{"id":2530,"date":"2014-06-07T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-07T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/?p=2530"},"modified":"2014-06-06T14:37:11","modified_gmt":"2014-06-06T19:37:11","slug":"oh-ye-of-little-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2014\/06\/07\/oh-ye-of-little-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh, ye of little faith&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_2531\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2531\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/06\/BpGDFaFIMAAaK40.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2531\" alt=\"Just try to ignore the irony for now\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/06\/BpGDFaFIMAAaK40.jpg\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" srcset=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/06\/BpGDFaFIMAAaK40.jpg 960w, https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/06\/BpGDFaFIMAAaK40-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2531\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Just try to ignore the irony for now (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ScholarMrsV\/status\/473303568192000000\/photo\/1\">source<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I don&#8217;t generally write for a Christian audience, but this is one of those times where no one else can help. Back when I was still a Christian, the internet was so new that people were hooking up at <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/ISCABBS\u200e\" target=\"_blank\">ISCABBS<\/a> and sending each other relatively low-res jpegs via e-mail. The idea of internet dating had not really taken off yet, and certainly we didn&#8217;t have hyperspecialized dating websites such as <a href=\"http:\/\/christianmingle.com\/\">Christian Mingle<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jdate\" target=\"_blank\">JDate<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.muslima.com\/\">Muslima<\/a>. We had to get by meeting single people at church, and for the most part we did get by. My church youth group was particularly prolific, producing multiple marriages per year in the late 1990&#8217;s, including my own.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2538\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2538\" style=\"width: 278px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/06\/worst-targeting-ever.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2538\" alt=\"Worst. Targeted. Ad. Ever.\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/06\/worst-targeting-ever-278x300.png\" width=\"278\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/06\/worst-targeting-ever-278x300.png 278w, https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/files\/2014\/06\/worst-targeting-ever.png 471w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 278px) 100vw, 278px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2538\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Worst. Targeted. Ad. Ever.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>These days, though, we have websites where Christians (and\u00a0Jews, Muslims,\u00a0etc.)\u00a0can find love and become <a href=\"http:\/\/www.openbible.info\/topics\/being_equally_yoked\">equally yoked<\/a> with someone of their own faith. I understand the impulse here, religious differences are bound to be a additional stressor on any romantic relationship, especially if childrearing becomes an issue. That said, is it not sort of faithless to resort to the intertubes if you really believe that you already have God on your side? An all-powerful and all-knowing being wants you to find love (or else you&#8217;d be sinning to even have a go at it) and\u00a0you pray for Him to guide your search, but when the rubber hits the road you resort to modern technology based on scientific breakthroughs to make it happen, just like anyone else would. Why?<\/p>\n<p>If you really and truly believe that God answers prayer, why not simply\u00a0ask Him to tell you whom to marry and how to find them?\u00a0(Probably ask Him to drop them a line as well.) Surely this is not a big lift for the creator of the entire cosmos, who sees every sparrow when it hits the ground and (eugenic bonus!) who knows which people carry recessive genes for various genetic disorders and can\u00a0easily arrange for healthier offspring.\u00a0If this idea takes off, it will have the additional bonus of making it demographically and genetically obvious, after a time, which religion is indeed the One True Faith. As if finding love isn&#8217;t incentive enough, you&#8217;ll be helping to save the entire world!<\/p>\n<p>Log off, let go, let God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t generally write for a Christian audience, but this is one of those times where no one else can&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism","category-counter-apologetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2530"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2540,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions\/2540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}