Rick Beckman

Category: Religion

  • What I Used to Be, or a Look at Labels Long Left Behind

    What I Used to Be, or a Look at Labels Long Left Behind

    There was a time I cared more about the labels ascribed to myself than I did treating those around me with dignity and love. What were those labels? And was it worth it?

  • Do You Need God to Be Good?

    Do You Need God to Be Good?

    Without God, people are free to rape, murder, steal, and cause all the destruction that they want... right? That is what some apologists believe, that without God, there is no goodness. But what is the good? And can it be attained without God's help?

  • Missing the Point

    Missing the Point

    Con­tent warn­ing: This post con­tains a pho­to­graph from a West­boro Bap­tist protest which is used as an exam­ple of what not to do. It con­tains lan­guage which is offensive. Over a decade ago, while I yet called myself a Chris­t­ian, I was onto some­thing good: a real­iza­tion that homo­pho­bic protests and oth­er­wise aggres­sive “evan­ge­lism” were […]

  • A Tale of Two Worldviews

    A Tale of Two Worldviews

    Chris­tian­i­ty is fas­ci­nat­ing. The sto­ries of the Bible, the mir­a­cles and teach­ings described through­out? It’s end­less­ly curi­ous, with more nuance than it is often giv­en cred­it for, par­tic­u­lar­ly among my fel­low unbelievers. Far too often, unbe­liev­ers pick up on car­i­ca­tures of Chris­tian­i­ty — shal­low exag­ger­a­tions or dis­tor­tions that can be eas­i­ly mocked in text­book exam­ples […]

  • Bible Verse that Says God Will Never Give Us More Than We Can Handle

    Bible Verse that Says God Will Never Give Us More Than We Can Handle

    In responding to a user's search, I look to the Bible to determine whether God will ever give us more than we can handle.

  • Wheaton’s Law

    Some­time in the past year or two, I was added to a Face­book group called The Black Sheep. I did­n’t think much of it, nor have I inter­act­ed much there­in because I pre­fer inter­act­ing more in the pub­lic realm than with­in groups online for some rea­son. It seemed a peace­ful place, though, and the con­ver­sa­tions […]

  • God Chose the Strongest Women

    God Chose the Strongest Women

    Work­ing with the pub­lic, I see a lot of stu­pid shirts. Shirts with dec­la­ra­tions of apa­thy and demo­ti­va­tion. Shirts with reli­gious mes­sages that com­plete­ly butch­er the mes­sage of the reli­gion used. Shirts with pro­fan­i­ty for pro­fan­i­ty’s sake. Non­sen­si­cal pink t‑shirts on men that say, “Don’t laugh; it’s your girl­friend’s shirt,” as if that actu­al­ly makes any […]

  • Christianity Needs a Preacher

    I once want­ed to become a preacher. I believed so fer­vent­ly in the Bible that the thought could­n’t escape me that the more I learned about it, the more I should share what I learn with oth­ers. It felt only nat­ur­al. (Or super­nat­ur­al, as it were.) My church gave me a few oppor­tu­ni­ties to preach, and […]

  • Christianity Is under Attack‽

    Christianity Is under Attack‽

    Ken Ham describes what he considers to be attacks against Christianity, but are they really? What's really going on here?

Rick Beckman