Fool [for Christ] of the Week/Month/Year/Decade/Millenium (thus far): The Raving (A)Theist! (Part 2)

In Part 1 of my investigation of the conversion of the blogger formerly known as the Raving Atheist, I said that I wasn't sure his conversion was legit.

After all, he'd been known for posts of such breathtakingly excellent sarcasm in the past that even I, the Curvy Catholic (aka (A)Theist Gal, Stoogeswoman, and other witty nom de ploooooms throughout the entire dang World Wide Web) was taken in - such as his disturbingly well-written non-apology to me for nominating me Godidiot of the Week:

"Christine Lehman is not a Godidiot. I will not longer permit that dishonor to stain her reputation. Upon his return, I shall direct my webmaster to delete forever that cruel and unfortunate post.

For I have looked into the mirror. Shouldn’t we all?"

So when, as noted earlier, I discovered that this highly sarcastic person had announced his conversion to Christianity, I wasn't the only one who was skeptical. Check out some of these comments from that post:

"I personally like to think that this blogger is the greatest troll of all time." (Sam)

Maybe you could provide us with some reasons for your conversion. Until you do that many of us atheists will just assume this is a prank. (Gary F.)

Yet another sheep baa-ing another pointless bleating because he couldn't be bothered to read any of the books that would have settled the matter (the Bible being one of them, Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason" being another). (Holydust [on Pharyngula])

Now to be fair (and I'm sure R A/T will agree with me), some of the atheists' reactions were more reasonable than others. Not all atheists march in lockstep (anymore than do all Christians). But the general consensus among atheists, agnostics and skeptics was: It's either a hoax, or this guy's gone mental.

I didn't think it was a hoax, but I didn't think he'd gone mental either. People are always converting from one worldview to another, for an infinite number of reasons. Even the blogger Obsessed with Reality, while irritated by TRA's conversion, acknowledged that:

"I say then to anyone comfortable in his intellectually-based atheism: your atheism is a result of your personal worldview, and like all humans, your worldview is malleable, and mostly so when reality throws a hot cauldron full of shit into your life."

But what finally convinced me that it wasn't a hoax was this fantastic interview, conducted by blogger Elizabeth Esther earlier this year. I won't quote too much from it - it's worth a read all on its own! But apparently, it was RT's growing involvement in the pro-life movement that eventually triggered his conversion:

"In time, RT found it impossible to believe that the universe was created out of nothing. There was order, direction and love. Those things all pointed to some larger, unfathomable consciousness. He realized he could not believe that human hearts and minds came into being randomly."

What can I add to Elizabeth's excellent interview? Not a whole lot, I'm afraid. I don't now, and never did, know The Raving (A)Theist personally. We've only recently communicated by email (in which he alerted me to yet ANOTHER of his posts where he referenced me by name - "The Blog Code", an amusing parody of that Ron Howard movie - what was it called again? Splash? No, that's not it. Oh well, it'll come to me.) Anyway, he wrote:

"Christine Lehman, A Theist Gal
She is the militant archangel.
She’s a lethargic, militant hen.
She is that chilling man-eater.
Ghastliest, heathen criminal.
Hell! An atheistic nighmares.
(Another evangelical Catholic.)"


("And there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour." - Revelation 8:1)


ANYWAY!

Raving Theist, formerly known as Raving Atheist, welcome aboard the Barque of St. Peter!

It's a marginally seaworthy vessel with lots of alarming holes here and there. But - the more the merrier! And if we all work together, maybe we can bail out enough water to keep us afloat till we get to that other shore!

AG and IndieRoadie, wherefore art thou??

Part II of my piece about "The Raving Atheist" will be coming up later in the week. (Thanks for all the kind responses!)

However, just wanted to remind AG and IndieRoadie, winners of last week's "Mere Churchianity" contest, to send me an email at stoogeswoman@yahoo.com to claim your books.

I hope Zach and Brendan have received, and are enjoying, their free copies by now - please let us know what you think of it so far, guys!

And AG and IndieRoadie - if I don't hear from you by next Monday, I will hold a "Second Chance" drawing and give your copies to someone else. So c'mon guys, don't wait too long! I'll be watching my inbox!

Fool (for Christ!) of the Week: The Raving Theist (Part 1)

I used to laugh, but now I understand.
Shake the hand of a brand-new fool.

-- The Drifters

I used to be known (at least to the handful of people who read my site) as "Atheist Gal". In 2003, I changed my mind and became Theist Gal.

Frankly, I didn't think anyone had noticed, or cared - till one fine morning I discovered that a blogger styling himself "The Raving Atheist" had written the following:

This week’s Godidiot, Christine Lehman of A Theist Gal, was selected not for something she wrote but for what she is — an atheist who converted to Catholicism. Or, technically, a Catholic who converted to atheism who re-converted to Catholicism. Her site used to be called “Atheist Gal,” but she added the space between that “A” and the “theist” after Jesus snatched her back about a year ago.

Wow! I didn't know whether to be flattered or hurt. To be honest, I felt both! Hurt, because - come on, calling someone an idiot? Kind of mean. But flattered? Absolutely - because someone was actually paying attention to my little 5-hits-or-less-per-day website!

Anyway, if you read through the comments section, you'll see that I went to great pains to sound very amused, friendly and world-weary about the whole thing. But you know, there's just so many times you can say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?" without losing all respect for yourself.

So finally, I gave up, wished Raving well, and went on my merry way.

So imagine my surprise when, a couple of weeks ago, I was surfing the Net and wound up reading this, at Elizabeth Esther's lovely blog:

In December of 2008, the popular atheist blogger formerly known as "Raving Atheist" announced his stunning conversion to Christianity. He changed his blogging name to "Raving Theist" and dedicated his site "to Jesus Christ, now and forever."



I couldn't believe it! This had to be some sort of joke! Surely this couldn't be the same "Raving Atheist" who'd once written:

As far as I am concerned, people who wear their faith on their sleeve might as well be wearing dunce caps, “kick me” signs, or propeller beanies. They are shallow, self-centered, self-righteous and ignorant twits who should concentrate on educating themselves rather than imposing their half-baked, half-assed theology on everyone else.

So I checked the link in Elizabeth's article and found that - yes indeedy!! - on December 22, 2008, Raving had posted this astonishing statement:

Three years ago, I promoted and appeared in the atheist documentary “The God Who Wasn’t There,” dedicated to the proposition that Jesus never existed.

TODAY I DEDICATE THIS SITE AND MY LIFE TO THE WORSHIP AND SERVICE OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST.

Um ... wow! Okay. I think. I was, shall we say, cautiously optimistic. I to believe it. But Raving did have a history of - shall we say - extreme sarcasm - as in this post from June 13, 2003, in which he pretended to apologize to me:

Christine Lehman is not a Godidiot. I will not longer permit that dishonor to stain her reputation. Upon his return, I shall direct my webmaster to delete forever that cruel and unfortunate post.

For I have looked into the mirror. Shouldn’t we all?

Yeah sure. And again, read the comments - I kinda realized it was a joke, but it took a while. Cause he was GOOD.

So before I started the "yay-an-atheist-is-a-Christian" victory dance (which all Christians must learn - it's in the Bible, as you know), I decided to email Raving for the straight dope. And in Part 2 of this story, I'll tell you what I found out!

AND THE WINNERS ARE ...

Hey, good morning, everyone! And thanks so much to the seven wonderful people who commented on my blog last week - thus qualifying for a chance to win one of the 4 extra copies I purchased of Michael Spencer's Mere Churchianity!

The seven contestants are: AG, Brendan, E, IndieRoadie, joederbes, John, and Zach (and please note, I'm linking to your blogs, if you have them - free publicity! yay!).

I've just written their names on little pieces of paper (all the same size!) and put them into an empty vase (since the Tupperware bowl is currently in the fridge, full of leftover pasta).

I'm shaking up the vase (isn't this EXCITING??) and now I'm going to reach in - eyes closed! and pull out the name of the FIRST lucky winner! And that first lucky winner is: (drum roll please)

Zach!

Congratulations, Zach! (Scroll to the bottom of the post for instructions on how to claim your prize.)

OK, time for winner #2, and it is:

IndieRoadie!

Wow, congrats, IR! Let's move on quickly to #3:

AG!

Way to go, AG! Now there's just one copy left - who is it gonna be? (I can't wait!) - let's see:

Brendan!

Yayy! Congrats to all of you! Zach and Brendan, watch your email - I'll be contacting you to ask for your mailing addresses. IndieRoadie and AG, I don't have email addresses for you, so would you please contact me at stoogeswoman@yahoo.com? Thanks!

And ... that's all, folks! I'm really sorry I didn't have more than four copies to give away - frankly, I'm so thrilled to have actually gotten SEVEN people to even READ my blog, much less COMMENT on it, that I would have been happy to give every one of you a free book. Unfortunately, economic circumstances being what they are, four is pretty much my limit.

HOWEVER - now that you've found this blog, I hope you'll stick around. Because later this week, I have a really cool story to tell you, about a popular Internet atheist who, rather quietly, became a Christian less than two years ago.

It's really a wonderful story, and had me smiling happily ever since I found out about it the other day - because as it happens, there's a personal connection between this former atheist and myself! So please, bookmark this page, and I promise to have the new post in place sometime before the weekend!

And to everyone who has managed to plod through this post so far - THANK YOU! Show's over - you may now proceed with the rest of your day!

One obituary Christians hated; and WIN A FREE BOOK!!

Many bloggers knew (if only by his own blog, Internet Monk) and loved the late, great Michael Spencer.

His obituary was one none of us wanted to read.

And his widow Diane's harrowing blog post today tells us a lot of the reason why.

Yes, it is hard to lose someone you love. And it's hard to see a "bright side".

But if there is a bright side to Michael's death, it is Michael's life. I don't know if anyone this side of heaven is keeping track of how many people his words at "Internet Monk" have helped. But I'm betting the stats number into the thousands, at least. And I'm humbly proud (is that a thing?) to count myself in there somewhere.

So on the bright side of this post (and yes, in a blatant attempt to raise my blog's hit count - hey, that's how you get people to read you, right?), I'm starting a contest:

FOUR BRAND-NEW COPIES of Michael Spencer's newly published book, Mere Churchianity!

How It Works:

1. Post a (non-spamming) comment on this blog post. (Be sure to include your email!)

2. One week from today (June 21st) at, oh, let's say 10 a.m. (Los Angeles, CA time), I will put the names of everyone who's commented (only one entry per person, sorry!) into a Tupperware bowl, and draw out four names.

3. I'll then e-mail the lucky winners for their addresses, and send them their books!

And again, yes, this is partly to see if I can get more people to read my blog.

But you know what? It's also because I read Michael's book when it was released on the Kindle a couple of weeks ago. And I really loved it!

And I think you will, too.

So come on ... what are you waiting for? Post already!!!

(and P.S. - thanks!!)

Obituaries Christians Like (and yes, I'm plagiarizing !)

I'll say right up front that I'm plagiarizing Jon Acuff's wonderful blog Stuff Christians Like, but it occurred to me this morning that whenever a famous person dies, the first thing a really serious Christian does is check to see if they ever, at any point in their lives, publicly expressed even a minimal amount of faith in Jesus Christ.

Then they breathe a sigh of relief: "whew, I don't have to worry that he/she might be in Hell!"

For example, in the latest round of celebrity, the late Art Linkletter was a "gimmee" - he has long been known as a professing Christian. So he can be presumed to be "safe".

Art Linkletter, well-known Christian: SAFE!

On the other hand, there's a long and, apparently, semi-serious debate at Yahoo! Answers about the eternal fate of poor Gary Coleman. He may, or may not, at some point in his life, been involved in some way with the Mormons. Whether that helps him or not is debatable (of course!).

Gary Coleman: WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN(?)

As I get older, I tend to think God (aka Jesus Christ, late of Galilee and Nazareth) is a lot more patient with us than we think. And that there will be a lot of pleasant surprises in Heaven. Including, perhaps, Gary Coleman.

Q: "Whatchoo talkin' bout, Curvy Catholic?"
A: "Grace!"

Need a plumber?

But not necessarily like these guys?

Here's the story: I was doing my Shovelglove routine a little too enthusiastically this morning (also without the "glove"), and, long story short, broke a pipe.

Waaahhh!!


But after a few failed attempts to fix it on my own, I decided to bite the bullet and call a plumber. The Stooges must have been looking down from heaven, because I found these guys: Schuelke Plumbing - and they did a great job!

That's Schuelke Plumbing, 1-800-397-0093 - and they ain't payin' me a penny for this fabulous endorsement, nyuk nyuk!

But seriously, they did WAYYY better work than these guys woulda done: