Analyzing Christianity

Miracle Maxin’ and the Immorality of Miracles

Christians love to claim that their god works miracles in their lives, and this claim comes from their nearly-universal belief in the possibility of divine miracles. We settled that idea last time. Now we find ourselves moving inexorably toward the second and third steps of our pushback: If miracles really did happen, and could be demonstrated to have come only from the Christian god, Christians would still not be any closer to establishing that their god was actually a good divinity who deserved our worship.

By Captain Cassidy, ago

The September 23rd Endtimes Scare and the Problem with Wingnuts

This Endtimes scare has gotten quite a lot of pushback from actual astronomers–and from some big names in Christianity as well. We were mainly looking at the real-world pushback against the prediction last time, and today I want to look at one Christian leader’s pushback to it. Indeed, this scare illustrates a very serious problem in Christianity: the difficulty Christians have in reining in their own wingnuts.

By Captain Cassidy, ago

Various Christian Threats, Deciphered and Decoded

Threats are a constant and deeply-woven part of Christian culture. Even the really nice parts of the religion use them in implicit form. That’s why we often talk around here about Christians’ use of threats. They make promises as well, promises that touch on the natural and supernatural worlds. I thought it’d be interesting to pull together some of their favorites–and offer up some link love in case anyone wants to read further about them.

By Captain Cassidy, ago

You Lost Me: Why Nothing Can Change.

This past week we were talking about the 2011 book You Lost Me by David Kinnaman. The book was about why modern Christian evangelical churches were losing so many young-adult members, and how they could possibly reverse that trend. Christians either agreed wholeheartedly with this book’s ideas or they hated every word of it. Either way, however, nothing whatsoever changed in the modern Christian evangelical church as a result of it. Today I’ll show you why nothing changed, and why nothing ever actually could.

By Captain Cassidy, ago