If you haven’t heard it yet, This American Life re-broadcast a story last week about Carlton Pearson, a pastor who was once rising in the evangelical ranks. Pearson is also responsible for introducing the Christian world to Pastor T.D. Jakes. So why was Pearson once rising as opposed to still rising?

Because he stopped believing in hell.

And then all hell broke loose. Because “when there’s no hell (as the logic goes), you don’t really need to believe in Jesus to be saved from it.” His closest friends and associates left him, he was deemed a heretic, and he had to essentially start over. Pearson now preaches a “gospel of inclusion” at New Dimensions church.

The story is worth listening to the entire way through, regardless of your own beliefs. The show did a great job describing his thought process through his decision, and you realize how even now, many of his former church members refuse to speak about him in interviews. I was amazed how quickly Christian leaders turned on Pearson when he decided he didn’t believe in hell. The same people who claimed to have “Christian love” wanted nothing to do with him. It’s not the only time this has happened. When I listened to the story, I thought of how James Dobson suddenly withdrew from Ted Haggard’s counseling team after Haggard’s allegations came forth, citing “lack of time.” You would think the one time Haggard is asking for help, he could rely on Dobson, a man who builds his reputation on “protecting the family.”

While I don’t think Pearson went far enough in saying where the Bible was wrong, he shows an attitude that is much more admirable than many other pastors– one that isn’t intent on condemning everyone who thinks differently. It’s at least a step up. One step up a very long staircase.

To hear the story, download the mp3 here. If the link doesn’t work, you can stream it live here.


[tags]This American Life, Heretics, Carlton Pearson, atheist, Christian, hell, evangelical, Ted Haggard, James Dobson, New Dimensions, T.D. Jakes[/tags]

What does an atheist gives thanks for on Thanksgiving? Rachel gives one example here. I’d love to hear what other atheists experienced over the weekend. Any controversies with the family? Let me know.

***

Heather tells of her conversion. From agnostic to atheist. She also explains why.

***

You’ve seen the video on YouTube. If you haven’t, see it here:

Now, see the interview with the creator, Zachary Kroger.

PZ Myers linked to a post I made on his site yesterday morning. All of a sudden, 2318918903 people decided to drop on by. Which was very cool. (Hi new people!) I found the website statistics particularly interesting. Below is the graph of the number of visitors from the past week. Guess which day the Pharyngula post appeared.

A similar blogbump (only *much* larger in scale) happened a couple months ago when Fark linked to an article from Humanist Network News.

PZ rules.


[tags]Pharyngula, PZ Myers, Fark, atheist, Humanist Network News[/tags]

For anyone who is interested in this stuff… there are a few new additions to the site.

1) On the sidebar to your right, there is now a list of the most popular posts.

2) For any post, you can now subscribe to the comments. This means if you’d like to follow what people are saying for a particular post, you can now do so, with or without posting something yourself.

3) If you need to contact me, there is a form on the About/Contact Info page.

If any more additions are made, I’ll just add them to this list…

After being invited to Parkview Christian Church to have a discussion about atheism and Christianity with the pastor, on stage, for all three weekend services, I wrote about a pamphlet used by the Church. It was called “Creationism for my Child’s Teacher” and it was riddled with mistakes.

Pastor Tim Harlow even responded to the comments you all made.

Pastor Tim (a man I respect and like for several reasons… not including his views against Evolution) stressed that he wrote this pamphlet not to convince teachers to teach Creationism (not even calling it the more euphemistic “Intelligent Design”), but so they could understand where his kids were coming from.

The pamphlet was taken down from the church’s website following the comments made by Friendly Atheist readers.

Now, it’s back up and “revised.”

You can read the revised pamphlet here. It is available through their website along with other Creationism resources here.

As before, I can’t make my way through all the errors by myself. So let me reach out to my expert readers.

Which scientists are quoted out of context? How many of the “facts” are just plain wrong? Can we respond to the other sites that the church website links us to? Where can the church members go to get accurate information?

At the very least, if they Google “Creationism for my Child’s Teacher,” let’s make sure they come to this site which has reasonable criticism and answers instead of the church’s site with the error-laden brochure.


[tags]Parkview Christian Church, Creationism for my Child’s Teacher, Pastor Tim, Tim Harlow, Creationism, Intelligent Design, atheist, atheism, Google, Evolution, Friendly Atheist, Christianity[/tags]

Sarah is an atheist on MySpace. She gets unwanted email all the time, but one deserved a response. She talks about it here. It makes you wonder if this guy was trolling MySpace for single girls or for atheists (which might even be creepier…).

***

Shawn shares his views on why he did not choose to become an atheist. He only chose to examine his religious beliefs.


[tags]MySpace, atheist, Christian, atheism[/tags]

I had dinner with an acquaintance last night. This girl doesn’t know too much about my personal beliefs and my involvement with non-religious groups, but she does know I’m an atheist. She’s a Christian, though she defines that loosely and doesn’t believe in organized religion.

Our conversation eventually came to what our respective beliefs are.

This girl was telling me how she had met a guy who changed her life a few years earlier. They met by chance at a shopping mall when she was with her friend. I say “by chance” because that’s what I would consider it. Had she not gone shopping, or had she not been in that store, she wouldn’t have run into this guy. However, she would say this meeting was due to God’s guiding hand.

I’ve had similar things happen, too, where something seemingly random happens and it changes the course of my life. I’ve held a part-time job that I love for almost five years now… I got the job because a friend mentioned in passing that she was thinking about applying there.

The entire eBay thing happened due to a number of small things that had to happen for everything to pan out as it did… Jim Henderson won the auction at the last second… a reporter from The Wall Street Journal took a chance that I was serious about what I was doing, which opened the media floodgates… the list goes on.

As an atheist, I’m content to say this is all a coincidence and there are any number of things that could’ve happened and I just happened to go down one specific path.

So I tried to tell this girl that I thought her run-in with the guy in a mall was a coincidence. She didn’t buy it. Besides that instance, she said, there were a lot of things going wrong in her life, and after meeting him, a lot of that turned around. It had to happen for a reason, she said.

At this point, I could think of a lot of reasons to explain why it was a coincidence and if she had really wanted to turn her life around, she would’ve done anything to change it. If she didn’t meet this guy, she would have found another way.

But to say all that, I felt like I would come off as a pompous ass.

So I let it slide.

We kept talking, and when she told me how she felt organized religion was wrong, I asked her why she still labeled herself as a Christian. She said she believed in the Biblical story.

Again, I thought of lots to say, but I kept my mouth shut at this point.

She asked me how I could honestly not believe in God. I responded by asking her how she could deny that the Gods of Hinduism (for example) were true. Essentially, the response she gave me was that those Gods were just silly.

I wanted to say that that was what I felt about all Gods.

Instead, I said the standard line about how it’s easy to dismiss “other” Gods and atheists just take it one step further.

I don’t think she understood me. We changed the subject.

***

So to recap, I knew what I would say if I wanted to “evangelize” my atheist views. It wouldn’t even be that extreme. I knew what I would say if I simply wanted to be a “good” atheist. I even think my responses would have been decently thought out and logical. But I didn’t do that. I had no reason to make her think she was wrong, and maybe I was flattering myself in thinking that anything I said would change her mind. I almost felt bad challenging her when it was clear that she felt God changed her life for the better.

I don’t know how other people (atheists?) would’ve responded.

Should I have been more representative of the atheistic outlook? Or was it ok that I didn’t say all that was in my head at the time…?


[tags]Christian, atheist, God, Jim Henderson, The Wall Street Journal, Hinduism, religion, atheism[/tags]

Says this article.

The statements attesting to the idea that Science actually helps Christianity were made after the premiere of the documentary “The Case for a Creator” (based on the book by Lee Strobel).

The best line in the article:

Over the last several decades, Christians have begun to emerge back into the intellectual public square.

Right… In fact, MENSA meetings are now being held in church.

Now, if the writer wanted to make her point, she would explain the intellectual/Scientific contributions of Christianity.

Instead, she gives us Intelligent Design. Michael Behe. The Bacterium Flagellum.

(You can read about how the flagellum evolved, contrary to what Behe says, here.)

She also states the “field of philosophy” as a place where Christians are emerging as the intellectual giants. (Yes, philosophy, with all of its hard-core research…)

Strobel adds to the fire by saying:

Today, science is pointing more powerfully to a creator than any other time… The most logical and rational step is to put my faith in the Creator that science tells me exists.

That would be so much more convincing if only there was any actual science involved…


[tags]Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, science, atheist, atheism, Christianity, Michael Behe, Intelligent Design, MENSA, church, bacterium flagellum[/tags]

Blogger Cailin from California writes about an encounter she had with a door-to-door Evangelist.

She represent atheists well by simply having a conversation and answering his questions honestly instead of being aggressive.

And the Evangelist doesn’t seem to overstep his bounds, either– he respectfully stops pushing his views when he sees where she’s coming from.

Nice work, Cailin!


[tags]Cailin, atheist, evangelist, evangelism, Christian, Bible[/tags]

In all the election results from last week, I didn’t hear much about the nine victories by members of the Indian-American community… until now.

In Minnesota, Satveer Chaudhary sought re-election for his seat in the state Senate and won his third term to that post. Chaudhary is the first Asian-American elected to the Minnesota legislature, the youngest member of the state Senate, and presumably the only Hindu. He was running against Rae Hart Anderson, a Christian, teacher, and registered nurse.

When Anderson lost, she didn’t make the customary concession call to Chaudhary. She emailed him. And what gracious, tactful remarks did she send the young man?

The local CBS affiliate got ahold of the email…

Congratulations on winning the District 50 senate race. Your phone is “busy”…no doubt with good wishes!

I’ve enjoyed much of this race, especially the people I’ve met…even you! I see your deficits–not all of them, and your potential–but not all of it. Only your Creator knows the real potential He’s put in you. Get to know Him and know yourself…you’ll be more interesting even to you!

The race of your life is more important than this one–and it is my sincere wish that you’ll get to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. He died for the sins of the world, yours and mine–and especially for those who accept His forgiveness. His kingdom will come and His will be done–on earth as it is in heaven. There’s more….I love belonging to the family of God. Jesus is the way, the truth and offers His life to you and each human being. Pay attention…this is very important, Satveer. Have you noticed Jesus for yourself…at some moment in time, yet???

God commends His love to us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8

Death came upon all and was defeated by the superiority of Jesus’ life and His tomb is empty. God in Christ is reconciling the world back to Himself, with offered forgiveness–this is one choice we get to make nose to nose with the living God–fear Him and you need fear no other. Become His family and know the love of God that passes knowledge. See Isaiah and the Gospel of John…good reading while waiting for fishes to bite.

God sent not His son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
John 3:17

Jesus Christ lives in His earth family by His Spirit. He said He’d be back, and He said it first. You could invite Him to make the race of your life ‘eternal’. God waits to be gracious to each person that knows they need to be forgiven. Do you? I think you do. Just ask. Christ won eternal life for you and said so. Take Him at His Word. Take some time to get acquainted with this power-filled Jesus…God with us. You could be a temple of the living God, by invitation—yours, TO GOD. There’s nothing like belonging to Christ…not winning, not money, not degrees…it’s the best.

Good wishes and better wishes…until you wish for the best!

Rae Hart Anderson

Wow. Never heard of a concession sermon before.

As one of the commenters on Sepia Mutiny noted, that’s called “losing with grace.”

Wonkette is a little more blunt about all this.

It’s not even a mean email. It’s just completely ignorant and disrespectful of Chaudhary’s beliefs. And you get the impression Anderson would’ve been saying similar things to her constituents had she been elected, which is just frightening.


[tags]Indian-Americans, Hindu, Satveer Chaudhary, Christian, Rae Hart Anderson, Minnesota, CBS, Jesus, Sepia Mutiny, Wonkette[/tags]