Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Roadside cross in Salem unconstitutional, says Freedom From Religion Foundation

There's a roadside memorial in the town where I live (Salem, Oregon) that features a four-foot cross. I have no problem with temporary displays of grief after someone has been killed in a traffic accident, but this memorial has been on Kuebler Boulevard for at least ten years. That's way too long. It needs to go. So says the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has written Salem Mayor Chuck Bennett, citing legal decisions that a cross on public property is unconstitutional.  Download FFRF letter to Mayor Bennett Joe Douglass, a reporter for Portland's KATU television station, filed a story about…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

“Jesus Loves Strippers” sign removal gets lots of attention

Proving that I'm used my retirement time wisely, here's a video I captured from my TV of a KATU (Portland, Oregon) news story about the controversy over a "Jesus Loves Strippers" sign that was placed illegally in the public right of way in Salem, my home town. I was interviewed for the story! In my remarks I'm representing Salem Community Vision, a group I'm a member of that seeks to improve the vitality, vibrancy, and overall coolness of semi-sleepy Salem. A Salem Community Vision colleague has been keeping track of where the KATU story has spread since July 3. Here's the…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Why we can’t rely on the Bible for social and moral progress

My avid-atheist wife just had her monthly anti-religion letter to the editor published in our local newspaper, the Salem (Oregon) Statesman Journal.  Actually, her letter was published twice on the opinion page in the print edition -- yesterday and today. I'm tempted to call that a miracle, a sign from God tbat She is pleased with Laurel's message. (But for obvious reasons I'll resist that temptation.) Here's what Laurel said. The paper titled her letter, "Why community must not rely on the Bible for social and moral progress." Most social and moral progress in Western civilization has been brought about…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

I’m not a Christian. So why is my athletic club closed on Easter Sunday?

Some holidays are secular, like the Fourth of July or President's Day. It doesn't bother me when businesses close on a genuinely national holiday.  But Easter? It's a purely Christian day, a celebration of Jesus supposedly being resurrected from the dead.  I don't believe in any sort of God, including the Christian variety. Naturally I also don't believe that Jesus was the Son of God, nor that he came back to life after being dead. Lots of other people have different reasons for not viewing Easter as any sort of special day. Many embrace some other religion.  So why does…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Mother Teresa becomes a saint despite “spiritual darkness.” Hey, make me a saint too!

I was baptized Catholic. I'm immersed in spiritual darkness. I have grave doubts about God. So why can't I become a saint, since Mother Teresa has been canonized by Pope Francis despite her admitted spiritual darkness? Here's excerpts from an AP story, Mother Teresa: a Saint Despite Spiritual 'Darkness.' For nearly 50 years, Mother Teresa endured what the church calls a "dark night of the soul" — a period of spiritual doubt, despair and loneliness that many of the great mystics experienced, her namesake St. Therese of Lisieux included. In Mother Teresa's case, the dark night lasted most of her adult…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Fundamentalism

The Satanic Temple is a positive force for good. Praise Satan!

Satan, the Devil, is a religious myth. So I like how The Satanic Temple has taken this bit of dogmatic ridiculousness and made it into a way of promoting rationalism and free inquiry.  From their FAQs: DO YOU WORSHIP SATAN? It is the position of The Satanic Temple that religion can, and should, be divorced from superstition. As such, we do not promote a belief in a personal Satan. To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions. The Satanist should actively work to hone critical thinking and exercise reasonable agnosticism in…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Science

“#Pray for Turkey” — a demonstrably useless gesture

Prayer has no effect on anybody or anything. Except, perhaps, the person praying. There is no scientific or other sort of demonstrable evidence that praying helps make the world better.  In fact, the largest research study on the efficacy of prayer found that not only was it useless in helping heart bypass patients recover, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slighter higher rate of complications.  Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School and other scientists tested the effect of having three Christian groups pray for particular patients, starting the night before surgery and continuing for two…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Mystics Radha Soami Satsang Beas

A Sant Mat follower returns to Jesus (and wants to hear from others who have done this)

Here's a message I got from someone who tried to follow both Sant Mat and Christianity. After developing doubts about the Science of Spirituality branch of Sant Mat (led by guru Rajinder Singh), she returned to her faith in Jesus. Below the woman says, "If anyone has any information about Science of the Soul that is not commonly known or discussed, I would be interested in hearing their stories. Especially from those that have chosen to leave the path for Christianity." Even if this doesn't describe you, the woman is interested in comments -- whether positive or negative -- from…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Fundamentalism

No surprise: Planned Parenthood shooter is a religious fanatic

I don't believe in ESP. But it didn't take any supernatural powers of perception for me, and many others, to accurately predict that the man who entered a Planned Parenthood clinic, killing three and wounding nine, was religiously motivated. A well-researched New York Times piece, "For Robert Dear, Religion and Rage Before Planned Parenthood Attack," describes Dear's religious sensibilities. Excerpts: He found excuses for his transgressions, she said, in his idiosyncratic views on Christian eschatology and the nature of salvation. “He claims to be a Christian and is extremely evangelistic, but does not follow the Bible in his actions,” Ms.…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Coach’s praying on field deserved a Satanic response

When religious fundamentalism runs amok, I love it when the overly-righteous get an unwelcome reflection of their own dogmatism. Here in the Pacific Northwest (I live in Oregon), local newspapers have been running stories about a high school football coach in Washington state, Joe Kennedy, who likes to overtly pray on the field.  Pleasingly, he was sacked on the Unconstitutional Goal Line. An assistant football coach at a Washington high school who prayed at games after he was told to stop praying was placed on paid administrative leave Wednesday night. The Bremerton School District placed Bremerton High School assistant football coach…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Politics

More quotations from “Nature’s God,” a marvelously insightful book

I can't describe how much I enjoyed reading Matthew Stewart's book, Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic. It isn't the easiest book I've ever read, to put it mildly.  Stewart dives deep into historical and philosophical waters in the book's 435 pages. At times I wondered why he was paying so much attention to a certain subject. But by the end of "Nature's God" I understood, pretty much, how each chapter contributed to his literary goal. Which, basically, was to dispel the myth of the United States being founded as a Christian nation. Or more broadly, as a religious nation.…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Christian bullshit: “Living as exiles in our own country”

There's nothing so pathetic as a Christian who thinks his religion is becoming a pariah here in the United States. Fox News has made a journalistic career out of this, conjuring up absurdities like the War on Christmas. The plain fact is that this country is one of the most religious, and it is dominated by Christianity. There's no evidence that Christians are at risk of losing their super-majority status. Which makes this piece on Time.com by Rod Dreher, "Orthodox Christians Must Now Learn to Live as Exiles in Our Own Country," so absurd I thought at first that the title must…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Without the Adam and Eve myth, there’s no basis for believing in Jesus

I don't feel like I'm any sort of expert about Christianity, since I've never been very interested in this religion. No religion appeals to me now, but in the past I've been drawn more to Eastern mystical varieties than Western theistic types. Still, reading evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne's new book, "Faith Versus Fact," today, I was surprised by how ignorant I've been of a basic Christian fact: Without the Adam and Eve myth, there's no basis for believing in Jesus Since the whole notion of Adam and Eve is impossible to accept, this means the same is true of the…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Spiritual practice/meditation

Anthony de Mello — a heretic Catholic spiritual rebel

Recently I was driving around, channel surfing on satellite radio, and heard someone talk about Anthony de Mello, a Jesuit priest, who was chastised by the Catholic Church in 1998 for his belief in a "formless God." I hadn't thought about de Mello for quite a few years.  In 2006 I devoured (OK, not literally) several of his books, liking them a lot. Here's the de Mello-related blog posts that popped up when I asked the Great God Google in the right sidebar to point me to them. Be a spiritual rebelMeditation isn't dog trainingRevel in your selfishnessThe greatest heretic…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Science

“Boyhood” and big bang stir thoughts of religious ridiculousness

Last night I experienced an interesting juxtaposition of two disparate events: watching "Boyhood", via a Netflix DVD, and reading an article in the most recent issue of New Scientist, "Big bang discovery crumbles to dust." Both made me think about the ridiculousness of religion. In Boyhood -- a great movie, by the way -- there's a scene of a Christian minister doing his thing at a church service. He's preaching about the part in the Bible where Jesus asks Thomas to touch him after his resurrection. (This is where the term "doubting Thomas" comes from.) The preacher says that when…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Religions

Obama is right: religious believers of all faiths commit wrongs

Yesterday President Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast. Here's some of what he said -- the part that deeply irritated dogmatic Christians in this country. Now, over the last few months, we’ve seen a number of challenges -- certainly over the last six years.  But part of what I want to touch on today is the degree to which we've seen professions of faith used both as an instrument of great good, but also twisted and misused in the name of evil.  ...We see sectarian war in Syria, the murder of Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, religious war in…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Truth about the Bible: no way is it “the word of God”

Here's a terrific Newsweek piece, "BIble: So Misunderstood It's a Sin." Lengthy, and well worth reading. But be warned, Christians. You'll never be able to believe in the divine inerrancy, or even historical accuracy, of the Bible after being exposed to Kurt Eichenwald's review of how the Bible -- especially the New Testament -- was cobbled together in distinctly flawed human ways.Not surprisingly, a quick review of the over 2,000 comments on the online article reveals that fundamentalist Christians refuse to accept the scholarly reality discussed by Eichenwald. Here's a get real response I liked. I don't understand all the Christians…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

The “Christmas story” is just one of many stories, and not the best

Here's one way I celebrated Christmas this year -- by writing a blog post that critiques a "Message of Christmas still rings true in 2014" editorial in our local newspaper.  Enjoy, churchless. There's a better message than the "Christmas story" Excerpt: The editorial starts off this way: The Christmas story is one of joy, of celebration, of hope. Its message of peace on Earth and salvation for humankind is as powerful, as relevant and as needed today as it was on that silent, starlit night some 2,000 years ago. Well, some people feel this way. Lots don't. Those words, salvation for…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Atheist middle-school girl gets preachy church official kicked out of Salem school

Here's some great churchless news from right here in Salem, Oregon.  The Friendly Atheist blog picked up on a local newspaper story and described the beginning of what happened in "Young Atheist Gets Youth Pastor Banned from Middle School After He Preached to Her At Lunch." Tim Saffeels volunteered at Straub Middle School in Salem, Oregon, meaning he supervised during lunch periods, reminded students to clean up after themselves, and served as a role model during his time there. Last week, he sat near a group of students, including one who attended Salem Heights Church, where he serves as youth pastor.…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus God

Believing in God is hard work (since God isn’t real)

Thanks to a David Chapman tweet, I came across an academic article about religious belief. Interesting stuff. Below I've chosen some excerpts from Pascal Boyer's piece which capture, pretty much, the gist of his commentary on another scholar's book, "When God Talks Back." Since for many years I was a member of an India-based organization, led by a guru, which believed it was possible to communicate with God in a supernatural fashion, I was intrigued by how similar the basic process used by Christian evangelicals is -- when they try to convert their "reflective" beliefs into "intuitive" experiences of God's…
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