The Handbook: The ‘original Greek and Hebrew’ (is still nonsense).

Back in my Pentecostal days, there was a phrase I heard non-stop: “the original Greek and Hebrew,” used to describe my denomination’s doctrines and creed. The idea was that our denomination, unlike those of all those other inferior Christians doing everything wrong, had gotten our ideas from “the original Greek and Hebrew” and therefore were closer to what our god wanted out of his followers than all those other Christians were. I notice that Christians still love that phrase, so I want to talk about it today.

Church Marketing Sucks: No, It’s a Religion, Yes, Christians Follow the Bible, and Yes, That Is Totally A Church.

I was reading this funny site that gathers “horror stories” from Christians about really awful church experiences they’ve had and realizing that quite a lot of Christian marketing isn’t very well thought-through. Not much says “churches are businesses like any other” quite like the amazing and extensive variety of resources available Read more

Hypocrisy: A Feature, Not a Bug.

Recently I made an offhand comment about how I saw hypocrisy in religion as not a bug or a glitch in the ideology, but a feature of it. Today I want to expand on that idea a little more because I caught myself by surprise there and realized that it’s important. I began thinking about gaming, and how games are structured around features and bugs. So yes: today is a gaming post!