Why I Believed

This is a story of a true Christian who believed for nearly three decades, having grown up the son of evangelical missionary parents, later becoming a missionary himself. Yet he slowly lost his faith and now no longer holds it. In this part-autobiography, part-expose, Ken traces his journey from evangelical missionary to secular humanist while remaining part of a committed Christian family. He looks back at a number of reasons he remained a believer for over a decade after his initial doubts began at university, critically evaluating each one in a separate chapter. Whether or not you agree with Ken's conclusions, you will find his journey and his reasons for taking it fascinating and informative. You will end up better understanding, if not appreciating, the mind of apostates whose desire is to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

Suddenly, in the twenty-first century, religion has become a political power. It affects us all, whether we’re religious or not. If we’re not in danger of being blown up by a suicide bomber we’ve got leaders to whom God speaks, ordering them to start a war. We’re beset by people who demand that we give ourselves to Jesus while they smugly assure us of their own superiority and inherent goodness. We’re surrounded by those who noisily reject science while making full use of the benefits science brings; by the ‘spiritual’ ones; the ones who believe in magic; and there’s the militant atheists berating us all for our stupidity. We wouldn’t object to what people believed if only they’d keep it to themselves. We want to make up our own minds about what we believe, but it’s difficult to do this. Everyone has to face the dilemma that we all die but no one knows for certain what death actually is. Is it the end of our identity or a doorway to another life? Whichever we choose, our choice is a fantasy that determines the purpose of our life. If death is the end of our identity, we have to make this life satisfactory, whatever ‘satisfactory’ might mean to us. If it is a doorway to another life, what are the standards we have to reach to go to that better life? All religions promise to overcome death, but there’s no set of religious or philosophical beliefs that ensures that our life is always happy and secure. Moreover, for many of us, what we were taught about a religion severely diminished our self-confidence and left us with a constant debilitating feeling of guilt and shame. Through all this turmoil comes the calm, clear voice of eminent psychologist Dorothy Rowe. She separates the political from the personal, the power-seeking from the compassionate. She shows how, if we use our beliefs as a defence against our feelings of worthlessness, we feel compelled to force our beliefs on to other people by coercion or aggression. However, it is possible to create a set of beliefs, expressed in the religious or philosophical metaphors most meaningful to us, which allow us to live at peace with ourselves and other people, to feel strong in ourselves without having to remain a child forever dependent on some supernatural power, and to face life with courage and optimism.

Presents a comprehensive study of the U.S. aid program for the southeast Asian Kingdom of Laos and the start of the hearing to discuss it further.

Testimony on the topic of child abuse prevention and treatment is presented in this document. After an opening statement by Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, testimony and supplemental materials by these persons are included: (1) Marilyn Van Derbur, motivational lecturer, Denver, Colorado; (2) Barry Bennett, program manager, innovative treatment programs, division of adult, child, and family services, Iowa Department of Human Resources, Des Moines, Iowa; (3) Cresson Carrasco, parent-infant psychotherapist, community infant project, Mental Health Center of Boulder County, Boulder, Colorado; (4) David Espinoza, executive director, La Causa Day Care Center, Inc., Milwaukee, Wisconsin; (5) Wade Horn, commissioner, Administrator for Children, Youth, and Families, U.S. Department of Human Services, accompanied by David Lloyd, director, National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, District of Columbia; (6) Richard D. Krugman, chairperson, U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, Denver, Colorado; (7) Nora (J. Baladerian, licensed psychologist, chair, State Task Force on Disability, director, Disability Project of SPECTRUM Institute; (8) George Batsche, National Association of School Psychologists, Silver Spring, Maryland; (9) David Lloyd, director, National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, District of Columbia; (10) Belva Morrison, director, Indian Child Welfare Program/DIHFS, Denver, Colorado; (11) Steven J. Murphy, director, Hillsdale County, Michigan Department of Social Services; (12) New Beginnings, Integrated Services for Children and Families, San Diego, California; and (13) Milan Rewerts, interim director, Colorado State University cooperative extension child abuse prevention programs. Additional materials, including a statistical fact sheet on child abuse, from Representative Schroeder are included. (LLL)

A New York Times bestselling historian of early Christianity takes on two of the most gripping questions of human existence: where did the ideas of heaven and hell come from and why do they endure? What happens when we die? A recent Pew Research poll showed that 72% of Americans believe in a literal heaven and 58% believe in a literal hell. Most people who hold these beliefs are Christian and assume they are the age-old teachings of the Bible. But eternal rewards and punishments are found nowhere in the Old Testament and are not what Jesus or his disciples taught. So where did these ideas come from? In this “eloquent understanding of how death is viewed through many spiritual traditions” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), Bart Ehrman recounts the long history of the afterlife, ranging from The Epic of Gilgamesh up to the writings of Augustine, focusing especially on the teachings of Jesus and his early followers. He discusses ancient guided tours of heaven and hell, in which a living person observes the sublime blessings of heaven for those who are saved and the horrifying torments of hell for those who are damned. Some of these accounts take the form of near death experiences, the oldest on record, with intriguing similarities to those reported today. One of Ehrman’s startling conclusions is that there never was a single Greek, Jewish, or Christian understanding of the afterlife, but numerous competing views. Moreover, these views did not come from nowhere; they were intimately connected with the social, cultural, and historical worlds out of which they emerged. Only later, in the early Christian centuries, did they develop into notions of eternal bliss or damnation widely accepted today. In this “elegant history” (The New Yorker), Ehrman helps us reflect on where our ideas of the afterlife come from. With his “richly layered-narrative” (The Boston Globe) he assures us that even if there may be something to hope for when we die, there certainly is nothing to fear.

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"Why I Do Not Believe in God" by Annie Besant. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

In the best room of a farm-house on the skirts of a village in the hills of Northern Massachusetts there sat one morning in August three people who were not strangers to the house but who had apparently assembled in the parlor as the place most in accord with an unaccustomed finery in their dress.

Contains text of Community Church sermons and addresses.