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About this blog

Religious thoughts of an ex-Christian history wonk.

Entries in this blog

Sarah Palin Is Trying To Be Relevant Again, And We Non-Christians Are The Winners.

She gave a speech today in which she basically rehashed all her old talking points: Obama is evil and probably not "really" American, lawmakers are all evil bastards, guns are awesome, down-home aw-shucks snowbilly Alaskan proverbs about dogsleds, she is very pretty, she has tits (no, really), she is still bitter about 2008, she still thinks teleprompters are evil (I assume because they involve reading), the Midwest is Jesus-land and Midwesterners are the awesomest people ever, reality TV is evi
Akheia

Akheia

4

Why My Sincerity Doesn't Matter To My Deconversion.

Christians are rather fond of parroting the tired old excuses for why we left their obscene religion, and one of the lamest of the lot is this one: "You just didn't want it enough."   You just weren't trying hard enough.   You didn't want God enough.   You didn't pray enough. You didn't love God enough. You weren't submitted enough.   You just didn't want it enough.   This is one of the cruelest and most wrong of everything they could say, but it does show a number of holes in their bi
Akheia

Akheia

7

Preaching To The (Wrong) Choir.

One of the biggest problems Christians have is when they hear something they think sounds wonderful at church or in an apologetics book and make the huge and terrible mistake of not realizing that these arguments are for the choir, not for the outsiders peeking in through the church windows.   "Something can't come from nothing!" "Adam and Steve!" "Fetuses are women too!" "Women are equal, just they have different roles!" "Hate the sin, not the sinner!" They hear these bumper-sticker slogans a
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2

The Five Ds Of Dodgeball

I recently was reading a slew of articles about various Christians committing crimes and being raging hypocrites (my fave: so-pro-life-it's-scary Scott DesJarlais not only demanded his mistress get an abortion, but his ex-wife had had a couple of 'em too. IOKIYR has become IOKIYC.) One article was about a Mormon mayor in Utah who got caught in an affair. Scroll past his victim-blaming ("I counseled with many members of the congregation regarding their personal lives. When I was released, one wom
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1

Waiting For The Drunk-Dialing Call.

Ever had a nasty break-up with someone who's rather controlling? Sooner or later, you know the phone will ring in the middle of the night. Against your better judgement, you'll answer. It'll be your ex, drunk and slobbering, pleading and whining for you to reconcile. And that fervent request will go roughly like this: "Baby, I can't stop thinking about you. You're a lying whore and I hate you, but we can make this work, baby, I just know we can."   I've experienced this call a couple of times
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0

Consent And Christianity

Todd Akin made a hugely unsettling statement about rape that riled up a huge number of people. The GOP at first made a lot of noise about walking away from him, but after the furor had died down, they went back to him and even gave him $700,000 to help him get elected (which, thankfully, failed).   Another member of Team Rape, Tom Smith of Pennsylvania, mentioned that having a rapist's baby was just like a man whose daughter is having a child out of wedlock (alas, he did not fail in his own el
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1

The Christian Fear Of Death

I have a 15-year-old cat. Her name is Bitsen, and like all cats whose names relate to small size, she is--or rather was--huge, a beach ball of a round waddling kitty, a brown tabby with sweet sea-green eyes, a rather long nose, and a complete hatred and disdain for humanity.   She is an ex-feral. If anybody but my mother had adopted this cat, Bitsen would have found her ass on the curb in short order. She wasn't cuddly. She hated everybody. And she wasn't even pretty, by cat standards, much le
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6

Thought Crimes - The Last Bit Of Dogma We Shed

Once upon a time I wrote an opinion piece about the trend of vapid vanity tattoos and how stupid I thought they were. Wow, you'd have thought I'd advocated eating children when the responses came in from people who felt THEIR tats were very significant and spiritual and despite agreeing that most women getting them were idiots, they themselves were absolutely NOT following some herd. Another time I wrote about how I think that faking orgasms is about the worst relationship sin I could imagine sh
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2

Why We Left, The Real Reasons.

This poor kid's parents told him he just wanted to sin.   The Church Lady thinks it's because the pastor offended someone or there wasn't enough parking.   This guy claims that people "tell him" they're just too spiritual, darn it, or they'd rather do yoga at home. (Note to the preacher: this is the Christian version of friendzoning.)   And this blog cites a chain letter that blames ungratefulness--that people who leave church are just too used to God's "blessings" and get all complacent
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Akheia

5

Why Only Twats Wish For A Return To The Good Ol' Days.

Not long ago I was cruising a Christian news site talking about the anti-gay bigotry of Chik-Fil-A and was surprised when the comments turned from the usual comedy gold ("ITT: CHRISTIANS WITH NOOOOO IDEA WHAT'S IN THEIR OWN BIBLE") to a woman pining openly for "the good old days." That's what she called it. And suddenly the whole comments segued into everybody waxing nostalgic about how awesome these "Good Old Days" were. Men were all strong-jawed family protectors. Women knew their places. Ever
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5

Why People Should Be Intolerant Of Intolerance.

When fundies get confronted with a very uncomfortable truth, one trick that is sure to come out of the hat is the martyr game. I've been dismayed to discover that one of my favorite food chains, Chik-Fil-A, is virulently anti-gay, but even more dismayed to see how Christians are responding to its CEO's message of intolerance.   Look up "tolerate my intolerance" on Google and enjoy the putrid wash of outraged fundies who can't understand why liberals, if they are so very, very tolerant, won't l
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2

Why Christians Hate Evidence

"Your god is evidence," a Christian recently wrote in response to a YT video I'd commented on.   While he made a marked mischaracterization of what I believe, he lit upon a very good point: that yes, I do put a lot of stock in evidence when I evaluate claims.   If I buy a car, I want to know that the car is reliable. Do I take the salesman's word for it, or do I go find reviews of the car's worthiness and hire a mechanic to take a quick look under the car's hood before I put my safety and fi
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1

Dear Christians, How To Talk To Your Ex-Christian.

I've been seeing more and more of these sorts of blogs: "How To Share the Faith With Your (Friend, Loved One, Spouse, Colleague)." "How to Talk to An Atheist." The only thing that they share is a uniform ignorance of other points of view and a manifest deceptiveness with regard to their intentions and agenda. So here is mine, and hopefully it isn't quite as ignorant or ill-considered. I present for your pleasure:   HOW TO TALK TO EX-CHRISTIANS, FOR CHRISTIANS   1. Don't.   2. No, seriously
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3

Dialogue With A Conjob.

A couple days ago, I saw this intellectually-dishonest request for a TRUE DIALOGUE between Christians and non-Christians and have been furious about it ever since.   Dialogue? To what purpose? As if Christians don't already shove their privilege in the faces of the whole rest of the world. As if non-believers already don't know, to the atomic level, what it's like to be a persecuted, poor-widdle-me buddy-Jesus Christian in a world that is rapidly figuring out that that entire religion is worth
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1

What Can I Say? I Love The Retard.

Ever seen Mallrats? Go take a look at it. It's stupid and hilarious and one of my favorite movies. I'll wait. Done? Good. Did you notice how, through the entire movie, Brodie's worthiness as a companion is slammed continuously? Rene, who breaks up with him early in the movie, spends the rest of it talking about the horrible things he did to and around her. Even Brodie knows he was a terrible boyfriend, and the rest of his friends know it, too. Nobody ever argues otherwise. But at the end of the
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Akheia

2

I Think I Have Too Much Self-Respect.

I'm reading about the terrorist attacks on women's care clinics in Georgia, and about the crazy asshole who interrupted his own grandmother's funeral to spew hateful dogma at his own relatives, the fallout around that crazy Florida pastor who wanted to burn Korans and now, being clearly alarmed that the national dialogue is centering around things that aren't him for a change, just hung an effigy of Obama from a tree like a good little KKKer, and, well, pretty much everything here.   These are
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2

The Perfidious Final Implication Of Christians' "sin Nature."

Funny that not even hours after I published the last blog entry, I read this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2151911/Was-girl-murdered-snatched-Vatican-sex-parties.html, wherein a priest, Father Luigi Marinelli, writes regarding his lurid tell-all book about Vatican orgies and other related scandals, "... the Vatican is made up of men, who, like me, are flawed."   Well, pardon the hell out of me. I guess we can't condemn the Christian church now, can we? It's not their fault. They're
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0

The "sin Nature": The Iron Chariot Of The Human Condition.

I'm sitting here trying to think of a single other more offensive concept than the idea of a "sin nature" in Christianity, and I'm having a little trouble thinking of any. Rampant misogyny? Advocacy of slavery? Genocidal marching orders? Oh, God didn't legislate against those things because humans are fallen and had to have a little leeway. Can't stop masturbating? Lusting after gay sex? Cheating on your taxes? Cussing? Pounding on the horn in daily road rage? Of course you'll see Christians hav
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3

Shhh... Testing In Progress.

Ever feel like a forum can go through "themes"? Testing seems to be one of the big themes this week.   Christians view the entire world as a test--not that the Bible really lays it out that way. If God sees every single one of his children all the time, and cares about them so much that he pays attention to everything that happens, then it follows that nothing, absolutely nothing, that happens to a Christian is really random. That means that when bad things happen, there must be some cosmic pu
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0

Joplin, Or "god's Dick Move"

We're approaching the one-year anniversary of the date that the town of Joplin was leveled by a tornado.   The Problem of Evil rears its head in a particularly ugly way when one considers the example of the destruction of Joplin. At the time, at first what struck me was how little anybody talked about religion; they were busy saving lives and getting the worst of the devastation assessed. Then a few days later stories began to run about "miraculous saves" and miracles of mercy. Churches made a
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0

Help! Help! I'm Being Repressed!

For such a very, very moral people, Christians don't seem to believe in their own hell much, do they?   Last week, a smirking teenager hit the news with the tidbit that he was being suspended from school for wearing an innocent l'il yellow t-shirt advising students that their lives were "wasted without Jesus." He stamped his widdle fets and bawled (still smirking the whole time of course) that he was being victimized. Persecuted. The mean ole school was singling him out for being brave enough
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0

Megan's Questions

Shamelessly stealing these from Hemant's blog over at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/ because I think these are basically what young Christians think about non-believers, and I think it'd be interesting to answer them myself.     Dear Megan,   I'm glad you're starting to ask these questions. I think it's important, in an age where Christianity is becoming known as just one option in a supermarket-full of options, to really ask just what drives others who believe differently.
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2

The Burden Of Proof

I'm watching a YouTube video wherein a (deluded, utterly uneducated) pastor literally says that he feels the burden of proof is on the unpersuaded, not on those trying to make the case. He says this with a straight face, and genuinely feels that nonbelievers are the ones who must investigate and prove Jesus' claims. He said a lot of other really insane things, including a bit at the end about corporal punishment, but this is the one thing that really got my attention: that "the one who denies" C
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1

Id Aftermath: "perfect Creation," My (Cat's) Left Ass Cheek.

If you don't want to know more than you ever wanted to know about cats' butts, you need to leave now. I'll wait.   Ready?   All right.   Did you know that cats have anal glands? Two of them. If you look at your cat's asshole, they're at 5:00 and 7:00 respectively of the pucker. They make a very smelly goop. Many cat owners know about these glands; if you've ever seen a cat "scoot" across a floor, it's because it's got irritated glands. In extreme cases, the owner or vet may press on the gl
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By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them: The Dover Id Trial

I just got finished reading the 150-page judge's report on the Dover trial, and just got done watching hours of documentaries about ID that also covered the Dover trial.   The one thing that springs out at me throughout the media I've absorbed is the sheer mendacity and duplicity of the ID proponents. The Dover school board's leader, Alan Bonsell, lied pretty much from the moment he joined the board, and lied pretty much every moment during his part of the trial. He lied about whether or not h
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