The Christian Skeptic

I'm a guy who likes to shop. This tends to nauseate most men, but I view shopping as a challenge and a game. Much to my wife's displeasure you'll often find me sitting down in the middle of an isle comparing the price per ounce or price per 100. Saving money isn't just wise, it's fun! Unless, of course, you don't read the fine print carefully. The best is when you stumble onto that "buy one, get one free" deal only to realize at checkout that the items you had chosen didn't quite meet the requirements of the sale. In the moment though, this is rarely the conclusion we come to. It's more common to hear people railing against the cashier for misleading them. In the moment, we're more prone to say, "You lied to me!" I can't tell you how many parents I've heard say this to God. And you already know what passage I'm referring to: "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he won't depart from

I can't swim. And that's not saying that I can't swim well . It means that when in a body of water, I will continue to sink until whatever ungodly depths lie below stop me. It's kind of like gravity. You can jump and jump or I can thrash and thrash; but inevitably, Newton always wins. People tell me the simple trick is to hold your breath, and the buoyancy of that air in your lungs will keep you above the water. Maybe that works for some people, but I think I'm just too fat for physics. If I believed in reincarnation, I would be concerned that an iceberg didn't sink the Titanic--my being on it did. There are a lot of things I can't do. I know this because I've tried them. I can't play hacky sack. Tried. And failed. I also can't dunk. Tried. And failed. And fell. Newton sucks. And apparently I'm very unimpressive physically. But I would have never known whether I could do these things unless I had given them a shot. I suppose I could

I suppose I should start by saying that I don't have kids. So I haven't yet experienced the full complexity of the issue before me. Nevertheless, I'm compelled to speak out against what I'll call "family friendly living." First of all, I get MPAA ratings. Some people don't appreciate certain levels of content, so it's prudent to advise an audience on what they might be getting themselves into. But Christians seem obsessed with "family friendly" movies. I often hear, "If you wouldn't want your kids to see it, then you shouldn't be watching it either!" Apparently, these people are ok with leaving their intellect at the level of a 3rd   grader's. It's like telling Michelangelo to ignore the culture of his day and sculpt David out of Play-Doh, complete with Ken's smooth area. To this sectarian, cloistered community I see evangelicalism flocking—away from the villainous, indoctrinating influences of the world

I have the greatest little nephew a guy could ask for. He is so full of life with more personality than one person should have. He's not even four yet, but I know he'll grow up to be one of those people who never met someone they didn't like. Just like his mother, he will make friends wherever he goes. But as school age approaches, I worry that he will be misunderstood. With great personality often comes great energy. And somehow, I fear misdiagnosed attention deficit disorder awaits him. Not to undermine the severity of this very real condition, I think we often have too negative a view of shorter attention spans . Granted, this has been exaggerated by the smartphone era (of which my nephew is already a part). In fact, just the other day I noticed that I was listening to Ghost in one ear and Aziz Ansari in the other while playing a game on my phone. Sounds silly but I bet many of you check your email or surf the web while watching TV too. And all we hear from the