Welcome to my Blog
I’m newly agnostic. I lost my religion while writing my first novel, A Danger to God Himself. It’s about a Mormon missionary who goes insane on his mission—schizophrenia. I started the novel seven...
View ArticleMy Brain’s Story
As is often so with mental illness, mine erupted in my late teen years. It had been murmuring below the surface my whole life, I think, subversively, like a coded message from the Underground....
View ArticleSo you had a spiritual experience
When I was researching my book A Danger to God Himself, I spent a lot of time at a website called Mormonthink.com. (The novel’s about a Mormon missionary who goes insane on his mission.) I probably...
View ArticleJesus wasn’t as nice as people make him out to be
I have this friend, a gay man struggling to come to terms with the fundamentalist Baptist religion he was raised in. He insists that he is a Red-Letter Christian. His point is, he doesn’t buy any of...
View ArticleDoes God speak through scripture? Yes and no
All religions have scripture, the word of God funneled through specific men. Which, when you think about it, it’s an admission that God doesn’t speak to the mass of us. That is, we yearn and yearn to...
View ArticleCan you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?
Evangelical Christians will tell you “Christianity’s not a religion. It’s a relationship.” What they really mean is that they don’t follow a set of “rituals.” Evangelicals detest ritual. That’s what...
View ArticleJesus would have been against gay marriage
A gay Christian friend of mine likes to point out that Jesus never said a single word one way or the other about homosexuality—this by way of suggesting that Jesus would have been in favor of...
View ArticleDoes God require worship?
First off, let me say that worship is real. I’ve experienced it. Back when I went to church, I loved to worship God. In fact, it might have been my favorite part of the service. (The sermons were...
View ArticleWhat do people mean when they say, “I follow God”?
Nestled at the core of every religion is the assumption that we are meant to give ourselves to God, join His “side,” if you will. Life lived right is a life oriented around God. “He must become...
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All Christians will accept homosexuals — and soon
Well, maybe not all Christians. Probably not the Westboro Baptist types and the snake handlers. But other than that, yes, I think everyone who believes, in some fashion, in Jesus and the Bible will...
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Who lays claim to the true gospel?
Everyone says they bear the true gospel. Mormons say it. (They call it the Restored Gospel.) Pentecostals say it. (They call it the Full Gospel.) Holy Rollers say it. (They call it The Foursquare...
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An atheist and a deist walk into a bar . . .
That’s me and my friend, Chris, in the photo above. We met at what I now refer to as my bar. I started going there at night to work on my novel. (In the mornings before work, I’d go to Starbucks.) At...
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Can you be spiritual but not religious?
More and more, when you ask Americans what creed they profess, they check the box that says “Spiritual But Not Religious.” I think what people mean when they say they’re Spiritual But Not Religious,...
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The Bible makes sense when you realize it’s nonsensical — Part 1
Back when I was religious, I couldn’t get enough of the Bible. Its mysteries just prodded me to dig deeper. Soon enough, I found a series of books put out by one of the mega-Christian publishing...
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The Bible makes sense when you realize it’s nonsensical – Part 2
For hundreds of years, learned folks have struggled over the dichotomous picture of God presented in the Old and New testaments: Angry God, Loving God. Could you see the Prince of Peace leading the...
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What role should God play in your life?
So I wrote my first novel. It’s about a Mormon missionary who goes insane on his mission. And in the interest of research, when Mormon missionaries would knock on my door, I’d invite them in, every...
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Occam’s Razor and the inactivity of God
Religious folks are often heard to say God works in mysterious ways. Ironically, when they say that, they’re usually trying to explain away an instance in which God apparently didn’t...
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How the Internet is killing religion — Part 1
This chart comes from a study by Allen Downey, a computer scientist at the Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts. The two charts show the correlation between the rise in the use of the Internet...
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How the Internet is killing religion – Part 2
In my last post, I said that the Internet is killing religion because of the profusion of information critical of the church. It works, whichever church is church to you. I went on to say that the...
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Learning to be moral, Part 1
There’s a great episode on The Simpsons that opens on the scene when Moses descends to the foot of Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments. Homer the Thief is chatting in a friendly, nonjudgmental manner...
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