Every few years, headlines proclaim that belief in God is declining in the United States. The claims often stem from polls conducted by the Pew Research Center, which have for some time shown a gradual increase in the number of people classified as “nones,” those with no religious affiliation. At the same time, those who…
What do you do when your minister makes the bold claim that Jesus was definitely not born of a virgin? When Matthew states Mary was a virgin, the word Matthew used didn’t actually mean virgin. Or that virgin births were a common trope, that even the Emperor was said to be born of a virgin….
Did you know that Christmas is a pagan holiday? It’s one of those “facts” that gets passed around during the Christmas season every year. Most people simply take it at face value. But this fact is a 19th-century creation. It arose at the same time as the myth that Easter was inspired by pagan celebrations…
There are times when the world seems overwhelming. Life continues to throw punches, and they all can’t be blocked. Everything can just begin to wear you down, and in those moments, it’s not uncommon to cry out in lament. In Psalms 137, we see that happen. In just a single sentence, this unnamed man cries…
Millennia before I sat down to try to tackle the question of why bad things happen to good people, another had set out to do the same thing. Drawing on traditional wisdom and using it as a framework for his own argument, the author of the Book of Job created a foundation that a host…
Why do we suffer? I’m not sure that question can ever be fully answered. The ways in which we suffer are exceptionally diverse, and the factors that lead to suffering are infinitely varied. But in order to even begin to understand how suffering could coexist with an all-loving God, we need to at least scratch…
What is our relationship to God? Often, when we think of our relationship with God, we put the cart before the horse. But before we can really get there, we need to take a step back and look at a core aspect of God. If God exists, God would be fundamentally different from us. While…
When faced with the reality of suffering, the classical view of God becomes exceptionally difficult to defend. The idea that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving is challenged by the existence of evil. It brings up the age-old question of theodicy: how do we reconcile our notion of a loving God, a God who has…
The very core of Christianity, what sets it apart from the other Abrahamic religions, and makes it a death cult is substitutionary atonement: the idea Jesus died on the cross so your sins are forgiven. A Get Out of Hell Free card that justifies the cruelty and mass murder done by the church through the…
“You say you want to explore the myths, yet present Christ as a fact. This is a bit disingenuous because although Jesus possibly existed, there is zero proof he did from a context where every individual was documented. It’s why Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem. The concept of the Christus is dogmatic, thus by…