Rudy Ruddell's Blog – May 2010 Archive (10)

I was reading an Female genital mutilation essay out of "The Book Your Church Does Not Want You to Read," by Fran P Hosken. In this short essay, I learned that 84 million women and girls living in 1989 had been genitally mutilated. The objective is to make sexual intercourse impossible. The essay said it is practiced mostly by Muslims. This infuriated me!



I Googled infibulation, which was used as synonymous with genital mutilaiton and got some better information. Actually, there are… Continue

I was raised in an evangelical Christian family and I was taught that the U.S. is God's chosen country of today, i.e. the best nation. That thought lingered in my mind even during 35 years of closeted atheism.



It was only after I studied religion objectively 3 months ago that it dawned on me that the U.S. is not the best, far from it. The U.S. takes after the Old Testament God: it is an arrogant, egotistical asshole. We say we have the best ideas and we impose them on others, which… Continue

The Church of England has urged the BBC not to cut any more religious programmes, warning that the Corporation is in danger of “losing sight of its essence”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7730639/Church-warns-BBC-not-to-cut-religion.html

http://www.alternet.org/story/146855/why_are_so_many_christians_conservative?page=entire

As I was driving out of my driveway this morning, I notice something in someone's yard that looked like a pelican. Upon closer examination, I realized it wasn't. It reminded me of how we humans have an protective instinct to interpret things as living things in case it is a threat. This evolutionary trait has caused us to think there is a God even when there isn't.

Today I was thinking about how religion is a tool for controlling the masses. If you can get them to think someone in the sky is watching them at all times, they will be more law abiding citizens. Then, I thought, “What if we all found out that God was not watching us?” That gave me an idea for a movie. Please tell me what you think?



God appears in the sky on a giant TV and says in all the languages of the world:



“Listen, dudes, you guys need to shut up. You are annoying… Continue

I was pulling weeds next to my Russian neighbor who was changing his oil of his car. I knew he formerly was biochemistry major who wanted to be a medical doctor, but that he decided instead to become a

preacher. I asked what he was doing these days and he said he was working on

his second master’s degree. His first was in pastoral science (for becoming a

preacher) and his second is in theology (for teaching preachers in…

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Dear Atheism,

Why am I so joyfully obsessed with you? Why do I consider the highlights of my day to be when I check my Facebook (FB) notifications? Why do I write a letter to you as if you were a being with which to

communicate? Is it because I need something

to replace my Christian God? How can someone be so happy that something doesn’t

exist?…

Continue

This is my ex-Christian story. My parents were both reared in very religious protestant farming families in Iowa. I was born in 1957 while they were attending Los Angeles Chiropractic College.

We attended the church in which my parents were raised. This church was called

Christian Conventions, but if you asked a member what the name of their church

was, they would say they did not have a name. However, they would gladly refer

you…

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I have been reading "The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read." The latest chapters are about the atrocities the Catholic Church has committed over the past 2000 years. In California, Father Serra invented the Novenario for punishing native americans who strayed from the Christian way: 25 lashes for nine days in a row.