By KSS Image by versageek via Flickr I t is noon, I am working at home. There is a knock on the front door. I open the door to see two young guys, smartly dressed, both in olive green shell jackets and black pants. It is immediately apparent they are selling religion. "Hello," says GingerBoy, probably aged 21, "My name is Waite and I'm a missionary". The other guy, DarkHair, introduces himself also. I don't catch his name but I think he is about 23. Both of them have serious black badges on their identical coats, saying "Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints". Of course, I know exactly what this is. GingerBoy starts talking and extends his right hand to shake mine. I am irritated. I know very well that this is part of a routine they have been taught. Shake the hand, establish initial rapport, deliver the message. I decline his hand. I tell them that this is not a good time, and I begin to close the door. I am worrying about other stuff at home, I ...

By The New Heretics I am sorry, but I have to let this one out. I can not count how many times I have seen Christians waddle up to some poor kid with piercing, tattoos, weird hair, or clothing that does not meet their approval and wave their fat little fingers in their face and quote: 1 Cor 6:19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit , who is in you, whom you have received from God? Seriously though, are these people really this blind? They are implying that this verse states that our physical bodies need to be in pristine physical condition, because anything less is not fitting it being a temple of the Holy Spirit. That it is a sin to not take care of our physical bodies. That it is a sin to not have a body that does not physically look like it is fitting for God to dwell in. If that was the case, then Christians should be the most physically fit people on the planet. If we truly believed this, I do not think that any Christians would be without a gym members...

By DocMike I don't understand how any modern woman can buy into the teachings of the Bible . It's so obvious, the book was written by men; specifically men who believed that women were inferior. And I'm not even talking about the Old Testament here. This one is from Ephesians : 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife , even as Christ is the head of the church : and he is the saviour of the body. 5:24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing . Yeah, I know it goes on to say that men should love their wives even as Christ loved the church, but love is not equality. You can love your pet or your big screen TV, but you don't think of them as equals. Here are a few more from the New Testament : 1 Corinthians 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the wo...

By WizenedSage Image by dawn m. armfield via Flickr O ccasionally I will read that death must be terrifying for those who believe there is no God and no after-life. It makes death so final, so empty! I guess I must be a little odd, because I find it a great relief that there is no everlasting life . Of course, anyone would be relieved on coming to believe there is no hell - but no heaven? Well, frankly, I cannot imagine anything that wouldn’t get boring after hundreds or thousands of years of it, especially groveling before some egocentric god. So what is death? Well, functionally, all the evidence suggests the death of a human is merely the end of awareness for that human; he is no longer conscious. This doesn’t frighten me in the least because it happens to me every night when I go to sleep. And while I’m asleep, I don’t miss my family or friends or any of the other things I love since I’m not aware that they (or I) exist. There is no pain, no longing, and no sadness. But aren’t I s...

By dealdoctor R ecently there was an article in the New York Times placing focus on a debate in Israel between secular and religious Jews concerning the role of religion in their military. It seems that now there are large numbers of conservative religious Jews in the military there who have risen to positions of great authority. The top-ranking rabbi is seen by many as encouraging wars of Israel to be seen as holy wars. A recent tract sent to soldiers quotes and Scriptural verse that amounts to saying any mercy on the enemy as contrary to Scripture. In addition there is also a debate in the religious communities about the role of religion in the military. Which comes first holy land or people? It seems liberals and conservatives just can not agree all around the world. What is going on in Israel is strangely reflective of the same issue of right leaning evangelical Christians in the U.S. Army using their positions of power to pressure troops under their command to participate ...

By Brenden Image via Wikipedia I 'm just about to turn 19 in a fairly religious close-knit family, and I'm an atheist. I don't particularly like the word atheist, because it places a label on the exact people who don't want one. I used to believe in God and all that jazz. Although I never read the Bible, I did attend Sunday School, and I even got confirmed a Lutheran -- by orders of my mom. That's when it all started. She forced me to get confirmed against my will, but I did it anyway -- went through the classes and what not. But, as I got older, I started thinking more logically. I was (and still am) a huge fan of The Science and Discovery channels. I'm fascinated with space, and the thought of other life. If God does exist, why can't He just show me? Why do prayers go unanswered? I started asking myself these questions and more, and realized, "Duh, all that stuff isn't real." Think of religion as the game Telephone. Someone says something, ...

Come to a powerful weekend with others who can understand and support you. “RELEASE AND RECLAIM” Recovery Retreat May 1-3, 2009 ; Oakham, Mass . (near Worcester ) Friday at 7pm until Sunday at 3pm, at a beautiful lakeside home on six acres with hot tub, canoes, and more. 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: Sliding scale: ...

By Valerie Tarico Valerie Tarico -- Image via Wikipedia A re more social ills associated with religion or a lack thereof? If you’re honest, your answer to this question probably maps to your belief status. After all, most of us like to think we’re on the side of the elves, not the orcs-- that we and our kind are making the world better. In the absence of clear evidence, the religious and the nonreligious both believe this. Every once in a while, though, we actually get a bit of data that lands on one side of the question or the other, and last week some interesting research hit the press. One of the oft touted benefits of religion is that it eases our dying. Guess what. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Jama), “Terminally ill cancer patients who drew comfort from religion were far more likely to seek aggressive, life-prolonging care in the week before they died than were less religious patients and far more likely to want doctors...

By Mriana M y alarm went off and I woke up to a local United Methodist Church advertisement, which stated, “If you have values, then people trust you.” Then some mumble jumble about Methodist doctrine concerning values and the man ended with, “Come visit Schweitzer United Methodist Church...” This was not the dance music I like to awake to of a morning with one or all three of my cats wanting my loving attention, nor was it the sound of birds celebrating the spring morning, much less my values, but rather an assault to my morning senses and thought processes. Not to mention, my cats had no clue as to why I suddenly jump to smack the radio with annoyance. First thing in the morning, before one has a chance to become fully conscious, they are told that unless they have Christian values — in particular, Methodist values — they are not trustworthy. This is a very bad message, especially when one first wakes up in the morning, and it begs the questions, “Values? Who’s values? Are you...

By WizenedSage I t occurs to me that rainbows have a great deal in common with Jesus. When we see a rainbow, we see a magnificent, beautifully colored arc across a vast expanse of sky. It has the power to transfix one with its awesome presence, its beauty. It is clean, it is perfect, and the colors are always in perfect order. For all of this, perhaps the most interesting thing about the rainbow is that it is not really there, up in the sky. Rainbows are seen by the eye when there is rain or much water vapor in the sky opposite the sun (the sun must be behind the observer and low on the horizon). The light from the sun is refracted (bent) within, and reflected by, the water droplets. Because the water droplets bend different colors (light frequencies) differently, the colors seen in a rainbow are always in the same order, top to bottom. The refractions and reflections are just physics, of course, but take away the eye, the observer, and there is no rainbow. There is nothing up there in...

By KSS Image by Travis Seitler via Flickr I wonder why the Bible is used a source book for morality ? I was listening to local Christian radio and I found it distasteful to hear them trying to raise funds to put "a Bible into the hands of every child". Why is that a good thing? I am amazed the Bible is used as a book for moral teaching. I have a young child that just started Sunday School. The things being taught are shady, to say the least. But looking at the 'curriculum,' I can see things getting more difficult for me to stomach as the children grow up. If the teaching was all nice, I would be OK. But it's heavily spiced with blood, murder, God's anger, cursed humanity, etc. It's like a dark play, theatre noir. And the fact that it is presented to young minds as "absolute truth" is a big concern to me. It also worries me that the pre-teen children in Sunday School are very well versed and "know so much". They can recite all these Bi...

I went to elementary and high school in the rural South in the late fifties and sixties. There was no Internet, and information sharing was much filtered. One knew that there were such things as atheists and the really strange -- vegetarians, but there was no real sharing of the reasons for their "evil or odd" beliefs. The entire authority structure in the home, school, and government was all of one religious opinion. To seek to resist that power and expose ones self to rejection would have taken a great deal of psychological independence. It would have been like putting a target on at a firing range. For the same reason in Martin Luther 's day to resist the Pope took an incredible courage but to resist religion itself would be unthinkable. Fish might swim in different directions in the water but to jump out on the land???? The very solid scientific theory of evolution in my schools was not taught in in any serious way as if it were true and this was more than a hundred...

By The New Heretics I n psychology we began learning about the effects of childhood guilt, which unchecked later turns into shame. This was spoken in the context of abusive family situations, and led into a long discussion on dysfunction. I came to find that I suffer from these symptoms of guilt, but I was not “abused”: we just called it being Christian. It can rightly be said that as a person believes themselves to be - so the are (or act). If you believe yourself to be fat, no matter how thin you get you see yourself as fat. If you think you are a loser, you tend to behave as one. If you believe yourself to be bad - you tend to behave that way. Self-image tends to dictate all, and is a demon that is very hard to fight. For those who come from physically or mentally abusive situations there is this deep-seeded twisted sense of self that must be broken with a new sense of truth. This truth however becomes very hard to know or fully realize since it is in direct opposition to years of ...

By Valerie Tarico Image by carf via Flickr S ometimes I get letters from former Christians—the evangelical/fundamentalist type—who are also parents. “What do I say to my kids?” they ask. “I raised them to believe that without the blood of Jesus they are evil sinners. What a horrible thing for them to think! I feel guilty.” “All of their friends are members of our old church, so we keep going. I don’t want to tear them apart, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to pretend.” “When I try to talk to them they just cry. They think I’m going to hell.” No matter what age the kids are or what the situation, telling them you no longer believe can be tricky. Here are three things to remember. Help them to understand your changes as a matter of spiritual growth rather than spiritual abandonment. Valerie Tarico is the author of The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth and the founder of www.WisdomCommons.org The bottom line is that your personal evolution is very much...

Image by AndyBodies via Flickr Video Peter Singer vs. Dinesh D'Souza : video . Topic: existence of God. Richard Carrier vs. Mike Licona : video , dvd . Topic: resurrection. Dan Barker vs. Mike Licona : video . Topic: resurrection. Dan Barker vs. Hassanain Rajabali : video 1 2 3 . Topic: existence of God. Dan Barker & Richard Carrier vs. Hassanain Rajabali & Michael Corey : dvd . Topic: existence of God. Louise Antony vs. William Lane Craig : audio 1 2 , video 1 2 . Topic: Christian morality. Elaine Pagels vs. Mike Licona : video . Topic: gnostic gospels . Christopher Hitchens vs. Al Sharpton : video . Topic: existence of God. Christopher Hitchens vs. Marvin Olasky : video 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 . Topic: religion and politics. Christopher Hitchens vs. Peter Hitchens : video 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 . Topic: brother vs. brother. Only part of the debate is on religion. Christopher Hitchens vs. Frank Turek : video , audio . Topic: existence of God...