Reading Time: 6 minutes A bizarre Bible story implies that God’s promises can be falsified by human sacrifice to a competing deity. Anomalies like these suggest that some biblical authors weren’t strictly monotheistic.
Textual Criticism
Posted inReligion
Embarrassing misuse of the Criterion of Embarrassment
Reading Time: 6 minutes Why would New Testament authors make embarrassing claims unless they were true? This is the popular Criterion of Embarrassment, but it’s not so easy to apply it properly.
Posted inGeneral
Commonwealth, II.X: Tower of Babel
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Bible teaches – inadvertently – that when human beings learn how to work together, they can accomplish anything they set their minds to.
Posted inGeneral
Worshiping a Monster
Reading Time: 2 minutes How can churchgoers pray to a heavenly father with a scripture record of ferocious murder?
Posted inGeneral
Can We Avoid Insulting Believers?
Reading Time: 3 minutes It’s difficult for sincere doubters to talk with sincere believers without causing bad feelings.
Posted inGeneral
The Problem With Teaching the Bible in Public Schools
Reading Time: 3 minutes I suppose there’s little hope of halting this born-again bandwagon. But I have subversive thoughts about the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Posted inGeneral
Show Me How the Bible Hurt You
Reading Time: 4 minutes The difference between an apology and a marketing tactic.
Posted inGeneral
The Cult of the In-Group
Reading Time: 4 minutes The worship of Us Against The World has taken over Christianity.
Posted inGeneral
Some Right-Wing Christians Enthusiastically Promoting a Form of Genocide
Reading Time: 5 minutes This column was originally published on AlterNet. In 2014, Charisma magazine, a major media outlet for evangelical and Pentecostal Christians, published an open call to genocide. The article in question, titled “Why I Am Absolutely Islamaphobic” [sic] and written by Gary Cass, begins with the premise that “every true follower of Mohammed” wants to “subjugate […]
Posted inGeneral
Can Married Christians Go to Heaven?
Reading Time: 4 minutes A little-known Bible verse implies that a huge number of Christians are in serious afterlife trouble.