that things were going to be different this time. He said that he changed… loosened up a little, stopped all his bad habits, said he was nothing like his dad. I broke it off, and now I am going through all that crazy movie-like post-break-up nonsense. I went through that moment of feeling empowered, like I can break out on my own and be single, or maybe even start seeing other people again. You know, get back into that religion dating pool. I am pretty sure that Vishnu was eyeing me up the other day pretty hard in the grocery store, and Buddha did slip me his number last month. He’d actually be kind of cute if he lost a bit of weight. Losing your religion can be quite a depressing event. I mean, I got “saved” at the age of 5. Then all the sudden out of nowhere I got all crazy and started listening to sad emo music, watching bad romantic comedies alone in the dark while eating a tubs of Ben and Jerry ’...

The slide show above features a set of photographs from a 2009 gallery show in ArtWorks , a gallery in Harrisonburg VA. The show ran for two weeks and opened on February 16th. The title of the Show was Divine Comedy , because it used humor to get people to think about religious authority and fundamentalism . Artist Jonan Drew Davis writes, I have a deep interest in internet culture, especially in memes and their evolution , and it can be seen in several works . My aim in doing this show was to make people think and to make people laugh. I hope I've succeeded. Please Enjoy. A special "hats off" to Valerie Tarico, author of The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth for this unique find.

Leaving Your Religion? It's not the end of the world! Join us for a powerful weekend with others who can understand and support you. “ RELEASE AND RECLAIM” Recovery Retreat March 20-22, 2009; Amherst, Mass . (Friday at 7pm until Sunday at 3pm) at a beautiful Bed and Breakfast on an organic farm This program is for you if you want to let go of toxic, authoritarian beliefs and reclaim your ability to trust your own feelings and think for yourself. Leaving your faith can be a very difficult process, but you don’t have to go it alone. At a Release and Reclaim Recovery Retreat participants can: Share personal stories Examine key issues Learn coping strategies Meet others and build a support system Enjoy meals, relaxation, and fun These retreats are led by Marlene Winell, Ph.D. , psychologist and author of Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion . Dr. Winell has a private practice in Berkeley, CA and also consults by telephone. COST: ...

Image by ToFuGuns via Flickr By WizenedSage This is just way too easy... 1) The stories (Gospels) recounting the ‘facts’ of the Resurrection were not written by Jesus himself; they were not first-person accounts. 2) The writers of the stories were not eye witnesses, and never claimed to be. The stories are, at best, second hand, and may well be third- fourth- fifth-, etc. hand. 3) The stories were written at least 35 years after the fact. Consider how a story can change over such a span of time. Scientists have proven that we all rewrite our memories, to some extent, every time we recall them. And if the story was retold from person to person on the way to the writers, so much the worse; remember the telephone game we all played as school kids? 4) The stories conflict one another on many different issues; for just one example, according to the Bible, who went to Christ’s tomb on the day of the Resurrection? Each Gospel provides a different list of people. 5) The stories violate a w...

Episode one – The Politics Of Belief In the series opener, historian Tristram Hunt uncovers how a debate about religion in 16th-century Germany sparked a political revolution. From the bloody battlefields of medieval Germany, to the civil wars of the 1640s in Britain, Protestantism unleashed a series of revolutions and wars that rippled across Europe. And the reverberations of the Reformation continue to this day. The programme explores how the role of Protestantism has influenced the current conflict in the Middle East and the foreign policy of George W Bush . Protestantism inspired a new way of thinking; a challenge to authority that has crossed centuries and continents. Martin Luther 's challenge to the Pope in the 16th century inspired conservatives and radicals alike, and its history is one of conflict, challenge and rebellion – from the early religious radicals in Germany, to the founding of the British Labour Party and the Civil Rights movement in Fifties America. The P...

Image via Wikipedia By Lance_ec A lot of people don't like the idea of evolution because they say it reduces us to nothing more than a bunch of hairless primates. But just because they don't like this conclusion, doesn't mean it isn't true. They think that this idea will make people behave in crazy, wild ways, and that people will lose all sense of morality. Those who don't like the idea of evolution try to find any way they can to refute it. But the evidence still stands. Here is the fact we must all realize: We really are all nothing more than a bunch of hairless primates turned loose on this planet. And you yourself are nothing more than a single hairless primate on a planet full of them. Deal with it! Get over yourself! When I was forced to accept this conclusion based on the overwhelming evidence, I had to find some way to come to terms with it, rather than make something else up just to make myself feel better. I tried imagining that God had somehow giv...

Image via Wikipedia By Rational Okie Is Christianity a religion with real power or a fraud ? If you listen to fundamentalists they clearly believe that they have “real power” at their fingertips. It’s not hard to understand why they believe this. After his resurrection Jesus stated to his disciples that those who follow him shall perform miracles . Mark 16:15-20 “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working...

By Valerie Tarico M y brother, David, is gay. You can't tell by how he walks or talks or dresses. You wouldn't know who he loves and why unless you know him. The only clue, maybe, is that he happens to be nicer than the rest of my mother's offspring, including me. Several years ago, I said to David: All you have to do to mess with people's stereotypes is be out and be yourself. Whatever the ugly expectation might be: self absorbed, hedonistic, promiscuous, debauched, unable to relate to kids, whatever. . . . David isn't it. One time my mother was driving my tween-age nephews and their friends home from the Christian school they attended. Like boys often do, they were sneering about fags as a way to deal with their own budding sexuality. After dropping the other kids off, my mom said to my nephews, "You do know your Uncle David is gay, don't you?" "Yeah." "But you were just saying you'd never hug a gay or take a gift from them or . . ...

Singing , originally uploaded by comingstobrazil . Sent in by Elizabeth The Following is a snippet of dialogue between adult survivors of a missionary boarding school in Brazil: MY FRIEND'S LETTER IN ANSWER TO A PREVIOUS DISCUSSION: "Ok, now I"m finally going to settle down and pick up our earlier interaction. My time at *** was very mixed. You called me self-contained, and that is probably true, in the sense that I don't tend to show what is going on inside of me to the outside world. I think that the boarding school had a lot to do with that. Since then, I have never really confided in many people, and especially not my own family. It is amazing the things my family does not know about me. In my case, I lived a double life until I was about 38, would you believe it? And I had returned to being a missionary during that entire time. I wanted to be a Christian, but I never felt that I measured up. I remember sitting in church on a Sunday night, you know, when they w...

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By DocMike When I was a child, I was taught that the bible-god was loving and caring. All the stories I heard in church and in Sunday School seemed to prove this. But when I got a little older and started reading the Bible myself, I found him to be a very different "person." The god described in the Old Testament is angry, vindictive, jealous, and has a lot of other negative human emotions that I would never have attributed to the " God " of my childhood. He reminded me of other gods I had learned about from Greek and Egyptian mythology . Even if he were real, why would anyone want to worship such a sadistic bastard? To me, it was obvious that it was all a farce , that the bible-god was created by men to control other men. I mean, why would the creator of the universe be so "human?" Why would he make mistakes and regret things and change his mind and torture and kill those who wouldn't worship him? And then I thought, even if he were real, why woul...

Image by confusedvision via Flickr By Josh Sullivan "It's not a religion. It's a relationship.” Has anyone else heard Christians use this argument? It's hard to say when this phrase gained popularity. According to Gregory Kouki of the radio show, Stand to Reason , "this slogan has been a rallying cry of 1970s and 80s evangelicalism.” Whatever the case, the phrase is popular amongst Christians. You can read blog posts on it, watch Christians on YouTube recycling it, you can even buy bumpers stickers proclaiming it. But what bothers me about this phrase is how many things are just wrong with it. This phrase sets up a classical logical fallacy , called a false dichotomy (more specifically, it's black-and-white thinking , a sub-class of the false dichotomy). The phrase implies that there are two choices. It's either religion, or a relationship. In reality, there are more than just two choices. A possible third choice is closer to the truth: it's religion...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife By Sharon I was an evangelical Christian for 40 years, and I loved the Bible. I studied it intensely and devoutly. I loved the Bible with all of my heart. A necessary part of my de-conversion has been to understand those ancient stories in light of current scientific and medical knowledge. These stories were written by men with superstitious minds. Here is one example: The story is told of a man possessed with demons whom Jesus met while traveling. This man lived "amongst the tombs" and was naked and cut himself. When asked directly the man said there were many demons "legions." And so the story goes that Jesus cast these demons out, curing the man, and that these demons went into a herd of swine (pigs) who then "ran violently down a steep place into the sea." Deconstruction of this story involves taking the knowledge we have now and going back in time to explain those events. So here is how the story would read u...

Image by santacrewsgirl via Flickr By KSS Here I am again, after a frustrating Sunday at church, visiting this site to get some strength. I can't believe I didn't see what a lot of fantasy we believe at church. We sit there thinking we are the only Christians, we are the only saved, all other churches are in error. We talk about "the truth" as something we own: the truth about life, the truth about God. I don't want to invoke God's ire. But I do want to understand the truth. We can't see how pathetic we are: a group of Protestants , mostly white, fat and affluent, with our property and our horrible exclusive theology, and our absurdly closed world-view. We sing songs during Sunday School, including songs of praise to the Bible, "The Word." Then, during the main service we hear a message of "We should," and, "We ought" - because, despite being saved, we're never quite good enough, are we? Got to remain on the worrying edg...

Image by carf via Flickr By Seage VT I just needed to tell someone. I'm not Christian. My family is. My ex-fiance was. My best friend was. I am not. But I understand that there are people who need to think that they don't have control over their lives. People who need to bury their heads in the sand, who can't just take what happens as exactly what it is. People who can't accept that death, is death. You just....die. Jesus was a con-artist and "god" doesn't exist. Religion has weakened us. It's made the human race become a shallow, weak child, hiding our faces from one another. I would say what everyone else would day "Perhaps it is in human nature to hide our heads in the sand, to deny what is," but if that is true, then what of us few who do see? Are we an alienated group of individuals, lost in our own minds? Does it make us crazy for not being like them? Then lock me up, throw the key down into a well of "holy" water, because ...

Psalm 137:9 “Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.” Deuteronomy 21:18-21 “If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.” 2 Kings 2:23-24 23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. “Go on up, you baldhead!” they said. “Go on up, you baldhead!” 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse...

Hello Everyone, This is a summary outline I've come up with for recovering from authoritarian religions like fundamentalist Christianity. In my years of counseling experience, I've found that for a lot of people (not everyone), the leaving process takes time and has some important steps. This outline is not meant to be a formula or cover the issues in depth, but I hope it is useful for you to think about. Kind regards, Marlene Winell 1. Get Real. Be honest with yourself about whether your religion is working for you. Let go of trying to force it to make sense. Have a look at life and the world AS IT IS, and stop trying to live in a parallel universe. This world might not be perfect but facing reality will help you get your life on track. If you feel guilty, realize that the religion teaches you to feel responsible when it isn’t working and tells you to go back and try harder, just like an abusive relationship. 2. Get a Grip. Don’t panic. The fear you feel is part of the indoc...

Image via Wikipedia By Valerie Tarico What did Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin have in common besides their February 12, 1809 birthday? Both men transcended the self-centered thinking so characteristic of our kind, allowing them to see the unity of life in a new way. By self-centered, I don't mean selfish. I mean our incredible tendency to perceive ourselves as the measure of all that is: My tribe, my religion, my nation-state, my gender, my "race", my species--all else is here to serve us. Despite its emphasis on service, orthodox Christianity, with its sense of manifest destiny exacerbates this bias. (Both Darwin and Lincoln moved beyond Christianity in their quest to serve truth and love.) But religion isn't all to blame. This bias is totally built in. During my graduate student days, I worked with an industrial organizational psychologist seeking to improve personnel interviews. One problem with interviews is what psychologists call a "similar to me...

By Doc Mike When confronted with ridiculous Bible rules, Christians often respond the same way, "That was the Old Testament . Those laws are no longer valid." Well, here's a little story from the New Testament that disproves their claim. In Matthew, chapter 15, Jesus is criticized by the Pharisees for not washing his hands before eating. He defends himself by attacking them for not killing disobedient children according to the rule: "He that curseth his father or mother, shall be surely put to death." ( Exodus 21:17, Leviticus 20:9, Deuteronomy 21:18-21) So, is that rule still valid or not? How do Christians reconcile their unwillingness to kill their own children for cursing them, with their insistence that the Bible is the inerrant word of God? Deuteronomy explains it like this: 21:18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not he...