By billybobbibb Image via Wikipedia T his is the story of Joe B., a ten-year-old boy. Joe B. lived with his mother, Mrs. Smith, in an upper-middle class neighborhood. He got decent grades in school, and he was remarkably obedient to his mother. He was diligent in all of his chores, especially feeding his cat Skittles and his dog Fluffy. He would often create artwork and presents for his mother, which she enjoyed very much. For Joe B., loving his mother was second nature. One day, Joe's aunt Lucy came to visit. Lucy watched Joe's diligence and love for his mother. Lucy pulled Mrs. Smith aside. "The only reason Joe B. loves you so much is because you spoil him rotten and give him everything he wants," Lucy opined. "Nonsense! Joe B. is a wonderful boy and he loves me no matter what happens. He is the sweetest boy a mother could ever hope for", Mrs. Smith retorted. "Oh, really?" Lucy shot back. "I bet if I took all his toys away, he would ...

By summerbreeze Image by Javã Társis via Flickr I recently returned from deep in the Bible Belt , having attended a nephew 's wedding. ( one atheist amongst 300 fundamentalists ! ) My brother and sister-in-law , and my nieces and nephews are the only members of our family who live in the " Deep South ." Prior to moving there, my brother and sister-in-law ( known from now on as Ellie ) were bona fide hippies. they loved everyone they were super tolerant of everyone they were environmentalists After the hippie era they became " back to the land people", organic farming , etc., but they still kept their hippie ( love everyone ) philosophies. Then the worst thing that can happen to any family, happened. Almost over-night they were indoctrinated into ultra conservative fundamentalism. Almost suddenly : they only loved fellow believers they had zero tolerance for atheists & agnostics they viewed the earth / nature thru fundamentalists glasses ( why give it t...

By agnosticator Image via Wikipedia M ost Christians in America agree that THE TEN COMMANDMENTS are the pinnacle of morality and think they should be displayed or read at every opportunity. If we all obeyed or valued them, our country would be moral and crime free! At least this is what they seem to saying. But do they realize there are two other sets of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS they ignore ? One version differs considerably with their preferred set, and is found in Exodus 34:14-28. Another version is in Deuteronomy 5:6-21 and is similar to the Christians' top ten choice from Exodus 20:2-17. This discrepancy is only the beginning of their problem. How can purely religious commands (1-4) cause us to be morally good? The first four commandments are about a relationship between the Christian and god. It has nothing to do with relationships between humans, i.e. morality. The sabbath (#4), is not kept by Christians. They keep the Lord's Day. To say the command was changed, directly ...

By Valerie Tarico Image by zachstern via Flickr How Beliefs Resist Change T he Jesuits have a saying sometimes attributed to Francis Xavier , “Give me the child until he is seven, and I will give you the man.” The Jesuits were a tad optimistic, but ample research on identity formation shows that religious, cultural, and political identity become established by early adulthood and rarely change thereafter except in response to crisis. In fact, even in the face of crisis, core beliefs about who we are and why we are here, can be remarkably resilient. This is due in part to the fact that individual beliefs do not exist in isolation. Rather, each exists as part of a whole network of other beliefs, memories, and attitudes. The more central or important any given belief, the more it is entangled with the rest of our world view. And the more it is tied into the tangle, the harder it is to change. Because religious views are so central, they are particularly resistant to change. To make thin...

By WizenedSage Image by Esther_G via Flickr T hose of us who read these pages regularly know well how destructive Christianity can be to society and personal mental health . It is important that we fight this superstitious nonsense whenever and wherever we can. Personally, over the past few months, I have taken any mention of the Bible, Jesus, etc. in the letters to the editor of our local weekly newspaper as an invitation to counter with the message that the Bible is not a fit authority on anything. Frankly, I have been amazed on several occasions at what the editors will publish; with just how far they will go. Below is a letter I wrote which came out in the paper just today. I encourage any and all of you to help spread the word of reason in your area. You might be surprised at what you can get published. “This is written in response to last week’s letter by Gearry Ranger which called Carl Scheiman to task for his earlier letter on these pages. Mr. Ranger’s was another of those al...

By Bill J Image by Yersinia via Flickr M ost people view the architecture of life rather simply. This life is a process of purification, or separation for the next world, the real world. This life is like a boot camp, do it right here and you will reap the rewards in the next life, or fail here and find yourself separated from everything good. Most people believe in eternal life, a god or life force. Most people base their entrance into the good life based on what they do now, or how they treat people in this life, fundamentalist Christianity does not. In fundamentalist Christianity there are no second chances in the next life and what you believe now is everything and if you really believe, good works will follow. We can’t really judge a fundamentalist Christian by his or her actions. Have you ever tried? Tell me what you hear. Usually I get answers like, just because I am saved doesn’t mean I’m perfect, or we all have a sin nature to deal with, or I am redeemed but still battle with...

By Neal Stone Image by Sir_Robin12 via Flickr Y ou have two children. A son and a daughter. You place a bowl of candy in front of them and tell them not to touch it. You leave the room. They give in and eat the candy, you come in and not only punish them but their children as well who weren't even involved. Does this make sense to you? It makes sense to Christians! Your children now have a large family and many of them disagree with you and refuse to live by your rules. You get angry and dig a series of large pits and throw many of these children into the pits and bury them alive. Does this make sense to you? It makes sense to Christians! You have an enemy who challenges one of your children's belief in you. To prove yourself and your child's belief you kill all the child's offspring, destroy his property and make him sick with boils and suffer great agony all to prove a bet. On top of that this enemy can talk to you face to face, but your own creation can no...

By Stephen F. Uhl, Ph.D. Image by Stitch via Flickr I am overly fed up with the use of the term, atheism , as a negative epithet. And I am now just about as fed up with how we tolerate eminent humanist writers saying atheism is a negative concept; it may look like a negative word; it is not a negative concept; it is a nonnegative concept. Now my (mostly forgotten) Greek is probably a lot better than average, so hold on regarding the Greek prefix, alpha, being negative. As for the actual concept of a-theism being negative, I will unswervingly go for the two negatives making a positive here. We atheists are non-believers, non-bullshitters! Are you going to try to tell me that the second term is negative! If something is nonscientific, that sounds negative; if something is nonfalse, that is positive; so is nontheism, atheism. So it is time for all of us atheists to 'quit hiding our light under a bushel.' The term, secular humanism , is not generally as positively clear in its u...

By Mr. Deity Related articles by Zemanta Mr. Deity and the meaning and purpose of life game Mr. Deity More Mr. Deity

Image via Wikipedia By James C J esus, being God in the Trinity and therefore all-knowing, all powerful, merciful and loving, can be called to task for questionable actions in both the Old and New Testaments. For instance… When he instructed Adam to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil… he KNEW that would be violated because he knew the future. So why didn’t he simply put a guard of cherubims and flaming sword to protect it, as he did later to keep A&E out of the Garden? Thus saving the world’s population from the guilt of original sin , in which they had no personal guilt! And in deciding to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah , he had to know that in the near future Lot’s wife would succumb to simple curiosity and that Lot himself would be guilty of drunken incestuous sex, TWICE, impregnating both of his (non-virgin) daughters. Shouldn’t he have been a bit more merciful on the wife, and less glorifying in inspiring Peter, in Peter2, to call Lot “just.” And...

By John L Image via Wikipedia J esus tells us in the New Testament that if a person has the faith equivalent to that of a mustard seed , we could move a mountain. Fair enough. Given that Jesus himself provides that there is a quantifiable AND unconditional aspect to faith, here is an interesting question for Christians. Let us say that there are two people praying for a given event. One of them has enough faith, while the second does not have enough. My question is "Which prayer will be honored?" Will god ignore the person who has enough faith and thus violate the unconditional aspect of the mustard see promise? Or will god ignore the requirement for the right amount of faith and violate the quantity aspect of the promise? Given the number of unanswered prayer requests, I find the later highly unlikely. God is clearly not one to grant anything based on my observations. All I've ever seen is "no", especially from those who need him the most. This line of t...

By Valerie Tarico Image by J. Mark Bertrand via Flickr R eal Christians are going to disappear abruptly someday soon. The world is going to descend into a bloodbath while someone known as the antichrist attempts to seize control of the planet. That is what some of your neighbors think—and some of your politicians. Many of them even relish the thought. Is Revelation, the last book in the Bible, a set of prophecies or a set of hallucinations? Neither, says Reverend Rich Lang of Trinity United Methodist in Ballard, Washington. If the Book of Revelation isn’t a blueprint that tells us what is coming in the End Times , what the heck is it? Like any book in the Bible, Revelation was written from the perspective of faith for the purpose of giving faith. It was written in the early days of the Jesus movement to a persecuted minority that was fearing worse persecution. As the Jesus movement started in Jerusalem and Jesus was crucified, and there was this experience of resurrection, at th...

By Fuego I 've been trying to figure out why it is so difficult to get believers to even listen to why we left Christianity. Even though some of us experienced decades of solid Christian belief, we are dismissed as having never believed, or never "truly" believed. No matter what evidence we bring, no matter if we are aggressive or kind, there always seems to be an invisible wall of condescending resistance to any criticism or evidence against Christianity. This may not be a new concept to some of you, but it all fell together for me today. The pattern so clearly fits with another relationship pattern among humans that it startled me. Christianity is a form of abuser/victim codependency . I know the word codependent seems way overused, but hear me out. Codependency is the perpetuation of an abusive relationship by two or more people, each of whom derives enough emotional support from the relationship that it outweighs the strife. In fact the strife itself fuels the emot...