Ex-Communications - Recovering From Religion - You Are Not Alone

I’m Now Suspicious of…

February 11, 2019 By RFR

Reposted with permission from The Journey of Doubt I’m now suspicious of any ideology with invisible claims that need to be believed in order for them to work. I’m suspicious of any teaching that threatens eternal torture – a monstrous idea that cannot be disproven and so has mentally tortured millions. I’m suspicious of any belief system that touts faith as a virtue and fails to realize that faith is what flew the planes into the twin towers. I’m suspicious… Read more

Recovering from Religion Fall Excursion: Embrace Your Nature

January 29, 2019 By RFR

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Recovering from Religion celebrates 10th year with first-of-its-kind weekend getaway Mars Hill, North Carolina, January 29, 2019 – Recovering from Religion announces its first-ever weekend religion recovery experience in the beautiful mountains of western North Carolina. “Embrace your Nature” will be a weekend of support, fellowship, encouragement, and learning for anyone experiencing negative effects of doubt or disbelief. The September 20-22, 2019 event combines a retreat setting, fall weather, supportive volunteers, mental health professionals, and a schedule of workshops and speakers…. Read more

Eternal Bliss, Endless Torture: What the Hell?

January 12, 2019 By RFR

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I was born with a deformed heart valve. My parents brought me in for an echocardiogram every year, and at age 15 the cardiologist decided it was time to intervene with an open heart surgery. We scheduled it for the day after Christmas. I was told my risk of death was around 1%. I thought about the small but non-zero chance anxiously and often in the months leading up to the surgery. What if the surgeon came across unexpected complications,… Read more

6 Ways to Provide Better Care for Suicidal Non-Religious People

December 16, 2018 By RFR

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By Gayle Jordan, executive director of Recovering from Religion The National Suicide Hotline recently asked several organizations, including Recovering from Religion, to provide some suggestions. The federal commission (1) which directs the Hotline is considering the feasibility of creating a 3-digit telephone number, and determining how well the Hotline addresses the needs of veterans. Studies have shown that, in the US, religiously-unaffiliated individuals who are depressed have higher rates of suicidal behavior (2). Despite this disparity, there is a significant… Read more

In Your Eyes

December 7, 2018 By RFR

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By Susi Bocks In your eyes god exists so I was told my mama said to find you had to reach for you connect to the spirit searched the bible went to church talked and talked to the heavens always silence and dread you didn’t like me my sins too great you loathed me and shunned me tore me to pieces the loving god hated me Read more from Susi Bocks: Feeling Human: A Creative Insight to the Human Condition… Read more

If the Scriptures are True (part 1): Morality without God

November 15, 2018 By RFR

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A practical test of an abstract idea People have long debated the philosophical feasibility of intangible deities. They are said to reside in the sky or perhaps in some sort of parallel spiritual dimension. There’s no way to prove or disprove these ideas because they’re inherently outside the realm of observation. However, religions also tend to make systemized claims about how the spiritual realm affects the lives of people. We can observe people. Every day is a chance to make observations of… Read more

Why I’m No Longer A Christian

October 24, 2018 By RFR

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By guest author Suze Ambs. The reasons why I have left my old religion are numerous, and they keep multiplying and being affirmed the more I study with unbiased eyes. Here, I will share just one reason. I was never very educated about evolution. I thought it was simply the scientific guesswork that humans came from apes because we have similarities. I had done some research, but I never noticed that when I read non-Christian explanations, deep down in my… Read more

From Mormon to Agnostic: Becoming “Human Again”

October 18, 2018 By RFR

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By an anonymous author I’m a big Disney music fan. In the Broadway version of Beauty and the Beast, there’s a song called “Human Again,” in which the characters sing about their dream of changing from household objects back into real people. I love that song because it describes my journey, a journey of learning to feel again — of going from a mental prison of Mormon guilt to freedom and new life as an agnostic/atheist. This is my story…. Read more

A Memoir of a Lifelong Atheist

October 11, 2018 By RFR

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By guest author Richard “Lifelong” might be a slight exaggeration: I abandoned Christianity when I was about fourteen and, while I‘m now eighty-six, I am still living. Let’s say that I’ve been a disbeliever long enough to have had a worthwhile experience of atheism. I grew up in a home that was only slightly religious. My parents rarely went to church, they weren’t members of any denomination, and they neither encouraged nor discouraged me from participating in religion. The exposure… Read more

Tabula Rasa, or My Blank Pages

October 2, 2018 By RFR

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By guest author V. Montgomery Thorp I was like a pilgrim wandering in the wilderness. Lost, disorientated and confused. There I was with D.J. and Thunderchicken, newly returned from Vietnam, coming down from an acid trip, at a Sierra Nevada rest stop with a sign that said, “the Donner Party was here.” I was lurking in the bushes mistakenly thinking I was safely concealed when D.J. reached into his lunch bag and lasered a citrus fireball like Nolan Ryan that… Read more