minister turns atheist dot org

Moving!

2009-09-28T02:17:00.003-05:00

Time has taken its toll, as has life, and it has stated that I'll be moving all my materials to one blog. That blog is my personal blog: http://joeholmansblog.blogspot.com/ It's been a while since I uprooted MTA from Yahoo webhosting services and moved to this blog, which has been a worthwhile endeavor. Now, it's time for a change--and rest assured, this will be the last one!

Everything will be at my blog with the sole exception of movie reviews. So if you've been following here, follow over there. The relevant topics I've decided to bring over. You can comment on them there. MTA.org is now actively forwarding to the new address.

Thanks for playing along!

(JH)

"Help! My Daughter's Marrying a Black Man!"

2009-09-06T13:27:00.002-05:00

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Article from Debunking Christianity

Since May of 2006, Pastor Ed Lowman has shepherded the Aryunder Baptist Church in Aryunder, Tennessee. Since before that time, the native South Texas pastor spent time in Iowa, Maryland, and different parts of the nation ministering the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

Having become very well known for his self-published Christian How-to pamphlets, we present one of them here, re-published with permission from the Jesus Saves Bible and Tract Society...

So, your precious littleContinued...

The Bottom of the Food Chain (Part Two)

2009-09-06T13:22:00.000-05:00

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Article from Joe Holman's Blog

The cream-of-the-crop losers that I once called friends will never leave my memory. Of that I am sure. This article takes off at the beginning of the 1993 school year, my last year of high school.

After Chris Kennedy, there was Brian Kieford. Brian, like Chris, was sloooooow as the dripping of molasses. But unlike Chris, Brian wasn’t a booz hound. Heck, he probably never had a drink in his life. He seemed to be a good kid at heart. He was part Jewish and part African American. He had quite a cool look to him aside from the oh-so-plain clothes he always wore. He had the sweetest smile stretching across his face most days and a set of engagingly bright puppy dog eyes. My parents loved him for being such a quiet kid who always said “yes sir“ and “yes ma’am” when he came over. He had such a good aura about him.
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The Bottom of the Food Chain (Part One)

2009-08-27T17:18:00.001-05:00

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Article from Joe Holman's Blog

That I was a “loser magnet” in high school is a fact as certain as any other in the universe. Call it an unfairly critical relative self-assessment if you want. I know the truth. I had the honor of getting in good with some gargantuan losers over the years. I look back on it now, and it is both a humorous and humbling thought.

Just after the Nico era, I was facing Continued...

The Devil by the Pond

2009-08-27T16:22:00.004-05:00

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Article from Debunking Christianity

Imagine you are hiking in the woods. As you pass by a pond, you get a glancing view of some scavenging birds as they fly off some ways away from you. You make nothing of it. You keep walking. Then you spot it in the distance—the reason the birds flew away. A deer comes ripping through the bushes as he’s being chased by a grizzly. You hide quickly as best you can. With any luck, you’ll go unnoticed and that deer will be the thing’s lunch instead of you.

As you've seen, not only is he big, but boy does he move! He's strong too. One good swat from him Continued...

The Women's Names Quandary

2009-08-19T01:46:00.003-05:00

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Article from Joe Holman's Blog

Tell me something…why are the qualities of a woman so defined by her name? Why are Bertha, Stella, and Marge always hideously fat and why is an Alexis or a Marissa always blisteringly hot? I can’t figure it out, but there seems to be a connection between hot, average, and unattractive girls and their names. An Alexis, Ally, a Brooke, a Britney, a Courtney, a Mona

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I'm Building a Hotel. Will You Help Me?

2009-08-04T06:31:00.001-05:00

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Article from Debunking Christianity

I’ve decided to build a Hotel and I am here to solicit your much-needed financial support.

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Science and Religion: A Truce

2009-07-11T21:03:00.001-05:00

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Article from Debunking Christianity

I, Science, have heard your plea for a truce, oh religion, My nemesis of ages past.

You are wounded, oh religion.
The still-warm blood runs down your side as you say it did your savior on the cross.
My Soldiers in white coats have maimed you.
They have crippled you, leaving you to limp away a casualty from the battlefield.

And now, on the loser’s end, with My chipped and crimson sword laid at your throat, you plead for mercy.
You beg Me to spare your life.
You ask for compassion and for understanding from Me, Science.
You want to beContinued...

Finger-licking Bad!

2009-07-11T20:06:00.000-05:00

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Article from Joe Holman's Blog

I predict that in future years finger licking will be weeded out as the un-evolved and uncivilized practice that it is. I’ll be delighted to find it no longer a part of the human species. As the intelligence of man advances, the knowledge and consciousness of germs and disease advances, and with that comes an awareness of man’s decrepit and still animalistic tendencies. We’re an ugly species with an even uglier heritage, and licking fingers takes enlightened individuals like myself down memory lane right back to those detestable times.Continued...

Back Down to Earth

2009-06-15T03:59:00.000-05:00

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Article from Debunking Christianity

There are times when I find myself fixating on our universe with all of its mysteries and as-of-yet unknowns. But every time I think about the universe, I think about nothing as much as its size, about its unfathomable massiveness.

Light travels at 186,282.397 miles per second or 669,000,000 miles per hour. As far as we can tell, that’s as fast as we’re ever going to go because that’s the physics-enforced intergalactic speed limit. Neither information, nor matter will be found moving faster than that. That is pretty fast. Although, as fast as it is, it would leave any space explorers traveling at that speed extremely unsatisfied with their journeys.

Light arrives on the earth from our sun in just under 8-and-a-half minutes. It takes light around 50 minutes to reach Jupiter from the sun. For light to get to Pluto, it requires 5 hours and 30 minutes of travel time. That’s longer than it takes me to drive from San Antonio to the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex area without stopping in a car going 70 mph. And this isContinued...

Maddening

2009-06-15T03:01:00.000-05:00

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Article from Joe Holman's Blog

Extremely hard work can do things to a man...bad things. A $6 pitcher of beer will do much worse things, sometimes making him do things (and withstand things) he otherwise wouldn't be able to.

It was last night when a day's worth of stress and agony, combined with a large pitcher of Miller Genuine Draft, resulted in my having some bragging rights. I listened to all 9 minutes and 31 seconds of this maddening video made by some fool with too much time on his hands.
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Used Goods

2009-05-20T05:02:00.002-05:00

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Article from Debunking Christianity

It's been two months since I herniated disks L4 and L5 in my lower back. I’ve always had a great back until that one unfortunate day—3/18/09. I was cleaning out a shed when I went to hoist a heavy box of books. They were books I had in storage from my preaching days, incidentally. I knew right when I did it that things were not going to be good. I drove home barely mobile, and four hours later, if the house had been on fire, I wouldn’t have been able to leave. Family had to tend to me some of the time. I’m doing much better today, having been nursed back to health on plenty of strong painkillers, muscle relaxants, and prolonged bed rest after a brief hospital stay. Word to the wise—don’t lift wrong!

Having briefly mentioned the experience in my discussion forums, our token Christian debater Noel Cookman made the remark that God wasn’t responsible for Continued...

The Second Time

2009-05-20T04:36:00.000-05:00

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Article from Joe Holman's Blog

I watch her. She sees me, but she has no idea what I think of her. She is young. She comes to work where we meet. Then she runs along, gallivanting around with her nineteen-year-old friends. They have such fun together, I can tell.

I watch her, not so much because I like her, but because I think she's cool. I envy her youth, even as I watch her light up with a child-like energy upon seeing her friends arrive.

As a mate, she would be too young. I wouldn't want that. Things wouldn't work. I know that. It would just be nice if she would notice me and think of me as someone other than some middle-aged dad-figure.
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Easter Sunrise Blasphemy

2009-04-11T17:33:00.002-05:00

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Article from Debunking Christianity

It's Easter today and that means countless Christians will be at their respective houses of worship praising and thanking the god that made them for sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross for their sins and for his being raised from the grave. You may or may not be planning to attend one of these pagan put-ons known as Easter sunrise services, or like me, you may actually despise them. Either way, I want you to hear why I feel the way I do.
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Fucking Everyone Over

2009-04-01T21:48:00.003-05:00

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Article from Joe Holman's Blog

The first secular job I took since my resignation from the ministry was selling cars. After 3 months of unemployment and trying frantically to get work, I wound up in the 8-by-10 office of the manager of a local San Antonio car dealership who was nice enough to give me the chance with no prior experience in the car selling field. I was excited, but had no idea what I was in for.

Being a car salesman is tough because everyone hates your guts like old eggs. You get treated like a lawyer, a perceived shyster son-of-a-bitch who's just trying to make a buck at the expense of honesty and truth. Actually, selling cars taught me that it's the buyers who lie way more than the salesmen... (Continued)

Problems of Mountains

2009-02-22T08:20:00.002-06:00

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Article from Debunking Christianity

Word has it that young Timothy Collins of Woodward, Kentucky got chewed out by his father Harry after last Wednesday night's Bible Study. Both father and son are members of the Woodward Street Church where it's no secret that Harry Collins runs a tight ship as an active and devoted member of the church and father.

"I got on my son for talking like an atheist." said Harry. What Timothy did was make reference to it being a fortunate turn of events that a mountain had formed nearby. A big, bearded Harry, being a photographer, was capturing an image of a beautiful tree-covered mountainside. "And my son made it sound like the mountain was 'just there.' That's atheist talk, and it won't be permitted in my home."
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Incalculable

2009-02-22T08:16:00.002-06:00

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Article from Joe Holman's Blog

I want to introduce you to the late Bobbie Sue. She was 87 years old, independent, bull-headed, and as Primitive Baptist as they come. She lived out on her late husband's ranch until the last day of her life. The setting was a Texas country wilderness – some 630 acres of it – and a 4,000 square-foot house, adjacent to a large tin roof garage, bordering on miles of open pasture. Despite the pleadings of her son and daughter and her grandchildren, she flatly refused to live in an assisted living townhouse like they wanted her to. No, she felt too independent for that. She decided to stay out at the ranch alone.

The little signs of mental deterioration were there…the occasional locking herself out of the house, those slight slips that left her face-first on the kitchen floor, the forgetfulness in conversations of names and events…they were all there. She just never listened to them. Now she's dead. A visiting granddaughter found bits of her mangled, ripped body some 110 yards from the house, right out by the trash-burning hole. She made it there. She just never made it back!
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Toilet Paper Preacher

2009-01-27T22:28:00.002-06:00

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Article from Debunking Christianity

Dr. Orvall Roberto Kilton, Pastor of the Harvest Growth Church of Jesus Christ of Tithing and Faith, was arrested in his home Thursday on charges of destruction of legal tender. FBI spokesperson Greg Robins reported that found in the $37.9 million dollar mansion of the famous televangelist were 3 Hefty trash bags full of $100 bills that had been used as toilet paper over the course of two months. Authorities seized the excrement-covered bills as evidence for the upcoming sentencing of pastor Kilton who pleaded guilty to all charges.
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More About Joe E. Holman

2009-01-23T21:29:00.001-06:00

Joe E. Holman, 2005

I'm a former Church of Christ minister of nine years, a newspaper columnist, an editor and English major who owned and operated his own editing/writing company, and a graduate of Southwest Biblical Institute ('97).

I'm the author of two books. Laws for Living (2002) and my current book Project Bible Truth: A Minister Turns Atheist and Tells All (2008). Divorced since 2005, I live alone and dedicate most of my time to journalistic/freelance writing endeavors, such as movie reviews. You can find some of my work at Associated Content.

I love movies (of course, since I critique them), but have no favorites. I love hot spices, cold weather, strong winds, dark skies, the rain, a good game of chess, sculpting, studying philosophy and the natural sciences, a glass of iced tea, Dr. Pepper, and a nicely timed shot of my favorite liquor, Yukon Jack!

Me readying garlic and onions for my favorite thing in the world, blazing hot salsa!

Me just chillin' with a tall glass of Pepsi from Backyard Burgers.

God Tolerates Slavery

2009-01-02T10:21:00.001-06:00

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Article from Debunking Christianity

Pastor Kenneth Rodriguez, Senior Pastor at Nations United Cathedral of Faith in Times Square, has been a leading voice in the charismatic community against the atrocious practice of human trafficking for the past 15 years. The 37-year-old pastor’s work has centered on places like Asia and Africa, places where human trafficking is a major issue.

“Slavery, in principle, is unbiblical.” says Pastor. “To enslave another human being created in God's image is a sin like murder. It violates the Golden Rule and is an affront to decency.” Sounds like something right in line with what any other man of God today would give an “amen” to.

The surprise didn't come until a correspondence began between Pastor Kenneth and a nine-year-old girl from Beijing named Kaitlin. Kaitlin was
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Hangin' With Nico

2009-01-02T10:17:00.002-06:00

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Article from Joe Holman's Blog

Several weeks after the beginning of my tenth grade school year (the year after last contact with Philip the psycho), I met this kid on the bus named Nico. Picture a guy with black hair and a slight muscular build, a guy who looked and carried himself like his idle Jean Claude Van Damme. Like me, Nico had serious trouble fitting in. We were like Dumb & Dumber, only “Socially Impaired & Socially Impaired-er.” Me, I was Socially Impaired. :-)

Yes, if you can believe it, Nico was even more of an oddball than I was. He would stand out at the bus stop, and just beforeContinued...

Religulous

2008-12-26T09:16:00.002-06:00

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Article from Holmansmoviereview.com

This review is late, way late! The release of Religulous was on October 1, 2008 and only now am I getting to review it. Why is that? Because down in the south where I live, even we movie critics couldn’t get it because we’re in the Bible Belt and most theatres wouldn’t carry it. We have the always tolerant, loving, and nonjudgmental Jesus-courters to thank for that. What I had to do to finally get a demo copy of the film was quite disgusting. It involved me in the back seat of a 1996 Buick Skylark getting down and dirty for 35 minutes with a tranny hooker named Philecia.
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On Health-nuts...

2008-12-04T00:50:00.002-06:00

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Article from Joe Holman's Blog

There are many types of nutcases in the world. There are religious nuts. As you probably know, they make up a huge percentage of the world’s population. Then there are conspiracy theorist nuts, both on the left and on the right side of the political isle. Nuts on the far left say that George Bush and the government were behind the attacks on 9-11, while nuts on the far right say that Lyndon Johnson played a key role in the assassination of JFK. They’re all fucking nuts, I say!

But there is another kind of nut, a class of nut that can sometimes be more disturbing than sitting around the couch after Thanksgiving dinner with Uncle Ed and hearing him wonder aloud whether or not the smoke of 9-11 came from secretly placed fires set in dumpsters, or whether or not Lee Harvey worked alone. The type of nut I am talking about is the health-nut. The vocal health-nut is very much like a fundamentalist religionist, who honestly thinks he can alter his destiny and the destinies of others significantly by simple diet alterations.
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Fine-tuning Foolishness

2008-12-04T00:36:00.003-06:00

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Article from Debunking Christianity

The other day, I found myself needing to hang a wicker basket shelf in my bathroom. But the shelf was too heavy for tacks and glue, so I had to fetch a hammer and nails to do the job. After some milling around in the ever-useful “junk drawer,” I found the nails and a Stanley claw hammer dad had left at my place. I took some time to take a look at the flashy thing; it was relatively new, nearly all metal, with a duel-pronged claw on one end and the head at the other. It had a tremendously ergonomic rubber handle too, with curves and ridges along its surfaces, making it a perfect fit for the hand. I said to myself, “Now this is a well-made hammer!”

It was when the job was done that I found myself thinking of how the elements of the hammer work together so well. I thought to myself that if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that the universe was “fine-tuned” just for the sake of producing this very useful hammer I was still holding in my hands.
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The Quest For Coolness: A Story of Three Schoolmates

2008-10-17T05:12:00.002-05:00

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Article from Joe Holman's Blog

About two years had passed since the mystery of the dark tunnels had been solved. Brother and I were more mature now, but we still had tons of growing up to do. But, mind you, things were changing. For one, the old tree house gang had moved away, prompting us to make new friends in the neighborhood. I was now about to go into my first year of junior high school, and I had by then run into a number of new friends.

Chris

There was Chris. I met him at school in the sixth grade. Chris was a combative, angry boy who constantly got in fights at and after school, and suffered terrible abuse at home. In the most relaxed of settings, Chris had trouble socializing. He had been held back a grade, and so he was a year older than me, and 4 years older than my brother and some of our other friends. He was also a stark-raving pervert who taught us sheltered, innocent little kids about...
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