The God-forsakin' Blog

  Joshua Josephson was trying his best to teach people to not suck so hard, and this dude came up and said unto him: What must I do in order to live forever? And Josh said unto him: You tell me. What does your holy book say? And he said unto Josh: Love your neighbor as yourself. And Josh said unto him: That’s right. Do that and you will live. But dude wanted to feel better about himself, so he said unto Josh: Cool, but who is my neighbor? And Josh said unto him: Imagine some average dude, driving from, like, D.C. to Nashville, and he gets a flat tire on the way. He pulls over, and then a bunch of motherfuckers jump him, jack his car, and tear ass outta there, leaving the dude unconscious and bleeding on the side of the highway. You with me so far? Okay, now imagine someone you would expect to be a moral person, someone who can always be counted on to provide an example of decency. Oh, surprise, surprise, you pictured someone almost exactly like you but with a litt...

    Everywhere that the Abrahamic god is worshipped, his worshippers will swear that the core truth of their religion is love. A love infinite and boundless, as vast as the distance from East to West. A love greater than human failings, a love greater than human comprehension, a love greater than even death.   And generally, among his worshippers, you’ll even find a select few people who behave as if that’s true.   But the actual results of Yahweh worship in the world make it clear that what he is REALLY about is to justify state violence. His true origin as a Canaanite war god shows through, every time.   From the very beginning, he’s killing Egyptians by the thousands, commanding Joshua to genocide entire cities, leading the hosts of heaven and of Israel against the enemies of Israel.   Then a small group of his followers briefly try to re-brand him as a god of love when Christianity starts, but he almost immediately becomes the mascot...

  CONTENT WARNING: Sexual abuse When I was a devout Evangelical teenager, I wanted to be like my youth pastor. So much so that I went to an Evangelical college partly with the idea that I could become a youth pastor. I minored in Bible and Christian education, and seriously considered majoring in them. The only reason I didn’t was that I didn’t think I was godly enough. Not like my youth pastor.   Over the years I’ve come to disbelieve all the things I used to believe. And while I was very much aware that Evangelical Christianity as a movement is bullshit and its leaders generally KNOW they’re lying but keep it up for the sake of the money and power, I at least thought this one guy was sincere. After all, the last sermon I heard him preach was about how he was moving to Belize to start a ministry to help the poor there – how he felt that his calling from his god was not to stay in a comfortable middle class suburb living the American dream, but to minister to poor and hurt...

    Conservative Evangelicals often scream about how liberals and atheists are silencing them.   First: No, nobody is doing that. But second, and more important: We wouldn’t if we could. It wouldn’t be in our best interest.   See, it wasn’t liberals that convinced me conservatives were full of shit; it was the words and actions of conservatives. And it wasn’t atheists that convinced me Christians were full of shit; it was the words and actions of Christians. Just, conservative Christians, being themselves, as loudly as possible. That’s what deconverted me from both conservatism and Christianity. Silence you? No, I want you to keep talking as loud as you can. You’re the best possible people to increase the number of liberal atheists in the world. And the sooner we become the overwhelming majority, the sooner we can make a better world for all of us here on earth, instead of the world being run by people who spend their lives pretending that better ...

Some of you were never inside the trap in the first place, and I'm happy for you. A little envious, but glad you never got stuck inside. Some of you saw the trap for what it was immediately, and just walked out the door while it was still open to invite you in. I really envy you. I wish I'd had the sense to do that. Still, I'm happy for you too. But me, I was born and raised inside. All my friends were there, all my family were there, it was the only place I knew. And it looked scary outside, and it was familiar inside. The four walls of the church looked like home, a safe place with barriers to keep out the predators. I even called out to those of you on the outside to come in where there was food and company and shelter. And by the time I finally realized it was a cage and the predators were INSIDE, I was too deeply enmeshed in the snares to readily escape. My very heartstrings were intertwined with the wires of the trap. In the end I had to chew off and sever parts of my...