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About this blog

Ruminations on the things I've learned since the blinders came off

Entries in this blog

Ecclesiastes 12:13 and the Meaning of Life

Ecclesiastes 12:13 (ESV): The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.   To which I ask: That's all you've got?   I've never set goals. Really! Oh, I did finish college (after changing my major 3 times), but I've always lived my life a day at a time. And I've always found my "meaning" in my responsibilities. I have work, I have family, and I have things to do. What more meaning do I need? Well, I know what's
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Faith and Doubt

I am reading a blog post on Patheos by an Evangelical author, Philip Yancey, called "A Time to Doubt" here. The post doesn't allow comments, which is not unexpected given the subject and some of the things he says. The comments section could easily get out of hand and really would serve no purpose, but I want to comment on the article on my own blog, so here goes:   One paragraph says     "Often seems silent." I would have worded it this way, also, when I was a Christi
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Did Mary Forget?

Hat-tip to Bob Seidensticker at Cross Examined for inspiring this post with one entitled More Damning Bible Contradictions: #25 Was Jesus Crazy or God?   Did you ever wonder what was up with Jesus' mother, Mary, in Mark chapter 3? Mary and Jesus' brothers show up where he's been preaching to his followers, and they're wanting to take him away because they think he is, perhaps, mentally ill. (Well, they thought he had an unclean spirit.)     But we know the stories!
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He Took My Whipping for Me!

"Penal substitutionary atonement" refers to the doctrine that Christ died on the cross as a substitute for sinners. God imputed the guilt of our sins to Christ, and he, in our place, bore the punishment that we deserve. This was a full payment for sins, which satisfied both the wrath and the righteousness of God, so that He could forgive sinners without compromising His own holy standard. (Explained in this article on theopedia.com.)   There are many objections to the doctrine, as note
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Isaiah 7:14: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive!" -- The Foundational Prophecy of Christianity

Merry Christmas!   At this time of year many people will read, or will have read in their presence, the following verses:   Matthew 1:23 Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us). Isaiah 7:14: Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.   Matthew 1:23 is of course a quote from Isaiah 7:14. Have you
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Let Us Create Man in Our Image

In Genesis 1:26 we read "Then God said, 'let us make man in our image, after our likeness.'" Christian theology says that "us" refers to the Trinity -- the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The author of Colossians says (in 1:16) " For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him," implying that Jesus was there at the beginning. John 1:1-3 implies the same thing (wh
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"And behold, I am coming soon!"

Revelation 22: 6-7 says 6 And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.” 7 “And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”   Depending upon the theology taught by various churches, the visions in Revelation (most of the book, after the letters to the seven churches) may have to do with events that
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The Survivors of Noah's Flood

The flood survived by Noah's family and the animals they took onto the ark, was said to have wiped out all human and animal life on the Earth, to be started over by the inhabitants of that ark. Ironically, part of God's anger and reasoning for causing the flood were the Nephalim. In Genesis 6 we see that the race of Nephalim came along when the sons of god (El, not Yahweh) married the daughters of man and they bore children to them. It refers to them there as the "mighty men of old." In verse 5
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Oh, No! These People May Leave Our Denomination!

But we're the ONE TRUE CHURCHTM! We have to save them from Hell!   I still go to a Church of Christ for reasons that I've explained before. They would consider me a "struggling christian," I suppose, because I was outed as an atheist and managed to convince them that I was going to try to believe again. In the year and a half since that happened, nobody has questioned me. I kind of hate it but it keeps family relationships smooth.   Anyway, being that I'm still a member, I'm
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The Bible Is Not Like Any Other Book

"The Bible isn't like any other book!" When someone is trying to convince you that the god they call "God" is real, that Jesus was/is this god's son and is deity himself, and that you should reconsider the things that made you finally conclude, after months or years of intense Bible study, that there's nothing to the religion after all (after having been a believer since you were old enough to believe anything at all), this is one of the arguments they often think you can't possibly have an answ
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We Hope You'll Be Able to Encourage Us With Your Presence Soon

And there it is... a guilt trip masquerading as sympathy.   My wife's name appears in the church bulletin every week (email only, not printed). She's on the list of people who have health conditions that often prevent them from being at church. She has fibromyalgia, and insomnia, too, and she doesn't "do mornings." Doctor appointments are always scheduled in the afternoon. We don't have service people come to the house in the morning, either. That just doesn't work.   This is
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Even an Atheist Doesn't Want to be Punched in the Face

From a Church of Christ preacher's post on Facebook:   "Even an atheist doesn't want to be punched in the face. If there is no God, then there are no moral absolutes. Yet 'no one ever hates his own flesh, but provides and cares for it' (Ephesians 5>29, HCSB). This instinct for self-preservation is the basest, most universal expression of self-love. Atheism cannot explain why or how people know it is wrong for others to hurt them."   I don't know that I've ever seen a more
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Blow Up

We had a blow-up last night. Maybe I overreacted. She was reading some apologetics stuff and wanting to order a book from Amazon with a title something like "100 OT Prophecies Fulfilled By Jesus,"  but it was only sold as a used book by 3rd party sellers, and there were actually a couple of different books and a tract with the same title but different authors. She hadn't ordered anything via Amazon by 3rd party sellers before, so it confused her and she was asking me about it. No problem -- happ
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Celebrating Six Years

I'm 58 years old, and it was right at 6 years ago that I realized that the religious book I had believed since I was old enough to understand anything was, in fact, a book of myths, legends, and embellished history, and that even if there were any such things as gods, Yahweh certainly wasn't real.   It's been interesting, in some ways great, in some ways awfully stressful. I've  kept quiet for the most part, but have managed to beg off of responsibilities at church and I've cut my cont
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The Prayer that Never Fails

A woman I knew in high school in the 1970s, and who was ordained as a Methodist minister a few years ago, posted some photos on Facebook of a trip she took to Israel a few years ago. Along with the photos, she commented "The prayer that never fails, 'Thy will be done.'"   I would call that "the ultimate salve for cognitive dissonance". In "the Lord's prayer" Jesus reputedly said "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven."   James 4:13-16 says " 13 Come
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The Wrath of God

Ah, life in the closet! Fodder for blog posts!   Sunday morning's sermon was called "Motivations for Holy Conduct." Sermons usually have 3 main points, and number three, which the most time was spent on, was "The Wrath of God."   This was pretty ironic, because I spend my time during the sermon reading in the Nook app on my phone. Right now I'm reading "The God Delusion," and I'm in chapter 7, "The 'Good' Book and the Changing Moral Zeitgeist". Part of the chapter deals with
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Christians After Harvey

Oh, the joys of being semi-closeted! I knew I'd hear some ridiculous stuff after hurricane Harvey hit our area.   My wife's sister and her husband lost their home. They're insured, but the house was paid off and they intended to live in it until their kids told them they were too old to be on their own. It's going to be a multiple-months long headache rebuilding. They're with us for the moment, and she was in Walmart the other day waiting for the next self-check register when the woman
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What Is Faith?

Mark Twain supposedly said "Faith is believin' what you know ain't so."  Peter Boghossian, in "A Manual for Creating Atheists," insists that faith is pretending to know things that you don't know. And he insists that other definitions of faith, for example faith in a person's ability to do something, are not really faith, because they're based on your knowledge of the person's ability and history. I think he's wrong to say that this definition of the word is invalid, because it's certainly how i
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Links

This isn't a blog post, really, just a place for a couple of bookmarks.   I follow Captain Cassidy on Twitter, who writes the blog "Roll to Disbelieve" on patheos. She recently tweeted a link to an older blog post of her own called The Four Facts of the Resurrection (Aren’t) Here, she discusses how four "facts" about the resurrection that even non-believers don't dispute, aren't facts at all, aren't well attested, and are certainly not accepted by non-believers. These facts are:
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And Then it Happened

I posted in the forums about how my older son discovered the truth about the Bible after he decided he really needed to study more. He had managed to come out of the closet and, he thought, not destroy his relationships. Well, it turned out to be more complicated than that, and it got really complicated for me, as well.   My son and his wife had a baby. They live in another town, and his in-laws live there, as well. So we went to see meet new granddaughter. They weren't at church that
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Serenity

There's a saying by Reinhold Niebuhr known as the "Serenity Prayer." It says "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference".   A discussion in the forums made me realize something today: For a Christian, the above is impossible, or nearly so. That's why they think the prayer is so important that they post it on knick-knacks all over their houses. They want their god to grant these things to
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God's Presence

For various reasons -- mostly family related -- I'm semi-closeted, "making an effort" in order to avoid uncomfortable discussions -- so I show up for church on Sunday morning. I use the opportunity during the sermon to read. (I've just started "The God Delusion!") Since I am using the Nook app on my phone, nobody knows that it I'm not following the sermon in my Bible.   But I can't help hearing the sermon to some extent and seeing the slides. This morning's sermon was about "God's Pres
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The Problem Of Free Will

In "The Case for Christianity" C.S. Lewis wrote:   Can you see the problem here? He says "God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way." According to the Bible, there was no "if." Jehovah purposed to send the redeemer before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1:3-5 says:     Christians who don't believe that Jehovah predestined each individual who would be saved, such as those in churches of Christ, believe that this is saying simply that Jehovah knew peop
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Nonsensical Terminology

I don't know what it's like to not think about Christianity. Having been told the Bible was non-fiction from the time I was old enough to understand, and then in my 50's realizing that it's really just a book of myths, legends, and embellished history, it has thus-far been impossible for me to let go of this near obsession. Christianity affected nearly everything in my life, and realizing that it isn't true does not lessen the impact of it on my life in any significant way. Living in a place whe
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