
Mr. Miles’ Bible Class Lesson 3

In which I explain myself
I used to teach Bible classes to middle & high school students in the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) school system. Now, I’m a secular humanist and an atheist. In this series, I review the major ideas I used to teach, in contrast with how I would teach them now.
Continue Reading Mr. Miles’ Bible Class Lesson 2Why require punishment in order to give forgiveness?
Continue Reading Christian Atonement Claims That Forgiveness Requires PunishmentI recently heard a good definition of atheism:
Reason.
The person defining it this way expanded it to include another idea:
Atheists do not insist that they know God does not exist. More precisely, atheists have no reason to believe in God.
Continue Reading Atheist ReasonsThere is a logical contradiction in the beliefs of Christians, especially those who accept the whole Bible as their authority, not just the New Testament. But even those who lean heavily on the New Testament Jesus must cope with the connections Jesus himself made between himself and the Old Testament God.
Continue Reading Jesus Changes Not[The following is my answer to an accusation that I was calling Adventists “a bunch of dummies” in my essay found here.]
“Delusion” doesn’t mean “dummy.”
Continue Reading Deluded Does Not Equal DummyThere’s a certain frustration I have with apologists. They retreat to the following defense at times.
This is the fourth of four points I made in a Facebook discussion in June and July of 2013. The people whose names are occasionally mentioned were the other participants in the discussion. It appears here for future reference since I deleted my Facebook account in April of 2018.
Continue Reading FB#4: The Great Divide?This is the third of four points I made in a Facebook discussion in June and July of 2013. The people whose names are occasionally mentioned were the other participants in the discussion. It appears here for future reference since I deleted my Facebook account in April of 2018.
Continue Reading FB#3: All Scripture Is Inspired By God; Therefore I Reject GodThis is the second of four points I made in a Facebook discussion in June and July of 2013. The people whose names are occasionally mentioned were the other participants in the discussion. It appears here for future reference since I deleted my Facebook account in April of 2018.
Continue Reading FB#2: Rape Allowed By God Because Might Makes RightThis is the first of four points I made in a Facebook discussion in June and July of 2013. The people whose names are occasionally mentioned were the other participants in the discussion. It appears here for future reference since I deleted my Facebook account in April of 2018.
Continue Reading FB#1: God Arbitrarily Exercises His Power To ProtectThis is an extended comment I made in a Facebook discussion in June and July of 2013. The people whose names are occasionally mentioned were the other participants in the discussion. It appears here for future reference since I deleted my Facebook account in April of 2018.
Continue Reading Violence As AtonementThe following is a contribution I made to a discussion in the comments section of spectrummagazine.org
Apologists for Jesus abound today. It’s fashionable now to re-imagine the Jesus of the Bible into a more familiar kind of progressive, humanistic, socially responsible guy. Not that he wasn’t already a kinder, gentler deity than the disciplinarian OT Almighty, but now he needs to be somehow more like us. And by us, I mean us LIBERALS.
Continue Reading Apologies for JesusIf God has revealed himself in the entire Protestant Christian Bible (as I used to believe, and spent a teaching career convincing teens to believe), then He must answer for his horrible behavior. Otherwise, reasonable people cannot be expected to respect him as a moral leader. Regardless of whether or not he is truly a savior of sinners, the fact remains that after being saved, a person would then be expected to live in close proximity to God and be eternally known as officially endorsing everything ever done by this person who claims to be a legitimate king.
Continue Reading Immoral God