Baxter Williams
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baxterwilliams.bsky.social
Baxter Williams
@baxterwilliams.bsky.social
Discussing Christianity, science, and sometimes philosophy (mind & epistemology) on the internet.

Pandeist. God-fearer. Ex-Christian.
I'm only here to talk about nice, calm, non-controversial subjects like God and religion.

I have alts for politics, thank you very much.
November 12, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Sorry, not trying to be anti-Christian. Just trying to poke fun at how easy it is to be a heretic 😅 (clearly not getting the tone across that I meant to)

I've seen orthodox Christians laugh at memes like this one
November 12, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Imagine being granted a physical separation by the state because of your husband's ferocious cruelty, but still being obliged to meet his sexual needs upon request.
November 12, 2025 at 5:30 PM
I wonder if Jesus would have agreed with the "marital debt" that Paul describes. I'm guessing not.

This idea has created an incredible amount of harm since the early church started taking it as verbatim speech of the Holy Spirit, despite Paul saying it wasn't a command.
November 12, 2025 at 5:24 PM
More compelling is the command to treat "the least of these" like you would treat Jesus. Except that is a command for individuals, not really a command for the pooled collection of tithings in the church.

So it's not the best reference.
November 12, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Whether the food and drink should be distributed to non-Christians is tricky though. Scripture only shows the food and donations going to thosewho are believers, except for possibly this passage showing it went to greek-speaking Jews which might not have been Christian, but only maybe.
November 12, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Just in case it comes up again (It will probably come up again) here are the relevant passages.

Just ask: "what are tithings for?"

Per scripture, they are for food and drink to distribute to any who has need, including (but not limited to) those who preach the gospel full-time and lead the church.
November 12, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Oh, man it's going to suck to get the lake of fire and sulfur for being cowardly.

You are too scared of being tortured to death by the state, and verbally say you aren't Christian, so you get even worse treatment after death as a result.
November 11, 2025 at 8:03 AM
I'm both proud and disgusted with myself
November 7, 2025 at 11:42 PM
Optimizing my depraved gacha gaming by learning about Markov chains.
November 7, 2025 at 11:35 PM
A small part of me really wants to listen to this just because conservative women attitudes are really mysterious to me, but the rational part of me knows that this would add nothing of real value to my life.
November 7, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Lay-person Christianity sounds way more fun than orthodox Christianity.

Much more vibes-based. Way less systematic.

I could never.
November 7, 2025 at 5:24 PM
It's a real bummer to me when posts like this don't allow comments OR quotes. I wanted to commiserate and add my own experiences with my parents.
November 6, 2025 at 2:49 AM
But I'm not sure the advantage is enough for me to leave my current system and reset.

I'm 100s of cross-linked and sorted documents in...

(I have other folders for politics and science, but the Christianity folder is relevant to this account)
November 6, 2025 at 2:45 AM
For some reason I was confident that you would say 4 is false.

Thanks for writing this.
November 6, 2025 at 12:30 AM
How many layers of trust are between you and God? How many humans are you trusting to speak for God?

Most don't realize how many humans they are giving the authority of God too. Not just the biblical authors, but many additional layers of interpreters too.
November 6, 2025 at 12:10 AM
This screenshot makes it seem as Lewis still doesn't address the main concern I'm looking for people to address. Namely, that the outcome is not a gamble for anyone not permitted to survive childhood.

I've only seen him touch on it once.
October 31, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Given what I currently think about God, it would be like getting mad at the DM for what the DM rolled.
October 30, 2025 at 7:13 PM
It's easy to push me into a state of atheism, so when things get tough and the big picture concepts fade into the background, I just quickly abandon God rather than get angry at God.
October 30, 2025 at 7:06 PM
I just found out that if atmospheric co2 ppm reaches 900, our indoor co2 will hit 1400pmm, and we will lose 25% of our cognitive function.

Great.
October 29, 2025 at 3:55 AM
Honestly the economy has always been at least a little bit "planned" ever since the industrial revolution.
October 27, 2025 at 6:00 PM
I guess my catholic friends growing up were wealthy, I had heard from Ryan Burge that atheists were generally uneducated, and I had just assumed the stereotype of the wealthy Jew was baseless b/c I assume most stereotypes about Jews are baseless.
October 26, 2025 at 1:10 PM
the term you are looking for is "outrage fatigue"
October 25, 2025 at 2:23 PM
How did you know??
October 25, 2025 at 2:54 AM
That's so cool that all these attractive women with zero followers are suddenly interested in my religious journey!
October 25, 2025 at 2:16 AM