Religulous

When people get sick and think they may die, they often “find religion”, or so I’ve heard. I got pretty sick a couple of years ago, and although my prognosis was always pretty good, I spent a fair amount of time contemplating my own mortality. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t really sick enough, or maybe it’s because hard core atheism is really just another form of religion, but my own beliefs during that time migrated from agnosticism to atheism.

I'm still an atheist at this point, but sometimes I am amazingly sensitive to my parents’ church being criticized. On that note - a couple of points regarding willful ignorance of Catholicism from American evangelicals that may or may not be directly related to a conversation my wife had this week and then relayed to me. :)

• Matthew 16:18. Church isn't plural. I don’t think this means you have to subscribe to a certain church to call yourself a “Christian”, but, if it did, I'd bet on “the Church”; you know, the one that's 2000 years old (or 1700 years old if you want to split hairs).
• Matthew 4:1-2. Lent is not "something the Catholics made up". It's a word for commemorating an event that is very definitively described in the gospels.

Ignorance is bliss, but it still makes me mad! :)