Project Conversion

A member of the Project Conversion Facebook page (affectionately called the “Congregation“) recently wrote:

“It is a fact that many women are verbally and physically abused yet many religions put the man over the woman and/or make it a sin for the woman to leave “wedlock”. How can those be reconciled?“

Thanks for asking such a difficult question, it’s what I live for. That, and bathing in acid. Just kidding. Here’s my answer:

Superficially, yes, it appears that women are generally found wanting in the larger world of religion. Of course there are exceptions that stand in the face of orthodoxy and orthopraxy, yet these usually evolve out of reform movements later on in a faith’s movement. Continue Reading This Post »

The past can be a dangerous place. Often magnified by the lens of the present, mole hills indeed become mountains and insignificant creatures become history’s monsters. Like quicksand or a Chinese finger trap, our past sinks its hooks into us the more we struggle with its hold on our lives and perspectives.

“Man…cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.“–Friedrich Nietzsche

Although I’ve removed much of my former prejudice regarding faith and the faithful over the last year through Project Conversion, some of that stubborn excess weight lingers. The trouble is, I’m not sure if the weight is necessarily a negative quality. After all it is weight–our very mass–and its marriage with gravity that keeps us on the ground. Continue Reading This Post »

“Is there a God? If so, what’s he/she/it like?”

“What do you believe about the divine?”

“Is God one essence displaying itself in many forms?“

I get these perennial questions now and then and I assume it’s because of my recent immersion into 12 faith systems from around the world. It seems that I am at most, an expert on the matter, or at the very least, capable of some spiritual and flowery b.s. that makes everyone happy enough to quit asking.

Turns out, I’m neither.

Project Conversion, folks often forget, was not a journey in discovering faith, but in rediscovering people I once hated. Yes, I had some trippy experiences. Yes, one could say that I found God, but as they say, “the devil is in the details.” Continue Reading This Post »

My phone rang around 4:30 yesterday afternoon, just as I had finished washing a sink full of dishes. I looked at the caller I.D. and smiled. I tapped the “answer” button and said, “Allah’u'Abha!”

It was my Baha’i Mentor from February of 2011, Dr. McCormick. She still gets tickled by the fact that I remember the Baha’i greeting.

“Allah’u'Abha Andrew, how are you?”

“Oh I’m hanging in there. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I know you’re busy these days, but we’re having Study Circle tonight and I wondered if you’d like to attend?”

I stopped drying a plate. “Did you say ‘we’?”

“Yes! There are a few people coming over who are investigating and I thought who better to help me than my old student.”

Frankly, she had me at Allah’u'Abha. Continue Reading This Post »