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That harm can take on various forms. For example, someone may have manipulated others for personal profit or power. Someone may have used their position to cover sexual abuse or assault.

Someone may have rejected others because of race, sexual orientation, political affiliation, or economic standing in the community. In addition, someone may have directly or indirectly betrayed a person’s trust.

Sometimes the harm is unintentional, an act of omission or carelessness.

As Christ-followers, we don’t want to take responsibility for our complicity in church hurt. It is easier to blame the problem on someone else. Conclusion: It is time for us to acknowledge when we harm others, apologize and change our behavior, and give the wounded time and space for healing.

If you have experienced church hurt, let me offer my sincere apologies. The Church is supposed to be a place of healing and refuge, and there is no valid excuse for the harm done to you by the Church."

Many theists believe there was once nothing, and then there was something—the universe—created by their god. And so they ask, “But if there is no god then how can something come from nothing?”

This question has been asked for thousands of years, but now Quantum physics has provided a basis for some atheists, such as Lawrence Krauss, to indeed believe the universe comes from “nothing.” But Krauss doesn’t speak for all atheists and he speaks of a very different kind of “nothing,” the kind where virtual particles are created from borrowed energy inside a vacuum. This is not even remotely close to what theists mean by the term “nothing.”

When asked about the universe, most atheists simply stop somewhere along the lines of “the evidence suggests the universe began expanding approximately 13.77 billion years ago.” Beyond that I’m fine with “I don’t know.” I don’t need to know. I do not believe the universe came from “nothing” in the way theists use the word or in the way Krauss uses the word. I don‘t think there’s enough evidence to reach a conclusion yet and I‘m fine with that. I’ve never met an atheist who believed everything comes from “nothing “in the way theists use the word and in my experience, only a minority subscribe to the theory Krauss puts forward. Theists may believe the universe sprang from nothing, but they then have the burden of proving there was ever “nothing” and that “something” requires any gods at all.

Humans are social beings, and as such we have morals. Some theists say atheists have no reason to be moral since we don’t believe in a god to instruct or punish us. This claim seems rather disingenuous when one considers that most theists who say this wouldn’t become immoral deviants overnight if they suddenly stopped believing in a god.

Studies have shown our morals are a product of multiple factors. The Milgram experiment shows authority plays a major role. The Stanford prison experiment showed the same, but also displayed the role of social hierarchy. The “good or evil” puppet test for babies suggests we are all born with a basic sense of fairness, justice, and unfortunately, bigotry. Human morality is too complex to be explained by religion or lack of it.

Millions of atheists across the globe live moral lives every day. Some don’t. Neither do some believers. There are atheist charities and atheist criminals. There are religious charities and religious hate groups. Religious people and atheists can both behave morally or immorally because of—or wholly independent of—their religious beliefs. One doesn’t necessarily lead to the other. Studies have shown the basis of human morality is present even before we’re exposed to religion."

"It is not the type of belief but rather how faith is used that makes it abusive.

The similarities between the stories and characters in the Bible and those from previous mythologies are both undeniable and well-documented. This would be obvious if it weren’t for early indoctrination of these beliefs into children, which usually makes them unassailable as adults.

In this short piece I’ll attempt to show extraordinary similarities with regard to two of the most important Biblical narratives: the Genesis story and the character of Jesus Christ.

Here are a number of elements that both Gilgamesh and the flood story in Genesis share:

Keep in mind the level of detail in these similarities. It’s not a matter of just a flood, but specific details: three birds sent out, resisting the call to build the ark, and a single man being chosen by God to build the ark. Then consider that the first story (Gilgamesh) came from Babylon — hundreds of years before the Bible was even written.

Do you honestly think, based on the similarities above, that those who wrote the Genesis story had not heard the Gilgamesh story? And if they had heard it, and they were simply rehashing an old, very popular tale, what does that say about the Bible?

Not only was the Bible taken largely and blatantly from previous stories, but there are contradictions so massive that they defy belief. Here are just a few of them.

The general population is well aware of the existence of atheists by now. Dawkins, Harris, and other prominent white atheists have made sure of that.

But black atheists make up less than 0.5% of the black population in the US and a very small proportion of the atheist population. Though logic dictates that black nonbelievers must exist, their small numbers and lack of visibility contribute to their erasure.

Why does this matter?

Because perpetuating the myth that black people are inherently theistic ignores the diversity of thought that actually exists within the black community. It contributes to the stereotyping of black culture as monolithic, even amongst black people who (should) know better.

Furthermore, when people don’t consider the possibility of black nonbelievers existing, it can affect their relationships with the non-religious people in their lives.

Think of theists offering prayers to nonbelievers with sick family members, or comforting grieving nonbelievers by talking about the afterlife, or encouraging an agnostic cousin to say grace at dinner, or telling a strident atheist they’ll “come around eventually.”

These are just a few examples of the ways that nonbelievers in general are invalidated, annoyed, and silenced by well meaning people. The smaller number of nonbelievers in the black community heightens their erasure in particular.

Black nonbelievers often encounter the assumption that because they are black, religion and spirituality should be especially important to them. And when this assumption is coming from other black people who are themselves religious, it can feel like a denial of cultural identity to express one’s nonbelief.

Recognizing and affirming the existence of black nonbelievers isn’t just about making them more comfortable. If members of the black community strive to recognize and understand people with different views of the world, they can more thoughtfully approach and get along with the people in their lives with whom they disagree.

A lot of prominent freethinkers, humanists, and atheists seem more concerned with denouncing religion than solving issues of structural inequality and systematic injustice. This contributes to the myth that nonbelievers are unconcerned with social justice, or are less concerned with doing good in the world than religious people.

There have been a number of skeptics, mostly older white men, who have made the case for abandoning religion in the modern age. But for all the Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harrises in the atheist world, there aren’t as many skeptics focused on feminism, racial justice, and other sociopolitical issues that would exist with or without religion.

Alongside the myth of the apathetic nonbeliever are even greater myths about religion’s role in black culture. Religion can be wielded as both the weapon of the oppressor and the shield of the oppressed.

For example, during the Transatlantic slave trade, white captors used passages of the Bible to justify the enslavement of Africans and demand their subjugation. Slaves who converted to Christianity, on the other hand, saw parallels between themselves and the enslaved Israelites in the Exodus."