Archive for August 29th, 2008


Bible Stories: An Aside

August 29th, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

I’m working on Part II of my deconversion story. This is a story about having fun with the less savory parts of the Christian bible. It didn’t really fit anywhere, but I wanted to share it anyway.

Sometimes, the bible was a useful tool for vexing adults. Our church had a youth group for middle and high school students. When we would go on retreats, the adult chaperons would assign one person to say a prayer, and another to read a bible verse, before every meal.

I wasn’t a big fan of being forced to read in front of a bunch of people. Eventually, I flipped to Leviticus, and started powering through the list of things that made a person unclean. When that got me in trouble, I turned to Exodus. After fifteen “begats,” I had to get my bible verses vetted by an adult before I could read them to the group.

In the stark, retina-scarring light of hindsight, I suppose that might have been the time when my doubts about the bible as primary evidence started to take root. If the bible was divinely inspired, and its wisdom so unimpeachable, why were some verses acceptable and others not? Also, why was it bad to take the lord’s name in vain, but cool for me to eat bacon and hug my mom when she was menstruating? Shouldn’t she have been living in a tent in the backyard until that cleared up? (The menstruation, not the bacon.)

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A Note About Vice Presidential Candidates

August 29th, 2008 by Oskar Kennedy

As far as I’m concerned, the running mates of the major party candidates are a complete wash. Barack Obama picked an old, white man. John McCain picked a young woman. Two Vice Presidential nominees, two attempts at appealing to swing voters who might have been leaning in the direction of the other party. Both choices so horribly transparent, if you stood one in front of the other, you could still see the jungle through both of them.* Can we go back to talking about the candidates now?

* If it panders, we can kill it.

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