It’s kind of sad and pathetic how far I’ve fallen, I realized this weekend. I didn’t even feel like a person anymore; just a zombie wandering around trying to function through the fog of my mind. I realized how I’ve been doing the bare minimum on life, and I was tired of it and ready for a change.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m quite a fan of lists and plans. So what do you suppose I did first? Yep, I made a master list of everything that I could change that I wanted to change. I tried to picture how I wanted my life to look, and jotted down everything I could think of that I could do right now to get me there. I decided to pick two things per week to work on. This week is insomnia and cleaning up my house. It’s not dirty and doesn’t smell bad, but it is a very cluttered wreck. While those things are going to be my focus, I still want to try to do some of the other things on my list. I’m just not going to worry about it if I don’t manage to accomplish those things.

So this morning, I got up and exercised, then took a shower. And it’s really telling just how bad things are when I had to walk myself through a basic routine. I chanted “I’m going to do X because I’m worth it” through everything I didn’t particularly feel like doing: flossing my teeth instead of just brushing them, actually fixing my hair rather than throwing it back in a ponytail, putting on a little bit of makeup, putting on lotion, and adding a splash of perfume. Wow. That’s pretty sad, especially now that I see it written. The plus side is that I do feel a little bit more like a human being instead of a zombie! Before, it was usually take a shower, brush teeth, throw on deodorant, maybe fix my hair if I had somewhere to go and felt like it (I do always at least brush it and put it up in a ponytail!), throw on some ratty jeans and a t-shirt/sweatshirt, and I’m out the door. Not that there’s anything wrong with not wearing makeup or just doing the essentials if that’s who you are and it works for you. I’m noticing that I’ve let the little things go entirely, and I just don’t even feel like a person anymore, so that’s what I’m personally working on. It’s like I’ve just kind of not felt like I deserve to treat myself with love and respect over the last couple of years, and I’m surprised at how much I have to push myself to do these few things.

But I am doing it and I am already feeling better, clearer. Yay!  Now to just work on feeling not pathetic for feeling like this is a victory!

I found this great site where you can ask people anything you want! So ask away! (I don’t have a picture up yet, but I will get one!)

Ask Me Anything

I discovered PostSecret while still in the ministry and read it faithfully every week, sobbing every time. It’s one reason how I know I have grown: I can now look at the secrets I can relate to and feel for the writer, but I don’t fall to pieces anymore.

Yesterdays’ post was full of good ones. I posted thoughts on one of them last night, and here’s another one:

It’s easier to stay a Christian in a secular university than a Christian one. Why?

Contrasting my personal experience with Baptist college vs. larger secular one, here are my thoughts:

At UofA, there are student unions for Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Methodists, and probably more. I don’t know about the UofA Baptist Student Union (BSU), but my experience with college Baptist groups is that they are merely extensions of high school youth groups. So if you managed to skate through public high school without losing your faith, you’re probably going to make it through college, too. Christians can segregate themselves in college just like they do in church, and stay in their bubbles as much or as little as they want. (I don’t mean “segregate” in a derogatory way, but in the way that people of like-minded groups tend to stick together.) The only evil secular class that can really cause someone to question their faith (that I can think of off the top of my head) is philosophy. Philosophy is easy enough to avoid, and even if you don’t, there’s not really much dialogue. You can take your list of questions to your student pastor and he can give you the canned apologetic response, or any of McDowell’s or Mind Games materials to read on your own. You might have a faith crisis, but it’s actually easier to weather because you don’t usually have the theological crisis that you have at Christian institutions.

At WBC, people sat around and discussed theology. Why they believed in Calvinism vs. Arminianism and vice versa. Even in that, Three Point Calvinism or a Five Point/TULIP Calvinist?  Every little issue that you’ve never even thought of before gets very in depth in a way it doesn’t tend to get in church. Then you learn about how the Bible came to be and is arranged, and suddenly you realize that there is a LOT your Sunday School teacher and your pastor never told you! There is a  chunk of Mark in your Bible that isn’t found in every early manuscript, so does it actually belong? Is it actually the word of God or did somebody add it in there? They present it mostly like, look how careful the early writers were to preserve the writing intact, but if you actually pay attention in your classes, you start to notice how certain things crept in and out of the writing. Write it over and over for generations, and eventually, it does evolve. Even looking at the Bible from this new perspective caused me to question evolution in a new way. I had all the answers and knew everything that those evolutionary biologists didn’t know , thanks to Ken Ham (snort!). But Ken Ham never discusses the poetical form of Genesis 1, leaving us to wonder if it was ever supposed to be taken literally at all? (The poetry doesn’t translate into English, as I understand; it’s only when you read it in the Hebrew that it becomes a poem, whereas the rest of Genesis is not written in the same poetical form.)

Did anyone here go to a Christian university and preserve their faith? I know lots of people who did. What I don’t understand is why. How did they resolve these conflicts? We all had the same classes, so I know I’m not the only one who learned this stuff. And I don’t believe that it was because I was smarter or more thoughtful than other students, though that probably is the answer for some of them. So I am constantly curious as to why some people lose their faith, while the vast majority do not. Any thoughts?

From PostSecret:

I think people could reasonably assume I sent this in except mine’s not really a secret anymore.

Exploring fantasies and expanding your horizons together as a couple=cool.

Doing something because you’ve been forced, pressured, manipulated, or out of a warped idea of submission or needing to please a partner=not cool.

Why does that have to be so complicated? It’s not, but you don’t hear it in abstinence only sex ed, I wouldn’t know about sex ed, and my fundamentalist parents never taught me a thing beyond the most basic of basics.

To the anonymous sender, I feel your pain.

It’s getting confusing, I think, to keep straight when I was what, so I thought I would lay it out to clear up any misunderstandings!

1980’s

I think when I was born in 1983, my parents would be considered more evangelical as opposed to fundamentalist. What’s the difference? I’m not sure there is one, but I differentiate between evangelical/conservative and fundamentalist in the following way: evangelicals are basically a step up from fundamentalists. Fundamentalists seem to have a fear of the world that evangelicals don’t always have, so fundies often homeschool (because public schools are evil, not for other reasons), avoid television, keep a stricter eye on reading material (and now Internet material!), dress more conservatively, etc. There are levels of extreme within fundamentalism, of course, but that is basically where I draw the line. I hear the same messages from evangelicals as I do fundamentalists: a proudness of intolerance, salvation in Jesus alone, etc, but evangelicals don’t seem to have the same problems with watching television or sending their children to public school that fundamentalists often have. Like, since Sarah Palin is in an authority position and works long hours outside the home, I would count her as an evangelical even though she holds some of the same extremist beliefs as other fundamentalists.

1990’s

I don’t know what happened, but I do remember watching Duck Tales and Sesame Street after preschool every day until my parents sat me down and told me they decided that was too much television, and I could choose. From there, it went to no television and private school. My parents basically straddled the line between fundamentalism and evangelicalism throughout my childhood. My mother worked, but to this day I have not seen Fantasia. My two younger brothers were homeschooled, but I went to public school 8th-12th grade. I went to every fundie/evangelical sponsored conference and seminar, but was allowed to wear jeans. My parents loved Bill Gothard and James Dobson, but my mom and I wore our hair short/medium length. I think that’s precisely why I never fit in anywhere: I was too liberal for the hard core fundamentalists, but too conservative for mainstream evangelicals. (And those examples should probably help clear up my distinction between fundamentalism and evangelicalism, and probably clarify why I make one!) Heck, even now, when reading No Longer Quivering or posting away on Free Jinger, I don’t really feel like I fit in with those who lived so much more extremely than I did. But we were more extreme than mainstream Christians, too, and I have a lot of the same ignorance of pop culture, so I post anyways.

Anyways, in 1990, I was saved and baptized at First Baptist Church in Dardanelle, Arkansas. I attended a Christian school in Russellville, which goes by another name now if it still exists. Since my mom worked part time evenings, she and my little brother attended a community Bible study one morning a week. There, she met people from a different church. Dissatisfied with the lack of fellowship they saw in mainstream denominations, they tried this new church, the Christian and Missionary Alliance. What’s the difference between CAMA and Baptist? The only answer I’ve ever gotten is that the government is structured differently. My parents still attend this church, but I have noticed it is no longer the friendly, welcoming place it once was. The last few times I went, there were a ton of people I didn’t know, but I was treated no differently than I would have been in a Baptist or Methodist or any other denominational church. They go now because they’ve been so long, they’ve become pillars, so they still get the fellowship they once craved. I once loved this church, but it is just a shade of it’s former self. Just about everybody in my generation has left it. Hardly anyone has been there since they were small. (A few do. One of whom I should write a post on!)

Anyways, I digress.

2002

I started Baptist college in the fall of 2002. I felt excited that there would be more people like me at the school I chose. Except they were mainstream evangelicals, and it confused me. How could they believe the same things I do, but watch R rated movies? Lots of disconnect!

2003-2004

I meet and marry Bob. Here is where some confusion comes in: Bob was never fundamentalist. He was a moderate/conservative evangelical. I took my fundamentalist ideas into the marriage with me, and he took advantage of them (in my view). He wanted me to work because he wanted the extra income, and he wasn’t big into submission the way fundamentalists see it. What he wanted from me was sex and occasional cooking. Literally. But I tried to be his wife in the only way I knew how. My beliefs contributed to the collapse of our marriage in this way.

My beliefs start changing. My first big HUH moment came the summer of 2003, when chatting with  a ministry student, I learned of a whole other realm of beliefs and theology I had never encountered. I shoved it to the back of my mind, however, until Bob started bringing the ideas home. Here is where I left behind my fundamentalist beliefs and became simply conservative/evangelical. (However, it is important to note my fundamentalist attitudes were much more ingrained and did not leave so quickly. I still see shades of them today.)

At the very end of 2004, Bob got his first ministry position, and we took the youth group on a trip to Tennessee. I bought a copy of McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict because I found myself rusty on apologetics when talking to Bob. I didn’t make it very far before realizing how incredibly lacking it really was.

2005-2006

I researched and researched one issue after another. I started with women in the ministry and progressed to gay marriage/gay rights, etc. I  read books and Internet articles, became disillusioned with James Dobson, and discovered Tony Campolo and Brian McLaren. I didn’t agree with everything they said, but I loved their more moderate take on Christianity. If they received half of the attention James Dobson or Pat Robertson gets, then I don’t think people would have such a negative view of Christians.

2007

I had a huge faith crisis. The more I read, the less sense my former ideas made. I had been so sure I had all the answers, and I no longer was. I became agnostic, but still in the ministry, was too afraid to admit it. Here is where I started praying every night. And crying every night, begging God to please help me belive and serve because I wasn’t sure I could do it anymore. Add a heaping dose of depression as my marriage began to crumble away, and I didn’t know what to do.

That summer, I gave a presentation to the VBS kids on how to be saved. Right in the middle, I felt horrible for proselytizing little kids. I faltered and stumbled through the rest of my speech, and knew I was pretty much finished.

That fall was when I left Bob.

2008

I gave faith another chance. I remembered how much I loved more moderate/liberal versions of Christianity, so I attended an Episcopalian church for awhile. I loved it. I really did. Well, the extreme formality of the service made me want to laugh out loud a few times. However, I did like the ritual and the fact that high church seemed to respect God so much; in a way that Southern Baptists didn’t. To Baptists and other evangelicals, Jesus is your best friend. But in high church, God is to be revered. I liked that as much as I hated the bumper stickers and t-shirts that reduced the God of the Universe down to a simple, cheesy slogan.

But the questions I had before didn’t just go away. And the more I explored, the more questions I had, and the more I felt like nothing made any sense anymore. I called myself agnostic for most of that year, mostly because I was trying so hard to believe in God. I wanted to so desperately. Even now, I would like to believe in God because I like the Episcopalian church, and would like to be part of it. (I think I would be very welcomed there despite my disbelief, because Episcopalians seem to welcome the questioning of faith, unlike other denominations. That may just be the one local church, however. I really don’t know.) But I just don’t think I can be. At least not now. And I would have to acknowledge that if I ever did become part of any church ever again, it would just be because I liked it and wanted to believe it; not because I actually did or had good reason to. For someone who grew up believing the truth was the most important thing, that would be hard for me to do.

2009

January-ish: I declare myself an atheist and bought a sweatshirt proclaiming my newfound disbelief, along with a Flying Spaghetti Monster necklace! And it felt good to not have to worry about whether God was Episcopalian or Baptist anymore!

I have a feeling I’m about to not explain myself very well, but I’m going to try.

Through the last few years, life has been a series of peaks and valleys. The good news is that the peaks are getting higher and lasting longer while the valleys are becoming farther and farther between. They still exist, however, as any regular reader well knows. Really, I’ve been on a peak for about the last month, so a week of a valley isn’t such a horrendous ordeal. During the valleys, Facebook becomes dangerous, as I look into the lives of the people I used to know and see what I tried to become. During the valleys, I get really hypersensitive and annoyed by the religious crap people post, as a few of my online groups have seen. I don’t envy the lack of growth I often see (sorry, old religious Facebook friends ), but I do envy how nicely their lives have so far turned out. And I wonder, if there was a god, why would he pick me to walk through what I have in a way that shook the foundation of my faith to its core, whereas he gives others doubts they can handle? I don’t think my faith was any less strong at all. So it’s really annoying when I see people, in real life or anywhere on the Internet, talk about how they have all the answers.

Oh, really? Well, then what’s my answer? What was the magical formula that was supposed to make everything all better for me? And not just me, don’t get me wrong. I’m talking about me because I have the most experience with me. I know from emails and other websites I read that I am far from the only one who has had everything I knew violently stripped away.

So, secretly, in my heart of hearts, sometimes I wish that somebody else I knew would go through what I went through. Not that I want anyone to suffer in any way. Not at all, and if I think about it in those terms, I immediately recant and feel guilty. But I have to admit I wouldn’t mind seeing another former friend who has all the answers find out what it’s like to realize that the answers we were given simply gave us a false sense of security. That those answers weren’t really answers; they just made us feel better because we thought we had them. Like in apologetics classes and seminars, how we watched videos of stumping the atheist or learned how disseminate a philosophical idea. Only you get out into the world and realize that those answers didn’t really fit the questions, or are very unsatisfactory. To learn that there really aren’t any answers for a lot of the questions we have.

Sometimes it’s frustrating to feel like the only one. Like I failed because I “gave up” on my faith, whereas my other friends faced trials and problems and didn’t give up on theirs! The judgment, the condescension. It gets old. And it gets to the point where you know it’s going on behind your back instead of to your face because of the comments and emails you get that are so nicey-nicey, and you know somebody said something about you because of other things (I am being vague on purpose because I don’t want to give away the most recent example of how I do know for a fact that this happened!). And then there is a bunch of people who simply don’t care. And a bunch of people who do care–about the gossip! And a few more who genuinely care but don’t know how to show it.

Do I need them? No. Do I care about them? In some ways. I don’t really know how to explain why it’s so annoying. I am sure most of you already know, though. I think I have probably connected about five ideas that don’t really go together, so my apologies if there is any confusion.

It’s hard to know what to write when everything on your mind is stuff you shouldn’t say. Yesterday, after completely losing it over something entirely miniscule, I checked out for the rest of the day. I have no more outlets. I can’t write everything I want–I don’t even know how to put it into words. My piano is gone with my marriage, and it’s too rainy to go for a walk to clear my head. I’m on day 5 of saying no to chocolate as a stress reliever. So what am I left with? Not much. Just a bunch of pent up frustrations that I tend to take out on the wrong people. I’m losing it over the simple stuff, lashing out at whoever dares to tell me hello. I haven’t taken anything out on Julieanne, but I’m just so tired. The emotional exhaustion is wearing me out physically, and today, I’m lying on the couch while I’m waiting for the Motrin to kill my migraine and reduce a fever that snuck up on me.

It’s a wet, rainy, miserable day. Kind of matches my mood. Which is better today than it was yesterday, believe it or not. It just feels like my life is never, ever going to come together. I feel like I’ve ruined some of the things that were coming together, and that there is just no more hope to fix them. Not that I can’t be happy, but that I’m permanently broken. I’m tired of people telling me it will be okay because it doesn’t feel like it will be anymore. I know it will, but right now it’s not and I want to wallow for awhile, dammit! Except I’m not really a wallow kind of person. I’m a do person, and it’s when I don’t know what to do that gets me down the most. So pity parties just make me more miserable. I want to be happy, and in many ways, I am. After so long of fighting all of these battles, I feel like a broken record, saying over and over again how I want my life to change but it never does. It gets better so slowly that it’s hard to see, especially right now in a darkest before dawn kind of moment. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, I just don’t know how far away it is and I don’t know if it’s the sunlight or the light of an oncoming train . . .

Anyways, that was a nice, depressing post. I know things will get better and I’m trying to stay positive. I’m just worn out is all.

PS: I know something I can say. I want to be in a place I’m not. My life was derailed, and I’m ready for it to be railed again. I’m ready to settle down and live a nice life with my family, but I’m just not there. I was there, but I’m not anymore. And I will be again. But I’m not now and that bugs me. Stability, consistency; that’s what I want. I’m tired of living the college life, but anything I want to do short of counseling or law school will take more undergrad college. Heck, I don’t even want to go back to grad school, but I think I could stomach that whereas the thought of taking one more freshman level class makes me want to vomit. And I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m ready to stop being 18 now!

PPS I know I’m behind on email/comment responses. I’ll catch up later tonight or tomorrow morning. Sorry for the delay.

I’ve never had to deal with Jehovah’s Witnesses around here. I’ve run into a couple of Mormon missionaries a couple of times, but never a JW. I’ve heard all kinds of funny stories about people messing with the missionaries that come to their door, but when an older gentleman and a younger guy came knocking on my door Tuesday morning, I tried a totally new tactic. (Read: all of the funny stories flew right out of my head and I got tongue tied!) I just dialogued a bit. Turns out, it was probably the best thing as the older guy said his parents died atheist, so he probably knows half of my arguments. I told him about being a minister’s wife and now an atheist. He laughed and said, “Oh, my!” He gave me a book and said he would be back in a week. I think I will read it and annotate the shit out of it. Any suggestions for how to deal? I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind, but I don’t want to reinforce any angry atheist stereotypes, either. I am not very quick witted when it comes to people I don’t know. I can be sharp around people I know and am comfortable around, but my default position around strangers is still “sweet” no matter how hard I try to change it.

One thing I will give both Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons credit for is that at least they care that you’re going to hell. I know the arguments against proselytizing, but they do it to adults, not disguised as programs for children as other denominations do. So I feel conflicted: on one hand, I don’t want to be proselytized. On the other hand, don’t people care that, according to their doctrine, I am going to burn for eternity?

Okay, I confess, I peeked ahead a little last week when I was trying to figure out whether or not Jesus’ disciples actually followed his instructions. He does send them off, but not to cities, and reading ahead, I realized something: I don’t like Jesus. At least, I don’t like Matthew’s perspective of Jesus. It’s cool that he heals people, but he often does it so rudely. He doesn’t care about any other relationships people might have. He wants us to hate everyone else and just love him (and I have heard that “hate” in the Bible doesn’t mean “hate” as you hear it today, but when he says you have to let your family die rather than lie for a second to save their lives, he kind of loses my respect. I mean, a smart deity would know that people need people. You can’t just talk to the ceiling all day. Frankly, I know more about psychology than Jesus does. No offense to Jesus, but he’s just not a nice person in Matthew.

Matthew 11 is better than Matthew 10, but Jesus is still pissed about something. No wonder the Pharisees don’t really like him. I was always taught it was because they were jealous. I don’t think so. (Btw, I finally found a bunch of notes in the margins in 2 Thessalonians & 1 Timothy. I only had this Bible a few months before leaving Bob, so it’s not as marked up as my old Bible was. Pity! A couple in Timothy really reflect my questioning at the time!)

Matthew 11

(Click here to follow along.)

John the Baptist gets thrown in prison, so he sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he is the one to come or should they expect someone else? (I take it they mean the Messiah?? Weren’t they there with the dove and God’s voice at Jesus’ baptism? And why was John in jail, anyways?)

Never one to be straightforward, Jesus answers (11:4-6),

“Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”

Okie dokey! So if Jesus really was a disciple of John (see last week’s post with the video), this is where he maybe decided, Hey, John’s in prison. I can use this to my advantage! And tells everyone that John is a prophet who came to tell everyone about him. He’s really smart about it, too. He sounds kind of politician-y: Well, my opposition is great, but I’m better!

Then Jesus says something really interesting. Last week,  I wondered why Jesus said “Son of Man” when referring to himself in the third person. I wondered if there was supposed to be another Son of Man out there. But no, here it seems as if he really does just like to talk about himself in the third person (I’m pretty sure they make a medication for that. . .). It’s interesting what he says in verse 19: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of  tax collectors and ’sinners.” But wisdom is proved right by her actions.”

Interesting! It seems as if Jesus likes to eat and drink. Sorry, strict Southern Baptists (and John Hamel, whoever you are). It’s hard to be a “drunkard” on grape juice. I can tell you that this was most certainly not a passage ever highlighted in my church or youth group!

Then back to ranting, angry Jesus, where he condemns a few cities for not repenting after he performed those miracles, the acts of compassion. So Jesus had ulterior motives. He didn’t heal people to be nice and loving, but to make them believe what he wanted. Blah, blah, blah, by this point, ranting Jesus is getting old. (And yes, if Jesus is real, then he’s probably pretty pissed at me.)

So right after condemning several cities full of people to hell, he praises God.  He condemns the people to agony for not repenting, then turns right around and praises God for hiding the truth from the wise and learned for God’s pleasure. I’m sorry, but that’s not kind, merciful, or loving. It’s sadistic. There’s no other word for it. And it blows the whole “personal relationship with God” thing out of the water. Jesus does not seem to understand or care about individuals whatsoever as he condemns entire cities to fate worse than death.

So right after that, he calls for the weary to come to him so he can give them rest. He talks about how humble and gentle he is. ?! So in less than 10 verses, he goes from angrily condemning, to sadism, to kindness. Bipolar much?! Geez, I need some rest after trying to make sense out of all of this! (Two weeks ago, we had angry Jesus. Last week, racist Jesus. This week’s Jesus is bipolar, I have decided!)

Chapter 12

(Found here.)

Hm, maybe there is a lot of mental illness in the Bible. Bipolar Jesus vs. OCD Pharisees. No wonder they didn’t get along. The Pharisees get mad at Jesus’ disciples for picking grain as they walk during the Sabbath. Oh, noes! So Jesus reminds the Pharisees that King David ate consecrated bread when he was hungry. Then Jesus adds a new title to himself. He was Son of Man (he likes calling himself that and talking in the third person), now he is Son of Man and Lord of the Sabbath. Goodness, Jesus, leave something for God the Father!

More boring details on the Sabbath and analogies ensue. Basically, he says it’s okay to be nice to people on the Sabbath, and to prove it, he heals a dude’s hand.

But the Pharisees are pissed. They plot to kill Jesus, so Jesus runs away. He heals people, warning them to not tell them who he was (guess he changed his mind about the workers in the harvest from last week!). People start wondering if Jesus is the Son of God, but the Pharisees hear about it and get mad, and claim he’s of the Devil. Or Satan. Or Beelzebub. The red dude with horns has lots of names, too. Jesus rambles a bit on how he couldn’t possibly be Beelzebub, then says if you’re not for him, you’re against him. So I guess every atheist and non Christian is indeed an antitheist when it comes to Christianity. Sorry if that makes you sad.

He says that blasphemy against him will be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit won’t be. So I guess I don’t know what blasphemy is after all. Unless it kind of destroys the whole three parts to the same egg idea of the Trinity and how God can be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit without being different gods. Because there’s only one God, ya know! Well, at least I know it’s okay to blaspheme against one. Whew!

Then Jesus launches into a scathing monologue against the Pharisees. Funny, he was praising them earlier. Guess they had a falling out.

So some of the Pharisees ask to see a miraculous sign (guess they weren’t paying that much attention to all the other people Jesus healed!), and Jesus gets mad at them. He yells at them for 6 verses, rambling about how he and Jonah will be out of commission for three days. And I would like to know who the Queen of the South is (in vs 42). All it says is “The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.”  Did he forget Solomon has been dead for quite awhile? Solomon did have a female visitor from the South, but she would be dead, too. But I am pretty sure there are no accounts of her rising from the dead during Jesus’ generation and condemning it. (Okay, honestly, he does sound a little bipolar in some of these passages. No disrespect or DSM diagnosing intended here, but some of these things do make me wonder. I was taught that Jesus never displays any sign of mental illness throughout the Bible, but I am starting to kind of disagree with that. It’s usually ministers who say that, not psychologists.) Then he starts rambling about evil spirits again. I never noticed how rambly Jesus is. Rambly Jesus and Bipolar Jesus this week!

Then he refuses to see his mother and brothers, calling his disciples his mother and brothers. Really, was there any reason to be so rude? They were waiting outside to see him. Don’t the 10 Commandments say to honor your mother and father? He doesn’t really seem to honor his mother. He kind of treats her like an annoying pest.

Yeah, sorry. I am not a fan of Jesus after these last two or three weeks. I liked him at the beginning of Matthew, but now? Not so much. Other Gospels portray him a bit more nicely, so we’ll see how it goes later.

Or a couple of new rules anyways. I like my old comment policy, but some things are getting out of hand. From today forward:

No more lumping all atheists or all religious people into one category. It’s okay if it’s an accident, but no more saying “no Christians X” or “all atheists X” in a way that’s derogatory or offensive. You know what I mean.

Three strikes and you’re out. If you violate the comment policy once, I will simply remove the comment. Twice, comment moderation will be turned on for you, and the third time, you will be permanently banned. (Note: sometimes comments get held in spam if you write too many links or sometimes just randomly. If your comment gets held, it doesn’t mean you’re warned. If you have questions, feel free to ask.)