We’re coming back to the Handbook for the Recently Deconverted shortly, but I saw this today and it just cried out for examination. Ryan Bell is a Seventh-Day Adventist minister who decided to go one year as a functional atheist. For one year, he’d abstain from prayer and all outward Read more
A rather impish part of me wants to write, “The person making the claim is the one who owns the burden of proof,” and have done with the post, but there’s a bit more to it than that. Today we’ll talk about how to tell who owns the burden, and Read more
It starts, for many of us, with a crystal-clear OHMYGOSH moment where we suddenly see something that simply will never be unseen. A light shines in a dark corner for the first time, and we see what lurks there and can never forget or even ignore it. Exactly what that light illuminates varies by the person, but that’s what it feels like. Suddenly something we thought for maybe our whole lives turns out to maybe be not quite what we thought it was.
Like so many ex-Christians before me, for just a brief time I dangled on a tightrope between belief and disbelief as I moved from one world to another, from one worldview to another, from one entire working paradigm to another. For some of us that time lasts a good long while, maybe even years. For others of us, that abrupt flash of sudden comprehension, that crystallizing gasp of awareness, that feeling of all the puzzle pieces falling right into place, it happens in a heartbeat.
I’ve mentioned before the Pentecostal-yardstick act that erupted whenever I or someone from my church met another Christian, haven’t I? When meeting someone new, I couldn’t just be happy to know someone new and get to know that person. I had to figure out if that person needed saving–or correction Read more
Welcome back! Last time we talked about how Christians share many qualities in common with Nice Guys™. Modern Christian fundagelical culture has produced a bumper crop of Christians who are singularly incapable of recognizing when their input is desired or requested, who genuinely think that they’re doing people a favor Read more
Christianity’s got a big image problem, and a lot of the reason for that problem comes from its own followers. It’s just so weird to me to see that the Christians who are the most gung-ho about engaging people about their religion seem like they’re the most inept at actually Read more
Seriously, folks, we’re going to have to be really careful about how we present atrocities to Christians. We thought bringing up slavery would get them to see that the Bible isn’t an eternally-valid prescription for human societies. We were wrong.
Today I saw an article about Kevin Sorbo, who has clearly ridden the short bus past his stop and ended up going all the way to Crazytown, talking about Bill Maher and dismissing him entirely because he sounds “angry” and “hateful.” Now, back in the day, Kevin Sorbo was famous Read more
“Miracle Maxin’” remains one of the most popular posts I’ve ever written, and I think for good reason. I want to talk a little more about miracles today because in the last two days, I’ve tangled with half a dozen Christians on the topic of miracles, specifically the subject of Read more