I wasn’t a very popular kid growing up, and for me the church offered a way to make friends and get along with people. When I say I was a fundamentalist, I mean that I lived in fear that if I didn’t do enough to be “right in the eyes of God”, I was certainly afraid of going to hell. But, I will say that church did have it’s benefits – I did make quite a few friends there. I still keep in touch, occasionally with some of those childhood friends.

I was 13 years old when I first started to question my Christian upbringing. That year my grandmother passed away. To put this into the proper context, my father (her son) died when I was 4 years old. After he died, it was my grandmother I would say I was closest to. Shortly after that, I attended a “Jesus Camp” in central Pennsylvania, called Camp Yolijwa (A shortening of “Youth Living Jesus’ Way”, made to sound vaguely American Indian).

I had attended this camp for several years – always had a good time with my friends. But the year in question, they called all of the students in for an assembly. These assemblies were typical, one of many sermons on how we all need to accept Jesus into our hearts and ask him for forgiveness for our many sins. However, this year, the counselors and staff decided to put a rather aggressive point on their sermon.

As the assembly started, they rolled a coffin out on the stage. I can’t quite explain the emotions I felt when this happened, but in short, at first I was profoundly upset. I couldn’t understand why I was this upset, and only in hindsight do I recognize that it was my grandmother’s recent death that had captured my emotions. But that sadness soon gave way to confusion, then anger – I was deeply angry that my emotions had been manipulated so easily.

I didn’t go up and look in the coffin – I vaguely realized that they had offered an invitation to the gathering for everyone to do so. Inside the coffin, I was told, was a full length mirror. It was an attempt to get these young teenagers to get a glimpse of their own mortality – And perhaps use it to get (keep, of course – How many times did one child need to commit to Christ, after all?) more converts to Christ.

I remember telling the kids, counselors, everyone around me that I was upset – upset at being manipulated, upset that they would do this to kids. I was counseled that they recognize that the message might not have been appropriate, but that it was all OK because it was in God’s name and they should be forgiven.

After this incident, I didn’t just throw out my faith. I wish I could say that I did – But what I did do is start questioning that my teachers had all of the answers. I was repeatedly advised as a child that if you had questions, the best thing you could do to get answers was to read the bible. And so I did exactly that.

Once you start reading the bible without someone telling you exactly what it means, it takes on a whole new dimension. I remember reading from Genesis to Revelations, and I can’t count the number of times I said to myself “THIS doesn’t make sense”. I remember comparing the genealogies of Christ, and noticing the gaps and other errors. I remember questioning the wisdom of worshipping a God who would punish all of humanity and their children for the actions of a few.

As I came to the close of my teenage years, I had decided that Jehovah either did not exist – Or if he did, he was a monster and not worthy of worship. I wasn’t ready to give up on the idea of a god, or many gods. The universe to me was far too complex to comprehend a mechanistic method of creation, one without purpose.

So, my next foray was into paganism. I met a woman who called herself a high priestess of Wicca. She “taught” me ways of envisioning energies, and “magick” – Which should be able to when properly applied help you make your way in a complex and confusing world. It was explained to me that spells were like prayer – That sometimes they worked, and sometimes they didn’t – And the outcome was simply based on either karma, or whether you worked them with the proper desires.

I found it interesting that none of the spells I ever “cast” had ever actually worked – Not in any objective way. Not only that, but I noticed the people around me who had done the same thing only really ever succeeded in life if they worked hard – I noticed very many who didn’t succeed at all, even though they cast spell after spell to improve their lives.

After awhile, I had to admit to myself that paganism was rather silly. Probably harmless, for the most part – Except for the people actively swindling other people out of their money. I started calling myself an “agnostic pagan” – Then shortening it to “agnostic”.

Right around this time, I divorced my first wife. I married my second, and I took notice of . . . → Read More: My Story – Journey from a Fundamentalist Christian to an out-and-proud Atheist]]> I’ve had a long road from being a Christian Fundamentalist teenager to an out-and-proud Atheist and Secular Activist. I get asked from time to time what my story is, and so I thought I might write it down.

I grew up in a fairly fundamentalist home. My mother frequently took us to church (for awhile), but by the time she stopped going I still was very involved in the church. I attended the Glenvale Church of God in Rye Township, Pennsylvania. It was small-town church, part of the Churches of God General Conference.

I wasn’t a very popular kid growing up, and for me the church offered a way to make friends and get along with people. When I say I was a fundamentalist, I mean that I lived in fear that if I didn’t do enough to be “right in the eyes of God”, I was certainly afraid of going to hell. But, I will say that church did have it’s benefits – I did make quite a few friends there. I still keep in touch, occasionally with some of those childhood friends.

I was 13 years old when I first started to question my Christian upbringing. That year my grandmother passed away. To put this into the proper context, my father (her son) died when I was 4 years old. After he died, it was my grandmother I would say I was closest to. Shortly after that, I attended a “Jesus Camp” in central Pennsylvania, called Camp Yolijwa (A shortening of “Youth Living Jesus’ Way”, made to sound vaguely American Indian).

I had attended this camp for several years – always had a good time with my friends. But the year in question, they called all of the students in for an assembly. These assemblies were typical, one of many sermons on how we all need to accept Jesus into our hearts and ask him for forgiveness for our many sins. However, this year, the counselors and staff decided to put a rather aggressive point on their sermon.

As the assembly started, they rolled a coffin out on the stage. I can’t quite explain the emotions I felt when this happened, but in short, at first I was profoundly upset. I couldn’t understand why I was this upset, and only in hindsight do I recognize that it was my grandmother’s recent death that had captured my emotions. But that sadness soon gave way to confusion, then anger – I was deeply angry that my emotions had been manipulated so easily.

I didn’t go up and look in the coffin – I vaguely realized that they had offered an invitation to the gathering for everyone to do so. Inside the coffin, I was told, was a full length mirror. It was an attempt to get these young teenagers to get a glimpse of their own mortality – And perhaps use it to get (keep, of course – How many times did one child need to commit to Christ, after all?) more converts to Christ.

I remember telling the kids, counselors, everyone around me that I was upset – upset at being manipulated, upset that they would do this to kids. I was counseled that they recognize that the message might not have been appropriate, but that it was all OK because it was in God’s name and they should be forgiven.

After this incident, I didn’t just throw out my faith. I wish I could say that I did – But what I did do is start questioning that my teachers had all of the answers. I was repeatedly advised as a child that if you had questions, the best thing you could do to get answers was to read the bible. And so I did exactly that.

Once you start reading the bible without someone telling you exactly what it means, it takes on a whole new dimension. I remember reading from Genesis to Revelations, and I can’t count the number of times I said to myself “THIS doesn’t make sense”. I remember comparing the genealogies of Christ, and noticing the gaps and other errors. I remember questioning the wisdom of worshipping a God who would punish all of humanity and their children for the actions of a few.

As I came to the close of my teenage years, I had decided that Jehovah either did not exist – Or if he did, he was a monster and not worthy of worship. I wasn’t ready to give up on the idea of a god, or many gods. The universe to me was far too complex to comprehend a mechanistic method of creation, one without purpose.

So, my next foray was into paganism. I met a woman who called herself a high priestess of Wicca. She “taught” me ways of envisioning energies, and “magick” – Which should be able to when properly applied help you make your way in a complex and confusing world. It was explained to me that spells were like prayer – That sometimes they worked, and sometimes they didn’t – And the outcome was simply based on either karma, or whether you worked them with the proper desires.

I found it interesting that none of the spells I ever “cast” had ever actually worked – Not in any objective way. Not only that, but I noticed the people around me who had done the same thing only really ever succeeded in life if they worked hard – I noticed very many who didn’t succeed at all, even though they cast spell after spell to improve their lives.

After awhile, I had to admit to myself that paganism was rather silly. Probably harmless, for the most part – Except for the people actively swindling other people out of their money. I started calling myself an “agnostic pagan” – Then shortening it to “agnostic”.

Right around this time, I divorced my first wife. I married my second, and I took notice of some rather egregious violations of the separation of church and state. One in particular was the Kitzmiller V. Dover trial in central Pennsylvania. I was living in Los Angeles at the time, but my children were living in PA – And by that time I had a rather strong grasp of science and biology and religious ignorance. I followed the case rather closely – And I started teaching myself a little about evolution.

I read Richard Dawkins’ book “The Blind Watchmaker”, and was fascinated by how evolution worked. When “The God Delusion” came out, I read it too – And it made me question my stance on God. I realized that I wasn’t living my life as if any God existed – And that really did define me as an Atheist. I started using that word – And moved back to Pennsylvania to be more involved with raising my children.

I felt that for me it was time to start getting involved. I found a local group, PA Nonbelievers, and volunteered my time to redesign their website. Shortly thereafter I joined the board of directors. I love the time I put in – And the community of atheists and nonbelievers I’ve found and now call my family.

Does that make sense to anyone? If you have any background in the Christian religion, especially the more fundamentalist ones, you should be as shocked as I am. The Republican party has historically had a strong fundamentalist backing. In the past, fundamentalists have decried the Mormon faith – Calling it a cult, blasphemous, and many other far more denigrating things.

However, Republicans have done it. Whether it’s forming a coalition against Obama, or uniting under certain social policies, Republicans have been able to convince their constituents that Romney’s religion doesn’t matter. That in spite of his personal beliefs, Romney is capable of protecting those values they hold most dear. The “Reverend” Billy Graham has even gone so far as to drop the “Mormons are a cult” party line. When has Billy Graham ever changed his mind on anything in recent memory?

We aren’t talking about JFK being the first Catholic president, and it being a mark of progressiveness to support him. We’re talking about a conservative candidate, by all rights the Republican party should be tearing him apart on a philosophical basis. But, they clearly aren’t. They are quite willing to accept him in order to support the party.

This is the culmination of the “Big-Tent” policies of the Moral Majority from the 1980s, and however you feel personally about it, one can’t help but be impressed at the party not only gaining acceptance for Romney, but also perpetuating what is now a neck-and-neck race with a president who, objectively, is quite popular.

Christian groups have plenty that they disagree over. But as someone who cares about atheist activism, I think we have no where near the disagreements that they do. And yet, we obsess over things like labels and perpetuating in-group/out-group stereotyping.

This behavior is counter-productive to the secular movement. If we want to succeed, we need to be wise enough to learn from our philosophical opponents. We need to stop treating those we disagree with as something other than human, and start working with people who share our core values and objectives.

Many of us recognize that the Separation of Church and State MUST be absolute, and are working hard to maintain that. We can’t do that if we require loyalty tests to a particular creed before we work on our shared goals. We need to work on coalitions – Even if we maintain disagreements about our unrelated values, we need to work together to accomplish our shared goals. In this country, not all of our rights are protected, and the only way to protect them is with our numbers, working together.

Our ideological opponents have learned from the past. On our side, It’s heartening to see such diverse groups as American Atheists, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and the Center for Inquiry working together. If those groups which have historically deep divides can work together, why can’t we as individuals?.

Even groups that have fundamental disagreements can work together (See my example above about fundamentalists and Mormons.) We can also see this in how the Secular Coalition for America (and the Secular Coalition for Pennsylvania) can find a way to work with even religious groups to address the common purpose of keeping church and state separate. Many groups with vastly different ideological viewpoints find ways to work together, and it’s to that purpose we need to focus our time and effort.

As secular activists, we need to reject arbitrarily divisive labels. We need to find a way to communicate our core, shared values without hyping our differences. Of course we need to discuss and communicate with each other those areas in which we disagree, but we need to learn to keep those disagreements civil. Because if we don’t learn to work together, we will certainly lose those rights we’ve worked so hard to protect – together.

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All of it is magical (and wishful) thinking. So, if you believe that the rapture will happen, and mock those who picked last Saturday as their ticket “home”, you should reconsider your position. 2,000 years of rapture predictions have happened with people thinking it will happen in their lifetime, and all of them have proven wrong.

What gives you the “faith” that God has picked YOUR life as one that Jesus will come back to earth for? Why do you insist that you are somehow more special than those other people? In fact, why do you have faith at all he will come back?

Click here to make your own: http://ffrf.org/out/

They’ve begun offering a “Free App a Day” service for their market, located here: http://amazon.com/apps

However, there’s no RSS feed or easy way to check the free app. So, I’ve written a web crawler to do it for you, and attached it to an RSS feed.

Simply click the RSS icon here:

You can then add the RSS feed to your favorite reader.

Found this article today:

Pyramid Holistic Wellness Center, 120 Merchants Row, Rutland, VT 05701, March 21, 2011 – Dr. Margaret Smiechowski, North America’s foremost expert on Himalayan salt, is pleased to announce that her latest salt cave design is set to be revealed on March 29th, 2011, at the opening of the Tranquility Salon and Wellness Center in Carlisle, PA. Like all of her salt caves, the Carlisle cave features eco-friendly building materials and a highly sophisticated climate-controlled environment. However, this cave represents what Dr. Smiechowski calls the “new generation” of caves in the United States. In doing research, all I’ve been able to find of “Dr.” Smiechowski is this:

Since Homeopathy isn’t a “science”, I’m not sure how seriously one should take a degree in it, let alone a doctorate. I haven’t been able to track down “European medical college”, so I’m not sure if it’s an accredited school.

“The Carlisle cave has significant design improvements far surpassing previous designs,” says Dr. Smiechowski. “In particular, this cave has a unique proprietary ceiling design that allows for a very high-tech ventilation system, offering the visitor the best of modern technology combined with old-world salt therapy.”

The Carlisle cave contains approximately 12,000 pounds of Himalayan salt, which is believed to be the purest salt on earth, containing all of the minerals that the human body requires for healthy living. The salt in this new cave is primarily of the darker burgundy color has been mined by hand without the use of equipment or chemicals. Visitors to the cave will enjoy the decor, which features recycled wood from an 1800′s barn, and soft lighting from unique copper lamps. While relaxing in the peaceful environment, up to ten visitors at once will absorb the minerals from the salt, as well as the negative ions given off from it, which creates a natural detoxification effect.

Purest salt on earth? Pure salt is one sodium ion with one chlorine ion. I find it suspicious that anyone would claim that mined salt is in anyway purer than refined salt. Table salt is simply pure salt with Iodine added. Salt is one of the easiest compounds to synthesize and to purify. Claims of a “Natural detoxification effect” on any level that provides a “dollar-for-dollar” benefit to your health are specious at best. Make no mistake, these services aren’t cheap. From the FAQ on pyramidvt.com:

Salt is used in Dr. Smiechowski’s home country of Poland and throughout the world to help reduce inflammation, treat respiratory problems, prevent and reduce the severity of colds and flu, and for a wide variety of other medical problems. Tranquility Salon and Wellness Center will offer speleotherapy, the clinical use of salt through their new salt cave, in conjunction with a full array of wellness options. “Tranquility will be offering only services using all-natural products,” says Lisa Ramsey

There may be health benefits to ingesting or inhaling salt. There are studies that show that there is a benefit to inhaling a salt solution, through a (cheap) inhaler, to help with bronchitis or cystic fibrosis. It’s laughable to claim that you will get that benefit merely by “hanging out in a salt cave”. There are certainly no actual scientific studies to support the idea.

One final note. My spell checker has no idea what speleotherapy is -> Not a good sign at all.

I decided to spend more time working on this blog, as I am currently working on some pretty cool stuff that I plan to release soon into the public domain. Look here for some more pretty cool stuff over the next year or so, I have a ton of programming ideas in the pipeline I am working on. I intend in the short term to be polishing up my Android skills, so look for some apps for the Android platform. First I will be re-releasing some of my old stuff, then I have a few new ideas as well.