Quote of the day

"Most people believe most of the things they believe only because they believe that most people believe them."

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

10 Signs Your Religion May Be Harmful

By Thom Jonas

THIS article contains a list of common features of groups that are generally considered harmful and potentially unsafe. There are several such lists online and many of them offer some combination of the features listed below.

If you recognise similarities between the warning signs listed below and your own ecclesia or even the Christadelphian religion as a whole, then perhaps it is time to ask yourself some critical questions or seek a second opinion from a counsellor or third party outside the religion.

Quote of the day

"The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."

Thomas Paine

Thoughts for doubting Christadelphians

By Phynnodderee

When I first started having niggling doubts about my faith, I assumed there must be answers out there somewhere, it was just that I wasn’t smart enough or knowledgeable enough or spiritually mature enough to figure them out. Later, when these unanswered questions developed into serious doubts, I began to wonder what on earth was wrong with me. Everyone around me seemed to have such a strong, easy faith. Why did I alone seem to be struggling with doubts? Was I crazy?

Quote of the day

"[Science's] only sacred truth is that there are no sacred truths. All assumptions must be critically examined. Arguments from authority are worthless. Whatever is inconsistent with the facts - no matter how fond of it we are - must be discarded or revised."

Carl Sagan

Quote of the day

"Many people fear to apply themselves to a reconsideration of their own beliefs because 'You never know where it will lead you'. Even a minor reassessment of one topic is feared - '...how far would it go?' Still others think that there is no intermediate position between faithful adherence to a traditional stand and complete chaos where everyone has his own views and all differ from each other. All these attitudes I feel... to be faithless and wrong."

From Christadelphia Redivivus by G. McHaffie

Quote of the day

"There need be no scheme of rewards and punishments transcending this life to justify our moral intuitions or to render them effective in guiding our behavior in the world. The only angels we need invoke are those of our better nature: reason, honesty, and love."

Sam Harris

What if ... ?

By Thom Jonas

“What if Jesus soon returns and you are left behind?
What if you are judged and your eternal life declined?
What if the kingdom really comes and loud you hear the shout?
What if the Christos enter in but you yourself miss out?”

Quote of the day

"It is amazing to me that a difference of opinion upon subjects that we know nothing with certainty about, should make us hate, persecute, and despise each other."

Robert G. Ingersoll

Video: 7 Tips for Helping Someone Out of a Cult

A former Jehovah's Witness shares some advice on encouraging someone who is involved in a high-commitment religion to think outside the confines of their belief system.

Quote of the day

"The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true."

Carl Sagan

Quote of the day

"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. When it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. Life is long if you know how to use it."

Seneca

Quote of the day

"One unexpected consequence of becoming an unbeliever has been the increased awareness of my own mortality, and a heightened desire to try to enjoy the time I have. I am consciously enjoying the wonder of living more than I ever did as a believer."

Rob Hyndman

"Looking for his coming"

By Phynnodderee

One of the hard things about losing my Christadelphian faith was realising that I had no good reason any more to think that Jesus was coming back. It was a hope that left a painful gap when it was gone. Coming to terms with this meant learning to see the world in a different light.

Quote of the day

"The sum of our religion is peace and unanimity, but these can scarcely stand unless we define as little as possible, and in many things leave each one free to follow his own judgment, because there is great obscurity on these matters."

Erasmus

Quote of the day

"Children... have a human right not to have their minds crippled by exposure to other people's bad ideas - no matter who these other people are. Parents, correspondingly, have no God-given licence to enculturate their children in whatever ways they personally choose: no right to limit the horizons of their children's knowledge, to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition, or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith."

Nicholas Humphrey

Quote of the day

"In no other aspect of life do you need to be reminded on a weekly basis of what your opinions are."

John Cedars, former Jehovah's Witness

Dr. John Thomas in 10 quotations

Enjoy these favourite words of wisdom from the pen of Dr. Thomas…

Quote of the day

"In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity."

Marco Antonio de Dominis

Quote of the day

"Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."

John F. Kennedy