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8 Things Your Pastor Will Never Tell You About the Bible

This is from; Friendly Atheist.

This is a guest post written by Richard Hagenston. Hagenston is an ordained United Methodist minister, a former pastor, and the author of Fabricating Faith: How Christianity Became a Religion Jesus Would Have Rejected.

 … When I was a United Methodist pastor, I learned an unsettling thing from my own experiences and those of some colleagues serving other churches: Many ministers keep secrets about the Bible, lest things they learned in seminary (or otherwise know) hurt church attendance and the Sunday offering.

This put some friends of mine in a terrible quandary, forced to say things from the pulpit that were doctrinally demanded but which they had come to privately question. As for me, I resolved the matter by leaving the pastorate. When I did, I got calls of congratulations from two nearby ministers. One of those calls was especially poignant. He said I was fortunate to have other skills from my previous work experience that I could draw on. But he added that all he had been trained to do was to be a minister and that he felt trapped in the pulpit saying things he no longer believed in order to continue supporting his family.

It’s time our secrets about the Bible came out. It’s time for Christians to know what their pastors won’t tell them.
1) The Apostles of Jesus Seem to Have Known Nothing about a Virgin Birth
2) Jesus Said He Wanted to Offer Nothing to Gentiles
3) Jesus Tells Everyone Not to Think of Him as God in the First Three Gospels
4) The Resurrection Appearances in the Gospels Have Irreconcilable Differences
5) Jesus Was Against Public Prayer
6) Some Books of the Bible Are Forgeries
7) Parts of the Bible Were Intentionally Written to Disagree with Other Parts of the Bible
8) Apostles Who Had Been Taught by Jesus Himself Insisted that Paul Was Wrong about the Gospel

Read the entire thing at; 8 Things Your Pastor Will Never Tell You About the Bible
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 Religion of Peace

There is no such thing as a “religion of peace.”

In the name of religion human beings have forcibly removed entire populations from their homelands and taken their livelihoods. Religion has slaughtered entire towns from the youngest child to the oldest woman. It has pitted people against hungry predators in public arenas. Because of religion, people have gone on crusades, gone on jihads, and attacked their neighboring countries. Religion has prompted governments to burn people at the stake and hang innocents. Religion was at the basis for Hitler’s final solution, when he tried to cleanse the world of a certain people. Because of religion we humans have bombed ourselves, bombed others, hijacked planes to fly into buildings, beheaded people, and executed apostates. We have done all of these atrocities all to appease or defend some “higher” power that is apparently, despite its magnificent omnipotence, incapable of defending itself.

The Catholic Church actively protects priests who persistently rape children. Scientology officials stalk and smear anyone who dares to disagree. Anders Breivik murdered 77 Norwegians in the name of right-wing political beliefs and Christianity. Charismatic psychopath  Jim Jones convinced 900 people to kill themselves and their children in Jonestown. Preachers claiming the Rapture is imminent persuade their gullible followers to give up their jobs, their homes, and their possessions in preparation for an apocalypse that never happens. Doctors are murdered in their clinics for offering legal health services to pregnant women contrary to the religious beliefs of people who aren’t patients of the clinic. Westboro Baptist Church – need I say more? It’s such a lovely thing that Christianity is a religion of peace.

The whole thing is at; Religion of Peace
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A Great Myth about Atheism: Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot = Atheism = Atrocity

    For Hitchens and co, religion does little good and secularism hardly any evil. Never mind that tyrants devoid of religion such as Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot perpetrated the worst atrocities in history. As H. Allen Orr, professor of biology at the University of Rochester, observed, the 20th century was an experiment in secularism that produced secular evil, responsible for the unprecedented murder of more than 100 million. (Abramovich, 2009)

Yes, here it is again, the ubiquitous claim that atheism = Stalin/Pol Pot = moral atrocities. This is a complex one, so hang around. It is commonly claimed by Christians, and I had a debate about this on the Unbelievable forum on facebook recently with many who did, that secular atheism was responsible for the atrocities of the twentieth century perpetrated by the likes of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot (Mao Zedong is often thrown in for good measure). This raises several questions:

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