The “heretical” act of looking through the telescope — The Earth revolves around the sun. That might not sound like a cause for ex-communication but try telling that to Galileo. He created a telescope and used it to track the movement of the sun. Like everyone else, he believed the sun rose in the east and traveled across the…

Did people ever live for 900 years? — Fun fact: Yoda was 900 years old when he died. Okay, that’s actually fiction, not fact. But compare that with the lifespans of people before the Flood, and it’s right on par with them. With the exception of Enoch, everyone lived at least 700 years and some past 900. …

On the Second Coming and minding your own business — I’m working on a list of my favorite questions in the Bible. It is far from complete, but one comes from John 21:22. But before we get into that, I always think it’s important to know the context of a scripture before drawing any lessons from it. …

Me too. I can't tell you how many lies from the pulpit I bought into. I'm afraid part of the problem is whenever someone has a question about a specific doctrine or a "prophecy" doesn't come true, we're told, "You gotta have faith. Just believe. Trust us. This is the Bible. You're not questioning the Bible, are you?" So we are taught thinking critically is a sin. Doubt is the opposite of faith. So we try to force ourselves to believe something that deep down we just know is not true, because we're going to hell if we don't believe everything they tell us. And that makes us easy prey for snake oil salesmen. We've got to learn it's not a sin to use the brain God gave you.

Any other mistranslations? Way too many to list. I've been thinking about doing an article on the KJV, just a brief history of how it came about, why modern translations are different, and maybe comment on Jack Chick's KJV tract. Here's one change I can give you, not so much a mistranslation as an example of how English has changed. When they quote Jesus saying, "Suffer the children to come to me," in the 17th century, suffer could mean let or permit. So he was saying, "Let the children come to me," not "they can come to me after they run a gauntlet of fists, kicks, rods, belts, and Klingon pain sticks, which unfortunately is how some people read it. That's the kind of thing modern translations clear up.

One of the most egregious misinterpretations of the Bible you will ever hear — Many things about the Word of Faith movement were bad for my mental health. I can only recognize it in hindsight, being able to look at it from the outside. One of the worst guidelines they ever gave me was, “The Bible is clear, ‘Sorrow not.’” When they say the…

Subverting Expectations — Are you ready for a game of word association? I’ll assume you said yes. Kingdom. What words come to mind? Think of three, maybe five, or as many as you can think of. If you have a pen and paper, you might want to jot them down. Next word association…

You forgot people who use pronouns. And those who believe in democracy over fascism.

So it's not just in the south. I don't know whether to be relieved or horrified.