Back when I was an active member in the Church of Christ, I got myself in trouble with the pastor and the elders because I pointed out some discrepancies I’d found between what the church teaches and what it was actually practicing. For example, one of their big teachings is that the church has to …
Monthly Archive: April 2012
Apr 28 2012
Analytical thinking and religious belief
I bet we hear more about this one: a study at the University of British Columbia has found that analytical thinking actually decreases religious belief. The study, which will appear in tomorrow’s issue of Science, finds that thinking analytically increases disbelief among believers and skeptics alike, shedding important new light on the psychology of religious …
Apr 27 2012
Kiss the Fourth Amendment good-bye
Wow, I thought the vote was supposed to be today, but it looks like CISPA has already been rushed through the House. The measure, which some are calling the Son of SOPA, allows internet service providers to share information with the government, including the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency, about cybersecurity …
Apr 26 2012
CISPA facing amendments
The International Business Times is reporting some possible good news on the individual liberties front. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act [CISPA] is the greatest potential threat to Internet freedom and privacy currently before the U.S. Congress, and many critics have been warning in recent weeks that it has the potential to do even …
Apr 25 2012
And in the end, who pays?
The school board at Cranston RI racked up a $150,000 legal bill in their foolhardy attempt to defend the blatantly unconstitutional prayer banner in the Cranston High School. And now they’ve decided it’s unfair to expect them to pay the whole thing. Their solution? Split the bill with the taxpayers, 50/50. [UPDATE: A commenter informs …
Apr 24 2012
Pentagon-sponsored identity theft
USA Today is reporting a disturbing and blatantly illegal propaganda campaign apparently being conducted by Pentagon contractors. A USA TODAY reporter and editor investigating Pentagon propaganda contractors have themselves been subjected to a propaganda campaign of sorts, waged on the Internet through a series of bogus websites. Fake Twitter and Facebook accounts have been created …
Apr 23 2012
An odd response
My latest post at Evangelical Realism seems to have attracted the attention of a self-described “New Evangelist” named David Roemer. It’s an odd response, though. My post was about William Lane Craig’s problems with the doctrine of Hell and Christian exclusivism, and, well, see if you can tell what (if anything) Roemer’s response has to …
Apr 22 2012
Spoilers
This week at Evangelical Realism I give away the plot behind William Lane Craig’s argument for Christian exclusivism, and begin to look at the argument he uses to try and explain why an all-powerful God has no power to save most of His own children from Hell. Craig packs so much fail into such a …
Apr 21 2012
The rest of the [back]story
Like I said yesterday, I decided in my mid-teens that I was going to follow God no matter what men said about Him, and that more than anything else led to my eventual rejection of Christianity. When you try to go beyond what men say about God, to the reality behind the words, you discover …
Apr 20 2012
The deacon’s backstory
Someone mentioned not knowing my backstory, so I thought I’d take a minute and share my background, and how I went from being a committed, conservative, Bible-believing Christian to being—well, whatever it is I am now. I grew up in a nominally Christian home, and generally believed in God by familial osmosis. We weren’t terribly …
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