The other day I realized some of the problem that people call the culture war. It occurred to me that the reason some people doubt science is because they do not know that what is written in scientific papers is not someone’s idea, it is the result of a lot of work to get to the facts of a situation. For those who believe in things – and by “believe” here, I mean in the absence of evidence – it…
If you’re reading this, you’re probably a Christian or in a Christian-majority country. If so, this post is for you. If not, then I don’t know enough about your God to reject him so easily. In this post I want to set forth my reasons for not believing in the Christian / Jewish God. This includes the pantheon of Catholicism (Mary, God/Jesus, and the saints), as well as the newer Christianities that rely on the Old Testament / Torah and…
There are two perspectives on life and after-life. “Only two?” you might reasonably wonder. I would argue that there are only two of all binary choices. You only have the choice between standing up and not standing up. If you choose to do anything other than standing up, you are choosing the other thing. There is subtlety here – you can do millions of things that aren’t standing up – but if the sets that you are working within are…
I spent the last weekend with some evangelical Christians who I like on a personal level. They all believe that they are called to “spread the word”. Despite a genuine intellectual interest from me for most of my life, they have all singularly failed to communicate a positive image of Jesus and, especially, his followers. This article explains how fundamentalist Christians could get it right, but instead get it wrong when it comes to sharing their world view. First, everyone…
The COVID vaccines have been rejected by some people, especially in the USA. The reasons vary from lies about the use of aborted babies in their production, to doubts about how well they work. (A so-called ‘pro-life’ group has said there are no moral reasons not to use the Moderna, Pfizer, Astra Zeneca, or even Johnson and Johnson vaccines – source 1, source 2). To clarify that they do work, these graphs provide a very clear, simple comparison of similar…
Everything I know is learned. It’s an important thing to remember – it’s easy to forget and believe that everything you know is true in some fundamental and foundational way. Everything you know is learned too. Let’s unpack that. What do you know to be true? I know that I am writing this at the moment. Well, I think I am. Some dreams are pretty vivid, and hallucinations can be so vivid that people genuinely don’t know what’s going on….
If you believe in the Christian God, it would be evil of you not to evangelize. The alternative is to allow someone you know (and should love) to go to the hell you believe in. But what should you avoid? This article lists some of the things Christians often do, which will always fail to reach the hearts of unbelievers. Trivializing Avoid saying the following: “All you have to do is…” Those of us who do not believe there is…
If you believe in the Christian God, it would be evil of you not to evangelize. The alternative is to allow someone you know (and should love) to go to the hell you believe in. But what should you avoid? This article lists some of the things Christians often do, which will always fail to reach the hearts of unbelievers. Trivializing Avoid saying the following: “All you have to do is…” Those of us who do not believe there is…
It was recently pointed out to me that there are ways that we are taught to categorize people. In the case of one group – evangelical Christians – they have three labels for people: Christians; People who have not yet heard the Good News; and Satan worshippers. This sounds preposterous to me. I was raised in a legally-Christian country, went to Sunday school, and learned about God, Jesus, and Moses. Armed with this knowledge, I cannot fall into the second…