Elvis is not alive, original sin is not true, unbelief in God is not always atheism, and a broken heart is not ugly

Week in Review (Oct 28-Nov 2)

This Week in Writing

I started this week with Part Two of my series, “The Top Most Abused Bible Verses”. I’m devoting this series to addressing particular verses from the Bible that have been mistaught and weaponized to put the fear of God in people and solidify a power/control imbalance of clergy over laity, which are characteristic of toxic religion.

Having for many years been in professional Christian ministry myself, which I discuss in my article Confessions of an Ex-Megapastor, I realize that no little 7-year-old boy says, “When I grow up I want to be a religious leader who misteaches the Bible to deeply harm, damage and traumatize people.”

Most religious leaders are indoctrinated into their particular understanding of religious faith and their interpretation of the Bible, which becomes a matter of religious devotion. Evangelical Anglican bishop, J. C. Ryle, wrote:

“A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say that he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, thorough-going, whole-hearted, fervent in spirit. He sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed-up in one thing — and that one thing is to please God and to advance God's glory.”

You see the problem here, right? Blaise Pascal understood it when he wrote, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” For my purpose here, the point is that toxic doctrine in the hands of a religious zealot can do great harm, even if the zealot is operating with true devotion. Religious leaders who teach doctrines such as original sin and eternal conscious torment in Hell are often doing so out of a sense of divine duty.

The important thing to note is that zealous devotion does not qualify as evidence for the truth of a claim. There are those who have zealous devotion to ideas such as:

• the earth is flat

• moon landing conspiracy

• the Cardiff Giant

• COVID-19 is fake

• Elvis is still alive

• the Cowboys will win the Super Bowl

Just because you may be zealously convinced that an above item is true does not sufficiently authenticate its veracity. Likewise, just because a religious doctrine is taught zealously, doesn’t give it credibility or make it worthy of belief.

So far in my series, “The Top Most Abused Bible Verses”, I have covered:

• Refuting the “original sin” doctrine

• Disproving the “heart is deceitful” lie

Other traditional Christian doctrines I have deconstructed and discussed are:

• Is Hell Real?

• Does Heaven Exist?

• What is the Bible?

• Debunking repentance theology

• unChristian Jesus

• False choices of Christian doctrine

• Undoing religious pathology

The second article I published this week was: Not Religious and Not Atheist: Understanding The New “Nranas”. A few of the themes I discuss in the article include:

• What is a “nrana” and what do we know about Gen A

• Why not believing in God doesn’t make you an atheist, and some atheists have their own version of Christianity

• How I managed to summon Kurt Cobain for this article

• Christianity might be dead, but it depends upon what you mean by “Christianity” and “dead”

• My hobby of inventing new words

• There is a nostalgic Christianity, cultural Christianity and a political Christianity but none of them have anything to do with Jesus

What Subscribers Are Saying

Hi, Michael. I appreciate your encouraging words. Back in the day when I started this journey “religious deconstruction” was not yet a thing, and Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS) wasn’t yet on anyone’s mental health radar. I’m so glad someone was able to identify this for you in therapy. Let me suggest a few articles you may especially find useful in your process:

• The Leaving-Religion Resource Guide

• The Leaving-Religion Do and Don't List

• Undoing Religious Pathology

• unChristian: Deconstruction for the rest of us (four-part series)

Thanks again for subscribing to and recommending my Substack! Let me know how your deconstruction and RTS healing journey is going.

This Week in Pictures

Thank you David Hayward for the reminder that the biggest threat to Christianity has oddly enough always been Jesus. In Inner Anarchy I wrote:

“Jesus was not a Christian. He is not the founder of Christianity. Jesus never encouraged people to worship him. Christianity is a religion created later, mostly by Paul and later church councils, in the name of Jesus, and is much different from the truth that Jesus taught and lived.

Were Jesus alive today, he would not be a Christian. Jesus is still one of best-kept secrets because his truth has been grossly distorted by those who claim to speak for him. There is a religion-free Jesus who belongs to all of humankind. Christianity does not own or have first rights to Jesus. His truth has universal significance.

It's a mistake to make Jesus a religious figure or front man for Christianity. You have to disentangle Jesus from what you heard at church to find the truth he said would set you free.”

Performers with the performance group Macnas dance during the Halloween parade “Alf's Journey,” inspired by climate change and habitat loss, in Galway, Ireland.

Well the L.A. Dodgers beat the Yanks in the World Series. This is their eighth championship and seventh since leaving Brooklyn for Los Angeles. Their championship years are: 2024, 2020, 1988, 1981, 1965, 1963, 1959, 1955.

A Pennsylvania voting center where early voting ballots were cast. Tuesday is considered voting day for the U.S. Presidential Election. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” A few useful places on Substack to follow election news, developments and results:

• Heather Cox Richardson

• Dan Rather

• The Bulwark

• Robert Reich

Interesting Things Substack People Are Up To

Audrey Tautou in The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain

• NYT bestselling author,

  Kirsten Powers
  , left the circus of American life and, making a new one in Italy.

• David Michie
  wrote an interesting article on what Buddha, Jesus and Einstein all share in common.

• Cadell Last
  teamed up with
  Slavoj Žižek
  and other public intellectuals to curate resources and a course on Christian Atheism.

• Caroline Chambers
  created an epic recipe index on her Substack publication, What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking.

• I come across quite a few newcomers to Substack who are just beginning to develop their publication.

  Sarah Fay
  offers great input and guidance. This is a useful article to get you going.

• Tim Denning
  writes a lot of useful pieces on living optimally. His article, You Should Be Building Your Own Thing for the First 2 Hours of Every Day is worth the read.

On Loving Humankind

I woke up this morning with a love in my heart for all humankind. I thought about how deep down we are all one and share in the same life that runs through each and every one of us, and how every person is my mother and father, sister and brother, and daughter and son. But then a sadness came over me for all the ways we think and live divided from each other. But I did not despair because I know nothing in all this world is more powerful than what I experienced in those deep feelings and what they showed me.

There are some days when I take a look at the world and humankind in all its absurdities, vanities, and hostilities, and I think to myself, "not my circus, not my monkeys."

But wait, it is. The human journey is my circus, my fellow human beings are my monkeys. And truth be told, my life at times has been quite a circus, and I've certainly had my moments when I wasn't displaying much more advanced thinking than a baboon.

For better or for worse, we are one human family. We all need, desire, and fear the same things. We aren't terribly inventive, original or creative with our hair-brained and doomed strategies and schemes to attain happiness, worth, security and significance. But if I stood face-to-face with any person, looked deeply into their eyes, and could see down far enough, I would eventually see that we are the same thing... that we both are shimmering expressions of the one and only timeless and infinite ground of all being.

Today I will remember:

Every human being has at least one secret that would break my heart.

Every human being has moments when they feel alone, abandoned, forsaken and forgotten.

Everyday human being needs love, belonging, acceptance, compassion, understanding, validation, and worth.

Every human being carries hurts and wounds from the volatility of their lived human experience.

Every human being is fundamentally composed with the same infinite, timeless, ultimate and complete nature and ground of being.

We will not experience true oneness and harmony until people turn toward what is real, deep inside them. There is the way, the truth and the life that flows through us all. We must speak from that real and natural place within us to each other. We will never achieve harmony by seeking to create some set of religious beliefs that everyone agrees to. The truth is deeper than this, and “God” is beyond all our beliefs, interpretations and doctrines. The secret is written on our hearts. It’s not found in a book or out there somewhere; it's inside us.

This life will break your heart but I think it’s supposed to. If you decide to live and love with your heart flung open to the world, your heart will break. Of course sometimes your heart is broken because of hardships, but it can also break just because you’ve truly loved. It doesn't really break in two, it’s more like these little cracks and scars that you get and carry with you.

But I don’t know how else to live. I can’t just go numb, auto-pilot and do life from my head. That’s not really being human. I signed up for this, all of it. I can't pick and choose. Being human is not for the faint of heart, partly because of those things we so deeply feel. Some days it’s the sadness of the world I think will kill me. Other days, it's the beauty of it. You can love so much it actually hurts. Figure that one out. I can’t shrink back from living.

When life gets still and quiet, you’re left all alone with your own heart. You weep and you’re a little more whole in your tears. A cracked and scared heart may be a little broken, but broken hearts can be beautiful, even with the cracks and scars.

In Summary

• Zealous devotion to an idea does not qualify as evidence for the truth of the claim.

• Oddly enough, the biggest threat to Christianity has always been Jesus.

• Not believing in God doesn’t make you an atheist, and some atheists have their own version of Christianity.

• A cracked and scared heart may be a little broken, but broken hearts can be beautiful, even with the cracks and scars.

• I swear I saw Elvis at a Dairy Queen outside Memphis.

• Thanks for subscribing to my Substack and making this possible. If you find what I write and share meaningful, consider becoming a paid subscriber and recommending this publication. Every paid subscriber receives several goodies, including: my Life After Religion 30-Day Detox Guide, my unpublished book, How to Have a Great Day Without Religion, and full access to my archives, which currently includes 150 articles.

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson