By Valerie Tarico Image by carf via Flickr T his week, Barack Obama is expected to sign into law the GIVE Act , which aims to increase volunteering. It gives young people a way to pay for education with public service. Some right wingers have been squawking because the plan excludes religious activities like church attendance and outreach from the social service hours that can be applied for credit. Personally I’m relieved. I want my taxes to pay for programs with clear benefits, and I want the wall separating church and state repaired. But before we secular types get all high and mighty we should take a look at why some people think that faith based programs are necessary for the good of society. Several studies (e.g. here and here ) show that religious people give more dollars and volunteer hours to charity than do nonbelievers. Evangelical Christians have been trumpeting these findings: No matter what you may think about our exclusive offer of salvation, our religion is ...

By WizenedSage Image via Wikipedia A ccording to the Bible, we humans are clearly the crowning achievement of God’s creation. We are what it’s all about, the central actors, what it was all made for. But, there’s something terribly wrong with this picture. Consider for a moment, if you were staging a play for a half dozen actors, would you build a stage four miles on a side for the performance? Wouldn’t this be a bit like building a universe several billion light years across and then putting your actors all on one tiny planet in the suburbs of a fairly average galaxy, revolving around a relatively modest star? It is not easy to grasp how big the universe is. In fact, it is probably impossible to truly wrap our minds around it. But let’s try shrinking it down to a model so that we might just begin to get a feel for the immensity of this stage we are on. Let’s imagine that our sun is the size of a typical grain of sand. If you put 1,000 of these grains end to end, they would measure ...

By Marlene Winell Image by OldPixels.com via Flickr I t’s Easter ; I have memories of getting up early year after year as a child to go to Easter Sunrise Service. We gathered somewhere outdoors, simulating the women and disciples who went to Jesus’ tomb in the early morning on the day of his resurrection. We sang certain hymns that were only for Easter – “Christ the Lord is ris’n today, Ha-a-a-a-He -lelujah,” “He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me and talks with me, along life’s narrow way!” I liked it – the brisk early morning, the feeling of life and hope, the joy of the music. Unlike a lot of other church experiences, it was a day of celebration. And what a profound message – death has been conquered! Just put your faith in Christ. marlenewinell.net mwinell [AT] gmail [DOT] com Recovery retreats May 1-3, and June 5-7 And now? It’s been many years and I’m no longer a Christian. I do not believe I will continue after I die. In my work as a psychologist, I wor...

Image via Wikipedia T he Christian Bible culminates in a death and resurrection story. What is this story, and where did it come from? In this post, Valerie Tarico, author of The Dark Side, interviews Dr. Tony Nugent, scholar of world religions and mythology . Dr. Nugent is a symbologist, an expert in ancient symbols. He taught at Seattle University for fifteen years in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies and is a Presbyterian minister. This interview was first published in 2008. Easter is coming. Some people are saying that the crucifixion and resurrection narratives simply retell the cycle of seasons, the death and return of the Sun. Others say that these stories are literal histories. But you say the reality is more complicated than either of these. You argue that the Easter stories - the death and resurrection of Jesus have very specific mythic origins. I view the story of Christ in the Gospels of the New Testament as a powerful and spiritually wise sacred story....

Image by eagleglide via Flickr “Sometimes in order to see the light, you have to risk the dark.” ~ quote by Lois Smith as Iris Hineman from Minority Report . S o often I have been asked so many questions in recent years and the answers are long and detailed. One of them deals with my rants against some Christians, yet accepting others, even giving them some respect, especially those of the Episcopal/ Anglican Church when I have left it. I will agree that I am “not ready to make nice” with those who are extreme in their views, but at the same time, I did pay a price for the knowledge I did gain over the years with the help of those I greatly appreciate. Well here is the short version of what happened between when I left home at 19 and when I left Christianity completely six or seven years ago. Firstly, thanks to a few good people, I learned that not all Christians are alike. I also learned that not all Episcopal/Anglican congregations are alike, as evidence by the break up within ...

Video by gogreen18 This refers ONLY to the Abrahamic God, for those of you who didn't pick up on that with the whole "omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent" thing.

By Neal Stone W e've all heard it before. We prayed for a miracle and no answer. We are often told that if God doesn't provide an answer then it must not be his will. This is nothing but a sorry excuse. I have spent 20 plus years trusting in God and assuming that it wasn't his will when he didn't answer. Constantly being told I didn't have enough faith or I needed to pray/read the Bible more. Or maybe it wasn't his will. Let's take this and apply to everyday life. Hi mom, what's for dinner. I'm sorry my children, it's not my will to make dinner today. Hello 911, I need help! I'm sorry sir, it's not our will to help you at this time. Please keep trying though in case we decide to answer your call. Hello, this is the power company , we haven't received payment for last months bill. That's because it's not my will to pay you. Help me sir, my son has wandered off can you help me find him? I'm sorry mam, it's not ...

By Becky Image by mugley via Flickr D eath is often something that humans fear because of the unknown that follows it. Throughout history, we have answered that unknown as best we could with the resources and technology that we had at the time. Explaining what happens after death has been coupled with superstition and power hungry authorities needing to control others. The belief of an afterlife is something that should not be forced on others, although that is just what humans have done with the aid of religion. I feel that I have spent countless, harmful hours on the idea of an afterlife. I say harmful because of the mental abuse that I as a child (and as a young adult) experienced thinking about heaven and hell. Most who disagree with me would say that heaven is not a damaging thought. Unfortunately it is damaging to believe that you will be in paradise while others are not. That pious mindset has caused much of the world’s wars and crusades against other religions, not to mention...

By Mriana Vegetarian Bodybuilders O ne of my older son’s friend’s mother said vegetarians are weak to me almost a year ago and tried to tell me that not eating meat is a sin. She even quoted chapter and verse, from the Bible, that justified her inane belief (Romans 14:2), as well as other verses that state all foods “are made clean” and alike. I was irate! As soon as my son came home and walked through the door I said, “Keep that woman away from me!” He said, “What did you do now?” I replied, “I didn't do anything!” Then I explained to my fellow vegetarian son what happened between us. He asked to see the verse and saw the following verse after it, which she did not read, “Let not him who eats despise him who does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats; for God has received him.” That still did not help my anger with that woman, for the imposing of her religious beliefs was not the whole of it. I did not once judge her for being a carnivore and she had...

By Valerie Tarico Image by nasunto via Flickr W hen Cory Doctorow at Boingboing recently posted a video of deadpanned quotes from fundamentalists, one moderate person of faith lamented that it seemed like open season on Christians. Is it? Across the web, in bookstores, and recently the theater, criticism of religion broadly and Christianity specifically seem to be ubiquitous. It’s not just the Four Horsemen , or Bill Maher—anti-religious articles appear regularly on political and social blogs. Material that used to be published only at Talk2Action or ExChristian.net now finds a wider audience. Michelle Goldberg offers one explanation: In some ways, there's a symbiotic relationship between evangelicals and secularists. The religious right emerged in response to a widespread sense of cultural grievance stemming from the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. Today's newly organised atheists and agnostics were mobilised by the theocratic bombast of Bush-era Republicans. More ...