Walking back to my car from an extended visit to the mall tonight, my eyes were drawn to the vehicle parked adjacent to my sweet black Kia. This car was tattooed with [Old Testament] bible verses talking about God’s wrath, judgment, and hell.
I couldn’t help but laugh in disgust.
Thirty minutes prior, I sat in Books A Million reading the first chapter of A.J. Jacob’s popular book The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, a story about one man’s attempt to, well, follow the bible as literally as possible for…yep, a year. Cleverly titled, eh?
When asked if he is now more religious after doing his best to follow all of the “rules” of the bible for an entire year, the author responded, “Well, I don’t want to give away the ending, but let’s say I started the year as an agnostic, and now I am a reverent agnostic. Whether or not there is a God, I believe in sacredness. Rituals can be sacred, the Sabbath can be sacred however you choose to observe it.”
I
haven’t read the book in it’s entirety (although I’d like to!), but are you as equally unsurprised as I am that his answer wasn’t an astounding, “heck yes! I love Jesus and live to make his holy name famous!”
What I’m about to say doesn’t make me popular with some groups of Christians (thankfully, I don’t live one second of my life for anybody but God):
A big thank you to our good friend Helen for inviting me to contribute to this great site for a short amount of time. I am humbled by her offer and excited to meet you guys! Please forgive the lengthy introduction. Next week’s post will be shorter and hopefully a bit more enjoyable :-)
You can read more about me at FriendlyChristian.com and JustBill.org.
PS - OH, and before I forget, please forgive me as my comments/responses will be few and far between. An attempt to get into PA school is currently consuming the time that I would usually dedicate to blogging.
Posted in First Timers | 12 Comments »
When Helen asked me to be a guest blogger for the eBay atheist blog I was initially surprised. A gun to the head can do that *joke*. Surely she’d gotten me mixed up with some other blogger, someone who can string more than a half dozen words together coherently, who has the wit and intelligence to play with the grown ups? She assures me that the other bloggers here aren’t nearly as grown up as I thought. What a relief.
This first post is something of an introduction for me although I’ve been a blogger for many years over at my hoverFrog blog and before. I’m also a guest blogger over at the Friendly Christian blog. If I start talking about FC you’ll know who I mean. I shall be filling the recently vacated Monday slot left by Siamangfor as long as I’m still wanted and I have something to contribute. His seat isn’t even cold yet. Tsk! If you want it back Siamang then just say so and I’ll move to a different day. I’m easy like that.
The most relevant thing about me for this blog is that I am an atheist. I am well aware of the path that led me to atheism. More accurately, I am well aware of the path that did not lead me to theism. I think that the distinction is important. People learn religion. I never did, so I’m an atheist.
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