After a while, if you’re committed, you start to believe in the things in which you’re praying. It’s just cognitive dissonance. You can’t live a completely religious life and not start to have it sink in.
A. J. JACOBSRelated Topics

After a while, if you’re committed, you start to believe in the things in which you’re praying. It’s just cognitive dissonance. You can’t live a completely religious life and not start to have it sink in.
A. J. JACOBSThe best we can do, to paraphrase Pollan, is to eat whole foods, mostly plants, and not too much.
A. J. JACOBSGiulia Melucci has written a wonderfully funny and moving book. It’s like Eat, Pray, Love, with recipes.
A. J. JACOBSI found there were things about religion that I really loved; things like the sense of gratefulness that it brings.
A. J. JACOBSIf my former self and my current self met for coffee, they’d get along OK, but they’d both probably walk out of the Starbucks shaking their heads and saying to themselves, “That guy is kinda delusional.”
A. J. JACOBSI grew up in a very secular home with no religion at all, so I was starting from zero.
A. J. JACOBSSince I was relatively new to the Bible, I was surprised by the Old Testament God. He’s wrathful, but at other times, He’s incredibly compassionate. He’s not a one-dimensional figure at all.
A. J. JACOBSI thought religion would eventually wither away and we’d all be worshiping at the altar of science.
A. J. JACOBSThere’s a beauty to forgiveness, especially forgiveness that goes beyond rationality. Unconditional love is an illogical notion, but such a great & powerful one
A. J. JACOBSWhen I was with the serpent-handlers in Tennessee, it was the most bizarre method of worship I could think of. Yet when you sit with these people, you can kind of see how it makes sense.
A. J. JACOBSI’d recommend learning to accept rejection. Become friends with rejection. Be nice to rejection, because it’s a huge part of being a writer, no matter where you are in your career.
A. J. JACOBSPaintings! They’re like TV, but they don’t move.
A. J. JACOBSIn trying to avoid one sin I’ve committed another.
A. J. JACOBSMore people die on a per mile basis from drunk walking than from drunk driving.
A. J. JACOBSIt comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality?
A. J. JACOBSI thought religion would make me live with my head in the clouds, but as often as not, it grounds me in this world.
A. J. JACOBS