If on this Monday morning you are feeling particularly uninspired and listless, I can help! Namely, I can help you slip directly into a full-fledged coma. (If “fledge” a word? “Hey! I found my lost fledge!” “I don’t want to go out today; I’m feeling all fledgy.” “I fledge alliegence to the flag ….” So clearly it’s not a word. Good to know.) But wouldn’t a coma right about now be nice? No more straining not to kill your co-workers.... Read more
I’m terribly sorry for this inconvenience, but the post you are looking for is here. Read more
Yesterday, did I say that Christianity is 5% brains and 95% emotion? What I was thinking? Let’s change that to 95% brains, and 5% emotion. Here’s why that formula also works: You would have to be one drool-stained moron to commit your heart, mind and soul to any faith or belief system that isn’t obviously, and in every last possible way, logically coherent and rationally defensible. There may be a God. There may not be. People can screech about it... Read more
I think those of us who believe in God are sometimes too reluctant to acknowledge that first and foremost the religious experience is about emotion. It has an intellectual aspect, of course—but the intellectualizing of religion comes way after the swooning, singing, crying, hoping, and repenting it inspires. First you cry; then you write a book. Even if you’re an atheist writing about religion, that’s the order. First you get upset about how wrong and harmful religion is—and then you... Read more
For 10 years now I’ve been carrying around in my out-sized head a book idea that I think is a surefire blockbuster. But I’m booked book-wise for the foreseeable future. So finally I am now officially giving away this book idea. It’s your lucky day! Maybe. Or whatever. Here’s the idea: A trade paperback needs to be about 150 pages, right? So my idea is that this book is entitled, And That’s When I Got Struck by Lightning. On every... Read more
Having, I am sure, read my post, Advent, Easter and Ordinary Time: Knowing the Christian Calendar, you are aware that we are now in the Easter season of the Christian year. This season lasts lasts 50 days and ends on Pentecost Sunday, which this year falls on May 31. If we were back in Jesus’ time, today would be the first day that the resurrected God was back walking amongst us. (And being funny, too. In Luke 24, Jesus sidles up... Read more
Like most pagan/heathen children, as a kid I figured that, stripped of its incomprehensible pretensions, the point of Easter was to feed me many bright and wonderful forms of sugar. That an entire holiday was (by one means or another) devoted to this splendid end seemed to me natural and right. I had bad teeth and a right leg I could never stop from vibrating, but I wasn’t entirely dense. Besides the thrilling annual ritual of ignoring Peeps and hording... Read more
As I write this it’s noon my time, on Good Friday. Outside my window the sky is a thick mat of mottled grays. It’s cold here—or what we here in San Diego call cold, anyway. I don’t like to write on Good Friday. But I thought I’d visit here for a moment, in case any of my dear reader friends happen to stop by for a little Good Friday commiseration. Hello, friend! Much love to you. I’m always massively depressed... Read more
Here are six truths about suffering that should prove comforting to any Christian in pain: God didn’t cause our suffering. God never, ever wants us to suffer. He hates it when we hurt. We hurt because pain is part of the human legacy, period. God could, of course, instantly stop all human suffering, but doing so would involve interfering with our free will, which he loves us to much to do. He allows us to suffer, but that we do... Read more
(Update: All the posts of this series have been collected into one piece, Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, and How to Defeat Each One of Them.) Okay, so as to the nitty-gritty of how, exactly, you can go about separating yourself from some of the less-than-helpful things about yourself that, in one way or another, you learned from your parents. No matter how trite or hackneyed it may sound, the truth remains that the first and best thing... Read more
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