I must follow, if I can

Book Review—The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church

By Aaron Lord

Posted on September 1, 2024

We gave our lives to the church. Leaving the church was something we agonized over. After so much sacrifice, it hurts to just be dismissed as if we never counted. [Read More]

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Concerning Fires

By Aaron Lord

Posted on August 3, 2024

On July 24, 2024, at Upper Park in Chico, California, a man set his car on fire and pushed it off a 60-foot embankment. The dry vegetation around it was quickly engulfed in flames and the fire spread rapidly, climbing the ridge into the forest and eventually growing over 400,000... [Read More]

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camp fire

A Deconstruction Reading List

By Aaron Lord

Posted on March 30, 2024

I would like this book list to correspond to a sort of roadmap, a progression from, say, a mainline Christian to a full-blown ethical progressive atheist and humanist, who has a sure foundation for morality apart from religion. I'm not all the way there yet, as I have some books... [Read More]

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Owning Your Accomplishments

By Aaron Lord

Posted on March 27, 2024

I don’t talk about it much, especially as time has passed and I’ve moved on with my life, but 25 years ago I was in a band. We recorded a demo, and then the lead singer signed a record contract. We changed our name and re-recorded the demo material along... [Read More]

Annihilationism and Your Pet Cat

By Aaron Lord

Posted on March 26, 2024

I was a Calvinist before I became an atheist. I was very Calvinist, in fact. It got to the point where I had eventually achieved such a robust Reformation theology that I accepted the idea that God could actually choose to send me to hell for eternity. I figured if... [Read More]

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When I was an Agnostic

By Aaron Lord

Posted on March 23, 2024

I am an agnostic Jesus-follower. That is, science and reason tell me that Yahweh, even if he existed, was a murderous tyrant, and so if Christians teach that Jesus was the son of Yahweh, or that Jesus believed he was doing the will of Yahweh, or that Yahweh raised Jesus... [Read More]

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Theodicy, Slavery, and CSA

By Aaron Lord

Posted on March 20, 2024

Since I began deconstructing my faith 10-12 years ago, I have been keeping notes in Evernote with various tags (later Notion, as I had to abandon Evernote due to its constantly-increasing fees and restrictions). I even made a Mind Map of all the points I had developed. [Read More]

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Thoughts on Dystheism and the Sacrifice of Isaac

By Aaron Lord

Posted on March 16, 2024

They say: When God does good, it's not because he's conforming himself to some external morality; God's actions are good because it is God doing them. Goodness is whatever God does and commands. This is the absolutist's reply to Euthyphro's dilemma. But maybe the absolutist is wrong. [Read More]

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The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory – Book Review

By Aaron Lord

Posted on March 12, 2024

Tim Alberta's The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory is a great book. The author's intended purpose is to investigate the errors that have allowed MAGA extremism to permeate the evangelical church. The book's overall sentiment can be summarized by this quote from a passage where the author was interviewing... [Read More]

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Dystheism vs. Theodicy

By Aaron Lord

Posted on March 6, 2024

The problem of evil, or, "Why does God allow bad things to happen?" [Read More]

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