The second time around...

I've been here before.

How's that for a beginning, stranger?

When I say I've been here before I'm not meaning physical location or situation. I don't mean it in the way that someone in an unfamiliar area might look around and conclude that they are lost, "I've been here before, and I've seen that rock, we're going in circles!” I mean that I've been here before because despite many outward signs that would suggest otherwise, I don't think I ever left this spot once I found it.

Where is here? To me, "here" is being able to not just ask but accept my own answers to the questions that I've asked myself since I was twelve. Someone growing up in a true believing conservative Christian fundamentalist household normally would invoke the image of strict control with lots of rules and harsh punishments for failure to follow, yet for me it was actually quite the opposite. In my home curiosity was encouraged, rules were there for practical reasons that generally made sense, and punishments were generally mild and always warranted. That is except for the one question and the ones that follow that I began to ask at twelve shortly after my baptism, the question that brought me here. What if we are wrong and other people are right?

“’Cause you have to remember: It's not just a sin, it's a felony.” (Robin Williams)

Here’s to the memory of the great Robin Williams.

I don't think suicide is the worst thing in the world, and I don't imagine Robin Williams burning in some invented hell or whatever. I will say, though, that this is a loss for the rest of the world. The man was an inspiration to everyone who had any sense.

The fact is, the world is a sad place. It is full of reasons that someone might decide that escape is the best route. I hope that I will also have the ability to choose death on my own terms, and I hope that I will have accomplished only a fraction of the things that this man was able to do in his short life.

May his memory ever be for a blessing among the enlightened of the world. May they remember his humor, his laugh, his wisdom and - most importantly - his strength of character. We love you still, #RobinWilliams, and wish your family the strength to grieve and move on with their lives.

Unbelievers on His Passing

• RIP, Robin Williams (The Friendly Atheist)
• Robin Williams and the False Promise of Success (iMortal)
• Robin Williams, dead at 63 (WWJTD)

Requiescat in pace.

Basic Proofs of Christianity

The following is something that a wrote a long time ago for an old blog. I have cleaned it up and turned it into something for this blog. I hope you enjoy. Feel free to comment on the post in response to the questions that I asked at the bottom.

The way I see it, the claims of Christianity can basically be viewed together as a three-legged stool attempting to support the basic claim that Christianity is true. If any one of the three legs falls, the support disappears, and the body of claims come toppling down.

In the case of Christianity, the three basic claim groups are: 1) Jesus fulfills me personally (personal testimony); 2) Jesus fulfilled the prophetic expectation of the Messiah (prophecy fulfillment); and, 3) The New Testament is an accurate record of the continued revelation of the God of Israel (NT authenticity).

If any one of these claims can be disproved, the weight of the Christian argument comes tumbling to the ground. Christianity depends on all of these things being true, though less so the claims of personal testimony, since these tend to accompany every form of religious expression based in a belief in a higher power.

Toward a System of Morality

I have to admit that I’ve been having a hard time with mapping out my system of morality since I have left religious life. Sam Harris claims that science itself can give us direction in terms of what is right and what is wrong, but I haven’t been able to agree with him. Science can inform us about the how of the world around us, but I cannot understand how he draws conclusions from science about the oughts of our lives. (See post scriptum below.)

A Christian recently posted something about knowing “to choose the good and reject the bad” on Facebook. This quote is pulled from Isaiah 7, which talks about the fall of Ephraim (Israel) and Samaria to the Assyrian Empire before “Emmanuel” learned “to choose the good and reject the bad.” It seems to me that this passage is not about choosing moral good over moral bad (that is, “evil”) but rather about learning to discern between types of food, what is good (delicious and healthy) and what is bad (bland and lacking in nourishment).