Coming Out About My Unbelief to My Sister

As I've said before, I'm really growing weary of the charade I have to keep up in order to remain in the atheist closet. I had been talking to my fellow ex-fundamentalist bloggers on Twitter about whether I should come out to my sister, who has always been there for me in my life (she even helped to raise me as a young boy, long story there I won't get into right now.

On Sunday, I was debating whether or not I should come out, but then lost my courage at the last minute. Well, finally, Tuesday night, I finally worked up the courage to finally come out to her.

My sister in recent years, has gone from the Independent Fundamental Baptist cult to what would be considered more mainstream beliefs in the fundamentalist/evangelical world, (beliefs more along the lines of the Southern Baptist denomination).

I'm glad she's out of the IFB, she fell into that group because of the influence of the IFB ran "school" I went to in my elementary years, she was there too, though because of the age gap between us, she was in her high school years at the time, and fell prey to them pushing Hyles -Anderson College as a great place to go.

Still, I wish she would give up fundamentalism altogether, especially for the sake of her kids, right now, she is homeschooling her kids with ACE, the same awful curriculum I grew up with. I talk to my nephew and two nieces on the phone, and when I'm visiting her in northern Indiana , and it kinds of breaks my heart to see how they just seem more childlike, than other children their age.

Holidays, Faith and Family

It's the week after Easter, the chocolate is probably half eaten by now (if it's not gone completely), and we are back into our normal routines.

I had practically forgotten about Easter for a while, until one of my Google + followers, Dan Brill showed me a post he had written last year on Good Friday about what it's like to be former Catholic during the Easter season.

You don't realize just how much most holidays in the Western world revolve around religion until you give up religion.The post was so good, that despite the fact that Easter has already been over for four days now, I would like to share it with you (I have his permission to publish it to the blog):

Good Friday. It’s pretty much the same every year. I’m usually the last guy out of the office. Other people have ducked out early for church with their families, or have at least conveniently found religion on a nice afternoon leading into a long weekend. If all else fails, it’s opening day for a lot of teams. But I hang around for a while to tinker with the code, the spreadsheets, and the data. Sure, the market has been lousy lately, and margins are razor thin. It’s stressful. But when I do my job right, it all adds up. It’s rational. 

Stressful though it is, it’s easier to deal with than the childhood memories of being dragged off to church during Easter week. On Thursday. And Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday. I’ve come to think of it as the week of the bleeding knees: stations of the cross, and rosaries, and crucifixes, and altar bells, and the smell of incense, and confession, and being told that He died for your sins and without him you are unclean in God’s eyes, but hey I’m just a kid and I didn’t do anything, and you have no idea what you are saying young man, andwe aren’t even worthy to be washed in His Blood, and He gave that to you, and you aren’t even grateful, and the ones that can’t be forgiven are those that were taught the Faith but turned away. You have to have Faith!

Whoa. Calm down. That’s a heavy trip to lay on a kid. So I have to have Faith. OK, I will. I’ll try to have Faith. I want to have Faith. But there are parts of the story that just aren’t adding up. It must be my fault. I must not understand it. So I think about it. I read more. I look at the evidence. What the hell is wrong with me? This still isn’t making sense. 

Faith. Everyone I know and love seems to have it. My family, and the kids at school, and my friends, and every grownup I know has it. And I’d love to have it. But I can’t pretend it, can I? Or is everyone just pretending it? 

A Blog Comment That Absolutely Haunts Me

I have a habit of going back to blog posts that I have read, and checking to see if there are any new comments there.

 I went back to a blog post recently by Incongruous Circumspection about Christians claiming that if you leave Christianity, you were never a true Christian.  I saw a long comment from a someone who goes by "TreasureSeeker", it's something that is haunting to me as a former fundamentalist:


I want to comment, I really do. But I don't know where to begin.

Why? Because I hurt. I'm mad. I want to punch something through a wall.

I believed in something once. I believed in the good of what I thought people were doing. And it has been shown to be perverted. And those people think they are so flipping holy and good.

I need to renew my passport. I would have asked one of my friends to be on it as a reference. But that person who I once called my best friend, is nowhere to be found. In fact, none of the people I once was around, largely from my former church, is around any more.

Aside from my wife, all but one, gone.

And tomorrow I have to go to my department head to see if he'll be on my passport renewal form. If not him, then one of our HR people.

That hurts.

Guest Post: Promoting Your Beliefs

Evangelism, by it’s base definition, refers to the preaching of the 4 gospels.

The actual definition of Evangelism is to preach to others about the 4 gospels of the New Testament.  No brainer right?  But symbolically, this word has meant a lot of things to all of us.  For those who are a part of evangelical Christian religions, it means “spreading the good word”. 

 For those who are not there, it means being annoyed by others trying to sell you on something.  And for those who have been there and are no longer, well, I’m not going to pretend to know exactly what that means, I’ve not been there.  But when I talk to many who have left, it seems like a really dark place, something that I can either guess is a pang of guilt for having done so in the past, mixed with a ton of anger that they feel that they were manipulated into such a life/lifestyle/belief.  I may be very wrong, but it’s simply what I see watching from the outside.

Please, Do Not Buy Boy Scout Christmas Trees This Year

Today I am joining satire blogger Andrew Hall of Laughing in Purgatory, as well as several other bloggers in encouraging you not to buy a Christmas tree from the Boy Scouts of America this year.

There's a few facts about the Boy Scouts of America that you need you need to know, it's why I encourage you not to take part in this fundraiser.


The Boy Scouts of America protected pedophiles for decades:

As I talked about on this blog in September, the Boy Scouts covered up pedophilia  within their ranks for decades, urging offenders to only quietly resign, never turning them into law enforcement, and come were even allowed to come back later. It wasn't until this October that they even decided to change their policies.

There has been no attempt to compensate the victims yet, or make amends, which has resulted in lawsuits all throughout the United States.

Discrimination against gay youth and scoutmasters:

Once the organization finds out that a Boy Scout/Eagle Scout or a scoutmaster is gay, they are often expelled by the BSA. A California teen was expelled after coming out, and the Scouts refused to give him the Eagle Scout honor that he had earned. His case brought national attention to the BSA's policies, and he was even invited to be a guest on the Ellen DeGeneres show.

The Scouts also do not allow gay scoutmasters as well, the expulsion of one scoutmaster for this reason led to a lawsuit which went all the way to the Supreme Court in 2000. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Scouts, saying that a private organization had the right to restrict it's membership if  "the presence of that person affects in a significant way the group's ability to advocate public or private viewpoints.".


The Boy Scouts of America does not allow atheists or agnostics in their ranks either:

The BSA bans atheists and agnostics from membership, feeling that they are not "appropriate role models" for boys within the organization. Here's a quote from the BSA:

(meme taken from Laughing In Purgatory)

"The Boy Scouts of America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God. In the first part of the Scout Oath or Promise the member declares, ‘On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law.’ The recognition of God as the ruling and leading power in the universe and the grateful acknowledgment of His favors and blessings are necessary to the best type of citizenship and are wholesome precepts in the education of the growing members."




The Boy Scouts have a tradition where they recognize the religion that a Scout is a part of, in awards for various actions and good deeds. 38 different religions and branches of religions, such as various denominations of Christianity, Judaism, and even Hinduism are recognized in this system, but atheists aren't welcome.


Please, if you care about discrimination, and stopping child abuse, do not support the Boy Scouts!

I beg you, please do not buy a Christmas tree from the Boy Scouts of America this year, and do not participate in any future fundraisers of theirs. The entire attitude disgusts me, to the Boy Scouts of America, gays and atheists are evil and "not appropriate role models", but pedophiles aren't. They remind me of the hierarchy in the Catholic church. Regular readers of mine know that I despise any person who abuses children, or any group that condones or supports child abuse in any form. It's one of the major reasons why I work so hard to expose the Independent Fundamental Baptist organization.

I am joining forces today with bloggers like Andrew Hall of Laughing in Purgatory and Jack Vance (aka vjack) of Atheist Revolution is saying enough is enough, it's time for the Boy Scouts of America to protect children within their organization, apologize for the past, and end their discriminatory polices.



(Sheldon's note, the full list of all 30 blogs participating in this campaign can be found at Laughing In Purgatory)

Do Prominent Atheist Groups In The US Secretly Hate Atheists?

It sure seems like it at times.....

From Americans United for Seperation of Church and State attacking a veterans memorial that includes a Jesus statue in Montana, to a man forcing a restaurant  to give up it's Sunday church discount, extreme atheist organizations and people are in my opinion, causing harm to the atheist movement.


Here's why I say this:

Campaigns like this alienate even non fundamentalists.

In the case of the veterans memorial, how many people are going to be offended by the attempts to remove the statue that will then turn against the atheist movement? In US society, there's very few places that are considered more worthy of respect (and some might say sacred) that memorials for veterans. How many people will instead see this as an attack on US military veterans and the memory of fallen soldiers instead of a legal issue?

There's more important things to worry about restaurant discounts: 

Instead of worrying about a restaurant trying to thank a large group of it's loyal customers, how about worrying about more important issues? Oh let's see, how about a member of the state legislature that has been trying to outlaw atheism in Kentucky, by making it punishable by up to a year in prison, similar to "blasphemy" laws in the Middle East and South Asia?

What about the judge in Oklahoma that sentenced a teen to 10 years of church services for manslaughter. Not only is that unconstitutional, but this teen will not spend a day in prison for his crime, how is that justice?

How about the fact that the US has so many fundamentalists/is so anti-atheist that that former Christians, especially former fundamentalists are often afraid to come out about their unbelief? For some, it could cost them their marriage, their family may reject them, and they may even lose respect or standing in their career field.

Take the time some day to read the stories of people on the site ex-christian.net, especially the testimonial section on the forums, to get an idea of what it is like to be a former Christian in the US (many of these people are now atheists)

It feeds the delusional persecution complex that fundamentalists have, draws their groups closer together. 

Though some leaders like Pat Robertson, who is now claiming that "atheists are trying to steal Christmas", will just outright invent anything to make it appear as though Christianity is being persecuted (despite fundamentalists holding an extreme amount of power in the culture and government), actions like the ones I just mentioned at the beginning of this post do nothing to help matters any. It just feeds the fires of these paranoid ministers and their followers, and draws their groups closer together, it causes them to unite against their opposition (the skeptic community).

It alienates moderates in the skeptic community:
When I posted about the attempts to remove the veterans memorial in Montana, even my fellow skeptics on Google + were divided by this, moderates, mostly agnostics, were disgusted by it, one said that this lawsuit showed to him that hard core atheists are little better than fundamentalists.

The skeptic movement can not afford to lose people because of the fact that some in our midst are this extreme. Why didn't Americans United for Separation of Church and State try to work out a deal with the US Forest Service to have ownership of the statue turned over to a veteran's group or a local religious organization?

That would have solved the constitutional issue of the statue being government owned (and maintained with tax payer dollars), without coming across as hostile to either veterans or historical monuments. What was the point of this lawsuit, really? Was it so that Americans United would get more publicity?  Were they deliberately looking to anger people? Is so, they truly succeeded in that mission.

Final thoughts:

Coming from the fundamentalist background that I did, I suppose it makes me wary of extremism in any philosophy. I feel that as hostile as US culture already is to atheists, misguided campaigns like this over issues that don't truly matter just makes the public perceptions of atheists worse

We can also not afford to become a more fractured group than we already are. Lawsuits and campaigns like this by atheist extremist isolate moderates within the skeptic community such as agnostics, deists and even the non-religious who may believe in a higher power but reject organized religion and it's power in the culture and government.

It really makes me wonder if some US atheist groups actually do hate atheists......

I Just Hate Being in the Atheist/Agnostic Closet

This is going to be a bit of rant, so bear with me for a moment. You see, I'm still in the closet when it comes to my change in beliefs from fundamentalist to agnostic in the last two years. I've only told 3 people from my past fundamentalist life, they responded better than I thought, and so far have kept my confidence, but for family reasons, I need to remain quiet about this for the next year or so. (Perhaps that's why I never shut up online, I need to vent a little, lol). Call me a coward for staying in the closet, maybe I am, buy it's necessary for right now. That's the reason why I blog under the name of a Big Bang Theory character, besides the fact that I'm a big fan of the show, and people have compared me to him before because I have OCD.

I'm at a library, enjoying what little time I can spare to be online anymore, and I see an older man pull up to the PC next to me. It's a member of my former congregation. Crap..... At this time, I'm about to update this blog, I'm in a conversation with two people on facebook from a group for former Christians that I belong to, and I have to drop all that, rudely cutting off the people I was talking to (I hated doing that, I think it's rude when people do that to me, drop off chat without notice), while he carries on about his home printer being out, and he had to print shipping labels to Ebay.

So I spend the whole time listening to him talk, while casually browsing Google News as cover, because one glance over at the screen could send everything crashing down around me. He didn't leave, and I got kicked off the PC I was on due to time limits. I hate living this way, I really do, living a double life, looking over my shoulder, knowing that it's possible to be outed accidentally at any time. I know that what I'm going through is nothing compared to some people, like Egyptian blogger Alber Saber, who is facing prison time for his facebook postings, but I still think that it's wrong that in the in 21st century in the US, that I should have to do this. Why can't people respect other people's beliefs? why can't families accept that their adult sons/daughters have changed their beliefs without trying to force their old faith down their throats all over again, or taking the change in beleifs as a rejection of them as a parent? Why are atheists still seen as immoral people, when on average, if you define morality as not harming others, atheists are actually more moral than most people who follow a religion? Have you seen lately what religious people have been doing around the world? Have you seen what clergy have been doing to young people in the Catholic church and even Protestant denominations like the IFB Movement ?

Alright, that's the end of my rant, now back to regularly scheduled blogging.... ;)

The Wonders of the Universe

Well, publishing the real story of the IFB movement may be necessary, but it's tiring. People need to know about the group, and their cult like culture and abuse of children, but it's draining to research and post about them, maybe I'll continue the series next weekend, but not now. I need something to kind of get my mind off of them for a change, and I'm sure all of you could use a break from it if you are a regular reader of the blog.

One thing that has been on my mind lately is just how incredible the universe around us is, or even just earth itself. When I was in fundamentalism, I was always told that god not only created the universe, but also humanity with a specific purpose, if you believe that, then if gives you a sense of wonder. A sense of wonder in that in all of the universe, you are here for a reason, because god wants you here, he has a plan for you.

After leaving fundamentalist Christianity behind only 2 years ago, I struggled for the first year with the question of what I believed since I knew I was done with my former beliefs  It wasn't until a little over a year ago that I realized that I am agnostic, and after coming to terms with this, I still had a problem. I had lost that sense of wonder that I had during my fundamentalist days. Is there really a purpose to life? The world seemed so depressing, just being the result of impersonal, detached evolutionary process with no one guiding it.

After a while, though the sense of wonder began to come back. On the other hand, here we are, after billions of years of evolution, with so many odds working against us, and yet here we are. Not only that, but we get to be part of a natural world and universe this amazing. I had more peace about it, not only did my wonder return, but I began to feel a sense of freedom, but yet a lot of responsibility at the same time. There's no god issuing us orders from above, I no longer had the excruciating cognitive dissonance of trying to explain and defend a faith that had a very contradictory holy text, or explain away the Old Testament and it's barbaric law code "it was only for that time period, and for a specific purpose".

At the same time I felt that freedom, quite a bit of responsibility was placed upon me at the same time. I'm responsible for all my actions, there's no longer a god I can run to and pray for forgiveness, the responsibility and consequences of all my decisions  rests on no else but me. I think that's often why the lives of atheists/agnostics are more moral than that of religious people on average (if you define morality as refraining from actions that harm others and society).
I've put it to people this way: "When is the last time you have ever heard of the president of an atheist organization molesting children?" Most people probably have never heard of that happening. When you are accountable to yourself and to the laws of society, you are more moral of a person.

Anyway, back to the main point, doesn't this give you a sense of wonder that you are fortunate enough to be a part of all of this? :

Credit to the Google + page Amazing World for these images.

Atheists and agnostics making a positive difference in the world (and how you can help).

Atheist blogger Godless Poutine of My Secret Atheist Blog is one of my favorite bloggers, and is also the man who inspired me to start my own blog, he said blogging is "good therapy", and he was sure right.

Godless Poutine is a big supporter of the atheist charity Foundation Beyond Belief, and in recent weeks started encouraging people to contribute to one of Foundation Beyond Belief's main projects, the Kasese Humanist Primary School in Uganda. Due to the fund raising efforts of the followers of his blog, and other people on the internet, they were finally able to build a much needed chicken coop, so that students could have breakfast before classes.

It's great that people have come together to make a difference in the world. Check out the website for Foundation Beyond Belief to see the great projects that they sponsor, and how to donate.

If you see references on My Secret Atheist Blog or Foundation Beyond Belief's website for voting to get the school donations from the credit card company Chase, unfortunately, voting is now closed, it ended at midnight last night.

I'm Back! (and so are some of my favorite blog series)

Hey, finally back from vacation, and I've noticed that one of my favorite blog series has returned. "Latebloomer" of Past Tense, Present Progressive has written part 3 of her criticism of fundamentalist author Reb Bradley's awful book "Child Training Tips". Not many people have heard of this book, but it sums up all of the most harmful aspects of raising children with a fundamentalist mindset. My family had never read his book, or even heard of him, but some things he has said, I have heard my mother express about raising children, verbatim. Part 3 in the series, "A Parent who Tries to Change Hearts and Minds Through Spanking" is the conclusion of the series. Read Part 1, and Part 2 if you have not already thorough my previous post on my favorite bloggers.

Another great blog is Leaving Fundamentalism, by British musician, teacher, and former Christian, Jonny Scaramanga. He constantly rails against the Accelerated Christian Education (A.C.E) curriculum that he (and yours truly) was raised with. I saw a post recently about how their European division, Christian Education Europe, has been embarrassed by a former employee exposing their dirty secrets, read about it here.

A few good pages and articles I have stumbled across lately.

I always like to share good blog articles, and great things that I find on the internet, and here's today's list.

I'm happy to find out that The Onion is on Google +. If you are not familiar with the Onion, they are a news parody website, poking fun at the news and political stories of the day, as well as making up their own bogus news stories. They have been laughing at the news since 1988, when they started as a print publication, and the website started in 1996, according to Wikipedia, 7.5 million people view the site each month.

I stumbled across the Google + page for tech blogger "Nixie Pixel" recently, I had never heard of her before. She works in the IT industry for Revision3 Corporation, is a avid Linux fan, and has a bit of a sense of humor about technology, for example, see this post . Visit her page, and make sure to take a look through the profile's photo albums, you won't be disappointed ;)

The Friendly Atheist:

I've been a fan of Patheos atheism blogger Hemant Metha aka The Friendly Atheist for a while now, I enjoy the direct, yet classy posting style that he has in his posts. Besides being a blogger, he is a Chicago area math teacher, and chairman of the atheist charity Foundation Beyond Belief.

Here's two great posts he has written lately.

The Man Who Could Have Become the Pope

Italian Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini died several days ago, he was considered a serious contender to become pope after John Paul II died. His liberal views often put him at odds with other clergyman. He openly criticized everything everything from clergy clothing and rituals ( he called them "pompous"), to the worldwide pedophilia scandals and attempted cover up, "The church must admit its mistakes and begin a radical change, starting from the pope and the bishops”. He also took far more liberal views on social issues than most of the clergy.

Why can't this atheist accept her husband's loss of faith?

Hemant Metha responds to a New York Times article. The woman in the article claims to be an atheist, married a Christian man, and responds in a rather unusual way when her husband gives up her faith. She's very confused and conflicted in her beliefs despite her professed atheism, and seems somewhat self-loathing as well. I can't get over laughing at his line in the article: "Ugh… an atheist who accepts Pascal’s Wager. That’s gotta be just one level above S.E. Cupp." 

Bruce Gecenscener Part 2: Comments on Deconversion

(My note: this is part two in my response to Bruce Gecenscener’s post about atheism and the atheist + movement)

Read my response to his comments about atheism + here.

My original post was getting long, and was going off track into my feelings and his comments about de-conversion, the following are his comments about the process of leaving Christianity, and my personal experiences with leaving the faith. His words from the original article are in bold and quotes, my responses are in plain text flowing each statement:

"I suspect that the largest percentage of new atheists come from Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches. Learning that the Bible is not what the church claims it is, and becoming disillusioned with the shrill, acerbic hate speech of their preachers, has turned more people into atheists than Madalyn Murray O’Hair could every of hoped for." 

Very true, and for more on this topic, read a great article by Johnny Scaramanga, author of Leaving Fundamentalism in this guest post, Fundamentalism: The Leading Cause of Atheism .

"When people deconvert they don’t immediately become atheists in the truest sense of the word. They may say they are atheists, but often this is just a reaction to their former religious beliefs. Some people get over their anger and return to Christianity. They were never atheists in the first place. They were angry, and hurling the words, I am an atheist, was a way of poking their finger in the eye of the bear."

This is part of the "angry" stage of deconversion, a person knows that they no longer want to be part of Christianity, and they disgusted by it's beliefs and rhetoric. At this point, they know what they don't believe, but not yet  what they do believe, so the label "atheist" sounds just about right at this point, it feels good to finally say it, because the label atheist is such a strong term, it's a rejection of what they once were, but not yet who they are now. 

People who remain in this stage, I believe are responsible for the "re-converts" that keep surfacing, people who eventually return to their faith. It's an emotional reaction and struggle without any intellectual foundation yet. Those who progress from this emotional state to an intellectual foundation become grounded atheists and agnostics, those who don't, often end up drifting back, if not to Christianity, than possibly another religion altogether.

Many de-converts take on the atheist label very early on, I didn't, it took me over a year to finally recognize myself as the agnostic that I am. Immediately after my rejection of Christianity, I still thought that I believed in a god, but knew that I didn't believe in the god of Christianity, I wondered if I was just simply a typical American non-Christian theist, who still believes in Heaven and Hell, or for a very brief time, a deist. It was a time of searching, trying to redefine myself. I spoke to very few people about my exit from fundamentalism during this time, or my ever changing feelings, until I knew what I believed for sure.

"A true atheist is born out of heartache, contemplation, and study."

During the heartache stage, I tried to find the answers within Christianity, first within the Bible, then, because of the people who influenced me spiritually at the time, in the writings of author John Piper. I desperately wanted to remain a Christian, and yet answer the nagging questions and doubts definitely, bury them once and for all, and go on with my life a stronger Christian, that, as you have guessed by now, didn't happen. 

During the contemplation stage, I prayed for answers and for wisdom in my search and received no response at all from god, just empty silence. I spent hours thinking over the Bible and the Christian writings/authors that I had read, making detailed notes of points made, and bringing my questions up to two people that I looked up to in my Christian world, two people who were well versed in the beliefs of fundamentalism. 

I still came up empty.

After all this, and coming to the realization that I am, in fact an agnostic, for a time, I still felt empty, I felt a sense of loss. This world is all there is? How disappointing! So there's no afterlife where justice is given out, the good people rewarded, and the evil people punished? Life felt utterly pointless, I also missed the sense of wonder in the universe that I had as Christian, in believing that there was a divine plan for me being on earth, and that this world was created by design for a purpose by god. Atheism felt so impersonal and uninspiring. 

Eventually I got over this, the sense of wonder is now starting to come back, when you think about it, out of the billions of years that the earth has existed, here I am, I am part of a world that is so immense, with infinite galaxies, and I only have a limited amount of time to live on this earth and appreciate it’s wonders. I also only have a limited time in which I can live life, so I need to make the time I have count, not only for my sake, but for the world around me.

I have peace now with my new beliefs.

I have also began reading any material I can get my hands on online, I have found some great atheist blogs along the way see my list here. (This is not an exhaustive list, and I may make a part 2 with more blogs later).

I have been trying to seek out more information from atheists more established, more educated, and more well versed in their beliefs than myself. I’m trying to build a strong foundation again, as well as reach out, put myself into a new community to replace the one I lost when leaving Christianity. Ex-Christian.net has been a great resource for me in that regard, and I am starting to get to know some of the people there quite well. My time there, sharing my story with others, and reading their stories, and the results of their continuing recovery from their past has helped me to be a stronger person in my beliefs.

“The true atheist (my focus is on those who come from Evangelicalism to atheism) must deconstruct their lives and rebuild them one belief at a time. The true atheist likely reads and reads and reads and…well you get the picture."

I had to revaluate everything I had been taught in life in the light of my new found beliefs, what do I really believe on crucial social issues? I had to start giving up some of the bigoted beliefs that I was still tentatively holding onto, and I was amazed at how many misconceptions and outright lies I was taught in life, and believed while simply taking them for granted that they were true. Exposing myself to new experiences, and different types of people helped me to recover from this. One of my greatest friends now is a Wiccan, growing up, I was led to believe the lie that Wicca and Satanism are one and the same, and that Wiccans, were by association, evil people. This couldn’t have been farther from the truth! Even though she doesn’t believe in Christianity, she lives more of the life that Christians are supposed to live (love your neighbor as yourself, etc), than Christians do!

“It is not enough to say, I don’t believe in God anymore. Just the Christian God? Some Gods? All Gods?  The true atheist is one who says, I reject any belief in the existence of deities. Once a person has reached this point they are an atheist. Nothing more is required to claim the label atheist.”

Nothing more."

Agreed, there’s no more qualifications needed to claim atheism (or agnosticism in my cases), there’s no other litmus test needed.

Atheist blogger/former pastor Bruce Gerencser is right about Atheism +

I ran across today this post by blogger Bruce Gerenscer about the Atheist + movement/ Freethought blogs. Bruce Gerencser was a pastor for over two decades in the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement before losing his faith. The IFB movement is a Protestant Christian sect so extreme that many fundamentalist/evangelical groups who are familiar with it disparage it as a "cult" due to their extreme beliefs, lifestyle, and their rejection of other fundamentalists as being "liberal" or not "Bible Believing". (When fundamentalists think a Christian group is too far to the right, that's really saying something).

Some great quotes/points from his post: (Bold text is his words, normal text, my comments)

"I am of the opinion that the atheist cause is best served when atheists are free to connect themselves to whatever group or cause they wish.  I prefer a loose coalition of atheists as opposed to a structured atheism with rigid political and social beliefs. With a loose coalition individual atheists are free to pick and choose what and who to support. Atheism+? Either you are with them or you are against them, to quote Prophet Carrier." 

"This Us vs.Them approach of atheism+ will ultimately harm and weaken the atheist movement. Any time there is exclusivism rather than inclusivism, the group’s power is diminished. The fundamentalist approach of atheism+ will only continue to marginalize other atheists who can’t or refuse to toe the atheism+ ideological line. Atheism+ should be working to include as many people as possible rather than exclude as many people as possible. (especially since atheism+ is a reaction to a tiny fragment of people within the atheism community)" 


Exactly, this is precisely what the opponents of atheism want, a house divided, a movement that can't take on the more extremist elements of Christianity, because it's too busy squabbling over the scorched earth tactics of Carrier and company.

We should be respecting and celebrating differences of opinion within the atheism/skeptic community, except for when ideals espoused by members are harmful (racist, homophobic, etc). Atheism + started with good intentions, but they are proving the point that the road to hell is paved with them (pardon the hell reference in an atheism post, but you get the point of the common American saying). They took some isolated comments by internet trolls, painted all their legitimate, non-sexist critics with the same brush, and now we have what we do today, a house divided.

"Many of the sharpest critics of atheism+ are people who were Evangelicals before they deconverted. What we see in atheism+ is very similar to our experience in the Evangelical church. We left leaders who demanded we toe the line doctrinally. We left churches that were built on an Us vs.Them thinking. We left churches and leaders who believed they held the only Christian franchise. Exclusivism controlled everything our former churches and leaders did. Why would we want to join a group that is just an atheist version of what we left behind?"


Agreed, the behavior of FTBers, an us vs. them, and they are evil, no exceptions, is remarkably similar to the attitude taken by fundamentalists against who do not agree with them. To fundamentalists, any critics are automatically branded as "doing the work of the devil", fellow Christians who criticize them are "liberal", "not Bible believing", or not "true Christians". To Carrier and company, their critics are unjustly called "misogynists" or trashed as, "asshole atheists", "stupid", "retarded", or many other slurs and insults. I can somewhat understand them using this kind of tone against unashamed/unapologetic trolls who make no excuses for true hate filled behavior, but the FTBers have taken this stance against everyone who criticizes them for any and all reasons. This is unacceptable, and shows the true closed minded, exclusivistic character of the FTBers. They truly are trying to create a "cult of atheism", and anyone who doesn't agree with them can in the words of Carrier, "GTFO out".


"The other leaders in the atheism+ group could have publicly called out Richard Carrier but they didn’t. It is also evident, based on his last post, that he wasn’t called out privately either. It is evident that the atheism+ group values Carrier being a part of their group more than it does attracting new members. As I told someone recently, Carrier killed the baby in the cradle."


FTB has refused to condemn Richard Carrier's comments, and not rejecting him and his blind hatred of his critics, they are alienating people from Atheist + movement, and FTB in general. This will lead to Atheism Plus either dying a slow death, or marginalizing it down to a small group of followers who have shut themselves out to the rest of the atheist community. Either way, it will be forgotten in due time.

A shout out to some of my favorite atheist and former Christian bloggers

There are so many great bloggers out there who are atheists, agnostics, and former Christians, and I want to introduce you to some of them. Some are completely atheist, some are fellow fundamentalism survivors like me, but are still searching/confused as to what they currently believe (but know that they don't want any part of Christianity).

One of my favorite qualities in a blogger is when they take the time out of their day to respond to readers and their comments, concerns, and questions. If I had to give out a "most responsive blogger" award, it would hands down go to Godless Poutine of My Secret Atheist Blog. Not only does he respond regularly to comments from readers, despite having a busy life that includes being an IT professional, a husband, and a father of a 3 year old son who has autism, but he actually devoted an entire blog post to giving a well thought out response to my comments on a previous post on Freethought blog's recent controversies and their proposed Atheism + movement. Read the post and comments following here .

Taking the time to do that shows just how seriously he takes his blog, and it's readers, and that's a great quality in a blogger.

My favorite informative blog on atheism is Debunking Christianity by John Loftus. John gives a unique perspective on Christianity from an academic prospective. He was a Phd theology student in the Church of Christ denomination before leaving the faith. He is an avowed atheist, and you can read his full intro story here. If you have been looking for a good resource of Christian doctrine/ the Bible and it's flaws, as well as good atheist arguments, look no further.

My award for quirkiest former Christian blogger would have to go to Joe at Incongruous Circumspection .
He is a former fundamentalist and was part of the extremist "Quiverfull" movement which feels that birth control of any form is immoral, and that having many children is a sign of divine blessing. He and his wife have 6 children, and he now considers himself an agnostic

 His posting style is hilariously erratic, and at times full of snark. Sometimes he can go from a long response to the sexism and horrible child raising techniques of  fundamentalist leaders Ed Baker and John Piper, to this post, in which he states his opinion on abortion in just 8 words, and that includes the title of the post! He also enjoys talking about on the random insights on life that only raising children can give you. Sometimes the shortest statements are the most profound, as seen by his abortion post, there's many great comments there, including a great rebuttal comment from a reader to my comment.

A good blog for looking at Christianity from the perspective of someone who has lived it is Past Tense, Present Progessive by blogger "Latebloomer". She presents a very raw, real, personal look at her homeschooled upbringing, and how it effects her still to this day. Read the full series on her life from childhood to early adult years here. She also does a great job of exposing extremists like author Reb Bradley, (distracted OCD moment here, but seriously, a first name of "Reb"? that's just begging for some redneck jokes......) . His books on child raising give a very frightening look at how fundies view their children and their ideas on how to raise them. Her critical review of his 1995 book "Child Training Tips" is very much worth reading. Posts, Introduction , A Parent Who Assumes The Worst , and  An Extremely Controlling Parent  are her posts so far on the subject, check back every couple days for more, it's an eye-opening series.

I could post some more of my favorite blogs but I don't want this post to get too long, I might make a part 2 sometime soon, and I'm also considering expounding more on Latebloomer's criticism of Reb Bradley, my thoughts on what she has exposed about his views, and how much of his views reflect how I was raised as well.

If you don't see any more posts on these topics by Labor Day (September 3rd), you may have to wait for a while, since I will be out of the St. Louis area the week of September 4th, and are unsure how much time I will have to post.

I noticed that people are linking to my blog and reading it from some varied places, including Canada, England, and even Russia. If you are reading this, let me know! Comment, tell me what can be improved, suggest topics, tell me how you found out about my blog. I thank you for reading my thoughts here, but I want you to join me in the discussion.