Curious to learn more after reading My Story? Here are some resources that I’ve found helpful over the past few years Books: Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary Daniels, Kenneth W – Read this one first! Its about a former missionary and Wycliffe Bible translator who sorts through his doubts about Christianity after… Continue reading Suggested Reading (based on My Story)
Conclusion (for now) We will never have all the answers. The more we know the more we learn we don’t know. Life has shown me that what I believed 5 years ago is vastly different from what I believe now. And that continues to happen. I do not doubt that it could continue to happen… Continue reading My Story: A Temporary Conclusion
That ever elusive “peace that passes understanding” One thing that the Bible teaches is that those who have faith in God will have a peace that passes understanding. Christians have a variety of beliefs about this concept. Perhaps you feel settled about life. Perhaps it means that you aren’t full of fear about the future.… Continue reading My Story: Finding Peace
Another pet peeve I have is how many Christians immediately think the worst of you and start shunning you when they hear the word atheist. I’ve gone through some lengths to show (albeit not scientific research) that my experience has shown that often the least nice people in life are religious while some of the… Continue reading My Story: More Atheist Pet Peeves
Another pet peeve I have is that often when the argument is clearly not being won by those who try to convince me of faith in Christianity, they resort to simply quoting Bible verses. This goes back to the idea that the Bible can magically change people. I don’t believe it can but can see… Continue reading My Story: More De-conversion Challenges
Pet peeves as a “new” atheist One thing that I find as a newer atheist that still irks me, is the constant habit of so many Christians to rehash old arguments as evidence for their faith. I think most of them do it in all sincerity. Perhaps, they don’t know how well I actually know the Bible… Continue reading My Story: De-conversion Challenges
As you may have guessed from reading all this, I’m not naturally the kind of person who can just be content to let something sit that has been such an important part of my life. Non religion worked for a while but eventually I kept questioning, reading, learning, growing. By the time I had been… Continue reading My Story: The Fall of Man
Non-religious: another step toward the inevitable By now it would seem that there isn’t much more for me to loose as far as faith goes. This was about 4 years ago when I was 25. I realized I know longer believed in the God of the Bible and couldn’t honestly call myself a Christian by… Continue reading My Story: Non-religious
Hell revisited One of the things that always got me about hell was the eternal aspect of it. many if not most Christians are completely comfortable with the idea that hell is eternal. They realize that many people who go there may have been overall good people who just didn’t say the right prayer. They… Continue reading My Story: Eternal Torment for temporary sin
Universalism: a compromise For a short time I would say that I accepted an idea known as Universalism. This is the idea that there is a God who created us and that perhaps there is some good information about Him we can learn from the Bible. However, it holds that He loves us all, and… Continue reading My Story: Universalism
By now you probably have realized that I was careening down a religiously destructive path. Whether or not you agree with my conclusions or even my questions, the questions had been asked and the evidence was allowed to steer me in the direction that it would. The question I always asked people when they seem… Continue reading My Story: Closer to the Precipice
The undeniable conclusion I eventually came to was this: the Bible was created by men who chose to include only those books which agreed with their already determined doctrine. They did not do a perfect job as there are some contradictions it would seem, but many of these have apparent explanations. Or at least so… Continue reading My Story: The Greatest Question (cont.)
The entire foundation of Christianity is based on one core belief: to some extent or another the book we call the Bible is written or direct by God as a message to humans about reality, about truth. On one end we have Christians who would say that the Bible is the absolute authority on life,… Continue reading My Story: The Greatest Question of Them All
Other theological issues: Let me briefly go over a few more significant theological issues that I studied between the ages of 23 and 25 which changed when I allowed myself to honestly seek the truth. Tongues: While I doubted tongues at an early age, I believed that perhaps it was real for some people just… Continue reading My Story: Theological Issues
Science and evolution versus Creationism: Growing up in high school and all the way through my science classes at Bob Jones and Liberty, I was taught one perspective on how we and the rest of the universe got where we are today: creationism. Every class blasted evolution as merely “a theory” (a word used in the colloquial… Continue reading My Story: Science, Evolution, and Creationism
One of my favorite quotes (actually not sure where I first heard this) goes basically like this, “if what you believe is the truth, and you truly care about knowing the truth, you should never be afraid to question what you believe. If it is truth, it will stand. If it is not, you do… Continue reading My Story: Asking Real Questions
More questions about Christians not acting like Christ Another phenomenon came to my attention which I will use a story to illustrate. An acquaintance of mine worked at a local wireless store and dealt with customers all day. She often had angry and frustrate customers that would test her ability to remain calm and professional.… Continue reading My Story: Christians not Christ-like
The age old question: Why don’t Christians Act Like Christ? While this question was raised in early childhood, it became increasingly an issue in college where I saw a much greater representation of the church than simply right wing, conservative, Bible believing, homeschooling Christianity. Certainly that brand of Christianity, which I was raised in, thought… Continue reading My Story: Why Don’t Christians Act Like Christ?
Summary of my childhood faith, struggles of adolescence, and growth in college I wrote all this to hopefully give you the idea that even as a child, I was a man of faith. I didn’t agree with everyone on everything and I was oft to question. I was not perfect as one might define perfection and… Continue reading My Story: Summary of Childhood
One thing I did agree with, was that having sex before marriage was wrong. In fact, sex in general seemed dirty and taboo. Despite reading ridiculous versus in the Bible, that graphically portrayed sexual activities, I was never comfortable with the idea. My sex education came from reading family medical books and finally discovering a… Continue reading My Story: Dating and Sex
Dating, sexuality, lust, and fornication I would like to do another series just on dating in the future so this major issue for me as an adolescent and college age Christian, will be comparatively brief. Dating vs Courtship Among the home school movement of the 90’s there was a significant push to reject typical dating… Continue reading My Story: Sex and Dating
Homosexuality My parents did not discuss homosexuality that I remember until I was old enough to have figured it out on my own. It likely came up in Bible readings but was never elaborated on. I had an uncle who was gay and was in a relationship with a great guy whom he is with… Continue reading My Story: Early Doubts (6)
Was I really a Christian? This was a question that constantly nagged at me as a child. The constant threat of hell coupled with my frequent disagreements on issues with my parents, led me to often question my salvation. I found myself frequently rededicating my life to God and seeking his forgiveness, just in case… Continue reading My Story: Early Doubts (5)
Prophecy Another spiritual gift that was trumpeted in my early years was the gift of prophecy. This was a spiritual charismatic gift to either speak something you shouldn’t have otherwise known about someone, or predict the future. The church had numerous prophecies which rarely were specific enough to be verified, but nonetheless served to strengthen… Continue reading My Story: Early Doubts (4)
Just trust God During my teenage years I embarked on many a discussion with my parents, and eventually church leaders, on issues which I did not see eye-to-eye. While these discussions were often heated and drawn out, it frustrated me that no matter how much my arguments made sense in my mind, I rarely “won”… Continue reading My Story: Early Doubts (3)
Inconsistencies in faith and practice Another thing I quickly noticed, was that my family was particularly more spiritual than most. Not that I thought we were better, but we held the Bible to a more literal standard and had a stricter moral code than most if not all other Christians I knew. Not that this… Continue reading My Story: Early Doubts (2)
While I’ve tried to stress and make clear that deep down I truly was a Christian, there were certainly things that I had doubts about even early on. One of the earliest doubts had to do with this supposed gift of tongues. Tongues: One of the first things I remember ever questioning as a child… Continue reading My Story: Early Doubts (1)
Lifestyle changes in college: Swearing: I don’t where or from whom I learned my first cuss word, but certainly by the time I was a teenager I swore quite frequently. I had some underlying anger issues which probably encouraged that. At first I thought all swearing was wrong. I began to eventually realize these are… Continue reading My Story: College Part 6
Lifestyle changes in College Music: This was an area of contention even as a child, and was not drastically changed in college, except that now I could publicly practice what I had privately believed. Growing up the rules were not set in stone and they tended to change from time to time. The basic idea… Continue reading My Story: College (Part 5)
Lifestyle Changes in College: Drinking: Drinking was strictly prohibited growing up. My mother used to tell me of her many family alcoholics. I later investigated this and found that only one family member was actually an alcoholic. But the fact remained, as a child alcohol was absolutely wrong. I had my first drinks (confession alert!)… Continue reading My Story: College Part 4
“We certainly agreed with the typical Baptist view of the cardinal sins (drugs, alcohol, and fornication), but sexual sins were the worst”
College: Give me Liberty Sophomore year I transferred to the right wing conservative Republican school of Liberty University. While politically they equate to Fox News, in practice, the administration and student body was much more open minded than Bob Jones (Liberty still falls right of mainstream Christianity but no where to near the same extreme).… Continue reading My Story: College Part 2
“There was an underlying idea that if one didn’t eat, breathe, and sleep thinking about God, they probably weren’t sincere enough about their faith.”
Everything about my life as a child involved rules and regulations that [when questioned] the answer always began and ended with “you just need to trust God”.
High school: changes and growth In high school I continued to be surrounded by a strong Christian family, dedicated Christian friends, and a Bible believing church group. While family conflicts often came up, and passages were debated, the faith itself was not the question. In fact, I grew stronger during this time in my belief… Continue reading My Story: High School
The Holy Spirit: a defining aspect of early childhood Christianity: While much of my childhood experiences of Christianity were more mainstream, the ones that concrete themselves in my mind as a young boy are those which were not. One of these phenomenon was called “the gift of tongues”. For those who are not familiar this… Continue reading My Story: The Holy Spirit
By the time I reached college, I do not doubt that I had read the and heard the Bible more than 99% of Christians
This story is dedicated to all the dedicated Christian leaders, pastors, and mentors during my childhood who regularly admonished me to study the Word of God
1). Leave your home and travel the world 2). Do nothing half-heartedly 3). Stop wasting time on social media and YouTube 4). Create something new everyday 5). Stop being merely a consumer. Give back to society 6). Live outside of your comfort zone every single day. Stop making choices based on fear 7). Cut your monthly… Continue reading Ten Resolutions That will Change Your Life
Why Do Girls Flake Out? You clear you schedule. You turn down your buddies who want to go out for a beer. You change your work out time. You skip out on another activity just in case it goes late… And then you get that dreaded text: “Sorry, I forgot my friend is in from… Continue reading Why Do Girls Flake Out?
Life is uncertain. We cannot know the outcome of our decisions, relationships, and circumstances. That’s in part why we have expectations. We are trying to make life as predictable as possible, essentially fighting against the uncertainty. Some people spend their entire miserable lives fighting uncertainty. We want people to live according to the way we… Continue reading Uncertainty of life and Expectations
One other problem with expectations: Expectations ruin good things in relationships. For example, if you expect your significant other to take out the trash when it is full and he doesn’t what happens? You get angry and frustrated and tell him off or at least ask him to do. If he doesn’t agree with your… Continue reading Expectations ruin good things in relationships.
Expectations destroy relationships. You expect her to do this she expects you to do that and neither of you can agree. And this will be your life long cycle if you do not reach a compromise. Expectations are like poison to relationships. When you expect someone to live the way you want them to you… Continue reading Why Expectations KILL everything [good in a relationship]
Why expectations kill everything. Expectations and Emotional Persuasion (Getting the girl to like you) So where does the aspect of expectation relate to emotional persuasion? I might assure you that I have strong feelings for you, that we are perfect for each other, that I have no intentions for anyone else. But if you expect… Continue reading Expectations and Emotional Persuasion (Getting the girl to like you)
Why expectations kill everything. When Expectations Become Actions This is where we cross from ideals to actions. You see my ideal might be one of complete commitment in even a dating relationships. I believe that all aspects of my opposite sex interactions should reflect a commitment to the girl I am dating. However, your ideal… Continue reading When Expectations Become Actions
Why expectations kill everything. What are expectations and why do we have them? When we move out and begin college and a career on our own, these childhood experiences begin to shape our budding worldview. In the first example (from the previous post), a woman may feel a strong distrust of men. She may secretly… Continue reading Why Do We Have Expectations? (Part 2)
Why expectations kill everything. What are expectations and why do we have them? First of all let’s throw a few definitions out there. These are not necessarily straight from a dictionary (honestly I made them up, but of course what I made up is highly influenced by what I’ve read in the dictionary). 1.) Expectations… Continue reading What are expectations? (Part 1)
Simple: as humans we spend most of our life engineering our future and planning and working to make life the best we can. In contract, falling in love is something that is outside of our control. Or so we romanticize it be. Think about the feelings of your first crush or the early days of… Continue reading Why We Like To Fall In Love
Why is this even important? Why do we care if attraction is a choice or not? If ultimately attraction is not a choice than I think it should alleviate some of the anxiety about rejection and rejecting that we get. No one likes rejection and hopefully most of us don’t like rejecting someone else. If… Continue reading Is Attraction A Choice: Conclusion (Part 5, the MOST important part!)
There is a third factor that effects attractions called social proof. What is social proof? Wikipedia has a great article that summarizes this concept (http://bit.ly/16Sah4B) which I will summarize here. Social proof is a psychological concept. It refers to the tendency of people to: want things that others want, agree with the group regardless of… Continue reading Is Attraction a Choice? Social Proof (Part 4)
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