Reading Time: 3 minutes If you want to be a member of the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, you must believe Jesus died for your sins, that gay people have no business getting married, and that transgender people don’t exist. And, honestly, that first one may be optional based on their new contract. Senior Pastor Heath Lambert says […]
Culture
The everyday human stories that matter to you, told from a secular perspective at OnlySky, a secular community for nonreligious Americans.
Posted inFree Expression
That which must not be seen
Reading Time: 6 minutes Religious people all over the world insist that their beliefs should control what everyone else can say, look at, or know about. The bargain of civilization means that these taboos can’t be enforceable.
Posted inWar and Peace
So this is 90 seconds to midnight
Reading Time: 4 minutes On January 24, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists officially moved the hands on the Doomsday Clock, which for three quarters of a century has been used to depict humanity’s risk of global disaster from nuclear war. When the clock was first launched, on the cover of the June […]
Posted inLeaving Religion
An evangelical tries to explain Christianity’s decline, fails completely
Reading Time: 14 minutes Every so often, I get a stunning reminder about exactly why evangelicals’ decline won’t end any time soon. This was one of those times. A recent opinion post by a pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), Dave Miller, lays out what he thinks is “wrong with [them].” He says he’s only trying to get […]
Posted inTechnology
Camera phones don’t prove God’s existence
Reading Time: 3 minutes Smartphones have created video evidence for many claims both unknown and underappreciated, but they’ve failed to support religious beliefs.
Posted inReligion
Jesus as the new Moses
Reading Time: 8 minutes Jesus is many things to many people. To the early Christians, authors of the Gospels, he was certainly a construction of sorts. For example, for Matthew, Jesus was written in a way that emulated Moses in order that he appealed to Matthew’s Jewish audience. The use of this formula for a theological agenda strongly calls […]
Posted inReligious News
Mangled Methodist morality
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Methodist church, like other Christian denominations, is schisming over the question of whether LGBTQ people deserve equal rights.
Posted inPolitics
Missouri lawmakers adopt strict dress code for women
Reading Time: 3 minutes With the regression in laws that seem to have overwhelmingly affected women over the last few years, Americans may be forgiven for thinking that The Handmaid’s Tale on TV is a documentary. There are some who say that author Margaret Atwood was something of a futurist. With stricter regulation of women’s reproductive health, we are […]
Posted inClimate Crisis
Four recent failures in climate change response
Reading Time: 6 minutes Welcome to 2023: another year of corporate and political mediocrity when it comes to climate change response. We’re in the middle of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, known colloquially as Davos after its Swiss Alps location, so rhetoric around climate change response (and related economic pressure points) is currently running hot. On Wednesday, an […]
Posted inReligious News
Disestablish it for its own good: The Church of England and gay marriage
Reading Time: 5 minutes OnlySky · Disestablish It For Its Own Good – The Church Of England And Gay Marriage | Daniel James Sharp I followed with amusement the recent fracas over same-sex marriage in the Church of England. For half a decade, the Church has been debating its doctrines relating to sexuality, and the thought of gentle Anglicans […]