I’ll leave the site up but I don’t plan on tweeting from my BNA account or posting anymore articles. I’ve even gone to the trouble to delete some BNA accounts and disable others. Thanks to all my Twitter followers and anyone who took the time to have a conversation with me. If I get any comments to this article I may respond in 2009 but not 2010.

While this journey was educational it was also stressful and not always enjoyable. We only get this one life and I want to spend as little of it as possible on things that don’t bring happiness to me and my family.

Wish me luck and I’ll see you in the next life (that was a joke) :)

We are the infidels and infidels must be removed from the Earth. If you weren’t born in an Islamic country you’re likely an infidel to them. So much for peace when they trust a book that instructs them to kill us, however, it’s not that different than the Bible which instructs Christians to kill me because I’m an atheist.

I learned that because of this hatred of America certain people gave their lives to kill Americans. They believe they were doing God’s work and would be rewarded in heaven. But we call them crazy for taking their Bible (The Quran) too literally. These are the people that have been blamed for the attacks of 9/11. These are the people that two wars have been started over.

I was skeptical of a lot before returning to atheism, now I’m spectacle of everything and I take nothing at face value. I follow the facts, sometimes they take you where you expected and sometimes they don’t. This is one of those time they didn’t.

I started watching all these documentaries about 9/11, however, the facts they were showing me didn’t match the official government approved story. Since I would never rely solely on a single source I thought, I’ll watch them all. Here’s a brief synopsis of what I learned from each documentary.

The End of America, This movie discusses the truth about our loss of liberties do to The Patriot Act because of 9/11. If you’re willing to give up your privacy for security then 9/11 did one of the things it was intended to do. Over one million American citizens are on the American watch list for terrorism.

Terrorstorm: A History of Government Sponsored Terrorism. This documentary explores declassified events that prove our government has used Black Ops to attack its own people to sway public opinion for war. It’s happened several times and it will happen again.

Loose Change 2nd Edition. Compelling information that easily disproves the governments official explanation for 9/11 plane crashes. It shows how demolition was used to bring down the towers and building 7 that wasn’t hit by a plane.

911: Press for Truth. This documentary is not about the planes but about governments involvement with the terrorists, and it goes really deep. Rich an powerful Americans have ties to terrorists through oil. The Bush family and the Binladin family are friends.

911: In Plane Site. This documentary shows all of the proof that the official government story about 9/11 is a lie. Bush was video recorded as saying he watched the first plane hit the tower as he sat outside the classroom. How could he have seen it when it happened if it wasn’t even on the news?

National Security Alert. This documentary focuses on the official flight path of the plane that hit the Pentagon. The flight path has to be exact for the official explanation, however, every single eye witness (including government employees) claim the official flight path is very inaccurate. One Pentagon employee who was in the building when he heard an explosion said he ran out to a loading dock and saw a plane flying away from the Pentagon.

Zeitgeist Addendum. This documentary further explores and explains how our government has created a revolving door of debt.

Zeitgeist. This documentary explains who has power over you & why. It starts with religion, moves to 9/11 then on to the Federal Reserve.

Each of these documentaries carry with them enough facts to make you question the official government explanation for 9/11. What will really bother you is the lack of available information from the White House. Here’s a few important questions you won’t get answered:

1. Why did Norad stand down for almost 2 hours during the attack?

2.Why were none of the terrorists (that hijacked the planes) on the flight manifest for any of the planes they were suppose to be on?

3. Why have many of the terrorists (that hijacked the planes) shown up alive in other countries and one even did an interview on the BBC?

4. Why was no one ever prosecuted for the attacks of 9/11?

5. Why did all 3 WTC buildings fall EXACTLY like they were demolished?

6. Why was demolition grade Themite (Thermate) found under the WTC buildings?

7. Why were no planes or bodies found at either Shanksville or the Pentagon?

I have concluded that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are among the those involved with the attacks on 9/11 and with their power they made many other parts of our government complicit without their knowledge. They are domestic terrorists and should be imprisoned for the rest of their lives. Homeland Security and The Patriot Act are tools from the Bush administration that are being used to today to get around your Constitutional Rights as an American.

Watch these with your own eyes and ears and make your own conclusion, you’re not allowed to just trust me.

I wouldn’t say I’m tired of being an atheist, I’m tired of caring. I got it out of my system and I don’t feel the need to point it out. I still hate religion for the harm that it causes and the retarded decision people make based of those religions and beliefs in supernatural beings. Regardless of whether I keep writing articles I will leave all of this available to those people who are looking for answers or just exploring.

My wife is still a believer and I don’t get in the way of her teaching that stuff to our daughter. I assume when my daughter makes her own decision later in life she’ll have the capability to choose. With a religious mother and a non-religious father she sees both sides. My daughter has never read the articles on this site but I hope someday she’s find them interesting.

The name Brand New Atheist was very clever when I learned the truth and created this site. However, I’ve noticed I get treated like someone who became an atheist yesterday because of the name. I’m considering using something different in the future.

I run my own business and business has been extremely slow. I work for clients in the ad business and some of the first cuts that get made in a slow economy are ad budgets. Everything is not caught up but I assume most people who read this know what I mean. When my clients don’t work neither do I. It doesn’t bother me that much because I always assume something will be in my way of success. I just keep trying.

In 2007 my wife and I adopted my niece, we wanted to give her something we didn’t think she was going to get otherwise. After being with us for 2 years, my niece (age 15 now) left. She didn’t want to be part of our family and she wanted to go back to her grandmothers (where there are far fewer rules). We let her go back because she was going to make us miserable if we didn’t. Can you imagine the expense this experience has cost us. Fortunately our household is back to the way it was before the adoption but the expense remains. It’s always something.

I’ve had my sister-in-law engage me in religious conversation recently. The conversations have been quite nice.

My Xbox360 died from the RedRingofDeath and Sam’s Club replaced it for free even though it was 3.5 years old. That was cool. Then my wife reminded me we don’t shop at Sam’s Club or Walmart because they are horrible companies like Monsanto.

I’ve been on a food kick recently. I became a vegetarian last year (my daughter has been for 3 years) and I thought not eating meat was going to difficult. Now I find out that a large portion of the crops grown are genetically modified organisms (GMO) and they haven’t been tested properly for human consumption. Now I’m not only a vegetarian but the majority of what I eat has to be organic. As soon as I’m done writing this I’m going to watch, The Man from Earth, and I’m going to eat organic tortilla chips with organic salsa and drink my organic lemonade.

My daughter (age 12) has been rehearsing for a Narnia play for months at the Louisville Youth Theater. She has seven showings this weekend. I’m very proud of her. I’ll get to see the play on Sunday, after which we will take her out to eat and surprise her with the gift of a Nintendo Wii.

Well that’s where I’m at. Just a (mostly) normal guy trying to get by and make a better world for my daughter.

It seems to be a two part question. Almost as if you’re saying, “If I died, would you desecrate our marriage by marrying someone else?” and “If I died, would you remarry and have sex and more kids?” Oddly, these things seem important when you believe in an all powerful being that left a book behind 2000 years ago with rules on how to live your life today.

In a world where you believe in such things these can be important questions. Because to you, it says a lot about the person you’re going to marry or are married to. While I think most peoples answers would be the same, you really don’t want to hear the answer. Most people will remarry and have sex and possibly have more kids.

What changes when you stop believing in the bible and your church? Well, for me, I’ve decided if my wife were to die I would not remarry. Not because of some vows I said when I was 20 years old or some feeling of entitlement towards her. The truth is, I would never marry again.

My marriage is as important to me today as it was the day I got married only for different reasons. The thought of getting married has completely lost it’s meaning. Without an all might being marriage is just a government issued legal contract. Any new relationship for me would be like Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.

I considered asking pastors and other religious people their thoughts but I knew they wouldn’t have the answers I wanted. Because no one had the answers I sought. Apparently you have to die before you get your answers. Which often lead me to wonder why any religious person thought they had any answers since they obviously hadn’t died yet.

When we were first married it wasn’t something that I even thought about. But the more often we went to church the more I began to worry that she would spend eternity with her first husband. The more I learned about divorce and vows the more I thought she had promised her life to her first husband and our marriage wouldn’t be valid to God. I was concerned that her first vows were unbreakable and that we wouldn’t be together once we had made it into heaven.

You can imagine the torture this thought process can cause in a person. There are probably thousands of people who wonder the exact same thing right now. The only comfort I can provide to them is that gods are not real and the Bible and Quran are works of fiction. The lack of evidence for any god is everywhere and the evidence for the existence of any god is nowhere.

Once I realized the truth about gods and works of fiction I immediately knew that many of the worries I had throughout my life were total wastes of time. Imagine the countless hours that people continue to waste worrying about things that don’t exist.

When you’re a robot like myself, feelings and emotions are easy to dismiss even when they’re your own.

I encourage you to dismiss your feelings about god and look for more. You may find that once you remove your feelings and emotions about any god, there isn’t anything left.

I never really thought about why they were watching over me or when. Unless of course when I may have been masturbating. Why? Unlike during sex (with someone) when you don’t think a lot, masturbation allows your mind to wander while you’re pleasuring yourself. Many of those times I wondered if my Grandmother, Grandfather, etc. were watching over me at that moment. If they were, why? And if they weren’t, is that because there are rules to when they can watch over me?

Regardless of the fact that I thought people were watching over me, it never kept me from pleasuring myself. Which if you think about it is weird because most people would be embarrassed to be caught masturbating. But it’s OK if dead people watch you do it.

I could never reconcile this thought fully because it didn’t seem plausible that those watching over me would invade my private space like that. But like most people I just made that up in my head because that’s what made me comfortable.

When I became an atheist I immediately realized what a completely ludicrous thought process that was and how funny it was that I ever thought someone was watching over me at that moment.

So for all of us men and women that are the masters of our domain, fear not, for no one is watching over you when you are pleasuring yourself.

I think there is a little more to this. God is suppose to be the most important thing in existence and yet there are two very popular words that define someone who does believe and someone who doesn’t know.

I think the moment you question God’s existence you are agnostic. Believers don’t question what they believe. Agnosticism seems to be a temporary place between making up your mind. On one side you the believer are part of some religious denomination and on the other side you’re a part of no denomination.

Agnostic doesn’t appear to be a choice but more a middle to full belief or non-belief. Have you ever questioned the Sun’s existence? No, Why? Because it’s a known an proven entity.

Someone who says they are agnostic must be searching for answers, otherwise they are just lazy. If you honestly think you’ve chosen agnosticism then you’ve decided to be ignorant and not even think about it. Maybe someone has convinced you that nothing can be known and you bought it.

Agnosticism is the same as kicking your heels off while your toes are still in the shoes.

A lot has changed for me since I became an atheist but my overall life has changed very little. I haven’t been disowned by anyone nor have I had to defend myself physically. I started writing down my thoughts the day I became an atheist and that eventually became BrandNewAtheist.com. Then I created my Twitter account to post small thoughts and sarcastic comments. I have a small following on Twitter which means a few people are occasionally interested in what I say.

What has changed the most for me is the way I think. Once I removed anything supernatural most of the ways I think about things changed in an instant. It has made me so much happier than I ever was before. It’s like being released from a mental prison and knowing they can never put you away again.

I thank all of you who have befriended be on Twitter and commented on my site.

Yes, I want to de-convert all of the converted. I’m not the most educated person when it comes to debating with a theologion but everything they say is made up, how can you argue with that?

It’s the regular people that can easily be de-converted because all you have to do is get them to read the bible. Not the warm and fuzzy crap they spew in church, the crazy stuff they don’t tell you about because it’s crazy.

Do you want take make the world a better place? De-convert your family and friends and stamp out the ignorance that comes with religion.

If you do something good in the name of “God” you are praised, but when you do bad it is “mental health issues”. Why do people who believe in God believe it when someone says God spoke to them and they did something generous but they refuse to believe God would have someone take out a few lost souls?

You can’t have it both ways. Either you believe God talks to people or you don’t and just because the action is bad doesn’t give you the right to reject it as crazy. If a person who does something bad in the name of God is considered crazy then that would also apply to anyone who does something good in the name of God.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080911/ap_on_re_us/shooting_rampage

9/11 isn’t a holiday but it has become a day that Americans remember being attacked by religious extremist. America is the head of the snake. Yes, I know where I was on 9/11.

I was really ignorant about why anyone would hate our country. Like most Americans I spend my time with my family or working.

After becoming an atheist I now realize that religious extremist are what come from showing respect to religion. Religion doesn’t deserve respect nor should we give it. I’m not talking about people, I’m talking about religion. People can be religious, they can change and be non-religious, but religion will always be religion.

First I’m going to explain what Labor Day means to me now, then I’m going to look it up online.

Before Research: I have no idea what Labor Day is about. People working, is that it? Really?

After Research: It’s about people who worked over 100 years ago and got the day off. I guess they needed a holiday for that.

I worked on Labor Day and the Sunday before that and the Saturday before that. I run my own business and holidays mean nothing to guys like us.

I only saw one teacher wearing a cross and one of the teachers looked like jesus, not kidding.

As I was walking around the very first book I saw was “God gave us this country” which made me think “Come on, seriously”. The second book I saw started with the word “Lord” and before I could finish reading the title I thought “This can’t be right” then I finished reading “of the flies”. OK, that’s better.

Before I became an atheist my wife believed the bible was the inerrant word of god as many christians do. After only few conversations with her she changed her mind. That lead me to wonder how other believers (who think the bible is the inerrant word of god) would respond if I pointed out the same things.

If you already know these things then you’re not my demographic. I’m wanting to know how people respond to receiving this information for the first time.

Believers, before you get started please write down what your answer is before you do research. I would like to know if you change your answer after your research. I would like to know if you thought the Bible was the inerrant word of God and what you believe now.

1. The Bible refers to the Bat as a bird. (science has proven this to be wrong)
Leviticus 11:13-19 and Deuteronomy 14:11-18

2. The Bible refers to the Earth being flat. (science has proven this to be wrong)
There’s too many, here’s an article that lists them all. http://www.goatstar.org/the-bibles-flat-earthsolid-sky-dome-universe/

3. The Bible refers to the Earth as being the center of the solar system. (science has proven this to be wrong)
1 Chronicles 16:30, Job 9:7, there are others but these are the easiest to interpret.

4. The Bible refers to the Moon as having it’s own light. (science has proven this to be wrong)
Genesis 1:16, Isaiah 13:10

5. The Bible condones slavery. (written in the text of the Bible)
Too many to list, here’s a link to them all http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/interp/slavery.html

6. Adam didn’t die the day he ate from the tree of knowledge. (written in the text of the Bible)
Genesis 2:17, Genesis 3:6, Genesis 5:5

7. The Book of Judas and Book of Jasher are missing. (written about in the text of the Bible)
Book stores already have the Gospels of Judas on the shelves http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5327692, Joshua 10:13

8. The virgin Mary was a mistranslation of the maiden Mary. (written in the text of the Bible)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m8ntlyrXnY

9. The Bible speaks of the unicorn which has never been proven to have existed. (written about in the text of the Bible)
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i2/unicorn.asp

10. Atheists can’t get into heaven. Does that also mean Jesus didn’t let Peter into Heaven? (written about in the text of the Bible)
Matthew 10:33, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzzORZhnCao

I sent this list of questions to about a dozen believers, a couple pastors, a couple friends and not a single person ever replied.

After nearly 3 days of manually moving the old site posts and comments to this new site, I’m done. I transfered each of them lovingly and manually adjusted the dates to their original dates. Now that I’m suing this new technology, if I ever move my site again it will be much easier.

Check out the new site, leave comments if you have them, let me know If something appears to be wrong with the site. I’m very happy with the new site.

I’m still converting another of my sites, it’s much larger than this one.

I don’t have to consider the possibility of a God because of some old book and people’s beliefs. That’s no different than claiming all the other Gods have just as much right to be possible. And I say no they don’t.

I’m going to make up a God right now. It’s name is “Puedam”, but when pronounced in it’s native tongue it sounds like wind. It has 4 nipples and feet like a camel. It’s all powerful and all knowing. Now that this God is out there you have to consider the fact that it could be real. Claiming otherwise makes you foolish. This is what other atheists have convinced themselves they must do to remain rational. They’ve convinced themselves that this is what separates them from people who believe in Gods without any proof of said God. I say you don’t have to consider the possibility that something is possible because of clever writing or popular belief.

I will never believe in Puedam, nor will I waste my time considering its legitimacy. Puedam is no different than the God or Gods people believe in today. He was made up by thinking men for a purpose. Puedam was invented to make a point, God was invented for crowd control. However, in thousands of years Puedam will be listed as possible Gods people believed in and I just made it up.

So to all you atheist out there that say it’s irresponsible of me to claim to know that there isn’t a God (regardless of my own belief in that God) just because there’s no evidence, you can bugger off.

P.S. Puedam will be at next years Comic-Con signing autographs, yeah, get your God to do that.

This will enable me to post from more locations, for instance this post is being created from my iPhone.

When I’m done importing all of the older posts, this site will be in much better position to move forward.

I asked my girls what holiday today was and they both said “4th of July”, I explained the “4th of July” is a date not a holiday. My youngest said “Independence Day” which surprized me. I told Karen that if it had been on another day we might not refer to it as the date itself. For instance, we woulnd’t refer to “Independence Day” by it’s date had it been October 23rd or the 23rd of October. It just so happens that “4th of July” rolls off the tongue easily, that has to be the only reason we refer to ID that way.

I’ve never appreciated or understood ID more than I do now. While I don’t really have an allegance to America I do think this is a good country even with all of it’s problems. I’m not proud to be an American, I don’t understand how you can be proud of something that you never had a choice about. That’s like saying you’re proud to be short or proud to be old. Most people believe in the God that is believed by most of the people in that area, how can you be proud of that.

I’m very ignorant about other countries because I’ve never been outside the US, not even to Canada. I was born and raised here, I didn’t have a choice to be American.

What’s great about this country is that after 36 years of being a christian I did the research and realized that Gods aren’t real and I became an open atheist and no one is trying to kill me. I believe if I had been born in the UK no one would be trying to kill me either. However, had I been born in a country that believes in Allah I don’t think I could be an open atheist.

Independence Day is a great holiday but how long before it doesn’t matter anymore and no one cares? As long as people think “4th of July” is the holiday they get to shoot fireworks it may never end.

Independence was a step forward for this country but with all of the religous policy in government too many steps backwards are being taken.

First I’m going to explain what Father’s Day means to me now, then I’m going to look it up online.

Before Research: Father’s Day is a made up Holiday to celebrate men you who have had children. Surprisingly, being an atheist hasn’t changed things around me like many of the people I’ve read about.

After Research: I was right, there’s not much to Father’s Day.

First I’m going to explain what Memorial Day means to me now, then I’m going to look it up online.

Before Research: What does Memorial Day mean now? I’ve always assumed Memorial Day was designed to recognize the soldiers that have died in the name of the United States.

After Research: For the most part I was correct in my assumption.

These are the emblems I’ve seen on the backs of cars in just the last couple days.

http://origin.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9285835

Karen has indicated that letting them know by replying to their email is not appropriate, I get that. But then when, out of the blue, randomly?

More than anything else this question applies to the bible, a book that claims to have answers.

Dr. Jobe Martin attempts to legitimize himself by saying he went to college for biology and was an agnostic and claims to have been an evolutionist. You can tell the direction the show is going by the way he discusses the Big Bang Theory. He discusses study he did against evolution that led him to believe in God but doesn’t indicate how long ago it was.

He regularly says that things had to be created whole because they wouldn’t work otherwise. He’s talking about “irreducible complexity”, and science had proven that something that doesn’t appear to be able to work when any part is missing will in fact serve a purpose.

Interestingly he repeatedly says “scientists don’t know” when it comes to how some things work, yet when he does have an answer it’s a scientific one. Unless of course he doesn’t have an answer and says “God did it”.

At one point he discusses that they are teaching things in school about evolution that are not accurate. There is some truth to this, however, it has more to do with the school system reprinting books with information that has changed than the teachings themselves. It would be as if schools still taught with a school book that said the Berlin wall was still standing, it’s not the Berlin wall’s fault the school is using an out of date book.

Dr. Jobe Martin can’t conceive that these animals evolved (natural selection) into what we see today over the period of millions of years given we have proof of just that. Yet he doesn’t have any problem believing in an invisible God that he only knows about from the translated text of a two thousand year old book.

I might be a Brand New Atheist but I am not a moron. I can see right through his apologetics. If you want me to believe in what your saying show me some proof, I don’t care how you feel. I would believe in God if there were any proof, as it stands right now, there is more proof for Bigfoot than God.

For you to truly believe the bible you need to believe that the Earth is flat. If you do not believe the Earth is flat then you deny the teachings of the bible. If there is a single error in the bible then any part can also be in error. If the bible were the word of god then he would have known the Earth is round and the bible would not state the contrary.

There is enormous amounts of evidence for evolution. Why, if your bible is wrong about so many things do you not believe the same science that tells you about evolution?

This is how religion retards intelligence, it forces you to deny evidence.

What I’m trying to say is that if you build your entire knowledge base of any given topic on one idea that’s wrong, then all of your proceeding conclusions on that topic will also be wrong. For instance, if you believe in bible then you can’t believe in evolution. If you believe in the bible then you must also believe the Earth is flat.

The Theory of Evolution is a scientific fact. Yet your belief in the bible (your foundation) is wrong therefore making your conclusion about evolution to also be wrong.
Religion has retarded your intelligence about evolution.

The Theory of Gravity is a scientific fact. Since this theory doesn’t cause some type of conflict with your religion you will accept the scientific answer as fact.
Science has made you smarter about gravity.

The Atomic Theory is a scientific fact. Since you probably don’t even know what this is you will accept the scientific answer as fact.
Science has made you smarter about atoms.

The Cell Theory is a scientific fact. Since this theory doesn’t cause some type of conflict with your religion you will accept the scientific answer as fact.
Science has made you smarter about cells.

The Theory of Heliocentrism is a scientific fact. This theory goes against the teachings of the Bible yet you accept the scientific answer as fact.
Science has made you smarter about the sun, in spite of your bible.

At the top and bottom of the list we have theories that conflict with your belief in the bible, yet you don’t believe the first one and you do believe the last one.

Can you come up with a logical reason that your own beliefs aren’t consistent? You shouldn’t believe either because of your bible. This is what religions do, it makes people stupid. Religions makes you stupid in the face of proof and evidence. At one time they taught in schools that the Earth was flat and the center of the Solar System, thanks to science you don’t believe that.

Religions and your bible retard intelligence because it makes you abandon evidence.

What do all of these theories have in common, proof evidence, testability and they are all scientific facts

Is God angry with me for being an atheist? What was God trying to tell me? Should I sacrifice a goat? What? These are questions you and I would have been asking ourselves 1000 years ago. This something that religious people don’t get, God was created by man to answer questions they couldn’t. Science has continued to answer every question the Gods were created to answer.

As it turns out this is the 21st century and we are all aware of what an earthquake is. The goats are safe.

Birthday #37. Honestly, no different than any other. One of my gifts was Rainbow 6 Vegas 2, good stuff.

Being an atheist hasn’t affected my birthday in any way.

Here’s the link to their podcast episode 7.7 Start listening from 48:16 thru 53:24. This part of the podcast is not explicit but many other parts are for those who care about that.

This is from The Non Prophets, one of my favorite new podcasts.

TRANSCRIPT
VCurious [wrote]: “I don’t want to live in a world where those with power impose their evil intent on the masses and not face any type of consequence. Without God people can easily escape human justice. I can’t buy into that.”

Matt Dillahunty [response]: The kind of world you *want* to live in has no bearing on what kind of world you *do* live in. If this is your principle objection to world-views that don’t include some cosmic justice then, if you’ll forgive the condescending remark, you really don’t understand what you’re talking about.

Life isn’t fair and the desire for justice that you express is one of the key foundations of most every religion. We’re all aware that sometimes good goes unrewarded and evil goes unpunished, so some justice-seekers invent a security blanket to ensure that they aren’t mired in depression. It allows them to avoid facing the harshness of an indifferent reality. Whether it’s heaven & hell or karma dictating infinite rebirths, it serves the same purpose.

Some of us prefer to actually face reality. Some of us realize that there is no good reason to believe that the universe is anything other than indifferent to our existence and our perceptions of good and evil. Some of us realize that dealing with reality on reality’s terms is the only way to make any real improvement in the situation.

Life isn’t fair and that’s actually comforting, if you think about it. If life *were* fair that would imply that you actually deserve the bad things that happen to you and that those who benefit from evil deeds are similarly deserving.

The realization that there’s no reason to expect justice is what ensures that we take steps to impose justice. The realization that good isn’t always rewarded is what drives us to reward it when we see it. The realization that evil isn’t always punished is what drives us to work together, as a cooperative society, to deal with our problems, collectively and individually, in a way that encourages real change and that, hopefully, minimizes harmful actions. Realizing that justice isn’t guaranteed allows us to appreciate it when it happens and work toward ensuring it on a more regular basis.

Your particular god-concept view of justice represents the height of irresponsibility and injustice. Your chosen religion has us born as reprobates, guilty before we’ve taken a single breath, responsible for things we’ve never done. It offers instant, undeserved, forgiveness for the most horrible of crimes and punishes people whose only “crime” is disbelief – forever. It advocates slavery, denigrates women, curses homosexuals, orders the stoning of unruly children, sanctions wars of extermination, condones human sacrifice and poisons every mind it touches. It includes only one unforgivable crime: disbelief. Is that just?

This “justice” you so admire, is no such thing. It is divine edict, arbitrary, capricious and ultimately unjust and immoral.

Yes, I realize that there “are pedophiles out there who have escaped our flawed justice system?” Do you realize that your system says that they’re all eligible for an eternal paradise? How does that address your objection? Under the rules of Christianity, the pedophile who escapes justice here can also escape your ultimate justice. Under the rules of Christianity, he may live forever in paradise while someone who spent their entire life doing good, helping others and contributing in a generally positive way to the one-and-only life we’re sure to get, is ultimately judged unworthy of that reward.

Don’t kid yourself. You haven’t accepted a cosmic sense of justice that alleviates the problem – you’ve accepted one that you believe alleviates the problem FOR YOU. It is a selfish justification that shows no regard for real matters of justice. It is the height of arrogance and your desire to feel special because “someone up there” thinks you’re special. Well, according to the paradigm you advocate, he thinks that *anyone* willing to worship him is special – with no regard for justice or character.

Go, read Romans. No one makes this point clearer than Paul. The “law” was established with full knowledge that no one would be able to fulfill it, it was established to demonstrate this inability and damn us further – and then a loophole was established to let some people through, regardless of their standing with the law.

Your religion has made you a slave. It has made you uncaring. It has made you support immorality and injustice while claiming that arbitrary edicts and loopholes count as either. It is a reprehensible lie that poisons the mind and prevents you from understanding reality.

When the scales drop away from your eyes, as they have for many of us…we’ll be here, and you’ll realize that you’re not alone and not to blame.

Sometimes I consider using the shock factor and saying something so outrageous about their God that they would seriously think he would strike me down where I stand. But I am 100% confident that long after they had that thought I would still be staring them in the face with a condescending look. Your God can’t touch me because he is imaginary, which means I can whatever I want to him or about him and nothing will ever happen to me. Here’s the kicker, so can you.

The reason I don’t use the shock factor is respect of the person, not their beliefs. I made a joke to my nephew that I had killed God and he could worship me now. He took that as a personal attack and asked that I refrain from such things, I doubt he would have felt the same if I made a similar comment about his choice for president, etc. I agree 100% with Richard Dawkins about people thinking that their religious beliefs are above criticism. Why do believers think their religion deserves a level of respect that puts it outside of criticism?

So what happens when I tell you that the universe is so big you can’t even understand it, you’re not able to comprehend it’s size? Does your mind play tricks on you and try to convince you that God is powerful enough control the universe? Do you make your God as powerful as he needs to be for you to believe in him? Let’s take for instance this image of the Omega Centauri. This is a tiny image through a tiny pinhole of the universe. And it contains hundred of thousands of stars. You can’t actually see the stars with your naked eye, but you can see the cluster of them which is Omega Centauri.

When scientists refer to the universe they use phrases like millions of billions of stars. Millions of Billions, not only can you not convince me of God here on Earth but take into account the Million of Billions of stars, those star’s planets and those planet’s moons and you don’t have a chance. There isn’t anything that made this, their isn’t anything controlling this and the universe will still be here when humans no longer exist.

Here’s the original article with higher quality images of Omega Centauri. Want to be reminded daily of just how small you really are?

I considered telling people I changed my mind about atheism after seeing Jesus but I honestly just didn’t want to say that.

I’ll do a lot for a joke but couldn’t bring myself to doing this just incase someone actually believed me.

If you look at the world today you see people making bad decisions based on their belief in God. A God who doesn’t even have a name. It would be like naming your dog “JD” for just dog.

I’m telling all of you believers out there, one day, when future civilizations look back upon your beliefs, they will criticize the decisions you made based on a God that no one believes in. I sincerely hope we are beyond the point where future civilizations will believe in any God at all. History has shown that we are almost there. Think of all the prior civilizations and the large number of Gods they believed in. The number of Gods kept getting smaller and smaller until the majority today are only hanging on to what I hope is the last one.

I’m very surprised that large chains like Target would close any day. You can always find someone to work when someone else won’t. And why do these stores or our government for that matter care what your personal religious beliefs are? Wouldn’t it be easier to treat everyone the same in a secular manner and let them practice their personal beliefs on their own time.

As the population of atheists grow in America, we will be able to remove these annoying restrictions that religious people have created that affect everyone. Because your religious holidays mean nothing to me, the same way other countries religious days don’t mean anything to American christians.

First I’m going to explain what Easter means to me now, then I’m going to look it up online.

Before Research: Easter is the one day a year that children hunt artificial or boiled and painted eggs. It seems to have no relevance to adults. Why does Easter exist? I have no idea. Is Easter related to some other event? None that I’m aware of. I look at Easter and Halloween as very similar. Kids gets candy. Easter has never meant more than kids and candy to me.

After Research: Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus three days after he was killed. I didn’t know that but it doesn’t really surprise me. Easter is also linked to Passover. As far as I’m concerned Easter will remain about kids and candy. If I can age 36 years in America and not know what Easter meant then it doesn’t deserve more than a colored goose egg.

Well now you can in Bible Fight. The first rule of Bible Fight is, you do not talk about Bible Fight.

First I’m going to explain what Saint Patrick’s Day means to me now, then I’m going to look it up online.

Before Research: Saint Patrick’s Day is the one day a year that Americans pinch each other for not wearing green. People also like to make things green that normally wouldn’t be. Why does Saint Patrick’s Day exist? I have no idea. Is Saint Patrick’s Day related to some other event? None that I’m aware of. I assume Saint Patrick’s Day is something they celebrate in Ireland and we do it here just for fun.

After Research: Saint Patrick’s Day turns out to be religious. Are you serious? I thought it was about a place or a thing, it never occurred to me that it was an actual person. I was partly correct, it’s celebrated in Ireland. The story of Saint Patrick’s Day isn’t very interesting either. The day was mostly over before I even knew it was Saint Patrick’s Day. And it still doesn’t mean anything to me.

I think what amazes me most is how I watched this show for 10 years and never thought about it’s relationship to real religion. Now it seems almost comical. The crazy stuff they come up with isn’t any less crazy than the real stuff. Have you seen the drama with Scientology.

Even the robots in Battlestar Gallactica “Praise the Gods.”

I wonder if almost all Sci-fi writers are atheists? One of my favorite Sci-fi writers, Joss Whedon, is an atheist. He produced the awesome TV series Buffy and Firefly.

They do a great job of answering my questions (they previously answered in private) which many of you may have also thought about asking.

If you are an atheist and want to share your thoughts, please don’t be afraid. Nothing worth having comes easy.

It doesn’t matter if you’re atheist, christian or muslim, the more I learn about our government the more I realize these high level politicians aren’t as concerned about my rights, as they are their inflated salaries. It’s amazing that politicians live a better life (financially) than 99% of the people they are making decisions for. Even after receiving an inflated salary from the tax payers the same high level politicians will make decisions favoring big business rather than the people.

Not only are they paid well, but they do it without having to do their job. Their job is to do what’s right for the people. It’s only a small number of them but it’s enough when one of them is the President.

So who are these high level politicians? We can start with the President of the United States of America. If Homeland Security reads that they will probably flag me as a Domestic Terrorist. Simply for speaking out against the government. Yes, Homeland Security violates many of your inalienable rights.

You see, as American citizens you have your constitutional rights (inalienable), those rights are not given to you by the government. Many people willing give them away because they don’t understand what government is doing or how the government works. Most people believe their rights are provided by the government, this is false.

So who are the rest of these politicians that are not doing what’s best for the people? (here I go again) It’s probably a relatively small group, the Clinton’s, it’s certainly not the majority but it’s enough to mess with your state of living.

I get the feeling the only reason we went to war in Iraq is because they walked on George W. Bushes Daddy’s face at the Al-Rashid Hotel.

I try to vote for the one that I think is concerned for the right of the people. I’m so glad Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee are out, I guess God didn’t want them to be president or have Huckabee change the constitution. I voted for Ross Perot twice because he made sense to me. This time it’s a toss up between Ron Paul and Barack Obama. John McCain, does the constitution change meaning when read by a christian? McCain thinks so.

I voted for Bush twice, so sometimes I’m definitely Judgmentally Challenged.

My favorite misconception of religious people is that morals come from the Bible.

Los Angeles Times Original Article Link

I haven’t done much research on this but it’s crossed my mind several times. Many civilizations worshipped the Sun. It seems to me that the Sun may be the most worshipped item ever. If you think about this coincidence it’s almost seems farfetched. Of all the things Jesus represents, he just happens to be called the son of God. Think of the things he or she could have been called or referred to as. Mother, Father, daughter, King, Queen, proper name. There are many more examples of what the name or reference could have been. But of all the possible references it just happens to phonetically the same as Sun. That’s a pretty big coincidence.

Christmas was the hijacking of an existing Winter celebration (The Winter Solstice). Jesus’ life is littered with plagiarism from previous prophets. Unicorns, really?

Now take into account that Mary was not a virgin, but a maiden (mistranslation, look it up) and you have a man, “Jesus”, who was born to a man and a woman (if in fact this individual ever existed) not the immaculate conception (a product of the original mistranslation) that is claimed in the current translations of the Bible.

You can begin to see that the current beliefs of Christians are founded in plagiarism, mistranslated text and Bible books that have been selectively removed (Book of Judas and Book of Jasher).

Why can Christians read the Bible and see the mistakes (the Earth is not the center of the universe) yet think other parts are without error? Even a simple story of the Bible will be taken as a exact representation of the real story. This doesn’t make sense, if any part of the Bible is in error, then that proves that any other part of the Bible can also be in error.

I’ve begun to understand that Karen doesn’t care what the Bible says. What I mean by that is she’s not concerned about the accuracy of the Bible. She believes in a personal God. I’m not really sure how you can separate God from the Bible because without the Bible there is no God. Regardless of any inaccuracies I point out in the Bible it doesn’t affect her relationship with her personal God. I understand it but I don’t think it makes sense. The only way I can relate is to imagine an imaginary friend that you love like a real person.

Now we have the problem of God and Jesus. If you can only speak to God through Jesus and the Bible is wrong about Jesus then how do you know what to believe? What I’ve found is that most Christians simply believe whatever comforts them. So the nuances between two Christians beliefs are small and the main difference is that each is comforted by something different. I don’t think it’s even possible to convince a Christian that something they take comfort in could be in error.

So who or what do you believe in?

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
You will find this Article in The Treaty of Tripoli (1796) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_tripoli

The Fox News Original Article Link

That linked page had nothing to do with my article about America, nor does Anonymous indicate anything about why the post was made. Anonymous doesn’t indicate that it was a good article or that they read the book mentioned and it was worth looking into. They simply posted a link.

In essence Anonymous simply SPAMMED my comments page with an irrelevant comment. There are many other articles on this site that may have relevant to.

Sometimes I truly dislike the anonymity abuse on the internet. Everybody wants a voice and to be heard unless they are saying something they wouldn’t say to your face, then they must have their anonymity.

An anonymous voice is a nonexistent one. If you are incapable of saying or doing something and taking credit for it, then your audience will be anonymous as well.

I don’t have a problem with anonymity, my problem is the abuse of it and the unnecessary use of it. Spam exists because of anonymity.

One more thing: Anonymous, there isn’t really any true anonymity on the internet. Within 30 seconds of seeing your post I knew where you posted in from. Everything leaves an address where it came from.

I do, however, want you to comment, but please keep it relevant to the article in which you’re commenting.

Amendment 1 – Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The word God does not appear in The United States Constitution.

“separation of church and state” is derived from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to a group identifying themselves as the Danbury Baptists. In that letter, referencing the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, Jefferson writes:
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

“Under God” wasn’t added to The Pledge of Allegiance until 1954. It is an unconstitutional use of the phrase and should be removed.
The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by a Baptist minister who did not use the the word God.
“Under God” has only been a part of it for the last 50 years.

“In God We Trust” wasn’t added to US currency until 1957. It is an unconstitutional use of the phrase and should be removed.
This country is 220 years old and “In God We Trust” has only been a part of it for the last 50 years.

I looks to me as if some religious politicians in the 50’s decided to go against the Constitution and make the Church part of the State. These things should have never been passed, they completely go against the basis in which the country was founded.

Our founding fathers knew what they were doing with the First Amendment. They were protecting us from the very thing we declared our independence from, the singular religious rule of Great Britain.

No. I have never read the Bible from beginning to end (though I tried in the Army). I have never read the Bible entirely (every single page). I have never read the Bible to prove a point. I have looked to the Bible for wisdom. I am reading the Bible online.

I’m not a book reader, I could probably list all of the books I’ve ever read in under 60 seconds. Karen couldn’t list all of the books she’s read in 2007 in 60 seconds.

I do, however, spend about 8 to 12 hours a day on my computer, I read more online in a year than most do in a lifetime. I’m a research fanatic and since becoming an atheist I have researched and read the Bible online. I still can’t bring myself to read it from beginning to end or try and memorize it for the sake of knowing it.

Since becoming an atheist I know more about the bible than my prior 36 years. Because I now have an interest in why it’s so messed up and why people believe it. If I could quote the Bible like some can, I would be a horribly obnoxious atheist.

I’m bothered by people who trust the Bible yet discount the Old Testament because of the New Testament. If the New Testament changed the rules then why hasn’t God updated the Old Testament and removed the unnecessary rules? Imaginary characters can’t make real changes, that’s why. There isn’t another single book I can think of that would leave in the old rules after changing them. If God was real, and he wrote a book, it would be the best damn book ever written and everyone would read it. But he’s not. The Bible is not a good book, it’s schizophrenic, hard to understand, contradicts itself and difficult for people to agree on the meaning.

Now that I’m and atheist I don’t really care that I never read the Bible. I know people who have and they don’t understand what they read. Besides, now that I’m an atheist I’m well aware that the Bible was written by men for men. So I don’t really feel like I missed out. Had I read the Bible before now, I would have become an atheist much sooner. I believe we have so many christians in America simply because they haven’t read their Bible.

Never accuse me of simply passing along or believing what I’ve been told by others about any subject. My opinions are mine, after my own research. If I simply believed what I was told I would still be a christian and I would believe banks are looking out for my financial interests.

I say “I’M BEAUTIFUL!” instead of “I’M DOING BEAUTIFULLY!” because the reactions are funnier. And it’s easier to blurt out.

I’ve been doing that for about 8 years now and “I’M BEAUTIFUL” represents how I feel on the inside.

I’m quite happy, with my wife and girls, with my job, with my things, but I definitely strive for more.

As little as two years ago I would listen to the same christian music tape in the car everywhere I went and I would sing along out loud. When I was by myself of course. I really believed and wanted to be surrounded by Gods love. It’s fortunate that when I realized God doesn’t exist it didn’t have a detrimental affect on me, I can see how it would on others.

I’m not trying to contradict myself at all. I may have said in the past that I wasn’t very religious but the truth is I was never openly or outwardly religious. I believed in God, I prayed almost daily for someone other than myself, I occasionally broke out the Bible to look something up. I didn’t spend my days reading the bible. I know more about the Bible now and have read more of the Bible now than I did in my previous 36 years.

First of all let me explain that when I was a believer I kept it to myself. So when I became a non-believer I kept it to myself. Fortunately I began writing everything down. Even when I thought I might share this new part of me there was an obvious concern. How will friends treat me, will they suddenly become afraid of me somehow?

In “The God Delusion” Richard Dawkins says, “The status of atheists in America today is on par with that of homosexuals fifty years ago.” Thats’ a scary thought, are people going to fight me because of this? It’s reason enough to be concerned or take precautions. In my previous post, I thanked several individuals for their help. They helped by indicating what it’s like to be a known atheist in America today. They all said hate mail is virtually non-existant. So if christians only occasionally get animated then should I worry about Muslims? Then I realized, they view christians and atheists as infidels, so we are no different to them.

Now that I’ve ruled out threats and harm, who am I afraid might know that I’m an atheist? No one.

Christians openly show what they believe with their Jesus fish on their cars, and their crosses hanging from the rear view mirror. If they can openly share their personal beliefs without fear of harm then so can I.

To answer your question Rob, “Why did I wait so long to come out the closet?” Fear of the unknown, I really didn’t know what would happen when people found out. I wanted to wait and get some answers from seasoned atheists about whether or not I was endangering my family (because my family come first). It was only 5 months ago yesterday that I decided I was an atheist, so it really hasn’t been that long.

Jacob Fortin (The Good Atheist) Website Podcast
John C. Snider (American Freethought) Website Podcast
Dave Van Allen (Ex-Christian) Website Podcast

If you give that any serious thought, you realize, 1800 years after Jesus, women were allowed to be the property of a man and slavery was encouraged.

And if you read your bible you’ll see that it was not only allowed, but encouraged. These are the bibles teachings.

My would women and black people even chose to believe in a God that would allow them to be viewed as worth so little?

I think the answer is education. We still have people on the Earth today that can’t read, how many slaves do you think could read?

What did a slave who could read think, when he saw in his bible that slavery was encouraged? I would imagine so few slaves could read that any real knowledge of what the bible says, was simply passed on from other people. And I’m certain they only heard the parts that eased their minds.

What about women? 150 years ago my wife would be my property, like my bicycle. The bible says that women are property of men and women lived that life.

Here’s my point. If it weren’t for a few enlightened people in power 150 years ago, women would still be property and black people would still be slaves. This was not the work of God, Jesus or women and black people fighting for rights, but a few people who saw faults in the way humans treat humans.
Why would a black person pray to a God that encourage the slavery of their ancestors for 1800 years after Jesus?
Why would women, who were told by the bible, that they were the property of men, want to have anything to do with the God that encouraged this behavior?

If it wasn’t for these few enlightened people in power who changed the rules about women and black people, you wouldn’t be able to spend your Sundays worshipping a God that allows you to be property. If you’re a women, in an Arab country reading this today, you are the property of a man. Because they still take those damn holy books literally.

Yet, I’m part of your God’s plan. WHO ARE YOU TO QUESTION GOD’S PLAN?

See what I mean. As much as you may dislike my point of view, it’s beyond you to question it.

Now that’s messed up, isn’t it?

I exists and I can prove it. Ask your God to do the same, nothing will happen.

And don’t accept or ask for that feeling of God or thoughts in your head BS.

Tell him to appear out of thin air in front of you like he’s done in the past. And have your video camera ready. Stop accepting that he can do whatever he wants or that he has a plan.

I have a plan and it doesn’t include starving children. But I’m not omnipotent so I can’t just feed them all at once. But your God claims to be able to, yet children are hungry.

If I was omnipotent I would feed all of the children, doesn’t that make me better than God?
If I was omnipotent I would cure disease and pain, doesn’t that make me better than God?

My point is, if any of us were omnipotent we would immediately do things that God has neglected, that would make us better than him.

If God loves starving children, it must be tough love.

You see, there are starving children all over the world, yet this gentlemen believes that starving children take a backseat to his dog. Seriously?

So many people in America, live with this notion that our country is similar to to the rest. They seem to think their little bitty problems are being managed by God while people in other countries would simply like God to stop the guerillas from killing them for no reason. Neither one is being overseen by a omnipotent being.

The signs are everywhere. But I reached this level of atheism regardless of the existing movement.

I didn’t even know there was a movement until after I begun journaling my thoughts.

So I want to use this post to dis-spell any thoughts that I got caught up in something or that I joined in behind something.

That is not how I got here.

With that being said, I’m going to use them and they are going to use me. We are on the a similar path regardless of how we got here.

I certainly don’t have faith in science. For me to have faith in science, I would have to believe whatever they said and be ignorant to any proof.

You can’t have faith in something that has proof.

Before now, I never gave Darwin much thought

Today is Darwin’s birthday. Born on February 2nd 1809. I look forward to the day that Darwin’s birthday is a respected national holiday.

But the bible doesn’t get updated. Many people claim to use it as a manual for their lives. But why would you use a 2000 year old book to decide how to live today.

In the same way that a 1967 and 2007 auto has 4 wheels and a steering wheel, humans 2000 years ago and today have two legs and two arms. But what runs them (auto engine/human brain) is profoundly different. In reference to our brain we don’t think the same way, work the same way or live the same way as humans from 2000 years ago. We are significantly smarter than humans 2000 years ago, why would you use a book written for a 2000 year old human mind on today’s mind? “You shouldn’t.”

The bible still refers to the Earth as the center of the universe, this is incorrect. Yet the bible has not been updated to reflect this new information.

Therefore the bible is not a manual, it is a novel.

This is important because today she does not believe that. Why? Because of the empirical evidence that science has proven. You would be considered a lunatic today if you believed the Earth is the center of the universe. The bible has many references that have been dis-proven through science. Realistically speaking it’s only a matter of time before science dis-proves even more of what the bible teaches it’s followers.

“Think of all the answers we have today that once was a scientific answer and was replaced with a proven religious one. You won’t be able to think of one, but turn that around and the list gets very long. Think of all the religious answers we once had that are now explained by a scientific one.” Sam Harris

I heard Mike Huckabee say that he would always refer to the bible answer if it conflicted with science, in which I told my wife, “Mike Huckabee believes the Earth is flat and is the center of the universe.” In reality he probably (I use that word loosely) doesn’t, which means he picks and choses what to believe is true.

Just as many people ignore the bible referring to the Earth being flat, 100 years from now believers will fully believe in evolution and ignore that part of the bible that it conflicts with. They will reject Genesis and focus on the parts of the bible science has yet to dis-prove.

An example of religion interfering with and holding back science is Galileo’s discovery of the Heliocentrism in 1616 (the theory that the sun is at the center of our Solar System). The Catholic Church banned the reprinting of Galileo’s work for 100 years because they contradicted the Bible. On 31 October 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled, and officially conceded that the Earth was not stationary, as the result of a study conducted by the Pontifical Council for Culture.

This example is exactly the reason evolution is not being taught properly to our children today. Religion still has a tiny hold over this evolution, but it will fall through and evolution will be taught in the same way Heliocentrism is.

Side Note: Heliocentrism is a scientific theory as is the theory of gravity and the theory of evolution. All of these theories have enough evidence to be considered facts.

The people today that don’t believe in evolution are tantamount to those people 500 years ago that thought the Earth was the center of the universe. And they will be replaced with people who do believe in evolution. And so on and so on until bible believers have nothing left to cling to and the bible is little more than an ancient novel.

It’s only a matter of time until science disproves almost every aspect of the bible and people are capable of living without a God.

I learned things that I hadn’t even considered yet. It’s a fascinating journey into the mind.

I recommend this book to everyone, that way christians can see were their atheist friends are coming from.

Here is a question that doesn’t exist, “Does the Sun really exist?” The reason that question doesn’t exist is because of the empirical evidence. Have you ever heard anyone ask that question? No, you haven’t.

If there were any empirical evidence of God’s existence there would only be one religion. Since there isn’t, we have many different religions and many different Gods.

At church around 2004 the pastor said Gene Reddenbarry was an atheist. Being a huge Star Trek fan I was offended that the pastor would call someone an atheist who created such a great show about people accepting each other. I get it now. Without God we don’t have to hate those that think differently. Gene had it right.

When I used to watch those awards shows with Karen I would point out who didn’t thank God for their talent.

A couple of years ago I was in a Christian book store when I sneezed. No one blessed me.

About three years ago I heard about a book for non-believers so they could replace phrases with any God reference.

I feel as thought my brain has been set free and it’s exploring entirely new areas of thought.

Those areas previously stifled by the Bible. Not that I read the Bible before becoming an atheist. But by those people I listed too who did read it. What I’ve come to find out is that they focused on the fluffy parts and left out the insane parts.

I’ve learned more about religion and the bible in the last 5 months than I knew in my previous 36 years. You would think if God existed I would have found him, but it’s exactly the opposite. When you look for something that doesn’t exist you find nothing.

Back to me being born again (since it’s OK for the bible to borrow many of it’s stories I’m borrowing born again), my mind has been set free. Until you have a free mind you will never know what I’m talking about.

Flash forward 12 years after I discover that God isn’t real and all of the sudden gay takes on a whole perspective. When you’re a God believer, gay is wrong and marriage is between a man and a woman. When you’re not a believer all of the sudden gay isn’t wrong, its just not natural. Meaning a gay couple can not procreate. But they can be together if they want to be. And their isn’t any reason they can’t marry if they want to. Marriage is legal bond between consenting individuals. Marriage doesn’t have to have anything at all to do with religion.

Now I have to figure out if marriage is a religious thing or if it’s secular.

I haven’t decided if Kirk Cameron needed someone with more experience than himself to spread his christianity so he teamed with Ray Comfort or if Ray Comfort wasn’t being listened to so he needed a friendly face to spread his christianity so he teamed with Kirk Cameron. If you’ve watched any of their videos or interviews you would see they use more “what if scenarios” than anyone else. The painting must have had a painter or the evolution of the Coke can.

There was no science in this video at all. They spent most of their time playing with an Orangutan or asking college students (who weren’t studying evolution) about evolution.

The common truth in the video was that most college students believe in evolution because it’s well proven and taught scientific theory. Regardless of their religious beliefs.

The video attempts to prove that we didn’t evolve from any of the great primates because they still live among us. If they understood evolution at all they would know that whatever great primates we evolved from would no longer exist, because we’re it. That also means that the other great primates have themselves evolved over millions of years.

If any religious group attaches the words “evolution” or “theory” to creationism or intelligent design they are misleading you on purpose. They need you to think the way they do.

I don’t want you to think the way I do, I just want you to think.

Recently monkeys were observed sharpening sticks to catch food. I don’t know why this monkey is hairless but he certainly resembles man. Maybe in a few million years chimps will be where we are today. Our intervention in their natural evolution may accelerate their ability to learn.

So we watched the entire thing, with lots of pausing to comment on different part of the movie. I can see where ID proponents would try and say this movie was bias but the facts are there for those who want to make their own opinion. It wasn’t bias. In fact it showed what both sides offered entirely.

I recommend this movie to anyone who has a struggle with their faith and evolution. It shows how a little town’s school board tried to circumvent the constitution.

Karen is gone for the evening at a slumber party with some of her friends from church, so I decided now would be a good time.

I told the girls to go down to the basement because I wanted to talk to them. We have a huge chalkboard in the basement that I used for illustration.

I spent about 30 minutes talking about the world and the beliefs of the world. Those from the past and today.

After 30, minutes I finally explained to the girls that I don’t believe in any of the supernatural things that people believe in, including the christian god.

I asked if they had any questions. There were a few. “What started my atheism?” and some on evolution that I spent the next 30 minutes explaining.

At this time, I could see that they were ready to leave. I kept getting those glances of, “Are you done so we can go?”

It wasn’t really that bad. I was concerned about what they might think. I do want my girls to love me.

In test cases, the placebo effect has proven to cure people with the use of inert medicines.

What does that mean? The way I see it, this is the same way people believe in God.

When enough people around you are telling you there is a God, it makes it easier for you to believe.
When a trusted doctor is telling you that this pill will make your headache go away, it makes it easier to believe it will.
So for a portion of the people, their brain will treat the pill as if it had the same effect as real medicine because they believe it will.

And then there are people like me that the placebo doesn’t work on because I don’t have blind faith in anything.
Even when I take store bought medicine I don’t think they will work. I take them hoping they will work this time. And some times they do.

So where’s the problem? Even if you tell the person that took the placebo (who had a cured headache) that it had no effect whatsoever, they will still believe something in it worked. They will deny the fact that their brain was tricked into believing something that wasn’t true. This is the same with believers.

God is a placebo. It’s something with no power to make changes at all but your belief in it will effect how your brain treats it.
Believing in God is a trick your mind plays on you because you allow it. It’s all in your head.

If the prayers of a child were answered:
My wife’s knees would be better.
My business would be out-of-control successful.
Our adopted daughters birth mother wouldn’t be defective.

I heard these and many other prayers for years and do you know what happened? Nothing.

I proved it to myself and it’s been proven throughout the world that prayers aren’t answered.

Why? It’s simple, the only being that hears all of your prayers (spoken aloud or in your head) is you.

And unless you have magic powers (which I’m certain you don’t) then your time praying is wasted when you could be doing something about it yourself.

When I told my wife, I had yet to do any research online. Yet the information online is so compelling I wonder how people are capable of believing?

I’ve since done dozens of hours of research online and it’s been good in the fact that I can answer questions better now.

Many people who are atheists have posted elaborate messages online, many of which are extremely well educated and thought out.

It’s like when I made my decision I had walked through the door and closed it behind me and I just keep walking further and further away from it.

Let me try and explain my meaning.

In many peoples world with God they have cancer, love and soft drinks.
In my world without God I have cancer, love and soft drinks.

Where’s the difference supposed to be? Isn’t there supposed to be a benefit to worshipping a God? And I don’t mean after your dead.
I mean right here on Earth. Yes, men and women make decisions based on their beliefs, but that doesn’t really affect the world.
The problem with the question is that worshippers will tell you that either payment comes later (which means we live in exactly the same world and they receive no benefits while here on Earth) or that their prayers are answered when it’s Gods will.

Since people don’t come back from the dead with heaven or hell answers, there isn’t any (and there never will be any) proof that worshipping is anything more than a mind game.
Perpetrated by who? I don’t know who started it but they would be perplexed that modern man still believes something they made up a thousands of years ago.

Back to my original question. There isn’t a single difference in the world today between a worshippers life and mine. In a way that seams unfair for them. They put all of this effort into their beliefs and they still have cancer, love and soft drinks just like I do.

We have evidence on 3, 4, 6 and 7 million year old human bones that appear to be bi-peds.
Scientists believe the dinosaurs are hundreds of millions of years old.

If man, was walking upright on Earth 4 million years ago, then what are the chances that the Earth is coming close to an end?
If the Earth has been supporting life for 4 billion years then, what could possibly stop it from doing so?

So then where does all of this life go? I was thinking about that too.

If you look at the most recent Tsunami, it literally changed the landscape and anything that wasn’t heavy enough to withstand the pressure was washed away.
It makes me wonder about the ruins that we look at today and the only thing left are heavy stones that could have withstood a Tsunami.

Of all the civilizations that have lived on Earth, we may be the most advanced. We base it on what they left behind.

If man has looked relatively the same for thousands of years then how long does it take for you to see evolution?

I posted this article two days ago and just today found a new and excellent book from The National Academy of Science. Science Evolution and Creationism

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXT8vP4TshY

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gese3ucXdY8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuQNcxwF9pc

First I’m going to explain what New Year’s Day means to me now, then I’m going to look it up online.

Before Research: New Year’s Day isn’t actually celebrated I don’t think. It’s the first day of the year.

After Research: New Year’s Day is the first day of the year. But is not a holiday at all.

Today is my 16th wedding anniversary. As I watch the video of my wedding I have trouble listening to myself say things that I no longer believe. I hear the preacher sayings that I no longer agree with. Sadly, it takes a bit of the fun out of watching the video. I like the video better without the preacher in it.

If I was married for 16 years under God. Then why am I married now? Because I love my wife and children. Even though the “why” has changed, the reason for staying married hasn’t. Family. I can be married without God. Marriage is actually a state thing now and the ceremony is just tradition and has no affect on the marriage license.

Would I change anything? My answer to that question is always no. Changing the past changes who I am today, I have no need to be someone else.

I always preferred “Man and Wife” vs “Husband and Wife”, I think I just like the way it sounds.

Here’s to 16 more wedding anniversaries as an atheist.

First I’m going to explain what New Year’s Eve means to me now, then I’m going to look it up online.

Before Research: New Year’s Eve is the one day a year where we celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of the next. It usually means parties to most people. And fireworks.

After Research: New Year’s Eve is only the celebration of the last day of the year.

The bible was written 40 years after Jesus’s supposed death and people remembered in great detail. Seriously?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=LeH49SVPj8I&feature=user
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq0q4k_o11U&feature=related

What does Christmas mean now? A very good question. As a new member of the non-believers, Christmas hasn’t changed.

I never saw Christmas as really having anything to do with God or Jesus. And since that’s the way the majority of the believers feel anyway, Christmas is pretty much the same.

Even the stores are trying to turn it into a generic holiday. I think they are embracing more people rather than trying not to offend anyone. Happy Holidays.

Christmas is a yearly party with family where everyone exchanges gifts. A few people go to a special Christmas service. But the majority don’t.
The staunch believers try to make all of the other believers feel bad because they think since Christmas wouldn’t exist without Jesus. That it’s only fitting you attend.
Most believers want to take the day off and not have to go anywhere, even if it is to celebrate their Lord’s birthday (most believers don’t know Jesus wasn’t born in December).

Even churches themselves bend to the will of the majority. I can imagine a time when the church told it’s congregation there would be service on Christmas day and the congregation knew they had to attend. But the church has lost it’s power. Churches merely exist at the hands of a few generous tithers. I think maybe that would change if their God presented himself or gave some real proof of his existence, but even believers have learned that God has little to do with the world today. There’s no penalty here on Earth.

One small thing is different for me. For the first time in my life I don’t want to hear Christmas music. My girls started playing Christmas music before Thanksgiving.
I’m not really sure what it is, but I think most Christmas songs have lost their meaning for me.

To elaborate, children can’t defend themselves nor can they make life decisions. Since this is a fact, then why wouldn’t God intervene on behalf of a child?

Children don’t choose to be hungry nor do they choose to be sick. America is full of christians because we have it so good here.

It’s easy to believe in God in America because most of us aren’t hungry. But let’s focus on the children.

Do you think you could convince a hungry child that God exists? Don’t feed the child, just tell them stories of the bible. Let the child pray for their own food.

People don’t think about these things because they are contrary to their beliefs. For instance, most believers would read this article and think, “There must be a reason.” Then they will put it out of their minds because it goes against the grain.

Do you seriously think a supernatural being is guiding you everyday, helping you in anyway whatsoever while the child in the photo starves? If you do, then the way you think is absurd.

For instance, I’m beginning to think that it’s absurd that anyone ever believed in any God.

But in the year 2007 the majority of Americans believe in a some supernatural being. I know, I did too, but I never chose to believe, I was taught to believe. I chose to find the truth and it revealed no such being.

As a christian my religious references were thought of as insightful with potential for learning.

As an atheist my religious references are thought of as ignorant and without value.

I haven’t changed so much as my beliefs have. If my references contained value before, you would think they still would, but they don’t.

It’s interesting to see people react to my change when it’s no longer inline with their beliefs.

What could possibly make me think while someone is being tortured right now that God is making sure I get a new client?

The answer to that question is nothing.

That song? “Show Me” by John Legend. Lyrics, Website with full song and iTunes song Sample.

I don’t know John Legend’s personal beliefs nor is that important.

The thing that strikes me about this song is how much it speaks to my personal journey to atheism. Since I heard it after my journey was over, it really encompasses what I was going through and the things that I thought. The song is by no means a definitive reference of my journey; you would need to read my whole blog for that.

What’s interesting about this is I know why they are praying for Karen; they are supporting her the only way they know how.

But why are they praying for me? Do they think I’m lost? It really doesn’t make any sense to me.

Here’s why it doesn’t make sense. Prayer doesn’t work. This has nothing to do with God. Let’s speculate for a moment that God (any God) was real. Prayer has proven to not work.
So even if you believe 100% in God and think that I’m lost, your prayers never get answers. It’s been proven in many different ways that prayers aren’t answered.
And people who look at the facts that prayers aren’t answered and still believe in prayer are fooling themselves and ignoring the truth.

I could link to a bunch of websites about how prayer doesn’t work or link to some videos that show you the same thing. But I’m not going to.

Because if you want to believe in something that has been proven to be false, that’s your right to as an American citizen.

People who haven’t been shown the facts don’t know any different. What concerns me the most are the people that have been shown the facts and ignore them.
These people are running our government and teaching our children facts about the world when they themselves ignore facts that have been presented to them.

My journey was a long one and the first thing I realized about living on this Earth is that prayers do not get answered. And at the time I still believed in God.

If you want proof, go get it yourself. It’s not my responsibility to convince you. You have to learn it your own way and in a way that makes sense to you.

So please, don’t waste your time praying for me. I’m not going to spend an eternity in your hell or any other hell.

First I’m going to explain what Thanksgiving means to me now, then I’m going to look it up online.

Before Research: Thanksgiving is the one day a year where we over eat. And we do it because pilgrims landed in America and traded stuff with Indians. Why does Thanksgiving exist? Celebration of Europeans making it to America in some small ships. Is Thanksgiving related to some other event? None that I’m aware of. I look at Thanksgiving as nothing more than an excuse for companies to market stuff you wouldn’t normally eat. I get Thanksgiving and Columbus Day mixed up.

After Research: Thanksgiving turns out to be a Thanksgiving to God. Are you serious? It can’t just be about some people doing something. Thanksgiving is a day that means many different things to many people. Each country has it’s own Thanksgiving for one reason or another. Thanksgiving is extremely unimportant to me. If it wasn’t a national holiday, it would pass by without me even knowing. Kinda like Saint Patrick’s Day.

I have to limit what I can say here to remain respectful. Seeing all of these Catholic rituals from the eyes of an atheist was an interesting experience.

The rituals must be important to someone but they seemed very silly. At one point a priest was waiving a smoking pot thingy and every time it reached a forward apex a car alarm sounded, it was quite humorous.

He said he thought that I always thought that until he visited last year and I talked about church and our lives. He chalked it up to people changing.

He wasn’t surprised that I made it here since he thought I already was. What did surprise me is that he said I was making too big a deal about it.

He hoped I’d never have to learn some of the truths that he has. For instance right and wrong are completely different in the Middle East.

He saw value in some of what Christianity provides to some people. He thinks they would have a much harder life if they didn’t have a pleasant after-life to hang on to.

I was pleasantly surprised by his response.

Nor do I want it to be. You can never know me well enough to know how my brain works. For you to understand something you need to make your own connection.

You cannot believe something just because someone else does.

If you’ve read all of the information here and have changed your mind about God, I say to you, “Do some more homework.”

There is a world of information that doesn’t exist here. It may lead you in a completely different direction. I think like a scientist, my beliefs are evaluated with each new piece of information. To me there are no permanent facts, only evolving ones.

There is no God, but don’t take my word for it.

Using that kind of logic I would not be able to even have this train of thought. But I do think I’m getting saner. I think things make more sense now.

Her intolerance of my atheism leapt forward and didn’t want to hear it or talk about it. Once again I was described as badgering and bombarding. I didn’t feel I was doing that all, just bringing it up was a problem. I’m not saying Karen’s faith is weak but it does make sense to think that someone with weak faith can’t afford distractions. And she was mean to me.

Jump forward to today. After Church Karen has informed me that not only has she told her pastor that I’m an atheist but also her best friend and her Sunday school class. This does not bother me. Karen’s Sunday school class has indicated that she should embrace my discussions of the bible. Karen’s main fear was that I was going to try and force her to think my way. Since I’ve never been able to force her to do anything I don’t think she was thinking rationally.

So here we are now with the ability to discuss my findings. She even said that she will proof read my atheism blog, which she had previously chosen not to do.

How does this affect me? Greatly. It means that she may see view some of my thoughts and the information that I thought of and I’ve found with a more open mind.

I did promise, however, that I would never force her to try and think my way.

First I’m going to explain what Veterans Day means to me now, then I’m going to look it up online.

Before Research: Veterans Day is the one day a year that we celebrate war veterans. Which war? I have no idea, I assume all wars.

After Research: Veterans Day is both a federal holiday and a state holiday in all states, it is celebrated on the same day as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day in other parts of the world, falling on November 11, the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War I. So I was mostly right, but I had no idea why it was on this day. Another holiday without religious meaning, woohoo.

I really don’t know what his beliefs are nor do I know how he will react. Here’s hoping for the best.

I’ve argued that you couldn’t trust the bible when I was a believer because of the mistranslations.

This is an easy one for you. Go to Wikipedia and look up bat. You know, that little flying creature. Now open your bible to Deuteronomy 14 and read from 14:11 to 14:18.

Did you catch that? The bible is referring to a bat as a bird. That’s a pretty big mistake for God to make in his own book.

I found this awesome bible online that has some stuff annotated for the reader. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/

The more I read the bible, the more it proves to me that it was written by men that believed the earth was flat (Isaiah 11:12)(Mathew 4:8) and the center of the universe.

http://opposingdigits.com/vlog/?p=1176

I’ve watched them all and they are completely inline with my own thoughts on God.

It’s amazing to see a video that has been online for a year or years with information that I thought of on my own after becoming an atheist.

Sometimes I watch these videos and am amazed at how close they come to saying exactly what I’ve written on my own.

But, the majority of what you’re reading are my own thoughts and they have not been influenced by the internet.

I’ve actually spent a good deal of time looking religious information online since I became an atheist. I know more now than I ever did about religion.

When it comes to the atheist information I’ve found online, very little of it differences from my own thoughts. So when I want to share something with someone I may use a video clip I found that gives the same information. I could make my own video clip I just don’t want to.

So if you’re reading this thinking that I have somehow been duped by these videos or information on the internet I want to make it 100% clear to you that they support my position.

I’m an atheist of my doing and choosing. And these are My Own Thoughts.

If you’ve ever done anything for anyone in need chances are you did not get the credit you deserved.

I’m not saying that you deserve more credit than you got, I’m saying that you didn’t get any credit.

If you didn’t get it who did? According to theists God got your credit. According to atheists you get your credit.

And while you’re helping them they will thank God right in front of you as if you’re merely a pawn to the will of God.

If I helped you it’s because I cared or knew I could help. I’m no ones pawn. I did it, no one else.

I’m talking about evil that comes from a disturbed mind, not evil that comes from the belief in a God.

Any human on the earth can have or get brain damage. From brain damage can come dementia. If you have dementia then it doesn’t really matter what your beliefs are because your brain does not work properly.

What about evil in the name of religion? Yes, there have been many evil men and women on the world that did evil things in the name of their God. Christians today have killed people affiliated with abortion clinics. Muslims fly planes into building.

What about evil in the name of atheism? No. It’s simply not logical. There are no recorded cases of anyone causing harm to anyone else in the name of not believing in God. Do you see how ridiculous that sounds?

But there are records of atheists doing evil things. Of course there are, but they didn’t do it because they were atheists they did because they were mean, evil or crazy.

How can this be? It’s simple, people who don’t believe in God don’t believe in his alter-ego the Devil.

After making my decision to stop believing in God I discovered that atheist are all over.

You’ve seen racists like the KKK congregate to show their support for racism. How many times have you seen non-racists congregate to support non-racism?

If a child were raised without the mention of God, as an adult he would view all religions (and your) the same way you view other peoples religions.

Did you ever hear the joke about the woman cutting the end off of her roast then wondering why she was suppose to do that? The girls asks her Mom “Why do we cut the ends off of the roast” her Mom said “That’s how my Mom taught me.” So the girl asks he Grandmother “Why do we cut the end off of the roast?” and her Grandmother says “That’s the way my Mom taught me to do it.” So the girl asks her Great Grandmother “Why do we cut the end off of the roast?” her Great Grandmother said “When I was your age they didn’t make pans as big as they do now and I had to cut the ends off or it wouldn’t fit in the pan.”

Will you ever be able to go back far enough to find someone who actually picked the religion your family believes in? No you won’t.

The point here is that no thought went into your teachers decision to teach you whatever religion it is that you believe.

You are cutting the ends off of your roast and you don’t even know why.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that tricking me or brainwashing me would be impossible. Why? Because I don’t take anybodies word for anything, I’m spectacle of everyone and I’m aware that at any given moment anyone can do anything. Why am I an Atheist? Because I’m a truth seeker and a fact checker.

So if I’m an Atheist then I’m not in a cult. Because cults are small and harmful. I just happen to be like minded with a large group of individuals that don’t believe in the God of the land. I say in the God of the land because I have something in common with an Iraqi that doesn’t believe in Allah.

Having the majority of people refer to something incorrectly does not change it’s definition.

He says “Atheism is a belief plain and simple. It takes as much FAITH to believe a god does not exist as it does to believe that a god does exist.”
This statement is completely false. If you’re not an Atheist then you really don’t understand how we think and he proves that he doesn’t.

He continues the video as if his prior sentence is true. Since it’s not there is no value to be had in the remainder of his comments.

You wouldn’t trust a plumber with advice about how to fix your electrical. Why would you believe a theist knows how an atheist thinks? It’s fair to say that you shouldn’t.

I’ve been both. A theist and now an atheist. I work on both Macs and PCs and it’s obvious to me when someone makes comments that are completely false about Macs.
This follows that same rule. When a PC user (who doesn’t use a Mac) makes claims about Macs that are false he only proves his ignorance to people who use both.

The theist in the video does not understand both sides. But he does have the right to express his opinion, even when it displays his own ignorance.

You can’t understand what it’s like to be poor if you were born rich. I’m trying to make the point that you can’t trust what he’s saying because he doesn’t understand both sides.
He only understand how the other side looks from his point of view.

My point of view differs in the fact that I’m very familiar with both sides and I understand them completely.

The mind can be tricked in many different ways. Half of any number of sick people will feel better after taking a placebo they thought was a pain pill.

Your mind can play tricks on you. Make you think you saw something that you didn’t. A tired mind can send misinformation.

What if I tricked your mind in believing in a God that doesn’t exist? I start you out early while your mind is very impressionable. Because everyone in the world is born atheist. You have to be taught to believe in a God. The God you’re taught to believe in depends on where you were born. As a child I tell you stories of this God and show you a book that he left behind from 2 thousand years ago. The book is called the Bible and even though it has been translated hundreds of times in many different languages with different interpretations we believe it one hundred percent.

After you’ve stopped believing in childhood phantasy characters like Santa I keep you believing in this God. Now I send you out into the world to survive on your own.

Now tell me, what exactly is it you believe and why?

Maybe not the planets that we are currently aware of. Who’s to say that an advanced life form doesn’t already know of our existence?

If you look at your own family tree eventually you will loose the trail. Does that mean existence for your tree began where the trail ends? No.

Cause and reaction, you learned it in science class.

Even the Army professes that Freedom isn’t free.

How does this apply to the Bible? The Bible tells you that you’ve been given free will. What it doesn’t tell you is that you have to give up your free mind. And many people fall for this trick.

Think of Christianity as a forest. Every tree is a Christian. All of the trees that border the clearing are agnostics. Sometimes the agnostics stay on the borders of the forest for a long time. They can see the clearing but are afraid. Because the Bible has told them the only thing in the clearing in eternal damnation. Good trick to keep them in the forest.

What the Christians can’t see is their own forest, for the trees. Since they can’t see there own forest they are unaware that other forests exists. They are unaware that they are in a forest. Not all of the trees are the same, some are Baptist trees some are Pentecostal trees but they are all truly unaware of the world around them.

When you head out into the clearing as I have you see all of the forests. Some are small, some are big, sometimes you have one crazy ass tree all by itself.

What’s in the clearing? A lot of light (I’m being metaphoric) like a real clearing. Clearings are always easier to traverse and easier to navigate because you don’t have those tall trees that block the light or all of the other trees to walk around. Sometimes people accidentally walk out of the forest.

But you can never truly return to the forest. Because you now know that what you’re entering is a forest.

Like in real life we all know that forests get smaller. And sometimes when a large section of trees leave the forest the animals that inhabited that area scurry around all confused because the light is blinding and hurts their eyes (Matrix reference). So they run deeper into the forest to escape what scares them.

For example, If I told you that there is a new species of horse that have two heads. Would it be your job to disprove the two headed horse? No it wouldn’t.

But that’s the way Religion thinks. And it is wrong.

Most religions have Bibles, so why would a non-believer believe your Bible is accurate and not the others?

“1500 years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the Universe, 500 years ago everybody knew the Earth was flat, 15 minutes ago you knew that people were alone on this planet. Imagine what we’ll know tomorrow.”

I can’t wait.

Right now it’s mostly for me to have a place to put all of my thoughts.

I’ll point it out when I take it public.

I Question everything.

It doesn’t look like this is going to hurt my relationship with Stephen which makes me happy.

Stephen I look forward to many interesting conversation about this with you.

Someone might say to me that I don’t believe in God because I can’t see him. That’s not a true statement.

I used my mind to determine God’s existence not my eyes and not the propaganda of an individual or group.

I have a great mind and a great memory. It took me 10 months to figure it out, all in my head.

I’ve never looked online about how the movie relates to atheism or escaping religion. Because I wanted to get my own thoughts written down before they were skewed by anything I read online. I haven’t seen the movie in a while but I fancy myself as Neo. Searching for the truth, and like Neo I found it.

“What is the Matrix?” and “What is Christianity?”. Those questions have the same answer. They are make believe worlds were peoples minds are enslaved.

Morpheus “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself” “You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

I took the red pill.

I love the line from Neo “Why do my eyes hurt?” and Morpheus says “Because you’ve never used them before.” In many ways that’s exactly how I feel. My eyes don’t really hurt but everything I see looks new because I now know that we are all a product of a cosmic coincidence.

I can now see the world as it is not how I was told it was.

The millions of children around the world that believe in Santa don’t make him any more real than the Easter Bunny.

The millions of Muslims around the world that believe in Allah don’t make him any more real than Santa.

The millions of Christians around the world that believe in God don’t make him any more real than the Tooth Fairy.

Just because millions of people believe doesn’t make it true.

All you have to do is look at the past God’s to see for yourself.

Morpheus “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself” “You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

I took the red pill.

It’s a fact that if you were born on different parts of the world you would believe what those people believe.
How can you have possibly lucked out and been born in the right location where everyone believes in the real God?

Does it end there? No, eventually a child’s brain will question the belief of Santa or a friend or sibling will tell them (plant a seed of doubt) there is no Santa. Some like myself do the same with God.

What’s a child’s first response when they think or hear there is not Santa? They ask their parents. The Parents are well aware they were making it up the whole time and will probably tell the child to truth. But this is different than when your brain tells you that there is no God, who do you ask if it’s true?

A child asking a parent if Santa is real is not fair to the child. Because no adult believes in Santa, the answer will always be no. If there was a word for someone who didn’t believe in Santa every adult on the planet would be one. So does the child ask another child who believes in Santa? Whether the child is told yes or no eventually there won’t be enough evidence to support Santa’s existence therefore the child will have no choice but to denounce Santa. They will come to their final conclusion using there own mind.

They will also eventually conclude the same thing about the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

So when an adult uses there own mind to decide whether or not God exists who do they ask if it’s true? No one. Because the answer will always be slanted in the direction of the believer or non-believer. Like the child the adult will eventually figure out that there isn’t enough evidence to support God’s existence therefore the adult will have no choice but to denounce God.

If only it were possible to show who started the God myth then adults would have a starting point to end another make believe character from their lives.

Not really sure if he just didn’t have anything to say or it was to much for him. I look forward to hearing from you Stephen.

I still love you very much, that won’t change.

I tried to spark some interest but got nothing. I was hoping for an interesting conversation. An intelligent, thought provoking conversation.

But Karen is unable to converse about religion without emotion and therefore you can see where the conversation went. She asked me to stop badgering her about this topic. I took offense to wanting to have a conversation about my new interests and her referring to it as badgering. Throughout our 16 years of marriage Karen has regularly asked me to go to church with her and then Sunday School. Even when I was a Christian believer I didn’t really like church, it’s part of my personality. I didn’t think after 16 years a few conversations would be to much to ask but it is.

After she used the words “lies” referring to what I was telling her and “propaganda” referring to anything I referenced online, I realized she really didn’t understand where I was coming from. Either she hadn’t understood me previously or I didn’t explain myself well enough so I spent the next 15 minutes explaining how I came to my conclusion and interestingly enough her mood changed. I don’t understand why.

She has no interest in talking to me about this and said that it could break up our marriage.

He points out that atheist should not actually have a designation or name. His example is a racists. If you’re not a racist people don’t call you a non-racist.
This makes sense but sometimes these things come about because of timing. For instance, calling someone a racist after slavery ended was negative thing.
While slavery existed many people were racist but weren’t called racist because it was common to accept this way of life.

Another example of why we are called atheist as apposed being called nothing would be similar to books.
I imagine many of the first books written were stories of actual events (even if they were inaccurate). And then along comes stories that were touted as being made up.
At this point you have books and fiction books. I assume fiction books quickly out numbered books since making up stories is easier than knowing someone’s story well enough to write about it. Therefore we have fiction and all books that were not made up are non-fiction.

Another explanation would be why things are named Classic. The original iPod was not called the iPod classic, it was just iPod. Now that we have dozens of models many years later they wanted to define it from the subsequent models. So we have iPod Classic and Classic Coke, you get the idea.

That would be a good explanation as to why non-fiction books don’t have legitimate designation but merely defined as not fiction.

That leads us to atheism. Am I an atheist or a non-theist? They are the same. Atheism is merely defined as not a theist (like non-fiction).
Non-theism and non-fiction oddly are the definitions for truths, facts and reality. Definition by declaring something that you’re not.
With so many Gods and religions in the world it would be impossible to go through out life declaring nothing.

Atheism at least let’s theists of all religions know were we stand.

START
You asked how long will I continue to bug you about God, I don’t know.

You said I wanted you to be on my side, that is incorrect, only religions have sides. Even the same religion has sides.
Atheism is realizing that supernatural beings never existed in any form and choosing no side.
Being raised with a religion helps you understand the people around you that believe in Gods.
But I honestly would have preferred to have never been introduced to any religion.

Intelligent people raised without religion would never believe in God. Because there is no evidence in the world that any God has ever existed.
Trying to use the Bible as proof only legitimizes every religion that has their own Bible. That would make all Gods real.
And every God from prior civilizations have been proven to have not existed. The future will show todays civilizations as being no different.
The Bible is probably the product of some mans good intentions for a world he thought was falling apart. http://godisimaginary.com/video2.htm
Or men who owned slaves and needed a way to keep them in check. It was written by men with ulterior motives, just like all of the religious books that you don’t believe in.

The Bible is a trap. Once you’re in you’re not suppose to be able to get out. It has strict reasons for you to not want out.
What better trick than eternal damnation. But something in my mind finally said “Something is just not right here”.
Prayer is also a trick. I’m sure the writers of the Bible knew that prayer would result in 50/50 chance, therefore being enough to convince most.
And the Bible gives it’s believers a convenient answer for unanswered prayer. God’s mysterious, God has a plan. http://godisimaginary.com/video3.htm
If God has a plan, and you can’t change it, then why pray. http://godisimaginary.com/video8.htm
If your 5 year old son was dying and God’s plan was to take him then your praying for him to live would be for nothing?
If your 5 year old son was dying and God’s plan was not to take him then why pray when God would already know what you wanted?
The Bible was most likely written by the most intelligent men of the time. They would be amazed at how it survived a modern intelligent society.

I may be wired differently than most people which probably explains why I was never capable of feeling what it is when people say their filled with Jesus.
Because that feeling requires a level of emotion that I’m incapable of achieving and a total lack of logic. Therefore making it slightly easier for me to escape.
Many people who are not like me have also escaped. It probably took a lot more convincing. It’s not just one thing but the numbers don’t lie.
Everything is as random with God as it is without. That doesn’t bode well for an all powerful being that answers the prayers of it’s followers.
But I’m sure that a worldly person would see that their Gods don’t exist outside their tribes. This would give them cause for thought.

I stopped believing in Santa when I was 12. I stopped believing in the supernatural when I was 36.
I say the supernatural because it’s more than Gods that I don’t believe in. It’s anything that’s explained with a reason other than coincidence.
I wish I had stuck with thought process I started when I was 18. http://godisimaginary.com/video7.htm
When you know there’s no Gods you begin to realize all the things you could have been learning about our world.
That were previously explained by Creationism. Which is not an answer but is being used as something other than a coincidence.
Once you realize, there’s no going back. It dawns on you that that you believed in an imaginary being just like all the people in the stories that were proven false.

What are all of those people that don’t believe in evolution going to say when science has had the time to prove evolution is real?
They are simply going to say that God started the process, completely going against their own previous beliefs that they were put here in their current form.
It is the person making the claim that something exists that have to prove themselves, not the other way around. When I looked for that proof it didn’t exist.

I know religion creates security. And Monday your security felt threatened. You know logically I wouldn’t hurt you or the girls.
If you’re certain God exists then looking for proof of that existence would not change your fait. http://godisimaginary.com/
This particular website has many other videos and pages of information. I recommend that you look it over to see how well your faith stands up.
You can have purpose without religion. Purpose is motivation to do something. Purpose can be internal and of your own choosing.

You and I are the most free thinking people I know. When we believed in God we still wouldn’t let our child play outside unattended. Why? Because of logic.
Logic dictates the majority of our lives. We are not sheep. We do not follow the crowd. We are not easily convinced. Except when applied to religion, then logic is removed and your mind is no longer free.

When you realize something so important you want to share it with those around you. That’s all I’m doing. It makes you re-examine how you want to spend your one life on this planet. “Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself” “You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” Fortunately in our world, when you take the red pill, the world on the other side isn’t destroyed. It’s looks as beautiful as it always has only now it’s a completely random beauty. Just millions of years of nature refining itself. It’s fantastic, I have a whole new respect for nature even though I still have no interest in camping.

I’m not wrong. I used the logic that you know I have to figure something out. Only this one was a biggie. I’ve included a few videos and links that might help you understand what I know. Be aware that none of these things were seen by me before I made my decision that God doesn’t exist. They only came about from research after I made my decision. None of these materials convinced me of anything, I already made my decision they simply showed that my thinking is inline with that of a freed mind. Also, I wrote 99% of this email and went and found videos to match what I wrote, it was not the other way around.

Once your mind starts to break free it dawns on you that you live around millions of people who’s minds are not free. How do you approach them? How do you listen respectfully when they talk of imaginary things? I don’t have these answers. But I’m seriously hoping that you see what I know and we can begin to discuss what life and the world means without God.

When I die, I’m not going to heaven (http://godisimaginary.com/video1.htm), I’m not going to hell, I will simply be returned to earth that allowed me to exist here for a little while.
END

She read it the that morning I’m sure. Not once did she make any comment about it until we were sitting outside talking about licorice being a flavor not a food type and she said “I’m right”. I knew she was referring to my penultimate paragraph that starts with “I’m not wrong”.

I’m sure he has no idea what the topic is but it will probably surprise him.

I’ve had conversations in the recent past with him being at Bible college of my concerns for his schooling.

He will just have to trust me when I tell him those conversations were before I decided I was an atheist and had nothing to do with my current beliefs.

He said was willing to accept the information and keep it a secret so I’m going to share it with him.

We’ll see how that goes.

First I’m going to explain what Halloween means to me now, then I’m going to look it up online.

Before Research: Halloween is the one day a year that children dress up and visit the neighbors for treats. It seems to have no relevance to adults. Why does Halloween exist? I have no idea. Is Halloween related to some other event? None that I’m aware of. I look at Halloween and Easter as very similar. Kids gets candy. Halloween has never meant more than “kids and candy” to me.

After Research: Halloween turns out to be religious related. Shocker! I was actually surprised. I know two men who didn’t and don’t let there kids dress up and get candy on Halloween, because it’s evil. The reality is, even the religious people can’t agree on how to handle Halloween. Why? Because it has a dozen meanings. And not all of them are even religious.

So those of you keeping your kids from having fun on Halloween because of your preconceived notions of it’s evil origins, lighten up. Your kids only believe in God because you tell them to. So tell them Halloween is about dressing up and having fun. They will believe you. Because as far as the rest of the population is concerned, that’s all it means to them.

Then I realize she thought I was talking about evolution. I explained that I meant belief in God. She maintained her composure for a while.

When it dawned on her that I might be interested in sharing with the girls what I had learned she became completely closed off.

She also became upset. I felt that I was interrupting her belief in God and the security that she gets from it so I backed off.

Because the information that I found and believe in compelling.

But he took it well and was interested in what I had learned but not in a bait and switch kind of way. At least I hope.

First I’m going to explain what Columbus Day means to me now, then I’m going to look it up online.

Before Research: Columbus Day is the one day a year that we celebrate Columbus making it to America in some small ships. Other than that I don’t know why it’s a holiday. I get Columbus Day and Thanksgiving mixed up.

After Research: Columbus Day has nothing to do with religion, woohoo. I was right, it’s about Columbus arriving in America on October 21, 1492. Not much more to it than that.

She however has to live with me and was less interested in why I came to my conclusion. My wife and daughters still pray before each meal. I haven’t told my girls yet. I may just let them figure it out on their own.

Atheism isn’t something that describes bad or lost people. I describes people with free minds.

Most Christians can’t understand Atheism because it requires logical thinking when applied to religion.

Atheism is another way of saying people who chose to not choose a religious side.

A good question would be if I was surrounded by so many religious people how did I come to this conclusion. It started with the death of James Kim. Why if I and millions of people were praying for this one man who at the time was in full health did he die? It’s because God is imaginary. I’m a research fanatic so I turned my interest towards religion. I learned many things I didn’t know and some I had already begun thinking about. I learned of Richard Dawkins and his book The God Delusion. I was unwilling to fight for a belief in God (that never made sense to me) over everything that made reasonable sense to me. So after giving it some serious thought I decided I didn’t believe in God, but not just the God I had been believing in, all Gods. After giving it a little more thought I decided I didn’t believe in anything supernatural or superstitious like luck and fait. So am I agnostic pretending to be atheist? No.

I’ve found some seriously compelling information on the fact that God does not exist. I don’t need convincing nor am I trying to convince myself. I find it interesting to find information that I hadn’t even thought about but fully supports God doesn’t exists. This by no means what convinced me nor is it comprehensive, it’s just more research.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zDHJ4ztnldQ
http://godisimaginary.com
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o

I learned something very important about my belief and my faith. I learned that I had a belief in God and I changed my belief but I never had faith in God or the Bible. So it’s not possible to say that I lost or gave up my Faith when I never had any. I merely had a belief in something and after research I changed my belief.

So I continue to read about atheism. My atheism has sparked my interest in Darwinism. Since I no longer believe we were put on earth in our current form we must have evolved from something whether it be primates or something else. What little I’ve learned already has been amazing. There are amazing arguments that evolution exists whether we came from God or single cell organisms. I’m beginning to believe in the Big Bang Theory. The world is a different place when you realize this is the only life you will ever have.

This is the point in which people began to pray for their safe return. Being such a huge news story, a conservative estimate of millions of believers prayed for James and his family. No one knew what had happened yet. On December 4th 2006 James wife and kids were found in the car they had been trapped in. James had gone for help. Now you have to imagine that millions of people saying millions of prayers for James would result in his discovery alive and healthy.

On December 6th 2006 James Kim was found dead, frozen to death. He was trying to find help for his family and he literally had the backing of millions of prayers for a full seven days. During the majority of that 7 days James was alive and well. Why would someone who was trying to protect his family with millions of prayers behind him freeze to death after making a wrong turn in the mountains?

I put myself in the place of James. On December 6th 2006 after James was found I realized that God only had to answer one single prayer with a yes for James to be found alive and well. What God is saying is that if I were in James position and millions of prayers were being made on my behalf it wouldn’t make any damn difference. But why?

It’s the “But why?” that sent me on a 10 month journey of retrospect and introspection. I began to examine everything I knew about religion and praying. Not once did I use the internet nor did I ever speak to anyone about my quest. I’m for the most part very private, when it came to religion I was even more so. I never liked praying in public or out loud. I was by no means a bible scholar, most of what I knew was told to me. I read parts of the bible when I was a child. I didn’t fully understand the denominations. But I knew that people who spoke in tongues bothered me.

I spent a good portion of my childhood going to church regularly. I remember being age 9 and 10 and getting on the church bus every Sunday morning. From ages 11 to 13 I went to church every time my grandmother went on Wednesdays and Sundays. My grandfather was not a church goer but he spent many evenings reading the Bible. My Mom claims to be a Christian but doesn’t go to church nor have I seen her go to church unless there was an event. My step father who joined our family when I was age 13 or 14 is Catholic. I only remember going to his church once and it was uncomfortable because they were completely different. But he does not appear to be practicing Catholic. At about the age of 14 I went to church much less as this was when I started spending much less time with my Grandparents and more with my Mom.

At age 18 when I was in college I claimed to be an Atheist when I was in fact agnostic. No one around me was changing my mind I just began to come to the conclusion that God does not make sense. Shortly after I claimed I was atheist I started dating Karen Jenkins. She was a believer in God and wanted to share with me all of the wonderful things that God had for me. On a date to the State Fair we passed a booth with some Christians that were helping people renew their faith in God. I was interested because Karen was a believer and wanted to know more about what she knew. I accepted Jesus into my heart. I was not faking or playing around, I meant what I said.

For the next 18 years we would go to church randomly. Early in our marriage we would visit my grandmother and go with her. My Granddad would stay at home and read his Bible. Or we went with Karen’s sister Elaine. While in the Army I read my Bible almost every day (even though I remember not understanding it), attended church every Sunday and during basic I prayed by myself before every meal. I prayed so much in Basic a few guys made jokes that I had special connections with the big man (explained below). A little later we went a few times to her brothers church where he was the pastor. I started a job in 1998 and the friend I met there was considering becoming a pastor. My wife got a job at the church we attended and our daughter went to their school. We made friends at church with many people. For a year or more I attended Sunday school and service every week, many times without Karen being there. We made friends with a couple that left our church to pastor their own church. Once the Sunday school teacher left our class I stopped going to church regularly. Up until last year I thought all people who believed in God were Christians and went to Christian church, I found out that’s not true. I’ve only gone a few times in the last year, I don’t think I’ve been once in the last 6 months. My current best friend is one of the stronger religious people I’ve known, just not in a pushy way.

As an individual with an excellent memory I began to review my history and the role that religion and prayer played in it. I listed in my head all of the prayers that I remember making that I thought were answered with a yes. Logically you know that the important prayers that appear to be answered with a yes are easier to remember. I can remember many prayers that appeared to have been answered with a no. I focused on the prayers answered with a yes. I broke each of them down. There are some standouts. When I was in Basic Training we were on a training mission and it was cold and cloudy and everybody was complaining. I prayed for God to clear the sky. 10 minutes later a sky that had been cloudy for hours was clear.

Another prayer that stands out is when my Grandmother was dying and no one thought she would ever get to go home again. I prayed for her to get to go home and die there. Which is exactly what happened. After breaking these prayers down I did some math. Two answered prayers and thousands unanswered. If these were my two shining moments of prayer then there is no way that they could be construed and coincidence. I used something that is usually rejected when thinking of my religion, logic. I first thought about my life in Indiana where I’ve seen it snow and rain on sunny days. I’ve seen the weather change so fast you would have thought transported to a different part of the world. If I’m fully aware of these facts then why would I believe that God had anything to do with them? I did believe God had something to do with it for more than a decade.

I thought about why I thought my Grandmother would never go home again. Yes, she was very sick. But there was an instance in the hospital when I was talking to my aunt Reida and I said “When do you think she’ll get to go home?” Reida answered “Oh Baby, she won’t ever get to go home again.” From that point forward I never thought she would. But the truth is neither did Reida, there were things happening between the doctor and my Grandfather that I just wasn’t privy to. What I attributed to an answered prayer was nothing more than a series of events that was already playing out that I had no control over. And misinformation lead me to believe something that wasn’t true.

After reviewing my prayers for months I finally concluded that a truly answered prayer could not be concluded as a coincidence. But that’s exactly what every prayer I ever thought was answered with a yes was, a coincidence. How can this be? Why would God let his answered prayers be conceived as coincidences? This lead me to a whole new conclusion.

Added January 26th 2008: Karen and I watched “Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” last night and during one of the many times I paused the movie she asked me how I came to a defining point. I explained that was the introspection part of my journey. She need more detail so I explained that I completely opened myself up, and waited. I was looking for answers about prayer, not answers to prayer or not if God was real because I already believed that he was. I explained it like this, about 2 months into my journey I went into a sensory deprived room, I sat down on the floor and waited. This continued for 5 months, also keep in mind that this was all in my head. For 5 months I waited, anything would have been something. Not only did I not receive enlightenment I received nothing. No false answers, no hallucinations, no might have been an answer, absolutely nothing. After 5 months of solitude I left the room knowing that prayers were not real. There was no one listening to or answering prayers.

In July 2007 Karen and I were on our way to pick up the girls from my Moms. I pulled over on the way there to express me new conclusion to Karen. God is no longer watching over us. My prior conclusion lead me to believe that prayer does nothing. Never has and never will. But I still believed in God, only an absent one. Karen tried to conjecture that James Kim’s death was probably Gods way of getting James to accept Jesus or something like that. I wasn’t interested in guesses. And that’s not why I told her.

For the next three months I continued to evaluate my beliefs. Not once had I looked up anything online nor had spoke to anyone about my journey. In the months prior to October 1st 2007 I had assumed that God was absent from the world he created. The problem with scenario is that it requires both logic and religion. They don’t mix. I opened my eyes to the world around me began to apply logic to things like evolution and how we know that small changes are alway being made because of breading. Whether it be humans, animals or insects. Things begin to become obviously clear about your surrounding. God didn’t have anything to do with them.

This is very hard concept to realize as a believer. Even after determining that God was absent I believed he existed. Why? Because the lack of logic allows it to happen. Eventually, you see that there are other people on this world that don’t believe what you believe. Nor are they praying to the same God. Am I suppose to assume I hit the lotto and lucked out with the real God? Most do. I don’t.

I took my decision very seriously. If God were real then there would some sign that he existed. But the world we live in is a product of cause and effect. The Bible is not proof of anything. If you consider the Bible to be proof then you have to consider the other religious books that people live by. Why is yours the right one? Because of where you were born? That logic makes all of them the right one. That logic is also what made me realize that none of them were the right one.

When all of the cards are laid on the table the truth is that there is no proof of any God. Not the Christian God or the Muslim God. Nor the hundreds of Gods before them.