Free and Fair Elections

I really enjoy reading articles by Peter Heck. He is a very reasonably minded individual who is very good at keeping things in perspective. That's why I'm unsurprised by his take on the subject of this article, as it is a very level-headed analysis, but I cannot help but disagree with it in part.

I don't disagree with his argument that there has been no professionally produced evidence that Trump actually won the 2020 election. He's obviously right. The grandiose promises of the people who were sure they could produce extraordinary evidence that the election was rigged did not come to fruition. That's obviously true. Is confidence in fair and free elections paramount for our particular governmental system to endure? Yes, I'd say it is. To save from going through every little detail, I agree with most of the arguments as standalone statements. The facts are facts, unless they aren't - to make my stance a little more clear. We couldn't know any differently because no hard evidence has come of it. The election process is innocent until proven guilty, persay. But just as many people have been acquitted under shaky and suspect terms, I'm wholly unconvinced that the "judicial process" has confidently acquitted the 2020 election. We're looking at the Casey Anthony of presidential elections.

So do I disagree that it's dangerous and irresponsible to "continue to peddle" the claim that Trump actually won the 2020? It could be interpreted that way, but it's not so clear cut. It's actually a little strange that Heck makes this argument considering that there is no sanctity of the election process from the leftosphere - especially when this is discussed at length in the article. Confidence in the election process is nonnegotiable for the survival of our country as is. Yet we have been seeing Democrats et. al. contesting the results of elections since George Bush in 2000 and 2004. Suddenly, after Obama won, elections are free and fair again. Trump wins in 2016 and the democratic process is hopelessly corrupt and endangered. It's all okay, though, because Biden won in 2020, so all those glaring issues with the election process that allowed Trump to incorrectly win in 2016 have been fixed and now it's dangerous and irresponsible to believe the elections are anything except the freest and fairest in all the land.

Peter Heck insists, essentially, that it's wrong for Our Side to say that the election process is corrupt to its very core because Their Side is saying it, so we must instill confidence in the populace about the integrity of the process by discontinuing to vocally doubt it. If we stop that, then there can be confidence in our election process once again and everything will somehow be fine.

This premise makes little sense if the democratic process is, in fact corrupted. If our elections are not, in fact, free and fair, then we do nothing but doom ourselves to an accelerated takeover by a one party rule. There appears to be little hard evidence of fraud, whether it's 2000, 2004, 2016, or 2020. Very few people are found guilty for voter fraud every year. The amount of fraud or otherwise tampering of the election process would have had to occur in multiple states and affect many thousands of votes for Trump to have actually had the election stolen from him as he so claims.

Yes, of course, there has been no hard evidence. Every lawsuit was denied processing, so evidence they had was never admitted to court. Events that have long passed, like Georgia's conspicuous burst water pipe that was resolved many hours before they sent people home and "stopped counting" but didn't actually stop counting, and every other state that was an all-but-guaranteed Trump win suddenly stopping votes in the middle of the night, shutting out Republican watchers, barring up windows and blocking all oversight, dumping ballots in through the back doors under cover, some states taking many multiples of days to finish counting and the subsequent gaslighting that "this happens all the time" (it doesn't), and then suddenly multiple states inexplicably turning around for Biden at the very last second, are not things we can really go back and examine, as they were real time events that do not have quantifiable numbers. Multiple YouTubers have been suspended and videos taken down for going to registered voter addresses and finding condemned houses or empty lots. People attest to having received many multiples of mail in ballots to their address. But there is no hard evidence, I'll admit. Nothing was admitted in court because all of the lawsuits were not allowed to proceed, so how could we have the evidence? People who investigate are blocked, silenced, and stifled. The mainstream media would never write dozens of highly amplified articles about canvassers going to registered voter addresses who voted in the 2020 election and finding empty lots, so speaking about it is a "conspiracy theory". There's nothing anyone can do except shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, there's no hard evidence."

What all of these events and this, I suppose, softer evidence points to, however, is absolutely a justifiable suspicion that perhaps our elections are not the freest and fairest elections of all time, and that they may, in fact, be compromised. The confidence in our elections is paramount to a continued functioning democratic republic. Which is why it's such a crying shame that it's entirely justifiable to believe that these elections are in fact not free, nor fair, and have been rigged in various covert and unquantifiable ways. We have articles all but admitting the "shadow government" rigged the election ahead of time by changing election laws and altering as many aspects of our democratic process as possible entirely under the radar, without the people's consent and even admittedly illegally in some cases, and yet we are somehow supposed to believe it's all good. Freest and Fairest Election of All Time. Never mind that many of the events that occurred while votes were being counted that night are the same schemes that are pulled in corrupt third world elections. Claiming it is very important for us to stop questioning the validity of the 2020 election to help instill confidence in the election process ignores that questioning the validity of the 2020 election isn't the problem. The problem is the incredibly suspect validity of the 2020 election.

And that's where Mr. Heck and I will simply have to disagree. I watched these bizarre and highly suspicious situations play out in real time the day and night of Nov 3rd 2020. This isn't a random dossier that showed up from an unknown source with unproven claims that got published by every mainstream media outlet who all declared it simply must be true. This is what I saw with my own eyes. I won't allow the MSM to gaslight me into believing it is very normal for it to take many many days to declare the presidential election winner. I have watched the news coverage for the presidential election in 2004 and 2008, as well as of course 2016. 

Trump was declared the winner in 2016 by 2am on Nov 4th 2016. No states suddenly stopped counting, threw out bipartisan vote watchers, had trucks of ballots dumped into the back doors while the vote counters taped poster boards all over the windows, nor had various "counting errors" giving statistically unlikely solid chunks of votes to a single candidate at 4 in the morning. Bipartisan vote watchers were not barred entry despite having been court ordered by a judge to be allowed in. Yet I am to believe no one would have committed any fraud in an election where a significant number of people genuinely believed they were going to "vote out" a literal dictator? Impossible. I contest it is in fact irresponsible to tell people to believe that there was not malicious behavior in the 2020 election. Our democratic republic does not require only confidence in the election process, but actually fair and free elections. The illusion of a properly functioning democratic republic is not an actual properly functioning democratic republic.

I wonder if the real reason Heck insists we should no longer question the integrity of our election process is simply because it's clearly no longer valuable or useful. I don't suspect this is the case, as a man who has written before about the importance of truth. I wonder then if it was not the fruitless endeavor and hopeless doomerism of the burden of knowing the election process is most likely compromised, but there's little any of us can actually do about it which prompted him to simply explain away the problem like this. Simply believing we have fair and free elections will not actually help us have fair and free elections, but it would surely help promote a comforting illusion. 

There is absolutely no reason not to bring up these highly suspicious behaviors by vote counters, the rushed patchwork legislation changes people did not vote for, the non-zero number of registered voter addresses located at empty houses. It is imperative not to simply put our fingers in our ears and sing loudly that we have confidence in the democratic process. We must be able to have dialogue about what kind of behavior is not allowed in order to have that confidence in our elections. Barring watchers, stopping counts at midnight and sending the Other Team's counters home, taping paper over the windows, trucking ballots into backdoors at 4am - these are not behaviors conducive to a fair and free election. Do not bar discussion about these things - and if you believe that casting doubt on the 2020 election while having this discussion does not help the case, then just say that. We can speak objectively about what does not happen when a country's elections are actually fair and free without invoking the alleged "Big Lie". But it's offensive to say that we must simply drop the whole thing and start having confidence in our election process after nothing has changed. 

Just a Regular Rape

For a few weeks there has been a lot of discourse about the Loundoun County school where a girl was raped by a boy in a skirt in the school bathroom. Recently it has come to light that the girl had previous consensual encounters with the boy and the story for the most part turned out to be different than it has first been reported upon, as usually happens. Once the news broke that the girl had had consensual encounters with the boy previously, I nervously waited to see if the champions of consent from the past would compromise their own morals and beliefs to condemn this girl for "her part" in her rape or not, or to what degree.

I was predictably disappointed that they did, in fact, compromise their morals on consent - but it was as little as possible. Only in implications, in the framing. When making headlines or opening paragraphs, the fact that the girl and boy had met up for consensual sex in the school bathroom previously was brought up as the "main point" - disguised as an objective journalistic reporting detail, but worded and framed as a headliner detail. Their reason for this isn't to excuse the rape necessarily, but to excuse the boy in the skirt in the girl's bathroom. Because, you see, to the mainstream population this issue has been, from the beginning, not about a girl being raped, but about trying to defend transgender bathroom policy. It started that way from the very beginning when the girl's father was dragged out of a school board meeting and has never stopped being about that for them.

That's why such an obtuse a ridiculous article was written entitled, astonishingly, "The Right's Big Lie About A Sexual Assault in Virginia". I cannot stress enough how absurd this was to read as a real, genuine article.

The title is one thing, but what's somewhat surprising is that every terrible detail is confirmed in the article, which still has the audacity to claim that the whole thing was a "big lie". The dad being arrested for acting out at a school board meeting because he was furious that his daughter was raped. The school not properly reporting the crime and covering it up. The boy being transferred to another school and committing a second sexual crime. Everything, every single detail is correct. So what on earth is the "big lie" here that the article showcases?

Since for them it was about transgenders in bathrooms from the first day, it's still about it now. The "big lie" is that this wasn't a case of a regular teenager using the cover of false transgender identity to enter the girl's bathroom and commit a crime. We can all rest easy, folks! Since the girl and boy had met up previously in the girl's bathroom, this is not a case that can be used against transgenders in girl's bathrooms! Conservatives lied yet again! The entire premise of saying the right had a "big lie" is that this was not a normal teenage boy using the cover of the transgender bathroom policy to commit a sexual crime against a totally random and unsuspecting female victim. 

What's interesting is that that fact is the only thing that is a "lie", yet the article intends to convince us that we "had it all wrong". All wrong. All of it, totally wrong. Except for the vast majority of it. What's most glaring of course is that it was never a lie - details about the story were missing. For all intents and purposes, it was actually definitely a boy using transgender identity as a cover to go into the girl's room and rape someone - until we learned that they organized ahead of time to meet up in there on purpose. We do not lie when we are lacking information. Is it wise to make declarations about a situation when you don't have all the information? Surely, we could have a discussion about that, but that is different from intentionally lying about a situation. 

None of this, of course, matters to the author of this and other articles like it. The framework of this piece allows unbelievable responses in the people who were desperate to be relieved of their guilt for wanting to belittle this crime against an innocent girl, such as the following:

"So, it was all bullshıt. The boy wearing a skirt who raped a girl isn't trans. They had hooked up in the bathroom a couple times before. This time she said no & he raped her. Then the girl's dad fed the media the "trans predator" story."

"It was all bullshit." All of it, according to the rape apologists, was bullshit. Except, of course, for the school hiding the rape, sending the boy to another school where he would commit another sexual crime, arresting the father for trying to speak for his daughter, so on and so on. It turns out a very large amount of the story was absolutely not bullshit, but it becomes all bullshit when the magic information they needed to quell their nervous hearts is heard, that the girl and boy had previous encounters. Suddenly all is forgiven.

Except that the biggest cover points I have seen in every article that discussed this horrible situation did not even focus on the transgender aspect. It was mentioned, of course, but nothing has been more important to the people covering this story than the fact that the school covered up the rape. This was the absolute biggest part of the story, it was not focused on transgender kids from the beginning. It was, however, the main focus for the mainstream, liberals, leftists, and Democrats. They projected their focus on transgender bathroom policy onto their opposition - or perhaps maliciously, intentionally pretended that a school covering up a rape was not a big deal.

Yes, from the beginning, before it was even a story, before the girl's father was even arrested, this was about transgenders in bathrooms for the mainstream - that's why the school hid the rape. That's why they had the father forcibly removed, because they knew they hid the rape and didn't want to be found out. They hid the rape because the boy had worn a skirt as a cover to go into the girl's bathroom uncontested and they didn't want this story used as ammunition against their transgender bathroom policy. It was a relief to them that the girl had had previous sexual encounters with the boy, which is why they think "the right" has made this case into what they see as a whole hullabaloo over just a run of the mill rape. They are ecstatic that this isn't a random assault by a boy who wore a skirt to enter the girl's bathroom. Despite that this girl was raped, the fact that they had intentionally met up in the bathroom before, and had done so that day, resolves the moral quandary they had over the case from the beginning. They project that to their preferred boogeyman of "the right" and spin the story until it vomits. "The right lied about this story from the beginning!"

Except the big problems I've seen from the beginning weren't that a skirt wearing boy used transgender bathroom policy to rape a girl, but rather that the school hid the rape because they were worried people would use it against their transgender bathroom policy. They had the father - understandably furious - arrested to keep trying to hide the rape. The big story was the blatant disregard of this girl, the crime against her hidden for their agendas, and as if it couldn't get any worse, another girl was assaulted due to their negligence. Because they didn't want to hurt the transgender cause.

It wasn't the right that made this about transgender bathroom policies, it was the Loundoun County school when they hid the rape for fear of making it about transgender bathroom policies. It is about transgender bathroom policy not because a boy wore a skirt into a bathroom to rape a girl, but because adults are so worried about passing transgender bathroom policies that they would hide a rape by a boy in a skirt. The transgender agenda itself is not worried about sacrificing young girls for their cause.

What's more is, unfortunately, they still aren't even in the clear. They are so focused on the boy in a skirt portion that they are ignoring the fact that these two students were having sex in the school bathroom. How is that even acceptable? Of course, kids were having sex in school bathrooms when I was in school, too, but it was at least marginally more difficult when boys were not allowed free reign of the girl's room. The transgender bathroom policy may have not, in this specific case, enabled a boy to randomly assault an unsuspecting girl in the girl's bathroom under the cover of the transgender bathroom policy, but the greater transgender discourse absolutely enabled the situation. Would they have met up anyway, without pretending to be gender fluid? Maybe. Probably even likely. But the fact of the matter is, there would have been a small chance he would have been stopped at the gate if the adults in the situation were not so hellbent on propping up transgender ideology.

The NYT flagrantly accuses the Bad Team of using this story to hurt "transgender children" when they used "transgender children" from the beginning to try and erase a crime against a girl and a second crime against another girl that was enabled due to their complicity. That's why they are so stuck on the idea that anyone has been "lying" about this story to hurt the transgender cause - because they thought someone would and proactively tried to hide the rape to keep that from happening.

Of course they will argue that the father made the situation about the transgender bathroom policy. I understand that this was his intention, as it is very likely his daughter framed the situation for him thusly. She was brave enough to speak up about being raped, but was she brave enough to tell her father that it was by a boy with whom she had been regularly fornicating in the school bathroom previously? We don't know that yet, but it seems rather likely. Despite any of this, of course, while it may have been his intention to frame it thusly, his sudden summary expulsion from the school board meeting is what set the narrative. While surely people had been talking about the "predatory exploitation of the transgender bathroom policy" aspect before we knew that the girl planned to meet with the boy who raped her, I cannot stress enough that the biggest part of the story from the beginning was the school hiding the rape. Articles like these, meant to assuage leftist moral quandaries over being more concerned for transgender bathroom policy than a girl being raped, do even more to delegitimize the victim - by claiming that the people who were defending her and trying to ensure her rapist saw justice were actually lying about the case. The more nuanced details, of course, insist that surely she was raped and trust us we do think that's bad, but the discourse is framed overwhelmingly about transgender bathroom policies instead of that adults responsible for the safety of a young girl covered up a heinous crime against her. 

Of course, more details don't make this story better. Many parts of it are disgusting and revealing about how our culture hurts children and teenagers. One of the first articles I read about this story that contained the information that the girl and boy had had previous consensual encounters was a very objective article. In this article, a much larger problem about this crime is uncovered. It stated that the boy had previously propositioned the girl for "a particular sexual act" in the past, but she continually refused. Considering the crime was forcible sodomy, we do not need to do much of a connect the dots puzzle to figure out that the boy had been trying to persuade this girl to engage in consensual sodomy rather than forcible. The boy further claims that he stopped when he realized he was hurting her. Whether or not that's true, it showcases a deeper tragic scenario. 

When we know what we know about porn and its horrible effect on young minds, we get a much more depressing picture of this encounter. A boy's mind poisoned by gratuitous pornography showcasing women enthusiastically enjoying sudden anal penetration, or perhaps even more disturbingly not enjoying, convinced this teenager that if his female hookup just tried it, it would be just like the sex he sees in the porn! So convinced he was of this in fact, he decided it would be okay to force it upon her, and it would just work out, like it does in the porn, and he'd get the sexual gratification he sees the men in porn display. All the education about consent in the world has to fight against the brain rewiring, evil power of highly accessible, gratuitous porn.

Many many things could have been different to have stopped this situation from ever happening. Many things could have been done differently to allow responsible adults to actually handle it properly after it unfortunately did happen. The big story isn't about whether boys can use the girl's room, though it is a small part of it. 

Truly no situation is ever so cut and dry. I'm sure there are people who were excited that there was what appeared to be such a plain and uncontestable example of transgender bathroom policies harming young girls, just as excited as the people who were thrilled to hear the victim of this crime had intentionally met up with her soon-to-be rapist that day. People love to exploit others for their causes and beliefs, an unfortunate reality. But the real story is actually just as bad, despite it not matching up perfectly to any one of these sociopaths' desired narratives. There are multiple aspects to it, all of which are terrible. The facts of the situation do not reflect well on the Loudoun county school and contribute even more fuel to the fire of the greater "parents and school board meetings" discourse happening concurrent to this. This is probably the most important aspect of the story and people are more than happy to bury it, as the facts undeniably point to a justifiably outraged father being arrested for attempting to advocate for his daughter.

I am not very surprised lately by the grotesque behavior of many, but the framing of this crime as what essentially boils down to "guys this isn't a special rape, it's just a regular run of the mill rape" is particularly disgusting. We were just a few years ago heavy into how important it was for schools to take sexual assault seriously. Apparently it was a huge deal then. But now it is not, because holding the school who tried to hide a rape accountable could hurt the transgender cause, even though we could easily agree to set that aside and focus on the reality of the victim. The blatant display of tribalism and friend vs. foe thinking is perhaps the last time I will be so naively surprised. They would surely sacrifice thousands of young girls at the altars of their culture war than risk harming any of their ideological causes and it is naïve to believe otherwise.

File Directories

https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z

A new up-and-coming issue has come to light recently wherein the newest generation of students, mostly "Gen Z", are not simply unfamiliar with the workings of file directories, but they are in fact entirely dumbfounded by the concept. This article was somewhat unsettling to read as it made its point more and more clear. These students had an issue running a program because their files were misplaced. They didn't simply not know where the files were, it continues, but they didn't even understand the concept of being asked "where" the files were. The very notion that the files existed somewhere specific on the computer was incomprehensible - to me this is like finding out an entire generation has secretly never figured out what "blue" is and we're all finding out all at once, eyes wide in horror as we behold large swatches of doe-eyed children looking back at us with pleading eyes.

"What do you mean WHERE are the files?"

"What do you MEAN what do I mean where are the files?!"

The article goes on to terrifyingly wax philosophical on whether it's actually truly bad that students do not understand that files exist somewhere specific on their computers, even so far as to tout the Gen Z method (which is, just to clarify, essentially keeping every file in a massive, entirely unorganized glob and using "search" to find them) as POTENTIALLY SUPERIOR to... knowing how to locate files on a computer.

Just to make clear the playing field, I am not particularly computer savvy. I am "learned basic HTML to make my Neopets web page" years old and have opened MS-DOS in safe mode to try and fix my computer more than once. I have what I would call a very basic understanding of computers. What I am most put off by is not simply some young rapscallions not knowing what fer, but rather that this is precisely the process through which generational knowledge is LOST. 

The article tells professors to more or less buckle up and "adapt", as the times they are a changin', and we are all but promised that soon, understanding file directories will go the way of cursive. 

The problem here is that the computer files still exist somewhere specific on the computer. While you may be able to save all your documents to your desktop and ask the computer robot to find those for you, the programs and applications that the computers run will still use files and place them in particular places. File directories are also highly important for situations wherein you have two files that may require the same name. Programs and applications will NEVER simply dump all the files on the desktop along with everything else. In order to operate a computer with some degree of savvyness, you must know that files exist in a particular location on your computer. To lose this knowledge leaves it in the hands of the few, giving the ones who have the knowledge much more control and power, whatever that means in the scope of this context. The common man will have absolutely no idea how this technology works. 

We are already far and away in this sort of scenario - even I haven't a clue how to build a computer. I don't mean, buy them online and plug all the pieces together, but rather, what are they made of, how are they made, and how do these components work together to allow a computer to operate? The fact that very few people possess this knowledge is exactly how you wind up with a post-societal collapse scenario with lost ancient technologies that no one understands now. The problem is that our entirely society is built on the backs of computers. Not understanding file directories is simply one more marching step toward the inevitable abyss of generational knowledge loss. This causes a degeneration of our systems - to reiterate, the systems society is built upon - rather than a refining and improving of them. Essentially, the foundations of our every day lives are highly complex structures that require an intense knowledge to troubleshoot and maintain - and the people coming into their own, getting ready to take over the maintenance of these systems have no idea how they work. They know how to USE them, but they do not know how to pull it apart and put it back together, how to comprehend it when it may malfunction, troubleshooting such issues through the basic structures. They rely on the system itself to debug itself, tell us what's wrong, and fix itself. What happens when it does not?

Millenials, with everything we are blamed for destroying, are paradoxically likely the most tech savvy generation the common peasants will ever be. Generation Z is going to be far less tech savvy - indeed, a related problem I saw recently as well is that teenagers and very young adults are falling prey to scams online almost as much as the elderly. The baby faced newest generation of adults about to enter the workforce are as technically incompetent as our grandmothers and we will have to drudgingly coax our children through simple tech support concepts as bewildered as we were with our elders ten years ago. As long as it's working as expected, they are fine - it's when things go wrong that we will need to worry.

The article even has the audacity to compare the basic comprehension of file directories to other computer "skills" like, I can't even believe they wrote this, using Instagram. If you've understood everything I have written thus far, being able to use a functioning program is not even the same concept as understanding a basic aspect of computer operation. How can a professor say something as exhausting as "well those kids may not understand how files exist within directories on the computer and how this is crucial to the underlying function of programs and applications on the computer, but golly do they know about that Instagram." Instagram sometimes malfunctions, but it simply tells the user to hold tight while it's fixed. If they have an error, they send a ticket to support. They know how to USE Instagram, but they do not know how Instagram works. They don't know how anything works. This is like knowing how to follow a recipe, but having no idea why you're doing what the recipe says. The one who writes the recipe holds all the power over whatever you will cook, as you have no idea the significance of any given step, process, or ingredient. 

Not knowing why the computer does what it does is like not knowing why you're using baking powder, or what happens when you don't use it right. It will all be fine *as long as there are no problems*. It's when there are problems, that there is a problem. And that's the problem.

The worst part appears to be that, by the sounds of it, no one is going to try and fix this. Professors are told to simply buckle up and adapt to "search 2,341 files in desktop" as the common knowledge of their students. That we would simply bow out and allow this knowledge to pass away with the Gen X and millenial generations is depressing, if not par for the course with our new dystopian future.

Pregnant People

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/09/pregnant-people-gender-identity/620031/

Like most critical theory movements, this one has likely been brewing behind the scenes for many years, but even I have only just recently seen for the first time the mainstream push to erase the concept of women in regards to their capacity as child bearers. The concept of referring to pregnant women as pregnant people and other analogous language shifts first popped up, as far as my memory serves, less than a year ago. Actual hospitals and medical centers have started to adopt such exhausting phrases as "pregnant people" or "birthing persons", and terms like "chest feeding". 

Many of these shifts are not even necessary as men do on fact have breasts and can even get breast cancer. It is done exclusively at the behest of a tiny fraction of the population that has trained themselves to have mental breakdowns over small nuances in language useage. Despite the fact that men have breasts, women who have decided to live as men get very upset at their breasts - which all humans have - being referred to as they are, which is breasts, and would still be if they were actual men. Considering women who undergo hormone replacement therapy are less likely to be able to successfully breastfeed in the first place, it's even more unnecessary. But why precisely, you may ask, is such a language shift SO egregiously unnecessary?

What's important to note firstly is that the percentage of the population this affects is practically null. Hormone replacement therapy renders many women unable to become pregnant, since such "therapies" are identical to chemical castration procedures. This leaves women who have decided not to undergo HRT and simply choose to unilaterally declare they are actually men, or "neither" as it were, and then carry on as usual, and by some completely unknown and mysterious process, become pregnant. This is even a smaller percentage of the population that says they are transgender, as the majority of transgender people do not wind up pregnant.

So what we have already, without going any further, is an absolutely miniscule population taking our language usage hostage in a way that is highly offensive, if not simply mystifyingly obtuse, to the vast, overwhelming majority. Referring to WOMEN as "birthing persons" is shocking and degrading to any normal person. If I had to guess, it was likely shocking to the majority of LGBT proponents, but their tribe loyalties forced their cognitive dissonance to engage and accept such a disgusting term. 

Even I will admit "pregnant people" is less obtuse a term and does not carry such dehumanizing qualities as "birthing person", but it is somewhat more insidious as it easily slides by people's radar. Pregnant women are indeed people who are pregnant and it appears rather innocuous, almost an innocent slip of the tongue, as one was used to referring to a person of unknown gender as "they" since the long gone days of yore, well before all of this language alteration. All pregnant women are in fact pregnant people, and if this were ten years ago it would appear just like a normal word replacement someone made while not thinking very hard about what they were saying. Now it's a severely intentional decision meant to reprogram the way everyday persons think about the people who may become pregnant.

While all of this is entirely fair and easily understood by rational people, the argument is still made that it is so important to use these "inclusive terms" (at the expense of women's identity) not simply because transgender people get their feelings hurt by normal language, but because such exclusive language and adherence to well established and understood real concepts in some way manages to cause transgender people to not receive proper care. The article linked mentions briefly that it helps remind women in the OBGYN waiting room to "not stare" at the unaccompanied man who appears to be a patient at the women's health center. 

My OBGYN does in fact care for at least one woman who lives as a man, as I've seen her before, three years ago. I did not stare nor did I make any comments, because while I know this woman has made unwise decisions, I do not care and I mind my own business. I actually fully believe people who have made unwise decisions to mutilate their bodies and undergo procedures to change their physical appearance for the sake of vanity should be able to receive full, comprehensive, and compassionate medical care. They deserve rights and privacy as any other human being does. What they do not deserve is the entire upheaval of society on their behalf BECAUSE OF their personal choices to undergo physical and chemical procedures to live their private lives in such a way. They should never have been able to do so and that we are here now is frankly embarrassing.

My OBGYN has hundreds and possibly thousands of patients. I've been there a very large number of times in the last five years, having been pregnant four times in that timespan. I have seen this transgender patient once, ever, and even then there is no guarantee this was actually a transgender patient. She may not have been a normal woman who chose to mutilate herself and could have been someone born intersex but raised as male, but still possessing female anatomy. There is no way to know, especially because as stated I mind my own business.

It is precisely my staunch belief in minding one's own damn business that makes me so frustrated to see this forced language shift. It is said to be done for the safety and in service of acceptance of tiny fractions of society that feel maligned, but really it is the HOA of Language, telling all of us what we MUST do on our own damn property. The words used by the news, media, government, and general populace are being policed by a tiny, miniscule - have I hammered this point in enough - portion of absolute busybodies who are not happy to leave us all alone to mind our own existence as we please. Thus continuing to use the terms and phrases of sane people is the unapproved house siding color of our collective society, subject to punitive measures by the association.

All the aforementioned points are very important, but perhaps the most pertinent part of this discourse lies in the fact that the people demanding such forced language shifts have chosen to do these things to themselves. While people do not choose to have gender dysphoria and/or body dysmorphia, they do choose to alter their physical bodies. 

There is a can of worms here, but to not get too buried in tangents, it is not proven that body alterations and hormonal treatments actually "fix" the problems such people have. It is widely known and accepted that gender dysphoria in adults is accompanied by additional diagnoses of mental disorder. It has not been proven that those accompanying disorders are caused by the dysphoria and thus solved by superficial gender transition. In fact, if we were to put aside our worries of offending the LGBT coalition, we would see that the fact that these accompanying diagnoses remain after transition (though sometimes the "excitement" of transitioning stifles them temporarily) and still require treatment would appear to STRONGLY suggest that the the accompanying diagnoses are the cause of the dysphoria.

There is also a point to be made that a lot of innocent people have been manipulated into accepting this position in their life by the medical conglomerates that look to profit off of their gender dysphoria long term (HRT never stops for the remainder of a transitioned person's life) and the misguided media and pop culture that idealizes transitioning as the solution to all of their problems. While this is unfortunate, it remains that it was still their personal choice to undergo such procedures.

Thus, what we are engineering is a full rework of colloquial, well understood language useage for the sake of a minute population of people who made personal choices to change themselves. We used to understand that people who make such personal decisions to live life in ways that society is not catered toward must simply accept the inconveniences that come with these decisions. It is a new and exhausting phase where we are trying to change completely acceptable, well established, and fully functional parts of society for those that would choose to live outside of these parameters to the detriment of those who have not made such drastic decisions. 

It is continually argued that it is NOT a detriment, inconvenience, or affront to anyone else to use such obtuse phrases as "chest feeding", by the same people who argue that simple terms may make some people literally suicidal. These same people argue that language can cause violence, that dehumanizing language attributes to vast underlying societal inequality.

I have to say that I agree, which is precisely why it's so dangerous to so brazenly undermine women and motherhood with these new terms. Intersectionality is self-defeating in this way, as one ideology MUST necessarily prevail, as we cannot accommodate for all of these nuances together. Critical theory leans toward engineering society not simply toward the lowest common denominator, but to the absolute most obtuse outlier. I am and always have been a proponent of supporting and encouraging the largest number of people at the detriment of the fewest number of people. There are nuances, as there are to anything, but this debate is clear. This alteration of language is to the detriment of a vast swatch of human beings - female human beings - to the benefit of an overwhelming few. 

"...But I'm Not Religious."

A favored phrase for many who sense the spiritual reality of this world but are too embarrassed to admit it is that they "may be Christian" (or some other religion) or perhaps "may believe in God", but they certainly aren't religious. "Religion" to these people is, in few words, the legality behind a belief. They believe that "religion" is what creates pedophile priests and doctors who refuse to treat a man dying from the flu because he's gay, if that ever actually happens. Here's the big secret - it's a lack of religion that causes these things. The same lack of religious education that causes people to misunderstand their beliefs in a way that is damaging and bad to OTHERS (kicking your teenage daughter onto the street because she became pregnant out of wedlock) is what causes people to misunderstand their beliefs in a way that is damaging to THEMSELVES (i.e. sinning against God, against your own soul etc.).

Religion is, when done correctly, the means through which we work together as terrible, flawed people to understand what we are supposed to do in order to become more like Christ and follow Him and His commandments correctly. We gather together as followers to be each other's accountabillibuddies, under the direction of someone who should be well versed in leading us to be more like Jesus.

If you go to a church that says we should definitely kill gay people, that is a failure to follow Christian religion properly, not an example of it "working as intended". It's not that the system, the religion, doesn't work - it is being wholly misapplied to a faulty conclusion. Such heresy is wrong, as is the heresy that it's A-OK to be gay. These false ideas come into the Church the exact same way, they are simply opposite conclusions of the same problem - misusing scripture, letting our wicked hearts guide us. 

If you use your "spirituality" just to figure out how to live here on earth most pleasantly without actually considering its true, eternal purpose, you might not end up somewhere as pleasant. There are, in fact, "religious" rules for your "spirituality". Using bits and pieces of Christianity, the nicest sounding ones that cause the least trouble of course, just to augment your secular beliefs and lifestyle is atheism in a costume.

Now, you certainly don't have to go to church to go to heaven. However, this is more reserved for people who, for whatever reason, cannot get to a church even if they wanted to. If you can go to church, you should. If the church you go to preaches false doctrine, then either try to help heal that broken church, or go somewhere else. By not going to church when you could, you ignore that Jesus died to form the church. It's HIS church. 

Yes, 'church' refers to the body of believers and not necessarily a physical building. But I severely doubt people arguing this point are meeting with other believers for biblical lessons and teachings ANYWHERE. If they are, then good, you are, in fact, going to church. Good job. Otherwise, this argument is just used to justify people who are too lazy or uninterested in actually fully committing themselves to Jesus.

There is no "spiritual but not religious" for Christians. Religion is simply the catchall term for the collection of beliefs that one has about the truth of the world and of existence. It has a certain connotation and colloquial understanding, surely, but it refers to this collection of truth statements in which one confesses belief. Everyone has a religion, whether it's documented or not, as everyone has beliefs about the truth of the world. Essentially, one's vibe.

So, unfortunately, you certainly ARE religious, but it just may not be the religion you tell people you are. 

Mental Health Expert Doesn't Understand Christianity

With an opening paragraph that summarizes best as "the top five most superficial, surface-level reasons people become atheists", it's easy to start rolling your eyes as soon as you start to read this article. Don't worry, though, because at no point will your eyes get any rest. The article continues to portray a misunderstanding of Biblical reality so unbearable, it's no wonder that anyone who has these hangups about their former faith left it in the first place. 

The first unhealthy, allegedly Christianity-induced thought pattern is "all or nothing thinking", wherein the concept that "no sin is too small to send you to Hell" is causing former believers to go too hard at work, which sounds much more like a works-based salvation problem, but why would I try to make sense of this hot mess of a conceptual leap that's already based off of flimsy, incorrect theology. Apparently working 20 hours of overtime a week is some kind of black-and-white thinking issue. Regardless, the real crime here is a complete misconception of what "sends" one to Hell. It even further exacerbates its floppy conundrum with a statement that contains two truths, but has them both jammed together in an incoherent way. "Jesus only saves because He was perfect." Yes... Only Jesus saves, and He is perfect, but these don't cause each other. So what's the Bible actually say about these things?

The only thing the author gets right is, yes, there is either Heaven or Hell and nothing in-between. To argue against this in the examination of "all or nothing thinking", though, is absurd. These refer to locations, relative to their presence or absence of God Almighty. You are either in the presence of God, or you are not. There is no grey area between Heaven and Hell because there is no quasi-"Shrödingers God" type location to go to. Of course, the vast majority of even the lukewarm-est of Christians should, at this point in modern Christian theological discourse, be quite aware that it's not sin that sends one to Hell, but failure to accept Jesus as one's savior. What some may not be fully aware of is that it wasn't just that Jesus never committed a sin, but that His conception was immaculate, that makes Him free of sin and thus perfect, and able to be the ultimate and final sacrifice needed to satisfy God's wrath. 

Immaculate doesn't mean "no sex involved," - you've probably at least once heard immaculate used to describe a cleaning job that was done so well as to not leave a single speck of dirt behind. "Immaculate conception" refers to a conception that was, in layman's terms, spotlessly clean. The manner in which He was conceived made Him born without sin. Denominations disagree about what this exactly means, with Catholics believing Mary herself was also free of sin, but the fact of the matter is that Jesus was exempt from the original sin of Adam. Thus, even if, somehow, a human being from start to finish, never committed a sin, they are still born of the original sin of Adam and still require salvation from Jesus. The very state of our existence is tainted by sin (something the author takes issue with later), so there's actually little need to worry about "even the smallest sin" sending you to hell - it's actually much simpler. The only unforgivable sin is "blasphemy against the holy spirit". Some people believe this translates more or less into the only unforgivable sin being the denial of Jesus specifically. However you feel about it, it's clear for multiple reasons that, theologically, the whole concept here is a mess.

Second of all, only Jesus saves, but not because He is perfect. He was, and is, (and always will be) perfect, but He saves because he chose voluntarily to be a sinless sacrifice to close the gap between humanity and God, allowing us to be with God through Jesus. These are, as we see, very different justifications for why, specifically, only Jesus saves. Only fleeting remnants of the herein accused "Christian" reasons for an all-or-nothing thought complex are actually present in our theology.

Next up we have the apparently uniquely Christian concept of Us vs. Them complex. Obviously that was sarcastic, since "Good guys and bad guys" is basically in vogue at the moment when it comes to the vast majority of our society, unless this author is going to try to convince me that nearly every politician, pundit, and political activist is an "ex-vangelical". The "us vs. them" trap is easy to fall into, and unfortunately Christians do, too, but likely not because of what's in the bible. What's worse is, not only is this laughably nowhere near a uniquely Christian idea, it's - yet again - not even a Christian idea to start. 

Most starkly of course is the concept that Christians view sinners as our Bad Guys camp, which would then imply that we would scorn, hate, and avoid them - but of course the bible has plenty of passages about praying for your enemies, loving people who hate you, and trying desperately to save sinners from the eternal torment of Hell. The bible tries very hard to free us from the prolific us vs. them complex, forcing us to see our enemies as God's beloved children, just as we are. Seems a lot more complex of a relationship than "good guys and bad guys".

To make matters even more laughable, we see the line in this paragraph, "Christianity offers no mental model in which people are complicated and imperfect but basically decent," which I laughed at in real time when I first read it. People being complicated and imperfect while desiring to be good, decent people and do what's right is such a frequent theme in the bible that I'm not sure this person is talking about the right religion. I'm not sure what these people think they converted from, but it wasn't Christianity.

This next one is an extension of the previous, wherein the argument is that, due to our awareness of our own failings, we feel we are never good enough, since we are supposed to be like Jesus, who is perfect. This may be the only arguably valid concern in this article as actually being a potential side effect of Christian thought, but it is nonetheless still not biblically reasonable. We coach against this destructive mindset with poignant reminders that, as simple as it may be, God loves us. Yes, He wants us to work to be more like His son, but He loves us still, even when we fail. He is not a preoccupied, busy working father who only notices us when we are succeeding and excelling, who we feel compelled to compete against ourselves for his attention and love. At our worst and most lowly, God is there with us and loves us.

Our fourth presumably Christian hangup is called "hyperactive guilt detection", which seems fully to be the same category as the previous issue and should probably have been the prequel to the third point, if I had to be the editor for this piece. Ultimately the issue being explained here is that doing morally wrong things causes one to feel guilty, so as one continues to do morally wrong things, it weighs down their conscious. I'm trying to figure out why that's a bad thing so I'll go out on a limb here and assume that, because the author disagrees with objective moral good, that they are insisting here that it's bad to continually feel bad for doing things that are bad. We will just have to chalk this one up to pagan shenanigans and move on, then.

The fifth one is a classic, so I'll try to avoid dedicating too many paragraphs as to why this tired old argument simply must be hung up to dry for the final time. While this piece does not state outright the argument against "sexual repression", it would be silly to think they don't believe in it. Essentially, the argument is that keeping the aspects of your sexual desires that are morally wrong under control, or "repressed", causes neuroses and generally bad, negative side effects. It's much better, the argument goes, to express your traditionally-considered-wrong sexual desires, or else it will build up and explode in some modernly-considered-wrong way.

Let's clear up a few things first - homosexual and premarital relations are as morally wrong in biblical Christianity as nonconsensual, pedophilic, and adulterous relations are - it's just the first two that modernists want us to consider as socially and morally acceptable. Then again, this particular author may disagree since they bizarrely use the commandment that tells you to not bang your neighbor's wife as an example of that mean ol' biblical sexuality. Given the fact that all sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage are considered morally wrong in Christianity, but only half or so are considered morally wrong by secular standards, by what standard exactly do we base rape and the like as being acceptable to repress? Surely the author does not condone seeking sexual relations with minors, and yet somehow the concept of sexual repression is bad and will hurt people. What we have here is an argument not worth having unless this question can be answered - and don't fool yourself, the answer has nothing to do with "consenting adults can do whatever they want in their own bedrooms". Repressing a sexual desire to rape is analogous to repressing a sexual desire for your consenting boyfriend or girlfriend, in regards to the concept that repression of those desires will cause harm. The question is why is repressing a sexual desire to rape or to fornicate with 8 year olds not only acceptable but necessary, while other forms of sexual repression are evil and bad and will hurt the one repressing them? Without an answer, the "sexual repression" argument against biblical Christianity is nothing but vapid self-serving hogwash.

The next concern makes little sense, frankly, so I can only suspect the author has some kind of experience with people feeling this way in order to make a claim that anyone does this. The concern here is a strange take on the "build your treasures up in heaven" mindset wherein the person fails to also take joy in enjoyable things in life. The line "small every-day wonders that comprise the center of joy in mindful living" invokes thoughts of the exact sort of things that Christians emphasis daily, particularly when you use a term like "mindful living" which is a cornerstone of Christian culture. 

Perhaps I'm giving them too much credit, here, and the problem is that the things they think people should be "enjoying" here on earth aren't wholesome pleasures like spending time with family, gardening, playing a team sport, baking with your grandmother, stopping your busy life for five minutes to sit on the porch and enjoy the sunset, and so forth. If so, they did a fanciful job of hiding this behind a term like "everyday wonders", as those same everyday wonders are the things that we behold and give thanks and praise to the Lord for providing us. We typically pray before every meal, for heaven's sake, an act that regularly reminds me how blessed I am to eat such delicious food, increasing my enjoyment of it so much more - these are the everyday wonders of mindful Christian living that we take great joy in. Nothing in my life has come close to shattering my deeply embedded cynicism as effectively as my trust in and love for God. It is that very Christian outlook on life that grants me a deep, rich appreciation for the smallest things on this earth, the amazing miracle all around us, God's beautiful creation.

No, surely this concern is, in fact, referring to "everyday wonders" like hedonistic indulgence in self-destructive vices. There is no other explanation, aside from pure, unadulterated incompetence. 

This next one is not necessarily wrong so much as a potential side effect of coming to terms with the whole truth of Christ. "Fear of apocalypse" surely comes with the territory, but it is again a manifestation of poor emphasis on accurate theology. We should not fear the end times. The end times, the apocalypse, is the end of earth, but not the end of time. Through the bible, we are instructed not to look for the antichrist, but to look for Jesus. The return of Jesus is emphasized as a good thing and we do much unnecessary worrying when we focus on the "apocalypse" part.

However, that isn't even the biggest spot of contention here for this section. The absolute most laughable concept, here, is the idea that fearing a cataclysmic, horrible end is uniquely Christian. Our culture today is never-ending doomsday prophecies, with just about everyone convinced that - one way or another - the world as we know it is ending, and soon. Climate change alarmists are predicting that earth will be uninhabitable by 2050 - that's a lot sooner and more concrete a fear than the Christian apocalypse deadline of "we don't know". My generation is so consumed by morbid confidence in a quickly approaching dystopia-slash-Armageddon that it's basically a running joke. The most ironic part is that, without the redemption arch of Jesus' return in the mix, secular doomsday fears are an order of magnitude more hopeless and dreadful than the biblical end times. In those scenarios, there is no paradise awaiting us - just total annihilation and subsequent nothingness.

The next one is yet another shining example of this list's awkward habit of naming things that are super common in secular culture and then saying they're uniquely Christian neuroses. "Idealizing leaders" as something Christians specifically have issues with is a new one - I'd argue this is more of a general thing most people gravitate towards - a good ol' classic "are you a leader or a follower" type situation. Yes, many Christians incorrectly idolize human leaders, but this is specifically something they should not do. Actual biblical guidance tells us to, in short, not trust flawed humans, but only trust God. There is no parallel here between our commandment to trust God and any sort of mental hangup over idolizing a human leader. "No king but King Jesus". The bible does not pull any punches describing the human leaders at the time - and all of their horrible atrocities. Nowhere will you find support for the idea of idealizing a human leader.

Of course, again, we must uncomfortably point out that this is not unique to Christians - there are bobbleheads of politicians and supreme court justices, after all. Of course, fixation on the "conservative" Trump cult is the flashiest talking point lately, but the idea that every Trump sycophant is also a devout Christian is simply a false concept. Most Christians raised quite the eyebrow at the trotting out of a literal golden statue of Trump at CPAC, and our constant reminders and basic worldview concept of the fact that human beings are flawed and imperfect leads most actual Christians toward remaining sane and stable as our associates grow closer and closer to the concept of Trump as a savior. Jesus as the only one who saves is, quite literally as well as figuratively, a bedrock upon which we can remain grounded.

Secular folks do not have this kind of grounding, allowing their devotion to ebb and flow as charismatic leaders, promising all of the social change they desire, rise up and battle for the spotlight (this is how the antichrist will gain power, loved by the world - not Christians). Of course, I must mention, for fairness and context, that the worship of politicians is somewhat uniquely American - many people from other countries comment on how strange it is. Unfortunately, no one from any country is safe from the risk of attaching to a leader or charismatic figure as long as they lack a rock upon which to stand and place their trust. Again, it is ironically the Christian worldview alone that protects from the mental problem described here.

This next one I find quite interesting, described as "desperately seeking simplicity". The concept here is that a biblical understanding of our world creates quite an easy to follow set of instructions for what is right and wrong. The main point of contention here is that the author insists the world is much more complex than what a biblical worldview allows. The problem here is not that the biblical worldview is simple, but a concern that Christians would supposedly seek simplicity where there is none. The main flaw in this concept is the idea that Christianity does not contain any murky situations that require nuance and deep, complex consideration. 

I'm sure you can guess, but that assessment is wrong. Yes, there are aspects that are simple, but there are aspects of life that are simple. There are, in fact, many things that are astoundingly simple. Just as many things in biblical understanding are simple and many things are complex, so it is in a general sort of way, about everything. I must also take a quick moment to point out, that surely this list item should have been closer in position to its counterparts, items 2, 3, and 4. Indeed, this seems at best to be just another branch of the "good guys vs bad guys" point of contention from above. However, I'll address it as if it were its own case.

Compartmentalization is a problem Christians can have, but so can anyone else. Indeed, the failure to consider things as parts of one whole is a common ailment of the general population. The real issue here is not of a failure for Christians to consider "complex moral questions" but the actual point of contention is that Christians have an objective moral standard through which they analyze moral situations. There is no argument to be made that it's somehow bad to consider things with a "simple" moral frame, as how simple your moral framework is, is irrelevant to whether something is moral or immoral. The argument being made here can only logically be that the Christian moral framework is incorrect, not that Christians are somehow "trying too hard to find simplicity". This is not too surprising, since the author clearly disagrees with Christian morals. To phrase this another way, the author is not upset that Christians have a simplistic moral worldview, but that the Christian moral worldview itself is simplistic. 

And, frankly, the Christian moral framework is only simplistic in the broadest terms. We can easily designate things as murder or theft, but this is one part of the equation. Indeed, what do you DO with the murderer and the thief? God only tells us these things are wrong, He does not tell us how to punish these sinners. You can be executed for murder, but adultery is not against the law. Both are egregious sins! How to move forward from someone else's wrongdoings is intensely complex and the Christian worldview does not simplify them anymore than a secular one. In fact, it may make them much more complicated. God wants us to forgive people who have wronged us, which some brave souls have so shockingly managed to do for people who have murdered their loved ones. I can barely imagine having that kind of resolve. This is supposed to be simplistic?

The list item has other concerns to point out, like perhaps a fight lacks any identifiable good or bad sides, or problems that have no "right" answer. I place suspicion on the use of the word "right", as the author likely meant "perfect". Mostly everyone knows there are problems with no right answer, but we simply try to choose the best one. Sometimes there does not even seem to be a "best" one. These issues do exist within a Christian framework, as if they did not, we would not be instructed to pray to God and ask Him for wisdom for such complex issues as these. The "good guys vs bad guys" issue has, of course, already been beaten to death.

The only difficulty the author has that I would concede as accurate is a concern for "blurry" lines between humans and other sentient creatures. There is a biblical truth that animals lack the breath of God that humans have; there is indeed no blurred line. However, there is no biblical justification for anything less than respect and responsible treatment of those animals, as we were given dominion over them, but also told directly by God to care for and tend to His creation. The issue here is - funnily enough - a lot more complex than the author would have us imagine. If it were not complex as such, we would not have the vast number of incredibly long debates about whether it's most biblical to be vegan if possible. Frankly, coming from a staunch believer in a large number of simple biblical answers for a wide array of things, I could not tell you for a fact that veganism is not biblically coherent. The bible provides no clear answer on whether it is most righteous to abstain from meat or not. The only things I can say for sure is that humans have the breath of life from God while animals do not, that we were given dominion over animals, that we were charged with tending to animals, and that we were given permission (not commanded!) to eat meat. From there, there's quite a lively debate.

The final list item is something I would understand as a mental problem for former Christians - the nagging feeling that you're wrong, that you've made a mistake. This is, of course, something active Christians also struggle with, and indeed, every single living human person. We all struggle with doubt, and I'd be quite suspicious of the one who claims they do not.

Thus, our unfortunate adventure ends with a few closing paragraphs. The author is, in fact, a former Christian, so I can only assume their upbringing and Christian instruction were flawed, as many experience, perhaps unknowingly. It is never enjoyable to see that someone has rejected God, since we all know what that means. 

I must draw attention to the quote, meant to be poignant, "I would rather live with unanswered questions than unquestioned answers". I am clearly not the person this quote is meant for, as it makes no sense to me. While living as Christians, did these people truly believe they had no unanswered questions? I have an absolute smorgasbord of unanswered questions. I am constantly in wonder at the universe God has created, the plans He has. Properly appreciated, Christianity leaves perhaps too many unanswered questions, which is likely how we got to the point of thousands of denominations. I also have very few "unquestioned answers," and I'm not sure that this phrase is much more than vapid nonsense. Perhaps it seems so brave and inspiring because people do not wish to appear stupid by questioning it?

Unfortunately, despite being so humble as to admit that one cannot possibly have all the answers, they contend that they do have at least one answer, which is funnily enough one of the most arrogant. Looking back and being "certain of one thing", which is, that God is not real, is the absolute most obtuse thing to be certain of. If you are, as nihilistic atheists are so fond of reminding us, one speck in billions of entirely common and non-miraculous living creatures standing upon a rock hurtling through space at millions of miles per hour, how can you be so certain that there is no God? They believe themselves to be so humble, yet drip of hubris all over. I would know, of course, being a former atheist. Unlike a former Christian, it does not bother me so much that I may be wrong to have abandoned atheism. Blaise Pascal has a good few points to make on that wager. While we all have our doubts, mine are quite fleeting, and mostly revolve around other things than the existential questions of life and death. 

This wild ride has drawn to a close. I will concede that improperly understood Christianity will likely lead to a good number of unhealthy behaviors and mental disturbances, but funnily enough I would view this list as a good diagnostic tool for finding out if someone is following a cheap riff off Christianity rather than the real thing. Maybe we should read this list in church to find people's weak points in scriptural and theological understanding.