By Valerie Tarico Image by [Filhi][bahthi] photography ( camera damaged ) via Flickr A couple of years back, I dragged my agnostic husband, Brian, to a Calvinist megachurch. Calvinist means God preselected a few humans for salvation and the rest for eternal torture. We sat there for an hour, goats among the sheep. Brian’s reaction? “That was the best indie rock I’ve heard in a long time!” Christians have a love-hate relationship with popular music. I came of age during a hate phase. Rock was diabolical. In my generation, Alice Cooper , missionary kid , played out his parents’ fears about rock music , chopping up baby dolls and screeching about necrophilia while dressed as a 17th Century witch . Having dabbled on the enemy side of a fantastical spiritual war that supposedly encompasses us all, he now attends an evangelical mega in Scottsdale, Arizona. Music can be a path out of insularity. In his youth, Alice had to choose between edgy rock and Jesus. By contrast, my nephew (raised by...

by Neal Stone W e all recall the old Peanuts comic strip and cartoons. There is one scene that plays out many times. That is the scene when Lucy holds the football and Charlie Brown and then as Charlie Brown runs to kick she pulls it away at the last minute. This scenario happens over and over and Charlie brown falls for it every time. Sound familiar? How many times I recalled God's promises that if I followed him and served him he would take care of my life only to yank the football away each time. I remember going to the front of the church for prayer about not being employed and no direction in life and the church leader looked at me and said “You need to speak in tongues ! (?)” And then yanked the football away. I remember a man praying for his wife who died of cancer. He was told God was working in mighty ways and would heal her. She died and then was told “It was God's will” And the football gets pulled away! I have had people look me in the eye and tell me God w...

by randomatheist Image by costales via Flickr T his one man named Jesus, born of a virgin, is actually God in the flesh. He came on Earth to serve The Father's will by dying on the cross for the world's "sin." Jesus: The ULTIMATE Sacrifice. The Gospel follows as written: The individual believes in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. The individual's "sin" is paid in full by the blood of the Lamb since 2,000 years in the past. For the individual to enter the Kingdom of Heaven , the believer must repent from his "sin", accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior, and receive forgiveness for his wickedness. Now this may be some pretty simple stuff, but time to delve deeper into the actual details utilizing logic and common sense. There is something actually wrong with this picture. What's this? You must accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior in order to escape from your trip to hell. Biblically, your "sin" is paid i...

Skeptic Michael Shermer pleads his case before Jesus and Mr. Deity .

by MtlRedAtheist The Sunday School Bible story Joshua and the Battle of Jericho describes the God ordained extermination of the people of Jericho, otherwise known as Genocide. Teaching this for children to have faith in God is an excellent example of how we can allow ourselves to be blinded by ideology to the point where we can gloss over the fact that the story depicts genocide in a positive light and distract ourselves with the magic of the walls coming down. I've noticed that it tends to be in the evangelical Christian culture to shelter children from violence in entertainment, but who will shelter them from the violence in Bible stories ?

by GumbyTheCat Image by richardhod via Flickr H ave you ever rid yourself of a car that turned out to be a total lemon? Have you ever experienced the odd mixture of feelings that roil within you as you watch the clunker being towed away for the final time? You know, the simultaneous feelings of relief and happiness that you are finally rid of that worthless wreck, coupled with feelings of sadness and anger because you know how miserable that car made you and how badly you were ripped off over the years? Well, I know exactly how you feel. A few weeks ago, I went through that very experience. Some years ago, I didn't even own a car. I went through life having a very difficult time getting through my journeys. When you don't have a car, you can be made to feel that reaching your destination is such a formidable task that at times you just give up all hope of reaching it. You end up looking down at the sidewalk, rather than gazing far down the road. Most of my relatives and friend...

by Mriana (In loving memory of a WWII atheist in a foxhole; one of my heroes) "I want you to be all love. This is the perfection I believe and teach. And this perfection is consistent with a thousand nervous disorders, which that high-strained perfection is not. Indeed, my judgment is, that (in this case particularly) to overdo is to undo and that to set perfection too high (so high as no man that we ever heard or read of attained) is the most effectual (because unsuspected) way of driving it out of the world." —Works, vol. vi. p.715. ~ John Wesley ( http://homepage.mac.com/craigadams1/WESPERF/SECTN02.html )[sic] "'The pure in heart,' are those whose hearts God hath purified even as He is pure'; who are purified through faith in the blood of Jesus, from every unholy affection; who, being cleansed from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfect holiness in the (loving) fear of God.' They are, through the power of His grace, purified from pride, by the...

by summerbreeze O ne of the most disgusting displays of pompous self-congratulation ever seen, was during a T.V. sermon a while back, by Joel Osteen . I was a believer at that time, but my reaction to that particular program really hit me in the gut. The sermons' topic was receiving Favor from God, and the only way to receive " Favor " was to have unshakable FAITH, and the deepest sincere LOVE for the Lord, placing him above anyone and everyone you have ever loved. Mr. Osteen had been on a Church related trip, prior to this sermon. He started off by telling everyone how even though he had had a coach ticket, he'd been unexpectedly bumped up to First Class, and this was indeed God's Favor to him! The audience cheered and clapped like they had all just received a check for a million dollars. He proceeded to give about 4 or 5 examples of things that went well for him in the days leading up to the trip. All, of course, happened because of God's Favor toward him....

A great "forward" to fellow infidels and religious adversaries, this animated satire is a fresh new look at the familiar, biblical account of Creation.

by Kev Image by Chiot's Run via Flickr I was raised to be Christian. Christianity is a religion. I think society created religion to cope with the inevitability of death and here is why... We became intelligent over unimaginable lengths of time and evolved into what we are today. All animals evolve to become stronger. Animals that are strong tend to procreate more than animals that are weak because the opposite sex is attracted to dominant features ( natural selection ). So what makes humans stand out from the animal kingdom? Intelligence . In the course of evolution over the billions of years earth has existed, our brains developed. In the meantime, other animals were developing physically to survive their environments. Animals became stronger, faster, bigger, changed skin color or fur color, grew the necessary body parts and lost the useless ones. Humans used our brains. We had evolutionary success in thinking our way to the top. Intelligence is the most important attribute o...

Gay scientists have isolated the gene they believe makes people Christian.

An Exchange with Christian Apologist JP Holding By Kris Komarnitsky, author of Doubting Jesus' Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box? W hile getting my knee x-rayed for a recent injury, I noticed a sign on the wall saying that a radiologist’s “interpretation” fee would be added to my bill. I thought it interesting how even photographic evidence involves interpretation and how much more so interpretation plays a role in making sense of Christian origins evidence. A recent discussion with popular Christian Internet apologist JP Holding illustrates this point. The occasion that led to our discussion was JP’s review of my book Doubting Jesus' Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box? After his review, I approached JP to get a better feel for his opinion on one particular topic that he critiqued. The result was a cordial exchange of ideas. The topic JP and I discussed was whether or not some of the early Christians at Corinth doubted the reality of Jesus’ resurrection ...