I sometimes read articles from mainstream conservative pastors and theologians. One of these is the famous Doug Wilson who blogs at Blog and Mablog. Well, recently he was attacked by a secular left feminist named Sarah Stankorb. I looked over her recent articles, and a pattern emerged about what she – and the women she writes about – think that Christianity is about.

Here’s an article entitled “These Evangelical Women Are Abandoning Trump and Their Churches”.

She talks about a woman named Katie Loveland, who leaves her church for the following reasons:

1. If a church allows a man to act like a fool towards women, then Christianity is false.
2. If a church allows a man who has passed a background check and holds a concealed carry permit to be armed so he can protect church members from attacks like this one, then Christianity is false.
3. If Christians support a politician who has a pro-life record of demonstrated achievements over a politician who promises to remove all state and local restrictions on abortion from conception to birth, then Christianity is false.

And another woman named Elaina Ramsey, and her reasons for rejecting Christianity:

1. If Christianity requires you to disagree with your gay and queer friends, then Christianity is false.
2. If Christians refuse to marry you because you’ve been raped, then Christianity is false.
3. If the Bible records (and condemns) the rape of Bathsheba by David, then Christianity is false.
4. If Christianity teaches that murdering humans is wrong, and science says that the unborn are human, then Christianity is false.

And more about another woman named Deirdre Sugiuchi, and her reasons for rejecting Christianity:

1. If your father claims to be a Christian and spanks you, then Christianity is false.
2. If you are sent to an abusive Christian reform school for being rebellious, then Christianity is false.
3. If Christianity feels anti-gay, anti-black or anti-woman, then Christianity is false.
4. If the United States opposes Al Qaeda for carrying out the 9/11 attack, then Christianity is false.

Are you seeing a pattern here?

It turns out that a lot of emotion-based people claimed to be Christians and were accepted as “Christian”, without any rational basis for believing it. And later on, when Christianity made them feel bad about being reckless and irresponsible, or when it loses them non-Christian friends, then they abandoned it. It’s not that they discovered that Christianity is illogical. It’s not that they discovered evidence to falsify Christian truth claims. Their stated reasons for leaving Christianity are entirely subjective. And none of the reasons do the work of falsifying core Christian truth claims, such as God’s existence, the inspiration of the Bible, or the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus.

Just to review, here are some of the reasons why authentic Christians believe in Christian theism:

• scientific evidence for the origin of the universe
• scientific evidence for cosmic fine-tuning
• scientific evidence for the origin of life
• scientific evidence for habitability
• scientific evidence for sudden origin of body plans
• scientific evidence for molecular machines
• scientific evidence for irreducible complexity
• the argument from consciousness
• the argument from objective morality
• the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus

These arguments – and many more like them – are defended by scholars in books published by top academic presses. But I see no evidence that emotion-based ex-Christians have ever read such books. Why would they? They aren’t interested in forming their worldview based on objective reality. They aren’t interested in constructing a life plan where their desire for happiness comes second to following Jesus.

People who abandon Christianity because of feelings or experiences have not “left Christianity”. They just stopped faking being Christians. They were never actually Christian in the first place. To be a Christian in the first place, you have to know that Christianity is true. People who accept the arguments for Christianity listed above have just as many disappointments with God, bad experiences with Christians, and bad experiences with churches as people who were guided by their emotions and experiences. 

In fact, I personally know women who grew up fatherless, or had defective parents, or other setbacks. They got themselves into a lot of trouble with churches and immoral men, and yet today, not only are they solid Christians, but they actually take the lead in gospel enterprises, such as apologetics. Why? Because for them, the objective truth of Christianity was more important than their subjective feelings and experiences.

The differences between Christians and non-Christians is that Christians overlook bad feelings, shame and rejection, because we know facts don’t care about our feelings. For real Christians, the normal Christian life requires bad feelings, disappointments, bad experiences and rejection by non-Christians. We actually read the Bible, and so we expect bad things to happen to us.

Note: if you are relying on someone to act in a Christian way – say, as a marriage partner – then you’d better find out what kind of “Christian” they are, by asking them how they arrived at their beliefs. Do not marry a fake Christian who just reads romance novels and fiction. A person can’t determine the truth of Christianity by focusing on career, travel, entertainment, promiscuity, etc.

In this post, I wanted to alert you to some books that I’ve been reading, and post a couple of videos that review a recent movie that fits in with those books. I’m trying to encourage everyone to ween themselves off of fiction, self-help, sports and modern movies. And in order to get people to do that, I have to find something better.

So, in World War 2, the Allies (UK, USA and USSR) were fighting in two main areas of the globe: Europe and the Pacific Ocean. Previously, I had ignored the Pacific, because island fighting didn’t seem to me to be as interesting as fighting in Europe. It just seemed too “close quarters” for any real tactics or strategy. But I had stupidly neglected the naval battles, which are full of tactics and strategy. So, I’ve been reading books about American aircraft used in the Pacific theater, the US submarine forces, as well as the major battles of our surface fleets.

Here are some of the aircraft books:

• Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor
• Air Apaches: The True Story of the 345th Bomb Group and Its Low, Fast, and Deadly Missions in World War II
• Never Call Me a Hero: A Legendary American Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers the Battle of Midway

Here are some of the submarine books:

• Wahoo: The Patrols of America’s Most Famous World War II Submarine
• Clear the Bridge!: The War Patrols of the U.S.S. Tang
• Thunder Below!: The USS *Barb* Revolutionizes Submarine Warfare in World War II

And a few surface ship books:

• The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History)
• Neptune’s Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal
• World War II at Sea: A Global History

These are all available as audio books.

I wanted to specifically highlight the book on the Battle of Midway, by Craig L. Symonds. There was a recent movie made about the battle, and it had surprisingly few historical mistakes. This 2-part video review was excellent.

Part 1:

Part 2:

The movie is from 2019, and you can still stream it, or get the DVD. It will help you to have a broad overview of the battle, and then when you read the book, it makes sense. If you have never seen a war movie, this is an excellent one to start with. It really sticks to the historical facts. It is superior to the previous 1976 Midway movie with Charleton Heston and Henry Fonda.

What makes this particular battle interesting is that the American Navy was actually outnumbered and outgunned by the superior Japanese Navy at that time. They had more ships, better planes, and better trained airmen and sailors. But we had a secret weapon – you’ll have to watch the movie to find out what it was. Midway was the turning point of the Pacific War. It’s a good reminder why we always need to keep our “blue water” naval force in the trim. I wish we spent more on our armed forces than we do on all these spending programs to transfer wealth from taxpayers to other people – subsidies and welfare. At least when we spend money on the armed forces, it’s Constitutional, and we get something useful for it.

We really should not know the names of famous actors, artists, musicians, athletes, etc. These people are pretty and talented, sure. But they never did anything to fight against evils like Marxism and Japanese Imperialism. Christianity is a faith that pits good against evil, so naturally, I am very interested in people who battle against evil. The American armed forces have an excellent record of battling against evil, often at great personal cost. Something that the current generation of entertainers cannot match.

In the past, I’ve written about how we need to get rid of no-fault divorce laws, if we expect men to feel comfortable about getting married. I’ve explained that men have seen what divorce does to other men, and to children. Some of us, like me, have read books and studies about it. And it’s a major reason why men don’t marry.

In today’s post, we’re going to look at an article in the far-left New York Times, written by a pro-abortion progressive feminist professor, who divorced her husband, making her two children fatherless.

What did he do wrong? Nothing.

Behold:

There was no emotional or physical abuse in our home. There was no absence of love. I was in love with my husband when we got divorced. Part of me is in love with him still. I suspect that will always be the case. Even now, after everything, when he walks into the room my stomach drops the same way it does before the roller coaster comes down. I divorced my husband not because I didn’t love him. I divorced him because I loved myself more.

[…]I made choice after choice to prioritize my career because I believed fervently in the importance of the work I was doing… [children of divorce] benefit because happier mothers are better parents.

[…] I knew that trying to force myself to subordinate my ambitions and always put our children first would have been impossible without lopping off a vital part of myself.

At the time of her decision, the children were aged 5 and 3! If she chose her career, that means that she was not raising them, during that critical first five years. Daycare is proven to be a poor substitute for the mother during those early years.

CafeMom notes:

No one is more acutely aware than Bazelon is of the many things she’s missed as a mother — things that have stuck with her through the years so strongly, she can mentally list them off one by one. They include, in her words: “My daughter’s seventh birthday, my son’s 10th birthday party, two family vacations, three Halloweens, [and] every school camping trip,” she writes. “I have never chaperoned, coached or organized a school event.”

My daughter’s seventh birthday was the worst. She cried… But I had a trial starting the next day, six hours away.”

Now, what about her statement about divorce being good for children, because if she is happy, then they will be happy? Many women believe this, and most communities for women affirm this. But is it true? What does the peer-reviewed data say?

Here’s a famous study (PDF) that says: (H/T Philip Greenspun)

This follow-up study of 131 children, who were 3–18 years old when their parents divorced in the early 1970s, marks the culmination of  25 years of research. The use of extensive clinical interviews  allowed for exploration in great depth of their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as they negotiated childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and adulthood. At the 25-year follow-up, a comparison group of their peers from the same community was added. Described in rich clinical detail, the findings highlight the unexpected gulf between growing up in intact versus divorced families, and the difficulties children of divorce encounter in achieving love, sexual intimacy, and commitment to marriage and parenthood. These findings have significant implications for new clinical and educational interventions.

Specifically: (I stole this from Philip)

Hardly any of our subjects described a happy childhood; in fact a number of children told us that “the day they divorced was the day my childhood ended.” … By the 25-year mark, the majority had decided not to have children.

No child of divorce in our study was invited by both parents, either separately or together, to discuss college plans. … Only 57% of the divorce group achieved their bachelor’s degree as compared with 90% in the comparison group. … Unhappy, [those who did attend college] settled for fields of study that were not their first choice, at lower ranked institutions than their parents had attended. It was at this time that one young person, echoing the emotions of many others, commented bitterly, “I paid for my parents’ divorce.”

The central finding of this study is that parental divorce impacts detrimentally the capacity to love and be loved within a lasting, committed relationship.

This study was actually made into a book, and I read it. That’s partly how I formed my views of divorce. In her column, the feminist refutes data like this with an anecdote. She “knows a person” whose experience refutes the peer-reviewed evidence. I don’t find that kind of self-serving rationalization very convincing. But it’s common.

By the way, I also read books about daycare when I was thinking about marriage, and I hate daycare, too. You would think that a smart feminist academic would read books about marriage, divorce and parenting like I did, and respect the evidence in her decision-making, rather than being led by her feelings.  I’m just a senior software engineer with 22 years of private sector experience. But I sure wouldn’t make decisions about marriage and children without reading books and studies first. What’s that old familiar saying in Information Technology? RTFM. Read The Freaking Manual. Engineers read the manual. Emotion-based people don’t.

Women may say to all this, “well, what do you expect me to do? Be unhappy with a bad man?” And the answer is – if you have children, then yes. The time to avoid getting married to a bad man is before you marry him. And we should teach women to disregard feelings, feminism, and peer approval. They should instead prepare themselves for marriage with chastity and sobriety, and choose men who are sober, chaste and have demonstrated commitment ability.

So here’s my conclusion. I don’t recommend that any man marry a feminist. If they are willing to kill their own children, then they are willing to abuse their own children with divorce. If they believe in same-sex marriage, then they don’t think that children deserve a mother AND a father. Don’t marry a secular leftist woman. You’ll pay, and your children will suffer.

Homeschooling moms who influence their neighbors, their local church, and the local university, for Christ, have the better end of the marriage deal. If I were married, I would trade places with my wife in a minute, if I could. It’s far more interesting to homeschool kids in great literature, science, economics, and computer programming, than it is to keep your mouth shut all day in an environment that is hostile to Christian convictions.