The Christian Skeptic

I hate dried fruit. Prunes are ok. I do like dried apricots. And I don't hate raisins in things. But for the most part, I want dried fruit to die. Why? Because it's not really fruit. Or at least, it used to be. Things that used to be things should no longer be things. If you're gonna call yourself a fruit, you best be juicy. And refreshing. I want my fruit to be that which makes summer bearable and not require a gallon of water afterward to quench my thirst. Dried fruit accomplishes neither. Therefore, I hate it.

When it comes right down to it, I want fruit to be the way I think it should be. Not cooked, not canned, not dried. Fresh. In case you missed the sarcasm, I am aware that all of those things are still technically fruit. But because I don't like them, I refuse to recognize them as legitimate fruit. Now, perhaps you didn't see this coming, but prepare yourself for the spiritual sharp turn:
Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance. (Matthew 3:8) And in…

I'm not afraid to admit it: I've been through counseling. No, I'm not just talking about the obligatory pre-marital counseling that all good evangelicals get. I'm talking about the uncomfortable-even-though-you're-lying-down-on-a-sofa kind of counseling.

Devotees will recall that I've battled depression for a number of years. And there will be some that I'm sure will say that I must not have enough faith. The good news for them is first they're probably right because none of us do, and second I'm not addressing that issue here. But just for fun I'll say that those people should reconsider popping that second Tylenol--they clearly don't have enough faith that God will relieve that burden for them.

Counseling was a good experience for me and I highly recommend it to anyone who needs help sorting out their life. Why? Because counseling isn't what most people think:


Yet this is what we often think of when we think of counseling, isn't it…

If there was one word that could describe me as a child, it would be "compliant." I wasn't a trouble-maker. I never threw tantrums. And for the most part, I sat quietly and played by myself. Lego's were my thing, and I needed little else to be content. I was what many parents would call a "good" kid. They never had to worry about their kids interacting with me because I was never mean or a bully. I played nice.

Because there's never any reason to not, right? Even if the other kid doesn't: play nice. Even if the other kid picks on you: play nice. Even if the other kid physically abuses you: play nice. This is the world of civilized adulthood. Since, as we all know, none of you with children would ever approach the parents of your child's bully without first remembering to play nice.

I've said a lot of negative things about the modern church. That's because it's an ignorant, hypocritical, and power-hungry institution. But this time I&#…

When my wife and I were first getting to know each other, we played a game called, "What of the following things haven't I done?" It made for a lot of laughs as we sought the most clever ways to stump each other. But we did learn a lot of facts. For example, I learned that she was from North Jersey which was, as far as I was concerned, just a big suburb of New York. It wasn't until I actually visited her home area that I discovered how wrong and narrow my preconceptions about that region were.

We all do this.

And with things like Facebook, it's even easier to know everything there is to know about our friends. Forgot their phone number? It's on Facebook. Wondering whether they found a job? Facebook. Can't remember their birthday? You'll get a notification. On Facebook. It's actually kinda strange; you can know where a person grew up without ever asking them. But knowing that I grew up in Hainesport, New Jersey won't explain why I grew up angry…

Your world is a box. What do I mean by your world? Well, it could simply mean the material universe, galaxies and solar systems in which spins our tiny planet earth. But it can also refer to our experience, or the immaterial element of our existence. Your hopes, your dreams, your fears, your failures: all of these things constitute a box.

So what do I mean by a box? The box represents the extent of your world. It means that there are constraints to what we can know about our own existence. So we call what we can know (i.e. our world) a box. Because we can't know what we don’t know, right?

But what if knowledge exists beyond the box? If we can't know what we don't know, then we'd have no way of knowing if there's anything we don't know! You see, that's the problem with the box.

On the inside, we can seemingly know everything there is to know about existence. We can discern laws of physics, properties of materials, and even the very building blocks of life. …