Questioning the Questioner – Part 2

For the sake of readers who may be following this page but not my updated No Faith Zone page, I’m putting the latest post regarding an apologist’s take on my deconversion testimony right here. Cheers, and thanks for reading.

No Faith Zone

Two years ago (ZOMG, really?) I had the opportunity to share a distilled version of my deconversion testimony with the esteemed Jonathan MS Pearce at A Tippling Philosopher.

A Catholic apologist, Dave Armstrong, who frequents JMSP’s page wrote a response to my deconversion. I responded to the first part of this article shortly thereafter, but as often happens, the busyness of life took over and I never got around to completing my response.

One of my buddies, Don, happened in and noticed that I’d left the thread hanging, commenting on it, wondering if perhaps my journey had gone in a different direction. It hasn’t, it’s just continued on its course. So I thought I’d take a look at the rest and see where it goes.

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I Wish I May…

My first post in awhile, now on the new site – but I thought I’d reblog here for some of you who haven’t made the switch 🙂 Cheers.

No Faith Zone

He is risen.

He is risen indeed.

Easter was my favorite “Jesus” day.

I mean, Christmas was nice, with presents, and with Jesus being born and all. But Easter was where the rubber met the road. Easter was where the work got done. That’s where we got saved. Before that, everything was up in the air.

Sort of. I mean, he was “God,” right? The end was never in doubt. Not for him. All the drama, all the tears, all the pain and the blood. All theatre for the masses, if you think about it.

But I digress.

Easter was the day where it was all so real. For some reason I connected with what felt in my heart like my savior in a way I did on no other day. For a number of my last years as a Christian, I led worship for our devout, evangelical church. And…

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Parking in the Red Zone

Hey, faithful readers, it’s finally happened.

I’ve uploaded my first episode of the No Faith Zone webcast. It’s a talk and Q&A I did at Western Seminary, similar to my session there in October of 2015.

I will be gradually moving other content to the NFZ site, including My Story and perhaps even some of the blog posts. I’ll also provide some archive links here. Hopefully this new format will be a little more fun and and interesting, and hopefully I can get my dumb self on a schedule.

Cheers, and thanks for all the support!

In the Zone

I’ve been a little bit MIA, other than poking at a few theist buddies. I’ve made some noise here and there about possibly incorporating audio or video into some of my posts. You know, claw myself into the modern age?

Well, I’ve decided to take that a big step further.

Sometime between now and whenever (shooting for January 1st) I’ll be moving all of my work – blog posts as well as audio/video work – over to the newly minted No Faith Zone.

By the Numbers – Implications

No word from R yet, but he did have time to post a smear piece about Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger, naturally. Assert, but don’t engage – CSOP (Christian Standard Operating Procedure.) But it got me thinking again, because that’s what I do. I drink and I think things.

One of the key tactics of the Evangelical Anti-Choice crowd is to build a straw-man of the Pro-Choice position. 

By the Numbers – Follow Up

Well, it seems R doesn’t seem too interested in engaging on this subject, so I think I’ll carry on from here and invite him (or others, for that matter) to disagree as he will or won’t.

There is a song by Steve Camp from the early 90’s called “Face to Face.” As you might guess, it’s about the Second Advent of Jesus Christ. There’s a line in the second verse that, as a thumping pro-lifer back in those Evangelical glory days, used to send chills down my spine:

“We’ll see every murdered unborn child standing by his side!”

Our lament for one million murdered babies per year was very real. That’s how we looked at it.

But we felt like we’d sort of win anyway in the end, because we’d see those babies someday in Heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ and all His angels.

Now, with that thought in mind, let’s take a look at the four questions I asked R to consider.

A Little Class, Redux

This is just a quickie of a post, but I’m delighted to say that I’ve been invited back to Western Seminary for another class dialogue session.

My regular readers will recall my visit there last year, which was a truly rewarding and interesting dialogue for everyone involved.

Dan emailed me over the weekend and asked if I’d be interested, to my delight. And of course I accepted. Didn’t even have to consider it. It won’t be until February, but with advance notice, I’m able to get it on my calendar and ensure I’ve got the time to make it work.

I also live another 90 minutes further away, so it will require an overnight trip this time, so hopefully that means more time to visit with Dan and his family and friends.

This time I hope to video the session and post it here for review and discussion. I’ll keep you all up to date as the time approaches.

Cheers.

By the Numbers

I have an old friend, R, who has in the past wrangled with me here on this site. It hasn’t always been pretty, and we’ve both been guilty of some pretty poor behavior toward each other. We’ve set aside those mistakes and have had fewer, but more constructive dialogues here and there.

Recently, on Facebook, he challenged my pro-choice position. He calls it “pro-abortion,” of course, but I reject that specificity on the grounds that 1.) it doesn’t accurately represent my position and 2.) it still assumes I have some choice in the matter myself.

Why I (Don’t) Believe – The Resurrection – Part I

A couple years ago a young lady, a college student perhaps, going by the handle Young88Apologist, took the time to read through one of my posts and left a long comment challenging my conclusions. There was nothing new to the comments, but what made her comment stand out in my mind is that she strongly recommended I reconsider my position by listening to an audio series produced by Pastor Chip Ingram, of Living on the Edge Ministries.

She couldn’t have known, of course, that I was very familiar with Pastor Chip, as he had been my pastor at Santa Cruz Bible Church from 1990 until I moved my family out of the area in 2001. I was very active and dedicated, running music and drama programs for most of my time there. Even though the church grew to 2,500 people, I had the opportunity to be personally acquainted with him and his family.

I was pretty surprised that, of all the apologists out there, she would choose the one guy I knew. Since then, I vacillated on whether I wanted to take the time to listen to the series. It’s over 4.5 hours of listening time, and I’m pretty sure I know what he’ll say. I may even have been there when he said it (I’m not sure when the series was originally recorded, but they consist of recorded sermons.)

So recently I’ve been interested in meeting my critics where they are and checking out some of the material they find so convincing.

Left Further Behind

News recently surfaced that Tim LaHaye, co-author (along with Jerry Jenkin) of the hyper-best selling Christian apocalypse revenge-porn series Left Behind, has passed away.

No, I’m not here to dance on his grave. I hope his passing was peaceful, even if I don’t believe he found what he was expecting on the “other side.”

But it makes me think back to reading the series, which I’m both amused and ashamed to say that I read through to the end – all 14 volumes.