Christian Nightmares – an awesome site I recommend you subscribe to – got ahold of an excommunication letter sent to what seems like a former believer. I thought I’d share the highlights with you, as it provides an interesting perspective as to the frame of mind of true believers.

It is my sad duty to inform you that you will be excommunicated from the fellowship…of Cornerstone Reformed Church this coming Sunday.

We have repeatedly attempted to call you back to fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, both personally and by letter. You have not responded to any of these appeals, but have steadfastly refused to listen to us and worship on a regular basis with us. As a result…the Session…is striking your name from rolls of this church.

Jesus himself tells the church to discipline those who refuse to repent of their sins and listen to him through the church [I’m guessing this is the important part here]…In obedience of his command, we are handing you over to Satan and his kingdom of darkness in hopes that you will come to your senses, repent, and then return.

In Christ’s name,
Pastor Shade [what is he, a super-villain?]

The gist here is that this guy (or girl) had disobeyed their instructions, refused to show up to their events, and as a result was “handed over” to Satan. Is he some kind of cosmic babysitter or something? I’m not surprised by your attempts to ensnare people back to your church with the threat of eternal torture, but it all seems a bit harsh for the crime of not showing up to your events and responding to a few letters, doesn’t it?

I love how it’s supposedly not Pastor Shade’s decision at all. “Jesus told me that you sucked and needed to burn in hell forever. I’m doing you a favor by telling you all of this, which is why I’m a better person than you”. This is the insanity we have to deal with on a constant basis, people: self righteous assholes who think they’re all doing us a favor by taking our money and telling us what to do. Fun times.

Ever since Conservapedia put up a link to TGA declaring that there was “no such thing as a Good Atheist”, we’ve been getting a lot of great comments in a number of articles. The best one so far has to be from “Bob”, who is convinced that not only do we not exist, but that life on earth wouldn’t be worth living if it wasn’t for his imaginary buddy:

I want to know just one thing, if there is NO God, NO afterlife, No nothing, no point to anything what so ever, why do you continue to even exist? I mean if you could prove to me that there wasn’t a God, which you can’t because there is, I would be the first in line for suicide, NOTHING or NO ONE on this earth is worth putting up with the total bullshit that we put up with on a daily basis.

With a personality like yours, it’s a total mystery why your friends and family don’t offer you enough support and love to justify you “putting” up with existence for more than a minute. You sound like such a positive guy! Surely it must be your love of God that makes you this cheery.

I don’t believe true atheists even exist, just a bunch of snot nosed adults throwing temper tantrums because they can’t get their way and do what they want without repercussion for their actions.

He is aware that we have a justice system, right?

I think I’ve identified where you fucked up in your reasoning, Bobby. You think atheism leads to nihilism which then leads to violent anarchy. If that were the case, prisons would be filled with non-believers. So why are they disproportionately represented in correctional institutions?

The simple answer (the one you can’t seem to grasp) is that belief in God doesn’t actually make a person moral. In fact, it can often do the exact opposite. Just think of how many times someone has murdered their fellow human being because their God commanded them to do so. These psychopaths were the ones who did what they wanted without caring what the repercussions were.

science is so full of shit, takes a lot of faith to believe what you can’t see, right? when was the last time you could 100% prove science, all the way down to its truest form? you can’t you never will, most of what science says is all made up bullshit.

It’s impossible to prove science 100%. The whole process demands uncertainty, in a way. It invites change, because the people who believe in science realize that our picture of the universe is incomplete. That isn’t a weakness, Bobby. That’s a strength. I know it’s hard to grasp when you’ve been humping the Bible for so long, but certainty is not at all desirable. We used to be certain that the world was flat, that the Sun revolved around the Earth, and that diseases were caused by demons. All of these “facts” were written with total certitude in the Bible and all of them are dead wrong.

If you enjoy certainty at the cost of learning anything real about objective reality, that’s your choice. I might suggest, however, that you try and improve your relationships with people that actually exist. They are the ones that make life worth living, not some failed messiah living in “the clouds”.

If you were hoping that China would be immune from faith-pimps because of their long history of non-belief, then I apologize in advance for shattering your delusion. Not only is there a strong tendency for superstition in the country, they appear just as vulnerable as the rest of us to religious nonsense. How else can you explain the rise of Christianity in the East?

It is impossible to say how many Christians there are in China today, but no-one denies the numbers are exploding.

The government says 25 million, 18 million Protestants and six million Catholics. Independent estimates all agree this is a vast underestimate. A conservative figure is 60 million. There are already more Chinese at church on a Sunday than in the whole of Europe.

Keep in mind that everything in China is just ‘larger’ because of their huge population difference, so while 60 million sounds like an impressive figure to us, it represents a tiny fraction of their population. Still, I won’t deny that religion is growing, and this may have more to do with a lost sense of community than anything else. In countries with a lot of corruption, it’s difficult to trust any institution. Religions have always done a good job of providing that assurance and trust where none exists. Why should we be surprised the poor and indigent – increasingly ignored by their government – would turn to the comfort of religious dogma to escape their sorrow and connect with others like them?

What can our rational unbelief offer these people? We need to do more if we’re to win the hearts and minds of people. Merely disproving the tenets of faith doesn’t diminish the feelings of community, hope and certainty that religion offers. If we had to debate which side had the better argument to win over people, then we’d be all set. Unfortunately for us, humans aren’t rational. They don’t make up their minds after careful consideration of all the facts. Instead, they rely on intuition, feelings, and emotions to make their decisions for them, and only later intellectually justify these beliefs (we still want to THINK we’re rational, after all).

Education isn’t enough. We need to stop being gigantic pussies about it and take the ‘institutional’ plunge. We need to develop international support networks of the same complexity and devotion as our religious counterparts. We need to offer more than cold comfort, and we certainly can’t ignore all the roles filled by religion. If we truly want religion gone, then we’ll need to stop ignoring what works well for them, and instead embrace the positive attribute and appropriate them for ourselves (with a rational twist, of course).