Communities get these ideas sometimes to live together and re-enact their ideals. It’s part of being human. But things can go hideously wrong in authoritarian groups, and I’ll show you how today.
I still remember where I was standing and what I was doing the first time I ever saw a tornado. I was in my late 20s by now. I lived in the smack middle of Kansas in a tiny town Read more
I wanted to mention here that I’m going to be talking about evidence in a little while, so I thought it’d be useful to take a minute to consider just what evidence is–and isn’t. Evidence doesn’t care what frame of Read more
All this time, despite my misgivings about the very un-Christlike people in my church’s leadership and in my own little family, I spent a lot of time at the church, as one might expect. My mother’d been downright alarmed when Read more
Today, let me show you one of the most devastating things that happened to me when I was Christian. It was how I discovered that my god didn’t mind at all if his followers represented him through lying in flagrantly dishonest ways. It was also how I discovered that one of the most important beliefs my church taught wasn’t true: Jesus didn’t transform people at all.
Now that I wasn’t involved in weird evangelical churches anymore, I blossomed at last in the late 80s. I discovered the Drama Club at school, slowly made normal friends, and tried to fit in. I got involved with a historical Read more
I had been unchurched for a few months when a friend of mine from school, Angela, invited me to her church. She was quite straightforward, unlike Jennifer who’d called her church’s proselytization effort a “pizza blast” and pretended it was Read more
I’m out of the Southern Baptist megachurch by now and sitting in the school library at a long table with some girlfriends researching something or other. The library is built right in the middle of the school building itself, with Read more
Many Christians proclaim that without firm belief in their god, nobody can possibly be a good person. But they’re wrong, and I’ll show you how today.
It seems to me like modern culture has long forgotten what “evidence” and “proof” involves. I certainly didn’t understand the two terms when I was a Christian. Inevitably someone’s going to howl that Christianity is true because their auntie got Read more