The following is a guest post by long time OpenDiary blogger Atheist Under Ur Bed. This is an introduction to a new regularly scheduled and on going series of posts that I will feature every Monday. Come back tomorrow to check out the first installment!

Monday School is my attempt to provide a bit of context and balance to Christian Sunday School. The “truths” promoted by those Sunday Schools seem to be deeply embedded in the minds and lives of many people I know and encounter. Because those “truths” seem to have often been drilled into people at a very young and impressionable age, it takes a lot of time and effort to effectively (and not merely logically) counter them. How easy it is to write any lie into wet cement; how difficult it is to change those lies years after the concrete has set.

If my Monday School lessons seem overly detailed and repetitious, it’s because they are by necessity. A flood of well-documented details along with repetition of the basic point that the Bible is fatally flawed is what’s required to reach minds that are in effect encased by hardened cement. If there’s an easier way to reach those minds, please let me know what it is.

Not a Christian yourself? Never been to Sunday School? I think you’re probably still emotionally influenced by Christians and these Sunday School “truths” more than you might realize. Monday School for you – as for me – is meant to serve as a weekly reminder that fact and reason really are on our side. It is meant to provide you with the facts and arguments you need to counter Christians you meet, no matter what part of the Bible they choose as their starting point. And it is meant to serve as an emotional support and “breakwater” that might – over time, and in some small way – help you resist being overwhelmed and swept out to sea by the waves of fear and hostility that Christians, politicians, commentators, family members, friends, and others often seem to direct our way.

I also like to think of Monday School as an example of how to calmly and rationally analyze a subject – any subject. Although I concentrate on the Bible in my Monday School lessons, the techniques I’m using may be easily and successfully used on any other book or writing by almost anyone.

If my Monday School entries don’t work for you on any of these levels, you’re probably better off spending your time reading something else…