Reading Time: 12 minutes When J.J. Abrams adapted Star Trek: The Original Series for a new era of cinema, he made choices that reflected a 21st century shift in representation: no, not by including people from more diverse backgrounds, but by reducing the acceptable parameters for onscreen masculinity in a franchise with a much more storied past. Gone, in […]
friendship
Posted inPsychology
Great lies of our time
Reading Time: 4 minutes As humans, we are “mediocre” at identifying when someone is lying. Professional lie detectors, like police officers, do not perform better. However, they believe they do, possibly due to the Dunning-Kruger Effect. The worst lies, however, are the ones we tell ourselves. Here are some of them. “I’m a good and loyal friend.” You’re about […]
Posted inEthics and Morality
I don’t want to be friends just because you’re an atheist
Reading Time: 5 minutes In 2016, I was invited to speak at a conference for Humanist Students UK (the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies, as it was called at the time) at the University of Sheffield. I was dating an English guy then and was excited to share my enjoyment of networking with humanists. He […]
Posted inReligion
Unchurched: Some of Lee Strobel’s Best Friends
Reading Time: 8 minutes Today, let’s look at Lee Strobel’s totally real atheist friends — and how his own words completely destroy that claim.
Posted inReligion
Unchurched: An Overview of Friendship Evangelism
Reading Time: 9 minutes Today, I’ll show you what friendship evangelism is — and what lies its practitioners tell themselves to justify inflicting it on others.
Posted inReligion
Penguins, Grief, and Meaningful Community (LSP #49)
Reading Time: 6 minutes Today, Lord Snow Presides over another potent contradiction to Christian claims. Why yes, people can find meaningful communities and deep friendships–and we can do it just about anywhere, even in a silly little game where kids pretend to be penguins.
Posted inReligion
About That “Dear Facebook Friend” Image Going Around Lately
Reading Time: 15 minutes I’m not a fan of the open-letter format of social media posting or blog post. I know they’re popular–and I used to like them. But they just have so much fail built into them that I can’t often get into them or enjoy them these days. Today we look at a self-congratulatory open letter that […]
Posted inReligion
The Love/Life Principles Seminar: (Not) Making Friends and Influencing People.
Reading Time: 11 minutes Today I’ll show you what they mean by friendship itself: what a friend is and what a friend is responsible for doing. It’s not a pretty picture at all, but then, not much in fundagelical Christianity is once you peel back the veneer of pretty words.
Posted inReligion
The Love/Life Principles Seminar and the Horrendous Friendship Kablooie
Reading Time: 11 minutes If anything, we discover that the more extremist the flavor of Christianity is, the less effective and useful its teachings about anything will be–and in fundagelicalism especially, their social teachings actually backfire. Today I’ll show you how.