Analyzing Christianity
The Pearson Manual: How it deconverted me, and why (+BONUS SCANS)
Everything changed the night I got my little Pentecostal hands on what we now know today as a Pearson Manual.
Analyzing Christianity
Cosmic Reversi: Inverted expectations and sudden reversals in Low Christian folklore
Christians love callings that represent a complete reversal of expectations. They enjoy stories about unexpected, inverted expectations. However, these stories must end the correct way.
Analyzing Christianity
Finding your calling when the caller doesn’t exist
In Christianese, a calling represents Jesus’ orders for what his followers are meant to be doing with their lives. But in reality, finding one’s calling works in a very prosaic–and earthly–way. Even then, it doesn’t work at all the way that Christians think it does.
Analyzing Christianity
“Everyone’s a slave to something” — except not really
When I was just a teenager, some evangelical set this over-simplistic equation in front of me: Pick your master, because you’ll always be a slave to something.
Analyzing Christianity
The Jesus Aura: Why this false belief persists
Many Christians have this idea that their faith imbues them with a sort of glowing-but-invisible aura that both attracts and repels non-Christians. It’s their Jesus Aura.
From Patreon
The British Israelism conspiracy theory illustrates the appeal of false beliefs
Today’s story touches on so many topics we like around here: conspiracy theories, Monty Python, weird history, and wacky Christians. But most of all, it speaks to a need so many people have: the desire to feel special.
From Patreon
By fire and the sword: Christians and coercion
Earlier today, I saw a story about religious coercion from Religion News that just sent chills through me. A pair of sheriff’s deputies baptized a Tennessee woman against her will. As she put it, the officer who pulled her over told her that she had to allow him to baptize Read more…
From Patreon
Deconversion: When I was the only ex-Christian in the world
It truly is marvelous to consider how far American culture has gotten in just the past 20 or 30 years! When I deconverted, I had to figure everything out for myself. As far as I knew, I was literally the only ex-Christian in the whole wide world. And let me tell you: life felt pretty damned lonely.
Analyzing Christianity
Simple misfortune, or divine punishment for sin?
Sometimes when I look back at my days as a Christian, I’m thunderstruck by how absolutely exhausting it was in every single way. For a religion promising peace, rest, a light yoke, and vaguely-defined joy to its followers, Christianity brought precious little of any of it to any of us. Not long ago, I ran across a Southern Baptist Bible study about sin that really reminded me of that exhaustion.
From Patreon
The Aquarium: One conspiracy theory to rule them all
If the Aquarium were real, then wouldn’t this Aviary be the perfect smokescreen distraction from it? … Gosh, what to do, what to believe??