@avclub-9ff7c9eb9d37f434db778f59178012da:disqus I like that interpretation of Abraham's test, and I say that as a church-going Baptist. I think the gift of critical thought is often neglected in favor of trying to create easy answers where there are none.

In my experience, being a decent person and having empathy for others is sometimes easier with faith. There is certainly not a lot of practical benefit or personal gain, or even a rational reason to be kind and decent sometimes.

Unless you really like free-form jazz metal and spoken word poetry, about 75% of Black Flag's listenable material was in place and recorded before Rollins was involved with the band. I think it will be fine without him.

While not traditional, I think it would be pretty easy to argue that the Hold Steady play a sort of religious music.

It's definitely not actually practiced as such in the Simpsons church or in most real life churches, I'm just saying on paper pretty much every Protestant church sees their teachings as unassailable dogma. But people being people, they have very degrees of ability/interest in adhering to that, and most churches are…

Most churches are affiliated with some denomination, but other than a few of the more organized denominations like Episcopalean, the denomination provides only guidelines and individual churches govern themselves. In my experience, all non-denominational churches are evangelical and fundamentalist, though I'm limited…

I was maybe 9 when the pilot first aired. My immediate family were atheist hippies, but a lot of my extended family were deeply religious and even before my own views changed I always felt like I was enjoying the show with people on both sides of the aisle and had a good sense of everyone's take on it.

The majority of protestant churches in America are technically fundamentalist, in that they (at least officially) believe the Bible is literally true. Most people who attend these churches adhere to a wide spectrum of beliefs, and other than the most extreme examples (which are unfortunately the ones who make the most…

It always strikes me when I revisit early Simpsons episodes that focused on Flanders or Lovejoy how nuanced the show's approach to religion is. The religious satire is just as funny and moving to me now as a Christian adult as it was to me as an atheist adolescent, which is kind of amazing. How many shows can touch on…

This shit is optional as fuck.

I wish the people who were doing it wrong didn't do it so vocally, because it makes the rest of us look like retards.

This is why not all "born-again" Christians are necessarily "bible-believing"…several denominations take some or all of the bible as a metaphor, and even the more fundamentalist sects are willing to consider the possibility the world has evolved and everything that was relevant in the Old Testament may not be today.…

Don't be cheap, gay marriage riflemen make less than minimum wage.

Most Christians are born-again. I don't know a lot of Christians who have consistently been faithful their entire lives. The ones you're meeting are assholes, and that's why they feel compelled to announce that they're born-again and say stupid and judgemental things even though it is the opposite of what Christians…

Unitarians aren't "born again" because they don't have a rigid enough beliefs system to require being born-again. You can be a buddhist pantheist atheist and join a UU church.

I'm guessing you're not basing this on any real-life experience, but it's pretty much the opposite of reality. There is a huge amount of diversity amongst both groups in any church I've been to, but if I had to make a call I'd say it's way more likely for someone who has always believed and never struggled with faith…

I don't advertise my faith as a rule, but I am a Christian and I guess you'd say I'm "born-again" since I grew up atheist. I'd just like to state for the record that I don't endorse these shenanigans nor do I know any real-world Christians who do. People like this are made-for-TV caricatures of the one asshole at…

The Misfits make perfect sense. The title is a horror movie, the lyrics are about the horror movie and usually completely literal.

You cry more about Morrissey's feelings than Morrissey does, and that's kind of an impressive feat.

That nonsense with the wine pairings is like a hyper-exagerrated cartoon version of something that might occur in a restaurant a thousand times more formal and pricey than the one in this show. And even there I can't imagine a chef behaving so ridiculously and taking it to the extreme that occurs in this show.