When I was a Christian, I not only firmly believed that I had a great and grand purpose in life, but that non-believers had no purpose at all. Let’s back up a minute and examine why I thought that, why it was such an insulting thing to think of others, Read more…
ZOMG two posts in one day? I’m spoiling y’all! But this was on my mind. There’s a Connie Willis short story called “Even the Queen” wherein a group of women in the not-so-distant-future discuss menstruation at a ladies’ lunch. I ran into it when I was just out of college Read more…
No, really, that’s how I ended up re-joining the Pentecostal church. About six months after leaving fundamentalism the first time, my boyfriend at the time, Biff, went to a church service with the specific intention of trolling the Christians there and ended up getting “exorcised” of a “demon.” (Scare quotes Read more…
Thankfully, after I’d fled Biff, I had a variety of online friends through the gaming community who offered me shelter. I chose the friend’s place that was furthest on the map from Biff that still spoke English: Vancouver, Canada. I have generally very fond memories of Canada. I was their Read more…
When I was a Christian, I realized that my consent didn’t matter in the least about anything that happened to me. I didn’t own my own body–my father did until I got married, and at that point my husband would for as long as we were married. I never belonged Read more…
Quick: How many Alka-Seltzer tablets does someone take at a time? Even if you’ve never actually taken Alka-Seltzer in your entire life, you know the answer to that question, don’t you? And you know it because an advertiser made a jingle (“Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it Read more…
Yeah, we’re going there. Strap in. Ask almost any Christian if Jesus really existed, and you’ll get an immediate and absolutely positive “yes, oh yes, definitely he did.” With all the 41,000-some-odd denominations of Christianity, it’s just about the only thing most churches’ doctrines agree on. I spent my entire Read more…
If I ever did a “Stuff Christians Like” entry, it would be about parables. Not the ones in the New Testament, though yeah, they say they like those too. No, a lot of Christians love making parables to “teach” and “reach” non-believers. They think parables show their own timeless wisdom Read more…
Christians move through a world filled with all sorts of divine interventions by their god–to the point where they openly scoff that no amount of miracles would ever make a skeptic happy. I’ve even read a Christian minister claim that the real problem with skeptics is that we’ve been deluged with so many miracles we’re just plain bored with the silly things by now. To be honest, any amount of miracles would be fine with me. Any amount at all is better than what there is currently, which is “none.”
Ready for something lighter? I know I am. If you’re a gamer or military type, you probably already know about The Skippy List, a large selection of military-related things that the eponymous Skippy is not allowed to do (anymore). You might even know about the similar list theglen has circulated Read more…