By Agnosticator Painting of an early Christian Agape Feast. Image via Wikipedia C hristians have alot to say about their love for God, and that God loves them abundantly. They claim to have a special love relationship nonbelievers cannot ever have. What does it mean to love God? Before we can answer this, we need to know what love is. Any dictionary will probably define it as being "a deep feeling of affection or attachment to another person (or even an animal) we value". There are different kinds of love, shared between: parent-child, friend-to-friend, adult lovers, and human-animal. Love eminates from human relationships . It is emotional and, in healthy relationships, also rational. This feeling is also extended to God by devoted followers. Beyond this feeling, "love" transforms into something entirely different. Why? First, we must ask how we can love a God who is invisible and transcendent? Christians are not free to only feel love towards God, or be thankful ...

By Carl S I n the news, a cult is generally described as an “extremist religious sect.” With that in mind, along with the dictionary definition, “obsessive devotion to a person or principle,” let’s consider if Christianity can qualify as a cult. There are those who proudly proclaim that their New Testament is superior to the Old and supersedes it. For instance, instead of sacrificing goats, rams, and lambs to appease the Deity, the Ultimate Sacrifice is now demanded for the atonement of all of mankind’s transgressions. The Great Buyout, so to speak. What a relief and end of story…but hold on. Just in case you missed it, the sacrifice He demands is the sacrifice of one’s self. Get this; He tells you to hate your own life, and if you want to be His FRIEND, you have to do anything and everything He tells you to do. He recommends giving away your hard-earned possessions, even to someone who has already stolen from you (double the theft). He tells you to spurn your family, to cut off your ...

By Valerie Tarico Image by soyignatius via Flickr F or years atheists, agnostics, and other freethinkers have been saying that you don’t need a god to be good. Recently, they even tried to say it on the side of an Indiana bus. More and more, they are finding ways to show it. Kiva.org is a matchmaking service. It pairs up desperately poor people who need loans with folks who are willing to take a chance on them. With as little as $25 in your hand, you can go to Kiva and help a farmer in Pakistan who wants a pair of goats, or a single mom in Peru who wants to invest in a new sewing machine for her home embroidery business, or a vendor in Sudan who sells corn flour and wants to increase her inventory. The borrowers request a specific amount through a local microcredit agency, often with a small group of community members who guarantee each others’ loans. When enough lenders choose them, meaning the full amount is available, they get the loan, invest it in their venture, a...

By DocMike When Christians say things like, "Jesus loves you" or "God has a plan for your life" they assume people appreciate it. To me, it's like saying, "The Easter Bunny loves you." Well, actually, it's worse than that. If someone over the age of ten said that, I would just assume it was a joke. But when someone tells me Jesus loves me, it's insulting! Why would I care if some mythical figure (or possibly an actual historic human) loves me? For that matter, why would I care if any random person alive or dead loves me? It's like they assume I'm so lonely, hopeless, and unhappy that I would find comfort in knowing that their invisible friend cares about me. And when they say that their God has a plan for my life, that's even worse! What makes them think I want to live my life by anyone's plan but my own? God's plan for them obviously includes standing on the street corner or knocking on doors telling people about it. Tha...

By Mriana W hen I was little, I had a great uncle who was in WW II , and is not to be confused with the great uncle that was a Free Methodist minister. He was a medic, who decided which fallen soldiers they could medically saved and who could not. It was not an easy job; I am sure, and probably traumatic enough to cause PTSD . Of course, back then, they called it Shell Shock. However, I do not believe for a minute that lovely man was suffering from anything, not even anger with God, as my grandparents had insisted. This dear man returned home, but he could not continue in the medical field. As to the why, I never was privy to the information or if I had been, I do not remember. The reason did have something to do with the military though. Therefore, he became a schoolteacher and even married a schoolteacher. He dearly loved children and enjoyed teaching. What little experience the other adults in my life allowed with him, was a marvelous and, dare I say, divine intimate lesson...

By Valerie Tarico Image via Wikipedia E vangelism in the halls of the Pentagon. Personalized Bible studies for foreign diplomats. Passion of the Christ advertisers next to plates in the Air Force Academy mess hall. Officers Christian Fellowship buses from military bases to revival meetings. A Southern Baptist fundamentalist at the head of the Chaplain Corps . Through Christian Embassy and similar organizations, millions of dollars annually are dedicated to insuring that our military leadership is steeped in born-again Christianity. The investment has paid off. Mikey Weinstein at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation receives letters daily from service men and women who have been coerced or intimidated because they aren’t born again. Ironically, most of those who complain are Christians – just not the right kind. You can’t have this kind of conversion activity going on inside the military without it spilling over to the outside. One missionary boasts that he sent 1.3 ...

"What is Dogma?" Or "Why Genocidal Stupidity never has anything to do with Atheism, and everything to do with Dogma." "Atheism - Religion - Dogma" by • http://www.youtube.com/TheModestAgnostic Original video "Dogma": • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmsis-... Subscribe to Science & Reason: • http://www.youtube.com/FFreeThinker • http://www.youtube.com/BestOfAtheism • http://www.youtube.com/Best0fScience • http://www.youtube.com/SagansCosmos • http://www.youtube.com/AtheistExperience • http://www.youtube.com/TheAtheistExpe... Music: • "Adagio for a Dream" by Mrmilkcarton • "Bleeding Rose" by Nathan Pinard • "Prelude to the World" by MrFuby • "Time Squad Cinematic Opening" by chaosportalfilms

Leaving a Harmful Religion? It's not the end of the world! 
 Come to a supportive weekend with others 
who can understand. "RELEASE AND RECLAIM" Recovery Retreat May 29-31, 2009; Loveland, CO with optional third day to relax! Friday at 7pm until Sunday at 3pm at a beautiful vacation home by a lake in the mountains (Also July 31 - Aug. 2, 2009 in Berkeley, CA ) 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. A group process is nurturing and powerful for healing and personal growth. 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...

By Valerie Tarico Image via Wikipedia T he circles I run in include a fair number of recovering fundies—people who were raised on the notion that morality comes from Jesus. In fact, the former Calvinists among us were taught that anyone who is not "washed in the blood" is utterly depraved. For real. A Seattle Calvinist mega-minister, Mark Driscoll, had this to say to his flock: "If the resurrection didn’t literally happen, there’s no reason for us to be here. If the resurrection didn’t literally happen, there are parties to be had, there are women to be had, there are guns to shoot, there are people to shoot." (Have you heard that Calvinism is all the rage ?) The more frequently someone went to church, the more likely they were to approve of torture . Children are hard-wired to be credulous, to accept what they are told—which means that this shit gets inside people at a gut level—which means it takes a lot of work to get it back out. Recovering fundies spend a fa...

By David (Glebealyth) Image via Wikipedia J ust a quick note to, and some questions for, the Christian visitors who delight in telling us that a loving god created the Earth , and that he created it JUST so far from the sun; with a moon JUST so far from the earth; with Jupiter JUST big enough to deflect meteorites and asteroids , etc, etc. (YAWN { in technicolour}) Currently your god is demonstrating his love for us all by allowing one of his creations to (forgive the swearing) mutate and evolve into something dangerous and evil which threatens all mankind. Best of luck, dear, deluded Christian visitors... Just where, in the nature of your god, who you tell us is JUST, does this latest loving twist come from. Is it because the Flood, AIDS , etc. didn't cut it? Is he now in need of another pandemic (worldwide disaster) to remove evil from the world, as his last omnipotent and omniscient tricks didn't work? Will we end up burning corpses so that you can claim that his threat ...

Image via Wikipedia By WizenedSage C hristian, show me one fact outside your moldy old “holy” book and outside yourself that your god exists ; not a theory, not an argument, not a statement by some “authority,” but a fact that is verifiable. I’m talking about a DEMONSTRATION that your god is real. There are other “holy” books which contradict yours so why should yours be believed and not one of the others, or none? And, all religionists will claim they feel the truth of their god in their “hearts,” the Christian, the Moslem , the Hindu , the Zoroastrian , etc., yet their gods conflict, so why should your feeling be believed and not one of the others, or none? So, once we take away your old books and your feelings, isn’t it obvious that none of you has a single verifiable fact for the existence of your god – and you and all of your religious predecessors have had thousands of years to look. Yet, none of you can point to a single solitary fact, for if you could we wouldn’t be having th...

By ChuckyJesus666 Report on a study done by the Cochrane Colloboration on the efficacy of prayer for healing the sick. From a blog by Tom Rees, original URL: http://bhascience.blogspot....

By U2bian Synic :00 Mind-fuck party crash :30 Not much new under the sun 1:00 Static content vs. dynamic discourse 1:30 The journeys the thing 2:30 Story patterns reveal a bigger picture...? 3:30 The Big Sell=Forgiveness + Purity 4:30 Slave to my own paradigm 5:30 Fear shuts down sincere communication 6:00 Seeing through a fear lens 7:00 Christian fear: The devils in the discourse 8:30 Atheist fear: Lords of war & domination 9:30 Anger a manifestation of fear 10:30 Fear saturates the conversation A response by ChuckyJesus666

By Neal Stone Image by Getty Images via Daylife W hen Christians go out “witnessing” they often will challenge someone who isn't interested with the chair argument. The idea is if you resist faith in god, then they say use the chair argument saying that “you have faith to sit in the chair”. So basically if you can have faith in a chair you have never sat in before, then you should be able to have faith in god. This is by far one of the stupidest arguments ever. I know as I used to use it a long time ago. I would argue that you are going to sit in that chair and not bother to check it to see if it will hold you? Then you have faith! In most churches it is 100% OK for the pastor to come up with some lame “Lord works in mysterious ways/has his reason” generic answer. The problem is this. I can see the chair, I can prove it exists and know that someone built it for the reason of it's design. Of course Christians say this too to support their arguments about faith in god. B...

Dr. Andy Thomson gives his talk titled 'Why We Believe in Gods' at the American Atheist 2009 convention in Atlanta, Georgia . Filmed and edited by Josh Timonen. Dr. Thomson is a psychiatrist in Charlottesville, Virginia. He has a private practice of general psychiatry and forensic psychiatry as well as serving as a staff psychiatrist at the University of Virginia 's Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy and the Counseling and Psychological Services of the University of Virginia Student Health Services. Born in Washington, D.C. he received his B.A. degree from Duke University and his M.D. from University of Virginia School of Medicine. Robert Wright 's book The Moral Animal introduced him to the emerging discipline of evolutionary psychology . It is that new lens of evolutionary psychology that informs his recent work on a comprehensive psychological formulation of suicide terrorism.

By Mriana Image via Wikipedia A few days ago, I went to work and when I got there, I started spouting off about Christians. Then the other day Valerie made a post and off I went again on another rant (she can take it, I’m sure), once again and in part due to her encouragement, I am yet again writing (people want me to write, yet I’m a starving artist). This time it is a rant and the outcome of both incidents. Ah, well… maybe it will do someone some good. Maybe me, if I can get out of my cynical mood. In response to my rant at work, a younger co-worker said, “Oh tell me about it!” I started to back down on my rant, realizing that I was at Taco Bell across from the Assembly of God’s (A of G) Theological Seminary. This is a temporary job until the economy gets better and I can find something more fitting to my degree fields, but I have to keep this job. My young friend called me on backing down and I said, “I don’t wish to offend anyone.” She spouted off some more about me backing d...