On September 2nd, Pew Research released yet another blockbuster post about secularization. It reveals that the process of secularization tends to begin with lowered participation in religious rituals, followed by fading of religious identity and eventually even de-prioritizing even affiliation in name only. This study has got to be worrying Read more…
In Alpha Course #6, Christians try very very hard to make the Bible sound utterly relevant and important to everyone’s lives. They fail, of course, just like every other video so far has failed to accomplish its own stated goals. But as usual, it’s how specifically they fail that should Read more…
We now arrive at Alpha Course #5, which concerns prayer in Christianity. Here, we see Christian dishonesty at its fullest flowering. The Christians responsible for this mess desperately want to promise potential recruits that prayer results in miracles. Oh, yes, they do desperately want to promise that. But they know Read more…
On August 11, an evangelical crusade took place in Portland, Oregon—and it reveals some breathtaking arrogance on the part of its creators. It attracted decent numbers who came to hear preachers lament how much “darkness” the city contained and how sad its creators were that the city’s residents had “pushed Read more…
Another day, another sexual predator in evangelicalism: Michael Tait has become the face of the newest scandal in evangelicalism. He’s not just any evangelical, though. He’s the former frontman for the long-running, super-popular evangelical singing group the Newsboys! Not only that, but one evangelical watchdog site calls this revelation “Nashville’s Read more…
When I review Alpha Course evangelism videos, I double-check my ideas by consulting a printed manual for the entire course. This time around, when I reviewed its fourth video, the manual contained an interesting discrepancy between its syllabus and the video’s actual contents. Today, let’s dive into this very telling Read more…
In the fourth Alpha Series video, Christians try very poorly to explain how religious faith works and how someone acquires faith in their religion. Unfortunately, they don’t understand what faith is themselves, nor how faith sparks to life in the first place. Today, we’ll review this video and explore what Read more…
In recent days, a strange new ChatGPT trend has been sweeping TikTok. Right-wing Christians perform an ecstatic devotion they call speaking in tongues, and then try to get ChatGPT to guess the language they used. Some claim ChatGPT has told them they spoke in exotic Ancient Near Eastern and Mesopotamian Read more…
For years after my deconversion, I found myself at loose ends about how to view the universe and my place within it. Christianity had given me a simple cosmology, but Christianity’s claims had turned out to be false. After deconverting, I wanted to build my worldview on claims that were Read more…
Evangelicals have always been leery of new technology, and AI is no different. It’s just so big and so all-encompassing that I fully expected them to oppose it as they do. While some evangelicals embrace and try to harness AI for their own benefit, others warn ominously of its potential Read more…