I started By The Book Comics in March of 2007 because I'd met so many Christians who had absolutely no idea of the injustice, absurdity, cruelty, violence, intolerance, and contradictions the Bible contains. And still, they consider it to be the inerrant word of God.

Since then, I've posted 45 comics (with commentary) that point out (using humor) some of the many weaknesses of the Bible. I've promoted the blog by posting here at ExChristian and by responding to posts on this and other Atheist-related blogs. I have links to other Atheist sites, blogrolls, etc. I'm definitely not running a spam site. I get maybe 50-100 hits per day. Just a law-abiding US citizen exercising my right to express my opinions...

Today, I got this email from Blogger:

   Your blog at: http://bythebookcomics.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a potential spam blog.  To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at (removed link)

   Your blog will be deleted within 20 days if it isn't reviewed, and you'll be unable to publish posts during this time. After we receive your request, we'll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. If this blog doesn't belong to you, you don't have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won't be affected.

   We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for this error. By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to bloggers like you instead of to spammers. For more information, please see Blogger Help: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42577

   Thank you for your understanding and for your help with our spam-fighting efforts.

   Sincerely,

   The Blogger Team

   P.S. Just one more reminder: Unless you request a review, you won't be able to use your blog. Click this link to request the review: (removed link)

I initially thought it was a scam, but when I logged in to my blog to enter a new post, I saw this:

This blog has been locked due to possible Blogger Terms of Service violations. You may not publish new posts until your blog is reviewed and unlocked.

This blog will be deleted within 20 days unless you request a review.
Request Unlock Review


When I clicked on it, I get this:

By The Book Comics

   Your blog is locked

   Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

   You won't be able to publish posts to your blog until one of our humans reviews it and verifies that it is not a spam blog. Please fill out the form below to get a review. We'll take a look at your blog and unlock it in less than two business days.

   If we don't hear from you, though, we will remove your blog from Blog*Spot within a few weeks.

   Find out more about how Blogger is fighting spam blogs.
   Get your blog unlocked

   Word Verification:
   Type the characters you see in the picture below.
   Visual verification
   Listen and type the numbers you hear
   Email Address:

   We'll contact you after we review your blog.

Is this just a coincidence? I'm I just being paranoid here? Or is there something to this?

I'd like to know if there are any other Atheist-themed blogs getting this treatment.

Labels: atheist, blogs

By Calladus

"Igor, would you mind telling me whose brain I did put in?"
"And you won't be angry?"
- Young Frankenstein

At one time, I believed that (Christian) religion was required to experience ‘God’s Love’, which is often identified with an uplifting feeling of acceptance and comfort, or of reverence and awe. Religious people often say that they can feel God’s presence in their lives. They can feel forgiveness. This blinding moment of transcendence, of rising above and outside of yourself is often the defining moment in many ‘born again’ Christian’s lives. While I was Christian I experienced this feeling, and was amazed and humbled by it.

I no longer believe that you have to be Christian to experience this sensation of the divine.

I started thinking about this again when one of my friends recently told me that religion was difficult to give up because she needed the feeling of spirituality it gave her. As an American Indian, she enjoys rising above her consciousness and communing with others in her sweat lodge.

Here is a somewhat edited version of what I told her:

When I was a Christian, there were several occasions when I experienced the feeling of God’s divinity, when I felt like God was watching over me with warm loving acceptance. That feeling was one of the reasons why it was so difficult for me to leave Christianity. The bible was self-contradictory and spoke of an evil, mean, spiteful and jealous God. Religion didn't make sense – where was this feeling of acceptance and love and forgiveness coming from??

I finally read about how people of other religions, or practices, also create this feeling of transcendence, Bodhi, Satori, Nirvana or enlightenment in themselves; Monks from Tibet, Masters from India, or from elsewhere in Asia where they worship ancestors or animal spirits instead of God, sweat lodges, even fasting. Throughout history people have found different ways to attain these feelings, this insight, or 'god' feeling.

Since most religions are mutually exclusive, the feelings can’t all be coming from one god. Either there is a multitude of gods, or it is all in our heads.

The field of Neurotheology is currently a ‘borderland science’ that is still hotly contested. Religious results seem to be inconsistent when magnets are used to stimulate the brain – perhaps because individuals all seem to be ‘wired’ somewhat differently. In other cases there are firm results that show a connection between brain and religious experiences in people who experience seizures, or when electrical stimulation is applied directly to the brain during brain surgery. An experiment involving Nuns has also shown that a variety of brain locations seem to be affected during the recreation of religious feelings.

I find it very plausible that religious experience is created in the software of our minds as it runs on the wetware of our brains. I think this way because after I became Atheist, I was able to re-achieve transcending feelings of awe, of acceptance, of being comforted, and of reverence.

I don’t think that feelings of Nirvana come from outside of us because the feelings are not created by a common cause. Fasting in a sweat lodge, singing in mass, inspired group visualization (i.e. preaching) and meditation can all bring people to achieve these feelings.

Religion isn’t the answer because these feelings can be achieved in mutually exclusive religions.

I've managed to recreate these religious feelings as an Atheist by using music while meditating. Classical music will do it for me. Oddly enough, so will Van Halen's "Jump". It's the same feeling of love, peace and acceptance that I got when I was Christian, only now I know that I’m the one making it happen.

Sam Harris was, unjustly in my opinion, criticized by non-believers for his position on meditation in his book “The End of Faith.” Non-believers were upset that Harris seemed to be edging into ‘woo woo’ areas; especially since he seems to be saying that meditation can be used to discover new things.

I don’t think Sam Harris is talking about using meditation in order to somehow psychically gain new knowledge. I think that the experience of transcending one’s self can be profoundly life-affirming, even life-changing. Perhaps it is a necessary part of being a whole person. This experience allows us to find new insight into our lives. I think that although it may feel mystical, and magical, it's really just happening inside our heads.

What this means to me is that it is possible to be a spiritual Atheist, not in some pseudoscientific paranormal sense, but in the sense that ‘mind’, the software that runs on the brain, has the capacity to achieve a different level of awareness of itself.

(original post)

Labels: atheist, Christianity

By DocMike

Evangelical leader James Dobson said, yesterday, that Obama was "distorting the Bible" when he made the following statements in a speech:

Obama asked, "Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount?"

Dobson said, "I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology," adding that Obama is "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter." He went on to say that Obama should not be referencing "antiquated dietary codes and passages from the Old Testament that are no longer relevant to the teachings of the New Testament."

Isn't this typical? It's okay for Dobson and other Christians to distort the Bible to fit their world view; for example calling certain parts "antiquated" and "no longer relevant" while claiming other parts are still completely relevant. I wonder who decides which is which...

In my world view, the entire book is antiquated and irrelevant!

I especially like the phrase "traditional understanding of the Bible." I guess that means don't use your own mind (or reason) to figure out what it says or means. Just ask Uncle Jimmy. He'll set you straight on the "real" meaning. After all, we're all too stupid to figure out what the sky-daddy was talking about. Right?

Technorati Tags:
humor Atheist Bible Christian Comics religion Evangelical

Labels: atheist, Bible, Christianity, comics, Evangelical, humor, religion

By Doc Mike

This is hilarious! Christian scholars and theologians are releasing a manifesto today to "take back" the term Evangelical from the politicians. Apparently, it's starting to have a negative connotation in the world of politics. I wonder why?

USA Today says in Manifesto aims to make 'evangelical' less political:

"Evangelical" has been widely used to refer to Christians who have conservative political views, but the Evangelical Theological Society requires members to agree on just two points: inerrancy of Scripture, and belief in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as "separate but equal in attributes and glory" and essential for salvation.

This really makes me laugh because if "Scripture" is nothing else it is errant. In fact that's exactly what my blog (By The Book Comics) is all about. And don't even get me started on the "holy trinity"... Ha!

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humor Atheist Bible Christian Comics religion Evangelical

Labels: atheist, Bible, comics, Evangelical, Evangelical Manifesto, humor, religion

Tomorrow, May 1st, is being promoted by Christians as the National Day of Prayer. So they all get together and pray for... what? It's hard to believe that nobody has ever prayed to end the war or feed all of the starving children or end poverty or rid the world of all suffering, etc. And if they have (and they surely have) and we still have all of these things (and we certainly do), then how the hell can they still believe prayer works?

It's the same old thing. The Bible-God just can't lose! If Christians pray for something and they get it, they thank him for answering their prayers. And if the thing they prayed for doesn't happen, they excuse him with something like, "It wasn't God's will" or "God has his reasons." (I wonder what his reasons could be for allowing innocent children to suffer through sexual and physical abuse, starving, and disease.)

And if their god is going to do whatever the hell he wants to do anyway, then why the hell pray in the first place?

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Labels: atheist, Christianity, humor, National Day of Prayer, religion