What Do You Think of This Recent Blog Comment?

I regret that I have been neglecting the blog lately, I never truly realized how much time rebuilding a house could consume until I actually started it. It's been a week since my last blog post, and in the past, I wouldn't have ever let that happen, but life is really getting in the way of blogging.

Even when I'm not posting regularly, I still get a decent amount of pageviews for the blog (the baseline is usually about 1,500 readers a week), mostly because of my past posts on the Independent Fundamental Baptist cult, I get quite a few people coming to the blog because of search terms related to the IFB, many of those posts are popular months later.

Most of the comments I get on those posts aren't great, some are IFB apologists trying to deny the problems within that organization, or claiming that it's only a few churches that are doing this, ("This doesn't go on in my  IFB church!"), some have been so bad that I have had to delete them before they ever get published.

One recent comment, though was far different, and I wanted to know what you out there in the blog audience thought of it (original comment can be read on my post about IFB leader Bill Gothard):

Undercover Agnostic: (Update 13) Post-Father's Day Thoughts

Of course, yesterday was Father's Day in the US, and churches often take part in ceremonies honoring fathers. The church I am undercover in (hopefully only for a few more months), is no exception to the tradition.

The singing was done by the male members of the choir, and one of them, who recently become a father himself, and is an avid comic book fan, went up onto the podium with both him and his infant son in Superman capes. (I suppose he was saying he was "superdad"). It was rather amusing to watch.

Father's Day is a much easier holiday for me to celebrate than Mother's Day, my feelings about Mother's Day are worse than my feelings about Christmas. To me, it's even more hollow, and joyless, and I don't like the expectations that are upon people to celebrate it joyfully like everyone else does.

Father's Day makes me grateful for my father, especially after I just finished a guest post I wrote for the blog Confessions of a Heretic Husband. The post isn't up yet, and the time of the writing of this post, I'm still awaiting word on when it will be published. It was one of the hardest posts I have ever forced myself to write.

I'm not going to give away much of what is in it, but it talks about my last 5 years, the time since my infamous nervous breakdown. I spill it all, and what I have had to deal with from my mother. Let's just say that emotional abuse doesn't stop when you turn 18. There's details of my life which I have felt too humiliated to talk about until now.

That post made me grateful for my father. As bad as my life has been with my family, it could have been worse without him. You see, on the surface, my family seemed like the typical fundamentalist family when it came to gender roles. My father worked full time as a mechanic (until he had to go on disability when I was 14), and my mother was the stay at home mom, homeschooling me. What people didn't often see was that the roles were truly reversed.

Questions for My Readers (and a Few Ideas)

Lately, I have been wondering how you, my readers feel about the blog. What do you want to see more of around the blog? What do you want to see less of?

Apparently, I'm making my audience happy somehow, there's been over 1,400 people reading the blog this week, but I want to know what exactly I should be doing in the future.


I want to know what kind of posts you as a reader prefer. What is your favorite series on the blog? Exposing the IFB ? Exposing Extremism ? Undercover Agnostic ? Or would you rather see more non-religion related posts like my post on catfish and St. Louis area culture? Am I keeping a good balance of religion vs non-religion related posts? Do you want to see more guest posts and/or Q and A interviews?

I really want to know what works when it comes to promoting the blog too. How did you find the blog? Was it through my Google + page? Was it because of a guest post that I wrote for another blog? Did someone share one of my posts on Facebook or Twitter?

Did I find you instead? I wonder if some of the bloggers that have become fans of this blog have come here because I found them first, and started commenting on their blog.

I just want to know what works. Though I started this blog as a way to just vent whatever came to mind, and help to move on from my past, ( I never expected anyone would really read it), I feel many times an obligation to my readers. Though I still use the blog to vent sometimes, I feel like I don't want to write what the readers don't want to read.

I want to know what keeps readers coming back for more of my writing.

Finally Debt Free

Today, I sent in a check covering all of the remaining amount I had left on a loan. I won't receive a paid in full notice probably until next Friday, but it already feels good.

It's more than just a financial victory, though I will be saving quite a bit of money by paying it off about 4 years ahead of schedule, but it's a major symbolic victory as well.

The debt was the remaining amount left from educational loans, money still owed from the college where I had my nervous breakdown. It's the closing of a chapter in life, a new start, and a way of saying that I'm starting to take back control again. It's rather appropriate that it happened just after New Year's day, a new year, a new beginning This year will be much different than the last.

This will free up even more money each month for me to save for a house, by this time next year, I should have the money to move from where I am now, and if all goes well, I'll finally be able to come out as an agnostic.

Life will be much better, and I'll truly be able to start over again. The planning is there, now I just need the patience. I'm thankful to everyone who has been reading this blog, listening to my opinions, and to my story. I'm not where I should be in life yet, but I'm getting there, and writing this blog has helped a lot in my recovery, helping to put my past behind me.

Sharing my story has allowed me to confront my past, and move on, within a year or so, I'll be moving into a new chapter in life that has it's own challenges, I'll keep everyone updated even then, letting you know how I am doing, and about the new struggles.

Post-Holiday Doldrums

Well, Thanksgiving, Christmas, as well as some other lesser celebrated holidays have come and gone, and I have noticed a sense of weariness among people. Everyone seems to be just going through the motions, senses slightly dulled, tired, but there's a lingering hostility under the surface too. It's as tough people are just frustrated with life anymore, but too tired or content to do anything about it.


I have noticed that blog readership is down dramatically (and two other bloggers have also told me that they have seen the same happen to their blogs). It seems as though people are tired of discussions,except for about guns, that is, it seems like that's the one release valve where everyone is venting their frustrations at the world, I had a discussion yesterday on guns that went over 300 comments, and went on long after I went offline yesterday afternoon, lasting all night long.

An Open Letter To My Readers

When I started this blog, I honestly did not know what I would write about. I opened the account on Blogger in August at the recommendation of my blogging inspiration Godless Poutine, and I had no idea what I would post about, there was no one certain focus to it in the beginning. I wondered if I would shut down my blogging experiment after a few weeks, and without any readers.

I did find my main focus after a few weeks. Today, I have become well known for my posts telling the story of my fundamentalist past, both here, and on other blogs, as well as exposing dangerous cults like the IFB and Sovereign Grace Ministries.

I Wasn't Gone That Long!

Well, I come back to my blog on a Saturday night, after being offline since Wednesday, and not posting since Monday. Life gets in the way of blogging sometimes, and apparently fans of the blog had been used to me posting four or five days a week, like I had for the previous two weeks.

I come back, and it was as if I was gone for a month or two. Several fans of the blog comment saying that they missed me, and my weekly readership count had went down from an average of 500 readers, to 215 at last check. Apparently not posting at least several times a week leads to people getting bored. I understand the frustration of my readers. I mean, you start out reading, decide you enjoy the writing, and then all of a sudden, it stops. Annoying, right?

I feel the same way about some of my favorite blogs, though some of them post rarely instead of irregularly. I get into great blogs like Incongruous Circumspection, Confessions of a Heretic Husband,  Past Tense, Present Progressive and Leaving Fundamentalism, which have incredible writing, and great personal stories behind them, but they don't post often enough. I know people are busy, just like I am, but it can be a frustrating wait for more great posts that only come around sometimes as infrequently as twice a month. Speaking of Leaving Fundamentalism, I still haven't heard anything further from it's author, Jonny Scaramanga about the guest post he was going to write. Oh well, I'll wait until it arrives, and let everyone know when I've finally received it.

Blogger has a feature that allows you to "schedule" a post, write it now, and determine at what time and date that will go up automatically on the blog, I have thought of writing posts in advance when I have the time, so that I will have a reserve of posts that I can release later, making for a more regular blogging schedule, and readers will be able to expect regular posts. What do you as a reader think of this? I'm not sure if it will post to Google + as well as the blog, when it auto posts, so I don't know how effective that will be, but I can try it. If I could get more guest posts, then this would be much easier to do, if you have something to write about for my blog, let me know at ramblingsofsheldon@gmail.com. I don't know if my readership numbers will start coming back to their original levels once I start blogging regularly again, but I could use some help, if you like a post, click to share it on social media, using the buttons at the end of each post, help to spread the word, it will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading the blog, and I hope my blog list on the homepage here kept you occupied while I was gone, I always try to promote great bloggers when I come across them on both the blog and on my personal Google + page. Let me know you are out there, join the discussion either by leaving a comment at the end of the post, or talk to me on Google +. Having more readers is always great, but I want more engaged readers, people who join in on the fun, that would truly mean more to me, more people discussing the topics rather than simply reading and moving on.

Why Am I Still Blogging?

I have been blogging for nearly two months now, and I have truly been humbled at the response to the blog. Never would I have imagined that I would be average about 500 readers a week (who knew that many people would want to read my rambling posts?), and as of right now, 3,124 readers total over the life of the blog. I never knew it would take on such a life of it's own. I enjoy interacting with fans of the blog on comments, and on Google +, I've had some great guest posts written for the blog along the way, and even wrote a two part guest series for the blogger that inspired me to start blogging in the first place (Godless Poutine of My Secret Atheist Blog), which was a great honor.

I've exposed some dangerous Christian extremist groups like the IFB movement, and Sovereign Grace Ministries, shared some poetry from a great poetry writer, shared some laughs with a guest post written by Andrew Hall of Laughing In Purgatory, and shocked a few people with the guest post Happy Clappers, the bizarre story of a Google + follower's childhood exposure to fundamentalism. It's been a wild ride.

Despite all the fun, I'm beginning to wonder why I am writing the blog. I'm wondering why I'm spending so much time talking about religion, why it's become such an obsession for me.In some ways, I feel like I'm doing something important, exposing the horrors inflicted on people in the name of religion.

Many people who have never heard of groups like the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) movement are downright appalled when they hear about the rampant pedophilia, (and sometimes retribution against victims and people who speak out against it, as I talk about in my post on Bob Jones University), the way they isolate themselves from the outside world (and force their young people to do the same), and their extreme beliefs and hatred including homophobia and misogyny. (Side note, see my post I Actually Don't Hate Religion as to why I use the term fundamentalist instead of Christian).

Sometimes, I feel it's necessary, and in a large part, I think my past experiences are driving this, but I have to wonder, what is my point in posting this? What am I hoping to accomplish? Why am I doing this?

I appreciate my readers, but most of them are skeptics and non-religious people, as to be expected from a blog like this. Is there anything that skeptics like us can do about the horrible acts committed by religion? The  people who really should be reading this blog aren't reading it, the fundamentalists that need to be confronted about this, and called out on their claim that you can not be a good person without believing in their religion (or at least in a god). Anyone with a skeptical mind (or has read my Exposing the IFB/Exposing Extremism series), can tell you that those who are part of fundamentalism aren't doing a very good job at being moral with a belief in god.

Many fundamentalists won't listen, though, they would rather try to explain it away, or attack the messenger, but there's a small subsection out there that though they may not respond, it will take effect eventually.

You see, there's people out there just like I was around a little over two years ago, who was teetering on the brink of unbelief, someone who didn't know if I truly believed in it all anymore, I was confused, felt guilty for doubting, and searching for answers

 It was during this time, that my faith was shaky that I started noticing just how awful the morals of people claiming to be hard core, fundamentalist believers in Christianity actually were. The people around me who were not Christians were actually more moral people, and lived out more the love others attitude that Jesus advocated. I talk about this in part 2 of my guest post for My Secret Atheist Blog, it led me to think: "If God truly is real, why isn't that reflected in the lives of the people who are supposed to be following him?" Aren't they supposed to be the moral example to the world?

If only I could reach this kind of audience, I feel like I could do more for this world, but I don't know if I am having this kind of impact at all. For every person who comments about the blog on Google + or directly on the blog, there's 40 or more people who read without commenting, how do I know who I'm reaching, and what kind of impact these posts are having?

I have also been questioning my motives in all of this. Fundamentalists often call former Christians/fundamentalists like  myself "bitter". The condescending tone they use when saying this implies a petty person who can't get over minor slights and annoyances, they almost draw a picture to the effect of a child screaming because mom won't buy them candy.

I think they get this picture from the number of "re-converts", prodigal sons/daughters who come back to fundamentalism. Many of these people claim that they only left out of "rebellion" or :"wanting to sin". This may lead them to think that those who have left, and won't come back are only using the pain of the past as an excuse to leave, so they can lose all sense of self-control. To be fair, some people to lose their sense of self control after leaving Christianity (especially young people), but it's because of an over reaction to the new found freedom they have found from the suffocating, impossible to meet standards they were raised into.

Others nearly have a nervous breakdown when they finally leave, they feel lost, their whole world was wrapped around their faith, what do they do now, especially since they came from an extremely isolating environment, and never got to experience the world before, and the outside culture. This was my experience when I left for college at 18, it was overwhelming, and led to a complete mental and physical breakdown, complete with depression, fatigue and panic attacks. This was 3 years before I even left fundamentalism, but just the exposure to the outside world that I was never allowed to experience was enough to create this reaction.

I have been questioning myself, have my past experiences actually made me "bitter"? Is this why I keep going after fundamentalism with such a fury? Is it nothing more than a personal vendetta, spite  against those who have wronged me? Should I be bitter?

Sometimes I think I'm more angry at myself than I am at people around me. After all, I'm the one who for 21 years, believed in all of it, the entire lot. Talking snakes? Yes, that's true! Noah's Ark? It actually happened! Hate anyone who doesn't look, think, act, like me and the people in my fundie circles (especially gays and people of other religions)? Yes! Try to make everyone live life according to the way I was taught by the church through the force of government? Absolutely!

How could I have been such a fool?

I know I was raised into this system literally from birth, but shouldn't I have seen the contradictions in the Bible, the damage that this belief system causes to the world, and the evil committed in it's name much sooner before I did? What does this say about me that it took so long to finally see it all?

I really don't know, maybe I'm just in a bit of a burnt out state right now......

Scholar Awarded Templeton Prize for Proving Jesus' Virgin Birth

The Templeton Prize Awarded to Dr. Deepak Oz Mountebank

 Dr Mountebank

The Templeton Prize, the annual award given to one who has “made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension,” was awarded to Dr. Deepak Oz Mountebank today for his groundbreaking work in facultative Parthenogenesis. Dr. Mountebank awoke this morning by the Templeton Prize team holding a gratuitously large check for 1,100,000 sterling (approximately 1.8 million US dollars). The researcher quickly placed his spectacles on and surveyed the smiling faces and camera crew. “At first I feared for my life,” stated Dr Mountebank. “Then I saw the check, and knew I hit the proverbial pay dirt.” 

Dr Mountebank’s paper, Facultative Parthenogenesis and the Virgin Birth of Jesus, took the faith-based science world by storm earlier this year. It was first printed in the religiously-reviewed Journal of Speculative Biology. Since then a host of other periodicals such as The Metaphysical Review, The International Apologetics Society and Theoretical and Applied Dogma have confirmed Dr Mountebank’s central thesis: Jesus Christ was born of a virgin via the well know biological process known as facultative Parthenogenesis.

Facultative Parthenogenesis, broadly speaking, is when a captive female of the species produces an embryo from an egg with no input from a male. While the process is not uncommon in the plant world and in some invertebrates, there are some examples of Parthenogenesis happening with creatures of the higher orders. For instance, scientists have discovered through genetic testing that some female wild snakes have been found to produce offspring without the aid from a counterpart. Even the common barnyard chicken can produce viable eggs without a cock-a-doodle-doo.  – Dr Mountebank

The granting of the award created quite a stir amongst those who follow the Templeton Prize. March is the traditional time that the august honor is given, but the committee thought that an important paper such as Facultative Parthenogenesis and the Virgin Birth of Jesus warranted an extra prize this year. Dr Mountebank humbly agreed with them.

On the matter of how Dr Mountebank came to the conclusion that Jesus’ birth was caused by this biological process the researcher stated, “I prayed about it, and the Holy Spirit ministered to me.” Indeed, the other researchers who corroborated the findings also found that the Holy Spirit revealed the mystery to them after a few minutes of intense reflection.

Sheldon's note: The above post is a guest post by Andrew Hall of the blog Laughing In Purgatory, and is a work of satire. I have enjoyed reading his blog for several months now, it reminds me of an atheist version of The Onion. I'm honored to have him write a guest post for Ramblings of Sheldon. Pay his blog and Google + page a visit, you won't regret it.....

Why I Love Google +

Google + is like no other social network out there, and it's been great for promoting my blog, most of my early readers probably wouldn't even be reading the blog had they not found out about it on Google +.

I love how it's such an open format, and it's easy to share posts, and add people, with Google + "circles", you can send an invite to up to 500 people from a shared circle with two clicks.

What I really enjoy about Google + is the variety of people, and the fun I have interacting with them about the blog, anything I re-share from popular posts, and even my own personal rants in status lines.

Case in point is this, I put up a status ranting about the fact some of my followers were getting hit by what I like to call "report Nazis" , an obnoxious group of people who have nothing people to do than to get overly offended by people's post, and report them for it, causing Google to censor their posts. These people don't have the decency to simply remove people from following and/or block them if they don't like their posts, instead of reporting, and they're too cowardly to admit it was them when it happened.

Well, one Google + follower decided to be offensive as she could be, out of spite of these cowardly reporters, and the resulting conversation took a hilarious turn, with several other people joining in.

Eventually the post ended with a serious discussion on religion, but before it did, the content though funny, is not for the easily offended.....

I love my Google + followers! :)

I'm Proud to Announce Some Recent Success In Promoting the Blog!

I've always been looking for new ways to promote the blog, and generate more readers, and I'm proud to announce that I have had a few successes in that regard lately.

First, the blog is back to running almost 500 viewers a week now, after taking a dip recently to about the 300 range. Partly this is because of some recent success in promotion on Reddit, but also views will now be coming from another source as well. I recently opened the blog e-mail, ramblingsofsheldon@gmail.com and got a nice surprise. The administrators of a local website that I have been a part of in the discussion board for 2 years now, have decided to feature my blog on their homepage! Check it the homepage at Granite City Gossip. Thanks Lori and Katy, owners of  Granite City Gossip for the honor. :)

Here's a screen shot:










Also, I am in the process of writing a guest post for one of my favorite bloggers (and a big supporter of my blog), Godless Poutine of My Secret Atheist Blog. I'll let you know with a big announcement once that is written, and when he posts it.