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“How could they think that about me?”

Conversion

How to convince an atheist to become a Christian

Masturbatheism

Masturbatheism, n.

The belief that a God who watches you masturbate does not exist.

Cryptocalvinism

I’ve been hacking through Unqualified Reservations. I’m not sure I want to make any statement about what I think about it, because that’s what that author wants me to do, and the author (UR from now on) has made me paranoid about finding an unimpeachable foothold in the philosophical landscape. It’s possible UR’s flights of fancy and intellectual backflips have no connection with reality, but I appreciate sticking to a theme and examining it from many sides. To the best of my knowledge the theme is:

Ye shall know them by their fruits.

People can say whatever they want about philosophy, belief systems, and labels for them, but we’re all historically situated somehow, and our actions (or beliefs about practical everyday things) can always be traced back to that situation.
Step 1: Recognize this.
Step 2: ???

Atheists may rail against the illogic of god, but does it carry less weight if they believe in a whole bunch of other illogical things?

I say, not really. But I also say that people aren’t atheists because of logic. So maybe I want to join UR’s crusade: I want to know what people really believe and why they really believe it. UR picks philosophical/historical schematizing of beliefs, I pick an introspective phenomenological approach. While UR gets to use awesome words like cryptocalvinism, I’ll get to examine how masturbation affected my faith as an early teen. Both fun approaches, no doubt.

Christians, why are you persecuting me?

If I call myself “atheist” today, it is only as a resistance against the people who ask me to pigeonhole my religious beliefs so they can judge me accordingly. It is only until the day when someone who asks whether I believe really cares about what I believe and how I believe it, not so that they can change me, but so that we can share a connection, so that we can be open to each other’s beliefs, “two solitudes greeting and bordering each other” as Rilke would say. And in that moment of connection, if something moves me, then that is something that is real.

If you are a proselytizing Christian, ask yourself, are your beliefs a fortress? Do you attack another’s beliefs from behind your high walls? This is why people resist, or, if they capitulate it is only an illusion, a heart that is captured but not swayed. If you don’t make yourself vulnerable in this moment of connection, I don’t believe you can ever really touch someone.

The source of all intolerance

I’m pretty sure Dobson hates homosexuality more than he loves god.