ExChristian.Net -- encouraging ex-Christians

By Agnosticator ~

It can easily be argued (and I am) that American religious cults owe the New Testament for their existence because it contains a blueprint for the cults. The believer is told to focus upon doing God's will, while surrendering his own will, family, and all worldly possessions to God. Next he must separate himself from the "world" by living in a community of believers (see Mt.19:21, 1Thess.3:14, 1Cor.5:9-13, lCor.6:l). So why are we continually shocked and appalled by Christian cults?

Image by LZ Creations via FlickrThe story of Ananias and Sapphira illustrates the importance of this communal life. They sold some of their own land and gave most of the money from its sale to the apostles, to be distributed to anyone who needed it. The married couple made one mistake by lying so as to keep a portion of their own proceeds for themselves. So of course, God struck them dead as an example to anyone who does not obey and give all their possessions to the commune (Acts 5:1-11).

Believers are expected to surrender their independent, rational capacity for thinking-their minds-so God can do his Will through them. But it isn't God's Will to surrender to the leader of the cult. Or is it? Someone has to decide how to follow God every step of the way since the Bible is vague about all the details. God also chooses leaders for the sheep to follow throughout His Holy Book. Since humans are easily manipulated by authority (see Stanley Milgram's "Obedience to Authority"), God's slaves and sheep are in over their heads. Inevitably, followers will pay a price and their tragedies will make the news.

Far from being harmless, Christianity is potentially dangerous both to the believer and to others. By asserting it has the only Truth, and that this Truth must be obeyed, the Bible denigrates truth as a concept. Truth must be verifiable and "of this world" in order to be relevant to our reality. Otherwise, reality itself is denigrated along with it. How we deal with truth proves us to be either in or out of touch with reality, mature or immature, and ignorant or knowledgeable.

When I became a liberal Christian (after my fundagelical phase), I believed that many layers of false, man-made doctrines and beliefs had to be peeled away until the core of God's Truth was uncovered to reveal true Christianity. However, in attempting to do so, I discovered what I had mistaken as being core truths were merely veneer. These texts covered up the more numerous texts that betrayed what was stated by the few humanitarian ones. The veneer was stripped away, ending my Christian walk. These anti-human doctrines cannot be avoided.

Far from being harmless, Christianity is potentially dangerous both to the believer and to others. It is all too easy for church leaders to lead the sheep to slaughter while feeding them Truth which will set them free from this life.

By Mriana ~

The idea of hell, heaven, and eternity are very much a human concept and I going to attempt to show just how they are. A word of warning for people now, concerning what I am about to “show” you: this article maybe difficult to stomach and not meant to be family oriented. However, if you read on, you will see “My Little Box”* that I live in when I have nightmares and waking flashbacks of a “torturous hell.”It is quite a different definition of the Christian hell and is in this life, right here on earth.

Towards the end of 2010, I came out to my mother as a humanist and explained to her why am I not a Christian. The main reason I am not a Christian is that I have studied Christianity, other religions, mythology, philosophy, and psychology. The study of religion and psychology were the big two that helped to deconvert me. My experiences as a Christian, especially as a child, are only minor reasons, but these experiences helped me to define my thoughts concerning heaven, hell, and eternity.

I did not have a choice concerning Christianity as a child. It was either profess to being a Christian or my elders would get very anger. Just expressing my thoughts, as a child, about various Christian concepts was enough to get them upset with me. Not to mention, I was the type of child who would easily break down in tears if I even thought an adult was angry with me. Thus, I went along to get along as not to get into trouble. I was a big people-pleaser, along with suffering from sexual, physical, and emotional by my biological father and spiritual abuse from my Evangelical Fundamentalist relatives. All of this contributed to an eating disorder also and one of the reasons for the Anorexia was because I had little control in my life.

When I was in elementary school, my great uncle could not understand why I would not go up to his altar and “be saved.” I tried to tell him that he scared me, but he denied it and said it was the devil scaring me. I still would not go up to his altar and in an effort to get the adults to stop; I told them I turned my life over to Jesus in private. They seemed to have bought it or at least had little reason to doubt it given that I would cry over things such as the Crucifixion and strived hard to be perfect.

I grew up in Wesleyan theology, so the doctrine of perfectionism was very important, but they had no idea why I did the things I did and even my mother called me “The Best Little Girl in the World,” especially after she saw the movie. Teachers called me “too good” according to my mother. Again, theological reasons were not the number one reason as to why I obeyed my elders. I feared what they would do to me and their enabling of my father’s abuse did not help to change this.

Even when speaking to the therapist, in my 20s, my mother insisted she had no choice about staying with my biological father as long as she did and spewed religious dogmatic ideology. Their divorce was final when I was fourteen, after the State threaten my mother that they would take me from her if she did not leave my father. It was after that my grandfather stated that they had me away from my abuser and that was enough, adding, “God would take care of him.” When I tried to say I wanted to prosecute my father for what he did to me, my grandfather told me anger was a sin and I could see his anger with me in his eyes. Therefore, I back down, in favour of obedience, so he would not get angrier with me. Mind you, this was not obedience to a god though, but obedience out of fear of my elders.

Thirty years later, after telling my mother that I am not a Christian, the current therapist that I am working with has been helping me with my “inner child”. For more on this subject, please see Dr. Marlene Winell’s book, “Leaving the Fold.” After a suggestion she made, I started having nightmares about dolls, both hard and soft ones. In one very vivid nightmare, I dreamed that this hard doll was forcing himself on me, while someone watched, without helping me and with a smile. I could not fight the doll off me and woke up in a cold sweat. I spent days fighting sleep because I did not want the dreams and consequently I cried about almost everything, especially things, both secular and religious, that reminded me of my experiences. What was worse was that I suddenly had this memory, from when I was around five years old, in which I took Ken and raped Barbie, scaring my friend away, never to see her again. Even then, despite the memories before I was seven years old being rare, I could not keep quiet, but no one listened to my cries for help. Either they refused to listen, attempting to silence me, or they disappeared from my life when I tried to say something.

Those experiences were a living hell for me and I have spent a lifetime dealing with flashbacks and nightmares over it, sometimes with the simplest thing triggering them, such as dolls. Until recent years, even some foods, such as a cookie, would trigger flashbacks, because he tried to use such things to entice me to sit on his lap and have his way with me. I was probably a rare child in that I rejected cookies, especially when my father offered one to me. If he was offering me one and I rejected it, he forced me to sit on his lap or be wherever he wanted me to be, just so he could get his own satisfaction.

What is worse, my mother recently admitted she walked in on those times, seeing my father “attack” me, more often than I realized. Her excuse for not doing anything was that she would get hurt and then she would be of little help to me. She was of little help as was, relying on religious ideology and dogma to solve the problem, which did not work. She even stated that she only had two choices- living with her parents or staying with my father. That is what women did, in her view, and she did not want to live with her parents.

When I told her what all that happened to me as a child is my definition of hell, hell on earth, created by humans, she replied, “That’s not hell. Hell is eternal. What happened to you ended, so it’s not hell.” Obviously, she has no comprehension of my definition of eternity either. Such haunting dreams and memories of the past, not just the abuse from my father, but the spiritual abuse of my relatives too, IS eternity and I will admit, during those times, I sometimes think that death is the only way out of that hell. Except for one thing, since I cannot end life myself, I have to wait for death to come to me, but it does not come, not even in my sleep. I wake up, during those episodes, only to face the same haunting memories and dreams again. For me, that is eternal torture and it did not end just because the actual sexual and physical abuse ended.

When I try to explain it all to my mother and that I do not have dreams of hell as she defines it, her response is, “Well, maybe you should be having dreams about hell.” This woman wants her grandsons and me to be Christians so badly, even if it is just words, because she fears not seeing us in her definition of heaven. Again, just as many other Christians, she has no idea that her concepts are only human concepts.

With all of these recent disputes happening between my mother and me, the suggestion from Marlene, concerning using a doll for therapy purposes, seemed to have tipped the scales just enough to trigger nightmares again, of what I define as hell, which lead to crying fits and lack of sleep for a good solid month. Do not get me wrong, I am not blaming Marlene. She did not know what would happen with such a suggestion and I am not sure I did either. All I knew is that the idea was impossible for me, no matter how hard I tried.

In the middle of the night, unable to sleep due to waking in a cold sweat from one of these nightmares about dolls, I sent off a quick email telling her about a couple of these dreams and the waking flashbacks, as well as what I felt was the connection. There was no blame in my email, or at least if she perceived that there was, that was not my intent. I wanted her help, but I was not about to admit, at the time, that I longed for death to come and end the nightmares and flashbacks. Her response was something like, “If it triggers something, then don’t do it.”

I occasionally looked at Muñeca, a doll I received from my aunt before I was born, for weeks, just trying to take Marlene’s suggestion. My aunt got the doll for me during a trip to Mexico just before I was born, thus the name. Occasionally I would pick up Muñeca and fiddle with her dress, only to put her back down again due to painful uneasiness. Memories would flood my mind, including the fact that I eventually gave up actually playing with dolls before I was seven. They would sit beside me as I played school by myself, but I did not actually play with them. Even so, I cannot tell anyone why I have a difficult time with such things, because most of my memories before I was seven are almost non-existent, only coming to me in bits and pieces during times of extreme emotional difficulty.

Not only that, my mother told me stories, when I was little, of a doll that she had growing up, which she prayed to God to make real. After telling me that, many times as a child, she insisted I was that doll, which God caused to come to life. Therefore, in that concept, I was nothing more than an object which others control, except I knew I was a person and people should not be forced into things nor should they be controlled by others either. Unfortunately, I was forced into many things as a child, with not even control over my own body, and try as I might, I could not get any of the adults in my life to listen to me as a child. The only control I had was over my own thoughts, which even those I had to keep to myself, unless I wanted to get in trouble with the adults in my life. I also had control of what I did not eat, thus why I developed anorexia by the time I was eleven.

My mother insisted, in our recent conversations, that was the way it was back then and of course, religious dogma had a lot to do with it. Even my minister great uncle and my grandfather would spew religious dogma and verses at me about obeying my elders, stating I still had to obey my father no matter what. I could not fathom, as a child, why I had to obey a monster or even why a raven would pluck out my eyes and feed them to her young (Proverbs 30:17) or why the days of my life would be short (Deut. 5:16), if I did not. Again, with various verses about obeying one’s elders, I was forced into silence and submission.

My mother also recently admitted that she never once used the word incest when trying to speak to the patriarch about what was happening to us and even she did not think I knew what the word was when I was young. I told her, maybe not, but by the time I was twelve, I knew what a concubine was, because it is in the Bible, and I felt like one as a child. Her response was, “Then you should have used that word when talking to your great uncle and grandfather. That might have gotten their attention.” Somehow, I doubt that it would have.

That is my definition of hell and eternity in painful details. What is my definition of heaven? To me, it too is right here on earth, because this life is what people make it, even for the helpless child that they are suppose to take care of and protect. For me, when I meet another human being who is compassionate, attempts to understand, and tries to help when needed, then that is a taste of heaven here on earth. Such individuals are metaphorically angels, but I do not believe in actual angels as portrayed in the Bible. Thus, Marlene Winell and Valerie Tarico, for example, are angels because they are compassionate people, who try to help others when needed. Thus, I have great respect and appreciation for them or as some would say, “love for them”, but the word “love” is difficult for me say, except to my own children or maybe a lover. I do not easily apply it to others.

When we honestly help others, then we are attempting to create heaven here on earth. This is not some metaphorical external heaven, only experienced after death, but rather one in the here and now. Humans make earth either heaven, hell, or both and their actions can cause an “eternity” of memories, both good and bad. None of my concepts about heaven, hell, or eternity can be applied to any afterlife. They are all in the here and now, created only by humans. Thus, the Christian concepts verses my own concepts are good examples as to how these ideas are nothing more than human concepts. My mother or any other Christian can deny my concepts all they want, but the fact remains that they are all human concepts, right down to the definition of what angels are.

My nightmares about what I consider hell are really no different from those of people who have nightmares about a religious hell. The only differences are that my dreams of “hell” and theirs are a matter of reality, as well as what we define as eternity. Eternity for me is a lifetime and like the nightmares others have of a fictional hell, I am tortured and haunted unmercifully, but from past real life experiences. The other difference is how we are tortured and haunted in our concepts of hell. However, my concept of heaven, it totally different than the Christian view and it is one only humans can create here on earth, with a little effort towards being compassionate towards others and giving mercy, as well as peace, to others who need it.

Until such Christians get into the minds of those who have been abused spiritually, psychologically, emotionally, sexually, and physically, they will never have a clue as to what a real hell actually is. They will also never admit and face the reality that they contribute and enable the abuse themselves, creating a living hell, right here on earth, for others. When they choose to see and examine my Little Box, then they will see the horrors of hell that I live with due to such abuse.

Therefore, dear Christian, do not tell me what hell is. I know what hell is, because I have lived it, and it is not some fictional place, but right here on earth. I also know what eternity is and again, it is not what you conceive it to be. I have also had a taste of what heaven on earth could be, if more human beings would just try to create it with love, compassion, and empathy. For me, such a concept of heaven is very much numinous, but that brings us to another human created concept concerning transcendence, which I might discuss another time, but again, such a concept is very much centered and focused on the human, not something outside ourselves. The same goes for the concept of heaven too. Until the religious face reality, they can have no concept of what I describe, much less what I am referring to when I speak of heaven being here on earth, much less my concept of hell and eternity.

*Note: Reference to Gabriel Mann’s song “My Little Box,” and even a clip of the movie “Ghost Ship,” of which I have not seen, is incidental when I speak of my concept of hell, but a good song that just happens to relate very well. Then again Tracy Chapman’s “Heaven’s Here on Earth” also fits when I talk about my concept of heaven, but it too is incidental and not complete intentional. However, both songs relate very well to what I am conveying.

By Summerbreeze ~

Life can throw us some weird coincidences. I had typed my article "Entering the NO-FUN ZONE" ( about the health benefits of laughter )to Dave on a Monday. Then three days later I flatlined three times in 14 minutes. The day prior to my flatlining I had been outfitted with a cardiac event monitor because of weird squeezing sensations in my chest. (This is a little box that you are wired up to 24/7 & you wear it.)

Image by zerok via FlickrThree Doctors called me in the space of five minutes, telling me that I needed a heart catherization and a pacemaker.

"WHO, ME ?!?"....."I'm too young," I cried to them.

I was horrified and mad. All of a sudden I felt very old... How could someone who was Jr. High School age when she idolized James Dean, Natalie Wood & Ricky Nelson need a pacemaker?!

In a nut-shell, I had the heart catheterization, then the pacemaker surgery. Never during the entire time from beginning to end did I feel the desire, need, or want to pray to a "god" for help.

I had passed the test that I always knew would come some day.

I thought about a quote that I often glided over while reading my "The Atheists Bible"
"Nah, there's no bigger Atheist than me. Well, I take that back. I'm a cancer screening away from going agnostic and a biopsy away from full-fledged Christian."
----Adam Carolla
P.S. -- I still highly endorse laughter to keep us healthy, more than likely if I hadn't done so, so often, I'd be in a lot worse shape.

By JadedAtheist ~

Nailing Jell-O to a Wall

Many people get frustrated with Christians because they always seem to have an “answer” to every problem you present to them. This in their mind seems to prove that their God exists but this is far from the truth as we are all aware. They have a few tricks up their sleeves and one of them might consist of an answer that requires you to prove otherwise. To illustrate this, we can look at a primary example: Jesus’ birth in Luke.

Image by electrobrainpdx via FlickrLuke states that Jesus was born while Herod the Great was ruling AND during the time of Quirinius’ census. Herod died 4BCE but Quirinius’ census was held around 6-7CE. The Christian explanation? Quirinius served an earlier term and held a census at that time as well. Just because we don’t have the evidence for it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen! Prove otherwise!

Then of course we have the “trust God™” answers that so many of us ex-Christians detest with a passion. It doesn’t take too much effort to elicit this answer from Christians and the funny thing is despite you pointing out so many things where they need to “trust God” in they will say that they trust God because he has shown himself to be trustworthy! Because he has been consistent with his word and there is so much evidence in favor of Jesus and the Bible (if you ignore the stuff you can’t answer and reply with assertions that cannot be disproved) he is worthy of our trust!

Second Thought, Let’s Just Obliterate it

Well, I think this following example is the perfect stick to jam into their spokes (To be forthright, I didn’t come up with this myself but came across it via Bart Ehrman). Of course the reaction I expect from most will be to ignore the problem and just “trust God™” but I’m hoping at least some will use the little bit of rational thinking needed to realize how big of a problem this issue is.

The problem is in the Gospel of John. In John 3, the very same chapter where get all those billboards proclaiming “John 3:16” is where we find our interesting problem. I’ll quote the passage here for all of us to read:
Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ – John 3:1-7 (ESV)I’m sure many of us are familiar with this passage; essentially the passage boils down to Nicodemus misunderstanding Jesus’ statement and then Jesus proceeding to expand upon his statement. Now your pastor probably skips past the reason for the misunderstanding but I’ll explain it to you.
When Jesus says “born again” in this passage, the Koine Greek word behind it has a variety of meanings. It doesn’t just mean “again” but can also mean “a second time” or “from above”. Now there it’s obvious that Jesus in this narrative probably means all of these various meanings. Not only must Nicodemus be born again but he must also be born a second time, the second time being his birth from above, in other words, his spiritual birth.

It’s understandable in this context why Nicodemus is confused. Which of these meanings does Jesus intend? Surely he doesn’t mean a physical rebirth? That is an impossibility! The author through Nicodemus’ confusion uses it as a plot device to enable Jesus to hammer his point on. Simple enough, yes? No issues so far, right? Wrong.

Wait, What?!

You see, Jesus wasn’t actually speaking in Greek (nor would any Jew at that time) to his fellow man. He was speaking Aramaic. In Aramaic, there is no such confusion possible because the word “again” simply means again, as it does in English. What does this mean?

It means that this conversation couldn’t have happened. Jesus’ skillful wordplay on the word “again” wasn’t used because it was invented by the author who was writing in the Greek language. Nicodemus’ confusion didn’t occur because he misunderstood Jesus, it occurred because the author thought it’d be a great way to show off Jesus and expand upon the sermonette.

Conclusion

I remember coming across this example through either a lecture of or a book by Bart Ehrman (I can’t for the life of me remember which). I remember how shocked I was when I first read that. It really shook me as a Christian. Everything else I read that he critiqued I dismissed without batting an eyelid but this unnerved me. It unnerved me because it made so much sense.

The author did intend without a shadow of a doubt to use the word “again” in this wordplay. So he either made up the situation completely (which would be the option I’d personally take) or he basically “accentuated” (i.e. told lies to make it sound better than it was) the real situation. Either way it’s quite devastating to Christianity’s view of inerrancy, even if Nicodemus was confused despite speaking in Aramaic.

By Dan ~

I grew up in a conservative Christian home in South Africa during the apartheid years. In those days all the white people were Christians and we were taught not to challenge authority. After I left school I did not bother going to church and did not even think about Christianity until I got married and my first child was born. I started going to church again with my wife, not because of conviction but because that was the expected thing to do. Although I was only a typical Sunday Christian, I have put my talents to use and quickly became a deacon and after two years one of the youngest elders in the congregation.

I was a full-time soldier and was involved in the war in Angola. During this time I started to question God and Christ and decided to walk away from all that. I left the church, and my wife left me.

For years I read everything I could find on evolution, the history of the church, and other religions, mainly to equip myself for arguing with Christians.

Then I met my current wife. I loved her but she was a reborn evangelical Christian. I started attending church again, mainly to please her. Eventually the bombardment of scripture and Christian literature got to me and I was re-born, baptized, and on my way to heaven.

For six years I became intensely involved, leading prayer groups, testifying in churches, studying the Bible, and doing the stuff that pentecostal Christians do.

But slowly, stuff started not to make sense any more. I started asking the difficult questions and got the normal nonsensical answer. It was a difficult time for me. I could not sleep and spent many guilt-ridden nights praying, reading the Bible, and looking for answers.

On night, studying the theme Faith I read the definition of faith in Hebrews 11: 1: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Huh?

Faith is believing in things you hope is true and then it became evidence because you cannot see it - or something like that.

I suppose that clinched the deal. I closed my Bible and never read it again.

After about a year of this I finally told my wife last night that I am no longer a believer. I think she suspected it because I have not participated in any of her discussions on her daily Bible studies. She is a passionate Christian and spends the whole day, every day, listing to the teachings of Andrew Warmack and listening to gospel music.

I guess it is going to put strain on my marriage, and at this point I am not sure how to handle it.

Time will tell, but I am never going to be drawn back into that surreal phony religion (or any other religion for that matter).

By Matt ~

Howdy all, my name is Matt and yep coming here because I'm going forward only to come back to the beginning. Long story short; raised a Jehovah's Witness in a very violent home. Tried to commit suicide, offered myself as a martyr by refusing a blood transfusion 26 years ago, led a debauched lifestyle, had a child, tried a relationship as a father who believed in the bible god, to be a good example as a father, but father just no longer can bring himself to go to church, believe in blind faith, haven't been associated with any church for quite a while.

Image by JW Ogden via FlickrMy daughter no longer wants to go to church, she's 12 so I'm not getting a 'why not' conversation out of her as to why she doesn't want to go. But gut feeling is that she finds something not quite right about religion. I'm not 100% sure that's how she feels/thinks, but she does not like to discuss religion, yet she's still on tract to go through some type of ritual at the Lutheran church her mother makes her go to, which she likes to go to, or so she says. Like I said she doesn't like to discuss religion stuff, she instantly shuts me off when I try to bring it up.

I haven't been the exemplary role model for church. I've dragged her to quite a few, more than a dozen for sure. I've done my 'church shopping' with her hoping to find that one church that made things 'click' for me and her, but so far just hitting duds instead of 'clicks'. Last one had pretty good music, but the message was still the same as all the others ones I've heard: 'Have a relation ship with a historical figure who really doesn't like you', or spend your life with a blind faith consisting of contradictions, counter similarities and prejudice.

Yet I continue coming back to the beginning in that no matter the arguments, proof, truth, theory or emotion, I cannot shake the belief that the entire cosmos just popped into existence over a couple of quadrillion years. I really have a hard time believing the bible shows us this answer. Why am I going to pay so much attention to a way of life from a barbaric civilization who came upon the scene in a very short not so long ago compared to the age of the earth, and that civilization receives much more attention than the civilizations that have been found that were on the scene long before Adam was created.

I've been so entrenched into believing, I'm having a hard time altering my thoughts... not my lifestyle, but my beliefs. I really don't like the sound of hell. Yet the bible words for hell aren't Dante, but Alexandrian.

By Joshua ~

I'm a police officer. This only matters because anyone who has a job whose tools include a gun and body armor has a strong disposition towards being religious. My job is in the south suburbs of Chicago, an area generally known as being less than pleasant. Every time I strap on my vest and duty belt I am reminded why I wear them, death is real, violence is real, and the people who would love to put a bullet into me are real. I grew up in a Christian fundamentalist household, and the beliefs that were taught to me sat well with the nature of my job. It's a pretty nice thought to believe that an all powerful being has your back, it's the ultimate back up unit. So why would I give it all up?

In the beginnings of my faith as a young teenager, I always had problems with the Christian view of predestination and free will in coordination with a supposedly omnipotent and omniscient God, and that the suffering in this world was the result of two people listening to a talking snake (never mind the "fact" that God let Satan exist in the perfect garden of Eden in the first place). Even in my juvenile brain, it seemed like humans were set up to fail. I shook this doubt off for the next umpteen years by saying "Us mortals just don't understand God's immortal plan", and left it at that.

The first time I explored these doubts was when my wife started having multiple miscarriages when we were trying to have children. Although it's not the worst thing that can happen to you, once something negative like this keeps reoccurring, it takes the happiness away from the joy of pregnancy. Instead of counting the days until we could welcome our bundle of joy, we counted the time it would take until we would no longer see a heartbeat on the ultrasound monitor. The later of the miscarriages happened at a time when I was already vulnerable in my faith due to events that I'll get into below. I felt that God did not want me to be happy about anything anymore, he had turned a joyous event into one of apprehension and suffering. Watching Christian friends of ours enjoy lives where everything seemed to work out was becoming increasingly difficult.

Doubts about my faith moved from the back of my brain to the front of it when me and my wife's goodwill towards her family was taken advantage of. Her family also believes in the fundamentalist view of Christianity, although you'd be hard pressed to tell by some of their actions. Me and my wife put family before money (a supposedly admirable thing), and we've been paying for it for the last two years. Through a series of reckless business ventures, my father in law decided to declare bankruptcy, this left me hanging out to dry. I had done a paper transfer of ownership on two houses that my father in law had owned, backed with his guarantee that he would be soley responsible for upkeep and all financial obligations towards the houses. After finding out that he hadn't paid property taxes on either house in almost two years after I received notices of tax sales, and the fact that he had stopped being "financially responsible" for these houses, I had some tough choices on my plate. No matter how things would end up, I thought I would be vindicated by God, due to me and my wife's hearts being in the right place. I believed without a doubt that God would work through this situation. Where people fail, God doesn't.

This leads me to "Pastor" Brian. He was temporarily residing in one of the houses I was trying to sell and was a minister at a local Christian church. I let him know I was selling the house to give him as much time as possible to find a place to live. I even talked to him "Christian to Christian" and let him know what me and my family were going through. He told me he knew what I was going through, as he had also faced a similar experience, and that God's will would be executed if everything was handled with honesty and integrity. I had thought that having a Christian pastor involved in this process was a blessing from God.

After a whole lot of praying, I received an offer on the house. After thanking God for this answer to prayer, I let Pastor Brian know about this immediately. Contacting him then became increasingly difficult. As me and the buyer moved to close the deal, the buyer rightfully wanted to have the house fully inspected, to which I notified Brian for his convenience. The inspection date happened to fall on a weekend that me and my wife were going out of town for some much needed time away. Before leaving I contacted Brian again to remind him of the inspection and to contact me if there were any problems. While attempting to enjoy a precious couple days away from the madness, I received a frantic call from my real estate agent saying that "Pastor Brian" wasn't letting anybody in the house and that he was threatening to call the police if everyone didn't get off of "his" property. He told the inspectors and everyone there that I never told him about the inspection, so he wasn't letting anyone in. So much for honesty and integrity. Thanks to the non-Christian people that were involved in the deal, they were able to push the closing through despite Pastor Brian's best efforts at sabotage.

After a few more unfortunate incidents me and my wife had to go through, I became desperate with God. I spent more time in agonizing prayer in six months than I had for the previous twenty years as a Christian. I prayed for understanding, relief, signs, miracles, words of encouragement from fellow Christians, or any other reason to hold onto my faith. You name it, I prayed for it. I also became increasingly aware that I felt like I was talking to myself.

I then decided to open myself up to "Truth", no matter what it might be or where it might lead. The first step I took was considering the possibility that I didn't have the truth. I reasoned that if what I believed was the truth, it would become evident to me. I still considered myself a Christian, but wanted to open myself to knowledge that I had dismissed as "the devil's work" for many years. I read various works on philosophy, apologetics, the history of the Bible and Christianity, science, and even atheism. I noticed the more I learned, the more doubt I had about my faith. Saying "God did it" wasn't enough anymore. Why was there so much evidence contrary to what I believed? I wrestled with the thought "if God is the truth, why isn't it more obvious?" The emperor was losing his clothes, and he didn't seem to care.

I found that he was naked on a cold winter night last December. I was dispatched to a paramedic call that came out as "a 12 year old dying". I arrived at the house to find a hysterical mother holding what was supposed to be the body of a 12 year old child. The child looked no older than six, and his limbs stuck out at awkward angles. The mom told me through sobs that this was because his muscles were too weak to keep his joints in socket, and that her son was diagnosed with a debilitating disease as a baby. All his muscles would atrophy which would eventually lead to suffocation or heart failure, and it appeared that time was here. She then retrieved a piece of paper which was a DNR for her son. I get to watch this kid die. As agonal breathing set in, which is the body's last attempt at getting oxygen, she began begging us to help her son. Instead of sitting there watching her kid die, she agreed to taking her son to a nearby hospital where they might at least be able to make him comfortable. As we loaded him in the ambulance, she lost it. She crumbled to the ground and started throwing up. Watching your kid die has to be the purest form of agony.

Once everyone was loaded up in the ambulance I sat in my squad and chewed a piece gum, trying to get the smell of vomit out of my nose. It was then reason hit me in the chest harder than the "Holy Spirit" ever had. I was left with no choice, I didn't give up my faith, I was dragged kicking and screaming from it. This child didn't suffer because of a talking snake, he suffered because he was the victim of a genetic defect. For a Christian to say that we all deserve suffering is to make a mockery of every human that has had no choice in their suffering. There is no divine plan, there's just life, in all it's beauty and frailty. In all my soul searching for divine inspiration, it was deconversion that provided the clarity I had been looking for.

By Valerie Tarico ~

Justin Griffith is a twenty-eight year old active duty soldier, a sergeant at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. He is also a new dad. Griffith likes what he does. He describes the military as a place that has structure, discipline, and opportunities. From his point of view, he has a full life, and a good one. And yet it was Griffith, as much anyone, who blew open the U.S. Army’s Spiritual Fitness program this winter. Why? Why make waves in a job you love among people you respect? Why risk the pariah status that is so often the lot of whistleblowers? Griffith agreed to let me ask him those questions.

Justin GriffithTarico: I’m impressed that you got permission to talk publicly about the Spiritual Fitness Program.

Griffith: Well, I need to say that I am speaking as Sgt. Justin Griffith. I am not representing the army in any official way. I’m free to talk about my opinions and experiences related to the mandatory soldier fitness tracker, how “Spiritual Fitness” testing and training is being used to put religious conversion pressure on soldiers like me--but not as an expert or in an official capacity. I’ve recently been told that my unit’s public affairs department received a ‘disengage order’ regarding their support. So I’m now only permitted to speak to the media off-duty, all I’ve ever done anyway. I was told that the order came from the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness people, and that’s kind of scary.

Tarico: So who is Sgt. Justin Griffith?

Griffith: I’m a soldier and a husband, and the dad of a baby girl. I’m 28. I’ve been in the military for four years. I love the military. The military changed my life. It’s given me opportunities to grow as a human being. I’m also an atheist—one of those atheists in foxholes. My day to day experience as an atheist in the army is positive. Overwhelmingly. I’ve got nothing but the utmost support from my colleagues, nothing but respect. Before I spoke out about Rock the Fort and the Spiritual Fitness Program 99.9% of my interactions with my colleagues had nothing to do with atheism or were positive. Everyone who is an “out” atheist gets a few horror stories, and I’ve got them, but the vast majority of people are respectful or distant if they are not. I love the army-- I love my wife-- I love my unit-- I love my wife—I love all of them.

Tarico: That all sounds rather positive, in fact better than what most people could say about their lives and their work. Why didn’t you just leave well enough alone?

Rock the Fort evangelistic rallyriffith: I was talking about the day-to-day, face-to-face perspective. The big stuff that’s coming down from the top, that’s different. There are existing rules in place that are being violated systematically. For instance, soldiers are very vulnerable when they come out of basic training, and evangelistic organizations take advantage of that to target them. Look at the picture of the five hundred soldiers being converted by the Billy Graham people. It's 200 here, 150 there on stage in uniform. It’s epidemic, and I find it outrageous. The amount of money being spent by American citizens to support Evangelical proselytizing activities is substantial. The smokescreen about spiritual fitness having nothing to do with proselytizing is just that--smoke.

Tarico: What was your first encounter with the Spiritual Fitness program?

GAT MandatoryGriffith: Every soldier at every rank at every base, whether deployed or not is required to fill out the “Global Assessment Tool” which is part of the Soldier Fitness Tracker, which is the test and training combined. The first time I took it I was deployed downrange in Kuwait, late in 2009. I was disgusted by what I saw—both the questions and the results that straight up implied that I am unfit as a soldier. But I was deployed, and I didn’t have time to react. I figured, someone will fix this. I didn’t expect to ever see it again. A year later, in December 2010, I got a message. “You’re deficient; You haven’t taken your annual Soldier Fitness Test.” So I opened it again and couldn’t believe it was still the same. I thought, “How is this still allowed?! How is it that no one has called them out on it?”

Tarico: What did it say?

Griffith: The questions are things like:

• “I am a spiritual person.” Answer 1 to 5, from not like me to very like me.
• “My life has a lasting meaning.” What does that mean? Hell yea, my life has meaning, but “lasting meaning”?? To me that’s like Albert Einstein. His life has lasting meaning. But what about Albert’s mother? Does anybody remember her name? But then I thought, statistically speaking it is possible, so I answered 2/5.
• “I believe that in some way my life is closely connected to all humanity and all the world.” To me that means me and my six billion closest friends are hanging out playing Nintendo.
• “The job I am doing in the military has lasting meaning.” 2/5. Not likely, but I guess it’s possible. Look: On a long enough time line no-one’s life has lasting meaning. The universe will end in – call it the big crunch, heat death, proton decay, call it whatever you want. If you think of time as the trillionth to the trillionth power . . . in a real way the question itself is meaningless, unless you believe in eternal life, or the afterlife, or other such theological ideas.
• “I believe there is a purpose for my life.” I can’t even count how many purposes I have for my life. I answered that a 5/5.

Tarico: In other words this isn’t about you being adrift, without purpose or focus.

Protestant cross in chapelGriffith: I would like to defend the Comprehensive Fitness testing in one sense: It is a noble cause. They are trying to track and prevent suicide and PTSD; they just need to fix the implementation. There are four parts: Spiritual, Social, Family, and Emotional. Three of them are grounded in reality. But they need to remove the spirituality piece,The results of this test are a huge slap in the face to someone like me—a committed soldier who is nonreligious. When I clicked submit, it said things like “At times it hard for you to make sense of what is going on.” and “Improving your spiritual fitness should be a goal.” It suggested that I speak with a counselor. I dialed the number –it was emergency mental health counselor. They also have online remedial training about spiritual fitness, which is also mandatory.

This is wrong on so many levels. The Spiritual Fitness Test is lining the coffers at the chaplaincy and the religious support office nationwide because when soldiers like me are sent for remediation then there’s a demand for their services. To make matters worse, they freely admit that the test results are used for human resource decisions. Would that be allowed in a private sector job? You can’t defend it because you can’t define it. It’s empty vacuous crap. Not to mention that it’s unconstitutional to even ask. That’s why I decided to get the word out.

Spiritual ritual haircutTarico: Spokespersons for the Army say that “spiritual” means in good spirits; it means spirited. They use getting a haircut as an example of a “spiritual ritual.” That all sounds like it could apply to anyone.

Griffith: Look closer. A lot of the imagery in the training materials is explicitly Christian. They’ve now removed the part about the Christian flag folding ceremony that included references to the trinity and Jesus Christ and women playing a supporting role to men. In reality, the twelve folds traditionally have no symbolism at all. The point is geometric a way to handle and store the flag respectfully. Someone in the Air Force in the 80s made it up this Evangelical interpretation. It has been banned from Air Force documents before, but there it was in the Spiritual Fitness training materials. What a smoking gun!

Honestly, if you want to leave what’s not religious in the Spiritual Fitness Training, you are left trying to convince yourself that spirituality is on par with getting a haircut, because that is a ritual. If that is the case, I don’t understand how I failed because I get my haircut every two weeks.

Tarico: Spokespersons for the Army also are saying that the testing and training aren’t mandatory.

GAT MandatoryGriffith: It most certainly is mandatory, and they even have a disclaimer about how you will be punished by an Article 15 of the Universal Code of Military Justice, if you do not comply.

This is similar to a serious misdemeanor in the civilian court system. But here’s the irony. If they take out the spiritual part it definitely should be mandatory. If someone fails the emotional aspect of this test – if one of my soldiers failed the emotional part I would want to know. I would try to engage and comfort them, possibly alert their family. It definitely should be mandatory without religion.

Spiritual Fitness Training -- dining hall prayer
These tests were based on a test developed at the University of Pennsylvania, by the same person who crafted the CIA’s torture policy. Strangely that version of the test is great. The Army butchered the U Penn test. The original is available at UPenn.edu. You can take it yourself. It asks the same questions, ten each in twenty four different subject areas, but what it provides is a ranking comparing you to yourself. All it said was the order of the twenty-four personal qualities. It tells you your top five. Mine were: creative problem solving, bravery. . . Positive things. I learned that I needed to work on forgiveness, which was far down on my list. Of course religion wasn’t one of my strengths –and that’s just fine. I think it would do soldiers good to take that version of the test. And it’s free so we didn’t have to spend how many multimedia dollars they spent creating this soldier fitness tragedy.

Tarico: But the Army’s version of this Spiritual Fitness focus goes beyond just the test and training.

Griffith: Yes, it gets worse. At Fort Hood they are building a thirty million dollar Spiritual Fitness Center. Thirty million in tax dollars. In my opinion it’s a mega church being built for a chaplain on the public dime.

Rock the Fort was a big evangelistic rally that went from base to base using a complicated combination of appropriated and non-appropriated government controlled funds. It was billed as a spiritual fitness event, but it was explicitly Evangelical, meaning it was a membership drive. By the time it got to Fort Bragg, Americans United, the ACLU, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation were sending letters and trying to get court injunctions to have the event cancelled.

Tarico: I understand that the command defended it, and it went forward.

Griffith: The commander, Lieutenant General Helmick, stated that he wasn’t going to cancel the event (which happened September 25, 2010) because the same level of support would be offered to any other group, regardless of their spiritual orientation. The Secretary of the Army, John McHugh, said the same thing. So we decided to take him up on that offer with an event called Rock Beyond Belief. I certainly respect any officer in my command. I would like to say that they are lucky that it’s us and not some radical Muslim group or Scientologists, or some crazy death cult. The stated goal of Rock the Fort was to convert as many soldiers, wives and civilians as possible to their form of belief. We don’t want to do that. Sure, we could solicit de-conversions or perform de-baptisms with hairdryers and that would be the counterpart of Rock the Fort. We could get on a P.A. system and claim four thousand people have been de-baptized. But that’s not what we’re about. We’re looking for tolerance and respect for atheists and humanists – the most maligned fifteen percent of American society.

Tarico: So what is Rock Beyond Belief, as you visualize it?

Griffith: It will be a secular festival of speakers and music promoting awareness and tolerance for soldiers that lack belief. We’re nontheists, non religious. It’s a festival for the rest of us. It’s open to soldiers, family members, children, and also civilians from the surrounding area. We’ve got world class speakers lined up. Richard Dawkins will be our biggest draw. Roy Zimmerman, Jeffrey Lewis, and evolution/science rapper Baba Brinkman will be joined by many others in the music department.

It’s also a test case. We don’t think any event including ours should be funded by the US taxpayers, promoting proselytism for any sectarian group. It seems like they either have to adjust the policy—Rock the Fort can’t happen again—or they have to allow us and anyone who asks. To keep it fair, they have to give them $100K to play with, because that’s what they did for Rock the Fort. What if we have a different religion every day? Pastafarians or whatever. Permanent Woodstock.

Tarico: It seemed like a sure thing, but now Rock Beyond Belief is in question.

Spreadsheet: Rock the Fort vs. Rock Beyond BeliefGriffith: A lot of things changed in the last two weeks. There is a road block, and the Rock Beyond Belief event is not going to happen as planned in April. We received last-minute crippling restrictions from the Garrison Commander. He nixed all of the money from non-appropriated sources that the evangelical Christians were able to tap, so we were unable to afford to pay for the hotel bill for our 19 guests for starters. The other event got over $100,000 in funding, to include appropriated and non-appropriated government-controlled funds. He specifically banned us from paying for things that the other group did pay for.

Also, he forced a ‘warning label’ on our event. Contrary to the ringing endorsements, official Fort Bragg phone numbers STILL listed, and all the news releases coming from Public Affairs, and the Religious Support Office, and IMCOM… we were being forced to put a danger/warning label on all of the flyers, posters, and advertisements (advertisements that we now can’t afford). Also, this might not surprise you, but the Rock the Fort concert was officially endorsed as a spiritual fitness event. Yeah.

We were also forced into a much tinier venue the size of a small grade-school gymnasium, not nearly big enough to hold Richard Dawkins (if he was by himself!) They are actually saying ‘we only expect a couple hundred people would show up for Richard Dawkins’. I’m embarrassed for them. They probably think that people might believe them. They are saying that to reporters! I asked to see the ‘media analysis’ they keep referring to. At first they said ‘I don’t have it on paper.’ Which begged the question, ‘Can you send it to me on e-mail?’ Shockingly, the same member of the Colonel’s staff replied ‘it doesn’t exist digitally either.’ That is insane. Additionally, a ‘minimum audience projection’ was never a condition of having a similar level of support, regardless of how demonstrably wrong they are about such projections. This is not only discriminatory, it’s yet another clear cut example of Fort Bragg not being ‘willing and able to offer equal treatment’

Tarico: What are your officers and peers saying about all of this?

Griffith: My commanders have been encouraging, respectful, but hesitant to say, “Hey I’m on your side.” They can’t really endorse what I’m doing, but they have enabled me to speak to people like yourself. My colleagues and peers-- I’d say there’s nothing but excitement about Rock Beyond Belief, but they are a little cautious.

Tarico: What is the next step?

Griffith: It’s really too early to tell. There is a high chance of this making it to federal court. We are not holding our breath for April 2nd to work out. We’ve come so far, and done so many great things. Whatever the future holds, I know one thing is certain: We won’t be backing down or simply going away. We have a real momentum going, and it’s about time.

Tarico: Has it all been worth it?

Griffith: Emphatically YES. Before I told the story of the Spiritual Fitness Testing. I had a network from trying to get speakers and musicians to Rock Beyond Belief. I basically sent out a mass letter saying I need help getting this out. Within an hour or two my server exploded, and I was no longer able to have a website for about two days till I switched over to a server that could handle it. At the same time the Examiner picked up the story and got 1.5 million hits.

Emergency Bible versesPeople now have their eyes on “Spiritual Fitness,” the vacuous smoke screen for religion in the military. The Army has removed the flag folding ceremony and has changed some of the other language to make the training materials look more neutral. For example, they replace the word spiritual with spirit. In fact, the intro to the assessment says, “The spiritual dimension questions on the GAT pertain to the domain of the Human Spirit; they are not religious in nature. But then they still have a picture of people praying. When they removed the flag folding ceremony, I thought one down and ninety-nine to go.

“Spiritual Fitness,” the vacuous smoke screen for religion in the militaryI learned that it is possible to make a difference. It is possible to stand up for what is right, and not have to suffer punishment. That people will like you if you are a good person, and if what you are saying is right and true, people will support you. I learned that there are hundreds of ‘SGT Griffith’s’ on every base willing to speak out now, that my example is comfortingly typical. My inbox is flooded with overwhelmingly positive letters. Those messages keep our local movement going, and are extremely touching to read.

Tarico: So, you plan to keep going.

Griffith: Look - A soldier wrote a letter to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. He and twenty-five buddies forced to go see the chaplain because of their low test scores. The whole program is ripe and ready for abuse. Two hundred twenty six co-clients, including battle worn soldier signed on to have the MRFF represent them. They sent a cease and desist letter asking that the Army stop using the Spiritual Fitness test and training. The letter expired January 25, and they have not fulfilled MRFF’s request.

Heroes, battle heroes are having their lives torn. That is why I keep at it. I keep that letter from that soldier –I keep his words in my pockets.

I swore to defend the constitution. I’m an atheist, and I don’t swear to many things. But I’ll swear an oath to defend the constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I don’t consider these people enemies of the U.S. or intentional enemies of the constitution but neither are they scholars of it. That document, our Constitution, defines freedom as we Americans know it.

By mari_mayhem ~

On March 7th 2011, my grandmother died in what people are probably deeming an act of god. I would say that it is far from that. Many would think me heartless for the things I am about to write, but for me this is part of the grieving process. They say we all grieve in our own way, well this is mine. This woman is known to have been a popular pastor for fifty years and they viewed this woman as a perfect person. When I say perfect, I mean perfect. They had a lovely suburban home, seven children, and god was a reality for them every day of life. What they don't know is that this woman, no matter how kind in her later years, destroyed my life. I don't think it's what she intended to do and it's not very often that a person goes out of their way to ruin another. Still it is her life's work of ministry that destroyed her family. Now the only real reason I am doing this is so that maybe you will be more able to see through the lies of others. Maybe you will continue to confidently pursue your own deconversion or to help others in evangelical families.

This woman did her best to live her life through the bible, and married at age seventeen. That is about five years below the average age for marriage in 1950. The only real answer that I can think of for this is that her religion dictated no sex before marriage. Whether or not that actually happened is anyone's guess, but they methodically popped out seven kids. This would be fine if their parenting skills had not come directly from the bible. They might as well have stoned the kids to death, because what happened is worse. We're talking about what is essentially an extremely dysfunctional family in the guise of glowing perfection and holiness. She beat every last one of those kids senseless because she lacked the ability to parent that many kids without violence. Not a single one of them turned out right, because they learned to hide their problems and their ungodly desires. All of which blew up in their faces. This woman started a religious empire amongst her family, with many powerless beneath it's tyrannical rule. Praying never fixed the problems of her children and these were pretty serious things. We're talking about an instance of sibling incest rape, infidelity, drug abuse, severe obesity, heart disease, and alcoholism. That's only the problems with my father, aunts and uncles. That's probably not even half of what's taken place. Sure every family has it's problems, but not a single one of them really turned out alright. Many of them passed on the same parenting style to their kids and instilled them with similar values.

Now this brings us to my abuse at the hands of my father. I have ADHD and was unable to sit still or concentrate as a young child. I'm sure you can see where this went. I couldn't be still in church and I couldn't tell my father that I found it boring. I couldn't tell him that I hated church or that I'd never once felt the presence of god. This man was a drunk, a pervert, and a child abuser. In fact, I'm pretty sure he never wanted kids. However this hippy from the 70's had tried to reform his ways for his mother's sake. He'd traded his drugs and alcohol for a bible and a nice suit. He attempted to hide his true nature for the sake of his family and pretty much destroyed our family in the process. I now suffer from at least three different mental disorders related to the abuse. I don't ask for pity or sympathy. What I do ask is that people do what is needed so that this sort of thing never has to happen.

I'm sure that grandma did what she thought was best, but that's the thing. It wasn't what was best, and she believed throughly that it was what god wanted and demanded from her. This woman's whole life and existence was a sacrifice to an imaginary friend. She believed he spoke to her and guided her, but look what happened. She also didn't die the way you'd expect a holy individual to die. Some faulty electrical wires in the house caught fire and she died of smoke inhalation. Now of all of this, the one thing that bothers me the most is that I could never have a proper relationship with her. I never told her that I didn't believe. Perhaps that makes me a coward or a hypocrite, but religion meant everything to her. She invested so much into it. I'm sure that me being the way that I am, would break her heart. My father had been her favorite child, and yet he failed her most of all. I couldn't be honest with her. Doing so would have been just plain cruelty.

It is a tragedy, that a woman lived her life like this. That she did her best to spread love and compassion and instead only brought pain and disaster. She was an amazing woman, and if not for the religious barrier I think I could have shown her just how amazing I could be in return. I don't know if she would have forgiven me for what I've done, but I know that I somehow forgive her for starting it all. Knowing this I thank my grandmother for giving me the gift she never intended to give me, rational thought. May she rest in peace.

By Sarah ~

I would like to share a story that may sound strange to most, but this situation is what has brought me to this website and also caused me to question some of my beliefs.

I was dating a man in a serious relationship for five years. We discussed plans of marriage, both of our families got along well, and overall we enjoyed each other. When I met him in 2005, he told me that he had gone through a two year period where he believed he was saved and had been compelled by God to do many things, including preach the gospel. He followed Family Radio and someone called Harold Camping. He was also compelled to marry a woman who he was teaching the bible to. The marriage only lasted a few months, he divorced her, and also stated that at this time he felt that God abandoned him.

For the years to follow he became a rebel of sorts, partying, womanizing, etc. When we met he seemed to calm down a bit, but there were still some issues that we were working out. However, we were in a relationship and growing stronger.

Fast forward to last November. He started listening to Family Radio again and also reading ebible fellowship. As time went on, he could not have a conversation without mentioning scripture. Then he started saying that judgment day would be May 21, 2011. I was not sure what to say. I do not believe these things or follow these doctrines. Needless to say things became weird between us. I felt helpless because he seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into these beliefs.

In December 2010, he informed me that he would be returning to his ex-wife because the bible states that divorce is not allowed, therefore they are still married. During their marriage there are allegations of abuse and infidelity. He filed for divorce citing cruelty. She filed a restraining order against him. But now, he was being compelled by God to go back.

I was shocked and afraid when he said this to me. Again, we were together for 5 years and there were no major issues until he started reading the bible again. He reached out to the ex-wife and told her what had been revealed to him by God. She agreed to go back. They have been together now for 2 months. He has opened a facebook page where he posts different scriptures all day and is also talking about judgment day on May 21, 2011.

This has made me really skeptical about the Bible. I have wondered is this real? Is God really telling him to do these things? Is it mental illness? What will happen after May 21?

My main question do people believe something so strongly and do such crazy things if there is not something else going on with them? He seems to be in a trance. We have not spoken since he told me he was being commissioned to go back to his ex-wife. All he told me is that he hopes I do not hate him and that I should read my bible. I am totally confused about this.

By Tracy ~

I was born into a Southern Baptist Christian family. Before I could hold my head up on my own I had been “dedicated” to God. I accepted Jesus as my savior when I was four years old and was baptized when I was five.

Image by tpeñalver - TPG via FlickrI attended a Christian school from preschool through third grade (and again in eighth grade) where I was forced into chapel ever day, not counting regular church and Sunday school on Sunday mornings and nights, as well as church on Wednesday. At the age of eight my parents felt that God was telling them it was time to move.

And so began my experience with the Pentecostal Holiness Church. The Pentecostal Holiness denomination is based on the belief in the Pentecost and the “gifts of the spirit” which include “speaking in tongues” as well as being “slain in the spirit” and many others. Growing up, all of this made perfect sense to me and I didn’t understand why anyone would live any other way. I was “witnessing” to my friends to save their souls from hell by age 6 or 7. When I was eleven I was starting a youth group in my neighborhood to warn other kids my age about the impending apocalypse. And I first spoke in tongues when I was twelve. I was in a room full of other girls my age and the focus of our Wednesday night meeting was for everyone to accept the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. I didn’t realize it then, but I was already a skeptic. I watched the other girls with the 5 or 10 “prayer warriors” that had come to assist with the night’s project. They all spoke in tongues before I did. While I thought that it was all rather strange and didn’t understand it, I did understand that it was expected of me and that I was obviously not a “normal” Christian if I wasn’t doing it too. And so, after hours of attempting to invite the holy spirit into my body, I finally spoke in tongues. Most of the other girls were still going at it. I recall standing there with the strange babble coming out of my mouth and thinking that it was the most bizarre thing I had ever seen.

I continued to go to the same church for the next several years. I participated in all of the church functions and carried my bible every day to the public school my parents had finally sent me to. Despite accusations of being weird, I continued to show my dedication to my god. At some point I realized that I very rarely read my bible because I couldn’t make any sense out of it. It also disturbed me that my god was so violent and, at times, merciless, and so I ignored it all together. I didn’t begin to question things until the eleventh grade. My parents tend to think that I began questioning their beliefs because of the public school setting, though I can assure you, that was not the case.

It began with my junior prom. The issue was not the question of sex or men in general. I was so caught up in my studies that I could have cared less about dating (and I was still pro-abstinence at that point). My best male friend was a black classmate named Markas. We decided to go to prom together since neither of us was dating at the time. When I brought the idea up to my parents, my father reacted much more strongly than I had expected. What followed my suggestion was a series of lectures about interracial relationships and how “no daughter of mine is going anywhere with a black man!” or something to that effect. I asked him how he could feel that way when God wanted us to love everyone equally. However, my reasoning was wasted on him. I didn’t go to prom with Markas that year, but I did save the last dance for him.

After my prom, I began to ask questions. Neither my parents nor my pastors were comfortable answering most of them. The ones they did take into consideration were answered with bible verses that left me with more questions that they refused to answer. At times, I offended people to the point of anger. Somehow, the fact did not sit well with me. This continued throughout the twelfth grade. Though I had many unanswered questions, I never doubted that God was real or that Christianity was the only way of living. It was just an accepted fact that I never thought to doubt. I didn’t want to go to Hell! So, while I had questions, I pushed them to the back of my mind and continued daily life as always.

After graduation I met Aaron. He wasn’t anything special – he was just a boy, a little over a year older than me – but he knew things I didn’t. He knew about life and about living and he opened my eyes to a world of things I had been missing. It was his influence that led to my decision to lose my virginity to one of his friends. To me, it was a big deal. It was a major turning point in my life and I realized after doing it that I didn’t feel bad about it. I thought there would be guilt and possibly fear of God’s judgment, but there wasn’t. It felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I was finally able to let go of the good girl facade and live a little bit. But then my dad read my journal. What followed was a daughter’s worse nightmare. There was no yelling or arguing. There was a simple, “I’m so disappointed in you,” and he took away the “true love waits” ring he had given me on my 16th birthday. My parents told me that they were disappointed, but not as much as God was, but that god would forgive me and take me back. All I had to do was repent and vow not to do it again.

I soon became a self-proclaimed “seeker”. I was in search of the truth and would be for several years. I joined the Air Force and moved to Alaska, all the time seeking out answers but not finding any. But all the time I believed in God, Heaven, and Hell. I never questioned their existence because it never occurred to me to question it. I got married when I was 19 to a Presbyterian. Most of the women in the congregation were stay-at-home moms who didn’t believe in women in the workplace, birth control, or blue jeans. I once asked a question during a “theological discussion” between the men at a home gathering. I received sharp glares and no answers. I received the same when they found out I had voted for Obama. I still had serious doubts about religion, but I didn’t doubt God.

The final turning point was during a discussion with an Army medic. He was telling a story about an experience he had on a deployment. He was in a helicopter with wounded soldiers and there were no other planes around. Suddenly, enemy planes filled the sky and he knew they were dead. So he prayed that God would help them. And then the friendly forces came and shot down the enemy planes, killing them in the process. That was how he became a Christian. And that was how I became a non-believer. I realized that whether I was frightened of Hell or not, I couldn’t believe in a God that people believed would kill others for their gain. So my questions remained, but I knew my loyalty could not lie with such a god.

And then I found Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, ex-christian.net, and the Atheism Subreddit. And now I’m sure. I’ve talked to many others with backgrounds similar to mine and I’ve accepted over the past several months that children in America are brainwashed by Christianity. They are so open and willing to accept what they’re told that they don’t question things. And by the time they think to question them, it’s too late. Luckily, I have a support system that has allowed me to question things and finally find the answers that I was looking for. I will not believe in a god who condones rape and murder (to name a few). I would rather believe in the universe or whatever else doesn’t kill people in the name of religion. I am now an Atheist. This is my first time saying it (typing it) and it is rather empowering.

On a side note, my father recently found out that his great grandfather was black.

By Kremer ~

When I first dropped Christianity, it was because of the shear nonreason that religion seemed to display: the ease at which I knew others religion to be false taught me that my own was as well. This observation was made when I was lying in bed trying to sleep, when all of my doubts creep out and haunt me. All of my worries and all of my stresses are amplified at night for whatever reason. Most of my "Enlightenment" moments would either occur during those times, or when I would obsessively pace for hours on end talking to myself.

After I made the conclusion that Christianity was probably false, I became a Theistic Agnostic. I was really torn up about it, after all, there was so many years of falsehoods I had believed in?

It wasn't terrible though. I lived in a family of religious moderates, not crazy Fundamentalists. Science was open to me, and me and my family had political and philosophical discussions that would go on for ages. As a kindergartner, I had believed in a literal interpretation of Genesis. Then I heard of things like evolution and the big bang. I was always a Naturalist it would seem; when I natural explanation was given, the bible was dropped.

I was one of those weird kids who had very little friends and who would rather watch educational television than play soccer; and so I did. I would watch something like five or six hours a day for years. From second grade to eighth grade. As you can imagine, I acquired an impressive intellect about myself.

I had never had many friends and was tormented by my peers constantly for my social awkwardness. Later, I was tormented because it was discovered that I had High Functioning Autism, which most people lack the ability to distinguish between Full Autism. My knowledge and my ability to solve intellectual problems was the only thing that gave me self esteem. So I learned more.

Moving forward again though, my abandoning of Christianity wasn't terrible. Sure, I cried for a little bit. There was the fear of what would happen after I died, and I grappled with that for awhile.

To help grapple with it, I googled some weird thing and found this place. I read through a lot of the post and the comments, and found a reference to Zeitgeist, with the claim that it would explain a lot of it.

I realized Jesus was just some pagan rehashing of Judaism, which was itself a rehashing of a particular bread of Egyptian paganism that only lasted until King Tutankhamen ascended the thrown.

Now broken from my last ties to Christianity, I had no reason to believe in god. I suppose the idea that Jesus was a historical figure was all that kept me from Atheism. I guess I still had a bit of attachment to it... lol.

I became angry at all of the nonsense in the world. It wasn't a burning, heat of the moment, kind of anger. It was a calm, logical, and cold sort of anger, not quite hate. It was because of this that I began to debate the worst of the bunch: the Fundamentalists.

Weeks upon weeks of debating them, and with the help of the other Atheists who happened to be there, I learned more about evolution and what science is than I had for those years of educational television that had come previously. The best way to understand science is to understand pseudoscience.

It seemed like each day I found another reason to not believe in god. Another fallacy, another atrocity, another lack of reason, and more disbelief.

Eventually, I realized that Zeitgeist is a bunch of crap made by a crazy conspiracy theorist spouting half-truths, much like the fundamentalists, and I dropped that reason for Atheism. I had all of the other reasons though now.

I hear many people agonizing about how much of their lives they lost to religion. For me, I'm glad to say it wasn't like that. I wouldn't have wanted myself to give up religion earlier, but I wouldn't have wanted to lose it later either. My faith wasn't crushed by some outside source, leaving me vulnerable and without direct. I crushed it. I left it when I was ready.

It was like a favorite blanket. As a little kid, I would not have wanted it taken from me. I'm glad I had it. As I got older though, I matured, and I gave it up when I was ready. It was never ripped from me. On that regard I am lucky.

By darklady ~

‘Where does the love of god go when the minutes turn to hours? (Gordon Lightfoot – The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald)
The recent earth quake in Christchurch NZ has seen the usual bigoted comments come out. I have heard it blamed on gays, women wanting equality and sinning in general. Mostly I ignore these types of comments as being from ignoramuses, uneducated, fearful people who know no better.

But a few comments have got to me. One such recent comment on Facebook from a xtian friend was that it was ‘remarkable’ that no one was killed when the church spire in the square collapsed, with the implication being that god was somehow protecting people from dying in ‘his’ space. Needless to say this comment ignored the others killed in another church in the city.

Why should it be ‘remarkable’, that ‘god’ stopped people dying in ‘his’ church? Shouldn’t we say instead that where was ‘god’ when people died elsewhere, shouldn’t that be the comment. Shouldn’t we ask (if we believed in a god) where did the ‘love’ of god go, when people died underneath the rubble of the buildings of Christchurch? What is ‘remarkable’ is that anyone can think that just because no one died in one specific church, that ‘god ‘was somehow behind this and for some reason that only god can understand (a typical answer from xtians) the others who were unlucky enough not to be protected by ‘god’ were allowed to die.

It breaks my heart when I hear these types of comments. It somehow robs the dead of their rightful place in our hearts.

By Carl S ~

Little Johnny vomited on the kitchen floor. Grandma was angry because he caused her discomfort. Mother was furious. She said, "Johnny has insulted my dinner, and he ought to be punished." Father said that Johnny should have held it back, and gone to the toilet, the proper place to dump it, and not bother anyone. Nobody considered that Johnny had eaten something poisonous to him, and had to get the poison out of his system; they were only thinking of themselves. And nobody cared. You may notice that this scenario mirrors the attitudes of believers to those who question their beliefs.

Recently, a writer responding to my essay, "What's Missing," asked about my marriage to a Christian woman: “How do you stand it?” Good question, since I frequently ask myself the same thing. The little Johnny story came out of my situation, and will be familiar to many others on this site. It IS frustrating, when the most important matters in my life - truth and morality - are not permitted to be talked about in my own household. I am not allowed to broach the immorality of her god, nor the harms done by religions, the contradictions in the scriptures, or, most importantly, the truth values of religious beliefs.

I feel the price of love is to stifle myself, both with her and her friends. Yet, for her the price of love does not include listening to me, because logically discussing beliefs upsets her, and that’s reason enough for her. She claims that she "knows" Jesus. But, she really doesn’t know me, simply because she doesn't want to. Her involvement with Jesus is in reality an involvement with her church and its members; the whole ambiance.

She wants my love, but like all believers she wants it all on her terms, silencing all disagreement. Having it all your own way always comes at the expense of others and their rights, of course, so the battle of human rights versus faith is present in my own household. Do you understand this? What does "love" have to do with this?

Greta Christina, in her essay, “No, Atheists Don't Have to Show Respect for Religion," asks the question, "Do you care whether the things you believe are true?" She writes, "I've gotten the answer, ‘No, not really.’” I recall a conversation with my wife, when I asked her the very same question, and got the same response. Christina goes on to ask Christians, "If you really loved God, wouldn't you want to understand him as best you can?" And this is where my situation follows the current of my wife’s beliefs: She wants to know me, but not really.

Will she be like so many who find out after a mate is dead, not hidden secrets about that person, but proof of the real person being someone entirely different than the one loved, only because the real person wasn't quite acceptable?

Once, I mentioned to her a phone conversation I had with her pastor (a very ignorant man, by the way), who told me I would go to hell if I did not accept God. Her response was, "That's his opinion," and added that since I don't believe in hell anyhow, it shouldn't matter to me. I know what I would tell a man who said that to my spouse.

It's a bit like a Bernie Madoff situation. You know your spouse is being exploited, conned, but if you say something, the spouse will defend and deny, insist that you don't understand, treat you like you don't know what you’re talking about, then look up to and praise Madoff. Except, in this case, the scam is never discovered. And even if it is . . . contrast the fall of the corrupt Mubarak in Egypt with the child rape scandal in the Catholic Church; where are the protesters calling for the resignation of the pope? No, when it comes to religion, they just cling all the tighter. They don’t really want the truth.

Because anger is not welcome in this household, I must seriously consider that I am not either, because, as I said, truth is involved. And I am faced with the possibility that someday another woman who is an atheist, will come along and understand, naturally, and be willing to listen and share and not be threatened and/or hurt in her feelings. That, to me, would be true love, but maybe only to me. It is not something I plan or expect; I do not want to have it all - just a bit of freedom of expression.

Although my good friend reminds me I have other outlets, such as this site, every day I am confronted with the fact that I must live intimately with the irrationalities of belief systems. I have to listen to the god talk that flows in and out while keeping my mouth shut in order to keep the peace. (Peace for whom?) I want to vomit.

Obviously, I wasn’t paying enough attention when Madalyn Murray O'Hare said that if you're an atheist, expect to be lonely. We are very lucky these days to be interconnected in ways she couldn’t have imagined.

I do love my wife, however, and if Charles Darwin were here, he and I might wink at one another, as his situation was so much like mine.

Repentance and Reunion

By Ex-Pastor Dan ~

Traveling Mercies

There’s nothing quite like the sounds a WWII era Willy’s Jeep makes as it squeaks and squawks along a dirt road (really a glorified trail), mile after mile. Usually the knobby tires would whine a high-pitched wail as we drove into Can Toh village, on pavement. Out here, the roar was a much lower octave, slightly muffled by the 3 inches of dry, red powder that used to be clay, and would be again, after the next monsoon struck. “Oh God, don’t let it rain today! We’ll never get Chaplain Vin all the way to An Xuyen province if it starts raining.”

It was funny how my mind worked. All of my thoughts seemed to be framed into silent prayers. I guess that came from being told my whole life that God saw all, and heard all; even our thoughts were open to his constant monitoring! My mom had pounded that into my head and Brother Mac had reinforced it with a thousand sermons on the topic, e.g. - ‘Pray Without Ceasing’; ‘Let Your Conversation With God be CONSTANT!’ and the coup de grace, ‘Always be Ready for the IMMINENT RETURN OF CHRIST!!’ Nothing was more important than your thoughts. You didn’t want to be caught with ‘BAD THOUGHTS’ when the Rapture hit – you’d be a goner – straight to HELL, do not pass GO, do not collect $200.00!

I was an Arminian and as such I knew that I could lose my Salvation at the drop of a hat. Calvinism (and its cousin – Eternal Security) was railed against from Brother Mac’s pulpit. As teen-agers we were constantly backsliding and RE-committing our lives to Jesus. Sunday Nights were reserved for Salvation and Recommitment messages. Be it Brother Mac, a traveling Evangelist, or one of us young preachers; Sunday night was the Big Show where the Gifts (of the Spirit) would Flow!
God how I missed those Sunday nights!

POW! THUMP, THUMP, THUMP……. “What the Hell!” I whirled around in my make-shift, gunner’s position. I jerked my M-16 up to focus on sightlines along the bush, off to the northwest. “Doug, Padre, what was that? Are you O.k.? Are we hit?” Doug was wrestling Chappy (nick name of our God Squad jeep) to a wide spot off to the right of the road. We all jumped out and Doug and I scrambled under our only source of protection. Unfortunately Chaplain Vin was about 75 lbs. overweight, with most of that concentrated around his considerable mid-section. Even if there had been room for him beneath our carriage (which there wasn’t), he was 6 inches too thick to force his way under. He laid there - red face, white hair, green fatigues – wriggling his body into that dry, red soil. Sweat poured from his temples and dripped off of his ears, forming little red mud balls as they ‘poofed’ into the floury dust.

As we lay there, huffing and puffing - sweating and sweltering, I thought, “This man of God is human and scared, just like me and Doug.”

I couldn’t leave him there, exposed. I was the Chaplain’s Assistant and as such I was his bodyguard. He had no weapon; I had the only weapon in our possession. It was up to me to be the soldier. Doug was a PFC and I was a Spec 4, so it was my responsibility to take care of this little band of heroes. “Oh God, you know I prayed for traveling mercies before we left Can Tho. I know that Thy blood has covered us and will take us safely to our destination. Please help us! Help me to do the right thing. Forgive me of my sins! Forgive me for my anger with Thee! I repent of my rebellion against Thy will! I plead the blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus….COVER ME WITH THY BLOOD! OH GOD I’M SO SORRY FOR MY WRETCHED SINS! MAKE ME PURE AND READY IF THIS BE THE HOUR OF MY DEATH!”

After what seemed like an hour (more like three minutes) of silence - except for Chappy’s slight radiator hiss - we slowly inched our way out into the open. Doug and I crawled around our little over-heated vehicle and checked for damage. Chaplain Vin had raised himself to his side and was visibly praying as he fingered his onyx-beaded Rosary. “We have a Flat Tire!” Doug yell-whispered. “Tire’s fucked! Dan, Padre, haul your asses over to the bushes and cover me while I fix this son-of-a-bitch!” Doug’s tongue had lost its salvation and reverted back to a hard-ass, cussing infantryman, and I had never heard any words that ever sounded so sweet and comforting! “Come on Padre,” I said, as I helped him up to a crouching run. “Move your ass, keep your mutha-fuckin head down, the shit’s about to hit the fan!” The profanity poured forth from my mouth like I was speaking in tongues. I was not in control, I was in another dimension. A spirit had taken over control of me (at least my lips) and it felt fantastic! “Shit, shit….fuck! Holy fuckin Shit! Doug, you’re a God Damned Angel!” “I’ve got you covered, you son-of-a-bitch!” “Jesus H. Christ! Pray Padre, PRAY! I’m going back to help Doug!”


It turns out that we had taken an AK-47 round to the left rear tire. It had lodged between the rim and the inner tube, after the tire exploded. I had undoubtedly been the target of a Viet Kong’s bullet as we bounced along the dirt trail, headed south. Due to the rutted road and the billow of dust that we were kicking up, my intended assassin never had a clear shot, but of course that’s not the way we explained this outcome; it was a God Damned Miracle! Jesus had covered us with his blood of protection. We were in the palm of his mighty hand. I was back in God’s good graces. That ‘miracle’ would go with me for the next 20 years. It sucked me back from the edge of doubt’s crevasse and secured me to the Faith of my childhood. God still loved me. He hadn’t forgotten about me. He still had work for me to do. He would reveal his will to me…..in time.


Ghosts of An Xuyen

It took us several hours to complete our journey to An Xuyen Province. Major Wilcox was the only American left in this region. He was in charge of ’Vietnamization’- a process of turning all military operations over to the Army of Viet Nam (ARVN). This poor guy was haggard and exhausted. He had a look in his eyes that was haunting. He was twitchy and unkempt. His whole countenance exuded surrender & dejection. He had had it! He was done, finished, burned out. He tried to fall at the feet of Father Vin, but of course the dear old priest would not allow that. He caught him under the arms and lifted him into a big bear hug. “God Bless you Major, Jesus-Mary-and-Joseph it’s a long way down here!” Chaplain Vin covered the embarrassing moment as if it were his everyday greeting. “Let’s have a drink and talk a while before we hit the sack.”

“VIETNAMIZATION IS A TREMENDOUS SUCCESS! THE ARVN HAS BEEN COMPLETELY TRAINED AND IS NOW READY TO TAKE OVER ALL OPERATIONS IN THE COUNTRY!” Major Wilcox seemed to gain some steam as we talked into the night. He told of his frustration with how the war was going. He felt alone and was angry at how his reports continued to be changed by his superiors. He would send a report up to the battalion that would say: “VIETNAMIZATION IS NOT WORKING – IT IS A TOTAL FAILURE – THE ARVN WILL NEVER MAKE IT 3 MONTHS WITHOUT U.S. INVOLVEMENT.” The brass at the battalion level did not want that message to go to Saigon so they would change it a little bit to read: “VIETNAMIZATION IS WORKING SLOWER THAN WE WOULD LIKE – WE NEED MORE TIME TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL TRANSITION – THE ARVN WILL BE ABLE TO TAKE OVER SOON.” The generals in Saigon were under the gun to get us out of Viet Nam (President Nixon was pushing hard) so they would send a completely re-worded report back to the White House which read:
 “VIETNAMIZATION IS A TREMENDOUS SUCCESS! THE ARVN HAS BEEN COMPLETELY TRAINED AND IS NOW READY TO TAKE OVER ALL OPERATIONS IN THE COUNTRY!”
The ghostly look in his eyes had turned to fire as he spoke. He ranted and raved and spit and cussed - until he finally ran out of gas. With a “please forgive me Father” he wandered off to his tent and fell into his rack. That was not the first time I had heard an Army Officer talk like that. That kind of speech was spreading throughout the officer’s corps. Everyone was frustrated and beginning to realize that this war was futile and would never end with ‘an honorable peace’ (as Nixon liked to say). It was 1972 and things were changing. Back home, the ‘peace and love’ and ‘bra burnings’ of the 1960’s had turned into ‘anti-war marches’ and ‘flag burnings’. Viet Nam vets were being spat upon in airports and bus terminals. They were called ‘baby killers’ and ‘war-mongers’. The chants of ‘Kill a Commie for Christ!’ had turned into ‘You’ll rot in Hell for what you’ve done!’ I just wanted to go home!

Reunion

The Can Tho Army Airfield Chapel held two HUGE surprises for me when we returned. As we rolled up in front of the building we could hear loud rock-n-roll music coming from behind, where our hooch (barracks) was located. Doug and I grabbed our gear and headed through the chapel and out the back door. As we exited the church I was met with a view that I have never forgotten. There was a completely naked young woman dancing right in front of our hooch door. As the music came to an end, the soldiers yelled and cheered as she disappeared into our room! It seems that with us not there for the week-end, our living quarters had been turned into a dressing room for the local rock band and ‘strippers’! The open area (quad) that was surrounded by the chapel, our hooch, the comm-room and the basketball court, had been turned into an outdoor nightclub! I was aghast yet strangely titillated! I had never seen an adult female in the nude (at least not live and in person). I had sneaked looks at Playboy magazines when I was younger, but I was still a virgin, I had never seen anything like this! Of course we were the ‘God Squad’, so we had to show indignation. “HEY, WHAT’S GOING ON?”

The crowd scattered faster than cockroaches when the light is turned on. It was like a scene from a soft porn comedy; naked women running while trying to put on their shoes. Guitars twanging, cymbals crashing, screams and laughter ….and at least a hundred shouts of, “Oh Shit, it’s the Chaplain!”


The second surprise was in the form of a letter. My early out had come through! I was enrolled in the spring semester at Ventura College and would be released from active duty on December 22, 1972. I would be home for Christmas and would start my sophomore year at college on January 21, 1973. It was over! I would be home in two weeks. This time it was for good. No more coming back to Nam. I had passed the test. I had run the race, I had finished the course – “henceforth, there was laid up for me a crown of righteousness.”

God was good. He loved me and I loved him! He had forgiven me and received me back into fellowship with himself. We were re-united… and all was right with the world!

NEXT TIME: GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS

By RickO ~

A few weeks ago a friend died. She was a beautiful, gentle person in her early 50’s, struck down by cancer. She ran a small shop where she sold books, clothing, crystals, incense, world instruments and things like that. She was very much into the ideas of metaphysics, eastern philosophy and the wonders of the natural world. Hers was the type of little shop where you would go for a warm smile, some cheerful conversation and carton of Nag Champa. Her parents are hardcore fundamentalist Christians, the type that even view Catholics as infidels.

As it turns out, one of the first things her parents did after their daughter’s death was to gather up her large collection of books and burn them. She had a substantial library on her favorite subjects, many rare and first editions, the passions of her life, literature so apparently repugnant to her parents that they saw fit to destroy it all even before she was laid to rest.

Her long-time boyfriend and companion, a man who knew her better than anyone in the world, was understandably grief-stricken over the loss of his love, but his sadness turned to an emotion there may not even be a name for when he learned of the destruction of the lifelong book collection. Among the pages of her treasured tomes was another of her valuables: A large collection of Silver Certificates, many worth a thousand times their face value; her life savings. She also saved letters and other important documents in this private safe place of hers.

Why didn’t she keep these things in a traditionally safer place, like a safe deposit box? Who knows? But it’s not up to anyone but her so it doesn’t matter. What matters more is that her parents, driven by the close-minded insanity of Christian fundamentalism, chose to unthinkingly destroy even more of their daughter than the disease that took her. Aside from the value of her savings, unimportant in the greater scheme of things, who knows what cherished memories of a beautiful life may have dropped from the pages of a book had her own parents spared them from the pyre? They certainly grieve, I assume at least, but I find sympathy a little harder to offer.

To our dear sweet friend, we love you, we miss you and wish you peaceful eternal rest among the stars.

By Slow Break ~ 

The process of de-converting from Christianity can be very difficult, at least has been for me. I will never go back, but at times the constant disconnect with family and friends wears on the soul.

Image by Rajesh Vijayarajan Photography via FlickrOne of my favorite movie moments comes from a marginally successful Nicholas Cage film called Eight Millimeter. (I recommend it. It’s disturbing like Seven was disturbing and even though it revolves around the world of pornography it is not a skin flick) In the movie, Cage is a private detective hired by a widow to look into the origins of a 8mm film reel found in her husband’s safe after his death. The film is pornographic and includes a grisly depiction of a girl being killed. We learn that these videos are called “snuff” films. Along the way Cage meets Joaquin Phoenix who plays an intelligent kid who happens to work at an adult book store and spends his days reading texts books disguised as pornography. Cage enlists Phoenix’s help in getting access to the seedy world of underground porn in Los Angelis. The duo is about to enter a “black market” for porn when Phoenix looks at Cage and says “are you sure you want to go in there”. Cage looks perplexed and says “of course” to which Phoenix responds “it’s just that, (dramatic pause) there are certain things you can’t un-see. Some things get into your head and they stick”.

There are certain things you can’t un-see.

I’ve often said that whoever first said “ignorance is bliss” was a sage of great wisdom. I’ve come back to this thinking several times in my life. What is better, an informed, educated life that spends its days wrestling with the all the contradictions in the world, or an ignorant life, satisfied with the simple surface realities perceived by the casual observer? In this case I use ignorant in its dictionary meaning not in the pejorative.

Sometimes, I think the later.

It is the sausage argument. Sausage taste good, but few really want to see how it’s made.

There are certain things you can’t un-see. Some things get into your head and they stick. My favorite professor in college, L. Spencer Spaulding (you always say his full name as a show of respect), often said that he viewed learning as “becoming ignorant on a higher level” because with every step you take toward being educated you realize how much more you don’t know.

I picked up a book the other day about a topic of great interest to me but one that is controversial to many readers. I read the first few pages and stopped. I’m not sure I want to read the other 500 pages. I think my life might be more comfortable if I remain ignorant of the facts in the book. That way I don’t have to argue with friends and loved ones who disagree. I won’t have to wrestle with the implications the facts might have for how I want my children educated. I may remain ignorant, but I will likely have more bliss. Maybe I’m a sellout, but it’s an exchange I might be willing to make.

Who is to say that people who live and die in the Matrix are worse off than Neo who has his ignorance removed? If you lived a rich, full, and rewarding life but found out at the end that it was all in your mind and your actual body was a in a goo filled pod producing electricity for machines, would that make a difference? I sometimes I think that living in The Matrix wouldn’t be so bad if I could have the life I wanted.

I love to learn. This hasn’t always been so and I often feel like I’m playing catch-up because of the time I wasted in my early twenties. I love to be challenged by a new concept. I love to pick up a book by Stephen Hawking for the challenge of seeing if I can understand it. (I can’t) I like browsing the bookstore and finding a book about an obscure topic. In the past six months I’ve read books on the follow topics, secret societies, Ghengis Khan, management theory, economics, human resource management, Enron, eternal security, biblical authority, biblical textual criticism, reading body language, Power and Influence, the merger of RJR Nabisco, Harry Potter, etc, etc, etc. I love adding information to my mental filing cabinet. How much smarter it makes me is debatable.

What I do not always like, what I sometimes wish I could un-see, is the impact that information has on my worldview. If I had never read a book that wasn’t bought at the Christian bookstore would my life be more blissful? I could find comfort is excoriating liberal minded intellectuals. I could win every argument by appealing to authority, never considering that others may not grant my sources the same authority. I would make those around me happier. My pastor’s wife would never ask me if I was trying to punish God with my doubt. I would never feel bad for holding views that are in direct conflict with people I love.

In 8mm, Cage finds that the snuff film is indeed real, meets the dead girl’s mother, and eventually catches and then executes her killer. When he returns to his comfortable mid-west home complete with picket fence, he walks upstairs to his infant daughter’s room and looks at her sleeping peacefully in her crib. His wife comes in at which point Cage breaks down in her arms and sobs “Help me”.

In the end, ignorance is not bliss. The unexamined life really isn’t worth leading. I am reading the next 500 pages of the book and I will likely read more. Like many things in life, ignorance is only bliss on the surface. At its core, ignorance is the face of slavery, the holocaust, the crusades, and fundamentalism. Like Alice and Neo, I don’t think there is any going back. The rabbit hole only goes one direction and Phoenix was right, there are certain things you can’t un-see.

By TamaBrett ~

It's Sunday evening and I'm sitting in my Tokyo apartment taking a break from cleaning up the mess and watching the news. They are going through each town in the north listing the number of people, dead, missing, and in evacuation centres; thousands and thousands of people.

Firstly, I'm fine and everyone I know is fine. When the earthquake hit I was in a convenience store getting lunch and I was quite oblivious to how bad it was. Back at the office it looked like a bomb had gone off. Our company is a telecommunications company so part of essential infrastructure, and we had to get back to work straight away. Just like millions of others, I had to walk home, but only 4 kilometres and up 13 flights of stairs. In my apartment a bookcase fell over scattering books and CDs, but no damage at all. Tokyo got off pretty lightly, for us it was basically just a transport inconvenience.

But this isn't about me.

Japan is one of the most atheist countries in the world and that's one of the reasons I feel so comfortable about living here. If you ask, most Japanese will say they are Buddhists but that's really because they feel the need to give an answer; most Japanese are completely irreligious. At the beginning of the year most Japanese will go to a Shinto shrine to offer a prayer and funerals are Buddhist but I feel these are simply cultural constructs. People have a vague idea of an immortal soul and that's about it.

So how do such irreligious people handle such great stress as a massive earthquake? They help each other with kindness and absolute sincerity. There are already stories of great bravery emerging and countless acts of selfless giving and no one talking about appealing to Jesus to give them strength.

The walk home was a strange experience. It's like the crowd leaving a sports stadium or concert, large numbers of people walking off in the same direction except it goes on, and on for tens of kilometres out to the outer suburbs, millions of people on the move. Along the way there were police calling out to see if anyone was in trouble or stressed, shops had stalls out the front giving out free water, coffee and tea and offering the use of facilities. It's winter, and it was around 4 degrees Celsius. People were offering blankets and jackets to complete strangers. Adults asked high school students if they were OK and offered a few thousand yen ($20) to buy food if they needed it. Of course not everyone can walk such great distances but the local evacuation centres were already staffed and people were invited inside for a short rest or to stay overnight if necessary. Parents knew their children would be safely looked after at their schools.

Of course in the north where entire communities were devastated the same things are happening but with more gravity. We, the members of ExChristian.Net know that this is simply people doing what people do. They are helping their family, neighbours and complete strangers simply because they are human. Furthermore, with the lack of divisive religious factions there is no “us” and there is no “them” to fear.

Japan is proof that a country doesn't need religion to have a soul.

By Stephen R ~

My problems started the summer before I entered seminary. It occurred to me, despite being a Christian since the age of nine, I had never read the Bible from cover to cover. This hardly seemed fitting for a prospective minister, so I decided to start in Genesis and plow my way through.

And I quickly discovered some material that was both new and disturbing. I hadn't even gotten to Exodus before encountering a bunch of angels who visited earth to have "relations" with human women, giving rise to a race of giants known as the Nephilim. As you might imagine, this wasn't one of the flannel-graph stories I had heard in Sunday School.

Then there was the story of Elisha in 2 Kings. At one point, this great prophet was taunted with "You baldhead!" by a group of young boys. In response, the man of God cursed the kids, whereupon two bears emerged from the woods and mauled 42 of them. In all my years of church attendance, I had never heard a sermon on this particular tale, and several issues became apparent upon reading it. First, it seemed like Elisha--being a prophet and all--could have been a shade more thick-skinned about these jests. But even worse, how in the world did 2 bears maul 42 boys? After the first 6 or 8 went down, you'd think the rest of them would run like hell.

Fortunately, I was about to move from Tennessee to Northern California to enter a Southern Baptist seminary, and I was certain that all my questions about the Old Testament would soon be answered.

They weren't.

In fact, new questions emerged during my education. I discovered, for example, that although my denomination made a huge issue of the Bible's inerrancy, this concept only applied to the original manuscripts--which no longer exist. Everyone acknowledged textual issues with the copies of biblical books we rely upon today, so why were we arguing over some theoretical concept that had no bearing on our current Bible? I also learned that other cardinal doctrines, such as the divinity of Christ and the Trinity, had been hotly debated in the early Church and only codified by Church councils centuries after Jesus' life. But now we had to believe these things to be acceptable to God?

Duly alarmed, I chucked the whole Christian enterprise and dropped out of school, right? Well, no. In truth, there was no denying that faith had exerted a positive influence on my life, particularly when I went through a dark period during college. And I liked being a believer, especially the relationships I had with Christian friends. So although the "answers" I was given to my doubts were not entirely satisfying, I stayed the course.

For my first few years after seminary, I made use of my undergrad degree by working as a environmental engineer, and my wife and I started a family. But when the opportunity came to join the staff of a growing Baptist church just north of San Francisco, I jumped at it. For six years, I preached sermons, led small groups, and recruited Sunday School teachers--and enjoyed it. I had plenty of friends, meaningful work, and a good life.

But the doubts never went away. In fact, new ones came along. Like the time our denomination issued a public apology for slavery--approximately 150 years after the fact. If we were really being led by God, why did it take so long to get on the right side of what is, to put it mildly, a rather clear-cut moral issue? This made me wonder if we would be apologizing to, say, the gay community in another 150 years (let's make it 200 to be safe).

Then there was the time I attended a pastor's conference where the featured speaker was a famous Christian pollster. He revealed reams of statistics showing that the behavior of Christians regarding divorce, suicide, domestic abuse, etc. was no better (and in some cases worse) than that of non-believers. One got the sense that this was somehow the fault of us ministers for watering down the Gospel and such, but a simpler solution occurred to me. What if Christians acted the same as everyone else because we WERE the same as everyone else?

Also, my background in engineering left me unwilling to believe that scientists were spoofing us with this whole evolution thing. Did Bible college-educated preachers really know more than biologists and paleontologists who devoted their lives to the study of this topic? To me, this didn't seem likely.

I could go on, but you get the idea. These doubts accumulated, and shortly after I left my original church to start a new congregation, I realized that to be successful in such an undertaking, I had to be 100% on board. And I wasn't. So after a very difficult period of soul-searching, I left the ministry and, eventually, the faith.

Now I'm working as an engineer again and loving it. I'm also loving that I can pursue truth without asking if the truth fits into my predetermined theology. I even see some of my old Christian friends from time to time, and most of them are surprisingly understanding about my new views. (Sure, there was the one guy who yelled at me in a Mexican restaurant, but even he later apologized.) These days, I'm mostly trying to figure out how much I should "live and let live" and how much I should advocate for the atheist/agnostic vantage point. Visiting this site is one step toward figuring out that balance.

Thanks for reading my story. And if you find fault with it, I promise not to summon any bears out of the woods.

By Carl S ~

Before you Christians protest too much, consider this: what other book makes God look like a maniac, and cold-blooded, indifferent, punitive and pompous, i.e., a supreme sociopath? What other book has caused so many murders, confusion, strife, genocides. What other source has such blatant, contradictory claims and has gone virtually unedited from the first, wherein, furthermore, its "witnesses” testimonies wouldn’t be accepted in the smallest courtrooms of the USA? Where else, even in ancient texts, will one find genocide portrayed as virtuous?

There's an old joke about a man going around before a play's performance. He is shouting, "Buy a program, get a program; you must have a program. Without a program, you can't tell the Lord from the Devil." Indeed...

The bible is a book of lies by the father of lies, with just enough facts and actual places thrown in to make it acceptable to the gullible. Tell me that it isn't so. Prove to me differently - or better yet, prove it to yourself. In the meantime, I expect you’ll continue to wave that vile book around in your cocksure, pompous way.

Believers keep writing new programs in attempts to align bible-god with the god they profess to believe in, but that Satan ghost-written book still refuses to agree, after thousands of years. What's wrong with this picture? As an instrument of divisiveness, strife, and overall condemnation of human nature, you have to admit, Satan couldn't do any better.