webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Feb 9, 2012, 7:44 pm
By Apostate Paul ~ You are the principal of a school. You find out that one of the fryers in the cafeteria burst into flames, spreading quickly, and the fire department is ten minutes out. It's unclear why the smoke alarms aren't working in the school, but they aren't. The fire is likely to get o...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Feb 9, 2012, 5:01 am
By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ While the Bible Belt of the South and parts of the Midwest has traditionally been the center of public piety in the US, events of the past few years have shown that no area of the country is really free of it anymore. They’re everywhere, folks, as my most recently pu...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Feb 9, 2012, 4:45 am
Paul So ~ Immanence is the opposite word for transcendence in that transcendence refers to God being beyond this reality, whereas immanence is about God being in this reality. However I want to talk about the duality of Immanence and Transcendence in terms of human values: that immanence involves l...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Feb 9, 2012, 4:33 am
By S.L. Nield ~ First of all, let me introduce myself. (Or rather reintroduce myself. I wrote my first testimony not long after turning my faith in back in 2005 on this site). My name is Sarah L Nield (Sarah) and I was born and bred and still live in one of the small market towns in the south east ...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Feb 5, 2012, 6:20 am
By Dave J ~ Many of the stories I've read online are from an older generation. Baby boomers growing up in the 50's or 60's with overbearing religious parents or grandparents. I come at atheism from a slightly different perspective. I grew up in the 90's. My parents are devout Catholics. My older si...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Feb 4, 2012, 10:06 pm
By Lynn, the Agnostic Pastor ~ We usually think of coming out of the closet in terms of the gay rights movement. But, as agnostics and atheists, we too are trapped in a closet. I really want to be out and open. My very core is one of honesty and integrity and the life I'm living now, in the clo...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Feb 4, 2012, 5:48 pm
By Valerie Tarico ~ In the storm of controversy surrounding the (pink ribbon, race for the cure) Komen Foundation’s decision to defund breast care at Planned Parenthood--and their subsequent reversal--people I call pro-birth are out in force. They talk as if they alone know what is good or, as m...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Feb 4, 2012, 10:37 am
By Carl S ~ Do not impose your prayers on others. You would object strongly if others' beliefs were given privileged starring roles over yours. Extend the same consideration to others. It is inappropriate behavior to preach sermons to those of other beliefs, and especially, non-belief, such as for ...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Feb 3, 2012, 6:31 am
By Dano ~ I believe that I have found something much better than a relationship with Bible God and his son, whom he created with a mortal woman, to be a sacrifice to himself, so that he can forgive mankind for the sins that he, programmed them to commit when he created them. Reality (Photo credit: ...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Feb 2, 2012, 6:53 am
By Jake Rhodes ~ Battle of Joshua with Amalekites by Nicolas PoussinI am perpetually amazed at the vast digital sea of information raging about in the gargantuan abyss of the internet. Somehow its sweeping currents wield a formidable capacity to drag me off into the most unexpected reading. With th...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 26, 2012, 8:55 pm
By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ "I've never understood how God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion by faith -— it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe." - Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein According to Christian theology, an invisible go...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 26, 2012, 8:48 pm
By John ~ A friend of mine once proposed to me that Disney's Snow White is the Antichrist. There you see her lying in state while the seven dwarves (who represent the seven churches) bow before her. A prince (the false prophet) comes riding up, kisses her, and restores her to life (false resurrecti...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 26, 2012, 8:31 pm
By Yak ~ Yet Another Representative of Christ Shown to Keep Toxic Secrets: http://news.yahoo.com/priest-fathered-child-removed-york-church-170202021.html The old adage that "The fish rots from the head-back" certainly proves itself to be both true and relevant on an on-going basis. Secretly fatheri...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 25, 2012, 6:03 am
By Andrea ~ Imagine that you are with your life, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, or anyone else that's close to you. You're with them on the first day of a new year. They ask you what you hope to do this year and you say ''This year I will be a blank check for you(insert their name here). You decid...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 25, 2012, 5:49 am
By Tania ~ The house is empty now. Everyone has left to go to prayer meeting. I had to go to the basement for something, and I saw one of the many God books on the desk. And I remembered that hug, that hug that reminds me that I cannot share these thoughts with my family yet – or maybe ever. It w...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 23, 2012, 10:06 pm
By Lillian ~ I come from a Catholic family and I attended Catholic schools for 13 years. I studied my catechisms, attended Church daily and on Sunday. When I was 18, I found myself pregnant by a man that I knew would not take care of me or our baby. Knowing that abortion was wrong, I stayed pregnan...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 23, 2012, 10:06 pm
By A ~ I’m facing a bit of a difficult decision with which I would appreciate the insight of the ex-Christian group. I come from a Christian family. We may not have been fundamentalist or anything, but Christianity permeated our lives as long as I can remember as a child. We went to church regula...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 23, 2012, 10:03 pm
By Carl S. ~ Several years ago, Newsweek magazine published the results of a survey asking different denomination members to define "God". Yes - that god. The definitions of "God" fell into four or five different categories. (I made a point with my wife one day that her definition of God was not th...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 23, 2012, 9:45 pm
By Klym ~ I am fairly new to the ex-xtian community, so I still struggle to explain my nonbelief to Christians. How do you reply when they give you the free will argument to explain evil? Aside from wanting to ask them if they really have two brain cells to rub together, the answer seems pretty obv...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 22, 2012, 9:54 am
By Klym ~ Ok, I just finished watching a video on Fox news about the child who "went to heaven" during an appendectomy. The family wrote a book about the child's experiences called "Heaven is Real." How can an experience like this be explained rationally? Do you think he was already indoctrinated ...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 22, 2012, 9:53 am
By Paul So ~ It is often believed among Christians that non-believers who have no religion cannot have true spirituality; the reasoning behind this is not mere bigotry, rather it is the assumption that spiritual life is wholly dependent on a relationship with God. However I want to go beyond this a...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 22, 2012, 9:44 am
By Valerie Tarico ~ One of the great ironies of American society is that most abortions in the U.S. are caused by conservative Christians. Read the statistics: Forty nine percent of pregnancies in this country are unintended, a rate that has been painfully stable for almost 30 years. Almost half ...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 21, 2012, 5:43 pm
By ToonForever ~ I saw an article on the behavior of dew drops on leaves. Image via Wikipedia It seems so very simple. My short interpretation is that the dew drop seeks a state of rest, which sends the dew to the tip of a leaf, even if doing so defies gravity. Such a tiny little natural phenomen...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 18, 2012, 7:18 am
By Paul So ~ The strange thing is that while I was born as a Christian, I was never born into a Christian family that held the attitude that once someone is a Christian, that person will always remain a Christian as a True Christian. My family was, at the very least, a little tolerant enough to con...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 18, 2012, 7:18 am
By Ashley ~ Well, I suppose in order to understand my current situation, I must give you some sort of background information. I'm 18 years old and a freshman at University. I have been raised in Christian schools, but not in a particularly Christian home. I mean, my mom is religious but does not at...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 18, 2012, 7:17 am
By Black Freethought ~ I have followed the path of reason now for about eighteen months. However I have only shared my deconversion with a few close family members. I have felt, to quote an R. Kelly song, "Trapped in the Closet." I come from a strong, close knit,christian family where I have many r...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 18, 2012, 7:17 am
By QuestioningFaith ~ I recently had an article posted where I told some of my personal experiences regarding my path to agnosticism. The article was posted at a national South African news service, and I would love all your comments regarding what I had said there. The comments from strong Chris...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 18, 2012, 7:16 am
By Valerie ~ I was born into a Christian, non-denominational family...one that is self-righteously spiritual. I thought myself to be a Christian, and even formally asked Jesus into my life when I was 11 years old. Having parents that pushed God as my ticket to heaven and an exit from Hell was the b...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 18, 2012, 6:59 am
By the ReligiousAntagonist ~ As I'm sure you're aware, I get a lot of flack from atheists saying that I go "too far" in my videos and border on exploitation. This video is kind of a fun jab centering around the "atheist tone debate" .......with the christians as the clue-less bystanders.
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 17, 2012, 9:24 pm
By Carl S ~ The label, "The New Atheists" is being batted around, sometimes derisively, sometimes with curiosity or questionably by other atheists. One new target batted around like one hitting stones with a baseball bat enjoys. Atheists aren't really new, they've been around as long as religion, p...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 17, 2012, 9:21 pm
By Eva ~ I’ve been avidly reading through a lot of posts on this site since I found it about a week ago. I am a recent exChristian, and while I relate to many posts, I also find my heart going out to many of you who have been so hurt by religion, as I also have. I have a very long and complicated...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 16, 2012, 11:18 am
By Valerie Tarico ~ Last month, the Associated Press distributed an article titled: Birth control: Lots of choices, but confusion is widespread. Good news: Even if you feel hazy or muddled right now, you likely have access to technologies your parents could only have dreamed of. Bad news: The co...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Jan 16, 2012, 11:17 am
From Joy ~ I do not know if you can help me but I have been a Christian for almost 40 years. I am currently working as a secretary of a Baptist church. I got the job by default. It began as a temporary job but then they unexpectedly fired my boss and gave me her job. I have been involved closely in...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Nov 3, 2011, 6:14 am
By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ I watched a very interesting TV program recently on the Military Channel titled, “Unsolved History: Roswell.” It dealt with three of the earliest UFO stories of the late 1940s. The show’s approach was to recreate the conditions of the original sightings as closel...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Nov 3, 2011, 5:56 am
By Donna of the blog "Humanity, My Religion" ~ “It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship.” This is what I would often be found touting, back when I was a Christian, hoping that somehow I could separate my beliefs from the term “religion,” and the putrid stench that seemed to be its ever...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 31, 2011, 6:25 am
Son of a preacher man ~ Not a single day goes by where I judge and hate myself for being a sinner. Where does this sin come from? It was taught to me when I was a child. So, who taught me this sin? well it was directly taught to me by my parents, but they couldn't have done it without the support o...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 30, 2011, 7:36 am
By x-xtian ~ I was brought up an Anglican by normal parents who go to church every Sunday but don't necessarily feel the need to give up everything for God - they just have their hour on Sunday morning and that's that. I should have stayed that way! I was a waitress at a restaurant opposite a pente...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 29, 2011, 12:05 pm
By Paul So ~ A recent article in this website criticized Annhiliationism specifically because it assumes that God’s divine retribution on people are unjust, and from there the author of the article made an analogy between God’s divine retribution and Hitler’s holocaust. While the analogy, ind...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 29, 2011, 11:47 am
By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ The Bible contains story after story involving god demanding worship and threatening – intentionally invoking fear in - those who might not worship him. Clearly, there is a very important lesson concerning fear that we should learn from the Bible. The following are j...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 27, 2011, 8:30 pm
By Carl S ~ God believers live in the world without actually seeing it, because "this world" is interpreted through the lens of superstition. There are standard answers when beliefs car-crash into reality: "We can't question the wisdom of our god, there’s a higher purpose in this; There's a reaso...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 27, 2011, 7:03 am
By Aphotic ~ From a young age my parents always took me to church. Eventually my dad stopped going because he simply didn't like it. Soon after that my mom stopped going, and it was always because of this reason or that reason, and so my sister and I stopped attending service. Image by jesuscm via ...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 26, 2011, 6:02 am
The following is a post from the blog (Why I No Longer Believe) that I've established to log my recent deconversion and the fallout thereof. By Anthony Toohey ~ One of the difficult parts of the deconversion process is talking it through with the friends you’ve had for decades of shared Christian...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 24, 2011, 1:36 am
By Dave ~ I recently adopted the skeptic’s approach to life, the universe and everything. Image by Paul Graham Raven via FlickrI had been struggling to reconcile morality (as I knew it by observation and experience) with the moral code of the evangelical Christian culture I had always identified ...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 23, 2011, 10:32 am
From A Friend ~ My friend needs help... more help than I can give. I would like to post the letter below if it is possible, maybe he will read it someday... or someone else will read it and they will reconize a friend trying to reach out. My dearest friend, When we met, you told me you where a Chr...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 22, 2011, 4:07 pm
By Justin B. ~ Recently esteemed theologian "John Stott" tragically died in August and therefore some Christians are reverently depicting him as a positive force within a religion that is filled with some pretty wretched characters like "Jerry Falwell." Admirably, John Stott did represent a more hea...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 21, 2011, 6:46 am
By Robert ~ So glad to find a site like this! My own aversion to Christianity begins like this: Jesus ruined my life when I was eleven years old... My two brothers went to a mixed senior school which happened to be a Church of England school, where they had an enjoyable time and did very well - the...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 20, 2011, 6:56 am
By Simon Gross ~ My parents are Evangelical Christians, both converted when they were around 20. They met at the same church, and Mum asked Dad to marry her because she believed God told her she should. So from the very beginning, my whole existence was predicated by these few events. I exist becau...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 18, 2011, 7:09 am
By Carl S ~ Every society has judges and tribunals to mete out justice. The World Court was established by nations for the purpose of trying and bringing to justice those guilty of crimes against humanity. Our societies demand justice. Indeed, to be HUMAN is to clamor for justice. One universally a...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 17, 2011, 1:03 pm
By Valerie Tarico ~ On reading an early draft of Trusting Doubt, which looks at my old Evangelical beliefs from my current vantage as a nontheist, one reviewer commented, “This is a very spiritual book.” What?! I thought. A part of me protested: I don’t believe in the Christian God any mo...
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webm dave posted an article on ExChristianDotNet - Encouraging ex-Christians - Oct 17, 2011, 11:35 am
By Positivist ~ I am not angry as I emerge from the debris of a super-fundamental Pentecostal charismatic Word of Faith life. The main reason for my lack of anger, I think, is that I can’t blame anyone but myself for staying tied up in this mindset as long as I did. Image via WikipediaSurfing ex-...
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