God is a myth!

I will be writing in this hub to share with my fellow atheist and detractors how and why I became an atheist. At one time I was one of the most zealous Christians you could ever meet, I preached and had a ministry for four years in the Pentecostal faith. I spoke in tongues and experienced all of the supposed nine gifts of the holy spirit.

My specialty was what is known as a deliverance ministry, which in short is casting out of demons or exorcism. Towards the end of my ministry I was beginning to move towards faith healing, but I could not follow through with it because by that time I had a bunch of internal conflicts within me regarding my faith. I have read the bible four times from cover to cover and one of those times I read it in Spanish. What I read actually drew me away from a belief in God and I felt shame for having committed my life to him the way I did.

There are many reasons but the main reason is that I could not in good conscience worship the biblical god after having read the bible in its entirety. My views and opinions about god changed drastically after I finished reading the scriptures, the god that I was taught was loving and forgiving and nurturing turned out to be a monster.

The bible is full of stories about god and his wrath, judgment, and his brand of justice. After reading the bible I thought that god was a tyrant and a bully. What many believers don't know is that he murdered thousands maybe millions in the scriptures for the most pettiest offenses. The old testament god ruled with an iron fist, and in his quest to prove himself to the Hebrews if those tales were true, he made a path of blood. The old testament is a book of murder and mayhem mostly perpetrated by god himself.

When it wasn't god doing the killing he was using his followers to carry out massacres in his name. The promised land that he gave to the Hebrews was taken by force from others who could not worship god because for one they did not know who he was. They had their own gods and religious beliefs. God still punished and pulverized entire cities and nations and led his people on a killing spree that involved rape, enslavement, and plundering.

I have been known to make parallels between the biblical god and Hitler. In my eyes they are not that different. They were both dictators who ruled through the use of murder and kept their people in line through the instrument of fear. If you took the time to read the book of Leviticus which means law you will see how ridiculous gods laws actually were. Most offenses were punishable by death.

After having read through the new testament it seemed to me that that god was an entirely different god than the one in the old testament. He was more patient, loving, and even compassionate towards the human race although every once in awhile a spark of the old god shone through momentarily. The theists state that this is due to the dispensation of grace, where he no longer judged you solely by the law. Through the sacrifice of Christ he now provided a way for your sins to be forgiven that was not available in the old testament.

The transition from theist to atheist was a long and difficult one for me, I did not decide to discard my belief in the biblical god lightly. I became an atheist with great fear and trepidation it took me a few years to admit that I was an atheist publicly and to my family as well. Towards the end of my time in the service of the Lord I began to have mixed feelings about worship and I started to also research church history.

The first thing to go was my belief in the various manifestations of the holy spirit, and so I went to a christian book store and stumbled upon a book whose author and title elude me at this time. The book basically expressed he same sentiments I had been feeling about the gifts of the spirit and pretty much gave me a little more courage to keep moving forward with my research. Now I had to find an explanation for how I was able to do some of the feats that I performed in my ministry. At the time of course as a believer you say it is not you but god working through you. I had to explain to my own satisfaction how I was able to make people pass out by a simple tap or touch, or how I could do the same with a simple stare or pointing at them from across the room.

These questions later led me to read books on the workings of hypnosis, and psychiatry. I later was able to explain away all of the phenomenon that I had experienced. Once I was able to explain the apparent supernatural aspects of my religion the rest became easier. Millions upon millions of people have died and shed blood for or in the name of the Lord. The early church had its various inquisitions, crusades, and witch hunts which were intended to make their belief system the only true religion world wide. They killed, they maimed, and tortured people into confessing Christ as lord.

Another thing that started to bother me was the many inconsistencies in the scriptures, especially regarding the life of Jesus. The oldest gospel is the book of Mark and it is believed to have been written around 65 or 70 A.D. which means it was not written till at least 35 years after the alleged death of Christ. I later discovered that none of the gospel narratives were even written by the authors whose names are affixed to them. It was a tradition in those times to use someones name on a written work of notoriety in order to give the book authority.

In order for a book to be accepted in the bible it had to have been written by an apostle or a contemporary of an apostle. That explains why the narratives are so different from one another and at times the details conflict with one another. Something else that bothered me was why did no historians of the day write about Jesus? Sure there are some scant references to him in some secular works but they are just in passing. If this man was so great and had performed so many wonders as the scriptures indicate, then why did no one outside his circle write about him?

Another thing worth mentioning is that none of the gospels namely Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were first hand accounts. It seems that these stories were later written down from oral traditions. These all could be third or fourth hand accounts and to date there are no original copies of the gospels in existence. All we have is copies of copies with no existing source documents to compare them to. The gospels once they were set down in writing were edited by scribes over and over again. That opens up the possibility for human error and reworking of the gospels to suit the scribes beliefs.

Aside from the issues just mentioned there is also the issue of the scriptures being lost in translation. Any linguist worth his salt can tell you that some languages just don't translate well into others, so they would have to substitute words that don't exist in their language to try and make it understandable in the language they have chosen to translate. In essence they have to transliterate everything. A simple trip to your local book store will confirm this, just take a look at the English bibles section. You will be left in awe at how many there are, not to mention also that it seems every few years a new translation in English is introduced.

Thomas Paine once said that if god were to reveal himself to the world it would not be through a book but rather through the wonders of nature. I agree with the first part but not the second but I am in accord with him regarding how useless it would be for god to reveal himself through a book. It is because of this and other reasons that I cannot accept the bible as inspired or the existence of god as true.

One of the things I experienced when I left the fold was that it wasn't long before the so called brethren of the church began to alienate me. First some of them tried to convince me that I was under the sway of Satan and that I needed deliverance myself. Some insisted on praying for me which I allowed them to do, letting them know that it would be in vain but if it made them feel better that they should have at it. Many of the people in the church that I thought were my friends turned their back on me and would no longer even want to be seen with me.

I remember when I left the church and the ministry that the only emotion I could process at the time was anger. I was angry at the god I once worshiped, angry at the congregation I once belonged to, angry that I had invested so much of my time and my life in the church. I truly tried to live the word to the best of my ability and it seemed that no matter what I did I was never satisfied with myself. It seemed like nothing I did could ever be enough, I pushed myself every day to make sure that everyone heard the "good news".

It wasn't long before the congregation from which I once belonged to began spreading malicious rumors about me. I ran into one of my old friends from the church about a year later and he stared at me and ran at me and gave me a hearty hug. He told me that he heard that I had died of a drug overdose. Another member of the church I saw a few months after I left the church told me that he heard that someone had seen me on a street corner all doped up nodding off standing up. The funny thing about all this is that I have never used drugs so to this day that has never been an issue with me.

The straw that broke the camels back for me was that another old friend from the church had run into me about a year after I left on a public bus. It just so happened that I had been reading Darwin's 'The origin of species' at the time. When he asked me what church I belonged to I told him that I was no longer a christian and that I had become an atheist. He took one look at the book in my hand and told me it is because of your reading satanic trash like that that you have been led away from the truth. I immediately countered and pointed to his bible and told him that it was because he was reading and believing ancient myths that he was blinded to the truth. He got off the bus and that was the last I have seen of him since then.

My ultimate act of defiance was when I recalled a tale my mother told me about years ago, about a man in Puerto Rico who supposedly burned a bible and went insane. It was said that as he burned it the text came alive in an audible fashion and that is what led to his insanity. So, on one of my days when I was on a fit of rage I did just that. I took my old bible and burned it on the stove in my kitchen, and I must admit that it felt good. Just to be able to do that proved to me that the bondage of religion was finally broken.

Today I have several bibles and I still study them but more from an academic standpoint. I no longer revere them as being inspired by god, and have been known to use them as coasters for my beer from time to time. I find that in a funny way irreverence is fun, it's silly but I kind of get a kick out of mocking religious beliefs.

It is my opinion that Christians in general are hypocrites, most if not all of them love to cherry pick those things out of the bible that suits them and ignore those things that may condemn some of the actions or even their life styles. There are now gay churches in some states, I personally don't have anything against the gay community, in fact my younger sister is gay. But the bible does condemn being gay as an abomination.

I have seen so called Christians doing all sorts of things that I personally did not think were compatible with their beliefs. For example what is a christian doing in mixed martial arts, boxing, or any other sport which requires that you hurt someone else for the amusement of others. Isn't the body supposedly the temple of the holy spirit, aren't you commanded to take care of it?

The church I came from was very oppressive, they controlled or tried to control almost every aspect of your life. Unlike the afro-american or anglo pentecostal churches the hispanic church was the most extreme and severe church you could ever join. You were told how to dress, what you can and can't do, who to associate with etc. It's ironic but when I finally left the church I felt like I had been literally saved or born again but in a secular sense. I felt like I had gained my life back and was now in control of it.

The events that followed my slow separation from the church were pretty funny. I used to work as a security/concierge for an upper class residential building, most of the tenants were doctors, lawyers and white collar professionals in their respective fields. I used to bring my religious books to work and when I had some down time I just sat there reading at my desk. One evening one of the tenants saw me reading a christian book and literally asked me in these exact words; do you believe in that shit?". For a moment I did not know what to say, but then I replied that I did not but that I had just separated myself from those beliefs and was now studying them in depth for my own personal knowledge.

Not long after that some members from my former congregation came by my house and said that the would pray for God to take me away from my work place because they felt that Satan was using the tenants to push me away from God and lead me to eternal damnation. I allowed them to pray for me with laying on of hands and shouting etc. The funny thing is that instead, God must have misunderstood them because their prayers had the opposite effect.

Not long after I was told that the security company I worked for lost their contract and that they were moving me to another site. It turned out to be Oxford University Press here in New York and this place gave me mostly free access to books on atheism, both classic and new. And since I knew all the editors, in time I was able to even obtain free copies of books before they were even available in stores!! Thank God for not listening to the prayers of those crack pots and setting me free from the superstition that is religion and Christianity.

Remember how I mentioned that I was rebellious and angry when I left the church? It took me about three years to outgrow that phase, I took it upon myself to make Christians lives everywhere a living hell. I did this by devising all sorts of malicious pranks against Christians, I literally became an anti-Christ. I remember one of the worst things I did was to sit around for about a week watching televangelists and taking down their mailing addresses. With a friend of mine I drew a picture of Jesus bending over taking it up the ass by Satan himself. I then added a caption above the pic stating "This is what you are doing to your Lord". I sent about 8 copies of that drawing to the respective evangelists anonymously.

I would go into Christian chat rooms and start the biggest insult wars known to man. I can't even remember how many times I was banned from the chat rooms. My older sister became a Pentecostal missionary shortly after I left the church and she insisted on visiting me one day. I warned her that if she came to preach I would throw her ass and her bible out of my house in a heartbeat. Of course she did not listen so when she started with the preaching out she went bible and all and she got a slew of complimentary insults to take home with her lol.

I still despise religion in all its forms to this day but I no longer resort to childish pranks nor insults. I like to disparage religion using the tools of reason and logic. The bible cannot stand up to scrutiny when analyzed from a secular perspective. In fact it comes off as rather silly that anyone could believe in that nonsense in our modern day and age. I don't hide my atheism from anyone, and when asked I proudly say that I am an nonbeliever.

With the philosophy and the enlightenment came freedom, man was no longer prone to believe in those barbaric and nonsensical beliefs of the past. But it was too late, religion had already managed to become entrenched in our society and our traditions. Today I feel with all of the knowledge I have obtained regarding religion in general and Christianity in particular, I am sure that I could never go back to believing in God. I have even blasphemed the holy spirit, the only so called unforgivable sin in the N.T. I have no respect for the imaginary guy in the sky and feel only pity for his believers and servants.

I was watching a video on youtube not long ago and there was a segment where this congregation were holding hands and praying, and my heart sank, I felt nothing but pity for them. When you talk to yourself or an imaginary friend you are considered insane, but when you talk to God or Jesus you are praying. I personally don't see the difference, in both instances you are talking to an imaginary being who does not exist. I will begin soon to make all of the ties and correlations regarding the myth that is Christianity, Jesus, and how they came to have the power and influence they still hold today.

In closing, the good news is that in today's world there are a great many brave soldiers coming out of the woodwork proudly displaying their atheism for all to see. Like it or not atheism is on the rise, and it is at least my hope that one day religion will be a thing of the past. Although I know that will never happen because as one friend of mine once said " the sheep far outnumber the shepherds." As long as tradition and gullibility go hand in hand religion will always have the many to continue to lie to and misguide with threats of damnation and fairy tales of eternal life in the great beyond in exchange for your life now.

One of the many things I hate about Christianity is the whole master slave relationship between God and man. In order to be a christian you must be willing to accept that you are as the dust of the earth, that you are a sinner, that you are not even worthy to stand in the presence of the biblical god. God is so just that by default we are born in sin and bear it in our being simply because Adam and Eve chose to disobey and eat from the tree which God specifically told them not to eat from.

Because of that offense against God we are to be forever grateful that he has forgiven us and provided a way to save us from our imminent eternal torment and perdition in his hell followed by the lake of fire. It does not matter that we were not there in the garden, nor that we did not even exist as people 6 or 7 thousand years ago, we are still held accountable. Technically the only people in existence were Adam and Eve and they were the only people he had to forgive. But the biblical god being the megalomaniac tyrant that he is (this is hypothetical since he does not exist so bear with me) has to punish all mankind for the sins of two.

He is not just happy to punish us as a species, he needs to let us know that we should be grateful for his tender loving mercies pffft! So now according to the scriptures we are forever indebted to God and Christ for redeeming us at the price of the shedding of blood. Although I don't see how God could have not just forgiven Adam and Eve and that would have been the end of it. I mean he is God and with him all things are possible, except forgiving sins. For that he needed to become a man (Jesus) and die on a cross, rise from the dead and wait for his eternal accolades from the humans he saved.

He constantly reminds us that he is the master, creator, lord of mankind and that we are nothing but worms. We have to be thankful for our very lives! Everything about us has been allowed because of his grace. But it does not end there: now you have to commit your life to fanning his omnipotent ego, stroking his pride, reminding him daily that it is not your will but his will that you wish to be done.

The very terminology of Christianity acknowledges this. You are a "servant" of the lord, your mission in life is to do his bidding. You are to propagate the biblical myths and lies that have held humanity captive for about seven thousand years. You have to let God know what a worthless piece of shit you are without him and how your life is worth nothing if he is not with you. You are a soldier in that you have to be willing to sacrifice your life on foreign soil to preach Christ crucified. A soldier is the same as a servant he is the worker bee in the colony subject to the queen and the betterment of the hive.

For some reason Jews and Christians don't see how ridiculous their belief systems really are.They don't see that the god they claim to serve is nothing more than a mythical being and if he were real he would be no better than Hitler or Stalin. The biblical god is a tyrant in every sense of the word. And you who choose to believe in him are nothing more than his gullible servants and slaves. Hopefully you will wake up and enjoy what ever time you have left on this earth, rather than throwing it all away for a non existent heaven.

For this entry I was looking for a definition for the word myth, in the merriam webster dictionary I found exactly what I was looking for. It gives you 4 definitions but I actually will use the ones that I think are relevant to this pages content.

1 : a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon2 : a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence

Upon examining these two definitions I am immediately drawn to the word tradition, this word all on its own helps to explain why Christianity has managed to last as long as it has. The main reason was that once it was accepted by the Roman emperor Constantine it had the full power of the government behind it. In the year 313 A.D. Constantine announced christian toleration in his edict of Milan.

Before that famous edict christianity was still being persecuted and many who professed faith faced heavy penalties and others were even martyred for their beliefs. You would think that with their history the church would have learned their lesson regarding religious tolerance, but instead they got some payback once they were put in a position of power.

Many christians that have not bothered to read their bibles in its entirety don't know that the Hebrews of the O.T. went on a killing spree supposedly with their god leading the way. The church in Rome went on a killing spree of biblical proportions in their bid to be the one and only religion standing. To this day it is the most intolerant belief system in existence.

Once it cemented its future Christianity became the traditional belief system, that tradition survives and is carried on by billions of gullible believers. I personally think that alot of the history of the Hebrews in the bible was fabricated so that they could magnify their god. Following through with the lies Christianity continued to run with the story of the Hebrews and by taking some of the text out of context fabricated the coming of the messiah in the flesh. The evidence for the existence of Jesus is very scant and questionable, the church has been known to tamper with historical records before.

Part of a myth is that it is used to tell a story about the worldview or culture of a people. Most of those stories are unverifiable for a reason, that is why they require faith. Faith is basically saying "Jesus loves me this I know because the bible tells me so". You don't need evidence your religious belief are ingrained in your culture and your family makes sure that you get your good dose of indoctrination. Myths survive mostly because some people just need something to believe in. Something to get them by through the tough times, it's a placebo for the pains of the heart and it helps soothe your emotions.

It's incredible that after 2,000 years the people have not caught on yet. They are still waiting for Jesus to come floating down on a cloud to save them. The sad thing is that these are the beliefs of adults. The children have Santa and the adults have Jesus. Since the bible clearly states that no one knows the day nor the hour of the lords return, the Christians can keep the myth alive by pushing the date up every hundred years or so. They have been saying that the end was nigh since about 30 A.D.

None of the stories in the bible are first hand accounts of the life of Jesus, they have been pieced together from oral traditions. The gospels which were supposed to serve as a biography of the savior were not made public till about 70 A.D. when the book of Mark is believed to have surfaced. Here is a little interesting tid bit for those that love history as much as I do.The titles attached to the gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did not appear on those works till the middle of the second century. Before that they were sent out as anonymous works whose authors were unknown.

It is interesting that outside of church documents there is very little evidence for the existence of an historical Jesus. The most famous being the works of Josephus but the problem is that he mentions him in passing and the few words he says don't fit in with the rest of the text. Many scholars believe that the entry about Jesus is a later interpolation by someone else.

For anyone that has read the bible from cover to cover one theme will stand out, that theme is fear. The Old Testament and the New Testament constantly admonish us to fear the Lord, there is a very good reason for this. Fear has been the preferred method used by many religions to control the masses and subject them to their various systems of belief. There is power in the use of fear and governments, and religious institutions have been aware of this for a very long time.

The church with  its various witch hunts and inquisitions coming from both the protestants and the catholics have demonstrated this quite clearly. Just like the government, through the constant use of misinformation and propaganda they can manipulate the people to carry out their sinister deeds in the name of the Lord. Our government for example is still riding the 9/11/01 WTC disaster as an excuse to invade its citizens privacy in the name of national security.

One fact remains, and that is that religion and politics have always worked hand in hand. It is a partnership of convenience for both parties. The O.T. demonstrated this clearly when the Hebrews used religion to later help establish its government and laws. Some theists state that this is where morals come from but the truth of the matter is that every culture has in some way done the same and established their governments and societies through the use of religion.

Love him or hate him the master of fusing political power with religion was Adolph Hitler, for years my research has convinced me that he literally followed the biblical blueprint to the letter. Lets examine this side by side: Hitler told his people that they were a superior race while the Hebrews were led to believe that they were Gods chosen people. He also used religion to lead his people to believe that the Jews were fully responsible for murdering Christ, and that it was their job to be the vengeance of the Lord and exterminate the Jews.

In the Old Testament you read that the Hebrews were told by God to take over the land that he had given to them and to cleanse if from the heathens that inhabited it at the time. To kill them and destroy their altars and sacred places. Once they were settled they began to form their government through the reign of kings that were chosen by the people and anointed in the presence of their God.

Here are just two quotes from both the Old and New Testament to prove my point:

Deuteronomy 4:10

"Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children."

Matthew 10:28

"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

Although I can go on forever with this topic; for the sake of brevity I will leave you with two quotes from Hitler himself that are relevant to this article:

"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator." (The use of religion)

"By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise."

This post is about the so called discipline ofstudy called theology. I would like to begin by first defining the term using both the Catholic Encyclopedia and the Merriam Webster dictionary. Then we will examine both definitions in relation to religious beliefs and to each other.
That part of theology which treats of the theoretical truths of faith concerning God and His works (Catholic encyclopedia)
the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially : the study of God and of God's relation to the world (Merriam Webster)

Before I take these two definitions apart I would like to give my opinion regarding theology, I personally do not consider it a real academic discipline mainly because it is not based on any known facts. Instead the entire field of theology is based on religious mythology and speculation based on ancient texts and the nature of their preferred God. The problem with this lies in the fact that in order to speculate on the nature of God you must first prove that this being exists. The church has been completely unsuccessful at this and I don't think that they will ever succeed at achieving this impossible goal.

Now lets move on to the purpose of this post. I actually prefer the Catholic definition because contrary to their history of lies they for once tell the truth on this one. They refer to this discipline as a theory of the truths of faith concerning God. We all know that faith is nothing more than hope based on ones own subjective opinions or supposed experiences regarding the matter. Faith in and of itself requires no evidence whatsoever and just accepts religious beliefs as absolute.

It is my opinion that faith and truth are akin to an oxymoron, they are two contradictory terms that should not be used in conjunction with one another, nor even in the same sentence. The Webster definition is more simplistic and therefore easier to dismantle. Basically theology is the study of God, religious faith, practice, and experience. But the weakest link in this definition is God, there is no evidence outside of the bible or other religious text to his existence.

Studying something basing yourself on ancient texts and so called revelations is not studying at all. As I have stated many times, revelation is only a revelation to the one who claims to have had the experience. To the rest of us it is just hearsay. You are essentially not studying God but speculating things said about him based on hearsay. World mythology is rife with gods and goddesses and most of the worlds myths have taken their rightful place as such. I don't see why Christianities god should be the exception to the rule.

Tyrant - 1 a  : an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution b  : a usurper of sovereignty2 a : a ruler who exercises absolute power oppressively or brutally b : one resembling an oppressive ruler in the harsh use of authority or power

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary the above is the definition of what is commonly referred to as a tyrant. When most people think of a tyrant they think of some human ruler who ruled with an iron fist, and or enforced his laws by any means necessary. This included but was not limited to the suppression of freedom of speech and expression, the exclusion from governmental involvement such as voting and protesting legislation's, dictating the lives of its citizens based on the needs of the society as in some forms of communism. Where ones career was chosen for them and they were sent off to learn the trade that was assigned to them instead of what they may have had interests in.

You are told for example how many children you are allowed to have, how much rations you will recieve each month, what ideologies to follow, what to believe. A tyrant basically runs a dictatorship that forces its citizens to yield to and accept his/her way of thinking. Any resistance is considered a  rebellion against the government and your ruler. These could lead to torture, imprisonment, and even death, where to put fear in other citizens your death might even be made public as an example to others who even think of resisting the indoctrination of the ruling body.

How does all this relate to the biblical Jehovah? Well, after having studied that bible for so long and having read it in its entirety four times I have come to the conclusion that the biblical God is a tyrant and fits the description very well. Even the so called loving New Testament father figure is included in my analysis as being fit to wear the title of tyrant. The biblical god introduces himself to the world by using the Egyptians as an example to those that oppose him. He attacks them with plagues and even murders their first born sons and firstborn livestock. All this is to instill fear into the Hebrews and demonstrate his power over everything and everyone that lives and breathes upon the face of the Earth.

Once he shows the Hebrews who is boss he begins to next institute laws that they should follow and obey without exception. The bible is full of stories that relate the consequences of any disobedience to the laws of God. When dealing with the Hebrews the only consequence was death, he was known to strike down entire tribes for the offence of one of its members. He made it clear in no uncertain terms that anyone who disobeyed would surely die. In fact you were not even allowed to complain about anything, not even your need for water or food, apparently God had a very sensitive nature.

The biblical God uses the very tools used by tyrants to control his people, namely, fear,guilt, and oppression. Even in the N.T. where it seems that he had changed his ways, nothing could be further from the truth. He now threatened you with eternal torment for not obeying his laws and worshiping him. The entire bible forces the blame for all the calamities of mankind on man himself, it is always reaping the consequences for our own sinful nature. Because of the disobedience of Adam and Eve over seven thousand years ago we are born with a sinful nature and the only way to break free of that curse is by accepting Jesus as our lord and master, and submitting our lives and our wills to the will of God.

If you are not healed of a sickness it was either Gods will or you have some hidden sins that need to be confessed and taken care of, if calamity befalls you it is because you have made God angry. What baffles me is that even in today's modern world people have not been able to make the connection between religious oppression and tyranny. They are one and the same when you really think about it, and I think I have made that clear in this article. If you disagree please feel free to comment or respond.

One of my many contentions with the study of religion is that instead of being something simple, it is made so complicated by the discipline of theology. What most don't know is that theology was supposed to be a response to the skeptics regarding the truths of their beliefs. Christianity in light of the many scientific discoveries of the past and the present were forced to try to reconcile their beliefs to the discoveries of science. Where once it was believed that the Earth was at the center of the universe and the sun and planets revolved around it, astronomy later was able to confirm that this was in fact an error. If you want to try to understand the scriptures of any culture you have to consider the time and place of its origins.

If you can imagine a man standing on Earth observing the heavens six or seven thousand years ago, it makes sense to believe because of his perspective that the sun revolved around the Earth. The sun rises in the East and sets to the West and from our position on the planet of course, we cannot feel the motion of the Earth as it constantly moves around its orbit, it would lead us to believe that the sun is the celestial body that is actually in motion. Joshua 10:13 is a perfect example of what I am speaking of and makes more sense if you think of it in the way I have just described. Joshua 10:13 states:  ' And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still  in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.' As you can see perspective is everything, and interpretation of your perspective is not always possible.  

What has been the Christian response to this and so many other fallacies in the bible that have had to succumb to scientifically proven knowledge? Many of the biblical texts that were once believed to be literal have been reinterpreted in an allegorical sense. Christianity has always been forced to change its beliefs to conform to scientific discoveries. Here are some examples: At one time it was believed that our planet and everything in it were created in a literal seven days and that man was created about seven thousand years ago. This was the accepted belief given a literal translation of the biblical texts, until science made the discovery that the Earth is approximately 4.55 billion years old. So what was the religious response? They turned the literal seven days interpretation to an unknown and reinterpreted it by stating that between Genesis verses 1 and 2 there was an undetermined amount of time that passed that could have been billions of years. Or that the seven days of creation could have been an unknown amount of time and not a literal seven days.

The bible is full of such fallacies that have had to succumb to the findings of scientific study. The theologians have been hard at work to keep their lies afloat; after all, those lies are their means of subsistence. Despite all of these inconsistencies the masses of America and other parts of the world cling tenaciously to their myths, I agree with Freud that some people need these beliefs to get them by in life, to give them a sense of meaning and purpose. But you don't need a belief in a myth to give meaning to your existence or life. Living life to the fullest and enjoying all the things that life has to offer in the now is much more reasonable than to hope for another existence in a future of uncertainty that extends beyond the grave.

Christians might contend that the bible is not meant to be read as a scientific text and therefore my arguments are irrelevant, but nothing could be further from the truth. If it was not meant to be a scientific texts then why speak of scientific principles that they were in that time not even aware of? And even worse putting the words into the mouth of the God that you have created as if he had said it. And even worse than that to then claim the inspiration of God on all that is written in the texts. I don't think Christianity will go away any time soon because as P.T. Barnum once said; "there is a sucker born every minute." The originator of this quote is actually unknown and has been credited to various people throughout history.

I was looking around online to try to find a suitable definition for the term free will as it relates to Christianity in particular, according to wiktionary.org it is defined thus: 'The ability to choose one's actions, or determine what reasons are acceptable motivation for actions; 'The doctrine that human beings (and possibly other beings, such as angels or higher animals) are able to choose their actions without being caused to do so by external forces.' This definition suits me well for the purpose of this post on free will as viewed by the christian believer.

When you really think about it, are the options that the bible is offering us actual options or are they forced upon us? I think that the only way that you can truly exercise your free will is through atheism. Believing in the biblical God forces you to forfeit your free will to a so called creator of the universe for which there is absolutely no evidence of his existence. Of course there is plenty of subjective evidence but that is in and of itself not really evidence, anyone who knows anything about life can tell you once and for all that your emotions can not be trusted. Tingling sensations, so called feeling the presence of this invisible being, and saying that he lives in your heart is outright ridiculous. All emotions come from the brain and not the heart, the heart is nothing but an organ that pumps blood throughout your body not a sensory organ.

The term I have a broken heart in a literal sense makes no sense at all, societies relating the heart to emotionalism has you convinced that you feel from your heart when in fact it is all coming from the brain. So, emotionalism or any so called physical sensations you may think you have experienced in church and have interpreted to be the presence of this so called God is nothing more than a psycho-emotional response to the appropriate indoctrination. Emotions have been known to betray us from time to time in our daily lives, and they outright cannot be trusted.

In christianity, to say that you have free will is a fallacy since the first requirement for you to even call yourself a christian is to submit your will to the will of God. So technically you do not have a free will. For the rest of us the choices are only two; surrender your will over to that of your creator and live forever in an afterlife that we cannot be certain even exist. Or reject God and suffer eternally for not surrendering to his will. I personally choose the latter, if these two choices were actual and real choices. I don't believe they are simply because I don't believe that not only does the biblical God not exist but no gods exists whatsoever. God is to christians what that old blanket was to Linus in the Peanuts Gang. It gives them hope, it makes them feel safe, it comforts them to know that there is someone watching over them, and it makes them feel warm and fuzzy all over.

Only as an atheist can one truly have free will as defined above, to choose ones actions without external forces (in this case God). I don't understand how a christian is so willing to give up the joys and pleasures of this life for a future in eternity. Life is short and whether there is an afterlife or not is irrelevant to us as a species, we all have responsibilities in this life that always need our attention. We have people to enjoy and love and to share our happiness with now, why throw that all away for an illusion? That to me, does not seem like something a sane person would do. I truly believe that you only live once, mans quest for eternity has been expressed in the false comforts of religion for millennia. It's time to break free from our superstitions and the bondage of religious nonsense and truly open ourselves up to enjoy all that this life has to offer us now.

I personally think that one of the reasons that I am so hostile towards Christianity is that I felt cheated. I had literally committed a large portion of my life, time, and energy in proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ and because of my extremism I suffered greatly for it. In this post I would like to take you the readers back into a day in my life as a fundamentalist extremist. I would like you all to know that I was one who took the scriptures literally and believed every single word that was written there as the inerrant word of God. It did not matter how silly a story seemed, it never crossed my mind to question those stories at all. In fact I spent a lot of time devising what I believed were intelligent and inspired arguments in defense of the bible. I was merely following the instructions given to me in 2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Every waking moment was devoted to the Lord and my ministry, I prayed in the morning upon waking up and in the evening upon going to bed. I mentally spoke to God all day long asking him questions and direction for everything in my life. When unemployed I prayed for a job but not just any job, a job where I can help save as many souls for the glory of God as possible. I prayed over my job applications (resumes did not exist at that time), before an interview, and after an interview I was mentally praying on my way home. All those tingling sensations that ran throughout my body confirmed for me that God was with me all the time, pointing the way in which he wanted me to go.

I did not watch movies nor listen to music that was not edifying to my soul. The only thing I watched on television was the news and my radio was perpetually tuned to a christian station. I bought only christian music and I only watched one or two televangelists on television. My weekends were also devoted to God and to his service. I preached on two separate street corners every Saturday and Sunday with my ministry partner. While he preached I handed out religious tracts and vice versa, since he did not know English I would sometimes serve as his interpreter when he preached so that we could reach as many people as possible on that street corner with the word of God. We were never arrested but we had been made to shut off our equipment and move by the New York City police department on more than one occasion. When I wasn't preaching on the streets I was preaching at my home church.

Sometimes my partner and I would visit hospitals and pray for the sick and those that requested our services, we never charged for anything because we were not there to make money, everything we did was for the glory of God. My neighbors knew of my activities since I had preached on several occasions in front of my building, and they too would come to my house for prayers etc. I had over 60 books on demonology since that was the focus of my ministry, and I knew them all by rote. I would discard what was not necessary and keep what was useful in dealing with the demon possessed. I received phone calls daily at home from other Christians that had heard me preach somewhere or were recommended to try to get me to preach at their church. Visiting me at my house was like going to church, I had a God centered life and upon entering my home anyone could sense it.

I spoke about the Lord all the time, there was not a moment in my life when the issue of religion and God did not come up. Whenever I had been scheduled to preach either at my home church or away I used to prepare by locking myself in the basement of my building for three days of fasting and prayer. I talked to the Lord to guide me as to what I should preach about on the appointed day. I tried to follow in the footsteps of Jesus as closely as possible and when I felt I was going astray I would pray for hours asking God to forgive me. If I did not feel right I did not participate in church services, I would tell my pastor that I would not like to preach or do anything for x and y reasons. More on my life as a christian evangelists in future posts, till next time my friends.

One of the things I think turns me off most about religion and Christianity in general is the menace of eternal damnation for not believing in their god or adhering to the rituals required to remain in his graces. I have always been sort of rebellious when it comes to authority, don't get me wrong I know my place and am a law abiding citizen, but I don't allow nor do I like people stepping all over my rights to do what I please within the boundaries of the law. The god of Christianity has all of the personality traits that I actually despise in people in general. He is arrogant, vain, and unjust. His idea of justice is what he thinks should be justice, and it is not that different from the justice system instituted by some of our worlds most famous and tyrannical dictators.

He is so full of himself it is actually sickening, he loves to have his name praised and glorified for nothing really, because if this world is the best that he can do he ought to be ashamed of himself. I was having a discussion with a Catholic adherent not long ago regarding the existence or the non-existence of God. And he told me that God was just, loving, and compassionate. That if we are eternally damned that we are at fault because he has provided a way for us to escape damnation by repenting of our sins and accepting the sacrifice of his dear son Jesus. But my line of reasoning went something like this: I said why do I have to thank him for anything? I did not ask to be born into this world. I did not ask for Jesus to die on the cross for sins that in reality were not mine but those of Adam and Eve. And if he is so loving and forgiving why couldn't he have just forgiven Adam and Eve?

Forgiveness is a conscious decision we make every day when someone wrongs us in some way. We choose to forgive and move on with our lives, but God seems like he is incapable of forgiving.Mark 10:27  And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible. All things except forgiving Adam and Eve or Satan for that matter for his rebellion. We are admonished in the bible over and over again about the virtues of forgiveness, but God does not seem to be able to lead by example. God being omnipotent would make it quite easy to forgive mankind for anything, but instead as is shown in the bible he likes to play stupid games and go about all things in a roundabout manner.

It is evident and in fact more logical to think of nature as self sufficient, you don't need a god to cause a seed to grow into a plant or a tree. You don't need a god to produce a baby via sexual intercourse, you don't need a god to cause rain, snow, lighning, thunder, etc. All of these things are natural occurrences that happen every day at some time or place in the world. The whole idea of a being sitting up on a cloud or on some other plane of existence on a golden throne surrounded by angels blowing smoke up his ass for all eternity, and constantly anticipating the prayers and praises of his billions of follwers on a daily basis is nothing short of ridiculous. The movie Bruce Almighty illlustrated how stupid of an idea this was when he (Jim Carrey) was trying to devise a way to handle all the incoming prayers. He tried post its, filing cabinets, and finally a computerized system.

As I said earlier I have a problem with authority, especially an authority I cannot see nor hear nor prove that he exists. This god is nothing more than the remnants of an ignorant people from a less enlightened past, he became a tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation and so here we are in 2010 and the myth continues to thrive. Not because it's true but simply because it is mom and pops religion and we are taught to believe in this nonsense since the day we could speak.

Is Christianity just a way to stave off the fear of death? It is a known fact that mankind in general has always harbored a fear of the unknown, he has always wondered beyond his means of discovery. Death is one of those subjects that you just can't research until you get there, but once you get there your findings stay with you since there is no way for you to bring them back to the world of the living. The invention of the soul as the essence of your very life and its ability to live on even after the death of the body, is apparently one of the main features of Christianity. In fact fear is even emphasized in the biblical text to be a factor even beyond the grave. Take for example this verse of scripture: Matthew 10:28 says 'And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.' In this case it is clearly a reference to God.

Christianity promises several things that are appealing to those that wish to conquer death, although from a logical standpoint it is in and of itself an illogical and non rational concept. Matthew 25:46 'And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.' and John 3:15 'That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal  life.' As you can see from these biblical quotations

Of all the idiotic things taught in Christianity; nothing irritates me more than the constant threat of eternal damnation. When I left the ministry and the church behind, anytime I ran into members of my former congregation on the street they would remind me of the dire consequences I will suffer for turning my back on God. They would bring to mind the stupid tale of Jonah and the whale; which by the way the bible does not specifically mention that it was a whale: Jonah 1:17 Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Christians assume that since the Whale is considered the largest sea animal it must have been a whale, That is like saying that if he had been swallowed by a large land creature it must have been an elephant. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't a whale a mammal? There is a huge difference between a mammal and a fish for example mammals are warm blooded fish are not, they breathe through blow holes and not gills, and finally they give birth to live babies that drink their mothers milk. Just goes to show how faulty Christian reasoning is.

I am warned what a terrible thing it is to have known God and turned away, than to have never known him at all. In reference to back sliders (people who leave the Lord and revert back to the world) whoever wrote 2 Peter 2:21 said: 'For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.' All throughout the bible you are told that the only way to live a fruitful and productive life is through the worship and adherence of God's commandments. Those that refuse to be mentally enslaved by fairy tales are forewarned that nothing they do in this life is going to go well or be good enough without God. Not to mention the terrible fate that awaits them after they depart this life and enter into the next life.

The bible clearly makes a distinction between the "saved" and the unsaved, the world and the church. John 17:14 'I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.' They are the elite, the chosen by God to walk the Earth bringing the word of truth and eternal salvation to mankind. It is because of this that I think Christians in general have an air of arrogance about them, a detestable snootiness to their persona that quite frankly make me sick. This is also where I think the term 'born again' came from, when you are born again according to Christian theology you are no longer a man of the flesh you are born again as a man that lives by the spirit.  John 3:5,6 'Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.' This is the significance of baptism by immersion in most protestant churches; the immersion in water signifies the burying of the old man of the flesh, the ascending out of the water signifies the birth of the spiritual man.

Then there is the threat of you being a target for evil spirits and demons to take their abode in your physical body, due to the fact that you are no longer under God's protection and graces. Matthew 12 43-45 states:43.When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.44.Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.45.Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

Finally, the threat of hell and eternal torment which I find stupid and completely at odds with a so called forgiving God of mercy and love. It sounds more like this biblical deity is very good at having his poor little feelings hurt and can hold a grudge forever. Revelation 20:13,14 'And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.' According to whoever wrote Revelations under his drug induced haze he composed this wonderful end for those who did not serve God. Notice too that according to this text it seems that death and hell are treated separately. It almost sounds like death is also a place apart from hell "and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them". Could this be the equivalent to what the Catholic church refers to as purgatory, or what others call limbo? Either way the lake of fire seems to be the final place of eternal torment that awaits us who don't believe. I tip my hats off to the church for being able to hold the world through fear and intimidation with such ridiculous beliefs and ideas. You die, you go to hell, and finally after the judgment we are cast into the lake of fire, what utter bullshit!

It is now common knowledge among biblical scholars that Moses did not write the Pentateuch/ Torah, this is what they commonly call the first five books of the bible namely; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The term "Pentateuch" comes from the Greek termpent teuchos meaning "five-volumed (book) after the Jewish designation, "the five-fifths of the law"1. Previously it was believed that as stated in the beginning of this article that Moses was the sole author of these books, but biblical analysis has brought doubt to this claim. One of the main contentions is that Deuteronomy 34:5,7 states: 5.So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. 7. And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.

The question now is how was Moses able to write about his own death in the past tense after the fact? This tell tale discrepancy is the first of a few that hint towards the idea that there was in fact more than one author involved in the writing of the Pentateuch. The different wording of the ten commandments in Exodus 20 and in Deuteronomy 5 is yet another clue of note as to it being written in this case by at least two different authors. Most prominent in this is that in Exodus 20:11 it says 'For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.' While in Deuteronomy 5:15 says 'And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.' So what is the sabbath commemorating, the six days of creation or the exodus from the land of Egypt?

One of the other issues that scholars tend to notice is the various names given to God throughout the Pentateuch, There is a theory that states that there were at least 4 authors/ sources to the Pentateuch and they have been designated J (Yahwist), E (Elohist), D (Deuteronomist), and P (Priestly). Each source focused on different traditions and perspectives. The J source always referred to God as YHVH, the E source always referred to God as Elohim, and the P source always referred to God as Elohim or El Shaddai. It is believed that the D source used elements in style similar to J and E combined and so he might have even used the names YHVH or Elohim interchangeably. Not to mention the fact that as in most books of the bible these authors are also mostly anonymous some have speculated as to the identity of the various authors but until now it remains nothing more than mere speculation.

When I was in the ministry about 16 years ago, one of the most prominent features of Pentecostalism was that of faith healing. As I've stated before my ministry was mainly focused on deliverance (exorcisms) and so I was not too focused on faith healing and always took peoples testimonies of being healed from serious life threatening illnesses with a grain of salt. Every once in awhile people would visit our church with testimonies of having been healed from aids, lupus, various forms of cancer etc.

Even as a fundamental christian I was very studious and somewhat skeptical about miraculous claims. Although in my own ministry people would claim to have been healed after I had prayed for them or laid hands on them. Towards the end of my walk with the biblical god I was constantly being badgered by other preachers and so called prophets to begin praying for the sick. I was supposedly prophesied to by self proclaimed prophets of the Lord and they all said the very same thing...pray for the sick for God has anointed you with the gift of healing.

It's funny but while all this was going on, in my private prayers I would ask god not to give me the gift of healing. I did not want people looking at me as if I was someone special and forget that I had no power whatsoever but that my gifts were all due to the grace of God and his will. Fundamentalists tend to forget about God and focus on the man, this is evident with some of the more well known and prominent faith healers from both the past and the present. Benny Hinn draws thousands to his conventions and it is not because he is such a great speaker, it is because people want to believe in the miraculous and see it in action, they want to be a part of it.

I often asked god why certain people were healed and others were not? I did not like the traditional excuses that were put forth by some ministers. When things were not going right for you as a christian it was either because God was testing your faith, the devil was tempting you, or you were attempting to hide some sin from the Lord. Or you were not right with God and so in the end if you were not healed it was mostly your fault.

After leaving the church I read books on faith healing and searched throughout all the literature I could get my hands on regarding miracles. I was looking for genuine miracles that had been documented. My search was in vain, nothing that I found was definitive and would hold up to thorough scrutiny. I once knew a man who actually died from a hernia while he waited on the Lord for a miracle. He was afraid to go under the knife so he put it off and his hernia got so big it burst. My step father almost died from a heart attack when a preacher prayed for him and told him to throw away his heart medicine as a sign of faith; that God had healed him. Luckily my mom kept his medicine for him and he did not take it for about four days till he started having difficulties again.

Have you ever noticed that most of these so called miracles are superficial in nature? You don't see people get up out of coffins, or severely crippled people miraculously get up and walk, or someone who was born completely blind be able to suddenly see better than 20/20. None of these so called miracles you see on television even compare to the miracles you read about in the bible. Has God lost his touch or can we chalk up the biblical tales to just that, tales? Many have died as a result of faith healing due to neglect of medical conditions in exchange for faith in God's miraculous power to make one whole again.

Most of those superficial healings are nothing more than the placebo effect in action taking away a slew of psychosomatic disorders. The power of suggestion is a very powerful tool, and in the wrong hands can become deadly. Not to mention the numerous scam artists in the larger faith healing ministries. Researchers have on several occasions been able to uncover deception and trickery involved with some of your more prominent televangelists. Faith healing is fraudulent, careless, and in many cases deadly.

A friend of mine who is a follower of my main blog on atheism sent me a video of a talk that was given by Daniel Dennet on ministers who were closet atheists. And one of the most interesting things about this was that he said that he had read somewhere where a former minister wrote you can't go to seminary and still come out believing in God.

One of the things that led me away from serving the Lord was when I decided to read the bible in its entirety. The more I read it the more questions I had and the faster my faith began to dwindle, I began to judge the biblical god by the works attributed to him in the bible. He seemed to have the most despicable traits and the most disgusting personality. The biblical god has every single trait I would hate in another person.

When I finally went to my churches seminary I actually completed my first year and then I quit and left the church for good. When I learned how the bible that we have today was compiled and got to glimpse at the horrors and atrocities that the church had committed throughout history I could not in good conscience worship god or be a part of his human organization the church.

I was very excited when we finally reached the part of the course where we were going to study alternative creation stories and myths. I remember sitting in class completely psyched for what laid ahead, we were about to study the theory of evolution. To my disappointment when the teacher came to it he simply laughed and said "if you want to believe that you evolved from a monkey than you go ahead, as for me, I am a child of God." He then skipped on to the next subject and I must say nothing could express how angry that made me feel.

Like I said I finished the year and never went back, god and the church had taken it's proper place in my life and mind once and for all; the entire system was filed as myth. I have been an atheist for 15  years and now I don't think of god anymore, nor do I miss being his slave. The seminary just helped me to realize that this whole belief system was completely unfounded and lacking in evidence and facts.

One of the contentions I have heard from Christians regarding the tale of Adam and Eve is that it was not meant to be taken literally, some have even gone as far as stating that Adam and Eve never existed. They state that that tale is allegorical and is not supposed to be taken as history. In this post I am going to refute that claim using the bible against itself. In my last post I spoke of the differences in the two tales of creation and stated that this was a bone headed mistake, it is in fact not just a mistake it is an error that one can attribute to bad editing. It is claimed by most biblical scholars that there are possibly four authors who are responsible for the Pentateuch/Torah and it is because  of this belief that many of the tales in the bible repeat themeselves over and over.

The first clue that Adam and Eve are meant to be taken literally as the first humans to walk this Earth is evident in the following text from Genesis 4:1,2  1.'And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD. 2And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.' Whenever the bible states that someone knew someone it is a reference to sexual intercourse and that is what occurred when Adam knew his wife. As a result of that union she became pregnant and eventually had two sons Cain and Abel as stated in the text. According to the story Cain eventually killed his brother Abel and was cast far away from his parents to the land of Nod where he eventually built a city. Genesis 4:17And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

So naturally if Enoch is considered an historical figure in the bible, then one can safely assume that his parents were also historical figures as well, but this gets even better so read on. The bible does not only prove that Adam and Eve were real people but it also solidifies this  claim by giving them a lineage. Genesis 4:25'And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.' So now it is no longer Cain and Abel but rather Cain and Seth. Although the bible never gets into where Cain got his wife from it is interesting to see that it never mentions that Adam and Eve had any daughters either.

This is what I call the nail in the coffin of those that claim that Adam and Eve were not meant to be taken as literal and historical figures. Genesis 5:1-5 1'This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;2Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. 3And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:4And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:5And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.'

The bible itself claims that Adam and Eve were historical figures by stating plainly that Adam had children, one of which built a city, he had a lineage, and it even says that he had sons and daughters. If you read the text carefully all of these things become self evident. The entire chapter 5 of Genesis goes on to name the sons of Adam and the sons and daughters of his sons. Based on the bible as evidence then it is safe to conclude that this tale was in fact meant to be taken literally and anyone who claims it wasn't has simply not taken the time to read the bible. Adam is said to have lived 930 years and then died.

One of the biblical tales that I have found throughout my years of research that holds a  couple of blatant contradictions is the story of the world flood as narrated in Genesis chapter 6. Although the bible itself claims that this in fact was a worldwide flood that God carried out with the intent of destroying all life on Earth besides that of Noah and his immediate family a total of 8 persons, many have begun to state that this in fact might not have been a worldwide flood but rather a local flood. Just by making such a statement they outright contradict what their holy books states in Genesis 6:17 'And, behold, I, even I, bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die.' In my opinion nothing could be stated more clearly. Modern theologians unwittingly sacrifice their so called truths for interpretation by trying to constantly stay in step with the modern world.

Now, just as I illustrated with the creation story many don't know that there are in fact two flood stories and they are actually fused together into one narrative. This also lends credence to the theory that there were in fact as many as four authors behind the writing of the Torah, and that it in fact was not written by Moses as many Jews and Christians tend to believe. Contrary to what many may think flood myths are nothing new but rather they have been a part of world folklore and myths for thousands of years, I have been doing research on this as well and have found a great site that covers alot of information regarding this matter. Here is the link for those interested in researching this further: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html

Now let's get into the biblical contradictions regarding the great flood that God supposedly brought down on mankind. The most blatant of them is the number of animals that were actually required by Noah to collect and bring into the ark. Genesis 6:19 clearly states; 'And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.' The first thing you should notice from this passage is that God does not make any distinction of clean and unclean animals and he particularly states that they should be two of every living creature.

Now let's take a look at God's instructions to Noah in Genesis 7:2 ; 'Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. In both tales they refer in subsequent verses to all animals that walk, crawl, or fly but in one tale there is no differentiation of clean and unclean beasts. In fact another point to take into consideration is that this part of the story makes no sense because the ten commandments and all the other commandments found in Leviticus were not yet given to the Hebrews. In fact this entire tale is supposed to be taking place before Moses led the Hebrews out of captivity from Egypt. According to the exodus tale Moses received the commandments from God while they sojourned in the Sinai desert. This alone is evidence that this tale could in fact have been written either later than the exodus narrative and thus makes this tale a complete fiction. or it was written as is and was later edited with the clean and unclean animals at a later date. Either way this small piece of evidence flushes the veracity of this tale right down the toilet. This being the case how is Noah supposed to know which animals were clean and which were unclean.

One cannot even imagine how many species of animals, birds, insects and other crawling things existed on the Earth when this supposed tale took place, and even worse one cannot fathom an ark full of every living creature, Noah and his family, and the food that they had to collect for both all the animals and themselves as stated in Genesis 6:21 'And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee and for them.' So according to this text the ark had a food pantry, but what about the animals that ate other animals? What of the birds that feasted on insects, or larger insects that fed on smaller insects? How did all these people and animals go to the bathroom? Are we to believe that they were divinely constipated for the entire year that they were in the ark? Or did they just shit in the ark and Noah and family spent a year of constant toil cleaning up animal feces of every species that ever walked the Earth? What about some of the prehistoric creatures? Were there dinosaurs in the ark and teradactyls too? All of these points just go to show how ridiculously stupid and inane these tales are, and even more so how stupid a belief of them is. In order to be a successful Christian you must suspend all logic, reason, and critical thinking and just accept all of this nonsense as fact.

Ephesians 6:12
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Many of you who have been following my blogs and learning about me might already know that about 15 years ago I became an atheist, but for the four years prior to that time I was a Pentecostal evangelist. I had my own ministry where I and a partner would preach on the street corners every Saturday and Sunday and oftentimes I was invited as a result of that to preach in many of the local churches where I resided. My specialty as an evangelist is what is known as a deliverance ministry, and basically what that meant was that I was good at exorcising demons from those that were believed to be possessed by them. I did not use and fancy books or incantations just simply the "word of God" and the power of the "Holy spirit" which at the time I believed resided within me and fully worked through me.

During those days I had read over 60 books on demonology, and had searched the scriptures diligently for what I termed were power verses that affirmed my power through Christ over demons. Demons were very real to me in those days and because of some of the experiences I had there was no one who could convince me otherwise. I used to have this experience sometimes when I slept at night where I would feel as if someone sat on my chest and had put put their hand over my mouth to keep me from screaming. When this first began to happen I was told by the elders of the church that these were demon attacks in retaliation for all the souls that were being saved as a result of my ministry. I took this explanation hook line and sinker and began to pray fervently whenever this occurred and to my surprise it would work the force that seemingly held me paralyzed in my bed unable to scream for help and unable to move would go away immediately.

After I left the church four years later one of the first things that I set out to do was to try and find a logical explanation for those experiences I had had and was continuiing to have even after I left! Another aspect of these experiences I forgot to mention was that I would hear also either a growl or even a voice insulting me and it seemed like it was coming from something whispering in my ear right next to me. These were very frightening occurrences and so I decided to dig a little deeper to find out if these kinds of things happened anywhere else or had been recorded in some form in history. To my surprise my search was not in vain I was astounded to find out that what was described in ancient times as incubus and succubus spirits and the symptoms recorded in history to an attack by these spirits were very similar to what I was experiencing. You can read a little about them on Wiki here is a link to get you started: http://www.ask.com/wiki/Incubus

Incubus (male) and succubus (female) were believed to be spirits or even demons if you will that sought to have intercourse with mankind and were even believed to have the ability to impregnate women who would later give birth to a half human half spiritual being called a cambion. I personally experienced all of the symptoms described in the legends regarding a succubus. I had an erotic dream that felt very real and resulted in my having an orgasm as I slept, I have had the experience of feeling an invisible force laying on my body in the night and I was powerless to do anything physically to break free, and I had auditory experiences where sometimes it spoke to me. So after I found out all of this information I took my research to the secular realm and began looking into sleep disorders, and once again to my surprise I found one that actually explained the very so called supernatural experiences I thought I was having.

The condition is called sleep paralysis or the more severe form of the same disorder is called in some circles hallucinatory sleep paralysis, if you are interested you can read a little about it in wiki at: http://www.ask.com/wiki/Sleep_paralysis The symptoms described in the latter of the disorders were the exact same ones that I had been experiencing. This research led me later to discount the existence of Satan, demons, or malevolent forces as nothing more than like God a creation of the fertile imagination of mankind to explain those things which they could not explain.

The following is a post from my other blog of the same name, I try not to post the same things there and here but sometimes I feel a post is necessary and important that all my readers see it. I am an atheist, but I take no sides!

To all those that have subscribed to my blog and support my opinions and views I would like to thank you all, you are the reason I am motivated to express my ideas with my fellow atheists and even believers. From time to time I post on other peoples blogs and when I see them under attack  and I feel I can lend a hand with rational arguments I feel inclined to participate in the discussion at hand.

On the other hand if I feel that you are wrong about a subject of discussion; it does not matter whether you are an atheist or a believer, I will do my best to help you see the error by posting what I know to be factual. This is not just about atheists versus theists, at least I do not see it that way. This is more about what is known to be right and what is known to be wrong, it is about statements of known facts when possible and when not about speculation as to what is right and what is wrong. It is not my intention to anger my fellow atheists or make them look silly I just look at it as another opportunity for me to share with them what knowledge I may have on the subject.

If everyone agreed with what you said whether you were right or wrong then the truth of the matter is that you would never learn anything. I do not care about sides and I don't mind when someone disagrees with my findings, but if you disagree all I ask is that you provide proof of the points of discussion upon which you disagree on. And I am humble enough to accept when I am wrong given that the evidence provided is adequate enough to persuade me of that fact.

Genesis 1:26,27
26.And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27.So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

According to the Christian bible man is God's crowning achievement in all of creation, he is given power over everything on the face of the Earth and best of all unlike all other creatures created he is created in the "image of God" himself! For once I can partially agree with that assessment basing myself on a comparison of God and man as seen from the eyes of a casual observer. The Old Testament God is the most evil, cruelest and vicious animal to ever exist, but it is not his fault since in my opinion God did not create man but rather man created god in his own image. As a species we share so many common traits with this fictional depiction of man that believers like to call God, like most men this deity loves attention. Nothing gets him off more than to see humanity (that is if he existed) constantly humbling themselves to him and blowing smoke up his ass about what a great God he is.

In reference to Christianity I have heard the accusation of their being a "death cult" being thrown around, and after further thought on the matter I am beginning to think that there might be some warrant to this accusation after all. Christians relish the day when Jesus whom supposedly died around 33-35 AD depending on which sources you rely on for this type of information, will one day come back triumphantly floating on a cloud to reclaim his church (followers) and take them to heaven with him. They revere his resurrection as a victory over death, and the promise of eternal life in the presence of their god forever and ever. Honestly if I was a psychiatrist hearing a patient of mine telling me this I would have him committed on the spot and put him/her on medication for the rest of their natural born life. But for some reason when you are under this delusion you cant even see the absurdity of such beliefs. I speak from experience as a former Petecostal evangelist myself, I too remember the feeling of elation that these thoughts brought to my heart and mind.

Just this past Friday of July 23 I was in the elevator on my way out and I ran into an older hispanic gentleman that I know only as an acquaintance and in passing, after we greeted each other he stood there with this far away look on his face. Then after a brief pause he tells me that he is praparing himself, again he paused a few seconds and then the flood of insanity came rolling off of his tongue and out of his mouth. He was preparing himself for the day that his Lord would return as he had promised in the scriptures! He then invited me to enjoy some of the spiritual nectar that he is always drinking and gave me an open invitation to go to church with him. I just smiled tried my best to supress an explosion of laughter that would have been quite embarrasing for me. I am 41 years old but I have always respected my elders so I would have felt terrible if I had laughed at this poor deluded gentleman for his beliefs.

I can truly say that when I finally found the courage within myself to delve deeper into the origins of my beliefs, that I felt as if a great weight had been taken off of my shoulders. When I lost my fear of the Lord I lost all inhibitions to even question the bible itself and push myself on a search for truth with an honest heart, not biased by my former beliefs. It was a long road for me from theism to atheism, those beliefs were well entrenched in my mind so much so that they even has an influence on my behavior and manner of thought. It took me about two years to lose my fear of God and to question everything in the bible without feeling some sense of dread and foreboding.

When I hear Christians talk about their hopes and dreams that they have in their hearts for the after life I can't help but feel pity for them, but at the same time I feel sad that many of them will die that way. Extreme christians such as I was did everything and sacrificed everything in the name of God, I even lost a great job once when my boss made me choose between my church and my job. I prayed and fasted often and I preached harsh words to the church mainly, I was more patient and tolerant with the unbelievers and did my best to clear up their doubts. I sometimes fear that that same zeal I demonstrated for God could spill over into my atheism but I cannot and will not allow that. If there is one thing that I have learned from atheism is that one should question everything at all times, especially when those things have a drastic effect on our lives such as religious beliefs do.

Most fundamentalist shun the pleasures of this life for the hopes of another future life that is uncertain, they live this life for God to the best of their abilities in their quest to gain entrance into the pearly gates. I have known believers who actually would rejoice when disasters hit certain people and then attribute that to punishment from their deity for that community believing in pagan gods or voodoo etc. Fundamentalists don't care about this life, this is just a stepping stone to them towards a better and eternal life. I hope that one day they will find their way back from their delusions as I did and will see that this life is worth enjoying and has many things to offer in the now.

Matthew 10:34:
34.Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

If there is one prophecy in the bible that has come true, it is the one mentioned in Matthew 10:34. Since it's ascendancy to power Christianity has left a path of destruction littered with rivers of blood of all those that dared to oppose their beliefs, but do not think for a moment that this is unique to Christianity. Since the biblical deity called on Moses to lead his chosen people out of captivity from Egypt and once he purged his people from the undesirables which he did throughout a 40 year sojourn in the O.T. he supposedly commanded them to conquer the lands across the Red Sea or sea of Reeds since now scholars have said that the latter is a more correct translation and that the former was a mistake.

God chose Israel as his people according to Leviticus 20:26 and as is common with most cultures this theme of exclusivity has caused much bloodshed and strife. To the day Israel continues to bully the Palestinians out of their land, and what do you think is their justification for claiming that land? You guessed it, God gave it to them as an inheritance (Exodus 3:17)! This has been the main cause of religious strife in the middle east for the last two thousand plus years. Religious beliefs have been the cause of unwarranted strife and dissensions ever since man could remember. The Old Testament god was also behind all of the massacres of those inhabitants of those lands which he had promised to his people. They claimed at the edge of the sword what was not rightfully theirs because of a belief that a deity had given it to them.

This was also the beginning of religious intolerance as is stated all throughout the Old Testament. In the ten commandments the very first commandment is according to Exodus 20:3 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me.' and to reinforce this one of the first things that the Hebrews had to do when they inherited these lands that God supposedly promised them was to:' destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:14.For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God'(Exodus 34:13,14). This O.T. god according to the scriptures had chosen the Hebrew people out of all of the races upon the face of the Earth to represent him initially. It was their job as the chosen people to keep his commandments and literally cleanse the Earth of all infidels and those that opposed the Lord.

In those days there was no salvation for the rest of us it was exclusively for the Hebrews if they remained faithful to God, there was no chance given to these other foreign nations to accept and worship this so called god of gods. By not being Hebrew they were by default condemned as enemies of God and his people, this is evident as well in the story of the Exodus when it clearly says that Pharaoh could not accept the God of the Hebrews even after all he had seen because according to Exodus 11:10 it states that he did so so that he could shew his many signs and wonders before him. This evil deity of the O.T. was cruel to the utmost and as evil or even worse than any human dictator could ever hope to be.

There is an interesting tale in the book of Matthew where a Canaanite woman begged Jesus to heal her daughter who was vexed with demons and it's funny but he told her he came for the house of Israel. That is was not right to cast the bread of his children to the dogs (gentiles/ non-Jews), in essence he called all others including us (you and I dogs) if you don't believe me read it for yourself in Matthew 15:24-28. We are essentially eating from the crumbs of Gods table lol what an insult! Romans 11:11 states that through the stumbling of the Jews the gentiles have obtained salvation to make them (the Jews) jealous.

Once the Christian church obtained this so called promise of salvation they did as the Jews before them and began to build an empire based on those promises. It turned from a cultural to a religious war. This was because they hinged themselves on the O.T. verses that referred to God being a jealous god and how it was now through the new covenant a mandate to make Christianity the one and only true religion in the world. Religion has been the cause of division, dissension, war, and an innumerable number of atrocities in the name of God. But in the end it was all about political power and control, which led to the crusades and subsequent inquisitions.

Upon backward reflection, one of the things I hated most about Christianity is that it relied heavily on the blame game, for example if you went to a faith healer and you were not healed it was your fault. They always placed the blame on the believer he either was lacking in faith (Jesus loved to use this one), you had some hidden sin that you had not confessed to the Lord and asked for forgiveness for, or you had something against a fellow brother/sister of the faith, or my personal favorite one "God does things on his time and not on ours so we have to patiently wait."

The main problem I had with this is that saint or sinner most of the people that went to revivals or tent meetings seeking healing from mortal infirmities had already tried everything else. They had gone with the medical profession until their doctor told them there is nothing more that I can do for you, they had seen a spiritual healer be it a voodoo priestess or priest or some other form of natural healing otherwise known as alternative medicine. They came to those meetings fully believing with all their heart that God would hear their prayer and heal them, but in the end were disappointed. Here is another of my favorite evangelists bull shit excuses for why God did not heal you: " The Lord did not heal you because he knows that as soon as he does, you are going to go back to your old sinful ways."

I remember a church I was visiting where they had decided to close the service with a chain prayer, where everyone held the hand of the person next to them and we all prayed for the Lord to keep us, guide us, etc. I took the hand of the lady next to me and for some reason I began to mentally pray for her and her salvation and for God to have mercy and heal her. I did not know her since it was the first time according to the evangelist in charge of that service that she had come to that church. But then he did something that utterly shocked me! He said on the microphone that everyone should stretch out their hands towards her and pray that God heals her because she had Aids! I was angry that after her privately confiding in him he went and made her plight a public affair.

After the prayer was over I stood there angry at the preacher for his breach of trust, and then he stated that God had told him she was healed! The big mouthed evangelist then announced that she had a doctors appointment the next day and that she and her doctors were going to be shocked when they saw that she no longer had Aids. To make a long story short I never saw nor heard from that woman again after that affair. Some evangelist are so irresponsible with what they preach and they fill the hopeless with hope and faith and they don't realize how devastating it can be to that person when things don't work out as planned.

If you were a believer and things were not working out for you they would say that either you were no longer walking in the will of God or the good Lord was testing your faith like he did with Joseph when he was sold into slavery by his own brothers and remained a slave for seven years. But in the end he come out to be second only to the Pharaoh, and as a result of the will of God and being a faithful servant he was rewarded with great power and wealth. The biblical tale of Job is used alot to bring this out where God allowed Satan to turn Jobs world inside out just to prove to him that Job would remain faithful no matter what happend to him. According to the scriptures it's not Gods fault that we are sinners although God created us and being omniscient (all knowing) might have been able to prevent us from falling by not allowing two innocent people to be tempted in the first place.

Theologians and religious apologists like to pride themselves on the use of "reason" when it comes to determining the so called truths of their beliefs, but are they really being reasonable or logical? Let us

One of the most annoying accusations that theists make against atheists is that we are "angry at God", I personally find this accusation to be the most idiotic of any of the many senseless accusations they make. In this post I will try to articulate in words why I am an atheist and why I fight theism as I do in the simplest way possible. As many of you know I used to be a Pentecostal evangelist and as a result of my religious beliefs I was an extreme fundamentalist as well. I prayed for hours at a time, I fasted before every preaching engagement for three days, I laid hands on the sick and cast out so called demons from many. At the time I believed that I was able to do all these things through the power of the Holy Spirit which I was sure lived within me and worked through me. The people I ministered to testified of their supposed miracles that they received through my ministry and many were "saved".

When I met my current wife I was still in the ministry and I had met her through another friend from my church, she was his sister. We started a nice, simple, romantic relationship with no sex involved. Later into the relationship I left my church and began visiting her church but faced alot of discrimination on the part of her pastor who did not believe in the charismatic aspects of the Pentecostals. His church believed that the age of miracles had passed and that they were only used to establish the early church but that once that was accomplished they were no longer needed. He kept me from the pulpit and never let me preach and the one time that he did was when the church was going out to visit another church. He left me to preach to the youth group of the church and left about two elders behind, I preached and prayed for them and we all had a good time. But this discrimination was slowly dwindling my faith as well, it even spilled out into the relationship because at the same time I was in a battle with my wife's meddling mother who was always interrupting every aspect of our relationship. Before all of this I had already read the bible in its entirety and had a million questions on my mind as to why the God of the O.T. was so evil and vicious.

I have never bowed down nor backed down to anyone and have always been defiant, I don't take kindly to dictatorships nor authorities that would try to impose themselves on my way of life. I personally feel that everyone can live a happy and fruitful life as long as what we do does not harm anyone nor anything, I am pro-choice because I believe that a woman has the right to do with her body as she wishes. I am for gay marriage because I don't think anyone has a right to tell you who you should love and go to bed with as long as they are both of legal age and not a relative. I hate drugs but hey if that is what you want to do with you life then have at it, everyone chooses and makes his own path in this life and no one has the right to tell you what you should or shouldn't do. In some cases I do shun drug use, for instance when it leads the user to commit crimes in order to support his/her drug habit, in those cases they are harming thier fellow man and society as a whole.

When I began to rebel against God and began to shun my personal beliefs my main motives were because I did not like what I read in the scriptures when I read the book in its entirety, and I was literally ashamed of the history of the church whose beliefs I at that time espoused wholeheartedly. Then I began reading books on comparative religion and realized that Christianity is nothing more than a conglomeration of plagiarized pre-christian myths. The first thing I did was to burn my bible as a sign of rebellion and to cut myself off from God and Christianity. I admit that I was angry at God when I first left the religion but those motives changes when I officially declared myself an atheist, this happened about three years after I left the church. I still had "the fear of the Lord" to deal with and it took me that long to get pass that.

It's been fifteen years since then and I now have lost all the remnants of religious belief and fear purged from me. I see religion for what it one of many myths that have existed throughout many cultures and since the dawn of mankind. I am not angry at God but rather at his followers who have since the foundation of the church tried to impede the progress of man on many fronts. The growth of scientific discovery was stunted due to the death penalty imposed by the church to any and all who opposed their teachings and beliefs. The church was not founded by God or the Holy Spirit but rather by the blood of the many lives they have taken through many years of tyranny and terror that they imposed upon the societies that they have encountered. I fight against Christianity when its followers try to force themselves on our society as a whole through the influencing of politics, politicians and legislators. They try to make their dogma state and federal laws in our country through their own brand of dirty politics. God does not exist therefore I am not angry at him and to fight against him would be to fight against nothing.

Recently I was reminded by a friend of my daughters something very fundamental to religious beliefs. I have always said that religious beliefs are mythological in nature and then that they are later translated into tradition. Through the transference of these beliefs from generation to generation within a society it becomes the norm to believe in what everyone else in your society accepts as true. Lest you find yourself an outsider or an outcast within your own community.

My daughters friend is a thirteen year old girl as is my youngest and we were talking about some tee shirts that we were interested in buying so I mentioned two of my favorites that I was going to purchase in the near future. One of the shirts says: There is not god damn god god dammit! And the other says: God is fake. The girls reply to this was a simple nod of the head and the words “ you are crazy” lol.

Here is a thirteen year old girl whose mom never goes to church but talks about how much she believes in God though she is not a practicing christian. In fact she drinks heavily and does drugs and has several relationships with at least two men at once. Of course one man does not know about the existence of the other.

Society in general; especially our society has espoused the christian faith and has incorporated it into our government although in a very subtle manner. Our presidents talk about God he is in our court rooms, on our currency, and even in our pledge of allegiance! The church has been trying to force the teaching creationism/intelligent design alongside that of evolution in our public schools. The growth of christianity is not due to any divine guidance at all.

It is traditions that help build a society and once the society is built its traditions and beliefs grow with it. In the case of Christianity this tradition once it was established through the help of the Roman government and through bloodshed and the edge of the sword it became a tradition as well. This tradition was and continues to be passed down from generation to generation that is why you don't need evidence to prove the veracity of Christianity. It's survival relies entirely on being passed on from one age to another.

I personally know of many people who claim to be christians and who state that they have God in their hearts and love him etc. But their personal lives are very different from what the biblical God requires, in fact I dare say that they themselves don't even know what God requires and have hardly ever read a bible in their lives. They know nothing of the origins of the gospels, who wrote them, where they came from, nor what is contained between its covers.

I have asked some of them why they believe what they do and I have gotten some very strange answers. All of the answers I have encountered are based on what they have been taught at home and even their so called experiences are entirely subjective and influenced by their beliefs. Have you ever noticed how people say that they have seen Christ in a vision he usually looks just like the modern day depictions of him? The long hair, mustache, beard, and white robe? The funny thing is that no one ever knew what he looked like. During his lifetime no one thought to sketch him or make a crude painting etc. This is evident here: http://www.religionfacts.com/jesus/image_gallery.htm

This just goes to show that you believe what you are taught and the experiences that you have follow those patterns. To you Jesus may look like the traditional pictures of him depict but to someone else he may look like Ronald McDonald if that is what his culture taught him to believe.

What is indoctrination and how is this relevant to the teachings of religious beliefs or other superstitions? Let's first begin by defining indoctrination in its proper context as is relative to this post; according to wikipedia indoctrination is the following: Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology (see doctrine).[1] It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned. In this definition there is one very vital word that sticks out and that is to inculcate, According to my sage dictionary it means: to teach and impress by frequent repetition and admonition.

Now let's put this into perspective as it applies to religious beliefs. As I stated in my previous post religious beliefs are taught, and not only are they taught they are passed down from generation to generation within a society. What is being taught? The former superstitions of ones ancient ancestors before they even understood what science was and how the world and particularly nature functioned. God was created in the imagination of a primitive mind with limited understanding and resources about the various phenomena of nature.

Roman and Greek mythology are the perfect examples of this premise in that their deities all were named for various functions of nature and human sentiments. Zeus was the god of lightning, Poseidon the god of the seas, Eros the god of love or cupid etc. There pretty much was a god representing every aspect of nature and human sentiments. Religious beliefs were all by definition superstitions according to the Webster dictionary: 1 a : a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation b : an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition
2 : a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary

Notice that in this definition two concepts stand out as being the result of superstitions; ignorance, and fear of the unknown.

One of the things I find funny about Christianity is their so called claim that man has free will. But I have to question this so called free will based on my understanding of it. Man since his "creation" was given free will to enable him to choose between obeying God his creator or rebelling against him by not subjecting yourself to his will. From a secular perspective free will means to me that you basically can do with your life what you wish.

Of course I believe that certain things in life have consequences that can be detrimental to you in the future, but just living a good and decent life should not be one of those things that should warrant punishment. The bible teaches that mankind is sinful and always drawn to those things that are evil and away from those things that are good. Romans 3:23 states that we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

This is not true free will because it is linked to your obeying and living a life that is pleasing to the Lord. It's more like conditional will because you don't have many choices. And the wrong choice, in this case living your life your way will result in you being condemned eternally. For this cruel imaginary God the only way to guarantee yourself a place in his heaven is if you agree to stroke is over bloated ego.

If you live a good life and never do anyone any harm according to the bible you will still earn yourself a place in hell because you did not waste your life stroking God's ego. He loves it when you tell him how great he is and remind him how powerful and merciful he is. So by rejecting a belief in God you offend him so greatly that he needs to punish you forever. Ephesians 2:8,9 8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:9Not of works, lest any man should boast.

The Christian idea of free will is a joke and not even real free will, once again the bible is a lie. The only way to salvation is to accept Jesus as your lord and savior and to then try to live a life that is pleasing to God, and don't forget to pray daily and tell him what a great and wonderful God he really is because if you don't blow smoke up his ass and show him some gratitude for saving you you might make him angry.

Previously in one of my earlier posts I said that believers of any religion were literally blinded by faith, I even stated that the reason they could not see reason was because they were seeing through the lens of faith. Faith in and of itself is blind, it does not require logic nor reason but rather just complete acceptance of the concepts and ideas presented to you. It's ironic that in Mark 10:15:
15"Truly I say to you, (A)whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all."  (New American Standard Bible)
The other translations pretty much say the same thing. The irony is that a child is young and  as we like to say his/her mind is like a sponge, they learn quickly and pretty much will believe anything. Most kids if taught at an early age will believe in Santa Clause, the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, etc. etc. Adults are asked to go  back to that child like faith, to accept the absurd tales of the bible with meekness.

Mankind have always created mythological tales to explain things they could not in their time comprehend history teaches us these things, most or even all cultures have some form of religion whether it's the worship of one or many deities, the worship of nature, the stars, the sun, etc.etc. Christianity is not the exception to the rule it is in my opinion just one more of the many inventions of mankind to explain or in this case to foster the hope of eternal life where there would be no more pain nor sorrow. Christianity talks of redemption with its deity of choice and with its believers obtaining a place with this deity in a future life after this present life. Man has always been searching for the so called fountain of youth, they are seeking the means to defeat death and live forever. Science does not provide that for them nor can ever provide that in the sense that not only will you live forever but you will get to see loved ones that have passed away before you once again.

Only through the eyes of faith can you or anyone accept the belief in a mythical man being born of a virgin, rising from the dead after three days in the tomb, ascending to heaven with the hopes of him coming  back sometime in the near future. It's even more incredible that it's been over 2,000 years and although he has yet to come floating back down to Earth in a cloud of glory that he even still has a following as large as he does. Apparently the only thing faith does is provide false hopes in a false doctrine based on a deity that does not nor has ever existed. Looking at Christianity or any religion involving dieties from the outside looking in it is not hard to see how preposterous these beliefs really are. Apologists work hard to try to rationalize that nonsense that is religious beliefs and practices, here is a question for my theist friends; what is the difference between believing in the power of a rabbits foot and believing in the power of the cross for example? I see no difference, they are both a talisman with alleged power in the one case to attract luck and in the other to keep God near to your heart, some believe that wearing a crucifix will keep them safe and that God will watch over them a little more intently if they do so.

There is no rationality in religious beliefs, they require you to suspend your reason despite how unreasonable the claims of your beliefs may be. The bible makes many promises that fill those longings of man. Eternal life, live in peace, see loved ones from your past, etc. The bible basically fills a void in man that is not due to his longing for God but for his longing to live all those things that the bible promises to those that are faithful. Although these promises are completely fictitious and false people continue to hope beyond reason and all logic. Knowing all of the things I know now about religions I could never go back to worshiping God, I feel that those beliefs are from a more primitive age and mindset. I have no bitterness towards this fictional god, I just cannot stand to hear otherwise rational people trying to make sense of nonsense.

This is going to be a narrative in my own words of how I went from being a Pentecostal evangelist to an atheist. This time I plan to tell my whole story and the road that I traveled both in a literal and a spiritual sense to get to where I am now. I think this is going to take several posts so I will break this up into parts that at this time I don't know how many or how few those parts will be comprised of. Every day or sometimes every other day I will post a new part to this story so come back often. In this first post I will try to give you a little background as to where I am from and what sort of family values and upbringing I was exposed to. Then I will go into how I played my first active role in becoming a Christian and where that led me, so let's get started.

I am of Puerto Rican decent, both my parents are natives of the island of Puerto Rico but I was born here in Brooklyn, N.Y. If you are not familiar with the hispanic culture one thing that does stand out is that it is rich with religious beliefs of all sorts, and even has lots of superstitious beliefs combined. I did not meet my father till I was about age 18 so basically my mother brought me up for most of my childhood, earlier than that I was in foster care. One of the things my mother always instilled in me was that the Pentecostal church was the true church of God and that all the other churches failed on many fronts. Although my mother never was a practicing Christian and knew very little about the

The church that my friend Michael had taken me to was called 'The New Testament Church' and I immediately took a liking to it, the people were of various ethnic backgrounds and cultures and they were all in all very warm and friendly. My first day there was when I met what at the time I thought was the most amazing man I have ever met, his name was brother Carland and he was the pastor of the church. This man lived, ate, and slept Jesus and it was quite evident to anyone who met him that he was completely devoted to his church and his ministry. I remember on those nights when I would miss service he would either call me the next day or show up by surprise to see why I had not attended the service of the previous evening. Another thing he did was that if you were having troubles at home it did not matter what day or time you called him he would go out of his way to come see you and pray with you and your family if necessary.

I recall that about the second week of my attending that church there was one particular night when the Holy Spirit seem to be overflowing and God seemed to be pouring out his Spirit and gifts to those that did not previously have them. The church was in literal pandemonium as people danced in the Spirit, spoke new tongues for the first time, received new gifts from the Lord, and those that were bound by dark forces were apparently being set free in masses. The pastor called me up to the altar and said to me that God had told him that I was going to be used greatly and that I would be a powerhouse for the Lord and that God wanted him to baptize me that very night! After the service they took me upstairs to the "faith home" this is where all the senior ministers that were single lived along with the pastor, they brought a couple of witnesses from the service and they filled a bath tub with water and baptized me on the spot! I remember that when I ascended towards the surface of the water and broke through I felt like I was floating on air. I was euphoric for about two hours and could not stop speaking in tongues for about one hour, I was allowed to spend that night but I could not sleep. I spent the night silently praying and praising the Lord for all the blessings I had received on that night.

After that series of events I began to have a recurring dream that often came as I was between half awake and half asleep and my mind at these times could not differentiate from what was real and what was imaginary. I dreamed that I saw Jesus floating down into my room and he always appeared with snakes at his feet, I asked him what should I do? And he said "rebuke them in my name" and when I did they would always disappear. During those days I prayed and fasted often and was completely devoted to being as useful to the Lord as I could possibly be. I also had dreams where I saw myself ascending to heaven and every time I had this dream I was moving higher and higher than on the previous dreams. I began to experience new things spiritually and it was not long before I was displaying new gifts of the spirit in my own evangelical ministry. The new gifts came in the following order: first was the gifts of diverse tongues, the gift of faith, the gift of discerning of spirits, and finally the gift of prophecy. I was still a very young Christian and was growing at a fast pace. I was as fanatical as you can imagine, I knew most of the bible by rote and took it quite literally. By this time I had learned what I termed "power scriptures" that reaffirmed a believers authority in Christ. I employed the bible verses in the many exorcisms I performed during the early part of my ministry.

Our exorcisms were quite different from the practice of the Catholics, we believed in using the spoken word in an authoritative manner and employing the bible verses as the sword of the Spirit as commanded in the scriptures. I personally was on a mission to duplicate or if even possible supersede the miracles that supposedly took place in the New Testament. I followed Ephesians 6: 10-20 literally in my ministry and it always seemed to work. This was the first time I was in church because after about two years I back slid into apostasy, but even then I retained my fear of the Lord and he was as real to me then as when I was devoted to his cause.

As a member of the 'New Testament Church' I quickly began to rise up in the ranks as one of the congregations most spiritually gifted and talented youths. I joined the youth association of that church and I remember that every Wednesday we would meet up and go witnessing for at least four hours handing out tracts and ministering to the public. In essence we were out proselytizing, but the goal at least for me was not just to bring more people into the church but rather to lead as many souls to salvation as I could.

During this time I had one particularly touching experience that stays with me to this day. I was out witnessing with a group of youths one evening and they were running down the street handing out tracts to anyone that would accept them. I noticed that they had ran by a homeless man that was

It was about 1985 when I back slid from the church and my Christian ways, I had been in the church for about a year in a half. At the same time it was a tough year in a half for me personally, so much so that I found it impossible to serve God and deal with my personal issues all at once. I had made an oath to myself in those days that if I can't serve the Lord one hundred percent then I would not serve him at all. It would not be until 1990 till I came back to the ways of God and began to serve him and returned to the church once again on a mission and on fire for God.

I had gone to the Park one afternoon a few blocks away from my house and all of a sudden this van pulls up. Out came the spanish Pentecostals with mics and speakers etc. and within a few minutes of their arrival they were preaching and those that came along were handing out bible tracts to everyone around. I sat there and listened to the evangelist preach his message and when he made the altar call I responded, but my only intention was to recieve some prayer. Then as he prayed for me he stopped and told me that God had revealed to him that he wanted me to accept him then and there and that I should testify. I did as I was told and then after the street service was over the evangelist invited me to their next church service.

That day I arrived home from that service and told my mother that I had accepted the Lord back into my life and that I would be attending church very soon. I went straight to the garbage can and reached into my pocket and pulled out the pack of cigarettes I had there and tossed them in the can. As I did so I recall saying to myself : "If I am going to serve the Lord, it's all or nothing". With those words began my second foray into the search for holiness and divine guidance into whatever it was that I believed God called me for. I began once again to pray fervently and constantly seeking the presence of the Lord. I delved into the scriptures daily, seeking guidance and answers to my own situation; things that spoke to my heart and at the same time seemed to speak to me directly.

I began attending church and that same evangelist that found me in the park became my closest friend and ally in the church. It wasn't long before he invited me to partake with him in his street ministry which he conducted every weekend without fail. We would preach in two different sections of Brooklyn, NY on Saturdays and Sundays looking for the lost souls of the world and hoping to lead them into the light of Christ. It also wasn't long before I was back at it casting out demons and praying for the sick and watching people pass out to my own amazement just by a mere touch of my hand or stare. I had matured this time much more than when I was in high school so I was a much more effective evangelist my second time around.

Within a year I was already preaching in many hispanic churches in the community, and often would get invites to partake in outdoor tent revivals. Sometimes I preached or when my partner in the ministry preached in Spanish I would serve as his interpreter in English. With our combined efforts we were bringing in new church members every week and our congregation began to grow quite fast. I went on like this for about 3 years and then came two events that became to turning point in my life that led me to once again doubt the veracity of scripture and even the very existence of God! On my next post I will go into this in depth so I will see you all then.

I remember one day as I was sitting in church our pastor made the suggestion that we all read thebible in its entirety at least once in our lifetime; the purpose of it was so that we as Christians can see Gods plans as they unfolded throughout time. I took this challenge on very seriously, and when I finally got around to doing it what I discovered shocked me. I believed in a god who was our creator, who loved us intensely, who took care of us, that guided us in the spirit as well as in our everyday lives, but that was not the god I found in the bible. The O.T. God was cruel and evil in so many ways, he was unforgiving and even tyrannical. It even said in Genesis 6: 6-7 'And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.' (KJV)

The straw that broke the camels back for me once and for all and finally gave me that last impetus to abandon my faith happened in one of my churches seminary

classes. I had been attending seminary and was very excited to see in our text book that we would soon be talking about the theory of evolution, but when that day came something surprising happened that upset me a great deal. In fact there were two things that happened to me while I was at seminary that infuriated me beyond measure.

The first and most insignificant incident was that we had a student in our class; a man who was at the time in his late thirties. He basically cheated his way through the entire year by various means, our tests were pretty simple the instructor used to give us an outline of what we needed to know for the test and on test day you just had to put it on paper. What irritated me about the fact that this man was cheating through seminary was that he outwardly projected the appearance of an upright and honest Christian, and instead here he was acting like a sheep in wolfs clothing. He had all of the elders of the church fooled with his charade of holiness and even though he was not a minister he was often allowed to sit on the altar with the rest of the ministers and elders of the church throughout the service. One day myself and a couple of other students brought this problem to the instructor of the class privately, it was a problem because he was the number one student because of his cheating, he always got one hundred on every exam.

What the instructor did shocked us all! He literally said "leave it in the hands of the Lord" and that was the end of it. He did not privately approach him or chastise him for it, in fact he did nothing at all. At the end of the school year during the graduation ceremony I ended up being the number two student of the class and the cheater ended up being the outstanding student of the year. I went home and tore my diploma and was at this time seriously considering never going back to my home church again, but I didn't and I stuck it out a little longer.

The second and most significant event that pushed me closer to leaving was when we finally reached the chapter on alternative theories of creation, I had been anticipating this for most of the year but my excitement that day was short lived. When the instructor came to the theory of evolution a big wide grin came upon his face, he had that look of mockery in his eyes. With that he looked up at the class and said "and finally we've come to the theory of evolution now know that I am a son of God so if you want to believe that you came from a monkey then feel free to do so". He laughed along with the entire class, I was the only one that was not laughing and then he skipped the chapter altogether.

One thing I can say about myself is that I have always been a studious individual, I love learning all kinds of things on all types of subjects. When I was a believer I used to study other religious books from their source materials in order to effectively refute them. I learned about the Jehovah's witnesses from their book 'Reasoning through the scriptures', I read the book of Mormon etc etc. once I took that challenge of reading the bible in its entirety I ended up reading the entire bible four times! I read it 3 times in English and once in Spanish just comparing the two languages I saw many differences in interpretation. As an atheist I have read books on atheism and I tend to favor the classics, but I have also been very interested in evolution and have read most of Richard Dawkins books on the matter and several other authors. I defend my unbelief as effectively as I defended Christianity and have been very direct with anyone who asks me about my religious beliefs or lack thereof.

After having officially left the church I still did not consider myself an atheist, my search for God had ended but now I was on a completely different mission. I now had to find logical explanations for the various experiences I had as an evangelist and had witnessed in my ministry. So I started from what I thought was the most logical place, I began reading books on psychiatry and psychology. That later led me into studying traditions and mythology and eventually I ended up trying to explain each and every experience that at one time I had deemed supernatural. I had a lot of questions and needed answers so I began to read as objectively as possible everything I could get my hands on that would help me explain away (debunk) most of what I had seen as an evangelist.

One of the many things I found most annoying was that my ministry partner used a lot of fear tactics to scare people into converting to fundamentalist Christianity. For example he tended to believe that all sickness was as a result of the devil, or a consequence of your disobedience to God. I recall one particular day when we were out preaching in the streets that he called a woman forward out of the crowd. He stared into her eyes intently and told her that there was a "spirit of Aids" standing behind her and it was itching to get in, but if she gave her life to Christ right then and there that she would be saved from contracting that disease. He pretty much demonized every natural disease or disorder and used that methodology to obtain converts. Honestly I don't know if he did that intentionally or whether he did it unconsciously and actually believed what he was telling these people, but somehow deep inside I thought it was wrong in so many ways.

After having left the church I realized that Christianity as a whole is fear based and also one big self imposed guilt trip for those who choose to subscribe to those beliefs, this was one of the first things I argued against when I first began refuting Christian theology. Think about it for a minute, about 7,000 years ago Adam and Eve disobeyed Gods command to not eat of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil for in the day that they did so they would surely die Genesis 2:16,17. The rest of the story is told in Genesis 3 and according to Christianity this led to the fall of mankind because sin had been introduced in the world. God being pure and sinless etc. could not tolerate sin and so separated himself from mankind. He threw the couple out of the garden of Eden and imposed some curses upon all of mankind. I personally take issue with this matter since I don't like the idea of us vicariously being accused for something we had nothing to do with in the first place.

God goes on to later deliver the Hebrews from Egypt and establish his laws that also entailed was in which mankind can still approach him through a system of animal sacrifices to atone for the sins of the people, individuals, and tribes. This was supposed to be a type of what Christ was later to achieve through his death and resurrection on the cross. And as a result of it we are supposed to be forever grateful to God through our service and acceptance of Christ as our Lord and savior. This deity is not much different from the many deities throughout history who craved blood as a means of atonement or to appease an angry god and to stay his wrath from coming down upon humanity. 'And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.' Hebrews 9:22

What many Christians don't know is that on two occasions God did in the one case try one of his servants by asking for a blood sacrifice and on another occasion he accepted a blood sacrifice from a human who had promised him one. These tales can be found in the bible you can read about Abraham's test of faith where God asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac in Genesis chapter 22. And you can read about how Jephthah sacrificed his daughter to the Lord in Judges 11:30-39 apologists have tried hard to explain this text without Jephthah actually sacrificing his daughter but the text is in and of itself pretty clear that he did so "as he had vowed". And not to mention the ultimate human sacrifice of Christ himself. Vicarious suffering in my view is ridiculous and cruel considering that it punishes the innocent for the sinners in Gods eyes. If you commit a crime the only one who should be held responsible for that crime is you and only you. You can't execute a man for instance for a crime committed by his friend or his brother.

Christians are constantly degrading themselves for the sake of their imaginary deity, they don't value life as us atheists do and apparently have no self esteem. To them self esteem is arrogance and pride. It irritates me to no end when I hear Christians saying that they are nothing without God, that is a load of bullshit if you would just let God go and live your life productively and enjoy everything it has to offer. God is nothing more than an inhibitor, living life under his rule is just as bad as living under tyranny. I choose life, freedom, and the right to enjoy myself and those I love.

The one thing I can say about my Christian experience was that at the time I wholeheartedly believed everything I learned and preached about, I was one hundred percent honest and sure of my convictions as a believer. Towards the last year of my ministry it seemed that almost every time I met a so called prophet of the Lord whether it was at a church gathering or while visiting another church of the same denomination they would always tell me that God wanted me to start praying for the sick. I was asked repeatably by many about why I was holding back since it was obvious that God had given me the gift of divine healing. I at times would go to church and when they would pray for me at the altar they would anoint my hands with oil and time and again proclaim that I had the gift of healing. People that have heard me preach at my home church and at other churches I had preached at would claim healings to which I never had any evidence of. Even as a believer I was very skeptical when it came to the topic of faith healing.

It was ironic that this was going on in my life because when I would be at home late at night in the solitude of my room, I would be on bended knee praying to God and telling him that I was willing to do anything for him including die if need be. But the one thing I would not and could not do in good conscience was involve myself in faith healing and implementing that into my ministry. You might say I was being rebellious but the truth is that I did not want to be associated with the many charlatans in the field of faith healing, I did not want to be counted among the scam artists out there such as Benny Hinn, R.W. Shambach, Robert Tilton, Morris Cerullo, and the list goes on and on. I was serious about my service to the Lord, my ministry for the Lord meant everything to me.

I was not one to jump for joy when someone I did not know would climb the altar to testify how God had healed him/ her from Aids or some other mortal disease or ailment and I felt I was right by doing so. In fact I had the bible scripture to back me up regarding this matter: 18And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him.19Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. Mark 5:18,19 This tale tells of a man possessed of a legion of demons who lived in the tombs and would constantly hurt himself and run around howling and acting like a mad man, but when he saw Jesus he approached him and the Lord cast the demons out of him. Notice when he was healed he wanted to follow Jesus but instead Jesus told him to go to home and to his friends for the sole purpose of them seeing what God had done for him.

Simply put, if I did not know you your testimony was worthless to me unless you had adequate evidence that you were in fact at the advance stages of Aids. Evidence to me in those days would have been detailed medical records of your diagnosis from beginning to end, maybe some pics of yourself with all the tell tale signs of the disease such as purple spots and being extremely skinny and ill. But as far as your word goes it meant squat to me, since I knew that there were so many out there trying to make a name for themselves in the church with the ultimate goal being to use that as an impetus to prosperity.

I actually knew a man in our church who died from a hernia!! He was afraid to get surgery for it and so it ballooned out of proportion and popped, the whole time when he was asked about it he claimed that he knew God would heal him. As a result of his illness he did not smell to good either, but all in all he was a good man. He made a living selling hot dogs and lived alone. Many have died awaiting a miracle or believing that they have received one from some charlatan preacher telling them that they were healed.My own step father almost died from angina a couple of years earlier because my ministry partner prayed for him and told him to throw away his heart medication that God had healed him. Luckily for him my mother held onto his meds, he only lasted three days before he had to take them again. Faith healing should be labeled faith killing and now as then I despise the practice of it and pity those that fall prey to its lies that may lead to even death.

There are many reasons why I left the faith, but one of the key reasons was that I had read the bible. There is an ongoing joke among atheists that states 'How do you convert a theist into an atheist? And the answer is that you should let him read the bible.' Regardless of context in the numerous cases of cruelty perpetrated by the biblical God against humanity, I found it hard for me to believe in him and found it more reasonable to accept that natural disasters for instance or birth defects are natural occurrences rather than acts of God.

One of the many things I found irritating about being a Christian is that you have to constantly defend the actions of your god at the expense of degrading yourself. We are supposed to be thankful to God everyday for giving us life and sacrificing his son/his self for mankind so that we can have eternal life in some imagined paradise up in the sky. The very idea of some creative being living in the sky or some other dimension, watching us, and dictating how things play out in every single individuals life is outright ludicrous. I've always said that when someone is praying he is supposed to be talking with God but when someone is talking to himself or some imagined person or friend he is considered mentally ill. I personally don't see any difference between the two acts.

The idea of people in a church singing to the imagined guy in the sky with arms raised above their heads jumping and carrying on is sad and at the same time looks foolish. I tend to pity Christians in general and Islamist who have to bow their heads in submission and pray 5 times a day facing the East etc. I personally think that anyone how does these things is mentally insane and completely deluded and out of touch with reality.

Life in general is what it is and I don't see us as greater than the animals, I see us as equal with them. We are all mortals and we have an expiration date that comes with our life, the thing is we don't know when that is. Some die at birth or in the womb, while others live to be a ripe old age and get to experience a lot of the things that life has to offer. Why waste your life praying to a deity that there is no evidence even exists? Why waste your time putting everything into the service of this deity and even sacrificing your life and what you want to do in exchange for your perceived idea of what this deity wants and desires?

In fact, what does this deity want and desire? Well, if you read your bible it seems that he can't get enough of worship and praise. He thrives on your submission to him and your complete obedience to him. He likes constantly reminding you that if it were not for his mercy you would not even be alive or spared his torment at the place he himself has made called hell after you die. I personally don't take too kindly to threats so the old torment after death thing does not sit well with me, and submission to an imagined authority fits in that same category.

One of the things I find most fascinating about life is its randomness and unpredictability, we are here today and may be gone a minute from now. That is why I live my life to the fullest each and everyday, without God life just makes so much more sense to me than if there were a god at all. I don't need to pray, I have no need for worship, I am content to enjoy the mystery and wonder that is life till it's my turn to check out.

If there is one thing that I have learned from theism is that it relies on the ignorance of its followers. The whole idea of faith over reason is a major component of theistic beliefs, faith requires that you accept theistic principles without question. Theists have come up with apologetics out of necessity to justify their beliefs to skeptics. If you analyze for instance the bible and its various themes you will see them for the myths that they are, theist themselves admit that the bible makes no sense if you try to interpret it in a literal manner.

So to counter this problem the church has come up with several means of interpreting scripture, there is the literal, allegorical, and historical. Generally when a text either contradicts known facts and scientific discoveries then the text is not meant to be taken literally, it is mean to be interpreted allegorically. If a text is not too improbable then it is to be taken literally, but if it can be confirmed through secular means by historians then it can be interpreted as an historical document.

Christians go out of their way to reconcile the bible and their silly beliefs to the modern world and modern discoveries. They grasp at straws to try to rescue their beliefs from sounding and looking silly from a logical perspective. One of the most common arguments is that of the seven days of creation. Some branches of theism say that it was indeed a literal seven days of creation, but others state that it was not meant to be interpreted as a literal seven days. I believe this latter interpretation is due to the pressure coming from the scientific community that states that the world is not seven thousand years old but rather 4.5 billion years old. In order to bring scripture inline with this discrepancy theists have come up with the allegorical interpretation that basically states that it's not a literal seven days but rather an indeterminate amount of time.

Between verses one and two of chapter 1 of Genesis some christians have inserted this undetermined amount of time to fill in this discrepancy between science and religion. It seems that every time that biblical interpretations come into conflict with scientific discoveries the theists must then reinterpret their holy texts to make them agree with science. I personally as a theist had many questions regarding my beliefs, and when I came across something in the bible that did not quite make sense I then had to try to make sense of it. I would read books on biblical exegesis and hermeneutics to try and see the various viewpoints that the so called church scholars would come up with.

Science on more than one occasion has proven theology wrong and has time and time again shown how false their beliefs are and how their deity God did not and could not have inspired the bible. The most frustrating thing was when you went to those that were supposed to help you with these issues (church elders) you would get some silly replies about doubt and how in the end times God would make all these things known to us and not to worry about those things now. I was not satisfied with that answer, and even to this day my curiosity pushes me to delve even further in to those things that grab my attention. Religion no longer serves as a stimulus for intellectual pursuit, I see it for what it is: a myth.

When I left the church there were two things that absolutely turned me off to the prospect of ever returning. I have always referred to Christians as hypocrites and even to this day I continue to do so, because of their beliefs they seem to be a part of an exclusive club. When I left the church I had contact with one or two of my friends that had visited me once afterward, but that was the last time I ever heard of them. As soon as I left everyone who I at one time called a friend and a brother in Christ turned their backs on me and did not even care to visit or call me to inquire why I had left. It was as if they never knew me, I followed suit and did not bother to contact anyone as well. I had so many questions and doubts, I was filled with fear regarding the consequences of my actions at the time.

Needless to say those fears were unfounded but I did not know this till I had done my research and had come to the conclusion that there simply was no God. It's funny but there are so many aspects of the Christian faith that are outright ridiculous and one of them was actually illustrated in the movie 'Bruce Almighty' with Jim Carrey in the starring role. When God handed his powers over to him and he began to hear prayers from the faithful in his head it was driving him crazy so he thought that he would devise a way to store and catalog those prayers. He thought about post its and the room including him were instantly flooded with post its, then he devised a computer system to receive prayers as emails but he was receiving email by the millions every minute. The idea of some deity sitting up in his heavenly throne, watching everyone and everything that is going on in this Earth is beyond ludicrous.

The idea of prayer is silly and seems more like an exercise in futility, the thought of a god coming to Earth and dying on a cross to redeem mankind from the mess that he himself created is insane. Jesus died and came back from the dead three days later and ascended into heaven, he was supposedly seen by over 500 people yet no one thought to write about this amazing event outside of the scriptures. One of the things I did as a sign of rebellion was to burn my bible to ashes, I had made a conscious decision that I would no longer rely on an ancient book of myths and fairy tales to guide my life. Once I read the bible in its entirety I became disgusted with this God it spoke of, and I would rather die than serve him. Another thing I discovered is that if you read the bible you will notice that a lot of the language regarding the relationship with God and man is similar to that used by slave owners. Christians are called servants of the Lord, they refer to their deity as their lord and master, he dictates and you are to obey it is as simple as that. You don't really have free will when you serve the Lord since one of the first things you have to do is to submit your will to the will of your "creator".

Some questions you might have about God are taboo and border on you committing the horrible sin of blasphemy for simply doubting certain things about him, you are not allowed to question his rule or to criticize his actions as I have and always do. You are always told in church how great God is and how just he is but you are never told about the millions of people that he killed in the bible or had his so called "chosen people" kill for him. You are not told how his people owned slaves and bought and sold them, or how they would invade towns and cities and kill all the men, women, and at times male children and were instructed to keep the virgin women as servants to themselves.

7.And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males. 9.And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods. 17.Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.18.But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. Numbers 31:7,9,17,18. (KJV)

It was things like this that pushed me further away from God and even if he did exist I would not serve such a tyrant, I would gladly take my place in hell before I bow down to this beast. No matter how you spin some of the tales in the bible there is nothing just about this god.

After having left the church one of the things I found most amazing were the stories that were circulating around the church about me, I left and pretty much nothing changed about me except that I had eliminated God from my life. I continued doing what I always was doing which was basically taking care of my wife and family and working for a living, I never was into the street scene or hanging out or doing drugs or other illicit activities. My only vice that I still have till this day is beer, I enjoy my occasional beer from time to time at home with my wife. Yet some that knew me, specifically my brother in law said that I started drinking since I left the faith not knowing that I have been drinking beer since my last two years of high school.

When I joined the church of course I stopped drinking and