Last year on my 64th birthday, I set about creating a goal for my upcoming 65th. At 40 I learned to swim, 60 learned to read music and play violin, etc. I grew up and was educated entirely in Catholic schools (including a stint in the convent) ending with college degrees in art and philosophy. I had always questioned faith and never sincerely had a belief in God. As president of the honor society in high school with exceptional grades, I received a D- for a paper I wrote entitled “Is there a Hell?”. In college, I pursued the study of philosophy in the hopes of finding some answers; hard to expect especially when taught by a priest who was after my virginity! I found recently that even though I reported his behavior he is still a priest, along with a priest who abused me and my sister in youth. He is now a monsignor! Neither here nor there, I married in the church, baptized my 2 children and thus ended my participation in organized religion at about age 26. However, up until my birthday last November, I prayed the rosary, prayer to St. Jude in times of need etc. I was curious about the history of religion and how it evolved, the threat of Islam, the Rapture phenomenon and felt the need to lessen my ignorance. I decided that at this time in my life I have time, interest and resources at my fingertips to pursue my doubts and find some answers. I came upon Karen Armstrong first finding similar background in the convent and uncertainties of my faith. My wonderful 3rd husband, of 18 years also came with Catholic upbringing. He and I have read most of what Armstrong has written. Of course, you and your other ‘new athiests’ are referenced in her writings. Thus was picqued my interest in your ‘mission’ as it were. I have listened or watched about everything available via the net that has involved any or all of the 4 of you….I just finished Harris “Letter to a Christian Nation” and have ordered some of your books as well as others. I shared all my discoveries with my only sister over the phone as well as with my 2 brothers. We are separated by great distances. I buried my oldest daughter, and two grandsons under age 3 in 1993, and now on Monday past, my younger sister unexpectedly died. What have I done I thought! I’ve KILLED GOD! After processing all this and thinking long and hard over these few days, I have discovered that for the first time in my life I am free from the strait-jacket of superstitious beliefs of my past. Most specifically, when notified of my sister’s death I immediately felt guilt for not having prayed more rosaries for her, not begging St. Jude for the proper equation of requests, etc. My parents, my children, my grandsons and my sister are gone! Period! I have felt always the sense that their energy is still occupying space on this earth. I’ve never been tied to a tombstone. I have been determined to live life for them because I am willing and capable of so doing. You cannot imagine what a burden has been lifted from me. I have you and your hard work in bringing about truth and awareness to thank as well as your bravery in taking such chances. You are all to be commended for your learned expertise and sharing it with the world. You have converted not only me, but my husband, my remaining daughter, her husband and 3 sons to add to your positive effect of your efforts. I thank you kind sir! Yours truly, Si Tate

There is precedent for it in the Bible, but really I would be much more impressed if someone preaching proved to be invincible. Psychologically martyrs do help strengthen resolve within a group and can even help you to gain new converts, but I can’t see martyrdom as the best possible means to any end.

Death may be temporary in Christianity, but it is still the permanent (or semi-permanent if you believe in resurrection) removal of a person from the world. Their memory can inspire people, but they can do no more good personally, and they are deprived of the rest of their lives on Earth.

This must be a significant thing, otherwise there would be no reason for life at all, and even less reason for the physical resurrection that the Bible promises.

I have read a lot of the Bible, and I intend to read the entire thing, but it is a hard slog sometimes. Whenever I do try to read it, I just find more and more problems with it which, at least from a literalistic viewpoint (which is what I argue against the most), are very troubling and I would hate to see anyone believe as true history, law or the desire of the god they serve.

Still, I can guarantee you that I already know the Bible better than most people who call themselves Christians, and although parts of it contain some progressive ideas, there are many more parts that I find fault with or find to be irrelevant to real life in the world today than there are parts I agree with.

I would say that the majority of the things Jesus says are good, other than the supernatural stuff (Heaven, Hell, demons, the coming kingdom, etc.). Some of his actions are more questionable though.

Things like driving demons out of people and *into* innocent pigs who are then drowned for no good reason if God is omnipotent, killing the fig tree (in one version it’s just because he’s hungry and it doesn’t have fruit for him), not taking the opportunities he had to speak out against slavery (even to slave owners), etc.

The “Old Testament” God on the other hand is almost nothing but evil. From the first page of the Bible he is setting people up to fail and punishing them for it. The only people he is remotely nice to most of the time are the Israelites, the “chosen” people, and even them he abuses horribly and threatens them with unconscionable things like causing them to starve to the point where they eat their own babies. Read Deuteronomy 28, particularly verses 15-64 if you want to see the character of the Bible’s god, and this is only one of many examples of what a horrible monster it is.

I’m sure I can come to a deeper understanding of the Bible by reading the entire thing, but I think I understand the main characters and many of the most significant events fairly well, and there are a lot of problems with them.

My question is this: if you don’t believe in Christianity, and I am not talking about crazy homeless people, televangelists or white suburban America, and invest a significant amount of energy (hey, you are reading this) into fighting it, rationally speaking, you might want to maybe first read the Bible. It will clear a lot of things up for you, I pray.

The point was simply to show that once again, in a situation where I for one would expect a kind and loving god, or even a vain and worship-seeking god, to intervene on the behalf of his own people, it doesn’t happen.

There was luck and human intervention involved in stopping the gunman, and it didn’t happen until after a large number of people were horribly mentally and emotionally scarred, and their pastor was dead. Some of the people acted heroically, but if there are any gods out there, they sat by and did nothing as usual.

Ugh….

“Bibles don’t stop bullets”
That was a pretty crude remark about someone who just got murdered.
The pastor likely just raised the Bible as a knee-jerk response,
not because he thought a bunch of pages of paper with type would actually save him.
(You’d be hard pressed to find any religious person who truly believed that
holding up a Bible would stop a bullet from hitting them)