Christianity

Is it Really Deconversion?

/ Jim / 1 Comment

 

 

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I’ve never really cared for the word, deconversion. The actual meaning of the word, as a noun, is that it’s a return, from some religious belief to a previous belief or none at all.  For many, if not most atheists I know, they never had a chance to deconvert, because they never converted to their religious belief initially. Think about it. A child of parents from any religion automatically raise them to believe what those parents believe. Small children always, at least in my experience, want to please their parents, so it’s easy for them to take on those characteristics the parents indoctrinate them with, whether good or bad.

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Did Paul Preach the Jesus of the Gospels?

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The Apostle Paul is the most prolific writer in the Christian New Testament. He is credited with with thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the canon. Unfortunately, only 7 of those ( I Thessalonians, Galatians, I Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon,  II Corinthians,  Romans) are considered authentic, the remainder are now placed in the category of pseudepigrapha , epistles written in Pauls name, by others. All of the letters considered to be authentic, were written sometime between 50-57 C.E., the remainder in question as to the actually dates is not specifically known, but it’s thought for instance that II Thessalonians may have been penned as late as 115 CE.

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If You Can’t Prove It, It’s Not History

/ Jim / 3 Comments

 

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I wrote recently about a very popular mini-series that’s being shown on The History Channel leading up to the Easter holiday: Jesus: His Life . I received a little blowback from some people even though overall I praised the show for it’s production value but stated that this should not be considered history. This is simply a retelling of a story, written by several anonymous authors, that weren’t witnesses to any of what they wrote about at the time. The main problem I had with the series, was that it was presented on a channel called History. There really isn’t any way that this could even remotely be called history, because there’s no historical basis for it at all.

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The Origin of Easter

/ Jim / 1 Comment

 

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Is Easter actually a pagan celebration appropriated by Christians? There’s a lot of debate about that idea,  but there’s an undeniable fact that just as the Christmas holiday is clearly expropriated from the pagan winter solstice celebrations, it does make sense that the same would occur in the spring, which was a time of renewal for ancient peoples. The celebration of the renewal of a god, may have been a way to move the populace away from their spring fertility feasts, to the more sardonic dead man rising from the grave worship.

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Is America a “Christian Nation”?

/ Jim / 3 Comments

 

 

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I saw something interesting on social media. American Atheists is in the middle of their annual conference and there was a tweet that mentioned a chant by attendees claiming that “America is NOT a Christian Nation!”. Is that true? I think it’s easy to pretend we’re not, and maybe people attending that conference think that the rise of the religiously unaffiliated indicate that America isn’t a Christian nation. that poll however, has less to do with belief in general than it does as to the state of the Christian religion in America.

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Is The Easter Story True?

/ Jim / 6 Comments

 

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Is the Easter story true? Think about it for a moment because it’s the basis of a religion that claims 1.8 billion adherents around the world.  Of course all we have to base the claim upon  are stories written by unknown authors, long after the supposed event occurred. Yet for two millennia, people have recited this story as fact. What should any of us  take from this?  Should it be that we accept the story as true simply because it has survived for so long or may we question it, because those that wrote about it were not actual witnesses?

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Is Christianity Monotheist?

/ Jim / 2 Comments

 

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I’m always amazed when I have a discussion with a Christian how they justify their belief. There is actually no historical evidence for the Jesus of the New Testament, even though most scholars will tell us that there probably was a Jesus during the 1st century. It seems that his biographers enhanced his character over time to the point where the finally deified him at the council of Nicea in 325 C.E. Of course Christians say that early believers were worshipping him long before that, but there’s no textual proof of that. Not even Paul, the most prolific exigent of the New Testament, and the earliest writer known, never referred to Jesus as God.

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The Demonization of Chik-Fil-A

/ Jim / 1 Comment

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Image courtesy of Chik-Fil-A

I read recently that the City of San Antonio, Texas, have refused Chik-Fil-A  permission to open a store at their airport, citing the companys anti-LGBTQ stance and their donations to groups that are anti-LGBTQ. Buffalo Niagara Airport, more recently, denied Chik-Fil-A accomodation at their facility for the same reason. As most are aware, Chik-Fil-A is a Christian, family owned business. The question is should any business be banned from a public facility based on their religious belief? As long as they don’t directly discriminate against anyone, the answer should be no.

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God? Not So Much

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How many gods are there? Well, of course an atheist would say that number is zero, but there are those that worship a variety of deities, some, like in Hinduism, much older (depending on the scholarship) of either Judaism or of course Christianity. There are still practitioners of Zoroastrianism  in the Middle East, which is over 3,000 years old.  It seems that even in ancient Israel, the land of one god, in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, people were still worshipping other gods, as have been found in archeological excavations and described in The Bible Unearthed.

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The Requirement to Suffer

/ Jim / 3 Comments

 

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Whenever I hear or read someone, a Christian, say that we have to suffer in this life because if we suffer and still have faith, there’s a better life awaiting us. I know, like many of you, I too used to believe this nonsense but today, I just shake my head and ask the question, why? Why would a God that supposedly loves us have us go through so much travail in this life with a promise that if we pass the test, keeping our faith, we will be rewarded, later?

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