When 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.
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.
I don’t believe that prayers actually change God’s mind – if there is a God – but I liked praying for people in need. It was like moral weightlifting. I tend to be self-obsessed, and it was nice to get out of my brain once in a while.
Since 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.
My reading list grows exponentially. Every time I read a book, it’ll mention three other books I feel I have to read. It’s like a particularly relentless series of pop-up ads.
When I went to Israel, it was a little disorienting, because there are so many people who look crazy and were dressed like me. There, I was just one of the apocalyptic crowd.
There’s a beauty to forgiveness, especially forgiveness that goes beyond rationality. Unconditional love is an illogical notion, but such a great & powerful one
It 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. Jacobs Quote - How do you gag the voice in your head that says, ‘You don’t have to [do it] today. There’s always tomorrow.’?](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/how-do-you-gag-the-voice-in-your-head-that-says-yo-683x1024.jpg)
