Christian Science, the Affordable Health Care Act & Congressional Lobbying

The Christian Science Church has a special Committee on Publication's U.S. Federal Office: Located in Washington, DC, this office works with U.S. Congressional, executive, and regulatory offices to help them and the public gain a more accurate understanding of Christian Science. We follow developments in health care and insurance, and we work to ensure that … Continue reading Christian Science, the Affordable Health Care Act & Congressional Lobbying

A Loving Summation of Atheism to a Worried Christian Mother

What an amazing answer. I’m going to have to keep it around for when I (finally) tell my mother I’m an atheist.

Nate Pratt's avatarunpacked thoughts

Yesterday, an old friend sent me a message on facebook to a pretty extraordinary page on reddit. The page, which can be found here, is a Christian mother asking for help on how to react to and treat her son which just announced his atheism to her.

I applaud such a parent that reaches out for help in the way she did. She may also have sought out or is currently seeking help from a pastor or other church leaders, but she deliberately went to the atheism thread on reddit and asked for help. Wow. Way to go, mom! What better people to ask about how to deal with this than other atheists that have more than likely gone through very similar situations themselves?

There was one response which blew me away. So far, it’s one of the most articulate, non-threatening, loving and diplomatic responses to a question like…

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I resigned from The First Church of Christ, Scientist (The Mother Church), but they seem to have misplaced my resignation letter

Back in May 2013 I wrote a letter to The Mother Church announcing that I hereby voluntarily withdraw my membership The First Church of Christ, Scientist, effective immediately, and request you to remove my name permanently from your membership records. My husband wrote a similar letter (actually, I just changed the names around and printed … Continue reading I resigned from The First Church of Christ, Scientist (The Mother Church), but they seem to have misplaced my resignation letter

Celebrating the Seasons and a few thoughts on Modern Pagnism, Children and Religion

I feel the need to preface this with a story. The other day I mentioned to my husband that I'd had the strangest dream in which Phineas Parkhurst Quimby and Mary Baker Eddy were portrayed by Muppets Uncle Deadly and Miss Piggy (complete with the MBE-hairsytle of later years) in a Muppet-esque skit, song and … Continue reading Celebrating the Seasons and a few thoughts on Modern Pagnism, Children and Religion

Infographic – Evolutionary Tree of Myth and Religion (reblog)

Awesome visual on the evolution of religion!

Matt's avatarJericho Brisance

In keeping with my affinity for educational visual aids, I simply couldn’t resist adding this one to the lineup. Excellent work from Simon Davies @ www.Facebook.com/HumanOdyssey. Thanks to Seth Andrews at TTA for the Facebook post.

My own thoughts… I had a conversation with a friend quite recently, and he asked me what I thought “the truth” was. I told him that at bottom, I think religion is simply something that people like to do. We fear death. We fear uncertainty. And we fear insignificance. Religion gives us an incantation against the parts of our own minds that grasp these realities. Further, we Christians are not special, and we do not have corroborating evidences that our competing faiths lack. The mirage of uniqueness grows from the soil of ignorance. We do not understand “the others”, and so we do not understand ourselves. Only deep reading about our faith from outsiders, and about other faiths…

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Guest Post & A Few Thoughts: Principia’s Institute for the Metaphysics of Physics

The following is a guest post from regular reader and commenter realscience. If a fundamentalist Bible college were to establish an “Institute for Creation Science Studies” and use it to contort geology and paleontology in order to “prove” that the planet is only six thousand years old and life forms are the product of design, … Continue reading Guest Post & A Few Thoughts: Principia’s Institute for the Metaphysics of Physics