Golden-Ticket Christianity
Celebrating Jesus' death rather than his life rubs this atheist the wrong way.
Consider this your Christmas gift from me. The article is paywalled, but I have enabled it to be a “free sample,” which I believe you can get by clicking an email link. I will not be doing that for the personalized reviews that paid subscribers get. This seems like as good an article as any to do this for, because I imagine there is some subset of readers going, “I didn't sign on to hear your thoughts about religion! Stick to movies!” I also imagine some of these articles could very easily function as Bat-signals for morons, so keeping the comments to paid subscribers only filters some of that noise out.
(Note: being a paid subscriber doesn't entitle commenters to be jackasses. I will moderate as I see fit, because back in the days when I didn't, Gamergaters would take over the conversation, and I really didn't have the foresight to see where that would lead.)
But yeah, I have been interested in theology all my life, ultimately coming to a place of atheism. I write from that perspective because I think a lot of people are uncomfortable being atheist, or saying that they are. Seeing Julia Sweeney perform some of Letting Go of God at LAFF one year really helped me be at ease with it, and I'd like to be able to do the same for others if it's even remotely in my skillset.
Last year, I attended a Christmas service at a conservative church. It was not what I expected.
