Happy Friday! I’m just going to post a link to a video I really enjoyed. Teresa MacBain, a member of the Clergy Project, gives a humorous and poignant summary of her transition from fundamentalist Baptist preacher’s kid to Methodist minister to atheist. I identify with so much of her story.
I haven’t been a nonbeliever for very long, but I’ve already had people ask me, “You still like _____?” For example, when I posted on Facebook that I was listening to the Advent at Ephesus CD, a friend messaged me that she was surprised I still wanted to listen to it. As a lover of beautiful … [Read more…]
Chris Stedman posted on his blog today about survey results from participants in Interfaith Youth Core, a campus service organization that welcomes young people from every faith – even non-faith. The survey showed that almost 25% of their participants are nonbelievers (ranging from atheist to your ubiquitous “spiritual but not religious”), a higher percentage than their … [Read more…]
Here are some verses I’d like to share with anyone who thinks that the Bible is the foundation for morality, and that a person can’t be good without it. If [a slave] was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he … [Read more…]
Atheists tend to get two reactions from believers: the angry, indignant, “You’re going to burn in hell!” reaction and the soulful-eyed, pitying, “I’m so sorry you lost your faith” reaction. I want to talk about that second one. People say that atheists are sad, angry at God, hurt in some way by life experiences… “seeking.” I … [Read more…]
There are many intellectual and philosophical arguments for the existence of God. In my opinion, they’re all weak at best. What’s more difficult to answer, however, is the story of someone who knows God is real because he felt it. It’s not at all difficult to answer on purely logical terms; the argument from personal experience has … [Read more…]
How do you keep on living if this is all there is? Atheists get this question a lot. And the answer is, how do I not? All my life, I’ve been one of those people who live in the future. Someday I’ll find love. Someday I’ll do this. Someday I’ll do that. And, eventually, someday I’ll … [Read more…]
I love Stephen Fry. His remarks in this short video are brilliant and devastating. You can’t just say there’s a god because the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children… There is not any way that you can just choose the nice bits and say, “That means there is a … [Read more…]
Based on the first post, not to mention his talks that I’ve watched on YouTube, I think I’m going to really enjoy Chris Stedman’s new blog at Religion News. It’s titled Faitheist like his book, which I still need to get. A humanist chaplain at Harvard, Stedman is part of the “interfaith” movement that advocates people working … [Read more…]
Every Christian has questions. For some, “mysterious ways” will suffice when all else fails. That one never worked for me, even when I was a kid. I had all kinds of these questions for my parents because I was a kid who pored over the Bible, loved Sunday School and Vacation Bible School, and reveled … [Read more…]