By Goldcrest ~

Have you ever watched one of those movies where, after maybe an hour and a half, the story seems to have reached a natural ending, and you expect to watch the credits roll any moment, only to find the story takes another turn, and then another, and your still watching an hour later? My deconversion journey is like that at the moment. I get to a stage where I think “Yes. That’s it. I’m through with religion for good now. I can get on with my life.” Then something happens. I run into an old friend from church, and I find myself missing the place. Or sometimes I just feel lonely and want to be back there again. I think to myself, “Surely it wasn’t all that bad. Okay, you were unhappy as a Christian. But you’re not happy now…you’ve got nothing to lose by going back.”

Some days I go down a whole imaginary road of how I’m going to go to church again. Not straight away, though. First I’ll call one of my old friends and meet up and have coffee and a chat. Then maybe go to the church men’s group meeting, not the Sunday service. Just dip my toe in. No commitment, no pressure. A couple of weeks ago I arranged to meet someone via a text conversation. I backed out. The problem is the head is in one place but the heart is sometimes in another. I KNOW Christianity is untrue. I’ve spent over a year studying all the problems with doctrine; I’ve read Dawkins and Hitchens and watched The Atheist Experience. But my loneliness keeps wanting me to go back. The problem is I suffer from bi-polar disorder and am quite a heavy drinker. I find it so hard to go out and mix with people. Church seems a very soft option. So welcoming, so warm and friendly.

It was because of the shallowness of Christian friendship that I left, along with the failure of the promises of the bible to deliver. I had gone to church at first looking for friendship, but found only fellowship. The happy handshakes and smiles; the false welcome that makes you think they’re really interested in you. I soon found that they didn’t want to invite me into their lives; they just left me on the edge of things. One guy, to his credit, did make an effort to get to know me, but I soon found our “friendship” was just him mentoring me. I discovered that he was someone who made it his ministry to try to encourage those who are vulnerable and in emotional need.

All my prayers for my healing were unanswered. I was “a new creation in Christ” but I still had depression and I still drank every night. I began to get hopeful that things were improving when I started doing gardening jobs for church members. I was feeling useful, and appreciated. After a few months I suddenly developed a skin reaction to plants and had to stop. This seemed so unjust and inexplicable that it started me off on a process of doubting, looking for answers. At first I felt a lot of anger. That’s easing off now.

I’m not going back to church. I don’t think I am. I’m just trying to keep working at getting free.

By ByronFish ~

I woke up this morning around 2am with a little bit of indigestion from the pizza we had for dinner last night. As I tossed and turned, I had the usual things running through my mind, like...what I needed to do at work in 5 hours, what bills needed paid before we go for vacation in 2 weeks, etc...and then I started thinking of my middle son who is currently in basic training for the Coast Guard. As I continued to drift in and out of sleep, memories of my son as a child went through my head. I remembered when he was about 10 years old and wrote a heart felt note about missing his grandmothers, grandfather and aunts who had recently passed away. I remembered how he hid that note in his room and how my wife and I cried when we read it after coming across it years later when we moved from that house to our next. I thought about my son's wedding day a few years ago and how tough being married and getting into the military in his mid 20's must be. As I started back to sleep I imagined my son walking toward me, so I reached out to hug him. Suddenly I woke up and realized I had actually stretched my arms out, in my sleep, to hug my son who wasn't really there.


Now I'm up and sitting in the living room, hoping to go back to bed in a few minutes. The whole sensation of imagining my son and reaching out to hug him, reminded me of the days I would stand in church (or at home) and stretch my hands and arms to the sky to embrace a god I wanted to know better. There's a warm sensation I used to get while doing that act of worship and looking back I wonder if that is just a normal feeling we get while imagining or actually performing the act of hugging? Maybe there's a natural reason we feel warm and fuzzy when we hug. If so, it makes sense to me why I used to think I felt God's presence greater during those worship 'services'. Try it, close your eyes and imagine a loved one or your favorite god, whether alive or gone. Now open your arms and reach out to give them a hug. If you can quit laughing, you may experience a warm feeling in your chest, the warmth that goes hand in hand with the emotions that person brings to you. Now imagine doing that with just the right music, lighting and encouragement from those around you. Could the emotions invoked during this physical act of reaching toward an imagined loved one be the reason so many people in different religions continue to incorporate 'lifting holy hands' in their worship ceremonies? Sounds like a question for the pro's...has Valerie Tarico mentioned anything about this in her writings? It's hard to argue with emotional experiences.

By Carl S. ~

Oh how I love the power of words! The poetry and clear honesty they can convey, the images and thoughts they can bring to mind, and provoke to think about what they say. Most of all, those which stay with us, repeated and passed down through generations. . .

It became inevitable that I would embrace the word usage of Lewis Carroll. Yes, dear freethinkers, rationalists, and morally committed of all ages who are trying to use all means at our disposal to "get through' the superstition-irrationality all about us, to us Lewis Carroll has bequeathed something we can use; a vocabulary like that of computerese, slang, internet argot, using Carroll's wordplay.

In his "Through the Looking Glass," we find the poem, "Jabberwocky" - one of my perennial favorites - which begins, “Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.” It isn't until later in the book, when Alice has some of these words explained by Humpty Dumpty, that we find out what they mean. For example, "slithy" means a combination of "lithe " and "slimy;" to "gyre" is to go round and round like a gyroscope, "gimble," to "make holes like a gimlet," etc.

We can do this. We can make new words to be used as weapons or to make people think from a different angle, perspective. Let's try it.

I propose a word, "Fluk." Yes, it's a four-letter word, but not obscene either, though it will first have that initial effect - which is the idea.

DEFINITION: "Fluk" A word combining "flush," as in flush down the toilet, or out of one's system, such as vomit, and the word "yuckl" meaning "disgusting, repulsive, something to be rejected." Of course, "flush" can also mean a reaction of embarrassment - which also fits our criteria. We are "fluking" some beliefs which should frankly be an embarrassment to those who believe them. (Here again, this is only one word. New ones are welcome, if they fit our criteria which is to challenge dogmatic beliefs, and remain non-personalized. We are not out to insult believers, but to give outlets to Reason.

Okay. Let us begin our campaign with an obvious target: Fluck Original Sin! Flush that perverse, anti-human doctrine down the toilet where it belongs. Yuck! And an embarrassment to those who preach and/or, accept it without objection. "Fluck Personhood." Nonsense, fabricated, anti-women, without evidence, sexuality, mind or rights. A perverse and disgusting invention of willfully ignorant minds. The list goes on - add your own favorite dogmas. What about "infallibility," or "the Ascension" (Whose? Jesus', his mother's, Mohammed’s, prophet Elijah’s? Take your pick.) You get the picture.

How did it get to the point that this crap can keep on going, damaging? Why are little children taught to take it seriously? Really. Isn't it way overdue for the young people to get on line and say, "Fluk this sh*t.“To save the moral environment, get the poison out, stop pussyfooting around, tell it like it is.

Do you remember the "Just say No" campaign? What about, "Just say fluk it." And that begs the question, "Just what the f**k does 'fluk' mean?" Aha. Now we're communicating, maybe, just maybe, getting somewhere.

Hey! It's a beginning.

By Incongruous Circumspection ~

A week ago, my one-year old daughter dumped a scalding hot thermos of coffee down the front of her shirt. It was entirely my fault and I was devastated. Luckily, her burns were only minor with two small spots where it burned through to the fourth dermis layer. It has healed quickly and she is on the fast track to recovery. Unfortunately, the lasting effect is that we have to monitor the worst areas for the next two years so they don't get sunburned. Then, we're home free. The doctors do not expect any scarring, which is the most important factor to me.

The outpouring of support we received was phenomenal. Relatives called from all over the country, friends contacted us from overseas. Inquiries were made to relatives of our relatives to check up on their little granddaughter. It warmed me from the ends of my rarely clipped toenails to the tips of my graying locks.

But, my wife did receive one letter that made me fall out of my chair. I do not hold this person accountable for these words because it is a mainstream Christian concept that they parroted. I also must say that it did not affect me at all, emotionally. I have very thick skin and, frankly, arguments like this are so easy to logically see through to the other side, rendering them utter foolishness.

At first, the letter started out with concern about my daughter and was very warm and loving. Then, it turned weird. I quote:

"I am praying that God will work through this tragedy to help you feel His comfort, and realize how much He truly loves you all and longs to have a relationship with you if you'll let Him!"

Really?! So, God caused a scalding hot thermos of coffee to tip off a table onto my daughter, giving her second degree burns and two years of therapy just so he could save me? I'm not buying it. Now, since I rejected that little nudge from God, is he going to throw one of my kids over the second floor banister? If I still don't love him, will he then maim a few more of my little children, whom I love dearly? Maybe he'll take away my wife next time. Maybe she'll get cancer or multiple sclerosis. Or, worse yet, I'll get the dreaded and incurable ALS. Any way you cut it, God is perfectly happy hurting my child to get himself a believer.

Here is my deepest question:

Why the hell would ANYONE want to believe in a selfish, immature, narcissistic, hateful, murderous, and unloving god like that?!!! And how is my kid being burned by god "comfort"!!? That god is not a loving god and I will never even give him a thought. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. My daughter is already well aware of the pain a thermos of coffee can cause and won't even go near an empty one, let alone anything that we tell her is hot. We have implemented other safety measures throughout the years to keep our children safe and healthy. We can do it by ourselves.

Finally, I do not blame the writer of this letter. I really don't. If you believe in the god of the Bible, it is imperative to think this way.

"The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation." - Numbers 14:18

No amount of pretzelified theology can escape this one. God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. His character and sense of justice do not change.

Stand by while I go hug my kids and tell them I love them. They will never have to fear a non-existent being that hates them for my sins.

By Josh ~

I officially decided to abandon Christianity one year ago. At that time I felt a huge burden of relief, but I still find myself trying to cleanse my brain of years of conditioning that leaves me with constant guilt, self-doubt, and indecisiveness. I feel a deep need to share my story as I continue to bring closure to this aspect of my life.

I was born into what I now see as a perfect case example of a fundamentalist cult-like subculture of America. My father was a youth pastor and my mother was a stay-at-home homeschool mother. I was raised to believe Evolution was an anti-God conspiracy, Christianity is under attack in America, sexual thoughts are the equivalent of adultery, and kissing before marriage is shameful. There never was any question of whether I was a Christian or not, it was just part of my assumed identity whether I liked it or not. I always knew this and felt this burden. I knew that whether I believed it or not, it didn't matter to my family. It was their sole reason for existing, for me as their child to abandon it was simply unthinkable for me. I refused to consider it. This is despite my doubts kicking in as early as I can remember being aware of my thoughts.

The basic problem of interventionist prayer was obvious to me around the age of 5 or so, when I was trying to mentally piece together how God would physically alter the universe in a way that would be undetectable or surprising. I couldn't come up with anything that made sense, but I couldn't throw it out either, so I pushed my awareness of my disbelief and would hope that someday I would understand what others understand. This was a pattern that became second-nature to me and continues to this day - I still repress my strong gut feelings and doubt my strongest intuitions in the assumption that someone else knows whats right.

I believed in all the testimonials and promises of whatever-the-hell this great feeling is that people get from God and prayer and worship. I tried and tried and tried and tried but nothing ever made sense. Nothing ever felt right. When I was 11 I was emotionally moved by a Christmas play and combined with my feeling of guilt for not accepting Christ yet, I decided to publicly declare faith and get baptized. The main thought I remember having was, that was it? I feel nothing. But I continued with the painful act to make my family happy.

I love reading and debating, and around age 13, with access to the internet I would express my opinions on forums where I encountered people who were adamantly NOT Christian. Due to being home-schooled and later put in Christian schools, this was not something I was used to. I had to seriously defend my beliefs under very harsh and uncompromising criticisms. I used every explanation and trick you could possibly learn in apologetics, but my arguments crumbled one by one. I was not too stupid to realize my arguments were flawed, as I would continue to research every point with extreme discrimination and find the Christian side comes up wanting time and time again.

This put me in a state of intellectual denial for about 10 years. I would go to church and hear the flaws in every statement, but try to battle myself into believing it. I reached a point where I mentally compromised with myself and said it was OK to go with the Christian facade as long as I still believed in some sort of God...but this is not what Christianity asks. Every branch of Christianity has extremely specific criteria to describe God, and I clearly didn't believe in the Christian God.

When I would hear people describe themselves as agnostic or atheist, I would feel jealously. I would feel inadequate, because that was what I wanted to believe but I wouldn't let myself. Self-doubt and self-loathing continued, coming from my realization that I was living a lie.

I didn't date or reach out to people that I wanted to be friends with. My loyalty to the lie of my Christian lifestyle wouldn't let me. I wanted to date girls so bad, but my inability to connect with an non-Christian and my disinterest in Christians left me in a double-bind.

I was always terrified internally that people would ask my what my faith is. At best I could admit that I was kinda-religious. But even that was an exaggeration.

After going through some emotionally difficult periods, I plunged into self-help books to help train my mind to be more optimistic, have greater self-esteem, anything to make myself feel better, more alive, and more like a worthy person. Ironically it was my mother that gave me "The Road Less Traveled" - and it was in reading this book that I found the internal strength to say No, I am not a Christian and I do not believe the Bible. That moment was beautiful. I felt justified and confident in facing my beliefs.

Fast-forward a year later and I am still not a Christian, but I have a multitude of lingering thoughts and impulses stemming from the ethic and lifestyle that I used to live by. Some are downright repulsive, such as the thought that homosexuals are responsible for AIDS and don't need sympathy. Others are annoying and intrusive, such as useless sexual guilt and a tendency to place others feelings/views/judgments/needs as more valid than my own.

I feel like these thoughts are burned into my brain from literally 22 years of self-denial and brainwashing. Thankfully I found alternative views on the internet starting at such a young age, or I most likely would still be living with my family, going to church every Sunday, and not on my path towards independent self-realization. Also I can have sex now, which is pretty cool.

By Griffin9857 ~

When I was a kid I belonged to a relatively conservative but non-religious family. We may have been to church twice in my childhood – both times for specific people/events.

Needless to say my religious upbringing never really happened, until later.

When I was fifteen my family moved to Fiji as my father had a job lined up there, we were to be there for three years while I went to school along with my siblings. We packed up our stuff into little boxes ready for the tropics and off we went.

Nothing overly religious occurred there apart from the occasional conversation or argument that crops up in an international school where most of the students are from one religious group or another. Really, all of us were more interested in who was dating who or what was likely to happen in the weekends.

Our time in Fiji was cut short, it was a year and a half later when we moved back to Auckland, the city I grew up in. Prior to Fiji we were living in the capital, Wellington. I had lost most of my childhood friends by this point as they had all moved away or were barely recognisable as who they were. I hadn’t seen most of them since I was 10.

I was 17 by this point, looking for new friends and for the picking by theists.

And that’s how it happened really, I was in school in the library during a history lesson when two people, siblings, started to sprout nonsense about god, creation mythology and god’s supremacy over all other gods/faiths. I had always had a problem with smug idiots who think they know everything and I wanted to nail them for it so I said something snide. Their response was to discuss in excruciating detail what hell is like (verses included) to REALLY scare me silly. with images of fire, the one thing that scares the shit outta me. Needless to say it got me thinking, and with continuous long term persuasion, friendships forming and progressing, I caved and became a theist.

I started off at their church, a Pentecostal screamer church with being slain in the spirit (being touched and falling over to the uninitiated), speaking and interpreting in tongues, anointing with oil, you name it, it happened. It never sat well with me when I physically COULDN’T react the same way they were (getting drunk on the spirit, tongues etc), instead of realising it for what it was – me being duped, I ended up at a different church courtesy of a friend.

For the next few years nothing seemed to be a problem, I was respected and liked by the children in the Sunday school, I made lots of friends and seemed to fit in nicely. The only problem was when I decided to read the bible for myself – cover to cover. I got as far as exodus when the punishments for misdemeanours became apparent to me and I started to question god’s character. By the time I had read through kings I had not only questioned his character, but his sanity and temperament as well. The god of the bible had turned from a cuddly glowing teddybear into a dangerous bloodthirsty sociopath bent on killing everyone who even looked at him funny. I was starting to also wane in my convictions in terms of converting people as well. I had all but given up on the people I was living with, and had effectively stopped believing that I was being heard – especially when I was in a tangle after the whole hell debarcle. I started reading what “the other side” were saying, and for once it started to make sense. I was listening to them, and I can tell you that I had never felt so scared in my life, waiting for the lightening bolt to just cut me in half.

When it never came and I found myself not having a theist leg to stand on I realised I had to face facts, god will never answer my prayers because he is fiction.

I went through the usual (I think) state of anger and resentment, becoming a loud rabid screaming atheist and drove everyone nuts about it. I have largely calmed down since then, but the dogma hasn’t shut off completely yet and I still catch myself “thinking theist” and that takes effort to shut off.

My only real goal is to be able to undo the damage in my own head first, and to help others reach the same goal, I have never been so excited about life now, and can’t wait to see how it transpires.

Wish me luck.

By critical thinker ~

Abstract

The structure of the essay is as follows. First section is the summary of Biblical creation story. Here we establish the peaceful and herbivore nature of original natural world. We also establish that after the Curse many animals became carnivores and the world transformed into the state we find it today – violent and cruel. In the Section 2 we pose several important questions about the behavioral and anatomical changes that must have occurred in the world and who/what caused them; these questions are the subject of discussion of the subsequent sections. In Section 2 we also attempt to discuss these questions from the point of view of traditional church. Section 3 provides an overview of differences between herbivore and carnivore animal and highlights the difference between the two on anatomical level. Section 4 describes some predation adaptations found in modern natural world. It emphasizes the harming nature of these adaptations and points out the complexity of their design. Finally Section 5 returns to the questions raised in section 2 in particular to the question of the identity of the master mind and designer of the cruel world. In accord with the Biblical creation story we narrow down answers to three options and reach logical contradiction on all three of them.

Genesis creation narrative is one of the corner stones of the Christian faith. Creation story is essential for defining and understanding the Fall of Man – one of the central doctrines of the Bible. New Testament, book of Romans in particular, uses the event as an argument for the necessity of Salvation. Apostle Paul draws a parallel between the Fall of Man due to one –Adam and the salvation of the world due to one – Jesus Christ. This essay takes a close look at issues that flow out of the Creation and Fall of Man Biblical narratives. We look at the routinely overlooked problem that the original creation and the creation after the Fall of Man are very different – not just in behavior but more importantly on anatomical level. The logical conclusion follows that if Bible is to be trusted on creation and Fall of Man account then God must be the designer of the corrupt and evil world we live in today. In the course of discussion we base all arguments on the conservative literary interpretation of the Bible.


Section 1: Herbivorous Nature of Original Creation

The original world God created was perfect. As Nigel M. De Cameron wrote:

“Six times individual elements in the creation are pronounced “good”, and the seventh time the whole creation receives the emphatic “very good”. It is difficult to see how the divine approbation could have been more strongly expressed. Evidently, the seven-fold pattern is deliberately given to the expressions of approval, culminating in the “very good” judgement on the whole work, since they do not follow the pattern of the seven days.”

As we see the biblical world before the Fall of Man was indeed good. It was also quite different from the world we live in today. One of the main differences between then and now was the absence of death and bloodshed. Natural world lived in harmony as both animals as well as humans consumed plants as food and did not cause harm to one another.

And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. Genesis 1:29-30

Genesis 9:3 reaffirms the above point and leaves no doubt that originally all living world was solely herbivores.

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.

The sin Adam and Eve committed by disobeying God, lead to consequences for the whole living world of mega catastrophic proportions. First people, then animals turned against each other and the cruelty and disease entered natural world. Previously peaceful lions that nourished on grass only started preying on deer, killed and devoured gazelle. Almost every living animal became a predator or prey. The suffering has entered the world. As apostle Paul writes: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”Romans 8:22. The sin that entered the world caused havoc, instilled cruelty and brought suffering not only to people but to the whole natural world.

Section 2: Cruelty After Fall Of Man: Traditional Church Understanding

But how exactly did this evil happen to the world? What caused animals to kill one another and how were they able to change their plant eating behavior and consume flesh? How did predation devices such as poison to kill prey and many others, which were incompatible with the original design, appear after the Fall of Man?

The Bible (and church) do not go in much detail to answer such questions and provide only general ideas. Killing behavior has been most likely contributed to the corruption of the will or “morals” of the animals. If Adam’s sin was the cause for corrupting human morals and desires the same corruption of will must has spread among the natural world. Although this is not testable in any way, such reasoning can be acceptable on the grounds of “invisibility” of will (motivation) and also because it logically follows from the spread of corrupted will among humans. The question can also be tackled from the standpoint of the Entropy law. It is generally true that systems naturally deteriorate when left without supervision. Thus the originally perfect world didn’t require much effort to make it deteriorate. As soon as sin entered the world and God’s sustaining power was withheld things naturally fell in decay.

The second question of how the previously herbivorous animals switched from plant diet to meat diet is more subtle. The topic of the question is not preached on in traditional churches nor is it discussed in Sunday Schools or Bible studies. In fact few believing people have given it a thought. The problem (if it was perceived as such) was likely dispensed with by “the evil caused it” semi-circular argument or more likely was left to not be bothered with as it “does not directly pertain to salvation”. Such attitudes, quite common indeed, are understandable in the age when people were ignorant about natural world. In the modern world when we have substantial information and can cross examine stories with science it is reasonable to ask questions. The question about what or who caused animals to develop sophisticated defense and attack mechanisms (such as venom in cobra) must have not been discusses in church at all. For the same reason as above, believers tend not to notice the question of this character. When they do think about such questions they always put faith before reason and when reason and faith do not coincide they sacrifice reason in favor of blind belief.

Section 3: Biological Differences Between Herbivore and Carnivore Animals

To simplify my task of referring to different sources this section will consist primarily of “copy and paste” with links provided where quoted. The information also is of general knowledge and can be verified at any reputable source.

• Teeth Structure

The most obvious indication is the teeth. Herbivores are animals that have broad, flat canines, that are shaped in the form of spades, and short, dull incisors. This allows them to properly grind the fibers found in plants, and crush seeds and grains, consumed during their lifetime. On the other hand, carnivores have short, pointed canines, and long, sharp, curved incisors. This allows them to tear through skin, muscle and ligaments, and help them chew the meat from their prey [1].

• Skeleton structure

Another difference is the nails found in these skeletons. Herbivores have flattened nails, or blunt hooves. Carnivores have razor sharp claws. The difference between the nails is, again, to do with the type of food that they eat. Carnivores need to stalk and kill their prey in order for them to consume their flesh, and these claws help them to inflict as much damage as possible, to render their prey helpless. ^[1]

• Digestive system

A carnivore's or omnivore's small intestine is three to six times the length of its trunk. This is a tool designed for rapid elimination of food that rots quickly. Man's, as well as other herbivore's small intestines are 10 to 12 times the length of their body, and winds itself back and forth in random directions. This is a tool designed for keeping food in it for long enough periods of time so that all the valuable nutrients and minerals can be extracted from it before it enters the large intestine.

A carnivore's or omnivore's large intestine is relatively short and simple, like a pipe. This passage is also relatively smooth and runs fairly straight so that fatty wastes high in cholesterol can easily slide out before they start to putrefy. Man's, as well as other herbivore's large intestines, or colons, are puckered and pouched, an apparatus that runs in three directions (ascending, traversing and descending), designed to hold wastes that originally were foods high in water content. This is so that the fluids can be extracted from these wastes, now that all the useful nutrients and minerals have been extracted and the long journey through the small intestine is over. Substances high in fat and cholesterol that have been putrefying for hours during their long stay in the small intestine tend to get stuck in the pockets that line the large intestine.

A carnivore's stomach secretes powerful digestive enzymes with about 10 times the amount of hydrochloric acid than a human or herbivore. The pH is less than or equal to "1" with food in the stomach, for a carnivore or omnivore. For humans or other herbivores, the pH ranges from 4 to 5 with food in the stomach. ^[2]

The above excerpts give one understanding and appreciation of the very significant difference in the skeleton structure and digestive system of herbivore and carnivore animal. Next we are going to look at animal and plant systems that are specifically meant to kill and cause violence. The motivation for this should be clear: notion of predation adaptations is incompatible with original design and thus they must have appeared after the Fall of Man. We want to better understand the adaptations so we can better judge their origin.

Section 4: Predation Adaptations

Nature has countless examples of animal and plant predation adaptations that allow animals and plants to prey and help avoid their predators. These adaptations appear to be built in into the nature and are often so complex that they defy imagination. The number of adaptations is so huge and varied that describing them all, let alone listing detailed examples would fill volumes. The point here is that they are a) extremely complex and non random and b) animals/plants that own them have them exactly to kill other animals/plants or protect themselves from being killed.

Notable examples of predation adaptations are

• Strong powerful body skeleton, jaws and teeth for gripping and crushing victim.

Adult American alligator bite was measured to be 2,215 pounds of force. This is equivalent to tying a pickup truck and trying to hold on to a rope after dropping the truck from a roof of a tall building. This bite force is necessary for the alligator to hold on to it's trapped prey, like a deer or bull, but does not make much sense for eating plants.

• Poison and venom

Besides cobra and other venomous snakes countless other animals and plants possess an ability to poison and tranquilize their victims when secreting complex chemical compounds that kill without harming the predator itself. Comodo dragon for example is a large lizard that hunts on deer thanks to it's venomous bite. While the lizard cannot tackle deer directly by force, one poisonous bite is sufficient to guarantee a dinner next day when the poisoned animal dies.

• Highly acidic stomach

Stomachs of alligator is known to digest anything from their victims – bones, feather, horns. Hyena's and other predators likewise can digest bones. Again, the question is why would these animals that originally nourished on plants need bone-digesting stomachs.

• Deception

Asian pitcher plant uses a deception technique. It's bright red color and the seed in the shape of a pitcher attract insects looking to collect nectar. The pitcher plant then traps a victim within pitcher and slowly digests it over few days.


Notable examples of anti-predator adaptations include

• Camouflage and Mimicry

Camouflage consists not only of color but also of shape and texture. Praying mantis dead-leaf-like appearance, zebra stripes are examples of camouflage, vulnerable drone fly looking like a stinging bee is an example of mimicry. Another example of mimicry is IO moth which has markings on its wings resembling an owl's eyes.


Other examples of anti-predator adaptations are deceptive aggression, social mobbing behavior, advertizing unprofitably and chemical defense.


Big Issue

In the light of the above discussion we have substantiated the big gap there is between the original world God created and the world it became after the Fall of Man. On the surface it might seem that the natural world simply slipped below the initial mark of perfection as animals and plants abolished peaceful coexistence and turned on each other in cruel violence. On the more close looking however we find that the resultant world is abounding in the adaptations that marvel us in complexity, ingenuity and we could say wisdom. Although radically different in purpose – killing and surviving as opposed to peaceful coexistence – these necessary and radical changes in the anatomy and possibly structure of animals and plants after the Fall of Man instill amazement and evoke a sense of awe. The argument from Entropy that we saw in Section 2 to explain away the appearance of violence clearly does not stand ground.


Section 5: In Search of the Mastermind of the Cruel World

And so we must ask the obvious question. Who was the master mind and the changing force in the transition of nature from original state of creation to the state of today? Who has re engineered the long intestine of a lion and of all other now carnivores that was originally necessary for the digestion of grass into much shorter one that is now specialized in digesting animal flesh? Who has increased the acidity of the alligator to the potent levels of today. Who was behind the development of various ingenious poisoning systems that venomous snakes, toxic jellyfishes and deadly spiders possess? Who has designed the carnivorous plants, perfected their deception mechanisms and supplied them with animal digesting juices?

There's three possible answers only:

1) Animals themselves

Unfortunately for creationism, this cannot be, or it means accepting evolution. One could suggest micro evolution perhaps, as that is acceptable with most creationists views. When micro evolution could possibly produce camouflage or mimicry, it could not redesign digestive organs of animals. Nor could it develop complex poisonous mechanisms. Another question would be how many millions of years would it take to accomplish say carnivores behavior. Wait, Bible is not talking of millions of years. Contradiction.

2) Satan

The only contender to God the devil is a possible candidate for equipping the nature for killing. In this case we must give Satan a lot of credit for being ingenious even god like as the above mentioned adaptations require a brilliant designer. But Satan possibly could be up to the task, we don't know, after all he managed to take a third of angels with him and he is capable of miraculous powers. The problem with this theory is that we must accept that the nature is a product of both God and Satan. More importantly humans had to learn to eat meat, and their digestive systems must have been modified in some way by Satan. We know that Jesus ate fish and of course he ate meat too. Are we to believe that Jesus had a body that was worked on by Satan? Somehow this doesn't go well with the Bible. Contradiction.

3) God

It must be apparent that God is our only choice and also it must be clear that we have reached a logical contradiction. The good loving God can design a world that is good. The good and loving God can even allow the world rebel against him and watch passively as it falls into disarray. But the good and loving God cannot actively participate in creating a violent cruel and murderous world. And that's exactly what happens if we accept this option. Contradiction.



Conclusion

For centuries people accepted the Biblical account of creation without questioning it. Little information was known about the natural world. The herbivores and carnivores seemed to have little differences except that former don't eat meat while later do. The violence observed in the nature also seemed random, stemming from the will of the animals, and the complexity of predation adaptations was not well known and not well appreciated. The science has progressed enormously since those times and we can judge about things we couldn't in the past. If the Bible is true it must align with science perfectly and it must make sense. It has to make better sense the more science we know. In this essay relatively simple scientific knowledge was applied to the Biblical story of creation and the Fall of Man. In the process we reached a logical contradiction. Given the literal interpretation of creation story we have to believe that God was the master mind and creator of cruelty. But that cannot be because He is a God of love and cannot do evil! We reached a contradiction that casts a long shadow of doubt on the Biblical creationism.

 Works Cited
[1] http://www.differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-herbivores-and-carnivores/
[2] http://www.waoy.org/26.html

By critical thinker ~

In search of the Mastermind of the Cruel World was an essay I wrote to my christian brother. After he read it and sent me comments I answered with a commentary essay on his comments, it is provided below.

Response to “In Search of Mastermind of Cruel World”. Establishing the Need for Radical Redesign

Eight lions stalking a herd of about 100 water buffalo in Okavango Delta, Botswana. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This response to feedback comments focuses on the objections to my statement that God must have redesigned the nature AFTER the Fall of Man. This will question the explanation provided in feedback comments that God had “pre planned” the world to work in “Emergency mode” in case the humanity falls. The pre planned hypothesis puts God in favorable light as in this case he was not an active force in creating or redesigning the world to be cruel, but had potentially good motives to save the humanity. Responces to some of the feedback comments below argue that there HAD to be things to redesign AFTER the Fall of Man. On an example of herbivore- carnivore animals I’ll show why this is so.

On the Digestive System

Words like “changed”, “switched”, “changed behavior” are misleading! They assume COMPLETE CHANGE! The correct CONSERVATIVE standpoint is that with the Fall of Man, our spiritual nature as well as the physical world has been “BENT” or CORRUPTED. NOT completely altered or transformed.

So, where is exactly that BIG CHANGE or TRANSFORMATION that proves that before the Fall carnivore animals SIMPLY COULD NOT live with the body parts they have now?

A thoughtful and honest reading of the essay (cited again below) would answer this question. Please read again the following two paragraphs of citation to grasp the point.

“A carnivore's or omnivore's small intestine is three to six times the length of its trunk. This is a tool designed for rapid elimination of food that rots quickly. Man's, as well as other herbivore's small intestines are 10 to 12 times the length of their body, and winds itself back and forth in random directions. This is a tool designed for keeping food in it for long enough periods of time so that all the valuable nutrients and minerals can be extracted from it before it enters the large intestine.

A carnivore's or omnivore's large intestine is relatively short and simple, like a pipe. This passage is also relatively smooth and runs fairly straight so that fatty wastes high in cholesterol can easily slide out before they start to putrefy. Man's, as well as other herbivore's large intestines, or colons, are puckered and pouched, an apparatus that runs in three directions (ascending, traversing and descending), designed to hold wastes that originally were foods high in water content. This is so that the fluids can be extracted from these wastes, now that all the useful nutrients and minerals have been extracted and the long journey through the small intestine is over. Substances high in fat and cholesterol that have been putrefying for hours during their long stay in the small intestine tend to get stuck in the pockets that line the large intestine.”

It becomes clear that carnivore and herbivore digestive systems are different not just in internal workings but to state the obvious in proportions. Digesting plants requires a small intestine that is 10-12 times the length of the body while carnivore’s small intestine is only 3-6 times of the body. This lengthy intestine is necessary to herbivores for extracting the nutrients from a food source high in fiber. A much smaller small intestine and pipe-like large intestine of today’s carnivores would be incapable of processing plants and other vegetation for which much longer small intestine and pouched large intestine are needed. Today’s carnivores with same digestive body parts would simply die of indigestion or hunger if they had to eat vegetation. Clearly if today’s carnivores originally ate plants they had herbivore digestive systems and a fairly radical redesign work of shortening small intestine and changing colon needed to be done to have their digestive systems as we find them today.

This is in no way an exhaustive argument for a need for redesign. But first I’m bringing relative feedback comments and then continuing the argument.

All carnivores have it that highly acidic?

Should it [highly acidic stomach] be used for digesting MEATS ONLY or can it be used for digesting hard vegetables? Should it be used for digesting MEATS ONLY or can it be used for digesting hard vegetables?

Yes, it can be used for digesting meats only. Herbivores animals are only able to digest plants because of bacteria that lives in the stomach and breaks down molecules, this fact can be looked up. The quote below provides an answer to why strong acidic juices exclude plant digestion.

“A carnivore's stomach secretes powerful digestive enzymes with about 10 times the amount of hydrochloric acid than a human or herbivore. The pH is less than or equal to "1" with food in the stomach, for a carnivore or omnivore. For humans or other herbivores, the pH ranges from 4 to 5 with food in the stomach. Hence, man must prepare his meats with laborious cooking or frying methods. E. Coli bacteria, salmonella, campylobacter, trichina worms [parasites] or other pathogens would not survive in the stomach of a lion.”

As is clear from above God would need to “switch” the digesting mode of today’s carnivores from alkaline to acidic to make breaking down of flesh possible, which accidently excludes (nutritional) breaking down of plants.

On skeletal structure of carnivores

HOW does it prove that animals with “long, sharp, curved incisors” could not (OR EVEN PRESENTLY DON’T) eat hard shelled fruit and other vegetation?

How about humans eating meat without any special teeth?

How about absolutely vegetarian animals with REALLY long and sharp teeth?

If you have time I recommend reading an article on comparative anatomy of eating. I will provide pertinent citation from the article below to substantiate the statement that skeletal structure of carnivores is not sufficient for herbivores behavior.

Describing herbivore animals jaw structure Milton M.D writes:

“The masseter and pterygoid muscles hold the mandible in a sling-like arrangement and swing the jaw from side-to-side. Accordingly, the lower jaw of plant-eating mammals has a pronounced sideways motion when eating. This lateral movement is necessary for the grinding motion of chewing.”

Suffices to recall the grinding motion of a cow’s jaws to understand the need and use for side to side jaw movement of herbivore animals.

In distinction the carnivores jaws move up and down but not sideways. Milton writes about carnivores: “In all mammalian carnivores, the jaw joint is a simple hinge joint lying in the same plane as the teeth. This type of joint is extremely stable and acts as the pivot point for the "lever arms" formed by the upper and lower jaws.” The article quoted in previous essay states “A carnivore's jaws move up and down with minimal sideways motion”. To summarize the stated a herbivore jaws allows for side to side motion necessary to grind plant foods and carnivore jaws lacks this but provides mechanism for rapid swallowing of meat.

With respect to the structure of teeth Miller writes:

“The teeth of a carnivore are discretely spaced so as not to trap stringy debris. The incisors are short, pointed and prong-like and are used for grasping and shredding”.

From the points above we can try to picture a carnivore trying to eat plants. Two problems readily stand in the way. The carnivores teeth, spaced and pointed, would miss most of the attempted scoop of grass, or other vegetation. Secondly, once in the mouth, the plant food would not be properly grinded because of the poor sideway motion of the carnivore jaws. Thus poor carnivore would have a hack of bad time eating plants if it didn’t have a herbivore teeth and jaws.

By exCLCer ~

“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

In 1976/77, when I was only about 2 years old, my mother got involved with a church called Covenant Life (AKA TAG, Gathering Of Believers, People of Destiny International, and Sovereign Grace Ministries depending on the year) and got pregnant by one of the church members, and was advised to marry him. She did. So, I along with my eventual 8 siblings, were all in this church by default and through no choice of our own.

We all attended the church school CLS from the first year it opened in the lower level of the frost center in Aspen Hill Md. As a child, not knowing any different, I didn’t think it odd that field trips were actually “Right to Life Picketing” sessions, where we wore aborted fetus sandwich board signs and shouted “murderer” at random people. I thought it was normal that the children were routinely “spanked” by the principal for any and every little thing — perceived attitude, fidgeting in class, running in the hall, etc. I didn’t think at the time, it was odd to have required reading like the “Pilgrims Progress” in second grade, with issues like despondence, suicide, and legality, with atheists and giants who are out to abduct and murder pilgrims (christians) and then be instructed on the severe burden of sin being so great that our life’s purpose was to “carry that despondent burden on a path of deliverance” -- quite a weighty job for a child. I didn’t know kids in other schools were reading “The prince and the pauper” and “A cat in the Hat”.

I didn’t really understand why the library in the school was so small, and most of the books had several pages stapled together, and why when I checked a book out and pulled the staples out of those pages I was a sinner and severely punished at the school when they saw the book came back un-stapled. I was an avid reader (still am) and would sign out a new book almost daily. Even the reference books, encyclopedias (Britannica, with beautiful covers and pretty gold lines on the spine) had many pages stapled. I was actually doing a report on something to do with earth science, and looking things up led me to pages that were stapled together. I unstapled them while there in the “library” and read (OH NO, wait for it…..) a brief reference to Darwin’s theory of evolution! I returned the book to the shelf, and same days later the principal was somehow told the pages had been unstapled, and I was the last person to have signed for that book. I was called back from class to the principal’s office where I was told I should have known better and would now be “disciplined” for it, and then was told to bend over the principal’s desk, where he then pulled up my dress, exposing my underwear, and spanked me 15 or 20 times with a large flat board, counting it out as he went, and simultaneously warning me not to move so I wouldn’t get hit in the wrong place. I eventually learned they would continue to hit you until they felt you were crying loudly enough to show submission or brokenness. The students would often joke in whispers amongst themselves about who cried the loudest and how many classrooms away you could hear it from. The instrument changed periodically from a wooden board to a fiberglass rod with holes in it, but they were never shy to use it, that’s for sure. I remember one boy who had showed us classmates where they had missed his buttocks and hit his legs, leaving a clear purple imprint of the board with the holes in it for days afterwards. He had clearly not submitted to their warning of staying still during this discipline, although he claimed to us that he had, and they just had bad aim. As was customary, a note would be sent home to your parents informing them that you had been disciplined that day and why. This was not an unusual occurrence…. happened daily to any large number of students there. We understood it to be something that could happen at any time for pretty much anything. My little brother was spanked like this a few times in the same day as a preschooler (maybe 4 or 5 years old) for forgetting not to run in the hallway — multiple times in one day! It was sometimes explained as “you broke the rules and this is to teach you”, but often it was very ambiguous like “you have not been acting in the spirit of gods law, and your attitude is not in accordance with a spirit of obedience” – as if THAT clearly explains it to an elementary age child. After asking my teacher a question about whether Catholics were going to hell, since according to her only Christians went to heaven, I couldn’t get a satisfactory answer, so out of curiosity I persisted, and it was, of course, my persistence in questioning which showed an “attitude of disobedience, not one of submission”. And again, I was sent to the office to be “disciplined” in the usual manner. Parents would get these notes and were free to call and discuss it with the principal, but clearly the principal was always right and I can’t remember a single time it was ever questioned. Some of my friends would tell me they would be spanked additionally once they got home, if they were to go home having had to be “disciplined” at school that day. Having ungodly children was taught to be a clear show of parents who weren’t doing their job of controlling their child’s attitudes and behavior, and a strong will was to be spanked out of each and every one. I mean there were hundreds of books sold every sunday at the church on this very topic just to remind parents of the need to do this, and often. As an adult now I find the whole practice vehement and perverse. I know a lot of “christians” will disagree with me, as spanking their kids (and allowing other adults to do so as well) is considered a major part of good parenting, but amazingly enough I was able to raise a wonderful, compassionate, smart, well rounded, and happy son all the way to adulthood (he is now in college) without ever having to hit him, not once! Imagine that! I felt my responsibility as a parent was to teach, love, and guide my child through life, not “gain control through enforcement”. And it works.

And I certainly didn’t understand the true cost of attending this church school — how parents had to be current church members in good standing, and tuition depended on their level of involvement with the church (“oh, you’re short on tuition this month? Well you can clean the pastor’s house, or babysit for one of them— did you tithe this month? Let me check the tithing records. Have you missed any required homegroup meetings this month? Do we have any reports from your homegroup leaders of you being “unteachable”?). The words and phrases used within this church might sound innocuous, but anybody who has escaped a cult before knows how the most seemingly innocent phrases like “care”, “unteachability”, etc all have deeper darker and often threatening meaning behind them.

I thought it was normal that we couldn’t listen to the radio – it was secular and an outside influence from sinners trying to damn us to hell along with them – and that TV was mostly the same. It was a childhood, wary and afraid of anything outside of the church since it surely meant hell fire and damnation. This idea of secular vs the church (bad vs. good), (always wrong vs. always right) was not merely “perceived”…it was clearly and unequivocally taught and encouraged as the truth. I didn’t make up the idea…..it was reiterated through constant teaching and preaching and insisted upon through discipline and punishment. Note, there were some really nice people and teachers I remember as well including some teachers and other church families. But even they, probably always having the best intentions, had subscribed to the theology and practices already put in place in the school and homes by the church leadership. It’s not necessarily just personal issues I have with individuals, it’s the ideology of it all that the actions and practices stem from which are at the root of the problems.

I often mused to myself even as a little girl, how sneaky and incredibly smart all these outsiders must be, because they put on SUCH a convincing show of being really good nice people -- but they must be wicked since the church says so. I secretly respected the few outsider women I had encountered because they seemed so nice and happy, even without submitting to a man’s leadership. It must be a trap – how could someone know they were going to hell and seem to not have a care in the world?

Fast forward through more than 10 years of this indoctrination, sin picking, heavy centralized shepherding, and being limited to the churches circle in school, church, homegroup, youth group,…. (hell, even vacation was only ever to these church sponsored retreats).The secular world was something to be afraid of.

My mother started to get concerned when her usually perfectly well behaved 11 year old daughter had been “acting out”, having a “bad attitude” towards her husband, and the church had advised my mother to admonish her and demand she respect him as godly children should. Maybe my mother wasn’t exhibiting enough submission at home as an example to her daughters? When she found out a few years later that actually her husband had been sexually abusing her daughter since age 11, she was devastated. She immediately called the pastors (John Loftness and Gary Riccucci) as was the only customary and acceptable reaction to any family issue as directed by the church. These church leaders handled this situation in the worst ways possible.

I could detail a hundred things they did next which only made the situation worse by blaming the victim, attempting to cover up the crime and keep it secret, to supporting the pedophile financially and legally. They sent my mother to her care group leader for counseling who told her to god wanted her to send her daughter away so that this man could return to the family home as the head of the household.

My mother insisted on finding counseling for her children. The pastors had told her they were looking for counseling for my mother and her children, when really they were biding time, and three weeks went by after she told them and he had admitted to the crime. Only because she continued to insist on finding counseling, the pastors then, knowing a counselor would be required to report the sexual abuse, retained legal counsel for the pedophile, and assisted him in turning himself in as a show of repentance. The pastors pressured her to ask the court for leniency for this man who had abused her child. They testified as character witnesses for him in court. He had repented and been forgiven, just like that. We were all warned not to tell anyone in the church, even though the abuser was still attending — it would be gossip.

But my mother was not submissive and she refused to beg the court to release the man who sexually assaulted her child as the church had told her to. So we (my mother and her 9 children) were put out of the school, and spiraled into a state of dire poverty over the next year. My mother pleaded with the church for help, but they only further demonized her. The pastor told my mother, her “poverty was self induced” because she had not been submissive to their guidance. Having always been a homemaker and mother in the church approved way, she had little means of providing for her 9 children. She went and got a minimum wage job and worked until it almost killed her. Our electricity was cut off, our house was in foreclosure, we were starving, when my mother came down with pneumonia and was hospitalized. Having offered no help so far, the same pastors showed up to the hospital to tell her they would make sure all of us children were taken care of while she was in the hospital. But actually they were plotting with the recently released pedophile to assist him in petitioning the court for full custody of the children. They had been making anonymous calls to the state saying my mother was unfit to try to help the sexual pervert gain custody of the children so he wouldn’t have to pay child support once the impending divorce was final. The social workers were surprised the church leaders had not done more and were not confident at the time that they were going to really help at all, considering they had seemed more supportive of the child molester than they were of the victim and family. The social workers also said they were concerned that if the state did not step in, certain much needed agency support wouldn’t be readily available to us all, like professional counseling, and legal aid for my mother to get child support from the ex. They felt leaving us to rely on a church, who had done little so far, could end up even more disastrous than it already was. They did ask the pastors if there was anything the church could do to avoid separating the kids and placing them in foster homes with so many of us, finding foster homes for all the children was almost impossible. Coincidentally (NOT), the kids young enough not to be able to tell anyone about the sexual abuse were placed with a few church families for a few weeks until the state put them into outside foster homes to make us all eligible for services. Being old enough to tel people their secrets, I was sent to state facilities immediately. JL told me that day “we would like to help but we have no place for you to go, there is nobody willing to take you in, so just go on to the shelter (alone) and we will continue to look for a family that is willing to let you stay with them until your mom recovers”. That was the last time I heard from him, until I saw him once, a year later, in family court (testifying to the good character of the molester). I was separated from my siblings, and dropped off at a shelter for homeless delinquents, followed by institutions, foster homes and anywhere else the state could find an open bed. But the pastors care and concern only ever was for the molester — they arranged for the kids to “visit their father” (thankfully supervised per the courts), and at one point even required my sister, the victim of his sexual assaults, to come into their offices and sit down in a meeting to force her to accept her abusers apology, so he could be forgiven and resume membership in the church (which he did and remarried in that church, had two daughters, and still attends to this day).

There’s a long list of decisions the church made that negatively affected and re-victimized my family. Once I saw they had deserted me completely, I started sending letters to the two pastors and the church, every year on the anniversary of the day my mother reported the abuse to them, listing the things they had done, and telling them I wanted to be a constant reminder of their awful actions. They never once responded or acknowledged these letters (and later emails). I would drive by their church building and spit out the window at it. Years went by and I continued to send the letters, even when I knew they would never respond. One year as I was preparing to write the letter as ususal, I checked online to make sure their addresses had not changed, and I came across a blog called SGMSurvivors. This blog had many ex members of this group of churches, telling their horrific stories of abuse by the leaders and the church. I was floored at the similarities between my experience and others. First, to find out I was not alone in what I had experienced, was amazing to me, having imagined for so long that it was just us. But to read how they systematically protected pedophiles and abusers and re-victimized the victims of these perpetrators in a longstanding pattern of abuse of their authority infuriated me. I eventually posted my story on the blog and have followed its progression since then as it continues to follow along the ever dramatic roller coaster that is SGM ministries through the perspectives of those who have survived its worst. http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/

One day in the grocery store I ran into someone I had gone to the church school with. He recognized me and asked about my family and I told him what had actually happened. He had no idea about what had really happened. He asked if he could go to the pastors to question them about it, and I of course said yes. He did just that, and the initial response much later to him from one of the pastors named Gary was:

“Steven,
Please forgive my long overdue response.

Thank you for making me aware of your conversation… and for your obvious heart for the care of anyone drifting from fellowship with Christ…for whatever reason.

Yes, John and I had primary pastoral responsibility for the family during what was certainly a most tragic, grieving and painful experience.

The sin committed and subsequent fragmentation of their family was one of the saddest experiences of our ministry. Because of the sin and alienation there was a need for separation, so John provided care for the mother and children while I walked the father through the necessary legal process in taking responsibility for his actions.

As she got older, no doubt much discussion took place between her and her Mom about that very difficult season. I would be glad to talk personally to you, to answer any questions and to explain the steps we took and why, as this tragedy unfolded.”

Maybe I’m pessimistic, but it sounded like an offer to take the opportunity to justify and rewrite history from an advantageous viewpoint. I have no reason to suspect any different. If they felt they had done something wrong, surely they would have responded to MY letters over the years. I wrote another excruciatingly long email and sent it to both pastors John and Gary suggesting to them that an apology would at least help their own reputations they cared so much about. After this church member again followed up about it with them, and in the midst of a ongoing public shakeup in their corporate ranks, they finally responded to me. Gary, in part, wrote:

“It appears that, at least in some of your comments, there may be some misunderstanding of what we did and why. Our hope is that a conversation and some clarification about the past may be a means of God’s comfort and grace to you for the future. Please contact John or me if you feel that a conversation might be helpful.”

John, in part, wrote:

“Our care (or lack of care as the case may be) for your family during those years was one of the most challenging tasks that we have encountered as pastors in more than 30 years. That is not to excuse any failures on our part, but to let you know that, in the light of today and what we have learned since then, and especially in light of getting your perspective, we would see deficiencies in our care. There are gaps that we may be able to fill in and things we remember that may broaden your understanding, but please don’t take that as making any defense or let it take away from the deep sadness we feel for your experiences in the aftermath of Dave’s sin against your sister and mother, and beyond that, to your entire family.”

Both replies ended with an offer to meet and discuss everything. I really struggled with wanting to believe they would have the decency and integrity to actually acknowledge and admit to their wrongs, apologize, and leave it at that if we met. But the words that keep jumping out at me are: “misunderstanding” and “broaden your understanding” and “gaps we may be able to fill in” and “sadness we feel for your experience” (as opposed to sadness we feel for our actions). I don’t trust them. I also feel like now as an adult I have a CHOICE I didn’t have as a child. I can choose to not sit and hear a whole cockamamie roundabout justification with a good dose of biblical rhetoric thrown in, especially since I feel like that would only serve to royally piss me off. And since I’m now an atheist and not a christian, I am not bound by doctrine to react with humility or reverence. I don’t need reconciliation with them. I don’t want to hear them spout their “words of god”, since I believe they are only exist for those people who choose to believe them, interpret them, and practice them -- so in that regard, this church showed my very clearly how they in fact put gods words as they believe them into action (the “living” version of the things they believe in). IMO a god like that, were he to exist, wouldn’t deserve any following. For me heaven is now a state of mind, not a place we must find. Even as the membership rushes to the blind defense of these pastors calling them “men of integrity”, I now have a higher standard for integrity for people in my life, and they (the pastors) would not now qualify.

I realized that my intention all along was to attempt to have them acknowledge what they did, hoping that if they actually SEE it, I mean really GET IT, it won’t happen to anyone else. My entire life was negatively affected for years, by their decisions, in ways that would make you cringe to know, and if they don’t “get it” then maybe others will. I’m not looking for the truth — I already have it — I was there – I have all the documents to prove it — I KNOW. I just feel like they are only sorry it came out -- sorry it was told -- not sorry they did what they did.

I am angry that their lies and abuses still continue to this day. I don’t carry around constant anger and bitterness with me every day, for those of you who might think my life is controlled by the past. It’s not. I do struggle with the “what ifs” at times…. and wonder how life could have really been different for me. But, I also think about how when I now encounter hungry people, abused people, pregnant teenagers, foster care children, the homeless, etc. I have a unique ability to say to them: “I understand” -- and really mean it. I’ve accepted all my struggles as a part of life which makes me stronger than I could’ve been without it. Percy Shelley, a social justice advocate and English poet from the 1800’s wrote a play called Prometheus. In it she writes:

“To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite; To endure wrongs darker than death or night; To defy power which seems omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope till hope creates from its own wreck the thing it contemplates, …this is to be good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life, Joy,.. and Victory”.

By Susan ~

Imagine, for a moment, that you have hit "bottom" as an alcoholic. You find yourself jobless, homeless, physically and emotionally ill, and alienated from family and friends. After a relative drives you to a detox center, you spend five days medically withdrawing, and then are picked up by a staff member from the recovery center where you will be spending the next 90 days. What you do not realize, however, is that you will be spending the next three months being heavily indoctrinated with Christianity. This happens around our country every day. It happened to me. There are many people in America unaware of what exactly goes on in faith-based addiction treatment facilities. I am here to shed some light.

detoxification (Photo credit: sillydog)

I grew up in a fundamentalist household but managed to stop attending church when I left home for school at age 18. After a year at the university I no longer believed that Christianity was the ultimate truth, as I had when I was younger and had experienced years of hard-core indoctrination. Looking back, I would consider myself a universalist. By my second year, I was aware of the fact that drinking alcohol was becoming a problem for me. I drank more (and more often) than the other students (which you can imagine was quite a bit, being in college and all), and would always drink to get drunk. These early years were only the beginning of what was to become a decade-long battle with alcoholism.

After graduation, things were good. I had a great job, a nice place to live, and lots of friends, although my drinking was beginning to escalate. If you or someone close to you is an alcoholic, you will probably recognize the pattern of events which brought me to the rehabilitation facility mentioned at the beginning of the story: my drinking became progressively worse until I could no longer function. I ended up losing my job, my apartment, my fiancée, and most of my friends. After emerging from the five-day detox, I was at my most fragile state. I thought I had lost everything. I had no one to turn to. I was an emotional wreck. And where was I going to receive help for putting my life back together? A fundamentalist Christian drug and alcohol treatment facility.

The facility consisted of a dormitory, a few trailers, an old church, and a camp-style dining hall. Were there any licensed therapists, psychologists, or medical personnel on staff? No! After spending a few lessons learning about addiction and attending a few outside AA meetings, the real indoctrination began. We learned about Christianity day-in and day-out. Jesus would solve our problems. Jesus would take away our addiction with earnest prayer. I thought it was foolishness...at first. After the first month, the religious indoctrination of my childhood began to kick in. I began to remember bible verses and stories, as well as hell and the Devil. The Devil wanted me to drink; he wanted to prevent me from returning to Christ and being a witness for God. After all, I left the church and now look at me! I am nothing without God! There were even posters on the wall that said "I am nothing without God," reinforcing the garbage being forced on patients by the "staff." And just who were these staff members? Some of them were formers addicts who had been through the program, all of them were fundamentalist Christians, and none of them had a certification or degree in counseling, psychology, or medical training.

When I left this rehab after 90 days, I was outwardly well but inwardly sicker than before I entered. I was completely brainwashed on religion. I would spend the next four years back in the clutches of a fundamentalist hell. My deconversion began while attending a strict, Calvinist congregation. I sat attentively every week and listened to the preacher teach lessons from the Bible. Instead of being inspiring, I began to hear them for what they actually were: misogynist, racist, child-hating, brutal, bloody, inconsistent, incoherent, and utterly outrageous and unconscionable stories. I had no choice but to leave the church and Christianity forever.

In retrospect, I believe that I never would have been re-introduced to Christianity had I not been preyed upon by Christians looking for an easy target. There is no place for religion in addiction treatment. It only serves to make the patient sicker, their mind enslaved to an imaginary god. As for those who will argue that a Christian treatment program is better than no treatment, I would emphatically say that a Christian treatment program is not a treatment program at all. Not really. It is a setting in which Christian proselytizers can control the weak and impressionable...the same way that they target children in vacation Bible school. I actually left AA because of its similarities to church. Twelve-step programs are not the only way to maintain sobriety, there are other methods available, and absolutely no one needs religion or God to stop drinking. Those who escape addiction are ultimately doing so by their own power.

By Has-Been ~

I was enamored of the egalitarian ideals embodied in the teachings of one Jesus of Nazareth. I started reading the bible when I was eleven on my own and accepted what was in there at face value because it was the foundation of the religion to which I was born. I didn't focus on the condemnation but the hope. I believed the ideal of peace and tried to live it. In a world as crazy as this one that was no mean feat. Unfortunately it also left me rather alone as my family was somewhat dysfunctional and my friends weren't friends. I have heard some talk about the instant community for believers. That may be entirely true for adults but for a 16-year-old it is hell.

Thanks to my dysfunctional family I had low self-esteem. I managed to make it to college before I began to have a mental meltdown. I just didn't have the belief in myself to make it work. I ran into a guy from "The Way International" in a laundromat. We talked. Then we talked about religion. I thought I had found a home.

The next four years I spent a lot of time studying the bible in ways I never had before under the teachings of "The Way". At first I didn't get many warning signs. Things for the most part seemed normal. Except for a church that preached that all were welcome and could be healed by the power of Christ they were awfully afraid of taking on anyone who wasn't already at least leaning toward belief.

I partook of their "Word over the World" program in 1983 and wound up in Wisconsin. I will say this if nothing else: Wisconsin was the perfect place for me at that time. A unique confluence of occurrences set in motion my release from delusion. The first was how they tried to manipulate us. Especially as WOW ambassadors we were expected to serve at functions and basically were free labor for the church hierarchy. To be honest that didn't bother me so much but U began to notice that I was only included when I fell in line with everything I was told to do. Any time I questioned or hesitated I was marginalized. I recognized it as manipulation but still I considered it a human fallacy and continued as I was. It got worse. Then came the incident that broke the illusion.

As WOW's we were supposed to bring in new people in the hopes that they too would see the light. I had been hanging around with some guys who were friends. I Became their friend. Their lives mostly revolved around drugs but as I was not averse to smoking weed that didn't strike me as a problem. One of them really did need a sense of belonging somewhere. He showed interest in our fellowship. I brought him to a meeting. The entire meeting they spent trying to get him to take the bible study class they offered for a fee of course. When he said he wasn't interested well their interest disappeared too. So did their attitude. Suddenly something I had taken to be a figment of my imagination became very real to me: This was all about the money.
I like to say I went looking for god and what I found was a group of men standing around a cardboard cutout with the name god written on it. They all had their hands out.

For me there was no lingering pain. There was no withdrawal. There was however anger as I realized that all the Abrahamic religions, and very possibly all religions were about power and control. I was angry at the deception and angry at the years I had wasted on this delusion.

I spent the next ten years in a quest for reality. I used many drugs many times. I studied people. I finally realized there is no meaning. There is no rhyme or reason. There is only the meaning we give to life. What is in our hearts. I still remember the teachings of one Jesus Of Nazareth and I still respect their message. I help people when I can with the knowledge I gained on my journey. I feel that is the best thing we can do in this life: look out for each other. A radical concept to be sure, but one of which I am sure Jesus would have approved.

By Paul So ~

I think most of you are familiar with this fallacy of “teaching the controversy” that is so ubiquitous in the post-Dove Trial when most Americans think that it is more “balanced” and “fair” to teach two different theories of evolution and intelligent design. This is something that you will also find in Global Warming in which the skeptics and believers are perceived to have equally plausible positions that are disputed. I want to point out that these two instances exemplify why I call the fallacy of pseudo-balance views. It’s a term that I personally coined and I will explain why I coined it this way. To avoid misunderstanding, I am not against the idea of being balanced but I am against the idea of calling for a balanced approach when the approach is unwarranted. To explain why it’s unwarranted I will clarify two basic problems this approach can have if it is potentially abused.

Impartiality (Photo credit: squishband)

First, the approach of being balanced becomes pseudo-balance when it assumes that there is a legitimate controversy. Most Americans misunderstand what the term “controversy” means. Controversy can have variety of meaning, but in the context of academic disciplines of philosophy, natural science, social science, and other disciplines it means that there is a dividing view on certain subject that has not been resolved with a solution or answer. For example, String Theory is controversial since while it is a very theoretically simple and coherent theory that solved many theoretical problems in physics it lacks empirical evidences because it is extremely difficult to test it. You have many theoretical physicists who believe in it but you also have substantial number of scientific critics who claim that it lacks evidence. In a sense, String Theory is controversial because you have a dividing view that is equally plausible. You cannot make this same analogy with evolutionary biology because there is no division among scientists on whether the contemporary theory of evolution is true: there is plenty of evidence that supports the theory from variety of scientific fields that relates to biology. The problem here is that when the balanced approach makes an unwarranted assumption that there is a substantial controversy when in fact there are very little reasons to support it. Another good example of a scientific controversy is the experiment that shows that neutrinos might be faster than the speed of light. This is controversial because on one hand you have a verified result that shows that Einstein is wrong but on the other hand you have many past experiments that supported Einstein’s view that light is the fastest thing in the universe. Of course, many scientists think that the experiment must be replicated again with more enhanced and improve instruments that exclude certain altering possibilities.

Second, the approach assumes that being “balanced” is the same thing as being impartial. While being impartial and being balanced are not mutually exclusive they are still different from each other. Being balanced is to try to give the benefit of the doubt to both opposing side of the issue as if they have equal footing since there is no other determining factor that helps one to reasonably discriminate which side is right (or well supported). Being impartial is trying to examine the soundness and validity of the claims and arguments people make by going through the evidence and scrutinizing the line of reasoning. Another fundamental difference between being balanced and being impartial is that an impartial person will eventually have to choose a side whenever overwhelming evidence and good arguments lean towards that side. A person who is balanced assumes that there is no sufficient available evidence to reasonably discriminate which side is likely to be right. It is possible to approach any subject with a balanced and impartial approach but eventually choose a side. When the side is chosen due to examining the evidence and soundness of the arguments you still sustain your impartiality, but balance in this case only has the instrumental role in making an informed decision in the end.

It is worth mentioning that being balanced is a virtue when it is done in the right situation. It is good to have a balanced view in difficult issues when it is not entirely clear which side is right, but it is uninformed and nonsensical to have a balanced view when it is very clear which side wins. It’s like suggesting that a football fan must be balanced even when the Steelers win against, let’s say, the Patriots in the Super Bowl. It is certainly possible to prefer a side while remaining balanced, but when the determining factors comes into the discourse to determine which side wins there no longer is room for balance; to suggest otherwise amounts to intellectual dishonesty.

It is being impartial that is very important here because all it requires you to do is to think critically by examining the evidence and soundness of arguments which eventually will lead you to make an informed decision on what is probably true. That doesn’t make you close-minded and unreasonably biased. Being close-minded is to refuse to examine the arguments since you assume that it must be correct (or that it must be wrong so why bother). Being unreasonably biased is to make an unwarranted assumption that a certain position is right when you have not examined that position. To think critically on both sides of the issue is also good, but there will be cases when you will realize that sometimes some sides are just so obviously right (or more well supported) that you just cannot pretend to think that both sides have equal footing.

So whenever you meet people who claim that because they endorse the “controversy” they must somehow be balanced, try showing them that that’s only the case if there really is a controversy as understood in science. The only reason why it is considered to be a “controversy” is because there is a disagreement but just because there is a disagreement it does not follow that having a balanced approach must apply. If the disagreements are such that one cannot decide which one is most likely right, then it does apply but in this case there is so much determining factors that demonstrates that evolution is true. So instead of teaching the “controversy” we ought to dispel it as a myth.

By Incongruous Circumspection ~

If the Holy Bible, as we know it today, formed by counsels of men (no women), with agenda of their own, with simple majority votes for what to include and what to discard, were the Scriptures referred to in 2 Timothy 3:16, we would expect that those said Scriptures would make sense. After all, if the Bible is God-breathed, wouldn't we expect that nothing in those pages would ever contradict itself?

In simple terms, we can declare that a contradiction proves a fallacy. If a statement about something is true and yet another statement about that something contradicts the first statement, one of those statements must be false. It doesn't necessarily disprove the something being statemented, but it does prove that the two statements are both false until one of them can be proven true, rejecting the other.

Unfortunately, the Bible cannot, as a single organism, be declared to be contradiction free. Those who claim it is, are doing themselves a disservice when the time comes to defend their belief system, being that they have to use pretzelified explanations to spelunk through many of their holy book's premises. If the Bible contradicts itself, then we must reject the Bible as the sole source of truth. We cannot view it as God's word (I'll explain why, in a bit).

Does that mean we reject everything from the ancient pages of this book? Absolutely not! But it does mean that you can decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong. You do not have to take the Bible as one organism, but can take away anything you desire from it or nothing at all. But again, you simply cannot treat it as holy words from an all knowing, all power being. This cannot be true.

Let me explain in six verses:

Malachi 3:6 - For I am the Lord, I do not change... Hebrews 13:8 - Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

We can use Jesus Christ in this example because, according to John (yes, using the full Bible as a single organism), Jesus was God as God was Jesus. They both, together, whether they were one or two, transcended all of history, past, present, and future, as God. Thus, if God does not change and Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever, God simply cannot change. If God cannot change, then nothing in what is considered his word can say one thing about God and then, somewhere else in that same "Word" say the opposite. If he cannot change, he cannot change. Now that we have established the iron-man status of God, let's move on.

Deuteronomy 6:16 - You shall not put the Lord your God to the test... Luke 4:12 - And Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'" Matthew 4:7 - "Jesus said to him, "Again, it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test'."

We have now established that testing God is forbidden. But what about Malachi?

Malachi 3:10 - "Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need."

Here, we see God telling the Israelites to test him. Now, it has been argued that God was really just telling them to test him with something good and in Deuteronomy, he was referring to testing him with something evil. In saying this, the person making the argument misses a key point of logic.

After all, when God tells the Israelites to test him, what exactly is he saying? Simple. He is saying, if you give me the tithes you are supposed to give me, as I decreed in my law to you, nothing but good will come of it. But then, he also tells his people to test him with evil, rob him, don't give him his due tithes, and what will he do? Curse them. Not just the individual who isn't tithing, but the whole nation of Israel.

As you can see, God clearly contradicts himself in the Bible, provided you are treating the Bible as an infallible, inerrant, singular organism - the holy and final words of God.

This begs many questions. What is 2 Timothy 3:16 really referring to? I have illuminated just one of the many contradictions in the book we know as the Holy Bible. Is the Holy Bible the Scriptures? It doesn't appear so. Then, if not, what of the Bible is true, and what of the Bible is simply fiction, a work of men's minds, attempting to make the best word picture of things not able to be explained by the limited knowledge of their day? If the Bible is not God's word, can we really stand on any of it as unadulterated truth? Can we simply use logic and reason and take from the Holy Bible what we desire to live by and nothing more, nothing less?

The Golden Rule is a great example of what I would harvest from the pages of the Bible. What about loving your enemies? What about not killing and really not killing. Take it as common sense, not as an absolute truth from a god who has broken every one of his laws - especially the killing one. How about giving to others and being sacrificial when people are in need. Turning the other cheek comes to mind. What about working your rear end off to be successful? Many awesome ideas about life can be gleaned from this book's pages. And yet, many other ideas about life can be discovered in other books, from other people, from culture, from your own brilliant mind.

Think! Think for yourself. Grab wisdom and knowledge from every source available to you. The Bible is an excellent resource for many things. It is also a miserable failure in many other areas. Feel free to reject any or all of it. It isn't infallible. It's not inerrant. It isn't God's word. It can't be.

By u2wob ~

LATE FOR CHURCH

Late for church. And I lived just across the street. Following a few other tardy parishioners up the steps to St. Brendan’s, I quickened my pace, but only in hopes they would hold the door for me. Too late. They were already in. I pulled the door open and quickly moved through the vestibule glancing up at the pulpit where Father I-Don’t-Remember-His-Name glared back at me as I moved down the aisle searching for a seat.

“Here’s another one,” he barked, voice reverberating powerfully as it only can inside a cavernous building. “Another insolent person who shows his disrespect to God by wandering in here at whatever time he chooses.” Heads turned and now dozens of eyes were on me. No. No. Not me. Lord, make me disappear. I panicked. Seat. Seat. Gotta find a seat. I squeezed into the next available pew, while the scolding continued. “What will it take for you to show proper respect, young man?” I’m sorry I thought, but could not say. I’m so sorry. The eyes were mercifully off me now, but as I sank into the pew, I realized I was involuntarily crying - ashamed, humiliated and crying. I was 11.

Crushed and not wanting the priest to be angry with me, I somehow summoned the courage to visit him after Mass, to apologize and ask forgiveness. I entered the sacristy sheepishly and he acknowledged my concern with a stern gaze and then, smiling, urged me to be on time from now on. We were good. Now I only hoped and prayed that he wouldn’t rat me out to Dad. It was understood I couldn’t share this story with my parents, particularly my father, whose attitude towards priests was unquestioned fealty. He was fatherless as a child and the local priests of his youth were the authority figures of his life. They were to be revered, respected and unquestioned. It was understood that a serious criticism of priests was off-limits, the reason I sought this priest’s forgiveness. I didn’t really care about the good Father’s pardon; I just wanted my father to be proud of me – to show him we shared the same clerical respect.

But even at that age I knew this guy had overstepped the line. He may have felt justified in demanding punctuality for the Lord’s spiritual reverence but he missed his temporal target.

Yes it was a seemingly tiny event, not worthy of a moment’s consideration in a full lifetime, but it was really significant nevertheless. He’ll never know it, but Father I-Don’t-Remember-His-Name unwittingly planted the seed. My days of joyous wonder and warm spiritual nurturing within the church were over. I was 11.

“THE” CATHOLIC FAMILY

For years just entering a church triggered feelings of unworthiness and remorse. I fought it and eventually had enough pleasant, satisfying moments in churches that I became quite comfortable there, particularly when my family bonded and we celebrated the important Catholic rituals together. It was how I learned about community. But I never felt comfortable in the old St. Brendan’s church ever again, so in 1967 when it was replaced, I felt no nostalgia. Following Vatican II the Church was anxious to update and appear modern, including new concepts of architecture – and the archdiocese built a structure that was designed in the shape of a ship, to commemorate St. Brendan’s voyages. I had an irreverent classmate that dubbed it the Ship of Fools – but I wasn’t casting myself overboard just yet. I had an obligation and responsibility to get good with God. To pray, worship, ask God’s forgiveness and keep the faith.

Of course, to keep the faith you have to have it to begin with and I was never sure my faith was strong enough to pass the test. Aware that failing the test had some pretty dire consequences, I dutifully set out on a life-long quest: Get good with God.

It seemed to come so easily to all my family. My sister was always devoted and married a great guy whose faith was a model for all of us. My brother entered the seminary for a while, and although he decided the clergy was not for him, it never seemed to cause him to veer for a second. My cousin made it through the seminary, became a priest and built an impressive clerical career. His father, my uncle, as you can imagine, was exceedingly thrilled.

Because of my father’s respect, priests and nuns were always over for dinner and welcomed warmly at our house. For much of my life I didn’t think we were a Catholic family, I thought we were THE Catholic family. It was understood we were a family of faith – public and proud. Why was it so hard for me? How come I couldn’t measure up? They never seemed to struggle. Their faith had such a gentle ease about it. Was I not praying hard enough? It will come, I assured myself. Trust in Him.

In the sixth grade my parents transferred me from our local parochial school to a private Catholic school, where my brother attended high school. On the first day of classes, our teacher, an Irish Christian Brother, asked the class “How many of you attended Mass this Sunday?” I looked around and saw about 30% raise their hands. What?!! Now I was pretty sophisticated in the 6th grade. I knew the whole world wasn’t Catholic, but even all non-Catholics went to church every Sunday, right? I was stunned.

In high school I went through the obligatory period of rejection. Of course God was on the list, but I rejected everything - advice, parental authority, you name it, I was against it. The ages 15-17 should be illegal. During this time my parents were going through a difficult period which added to my disillusionment. It may have been highly typical angry teenage angst, but it was a dark uncertain time for me. Then there were the teachers at my Catholic schools (I transferred during my junior year) and the disturbing sexual episodes. No, I was never violated directly. But yes, I was hit on - even courted, in a way. There were private meetings, intense personal discussions, questions about my sex life, curiosity about my turn-ons, etc. Really creepy, uncomfortable sessions that, because they were my teachers, were unavoidable. And it was not just one guy. There were several, in both schools. I was boxed in. First, I could never complain about it because, the clergy were to be respected and trusted and my complaints would be viewed as just another disappointing observation from a 16 year old malcontent. Second, the embarrassing subject of sex; I was just getting to the age of experiencing sexual feelings and its inherent sinfulness was relentlessly drummed into us– even the mere thought of it was an occasion of sin to be shunned at all costs or you’re going to get another demerit on God’s score card. I felt like I was being forced to admit my depraved sinfulness in these humiliating sessions. I still recall one priest inviting me to his on-campus room and noticing his eyes and his hands actually shaking in sexual excitement as he quizzed me. I wasn’t gay. I was naïve and had no idea what the hell was going on. I just knew instinctively that the creep factor was dialed up to 9.

So the events were filed away, hidden in a fast growing, frightening closet, filled with imaginary sins and shortcomings, all direct affronts to God’s plan for me. I needed forgiveness.

But they were the creeps. Why did I feel guilty? I didn’t do anything but be subjected to some homo-leering.

Despite my well-earned reputation of Conservative fire-brand, actually some of my thoughts on social issues may surprise you. Among these are gay rights and full equality – more on that later. The Church is an understandable magnet for gay men and I am saddened by their closeted prison. But my point is, to a naïve 16 year old, getting hit on by a gay authority figure is more than disarming. It was just plain wrong. And yet for some strange reason I felt it was morally incorrect to get angry about this. As if I was complicit. I needed to pray for understanding and forgiveness.

CULTURAL CATHOLIC – ON AUTOMATIC AND SCANDAL

My bout with teenage rejection was abated somewhat as I passed through high school and college and religion played a decreasing role in my life. It still weighed heavily on my mind, but my public and secular life started to take on a more prominent role. At this point and I was settling into that great American Institution – becoming a Cultural Catholic. I realized, to my great disappointment that faith is a gift, a gift that cannot be given or earned. The only way to receive it, I believed, was through prayer and trust that God would listen and approve. Maybe that faith would be confirmed in some fashion, as it seemed to be for my family. Trust in the Lord. Eventually He will show you the way. Maybe you can no longer trust your teachers or other authority figures, but you can and must trust in the Lord.

This cultural Catholic thing seemed very European. Religion there is an ignored backdrop while you go about your life. For many years, I withheld the sacraments, believing I was simply a sinner not worthy of receiving them. When I didn’t receive communion at my father’s funeral, my cousin became alarmed. However, he was encouraged that I had enough respect for the sacrament that I didn’t receive communion and violate a basic tenet.

I didn’t really attend church at all as an adult. When I was first married I did, mostly to assure my wife that my religion was still intact, and I was trying, really trying. Here I was a married adult who still thought sleeping in on Sunday was a scandalous sin. This was Catholic Guilt, the insidious source of thousands of jokes at its best - continuing to infect its host with a subtle, debilitating disease.

1968 - great year to get married, but a really shitty year for Catholics to get married. Why? Birth control. That wonder of modern science had just been introduced and was condemned completely by the church. It forced Catholics the world over to face down Rome and make a choice. Of course, the Church lost and the Cultural Catholic ranks grew enormously. The Church, quietly put the issue on the back burner and although they never backed down, they just stayed quiet about it. But for Catholics, cultural or not, here was another sin for the ledger; another opportunity to live a life of Catholic Guilt.

Throughout our lives together – and we’d been dating since high school – my wife was always the voice of Christian Sanity. She was raised as a Presbyterian, attended church and Sunday school in her youth, but stopped going at the age most kids do – out of boredom and indifference. For Catholics it was mandatory, but our Protestant brothers and sisters had an option and I was always jealous of that. When she was in college, a classmate annoyingly kept trying to “convert” her to the Catholic faith. After a while, the proselytizing became too much, and the friendship withered, but it left a stain of slight anti-Catholic feelings in her. When we started to get serious as a couple, she was concerned about our faith differences. It didn’t mean anything to her, but she was afraid my family, being under the boot of Rome, would reject her. It was never true. They loved her and welcomed her into the fold with great affection, but marrying outside the faith was a much bigger social issue in those days. Throughout our lives, she attended church with my family on occasion, while never giving up her allegiance to her childhood church. I would even join her at Christmas celebrations – they held a beautiful service. She professed a belief in God and no doubt, was confused and amused at her husband’s family piety. Still she was quiet about her faith, respectful of mine, and altogether the voice of Christian Sanity. The world could learn from her model. While regular church attendance never kicked in, I did, over the years, resume Communion when I did go To Mass – weddings, funerals other family events. I reasoned that the sacraments may help with my elusive faith quest. Additionally, this public display of my faith would impress the Lord and nudge me over to His approved list. I defended the Church’s behavior often in arguments –with my late father smiling, , egging me on, no doubt. My default position was they are only human and doing the best they can. For centuries they have cared for and nurtured us. We owe it to them to give help and moral support in their hour of need. Some of that behavior became personal – I won’t go into it here – but family was involved. I reluctantly understood the Church’s position on the matter and was instantly willing to accept their misbehavior. I was a team player, willing to live my life out riddled with the Guilt, hopeful that God would show me the way and confirm my faith, while trying to strike a balance between the normal secular life and the necessary pursuit of spiritual fulfillment.

For most of my life it weighed on me. I was quiet about it, partially because I was always fearful – fearful of hell because I have believed for all of my life that we were born with original sin and must earn our way out of it by good deeds or strong affirmation of faith or maybe something else was needed. Who knows? All I know is I have spent an inordinate amount of time on the subject. I realized religion has consumed me for my entire life. Should I make the sign of the cross or cross my fingers?

THE CHURCHBOT GETS A WAKE-UP CALL

The Church’s sex abuse scandals have rocked it almost immeasurably. To be fair, abuses in the NYC school system may be just as plentiful and not nearly as well covered by the press, but no matter…. OK. That was me - default-defending them again – an old habit. And it’s really wrong to do it. Oddly, I never saw the hypocrisy. Here I was, defending this institution instinctively, the way you defend a family’s honor in the Sopranos or something, the black sheep fighting for the fold. Maybe that was my way of seeking acceptance. Maybe it was my way of saying I knew I wasn’t included in my family’s circle of faith, but I’ve got you’re your back from here on the outside. At least God would understand what I was trying to achieve and maybe give me a reward by letting me into the club.

The breadth of the scandal was overwhelming. What happened to me in high school wasn’t criminal, but it was a disturbing violation nevertheless. I should have said or done something but I didn’t. I had dinner with a classmate recently who told me that one of the priests I talked about earlier who was trying to engage me was later caught and tossed out. Among his papers were letters to fellow pedophiles bragging about what good fortune he had being in a school setting - a playground filled with candy. If I had said something then maybe all of that would have been avoided. Who knows?

The abuse is horrible. The settlements are infuriating, but I guess legally necessary. However when the Vatican shielded Cardinal Law from the American legal system, a morally corrupt system was exposed. I understood why the Vatican did it, but hated them for it. It was misplaced mercy, and disgusting. How could the church be so uncaring towards the scandal visited on its own parishioners?

And then, Ireland -the abuse that lasted for decades. I watched a 60 Minutes report, in which Dublin’s Archbishop Martin was seen at an unprecedented service of atonement prostrated on the altar washing the feet of victims, as an act of humility, medieval symbolism as a substitute for genuine contriteness. It struck me as a manipulative “play victim” move. The Vatican’s response was criticized as not sufficiently satisfactory – but I don’t know what kind of a response could be acceptable. It was mind-numbing, on the scale of the German atrocities in WWII. But then, I soberly realized it was entirely plausible. My experiences were direct antecedents; the harboring of pedophiles by the institution, the arrogance of Father” I Don’t-Remember-His-Name,” this misplaced mercy. All of it. This was beyond corrupt. This was systematic criminal behavior.

Archbishop Martin recently pleaded with lapsed Catholics to leave the church. Criticism itself was too much of a scandal and a distraction from the genuine reformation he was seeking from the Vatican. , Leave us alone, in effect, because we are not equipped to deal with the criticism from within.

While it was food for thought, I had never heard a priest urge a congregant to get out. Still I understood and had my defensive gear on. Why was I not able to objectively look at this as another corrupt institution that lost its way? How could I be so understanding? If I even told a risqué joke to a woman at work, I wouldn’t be moved to another department. I would be out on my ass. Why does the Church get dispensation? Again, the most important question; why do I judge the Church differently than any other institution? Why, in the name of all that is holy do they get a pass for criminal disgusting behavior?

Because of fear.

The Church was given absolute moral authority over my soul. It has exercised that authority as a power tool to control my life. I ceded that power because I trusted them to save me.

Uh Oh.

EXTERNALIZED ADMISSIONS

It’s quite strange to think of the Church as immoral. It is supposed to be the arbiter of these matters, right? But, like any other earthly institutions, it has its faults. Take annulments, for example. The Church’s stance on remarriage after divorce is pretty straightforward and clear. But if there are “impediments,” you mercifully get a mulligan. After a while, the mulligans become more lenient, and the next thing you know, Martin Luther is working on his carpentry skills. I’ll spare you the plenary indulgence history and the “Treasury of Merit” discussion. Let’s just say, it was the carbon credits of its day, steeped in wink and nod theology. Not a proud moment and morally suspect at least. It’s clear that during history the Church’s survival and health was at times considerably more important than the spiritual needs of its members.

Every day the news has a story of uncovered corruption and “crony capitalism.” The political parties have been reduced to abandoning principles and just mistrusting and yelling at each other. Bernie Madoff? Shrugged shoulders. Un-merited bail-outs? Ho hum. Ever watch Survivor? The object is to win the million bucks and not get voted off the island. The contestant who manipulates alliances, lies stealthily and back-stabs the most quietly gets the reward. Immorality as Life Goal. It’s all so bewildering to me and easy to see how the modern Church gets caught up in the Zeitgeist.

I couldn’t abide by this anymore. I was embarrassed and ashamed of my Church. It didn’t remotely resemble the idealistic presence of my youth. In fact, it now seemed wicked and evil. I silently gave up. I couldn’t defend them anymore, but was too frightened to admit it. Rather than getting angry at the source, I resented their critics and bundled my anger at them. The Catholic bashers were attacking my family and I wouldn’t let them get away with it. But really I was torn, disgusted and lost.

One night, while watching some critical Church report on TV at dinner, I involuntarily blurted out, “That’s it. I’m done.” Out loud. I’d thought it before, but never dared to verbalize it. I startled myself. Oh my God, I said that out loud. Was I serious? Was I actually considering leaving the Holy Roman Catholic Church, the church of my youth, the bedrock of my entire history because I felt they had embarrassed themselves and their faithful by immoral, indefensible actions? Yes.

It was past time for me to consider another way, another path - another church. These guys were nuts.

COLUMN “B” CHOICES AND SALVATION

OK. Don’t make any rash decisions in anger. It is your eternal life we’re talking about here after all. Do some research, give it some thought. Pray. The thought of being associated with this organization seemed so wrong. I never would have believed I could consider another home, but now I knew I couldn’t stay. This was not my church any longer. Had I changed so much? Or had they. It was out of whack.

The first consideration was, of course, the Episcopalian Church – Catholic-lite. The traditions and services were so similar that it’s easy for lapsed Catholics to slip right in; a smart, well-ordered group - a little snooty - but none of that ethnic riff-raff. That’s how they sounded to me. Even the Irish have worked their way up to its elderdom. Sure the saints get demoted and Mother Mary is moved to the also-starring list, but all in all, a much easier road to hoe.

But, for the first time in my life, I realized I had other options What about the others? Catholics have always held themselves to be the One and everyone else just a farm team. As a result, I never made any serious attempt to delineate the differences between Methodists, Lutherans, or Presbyterians. They were all triple A ball to me, column “B.”. Baptists, and other fundamentalist sects like Church of God, seemed bat-shit to me and of course, the fact that they hate and mistrust Catholics doesn’t help - see Dad? A good soldier. At least, Catholics had the good sense to understand metaphor and poetry. The literalists claimed every word was unerringly true. Even on the subject of Evolution and Creationism, Catholics reject pure Creationism and support for Darwin, with some modifications.

I realized if I was going to be serious about this – and it was as serious as a heart attack – I was going to have to dig in and research, an enterprise frowned upon throughout history. We were taught from an early age to stay away from occasions of sin and be tempted by apostasy, blasphemy, and heresy. Don’t look behind the curtain shouted the Wizard of Oz. Hell, they burned folks at the stake for this sort of thing.

I never read the Bible cover to cover. Sections-yes. Passages-yes. But never cover to cover, like Fundamentalists do. Quoting scripture always seemed suspect to me, anyhow. I knew how newspapers and pundits quoted things out of context to further their agenda and I felt that was what Baptists did. Reading the Bible is hard work. Biblical scholars have, over the centuries, fought over interpretations; examined minute details, even revised and edited the text. It is a Bronze and Iron Age set of books and writings transcribed by men trying to hand down stories and myths. We’ve all played telephone. A story is whispered to a person who repeats it to the next person in line and so on. The last person repeats the story aloud, and everyone has a great laugh at how it has been mangled in the process. Imagine a set of stories handed down for centuries, by folks with different skills and agendas. Just try to get through Genesis without doubling over like the folks playing telephone: contradictions, errors, talking snakes, knowledge trees. Metaphors maybe but, come on... It is a fascinating, important work of art – a worthy subject of study. But the unerring word of God? Even the New Testament, the Christian section is filled with contradictions and strange utterances.

I didn’t have the patience or the interest to take on the Bible in detail, but I still wanted to know how this book had glued the religious for all these years. This being the age of Google, I no longer had to seek out libraries and rummage through card files for answers. I didn’t even have to read. Welcome to YouTube. Dozens of lectures, polemics, reviews, criticisms of the Bible, Christianity, Islam and religion in general – literally a life-time of study right there for the taking. Never talk about sports or politics or religion. This age-old maxim is particularly true on YouTube. You look for insight but all you get is nasty argument. And quickly you learn that the most prevalent view of religiosity in America is indifference, but regionally and politically evangelicals are passionate to witness to anyone, particularly Jehovah’s Witness and Mormons. Invariably, atheists would return fire, sometimes mocking, sometimes flailing about in frustration, filled with certainty and scorn.

No Christian alternative seemed particularly useful to me, nothing that I could embrace and hold as my path to salvation. I wasn’t interested in joining the right church. I’ve never been a joiner. No clubs, fraternities, nothing. The only membership card I hold is from a fraternal organization that my father wanted me to join. He worked hard to get me in and to respect him, I still am a nominal member. Choosing a new church seemed like such a Protestant thing to do. We Catholics never had to go up and down the aisles choosing and selecting. We just went in, got what we wanted and left. This non-denominational choice seemed like one of those no-label store brands – a characterless white can that was stuck in the back of the pantry because you didn’t want anyone you know that you were so cheap - hardly an inspiring pathway to God.

It was doubtful my attendance record would improve anyway, particularly if I didn’t have family to share the experience with. However my goal was the same as always. I was only interested in getting good with God. That meant I had to look beyond Christianity. Beyond the institutions that didn’t really seem to be honoring Jesus, anyhow. Like Mary, in many churches he seemed to have an also-starring role. I was unsure of this but maybe they were right. To achieve my faith maybe I had to bypass the Son, and deal directly with the Old Man.

I had brushed past Buddhism, Hinduism and other Eastern disciplines as only a curiosity. Culturally so different, they were hard to identify with and while elements are of course worthy, others are just too foreign and forbidding. Islam seemed more repressive and backward than some (most?) of Christianity and way too bellicose. New Age spirituality just seemed false and self-indulgent. Honestly, most of the folks who claim to be “spiritual, not religious” were just soft core agnostics to me. The thought of worshipping Gaia just makes me giggle. Wicca? Witches? Sorry. Pass. Way too much work and my wife hates clutter anyhow. Maybe just simple Deism- barebones philosophy, but if God just created the world and then got out of the way, where the hell would I find him? I couldn’t find him as a Christian and he was supposedly there. The Deism desert was just too vast.

None of these paths worked for my goal. I had to get good with God and religion was getting in the way.

Why was this so hard? Why after a lifetime of asking, indeed pleading to be granted membership into the club was I still being ignored? How could the faithful be so certain? Where was I falling short? More good deeds? More pronouncements of faith? How could He be so cruel? Why would He allow my Church to be destroyed and take away my lifelong pathway? Why after all this effort could I find no peace? Was it really an all-loving God’s will to tease and torture His flock for their whole lives? He demands recognition in the First Commandment, yet ignores us when it is given. Was He really as brutal, selfish and demanding as He was portrayed in the Bible? Why did He offer us sacraments to help guide us to the path when, despite all the reverence and trust we held in them, we were ignored? How could He do this to us?

The answer is He couldn’t and didn’t, because of simplicity itself:

god.is.imaginary.

Uh Oh.

THE MOMENT

It was like thunderbolt - the most terrifying, fearful and exhilarating moment of my life. At long last, after a lifetime of struggle, pain and uncertainty, it made sense. It was a moment of clarity like no other. I had been duped so cruelly that for my entire life I believed in Santa Claus. Now I knew the truth; what was behind all those disappointments, failings and why worshipful spiritual satisfaction was unachievable. Why the elusive circle of faith was impossible to penetrate. It was all a scam - a heartless wicked immoral scam perpetrated by a series of foul dicks that for centuries have interpreted and re-interpreted a series of Bronze and Iron Age myths to perpetuate their power and influence – a continuum of crap. Centuries of evil. Millions of lives wasted in wars fought over made-up fairy tales. Advances in science and virtually all other disciplines have been able to expose much of this but the mythology continues – a blend of fables, blind wishes and ignorant trusting communities just waiting to be exploited. As I say these things, my heart hurts because it sounds so harsh and hateful. I don’t want to sound resentful about being duped and l believe the examination of religion and its impact on society is fascinating and extremely useful. It’s not all bad, but after all the poison it has spread, religion is hardly benign. It breaks my heart, but we’ve all been had. So here I sit - alone, with the realization that I am a non-believer – an atheist. And I HATE atheists because they are smug, arrogant (mostly) leftists hell-bent on turning the government over to PETA. And here I sit - a right-leaning atheist at that - one of the most reviled subsets of the most reviled group in America. And I don’t even have God to turn to for support.

I guess technically, I’m an agnostic in the sense that I don’t KNOW that God doesn’t exist. But that is true of all atheists. There’s no such thing as Gnostic atheist – the lack of knowledge makes the term impossible – so it is a distinction without a difference. Still, the term seems so harsh and bitter. It carries a lot of baggage, whereas, “non-believer”, “not religious”, even “agnostic” sounds less threatening and implies to the religious that there is still hope. There is no getting around it, though. It is a rejection of religion, which will be offensive and threatening to much of the world. I am decidedly not anti-theist and believe strongly that every person should seek his own path, as I did mine. It is not my place or will to interfere with this most important process for anyone. Religious or not, we all deserve the maximal amount of happiness allowed and the pathway to that goal should be unimpeded.

NOW WHAT AND WORLDVIEWS

My former church has arrogantly tossed away its moral authority, yet continues to try to perpetuate superstitions in spite of provable scientific advances. This is not like the infamous, just-forgiven Galileo incident so misunderstood; it is things like condoms and In vitro fertilization, even among married couples (!). So, yes, despite my father’s admonitions I must criticize the Church for their failings in the clearly immoral act of allowing disease to flourish and preventing couples to propagate. I’m confident the God I was taught to believe in would approve of my objections.

So what does this really mean? What does a non-Christian me think like now. How will this change me? Guidelines are suddenly gone and it is quite a revelation for the newly deconverted. EVERYTHING has to be reexamined. For a Catholic this means a total worldview revision – a dizzying array of suppositions that go by the board. Bedrock beliefs like the existence of the soul, heaven, hell, the afterlife, sin, prayer, purgatory, grace, the trinity, virgin births, talking snakes, the supernatural , magical transubstantiation, the saints, all divinities, past and present – it goes on and on and as each superstition is exposed, it is frightening, disorienting and oddly, comforting at the same time.

After a lifetime of uncertainty and anguish, I no longer have to be concerned about being saved. There’s nothing to be saved from. This life here, now, is perfect - all you’ll ever need and all you’re ever going to get. You can live your entire life with a sense of awe and wonder and love and treasure every moment without fear of supernatural retribution. A life unburdened by penalties, punishments and suppliant reward from a mysterious, vengeful myth. Maybe that’s my gift. But I paid quite a price.

Ironically, atheism frees you to live a moral life, one where good deeds are performed for their own sake, not as acts designed to selfishly spare you from God’s wrath. Morals preceded the Bible anyhow. Theists just appropriated it from the ancients and pretended they were the authors.

The altered worldview doesn’t just eliminate superstitions. It forces you to look at long held precepts differently, as well.

I touched on gay rights earlier. Some Christians are hate-filled and fearful of gays, particularly the Evangelicals who captured the Republican Party, one of many reasons why I have lost respect for the GOP. (Don’t worry. Democrats still lead the pack in wackiness.) I don’t believe the government or the church has any role in private marriages or any domestic arrangements for that matter, other than recognizing civil unions. Leave the gays alone and let them live and love. If they want to get married what difference does it really make to your life? My deconversion has made me suspect and mistrustful of all supposed authority, although I have always supported gay rights. Get out of our bedrooms and medicine cabinets and closets and stick to your knitting like protecting the border and cleaning up the highway.

The most dramatic social issue I’ve altered my view on, without question, is abortion where I’ve flipped 180°. When I decided to reconsider things with as honest and clean a slate as possible I reluctantly approached this one because it is so emotional and fundamental. I may write about it in detail some time, but the bottom line is I now support the pro-choice position enthusiastically. I still believe late- term abortions are morally reprehensible and recent articles about ethicists supporting the killing of newborns because they are “morally irrelevant” is dangerous and sick, but I was amazed to learn that almost a ¼ of U.S. pregnancies end in abortions. I do make a distinction between a woman’s right to choose and the viability restrictions resulting in the right to life of the infant, a point frequently missed in articles and arguments. Often Pro-choice advocates seek unrestricted rights and that is selfish and unrealistic. Neonatal medicine is developing an artificial placenta that would make ten week old embryos “viable” which shows how important it is to allow science to operate unhampered. There’s more, but this represents a major breakthrough for me, an instance of unhindered inquiry that I didn’t think I was capable of.

In school we learned of Greek and Roman mythology and they seemed to have a different god for all of life’s contingencies. To a 20th century schoolchild it seemed so silly - yet on Sunday we were worshipping their one remaining god and it seemed so rational. I don’t hate God nor am I angry at him despite, in many ways, a wasted life. He’s imaginary to me – an interesting worthy philosophical concept, but nothing more.

FAMILY

Family has always been important to me. We don’t always get along but we’re better than most. As you can tell, I’ve always considered myself an outcast – the black sheep if you will and oddly, I always felt a slight discomfort with my immediate family because of this. My parents were complex people with complex histories and in many ways unsuited to raise a family. But we were loved, cared for and given every opportunity imaginable. They made sacrifices, demanded little and generally did the best job they knew. Their complexities however spilled over into our lives in different ways and I believe caused unintended damage in all of us. I definitely know I was damaged, but I loved them.

We all want love and acceptance and I’ve been motivated my entire life to having that with my family, but as I explained I always felt excluded from the circle and now, with this revelation my long sought goal is probably gone forever. Some time ago, my sister inquired about my “spiritual health.” “I’m fine,” I answered, an honest appraisal at the time, because I was sincerely making the effort to connect. And I was becoming comfortable that God, being fair and forgiving would look out for me. Now I look back at that and realize it was silly. I can’t do it. I can’t join in the circle. True faith is a gift of sorts – but it is an unreasonable notion that can only be imagined. I sought it for so long without realizing it was an illusion. But its power has motivated all mankind and inspired the daring to seek evidence, so maybe that’s the gift after all. It’s tantalizing promise forces us to seek the truth. The “God of the gaps” is so much easier but relentlessly incomplete.

I love my family and always want the best for all of us. I could continue the pretense – life would definitely be easier and a little hypocrisy is the coin of the realm nowadays. But that ultimately would not be fair to anyone. After a lifetime of lies and delusions, I need to be honest with myself at the least. I have great fear that my family is going to abandon me. I hope not and will be heartbroken if it happens, but I literally have no choice.

Accepting my atheism, after all these years as a Catholic Christian is a challenging process and very disconcerting, but so many of life’s mysteries are finally being solved and so many of my fears and anxieties are dissipating. I can’t say I had a pure Damascus experience, my curiosity still forces me to wonder but non-supernatural answers while more difficult, are much more satisfying. Becoming atheist is easy. Becoming ex-Catholic is really hard. Admitting it to yourself and “coming out,” really, REALLY hard.

It may be that some of my family will not be surprised by this admission; I’m guessing others, no doubt, will be shocked and disappointed. It’s a very strange experience to hear myself saying and thinking things that I never would have dreamed seriously considering a just short time ago.

Trust me, a lot of jokes have been made about Catholic guilt over the years -- but to me they're not funny anymore. They are a grim reminder of a life wasted in pointless prayer and penance for sins that never existed -a life that was boldly abused by a delusional authority. If an atheist had mocked me as a Christian a short time ago; I would have punched out in defense. Now I realize my folly and his frustration. My viewpoint has been altered and I am adjusting to it, desperately trying to sidestep anger.

To my family: I dread the hurt and pain I may cause and want everyone to know my love for you is greater now that you have my undivided attention. I hope my failure as a Christian will not disappoint you. Please understand.

By Valerie Tarico ~

A Midwestern atheist tells of sitting in her lunchroom at work and listening as conversation opened up around her about religious differences. Her co-workers included several kinds of Protestants, a Catholic, even a Jew. Sensing they were in risky territory, they worked to find common ground. “At least there aren’t any atheists around here,” one woman said in a warm inclusive tone. What’s a girl to do in a situation like that? Should she out herself or just keep quiet? In his seminal book, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, sociologist Erving Goffman posed the perennial quandary of stigmatized persons:

“To display or not display; to tell or not to tell; to let on or not to let on; to lie or not to lie; and in each case, to whom, how, when, and where." (p. 42)

Disclosure feels risky because it is. In 2008, Atheist Nexus gathered “coming out” stories from over 8000 visitors who described themselves as atheist, humanist, freethinker, agnostic, skeptic, and so forth. Some of the tales are painful to read. One woman said, “I've had people literally, physically BACK away from me upon hearing I am atheist. My children were told to run away from our evil home." A man’s confession of lost faith almost cost his marriage: “My wife told me that I'm caught in Satan's grip, and confessed that after I deconverted she considered leaving me. I believe the only reason she didn't is because she's financially dependent on me.” Elsewhere a young woman tells of losing thirty-four Facebook friends when she announced her lack of belief.

The consequences of anti-atheist stigma are public as well as private. Most self-described atheists are acutely aware of survey results showing that U.S. atheists are less electable than reviled minorities including Muslims and gays. Seven states still have laws on the books that ban nonbelievers from holding public office. A Florida minister whose deconversion recently made national news said that job interviews were cancelled when prospective employers found out.

In the minds of many believers atheism is linked with immorality, and despite mounds of evidence to the contrary, religious leaders reinforce this stereotype. I once attended a Palm Sunday service at a popular Calvinist megachurch in Seattle. The minister was determined that his congregation should believe the resurrection of Christ to be a physical, historical event. He said, “If the resurrection didn’t literally happen, there is no reason for us to be here. If the resurrection didn’t literally happen, there are parties to be had. There are women to be had. There are guns to shoot. There are people to shoot.” I found myself thinking, if the only thing that stands between you and debauchery, lechery and violence is a belief in the literal resurrection of Jesus, I’m really glad you believe that. But what are you saying about the rest of us?!

Anti-atheist stereotypes work to bond believers together in part because many Americans think that they have never met an atheist. A stigmatized minority can be the nameless faceless “other” that people love to hate as long as members remain nameless and faceless. But as the gay rights movement has shown, things get more complicated—and attitudes start changing--when we realize we are talking about our friends, beloved family members, and co-workers. Coming out has been such a powerful change agent for gays, that atheists (along with other faceless groups like Mormons and women who have had abortions) are explicitly taking a page from the gay rights movement and launching visibility campaigns.

That is easier than it sounds. Among atheist and humanist leaders, passionate disagreements have erupted about what kind of visibility will actually help advance acceptance and rights for those who eschew supernaturalism.

As a social cause, rather than just a life stance, atheism was catapulted forward by 9-11 and the ascendancy of the Religious Right. Cognitive scientist Sam Harris says that he began writing The End of Faith the morning after seeing the trade towers bombed with jet fuel and airline passengers. Biologist Richard Dawkins, who had previously hosted a gracious series of televised interviews exploring faith and non-faith, shifted tone and became a patriarch of anti-theistic activism. Journalist Christopher Hitchens wrote his scathing indictment, God is not Great. Doubters started coming out of the closet. I, myself, began publicly challenging Evangelical Christian teachings when George Bush pointed to heaven to indicate where he had sought advice before invading Iraq.

It takes energy and guts to buck taboos and norms as strong as those surrounding religion, and so, just like with gays, the first out the door were those who felt so strongly that they were willing to throw themselves into the fray, do or die. The “New Atheists” attracted a preponderance of young males who largely fit godless stereotypes: some defiant, some nerdy, many hyper-intellectual. All were, for one reason or another, either impervious to rules protecting faith from criticism or willing to pay a price for breaking those rules.

Some of these anti-theist firebrands can be counted among today’s leaders, and many have kept an edge that is honed by the seemingly relentless assaults on science and civil rights perpetrated by Christian and Muslim fundamentalists. They remain fiercely defiant, unapologetic about their scorn for religion, willing to use shock tactics if that’s what it takes to break what they see as a terminal religious stranglehold on society. Several years back, a group called the Rational Response Squad promoted a “blasphemy challenge” urging people to videotape themselves denying the Holy Spirit because one Bible writer calls such blasphemy an unforgiveable sin. In 2010, a Seattle cartoonist launched “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” after learning about death threats against Trey Parker and Matt Stone for depicting Mohammed in Southpark . This winter American Atheists provoked quite an outcry with a billboard that quoted a Bible verse: “Slaves Submit to Your Masters – Colossians 3:22.”

The organizers of these irreverent events see them as advancing values that they cherish deeply --one could say values they hold sacred: freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and freedom from cruelty grounded in dogma or superstition. And yet, criticism of such in-your-face attacks on religion has often come from people who share their goals. As the atheist visibility movement has expanded, quieter, more diplomatic leaders have emerged. Many of them insist that aggressive confrontation does more harm than good –that atheists need to be changing stereotypes not reinforcing them and that there is such a thing as bad publicity.

Biologist PZ Myers and Harvard Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein have staked out two very different positions in the naughty-or-nice controversy. Myers writes a popular blog, Pharyngula, which evolved from a primary focus on biology and politics to include broad-based uncensored anti-religious news and commentary. Myers doesn’t suffer fools lightly and makes no bones about letting people know that he finds most religion not only destructive but also stupid. Epstein, by contrast, seeks to foster ethical and spiritual community that build bridges between faith and non-faith. His Humanist Community Project encourages humanists to develop the traditional virtues of religion: communities built around shared values and social service. Where Myers might rail against “faith in faith,” Epstein’s colleagues find common ground with open, inclusive religious groups like the Interfaith Youth Corps.

Blogger Greta Christina has said that atheists should “let firebrands be firebrands and diplomats be diplomats.” She argues that both confrontational and collaborative tactics made the gay rights movement stronger and will do the same for non-theism. But what kind of confrontation? Ugly partisanship can backfire. For example, Fred Phelps and Sean Harris give homophobia such a vile face that they trigger disgust, pushing people in the opposite direction. Some atheist activism may do the same.

Even reasonable confrontation tactics can backfire –especially in the hands of a hostile journalist. Cathy Lynn Grossman of USAToday attended the April Reason Rally in D.C., a gathering she described as “hell-bent on damning religion and mocking beliefs.” There she found plenty which, when taken out of context, could be used to reinforce stereotypes. Her article headlined with a quote from Richard Dawkins, encouraging nonbelievers to “show contempt” for baseless dogmas. It was accompanied by a picture of Jen McCreight cheerfully carrying a sign that read: Obama isn’t trying to destroy religion, I am. Other speakers were depicted as ornery, offensive and more than a little scary.

Ad campaigns by nontheist organizations reflects a struggle to find messages that connect with either teetering believers or closeted skeptics while avoiding backlash. In 2009 a London publicity campaign went viral internationally with bus ads proclaiming, “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” A variety of billboard campaigns have followed, some more provocative than others: “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence,” “You Know It’s a Myth. Solstice is the Reason for the Season.” “In the Beginning Man Created God.” “We are all Atheists about Most Gods; Some of Us Just Go One God Further.” “Don’t Believe in God? Join the Club.” All have drawn protests or vandalism from indignant theists.

It may be almost impossible to avoiding causing offense while challenging the religious status quo. Nontheist organizations have traditionally ignored communities of color, but African Americans for Humanism recently launched an outreach campaign with the tag line, “Doubts About Religion? You’re one of many.” Billboards and posters show faces of familiar Black leaders – as well as ordinary group members. Coalition of Reason organizer, Alix Jules of Dallas says that even this understated approach is plenty controversial for two reasons: Almost 90% of African Americans express certainty about the existence of God, and honoring religion is seen as a matter of loyalty.

In Halifax, Nova Scotia, Humanists of Canada wanted to run a bus campaign that said, simply, You can be good without God . But the public bus agency refused the ads because they “could be too controversial and upsetting to people.” One reader commented,

I think we should make atheist ads as innocent and non-confrontational as possible. Not because we should avoid controversy, but because it we will get the controversy no matter what we put up, and the kinder and gentler our message the more obvious the hypocrisy of our critics. I’m hard put to think of one more innocent than this one, though.

Humanist blogger and speaker James Croft, a doctoral student in educational philosophy at Harvard, insists that it can be done:

There are ways of conveying our values that are both strong and civil, which avoid insults and (except in certain cases) ridicule without giving one inch of ground on the battlefield of our core values. All the evidence shows that this hybrid approach is more effective than simply seeking to be likable, or relying on confrontation alone.

In their effort to find the balance that Croft calls “strong and civil,” the Freedom From Religion Foundation has moved toward more personal messages, ones that offer a glimpse into a godless individual (or family) rather than some form of universal claim. Since 2007, they have purchased billboard space for messages including “Imagine No Religion,” “Beware of Dogma,” and “Thank Darwin: Evolve Beyond Belief.” But their latest campaign, “Out of the Closet,” puts real names and faces together with simple statements of values or disbelief: “Atheists work to make this life heavenly,” says Dr. Stephen Uhl of Tucson on one sign. “Compassion is my religion,” says Olivia Chen, a Columbus student whose appears on another. A recent campaign in Clarkville, Tennessee, merely shows a young woman identified as Grace beside the words, “This is what an atheist looks like.”

Atheist visibility is more than ad campaigns. In 2009 psychologist Dale McGowan, author of Parenting Beyond Belief, launched the Foundation Beyond Belief , a tool that lets the non-religious visibly contribute to nonprofits working on education, health, human rights and the environment. Last year, the foundation add a donation category called “Challenge the Gap” that builds bridges by contributing to the work of religious groups with shared values. Hemant Mehta of “The Friendly Atheist” hosts news and commentary of interest to young nonbelievers—absent the edge that characterizes an earlier generation of blogs. He brings more humor than anger when he talks with secular student groups about outreach. Small local groups are doing their part. Seattle Atheists dress as pirates and carry a Flying Spaghetti Monster in summer parades. But they also participate in food drives and blood drives. They hand out water during an annual marathon. The aim is not only to make themselves more visible but to show that they too are compassionate members of the community of humankind.

As nonbelievers gain recognition as normal and ethical members of society, I think we will find that confrontation diminishes and bridge building grows. It’s not only that both are necessary but that one paves the way for the other. The rage of Malcolm X prepared ground for Martin Luther King and his dream. The Stonewall riots and San Francisco drag scene laid the foundation for Feather Boa Fathers and It Gets Better and pride parades that include local businesses and church banners. Early feminists who stayed defiant even when beaten and jailed made way for the apple pie tactics of Moms Rising, which has stenciled messages on onesies and delivered cookies to congressmen to get their equal pay message across. In the words of Ecclesiastes, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” The questions are in each case, to whom, how, when, and where.

Greta Christina has said that atheist visibility is about thirty-five years behind the gay rights movement. That sounds close. We’ll have caught up when a majority of Americans know they know a nontheist – and that friends, family members, and fellow citizens really can be good without God.

By Incongruous Circumspection ~

Picture this:

I'm a teenager, rebellious as all get out. I can't stand my mother because all she does is sit in her room, doing her nails, twirling her hair, and complaining to my dad that she doesn't have enough powder on her puff. On the other hand, I love my dad and feel sorry for the way she treats him. He works hard for the family and yet gets zero credit from the woman he loves. And he loves her deeply. He's told me so. Her shenanigans fall off his back like water on a duck.

But I'm not going to say anything. I'm Jewish and the year is 31 CE. I am well aware of Jewish law which states that, should I give my parents the evil eye, they can drag me down to the temple and have me stoned while they watch. I want to live.

But something is curious about this point in history. I hear there is this man named Jesus, traveling the countryside, winning converts to this new way of thinking. Everyone around here is Jewish and we all think alike except for the weird Pharisees who do everything over the top. Basically, if the Rabbi at the temple says something is so, then it is so. You don't argue. He is the mouthpiece of God, who we fear with great fear and trembling. I should know. All of our religious holy days have everything to do about death. And the death is always Jehovah killing us or killing someone else. Death is never far from the forefronts of our minds.

This man Jesus, though. The rumor is, he's talking about life. Sure, it's kinda weird, but he seems to say that we don't have to worry about this dangerous God anymore. He says that we can come to him and be cleansed and have all of our sins forgiven. I know sin. I can't go three minutes without thinking of sin. It's all we're about in this god-forsaken land, full of Roman soldiers, who our Rabbi tell us is a curse upon god knows who. It's not like I did anything bad. Why should I have to suffer?

But I get that. After all, Adam screwed it up for me. Because of his stupidity, we have to suffer. We have to worry about appeasing the anger of this horrible God who, frankly, I just want to get rid of so I can LIVE! But I can't. If I speak my thoughts, I will be stoned. Rebellion against God is worse than rebellion against your parents. But you end up the same way for either, really - dead.

And then I hear the rumors again about Jesus. He says that our thoughts make us sinners as much as our actions. I don't really like that idea, but I like the fact that he says, if we follow him, we don't have to worry about God's wrath anymore. That is really intriguing to me. I can tell my mother what I really think of her without fear of getting my brains bashed in by a large rock.

But, how does this work? Do I have to wait until the Jewish leaders accept this new religion? Who is Jesus? Some say he says he is God. That is disappointing to me. Saying stuff like that gets you killed around these parts. Others say he is just a great teacher. But if he is, why does he not worry about God killing him for saying we don't have to follow the law anymore? Or does he say we do? I don't know.

Another thing. If he is God and he means what he says, can I tell my mother off now? He's here, right? Could I tell my mother what I really think when he came as a baby? Or was it only alright when he began his ministry? When? I want to be safe here. I don't want to make a mistake, rebel, and get stoned, just because I got it wrong.

Oh, I don't know. Dad, I feel so bad for you. Maybe I'll wait a few more years until Jesus really gets popular. Maybe his ideas will catch on and I can do what I feel is right and not get killed for it. Yeah. I'll just wait.

---

If he is God and he means what he says, can I tell my mother off now? He's here, right? Could I tell my mother what I really think...So when was it? At what point in Jesus' life was the line crossed where this teen could tell his mother what for and not get stoned? Was it when Jesus was a baby? Was it when he was twelve? When he began his ministry at thirty years of age? Was it when he died and the temple curtain was ripped? Was it when he rose from the dead? Was it when he ascended into heaven? At what point could the rebellious teen do what was right and tell his mother that she was doing something naughty and be good before God?

When did that line get drawn where God said, "Today, your life is required of you for your actions...wait...what? Oh...my bad! Jesus did what he needed to do and the line has been crossed. You're good!"

Even more complex, why did Jesus, as God, transcend all of time, past, present, and future, as a living God, and yet, had no ability to transcend his action of forgiving all sin throughout all time? Why did millions of people have to die, as in Noah's flood, while they begged for God to send the Messiah to save them? Why did God require the sacrifices and force all of humanity to get his law just right in order to be blessed and not to be murdered by the deity (except when you just got screwed by God when he didn't follow his own rules, as in the case of Job)? Why? Why is humanity after Jesus' point in time, whenever it was, where we no longer were judged by that awful law, so special?

I don't think the answer is difficult. Ancient cultures maintained order by fear. Fear was wielded through religion. In the old days, God was a deity to be feared. You explained all sorts of phenomena by saying "God did it." As knowledge increased and people started to think and study, that sort of God had to die. And yet we still keep him around and even pretend that somehow, murdering 2.3 million people throughout his holy book, for no other reason than he was a jealous, immature, being, somehow, just somehow, he is defined by the word "love".

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~

It appears to be fashionable these days to call atheists arrogant. Over and over we read how Dawkins is arrogant, Hitchens perhaps even more so, and Sam Harris is clearly just a “know-it-all” with an attitude problem. In fact, if you read the postings on this site for a bit, you will “learn” that we un-famous atheists are arrogant, too.

Now, if expressing an unpopular opinion means that one is arrogant, then we have no defense. But, let’s look at a typical dictionary definition of the word: “Arrogant; having or showing an exaggerated opinion of one's own importance, merit, ability, etc.; conceited; overbearingly proud.”

That part about “having or showing an exaggerated opinion of one's own importance, merit, ability,” catches my eye. Isn’t it Christians who claim they are god’s “saved?” Talk about “one’s own importance!” Isn’t it Christians who claim they KNOW which is the real god and what he wants from us? Mightn’t that be an exaggerated opinion of one’s abilities? I certainly wouldn’t claim the ability to identify a real god, with any certainty. So who is the arrogant one, here?

While the Christian claims he KNOWS with certainty that Bible-god is the one true god, I humbly submit that different people have claimed thousands of different gods to be the one true god, we know for certain that thousands of those were false gods, and so I have no confidence that I could do any better spotting the real god than those people did. Do you not see the difference here? The very fact that men have followed thousands of false gods convinces me that we humans are hopeless when it comes to identifying which gods are real and which are false.

But the Christian brushes all that aside, because he knows. And how does he know? Because people told him so, or he feels it, or both. The Bible tells him which is the real god, though how the Christian can tell the Bible is the real “holy” book and not one of the others, like the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, etc., he seems unable to explain. But, generally this doesn’t trouble him because he feels the presence of the one true god within himself. How he knows which god it is that he feels must remain a mystery.

William Lane Craig speaks of the “self-verification” of the Holy Ghost within himself being sufficient proof of god for him, and most Christians would buy this. Call me a nit picker, but I have a problem with anyone claiming they can feel the truth. I have first-hand experience on this issue which convinces me that these people are just fooling themselves. I once felt the presence of a god, and constantly “conversed” with this god inside my head. I no longer feel that presence. Obviously, god either exists or he doesn’t, and my feelings have never been able to prove it either way because my feelings have been on both sides of the issue. In other words, my feelings failed to prove anything. Now, who is the arrogant one? Is it Craig, who claims he can feel truth, or me, who has no confidence in his feelings as a test of truth? It seems that old adage applies here: Faith means never having to say you’re wrong.

Many Christians are so arrogantly certain that they have the truth that they have no interest in studying further. Many will deny evolution, although they obviously have never read anything on evolution that wasn’t written by creationists.

Also, home schooling is apparently on the rise in America today. Why? Because many Christian parents don’t want their children exposed to unapproved information. Christian parents and preachers seem to be insisting that what people “knew” 2,000 years ago is more important than anything man has learned since. Most Christian congregations encourage their members to avoid marrying outside the faith, and some even frown on members even mingling with non-Christians. There is a pattern here. It appears that Christians are so sure they have the truth that they often actively avoid gaining further information. It seems to me that if one truly wants to find the truth, the real truth, then he should follow the path containing the MOST information. Isn’t this obvious?

I find that most of the atheists I know are hungry for information. A great many are science enthusiasts and are well read in world history. Tellingly, many atheists are also surprisingly conversant in theology. Now who are the arrogant ones? Are those who are constantly seeking more information and revising their opinions really the arrogant ones? That was a rhetorical question – no answer necessary.

So, Christians are convinced they have the truth because they have been told this (by the Bible, preachers, parents, etc.), or they feel it, or both, while atheists suspect there is no god. Now, I don’t know of any atheists who think they can prove there is no god. They merely believe that gods are extremely unlikely, like dragons are unlikely, and so they don’t believe in them.

For myself, I don’t believe in gods because I know I cannot trust my feelings to identify the truth, and I don’t know why I should be able to tell a real god when I see one, any more than those millions throughout history who have worshipped thousands of false gods. Did I say, “when I see one?” Yes, and I meant to say that, for that is exactly the problem, you see. All gods are invisible. How convenient.

As Discordia recently pointed out on this site, the Christian god is all-powerful and can do anything, anything at all, it appears, except prove that he exists. Well, he either can’t or won’t prove it, and it really doesn’t much matter which it is. For thousands of years we humans have been fighting over which is the real god, or which sect has the real truth. We have mistreated each other horribly over these questions, from the Crusades through the Inquisitions, to fighting over abortion and gay marriage. Given this history, I think we humans have a right - and maybe even a moral obligation to each other - to refuse acceptance of the claims pertaining to any god until that god proves his or her existence. If there’s a real god, then he/she surely would understand this position.

It is because I am NOT arrogant that I make this proposal. It is because I recognize that I cannot prove whether there is or isn’t a god. Think about it: why in hell should we humans suffer, generation after generation, for our gullibility - simply because some god can’t or won’t prove that he exists such that we can all agree on it? This is a lousy, unfair deal, and we should simply refuse it. And what kind of perverse, arrogant god would fault us for refusing to beat each other up over gods any longer, while he refuses to prove decisively that he exists?

By Adriana ~

I seem to have a similar story to many on here. I grew up in a Christian home, raised in a Southern Baptist church, and even after my family switched to a more laid-back church, I was forced into going to BSF, and had other very conservative ideas given to me.

Getup Get God (Photo credit: prettywar-stl)

I accepted Jesus at a young age, about six. When I was young enough to not be able to fully think about things, I was fine, going to Sunday school and such. As I got older, things stopped making sense. God created humans to worship him, and we'd all worship him in heaven? Wasn't that a little narcissistic? What if I didn't want to sit around and worship God all the time? But I was afraid of hell, and I didn't want God to know I was thinking such blasphemy, so I stuck with it. As I got older, I'd pray, at my mother's encouragement, for good teachers and good friends at school. This never worked. While I did have friends, I usually didn't like my teachers and was bullied often. My mom would just say it's because I had God and they could sense something different about me. Sure, elementary school kids rip other kids apart for a religion they had but didn't talk about much.

As a teenager, I discovered these Christian kids in the church youth group were not only terrible friends, but not very good people either. I wondered how these people with the Holy Spirit in them could be so cruel and judgmental. I guess this is where I started to turn agnostic-there may be a god out there, but clearly He wasn't as invested in people as the preacher would have you think, and I hadn't felt "the spirit" in a very long time, so I didn't know where God fit in. It felt like God had abandoned me-I was having a terrible time at school, in my family and with my friends, even the ones that were supposed to follow God, and I didn't understand how a loving God I had tried to follow by reading the Bible and following what I was being told could set me back at every turn. My mom told me God was preparing me for something later, but I saw all the nonreligious (or bratty religious) kids having an easier time, at least in areas I was having trouble in. This didn't satisfy my rational thinking. I was also beginning to wonder why things like premarital sex, cussing and homosexuality were wrong, while strong judgement against those who were different ran rampant, while talking about love Sunday morning.

 I also seriously questioned things I had been told, like a Christian can sin, but it was okay because they had God, whereas a non-Christian could do something good and it was still evil in God's eyes. Or how prayer is the best thing you could do, and telling someone you'll pray for them and then not is the worst thing you could do to them. The power of prayer was always lost on me. I also hated church leaders' preoccupation with sex, whether my friends or I were having it, and whether or not we would do it before marriage. No one ever told me how to avoid it or what made married sex so great. I still struggle some with my virginity not making a difference in my value as a person. Not to mention if I did ask questions, I'd get "read the Bible," "I just believe," or frustration at my constant questioning. Reading the Bible, boring as it was, didn't bring many answers, unless you count all those notes that made me want to strange whoever wrote them. I could go on and on about the things I found wrong, or emotional damage these things caused me, but there's not enough room on the internet.

The summer before my junior year of high school my family and I moved across the country to a much more liberal place. I had prayed in a last-ditch effort to have an easier time in school that year, so I thought maybe God was finally showing himself. The little church we went to there was better, but once again, the only people I had issues with (one or two this time, much more mild than before) were religious. I thought more and more, and had complete culture shock, and saw things from a completely different perspective. My senior year English class was full of philosophical musings-is life predestined, or all a fluke? Are you going to do something no matter what, or do you really have free will? My friends and I lost sleep figuring this out, and I thought, maybe, free will was a lie we told ourselves to make ourselves feel better. After all, if there's a god that had a will for everyone, how could we truly make our own choices? I couldn't yet comprehend everything being a fluke yet.

Now I'm 19 and in my first year of college. Moving out of my parents' has been great for me. I've been able to think about things, read book and articles online without fear of anyone seeing. I'm still agnostic, but leaning towards Atheism. It's such a relief to not have to please some being up there, and all the guilt I've had associated with it. Oh, and for what it's worth, I believe in free will now, because I think everything's chance. But I find this so much more comforting than having to figure out "God's will" for me, or otherwise be sinning. I got through my senior year and to college without a single prayer for guidance, and for the most part I'm really happy. All that praying growing up didn't do anything.

By Jonny Scaramanga ~ 

I used to be a Christian fundamentalist. Through college, this was my dirty secret. I only told my closest friends. Coming from Britain, where it's a smaller phenomenon, most of them had no idea people like me existed.

Now I've come to own it. I used to be a fundamentalist, and I escaped. It's such a relief to declare it, and realise that I'm breathing fresh air for the first time in my life. Before, I had to make up excuses for why I'd never heard classic rock songs (because I was in church when they were on the radio), or never drunk alcohol. The relief of making it public is huge. Everyone is so supportive; they can't believe I made it out.

If you're keeping it a dirty secret, don't. It wasn't even your fault. You were misled, by your parents and your pastors.

I was part of the Word of Faith, the Prosperity gospel, blab-it-and-grab-it religion of preachers like Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Creflo Dollar, and Jesse Duplantis. They teach the doctrine of positive confession: You can have what you say, according to Mark 11:23.

Just as God spoke the world into existence, you can speak your desires into existence by faith.

I look at it now and I wonder how anyone fell for it. But they had Scripture verses. And that was enough. The Bible is the final authority, after all.

Once you accept that doctrine, it's viciously difficult to get out. As any ex-fundamentalist can tell you, bad thoughts are placed in your head by the devil. That's an incredibly powerful piece of mind control. If you accept that doubt comes from the devil, then it can't possibly be legitimate. And the only way out is to fill your mind with the Word of God, until the doubts are pushed out. And if you do doubt, you feel guilty for letting in the devil.

Not only that, but faith preachers said that negative things you say will come to pass, just as surely as positive things. So if you're having doubts, you can't speak them, because that would make them happen. You could have an entire church full of people thinking, "I don't think I'm ever going to get the hundredfold return," but no one will admit it! The act of admitting it would cut them off from God's blessings.

That's religion as a mechanism for control, and if you know someone in the Word of Faith, it won't be easy to make them see it. My Dad never did see it; he died believing it, having given away literally tens of thousands of pounds, believing he was sowing seed.

Luckily, I got a good education. Not at first – to begin with I was educated in Accelerated Christian Education, which is packed with misinformation, propaganda, and racism. Thankfully, after I had a breakdown at school, my mum removed me. It took four years of good education after that for me to begin to think critically.

My social skills were crippled. But eventually I learned to hang out. Every time I held a normal conversation, inside, I was jumping up and down, thinking "I'm doing it! I'm socialising!"

The doubts, the feeling I was going to hell – they all went away in the end. If you're in the process of deconverting, don't lose heart. It does get better.

By Carl S ~

As a True Believer, one’s worship and dependency on invisible supernatural forces restrained your goodness, as you spent time, labor, money in appeasing, pleading with, and most of all trying to ascertain the particular will of that deity for your life. You examined your motives and your relationships to others in that context. You examined your virtue in comparison to that of the examples of other 'holy' ones held up to you. You were involved in self-criticism based on beliefs you had been taught to be the most important matters in life. All of these things, if you notice now, are taught to be "Other- centered,” but are actually self-centered.

You invested your emotional needs in being involved with invisible power(s) you have no evidence for existing, as you traded control of conscience and open-mindedness for the assurance of those who peddle 'faith' and ’hope.‘

You invested your entire well-being as a free individual, in an assurance program payable AFTER you are deceased. (None of the "recipients" have given testimonies of reaping it‘s benefits.) Meanwhile, the sellers of this plan continually urge you to continue to make payments, which they collect. But, if you notice, those not in The Plan are no better off than those in, and no worse, either. They're not buying, not gambling. Nevertheless, the sellers are very persuasive in their trade of getting people to keep buying what they don't need.

A man I knew in the army was proud of his church. One day, in a discussion, he said, "My church is Christian. We threw away the Old Testament." Makes sense. But he didn't take what WizenedSage calls, "the next step," because if he really read the New Testament, he would have thrown that away, too. The very fact that when Christianity took power in the Roman empire, for the first time in history, members of the same religion persecuted and killed other members, should have ended it then. (And here you thought purges started with Stalin.) Investors in The Plan also silently support the past - were not all those evils for the "greater good" of God's kingdom and the reward of eternal payoff?

What would the world be like without the Plan? A world where houses of worship were converted to humanitarian purposes solely, where entertainment might even include hymns, spirituals, along with folk songs, rock, and comedy? Shelters for the homeless - all those spaces! What if an after-life nebulous, vaporous, invisible plan was shelved, replaced by a Make-A-Wish philosophy of life? Lives pointed away from personal "spirituality" to caring for and about others in toto. Religions demand one be unequally yoked between the demands of personal spiritual self- fulfillment and love for one's neighbor. This is frustrating for even the most committed of their adherents. It is unreasonable and self defeating. And it's no surprise that most believers reject some or most of these demands; the most sensitive leave with feelings of guilt, sadly.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation came about as a way for children with life-threatening medical conditions to have a wish fulfilled. This program has been successful for not only the children, but parents, siblings, friends, as well. A make a wish life stance says that this is the only life we will ever know, so let's do what we can to make each other's wishes come true, as long as no one else's life or liberty is interfered with or hurt. (This runs contrary to the denial of life and liberty religion supports in placing faith above those rights.) It means helping others to fulfill their potentials, to help eliminate suffering however possible. It is very life-affirming, positive, freeing from the futile petitioning to invisible, "supernatural" ghosts who do not do these things. Free from the Plan sellers, ghost writers for the Ghost or ghosts who are discontented, unappeasable by humans "as they are." The rewards are NOW in life: in the smiles and gratitude and knowledge that one has taken charge of one’s own life, as satisfying and fruitful. Every expenditure of time, money, conscience, goes to doing real and productive good. One escapes from the closet where the deity and self have resided, to the openness of getting out of oneself, depression, anxiety. Please realize that life is too important to be wasted on religion.

That last sentence will entice the question: So why do you, Carl, spend so much time dedicated to religion? I write not for but against religion, mainly because of the negativity it caused for those on this site, and to prevent more of it in the future. Let me explain.

Even the occasional readings of testimonies on this site over many months have led me to conclude something: The people who are damaged most by religions are sensitive individuals; sensitive to others, to justice, injustice, and to truth. Yet they have been damaged, humiliated, emotionally brutalized, sometimes by fanaticism, but usually by well-meaning believers who practice the traditional “ends justify the means” of indoctrination. Motivations notwithstanding, these traditions are despicable, immoral, and indifferent to truth. And the sensitive feel this, yet are taught to mistrust their feeling as evil or pride filled, and to obey their authorities. They are fed "truths" they are allergic to, that run against their sensitivities and sense of morality while everything lies there waiting to be vomited up (at which point they will be further debased and/or rejected, for their honesty). Tell me if I am wrong.

All indoctrinations are taken seriously by the sincere and trusting sensitives - and naturally, these don't work for them. It is the "tough" ones who survive intact, those potential soldiers of Christ or Allah or whichever current god is popular; authority gives them the outlets for indifference, justification for their prejudices. Still, others less "tough" mouth the words, don't take indoctrination so seriously even though the propaganda says that the raison d'etre is contingent on rituals and dogmas.

The sensitives who take indoctrinations most seriously suffer quietly, psychologically, emotionally, even to the extent of punishing themselves because they cannot adapt to the bullshit they've been fed! Think about this, though: It is the sensitive among us who make profound changes to society, who point out injustices, put themselves in the spotlight for justice and truth, who have us look at all aspects good and bad and in between that we weren’t aware of before their pointing them out. Faiths would blunt their keen edge, reduce their compassion, and have them accept intolerance with unquestionable obedience to an arbitrary authority. There is no respect for sensitivity in religions.

I write to ex-believers and those who might be so, to ask that you be true to your sensitive natures more than ever. I congratulate you for being so, in spite of the efforts against you which you have endured and continue to endure. Please continue to purge the poison out of your system and to help others to do so.

Religions are often defended as agents for good, ignoring the examples of damage to individual sensitivities and the destruction they caused in the past, and their meddling in our mutual social lives. My plan, like the Make-A-Wish approach, has its own faith, hope, charity, based on our mutual humanity and our needs. No dogmas, self-delusions. We have the power, not the salespeople for the invisible "powers." In fact, for your personal emotional well-being and that of others, God is an impediment.