Like one who didn't want to give a salesperson too much encouragement, people were standing behind their screen doors to talk to me. They weren't shutting me out completely, but I was no longer invited in. People I thought would surely always accept me for who I am began backing towards the house and behind their screen doors to make sure I didn't get past the threshold.
He replied, "What do you have to be depressed about? You shouldn't have anything to be depressed about if you believe in Jesus." Or at least it was something to that effect. The actual words have been blurred by time, but the gist remained crystal clear for the next couple of decades - if you're a true Christian, you can't be depressed.
Back in the day, anytime the husband was out of town for a couple of days, I would lament dramatically about how hard being a "single parent" was. Then I became a single mother in real life, and I realized there are way more things that suck about being a single parent than just feeling and looking tired all the time.
Instead of always writing about what I think the Christian church is doing wrong, today I write about something I think the Christian church (and other faith-based communities) are doing very right.
A friend once asked, "Why do you think that being an atheist has become such a big part of your self identity?" Two reasons.
Quite often I find myself in conversations with folks who feel that my lack of religion is simply a failing to have been asked the right questions. One of the most common is this: If there is no God, where does your basis of morality come from?
There is an argument called Pascal's Wager, which suggests one would be safer to believe in God only to find out he doesn't exist than to not believe and find out he does. But Pascal's Wager is more fallacy than philosophy.
