Church of Irreligiosity

07/28/2024

Sin is a tricky thing to wrap your head around. Clearly there is sometimes a gap between our ideals and our behaviors. “Moral mistake” might be a better word for this gap, though. Much less baggage there. “Sin” at it’s root simply means missing the mark anyhow. Both terms are handy though: “sin” is 1/4 of the syllables and doesn’t imply a lack of volition like “moral mistake” does (there is something dark within us all that WANTS to make moral mistakes).

Religion is clearly unable to close this gap. Read Romans 7 and it’ll ring true: knowledge of a moral code generally CREATES MORE MORAL MISTAKES. Psychologist tell us the greatest impulse in the human psyche is to act in congruence with one's beliefs about oneself. Great theologians concur: only rebirth through grace can permanently change one's life. The Scriptures themselves (not the man-made institutions purportedly based on these texts though) confirm this.

So what do we do about moral mistakes? The book of Romans is better to ponder that question with than anything I will write here. I do think I've stumbled upon a good, practical way to identify and mitigate these wrong turns in your day-to-day.

I say "sin" is simply when you try to satisfy your desires inappropriately. So, when you want to do something that your conscious, family, and/or best friends would frown on, stop.

If you've read this far, you likely share my disdain for religion. Again, religion is a man-made set of rules, rituals, etc. designed to keep you form these moral mistakes. However, not putting systems or structures in place to prevent recurring problems seems dumb any any realm though. We’ve all learned that the smartest thing we can do is to put bumpers in place for the dumber versions of ourselves. Looks like a paradox.

It’s not though. Here’s the move: build better relationships. Live in community with people that truly love you. Acknowledge that you have something inside of you that will WANT to make moral mistakes. Know that going off on your own and satisfying your urges apart from the will of your community is a BAD BARGAIN. Most importantly, work to keep this fluid enough to escape the pitfalls of "religion". If we are indeed in spiritual war, we ought to remember that guerrilla are categorically more effective than lining up like Redcoats.

06/16/2024

Everyone is prone to fronting (pretending something is better than it is). That behavior is especially silly when it comes to things like going to church. I'm fixing to ride my bike up the street to join the local Baptists in song, study, and prayer (even though we may disagree on lots of stuff, this is a good habit), and I found myself thinking about what to wear. RIDICULOUS! There's nothing in the Bible or in anyone's true conscious that would validate caring about what folks think about my boots.

05/25/2024

Religion is a man-made set of beliefs in spiritual things that is unprovable. The corollaries of these (likely untrue) axioms are behavioral recommendations that seem good, but are poisonous. Because of their nature, they will lead to pride or despair. There is Truth. It’s not man-made. It leads to freedom.

05/12/2024

I NEED YOUR PRAYERS BADLY! We are gearing up to put on a 3-day spiritual retreat for 36 men incarcerated at the Travis State Jail starting 6/7.

If you can commit to pray and give me a little message to put on a link of colored paper, I will help make a paper chain like the one pictured to let these men know that hundreds of real people in the free world haven't given up on them.

That+(especially plus) your prayers could truly change dozens of lives PERMANENTLY. Here's a link to a promo video by the Jubilee Prison Minstries. https://youtu.be/EdGNi_IfB2Y

Please put your little message (20 words or less please) in the comments if you are down to pray for us. Thank you for reading this.

05/09/2024

I’ve seen so many coffee mugs with “inspiring bible verses” taken out of context, that I’d like to now make an Ezekiel 25:7 mug. Anybody else want one?

02/13/2024

In my quiet time this morning I coined a new term: "radioactive trash".

01/22/2023

Doing wrong has 3 big problems:
1.) It ruins an inner peace that is more valuable than you may guess.
2.) It doesn't satisfy: you will want it again like a ju**ie needing another fix before you know it.
3.) Even if you don't follow the road all the way to ruin, you will waste countless hours vacillating from your moral core to this new appetite that you are inflaming.

So, work to not even look with lustful intent or to even insult. The Word works.

05/05/2019

Hell is a questionable concept, except that everyone has at least met someone living in a personal hell (if not they have not experienced it themselves).

01/16/2019

Religion is a blight on humanity: How does one justify belief in a God that requires His creation to set up to-do lists for themselves to earn His favor? Clearly the only reasonable thing to put Faith in is Grace. So thankful to serve in the new way of the Spirit and not the old way of the written code!

01/05/2019

Grace is reflected in our cognitive biases: just as we are trained better by positive reinforcement, so the kindness, forbearance and patience shown by God as he passes over former sins leads us to repentance better than threat of hellfire.

12/08/2016

Faith is paramount even to atheistic morality. Imagine electrical engineering if you kept having to re-think the concept of i or √-1. You’d never get anything done! We have to hang onto "illogical" truths once we find them. Truth is truth.

11/24/2016

Just finished "Is Belief in God Good, Bad, or Irrelevant", and found the debate regrettable. There is a path that is neither religion or atheism that seems much more likely to me. Enjoy!

Here are the basic tenets of Irreligiosity as I understand it: Most things can be good or bad. However, some things are categorically bad. Religion and God are not the same thing. Religion and God …