Figuring Out What I Believe About "The Prince of Egypt"

Scene of Moses leading the Israelites, from "The Prince of Egypt: The Musical." Image source.

[I guess I'll put a spoiler warning: spoilers for the biblical story of the exodus]

Did you know there is a musical version of "The Prince of Egypt"? Yes, this is amazing, I was on a plane recently looking at what movies they had, and they had "The Prince of Egypt: The Musical." !!!!!! I watched it and it was AMAZING. I love the cartoon movie "The Prince of Egypt," and this musical version was all that and more. Seriously, if you're a fan of "The Prince of Egypt," try to get your hands on this musical version, it's incredible. Here's a trailer I found on youtube.

At the end, when the Israelite people are finally free from slavery in Egypt, and they're celebrating, singing the song "When You Believe," I was so into it, thinking to myself "I believe this. I believe in a God who is powerful, who parted the Red Sea and saved people."

And then I was like, wait, what? We're talking about the bible story of the exodus here. I very much do NOT believe this is a true story. For one thing, I've read posts from bible scholars like Peter Enns which say there just isn't archaeological evidence that a huge population of people came out of Egypt and wandered through the desert, eventually settling in Israel. For another thing, the way the plagues would have DEVASTATED the Egyptian economy, if this was a true story. Egyptians would have starved to death, with plague after plague attacking various aspects of their agricultural system. And then the 10th plague, the death of the firstborn sons- every family in Egypt lost their firstborn son. That's horrible. In order to free Their people from slavery, God needs to kill all those innocent children- seriously? That's the God you wanna believe in?

(See also, the best bible fanfic I have ever read: Lament for the Slave Girl in Pharaoh’s House by Micah J. Murray.)

So what's going on with me? Why am I feeling like "I believe this"? What on earth?

So I thought about it for a while and I figured it out. It's the same feeling I had while watching "A Muppet Christmas Carol."

I don't actually care about sending plagues, or parting the Red Sea, or this drama about whose god is the most powerful. I don't believe in any of that. The part I believe in is people being freed from slavery, people celebrating, people working together. Happiness. Freedom. Love. 

When people are happy, when people love each other, when people are free from oppression, I believe God is there. But also, we shouldn't wait around for a miracle to happen. We need to help each other. We need to work to make the world better. Don't expect God to come and save us; we have to do the work to save ourselves.

I used to really want to see miracles, because it would be *evidence* and I could be sure my beliefs were *right*. But now I'm like, there are things more important than being right about whether God exists, etc. Things like helping each other. Liberation. Love. Turns out that's what I believe about "The Prince of Egypt."

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Related:

"Muppet Christmas Carol" Is My Religion

Blogaround

Links not related to that felon:

1. The Struggles and Strengths of China’s Bereaved Youths (April 24) "The death of a parent violently shakes a bereaved young adult’s understanding of life. To integrate this disruption into their life narratives, they are forced to revise their conception of what life means."

2. Air China A350 Safety Video (2022) You know how nowadays, every airline does their safety spiel in the form of a cutesy little video? Well last time I was on an Air China flight, I got such a kick out of this, it's so cute and so over-the-top Chinese, I simply must share it.

3. Lord Of The Dance Hymn (Contemporary Worship Song) (2020) One of my favorite songs about Jesus.

And this is also one of my favorite songs about Jesus: michael card--God's own fool 

While we're on this topic, here's this one too: Rich Mullins - Sometimes by Step 

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Links related to that felon:

As always, if you're too stressed out about everything going on, find 1 tangible thing to do. Protest, donate money, get connected with local groups that support immigrants. We need everyone to do at least 1 little thing that actually makes a difference. Being stressed out about the news all the time does *not* count.

1. World War T is exhausting (April 24) "Retailers in the first months of 2025 are trying to do now what they would have done in the first months of 2020 if they had known that a pandemic was coming ahead of time."

And: Has Trump cancelled Christmas? China's decorations makers report no US orders (April 10) "'So far this year, none of my American customers have placed any orders,' said Qun Ying, who runs an artificial Christmas tree factory in the eastern city of Jinhua."

2. Trump administration reverses abrupt terminations of foreign students’ US visa registrations (April 25) This is good news- but also, it sounds like ICE is still planning to go after international students.

3. Trump Has Now Deported Multiple U.S. Citizen Children With Cancer (April 26) "One of the children is a four-year-old suffering from a rare form of metastatic cancer and was deported out of the country without medication or consultation with their treating physicians — despite ICE being notified in advance of the child’s medical needs. The civil rights organization says that the mother of the two-year-old is pregnant, and was deported without ensuring any continuity of prenatal care or proper medical care."

4. U.S. judge says 2-year-old apparently deported to Honduras 'with no meaningful process' (April 26) "'The Government contends that this is all okay because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her,' Doughty wrote. 'But the Court doesn't know that.'"

5. PhD Timeline (April 25)

6. The difference between the police and the secret police (April 28) "You cannot watch that video without clearly and obviously understanding that Öztürk is a victim and that she is being victimized by … well, by the Bad Guys in this story."

7. Protesters chant after arrest of judge accused of helping man evade immigration authorities (April 27) "'The judiciary acts as a check to unchecked executive power. And functioning democracies do not lock up judges,' Democratic state Rep. Ryan Clancy told the crowd before it marched around the area."

Children's Bibles and "turning ambiguity into clear articulations"

Illustration showing Cain bringing a bunch of vegetables and Abel bringing a sheep to a bonfire. Image source.

I've been reading the book "Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles" and I want to show you a quote from the chapter "Translating the Bible into Pictures" by Rubén R. Dupertuis. This chapter examines several comic-book-style adaptations of the story of Cain and Abel, from Genesis 4.

Here's a summary of the Cain and Abel story: Adam and Eve had 2 sons, Cain and Abel. Cain farmed vegetables and Abel was a shepherd. Both of them brought some of their produce/meat as an offering to God. God was pleased with Abel's offering, but not Cain's. Cain is mad about this, so he murders Abel. 

Here's what Dupertuis says on page 282:

As translations these Bibles [the comic-book bibles discussed in this chapter] are clearly on the domesticating end of the spectrum, but that is precisely the point. The stated goal of these comics is, in some way or another, to make the Bible accessible and fun for children. Several aspects about how this is done are worth noting. What is portrayed, including how it is portrayed, is filtered through contemporary beliefs about what is appropriate for children. This includes the decision to turn stories full of ambiguity into clear articulations of contemporary morals. But since what is deemed appropriate social behavior varies, it is worth noting the different reasons given for God's refusal to accept Cain's sacrifice. Both the Comic Book Bible and Picture Stories emphasize Cain's lack of appropriate attitude and jealousy, while the Manga Bible highlights Cain's laziness and, in particular, his greed-- he simply did not give enough. Particular details may differ, but that these Bibles serve to reify contemporary values and morals places them squarely within the long tradition of children's Bibles (Bottigheimer 1996).

Wow, this line- "to turn stories full of ambiguity into clear articulations of contemporary morals."

Yeah, let's talk about this: Why didn't God accept Cain's offering? The bible doesn't say. No reason is given at all. (It does say, when Cain was angry about this, the Lord tells him, "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?" so probably this means there was *something* he had done wrong with his offering? Or maybe God was referring to how Cain was jealous of Abel.)

I remember when I read this story as a kid- I assumed the reason was that when people made a "sacrifice" in bible times, it had to involve killing an animal- if it was just vegetables, that didn't count. I remember thinking it was unfair to Cain because his work was in farming vegetables- he didn't *have* animals to sacrifice- how could God hold that against him? I don't really know where I got this fan theory from, not sure if I made it up myself or if I heard it from someone else. 

But later I heard the fan theory that the reason God didn't accept Cain's offering was that Cain's heart wasn't right- that he was just grudgingly going through this ritual, without a genuine desire to serve God. This made more sense to me than the "God thinks vegetables don't count" idea, so I then believed this was probably the reason.

The children's bibles discussed in this chapter of "Text, Image, & Otherness" make very clear statements on what exactly Cain did wrong. They show Cain saying things like, "Abel is always sacrificing to God. Maybe this old plant will do for me." The bible itself is confusing on this, but these children's bibles completely get rid of that confusion, making it obvious that Cain is lazy or selfish or greedy or resentful or whatever they've decided his sin is. Whatever fan theory these modern writers have concerning the story of Cain and Abel.

The bible is confusing sometimes- it just is, that's just a fact- but we present it to kids like it's not confusing. Like it's all perfectly clear and understandable and reasonable. If you really think about it, this is bonkers- it was written thousands of years ago, in ancient languages, in a culture completely different from ours, sometimes using literary genres we don't even have any more- and we present it like it's all very easily understandable for us. Maybe we have a study bible which has little boxes on the pages that give historical background on some aspects of the text- there, there you go, read the little boxes and the bible is totally understandable.

Cain and Abel both brought sacrifices for God. God accepted Abel's but not Cain's. Why? What did God have against Cain? And we want to embellish the story, to fill it in with fan theories about what Cain did wrong, because we're scared that someone is going to read this story and think that God rejected Cain's offering for no real reason- that someone is going to think badly of God because of that. Christians who believe in biblical inerrancy are terrified of things like that. Someone might read the bible and understand it in the "wrong" way, oh no!

Christians are especially scared of this when we tell these stories to children.

Actually, I don't necessarily have a problem with embellishing the stories- this is unavoidable, really, if you're making a bible story into a whole illustrated book. What I really want, though, is to make a clear distinction between what the bible actually says, and what's fan fiction. I think a really cool way to do this would be to tell the same story multiple times, but with these "fan fiction" details different each time. I've never seen a children's bible that did that, but it would be cool!

The way that Christians write children's bibles is based on our ideas of what moral lessons *we* think children should learn. If something in the bible is confusing, we don't want to tell kids it's confusing- we want to spin it in a way that we can understand and accept it. 

Why did God reject Cain's offering? We don't know. Really, we don't know. Obviously there are things we don't know about an ancient book.

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Posts about "Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles":

"Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles" (I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH)
David and Jonathan's (One-Sided) Friendship 
Who Cut Samson's Hair? (a post about reading the bible for what it is) 
The way we write children's bibles is "an act of bad faith" 
Children's Bibles and the 2 Creation Stories
Children's Bibles and "presenting mass slaughter to children" 
Children's Bibles and "turning ambiguity into clear articulations"

Related:

Reviews of Christian Children's Books 

Everyone Else's Nadab and Abihu Fanfics 

Why on Earth Did I Ever Expect the Bible to be Anything Other Than Incredibly Weird?

"Hallow" and self-centered Christianity

Logo for the Hallow app. Image source.

Apparently there's a prayer app called "Hallow." Amanda Marcotte writes about it here: An atheist's unnerving descent into Hallow, the prayer app beloved by MAGA celebrities. I want to highlight this part of her article, because it's very insightful:

Most of this material doesn't seem political, but it does encourage a form of small-minded narcissism, with the relentless focus on the self. The Jesus of the Hallow app isn't much concerned about social justice or caring for the downtrodden, but about being your good buddy who strokes your hair after a bad day at work. The "demonic" forces the believer is called upon to resist aren't grave evils like human rights abuses. Satan seems more interested in frustrating you with traffic than, say, installing a fascist leader in the White House to destroy democracy. It doesn't seem political, but the project of lulling users into not caring about anything outside their immediate self-interest suits the goals of the MAGA movement. And it's probably more persuasive to ordinary people than overt right-wing propaganda. This isn't the Christianity of the liberal Christians I know, who volunteer, donate money, and care very much about electing better leaders. This is a "don't worry your pretty head about all that stuff" kind of Christianity. 

Wow. This is really a spot-on description of the evangelicalism I was raised in. ("Hallow" was made by Catholics, actually. But this description feels familiar to me, as an ex-evangelical.)

The way this article describes the Hallow app- about how it offers encouragement for little mundane issues like disagreements with one's coworkers, etc- how it's just about you and your own little world and God's place in it- all of this feels very normal and expected, to me. It's honestly a bit jarring how Marcotte seems to have expected a Christian prayer app to be about "social justice or caring for the downtrodden." Yeah sure, in my experience evangelicals kinda care about those things, but they are way far down the list- the most important thing is your own heart, your own attitude towards God, your own personal devotion to God, your habits around praying and reading the bible. 

"don't worry your pretty head about all that stuff" is absolutely right. I really have heard evangelicals say the real-world results of our attempts to do good don't matter. The only thing that matters is that God sees that your heart is in the right place. Seriously. Evangelicals really say that the whole world belongs to God, and if God wants a thing to happen, it's going to happen- nothing we can do to change that- so the only thing we really have control over is our own attitude, and that's what God will judge us for.

Evangelicals *do* take action to help the world. Sure, yes, they do. There are evangelical charities. Plenty of churches have food pantries to help local people in need. But as I said, it's way far down the list. That's not what comes to mind, when evangelicals consider questions like "what does it mean to be a Christian?" or "what does God want us to do?" The answers to those are, read the bible more, pray more, work on your personal relationship with God.

I find I am 0% surprised that when conservative Christians made a "prayer app," it ended up being about nothing more than the little world inside your own head. The little God who closely tracks your feelings as indicators of how devoted you are, but does nothing about human rights abuses in the world.

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See also, this post from the Slacktivist: Toddlers on a treadmill: Why evangelicals can’t even take baby steps toward justice

Related:

On believing that "prayer works"

"Hey God, you and I both know..." 

Renee Bach, who had no medical training, opened a clinic in Africa. Just like missionaries are supposed to.

Blogaround

 Happy Easter!

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Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Pope Francis, voice for the poor who transformed the Catholic Church, dies on Easter Monday (April 21) 

2. How I developed a game (April 21) "If you’re just starting out as a hobbyist, your entry point is one or two tiers down from indie–a tier that you may have never played yourself."

3. Mississippi Supreme Court Allows Judge to Block Name Changes for Trans People Under 21 (April 23) "Name changes related to gender transition are singled out. Other name change requests—such as an 18-year-old woman who wants to take her husband’s last name—do not seem to be subjected to the same level of scrutiny."

4. ‘Chemistry Mahjong’ Aims to Make Science Fun (April 23) Cool!

5. Tennis Balls (April 23) From xkcd.

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Links related to the antichrist:

A lot of links today. As always, you don't have to read all of them. There's no benefit to making sure your anxiety is up-to-date on every single bad thing going on. What actually does matter is that you do something. Do something. Protest, help immigrants, check on your trans friends, donate money, contact your Congress people.

1. Judge Blocks Passport Ban For Plaintiffs, Citing Government Animus And Equal Protection (April 19) "The judge ruled the policy was “arbitrary and capricious,” likely in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, the Paperwork Reduction Act, and the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. The judge also ruled that the decision was based in animus and discrimination towards transgender people. While the injunction currently applies only to the named plaintiffs, a broader ruling protecting all transgender Americans is expected in the coming weeks." This is very good news for trans people!

2. Hitchcock for Dummies (April 21) "Here you have the premise for a dozen different Hitchcock-style thrillers. How does your protagonist get tangled up in international conspiracies and espionage? Simple: They are mistakenly included on a group-chat amongst the conspirators."

3. Mahmoud Khalil misses son's birth after ICE official denies his request to be there (April 21)

4. Hegseth 2nd Signal chat cause for 'worry' about nation's security, says Rep. Jim Himes (April 21) "No, I can't imagine why his wife, his brother and his personal lawyer would need to know particular aircraft that are to be used in an upcoming attack."

5. A Chicago man was deported to an El Salvadoran prison, his family says (April 16) "Panicked, YD frantically searched online for more information on the whereabouts of her partner. That’s when she discovered a video, shared widely on social media, of U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem touring the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, a maximum security prison in El Salvador."

6. CDC's cruise ship inspectors laid off amid bad year for outbreaks (April 10, via) "At least a dozen outbreaks have been documented so far this year on cruise ships, mostly from norovirus. Some of those outbreaks have made headlines for sickening dozens or even hundreds of people."

7. New images could change cancer diagnostics, but ICE detained the Harvard scientist who analyzes them (April 22, via) "When asked how many people in his lab could do all of that, he said simply: 'That was only her. It was only her.'"

8. Inside Trump’s Upstate NY migrant hunt: Border Patrol’s meaner tactics snare workers and families (April 17, via) "They have been charged with no crimes other than illegally entering the U.S. They are brothers, spouses and parents. They replace roofs, make tamales, mulch suburban gardens and pack apples. They work the day shift and the night shift. They buy houses, pay rent and taxes."

9. The courage to be decent (April 23) "What matters is that acts we once took for granted as virtuous, routine, and safe — telling the truth, representing those oppressed by the state, providing legal aid to the powerless, volunteering to work at a polling site, basic journalism — now carry some risk. They now require some courage. Maybe the government won’t send you to prison. At least not yet. But it can make your life really difficult."

10. Elon Musk's baby mama drama matters (April 21) "Musk has over a dozen kids, but doesn't seem to have a family."

11. Did the Supreme Court Just Grow a Spine? (April 22) "Trump was attempting to make an end run around the Supreme Court’s authority, and not only did the court tell him “no,” it told him “no” in the middle of the night, without even letting his lawyers or his Manchurian justices (Thomas and Alito) spit out their objections."

12. Funding cut for landmark study of women's health (April 23) "The study, begun in the 1990s, has produced a series of groundbreaking results and was continuing to gather valuable data about women's health."

These MAGAs claim they're "protecting women" by searching high and low, possibly inspecting everyone's genitals, to find 1 middle-school trans girl trying to play sports, so they can ban her. And at the same time, things that actually do help women, like this scientific study, are getting cancelled. 

13. NIH autism study will pull from private medical records (April 23) WTF!

14. How to find upcoming protests made EZ (April 21)

Do y'all know that conservatives think trans people don't exist?

A heart shape with the colors of the trans flag. Image source.

There's something a bit off in the way that American society has been talking about trans issues. It's the way people have wildly different opinions on the question "do trans people really exist?" and this affects their entire perspective on trans issues, and yet nobody is stating clearly their position on this question.

Conservatives believe trans people don't really exist. Seriously, they really believe this. If you don't get that, you won't be able to understand what conservatives' goals are here- and how dangerous and harmful their proposed policies would be.

On the "progressive" side, I'm really unhappy with Democrats for not putting forth a clear message that trans people exist and deserve to have rights, just like anyone else. Why is this being talked about like it's just some political "issue," that voters may have various feelings on, and Democrats are waffling about, trying to decide what "strategy" to use? Why aren't Democrats talking about the fact that trans people are people, who just want to live their lives like everyone else- they are real people, they really exist, and so they should have their rights protected.

As for the people who feel they are "in the middle" on this issue- I don't know what that even means. To try to talk to someone about their opinions on health care or sports or bathrooms or whatever, it's impossible to get an actual understanding of their position, if they don't clearly state whether or not they believe trans people exist.

When I say "trans people exist", I'm defining it like this: There really exist people who thrive when they are able to transition and live as the gender they want to be. There really exist people for whom social transition (changing name/pronouns/clothes) and/or medical transition are life-giving. There really exist people for whom transition is medically necessary- rates of depression and suicide are very high for people who want to transition but can't. For some people, transition is genuinely a good thing, and so of course they should have the right to do it; they should have the right to live a life where they can be happy and thrive. Society should recognize that this is a real thing, a normal part of the range of human diversity, rather than treating them as a threat and making overly-controlling laws about who's allowed to use what bathroom.

Conservatives do not believe this. They believe there are only two sexes, and whichever sex God made you, that's the one you are supposed to be. Staying in your gender role as God intended is how people live their best life. If somebody *thinks* they're trans, if somebody transitions, it's always a bad idea- even if they're happy in the short term, it's not really what's best for them. What's best for everyone is they stay in their "natural" gender role that God gave them.

The orange antichrist's executive order says, "It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.  These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality." These people literally believe trans people do not exist. Every law the MAGAs are making is based in this foundational belief. Sure, they start by claiming they're concerned about children being too young to transition, or whatever, but don't be fooled- they're not okay with adults being trans either. They really believe trans people do not exist.

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I know this because it's just like how they used to believe gay people didn't exist

In the early 2000's, evangelical Christians believed gay people did not really exist. *I* was an evangelical Christian and *I* believed gay people didn't really exist. When we talked about gay people, it was always about how they're pushing their "homosexual agenda" on society, to destroy marriage, to recruit kids to the "homosexual lifestyle," etc. We talked about it like it was an "issue" that we had to push back against, to get those bad gay people to knock it off and stop being gay or whatever. It was a big scary issue out there- not something that any of us could relate to, not something where we might actually know real people who were gay, and know them to be good people.

It was in 2009, when I went to Urbana (a big Christian missions conference for college students) and saw Christopher Yuan speak, that I was first truly hit with the realization that gay people really do exist. (Really? Christopher Yuan? He's one of those gay Christians who believes gay people should just repress themselves and never date or anything...) I saw the reality that there really are gay Christians, and they are doing their best to follow God, just like I was. They weren't trying to "destroy marriage" or do any of those bad things I had heard.

Around that time, in the gay Christian community, there was "side A" and "side B"- side A means you believe that God accepts same-sex relationships, side B means you believe gay people are required to be single and celibate. Sides A and B are for the Christians who believe that gay people exist- there is also another perspective, which I sometimes saw referred to as "side X", which is basically just being hateful and talking about gay people like they're this disgusting evil "issue" rather than real people. (And honestly, as a straight person I don't think I should be allowed to take a position on side A vs side B- straight people should be side not-telling-other-people-what-to-do-with-their-personal-lives.)

Back then, there were many Christians who did not use the term "gay" but instead said "same-sex attracted" or "struggling with same-sex attraction." Nobody *really was* gay- this same-sex attraction was just a temporary condition that had come over them, perhaps because of childhood sexual abuse, or maybe they didn't bond with one of their parents well enough, or whatever other trauma had happened to them- and what they really needed was to heal from that trauma. Then they would become straight.

Seriously, even side-B gay Christians- these are the gay Christians who have committed themselves to never dating, never having sex- got hate from straight Christians because they identified as gay. The idea that being gay was an actual real thing, an actual real identity- many straight Christians could not accept this.

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The "Joan or John" article from The Gospel Coalition

In 2014, conservative Christian site "The Gospel Coalition" published an article called Joan or John? by Russell Moore, which presented this hypothetical scenario: Suppose you're a pastor, and someone (Joan) comes to you and says she recently became a Christian, and she wants your advice with a hard question. See, actually she used to be "John" and she transitioned. But now that she's a Christian, she sees the error of her ways, obviously- but what should she do now, in practical terms? What does repentance look like for trans people?

This question sounds very reasonable from a conservative Christian perspective. It's completely premised on the assumption that trans people do not really exist. But WOWWW when this was published in 2014, trans Christians and allies had A LOT OF THINGS TO SAY about it.

This question could only be dreamed up by someone who has no idea how hard trans people have to work to access gender-affirming medical care. No idea how it feels to finally be able to transition- how life-giving it is, how right it feels, the joy that comes with it. Dreaming up an imaginary trans person who says "transition was just a silly thing I did because I wasn't following God, I guess now that I'm a Christian I'll just undo it." [my paraphrase, not an actual quote] This question only makes sense in a universe where no one really is trans. Where there exists NO ONE for whom transition is a good thing. And yes, of course conservative Christians believe that's the world we live in. God made you a man, so you'll only truly be happy living as a man.

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Regret

Conservatives make a big deal about transgender "regret." They're even directing the National Institutes of Health to come up with some research that shows transition is bad and causes people to regret it.

Statistics show that the number of people who regret transitioning is a very small percentage- smaller than the regret rates for other medical procedures which nobody is making into a big political issue. But still, there are a few, and conservatives make a big deal about it.

Here is how conservatives imagine this goes: When people say they "regret" transitioning, they are saying, "Oh my goodness, how did I really believe that nonsense that a man can change into a woman? How was I so brainwashed that I actually believed that? Now I finally see the truth, that the best thing for me- for everyone- is to just be the gender I was assigned." They're imagining what it would take for someone to convince *them* to transition, and how bad it would be for them.

Coming from the perspective "trans people don't really exist," this is what they imagine "regret" looks like.

But in reality, "regret" can be a lot of different things. Some people de-transition because they want to transition but they lose all support from their family- this rejection makes it feel like transition is impossible, so they make the difficult decision to go back to presenting as their assigned gender. Or, some people know that they're not cis, so they think they must be a binary trans person of the opposite gender- but later they find out that nonbinary is also a thing, and feel that fits much better. Or maybe someone identifies as a trans woman or trans man, and has the assumption that this means there's a checklist of medical procedures they need to go through in order to transition- but later they decide, actually, they don't really want to do all of those. Transition was presented to them as a one-size-fits-all thing, but then they decide that's not exactly what they want. Some people have regret because they have a bad experience with a particular doctor.

Rather than proving that trans people don't really exist, regret and detransition show how important it is that people understand their full range of options. Gender is an even bigger spectrum that we think.

But it's so hard to talk about regret at all, because people will jump right to "trans people don't really exist."

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Pretending to be trans as a "social experiment"

As another example of the vast difference in perspectives on the question "do trans people exist" and how nobody explicitly states their position but it affects everything: Here's a video from Kat Blaque, Josh Seiter's Fetish Was NOT A Social Experiment. It's about how this guy named Josh Seiter told everyone he was a trans woman, as a "social experiment" (and posted a lot of videos on social media that were kinda bizarre, like saying that trans woman should get prostate checks from gynecologists, or something along those lines, I don't remember the details) and then later revealed that he's actually not trans. And this is supposed to prove something. Like prove how wrong people are to accept trans people, or something? Fooled them, haha!

And Kat Blaque, the youtuber who is discussing this, was like, so his friends accepted him as trans, and then... lol joke's on them? Huh? 

Yeah, if somebody told me "I'm trans" and then later told me actually it was just a "social experiment" and they fooled me and I should feel bad, I too would be like "? I don't get it."

But secretly I do get it. From the perspective of the conservatives who believe trans people don't really exist, this reads like "I fooled you into thinking a man can identify as a woman, lol that's such obvious nonsense." But for those of us who believe trans people really do exist, and feel that the fact of trans people existing is just self-evidently true, it's like... "Why wouldn't I believe that you're trans, if you tell me you're trans? Some people really are trans. That's a real thing. So it's certainly plausible that *you* would be trans."

For people framing this as a "social experiment," it's not about "you believed *I* was trans, lol, joke's on you" but "you believed *people can be* trans."

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We need to take "trans people exist" as a starting point when talking about any of these issues

When debating about bathroom bans, or sports, or gender-affirming care for minors, or any of these issues, the fact that trans people really exist should be a foundational premise, explicitly stated. There really do exist people for whom transition is the right thing, it is life-giving, it is medically necessary. There really do exist people who were assigned male at birth, but find they are much happier living as a woman, or vice versa, or as a nonbinary person. This is a real thing, and of course people should be allowed to transition if it's a good thing for them- and they should be treated as normal members of society who deserve respect and have rights. 

When considering any of these questions, treating them as real people who have rights. Not some scary "issue" that can be forced to go away if we just ban enough things.

And I suppose there are some people "in the middle" of trans debates, whose position is "I want to help the people who really are trans, but now it's gone too far and kids are getting all ~confused~ about gender, and pressured into transitioning when it's not the right thing for them." I don't know what to make of this either. Are kids *really* being pressured into identifying as trans and/or transitioning? Obviously there is no shortage of right-wingers claiming this is true, but these are the same people who think trans people don't actually exist at all- obviously untrue, I have met trans people who told me how life-giving it was to transition- it is extremely easy to find trans people saying this! (If you need links- here, here, here, it's really not hard to find.) So I don't really believe any claims these right-wingers are making about this.

Perhaps there are some isolated incidents of people hearing a teenager saying "I don't get what gender is" and then deciding "You must be trans! Let's rush you off to get hormones and surgery right now!!!!!!" (Not that they could *literally* do this, because there are many hoops to jump through to actually get hormones and surgery...) In which case, don't do that! If anybody really is pressuring kids, well, stop it! But I really don't believe that's a common thing that's happening. 

I think, if you believe that no one actually is trans, then it comes across as "pressuring them" to even talk about it in front of kids like it's a real possibility.

And if someone really is questioning their gender, what they need is more resources and information. They should talk to people who have had similar experiences. There's a whole range of gender identity and gender expression- being exposed to more diversity will help people to understand what's right for them. (Of course, if you believe no one actually is trans, then talking about gender diversity just muddies the waters- people should just be pushed harder into their assigned gender role, that's what's right for everyone.)

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Conclusion

Every "trans issue" you see in the news right now has 2 completely different interpretations- if you believe trans people exist, you will view these issues in one way, and if you believe trans people do not actually exist, you will view these issues in a completely different way. In either case, the conclusions follow quite logically from the initial assumptions about whether or not trans people exist. But all the discussion and debate I see about this has people talking past each other, talking about totally different things, because almost no one is explicitly stating whether they believe trans people exist. Start with that! They obviously do exist! Trans people are trans because they actually are trans, not because they want to be creepy in women's bathrooms or anything ridiculous like that. They exist, and they should be treated fairly and have their rights protected just like anyone else. Start with that, and everything else becomes easier.

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Related:

Everyone is missing the point about these "parental notification" laws 

How to Pretend to Welcome Trans People

"The Berenstain Bears: The Very First Easter" (kids' book review)

Book cover for "The Berenstain Bears: The Very First Easter." 

I got this book for my kids: The Berenstain Bears: The Very First Easter. Here's my review of it.

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Summary

This is a book which gives a very basic outline of these events from the bible: Palm Sunday, the Last Supper, praying in the garden of Gethsemane, Judas's betrayal, Jesus being questioned by Pilate, the crucifixion, the angel at the tomb, and Jesus appearing to his disciples again after his resurrection. Each of these events is described pretty briefly, just a few sentences.

All the characters are depicted as bears because this is the Berenstain Bears universe.

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My take on this book

My son is at the age where he's learning to read. My daughter is at the age where she likes to tear books with her fast little hands. This book is not for her, lol. It's paperback.

I'm starting to teach my son bible stories, but he doesn't know that many of them yet. We don't go to church, and yeah, you know from all my other blog posts that I have a lot of issues with how bible stories are typically presented to children. I want him to know the stories, but I want to avoid all the problematic messages I got from these stories when I was growing up evangelical.

For the Easter story specifically, my 2 main concerns in telling this story to kids are:

1. How much graphic violence is shown when Jesus is tortured and crucified?
2. Does it say "Jesus died for your sins" or anything like that?

The Easter story, as told in the bible, is extremely violent. Jesus is beaten, flogged, a crown of thorns is stabbed onto his head, he is forced to carry his cross, his hands and feet are nailed to the cross, and then after he dies, a soldier stabs a spear into his side. 

It's a lot!

In my experience, Christians are a little bit too enthusiastic about how graphically violent this all was. Making a big deal about how Jesus needed to die the worst death ever, to pay for all our sins. How it was so horrific but he chose to do it out of love for us, and we should feel really really bad about our sins that did this to him.

I don't view it this way any more. I've read stuff from black Christians and/or feminist Christians who do NOT see it as a good thing that Jesus [supposedly] suffered the maximum possible amount of suffering. In the book, "The Cross and the Lynching Tree," James Cone says that Jesus was lynched. American Christians should all read James Cone. I've read articles from feminist Christians about why it's harmful to portray Jesus' suffering as a good thing- this has direct consequences in the way that women are socialized to put up with bad behavior from men, and marginalized people are told to accept their oppression because suffering is good for them and God will reward them in the long run- like, hey, it's not cool to tell people that suffering is a good thing because it makes them like Jesus- how about instead, we make society better so that people don't have to suffer in the first place?

Okay but can we get back to talking about the Berenstain Bears? How does this book portray the violence of Jesus' death?

This book doesn't really show any of the violence at all- it just says Jesus was hung on a cross, and died, and the illustration shows the silhouettes of people on the three crosses, but it doesn't show any violence beyond that. No blood. Nothing at all about Jesus being beaten/flogged.

I think this approach is very good. I want my son to know the basic plot points of the story, but I don't think there's any need to show all the graphic violence to kids.

And for my second concern: Does this book say anything about "Jesus died for your sins"? Because I don't want to teach my kids that.

No, "The Berenstain Bears: The Very First Easter" doesn't say "Jesus died for your sins." It pretty much just gives a simple overview of the story, and doesn't get into any questions about why things happened or what they mean. It doesn't say anything at all about what Jesus' death and resurrection mean for us. Seriously. Nothing. It doesn't say anything about sin. There's no "so we need to believe in Jesus," nope, nothing like that at all. It's actually quite surprising.

I feel that it's really good to have a book like this, which simply tells the story without also presenting an interpretation from some particular brand of Christianity.

My son asked me a lot of "why" questions, while reading this. Why did Judas betray Jesus? Why did people want to kill Jesus? I told him a few different possible reasons, but said we don't really know for sure, and people have different interpretations.

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In which I make a joke about Catholics

In the part about the Last Supper, the book says that Jesus said, "This bread and wine is like my body and my blood." I then remarked, "I guess this wasn't written by Catholics" and then my husband and son both said "what?" so I guess I shouldn't make any clever little remarks that reference obscure debates within Christianity like that. Turns out my household is not the right crowd for that.

(Catholics believe that when Christians have communion, the bread and wine *are* the body and blood of Jesus, rather than being *like* the body and blood of Jesus. I don't understand what that even means. I always went to churches that believed it was a symbol. Note that in the actual bible, Jesus says "this is my body" and "this is my blood"- referring to the bread and wine- so it's an interesting choice to add the word "like" when telling this version of the story.)

And I suppose I could make a lot of little observations about which details this book includes, and how it words things, and what that says about the brand of Christianity it's coming from. But I don't think that really matters- as I said above, my main concerns are the amount of violence, and whether it says we need to feel guilty about how our sin killed Jesus. This book is very good on those two points. It tells the basic story, it doesn't get into any graphically violent details, and it doesn't say anything at all about what it means for us.

I certainly have opinions on what Jesus' death and resurrection mean for us- I'm a Christian, of course I have opinions on that- but let's just teach kids the story first, before getting into that.

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Conclusion

I like this book because it's simple, and therefore doesn't get into any of the problematic stuff that Christian children's books often get into. It gives a brief overview of the bible story of Jesus' death and resurrection. This is what I want; I want my son to know the story. It doesn't say anything at all about what Jesus' death and resurrection mean. I like that. For now I just want my son to know the story. There will be plenty of time in the future to think about what it means. Maybe I'll spend my whole life doing that.

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Related:

Good Friday is R-Rated 

Reviews of Christian Children's Books 

"Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles" (I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH)

Children's Bibles and "presenting mass slaughter to children"

Artwork showing Samson knocking down the pillars, causing the roof to collapse onto a crowd of terrified men and women. Image source.

I've been reading the book "Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles." This book is great.

One of the chapters is called "Samson's Suicide and the Death of Three Thousand Others in Children's Bible Stories through Two Centuries," by David M. Guan. This is about the bible story where Samson is captured by the Philistines, and he knocks down the pillars of their temple, causing the building to collapse and kill a huge number of people, including himself. The bible (and children's bible stories, in my experience) portray this as a good thing because the Philistines were the bad guys.

Guan's essay analyzes the illustrations in children's bibles which tell this story. I want to show you this one quote in particular from page 242:

It may not be easy for artists to make doomed Philistines look like wicked people. Illustrators work under various constraints, including the space and frame available, and such considerations may account in some cases for few Philistines and lone Samsons. But as the example of the escaping Philistines suggests, there are likely to be other factors involved in the design of these illustrations. One obvious factor is adult concern about presenting mass slaughter to children (let alone any respectable person).

Wow, there it is. "Presenting mass slaughter to children (let alone any respectable person)."

This is huge, honestly, and I'm glad someone is calling it out. The bible has a lot of stories about mass slaughter- in particular, stories where mass slaughter is portrayed as a good thing, where the bible heroes kill "enemies" in the name of God. There are even some stories (like Joshua's conquest of the land of Canaan) where God commands his people to commit genocide- to kill all inhabitants of all the cities in the promised land. The story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho is one of the classics you always see in children's bibles- God commanded his people to walk around the city for 7 days, and then miraculously, the walls collapsed, and then God's people went in and killed everyone (except Rahab and her family because she had helped them). Yes, really, we really are teaching little kids in Sunday School that God commanded his people to kill everyone in Jericho (except Rahab's family) because they were bad guys.

"Presenting mass slaughter to children (let alone any respectable person)."

In the children's bibles I've seen, these stories sometimes are cleaned up a bit and they don't mention all the murder. For example, when we tell kids the story of Daniel in the lions' den, it's common to end the story right after Daniel comes out of the lions' den safely (uh spoiler warning?), and not mention the part where Daniel's enemies and their wives and children were then thrown into the lions' den and killed by the lions. But for other stories, they're not "cleaned up" to get rid of the mass murder- we tell kids that the bible heroes killed people in the name of God, and that it was right (as in the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho).

(These are the 2 approaches I discussed in my post 2 Wrong Ways to Write Bible Stories For Kids.)

I'm very interested in the essays in "Text, Image, & Otherness" which analyze this weird contradiction- that conservative Christians believe it's good for everyone (including children) to read the bible, and we can always learn some good lesson from it- BUT ALSO we don't necessarily want to explicitly show kids these scenes of over-the-top violence- BUT ALSO it was right for these bible role models to commit violence in God's name, it is right to commit genocide if God commands it- BUT ALSO wow yikes, we're not actually going to draw a picture of it and show it to kids.

If you're writing and illustrating a bible for kids, you SHOULD be confronted with the problem of "presenting mass slaughter to children (let alone any respectable person)." 

Personally, I believe that the writers of the bible were wrong when they said God commanded and approved of this violence. And furthermore, if your God tells you to kill someone, you should just quit religion right then and there, okay? Don't, like, actually do it, my god. 

But if you believe in biblical inerrancy, you don't have the option to say the biblical writers were wrong. So you're stuck in this weird position where you're teaching children that sometimes mass murder is good. I seem to recall that Jesus said it would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around one's neck.

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Posts about "Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles":

"Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles" (I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH)
David and Jonathan's (One-Sided) Friendship 
Who Cut Samson's Hair? (a post about reading the bible for what it is) 
The way we write children's bibles is "an act of bad faith" 
Children's Bibles and the 2 Creation Stories
Children's Bibles and "presenting mass slaughter to children"
Children's Bibles and "turning ambiguity into clear articulations"

Related:

2 Wrong Ways to Write Bible Stories For Kids 

Good Friday is R-Rated

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. The great global redistributor we never hear about: money sent or brought back by migrants (January 13, via) "According to the UN, migrant workers send back about 15% of their earnings on average. But even a little money from rich countries can make a big difference in poorer ones. For example, 15% of the average annual income in the United States is nearly twice the average annual income in Colombia."

2. The Unbearable Loudness of Chewing (January, via) "But I think a second, larger reason is that misophonia is weird. It’s hard to explain and difficult to understand and doesn’t make any intuitive sense. After all, everyone hates the sound of chewing."

3. Democrats unveil legislation raising federal minimum wage to $17 an hour (April 8) It's a good idea. I'm skeptical about its chances of passing though.

4. Pulling Out The Big Guns For Needle Phobia In An Insane World Where Nobody Seems To Take It Seriously (February 20) I'm linking this because, I don't have needle phobia but I have similar things... This post takes it seriously and gives extremely practical suggestions, which is really rare to see. Usually people just treat you like you're being silly and making a big deal for no reason, and everything would be fine if you would just "relax."

5. Tidy Profit: Camera Captures the Cleaners Changing Lives (April 16) An article about women in China working as domestic workers (they are called "ayis" in China). We have an ayi who works for us, to take care of our baby while we're at work. (This is common in China because there aren't really daycares for infants.) She also does housework. In China if you can afford it, it really helps a lot to have an ayi.

6. Intuit, Owner of TurboTax, Wins Battle Against America’s Taxpayers (April 17) "Instead, it continued cajoling lawmakers and the White House into forcing millions of Americans to shell out hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars to file with expensive and confusing tax prep software."

7. Holy Saturday (April 17) "And now it’s Saturday and Jesus is dead and we’re all going to die and everything I’ve told you about him turns out to be in vain and everything I’ve staked my life on turns out to be in vain. Our faith is futile and we’re still hopeless in our sins. Jesus is dead and we are of all people most to be pitied."

8. Life and Living Not Death and Dying (April 17) "Christian theologians from multiple marginalized communities have spent years critiquing a theology that centers the good news on Jesus’ suffering rather than how life triumphed over suffering by undoing, overturning, and reversing that death."

Related to that: Good Friday Without Divine Violence (April 17) 

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. The Trump Administration Threat To Transgender Adult Care Is Growing At Lightning Speed (April 16) 

Also from Erin in the Morning: Washington State Passes Bill To Cover Some 12-Month Hormone Therapy Stockpiles (April 17) This is good news for trans people in Washington state. The thing that really surprised me was, it says actually hormone replacement therapy is usually for other health issues (menopause, etc)- trans people are only a small fraction of the people who need this kind of medical care.

2. THE GOOD TROUBLE CHECKLIST (April 3) "Figure out what your lane is. Then figure out who is local to you and already doing some of that work. How can you be useful? How can you extend existing efforts? How can you show up and raise hell? Do something."

3. 'Homegrowns are next': Trump hopes to deport and jail U.S. citizens abroad (April 16) WTF. And remember, he sent immigrants there without showing any proof that they were "gang members." He also wants to send US citizens there without showing any such evidence.

4. Trump exploiting antisemitism fears to undermine rule of law, warns Jewish coalition (April 16) "'Our safety as Jews has always been tied to the rule of law, to the safety of others, to the strength of civil society, and to the protection of rights and liberties for all,' reads the statement."

5. In the middle of a hepatitis outbreak, U.S. shutters the one CDC lab that could help (April 16)

6. Confusion reigns as asylum seekers who used CBP One receive notices to leave U.S. within 7 days (April 16) "'We have families who said ‘well, I’m just going to hide, because I can’t go back to my home country, I will be killed, so I prefer to hide,’' she said."

7. U.S.-born American citizen under ICE hold in Florida is released (April 18)

8. Exclusive: Senator Chris Van Hollen talks with Rachel Maddow live from El Salvador (April 17)

And: A Maryland senator visits his wrongfully deported constituent in El Salvador (April 17) "'I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar,' Van Hollen wrote on X. 'Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love.'"

Americans Living Abroad: Register to Vote NOW, In Case They Change the Rules

A sign that says "Vote" and has a US flag. Image source.

You may have heard about the SAVE Act, which passed the House of Representatives. This bill is supposedly about making sure that only US citizens are voting in US elections, but in reality it would block huge swaths of US citizens from being able to vote. If you don't have a passport or birth certificate that matches your current name, if you don't have a chance to go *in person* to show your documents, you will not be able to register to vote.

Everyone, contact your senators and tell them to vote against the SAVE Act!

I am a US citizen living in China- I can't really go and show them my passport in person. I *think* since I have already registered to vote in previous years, I'm probably not affected by this, but who knows? Some states require voters who vote from abroad to re-register every year. Some states purge people from their voter rolls every now and then, meaning you would need to re-register, and bring your documents in person to do so.

Anyway, if you are a US citizen living abroad, register to vote NOW. If the SAVE Act passes, you will likely not be able to register at all. Do it now while you can.

This site will walk you through it: VoteFromAbroad.org

Some states require the FPCA (this is the form to register to vote from abroad) to be mailed, some allow fax or email. This site has all the information. Spread the word. And contact your senators to tell them NO on the SAVE Act.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Twitterlike is a Bad Shape (April 12, via) "A share addition feature (or "quote posts") can poison site culture by giving people a reason to share bad posts for no other reason than just to announce they disagree."

2. Pig kidney transplant fails after patient rejection (April 11) "'For the first time since 2016, I enjoyed time with friends and family without planning around dialysis treatments. Though the outcome is not what anyone wanted, I know a lot was learned from my 130 days with a pig kidney—and that this can help and inspire many others in their journey to overcome kidney disease,' she said." This is really cool! Even though it failed, this is progress.

3. Tennessee’s "Success Sequence" law ignores what really makes kids successful (April 11) Posting this because yeah this is what I always heard, from republican role models when I was growing up, about why we shouldn't push for systemic changes to help minimum wage workers, single moms, etc. Because the way it's SUPPOSED to work [apparently] is you go to college, graduate, get a good job, get married, and then have kids. If there's a news article about a single mom who is struggling to get by in a minimum wage job- well yeah, it's not SUPPOSED to be doable to try to raise kids on a minimum wage income. We don't need to change society, we need to blame people for not following the life plan they're supposed to. If we raised the minimum wage, that would unfairly mess things up for the people who did things the right way. That's what I learned from republicans...

4. What happened to all the clothing donated during the LA wildfires? (April 14) This is really interesting- I'm very curious about how it works when people donate clothes, because I suspect that the reality is very different from whatever magical ideal is in donors' minds. Anyway, the important thing to always remember is, check with the recipients to confirm what kinds of things they want, before you donate- don't just assume that you're doing a good thing by giving them your random stuff.

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Links related to the antichrist. As always, you don't need to read all these if you're too stressed out. Instead, go protest or help immigrants.

1. Trump Is Separating Immigrant Families Again. Here’s What We Can Do About It. (April 11) "The new administration has unleashed a torrent of policies that have caused irreparable harm to people and families seeking safety."

2. Trump attacks on law firms begin to chill pro bono work on causes he doesn't like (April 13) "If the legal profession doesn't push back now, Levi said, the whole idea of equal justice and the justice system is vulnerable."

3. Feds to collect personal info of people exchanging, sending money from U.S.-Mexico border (April 10) "'Providing your social to exchange two hundred dollars is ridiculous,' Guerra said."

So, there are legitimate reasons that governments would want to know who exactly is sending money internationally. But I don't trust this government is doing it for any of those reasons.

4. Think Twice: China Tells Tourists and Students Eyeing the U.S. (April 14) 

5. Trump told us the horrifying reason why Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not back in the U.S. (April 15) "Trump said the plan: The Trump administration wants this foreign prison — and, perhaps, others — to hold many people sent from America, including U.S. citizens."

And: SMART-TD Stands With Brother Kilmar Abrego Garcia (April 10)

6. Trump administration freezes more than $2.2 billion after Harvard rejects its demands (April 14) "Earlier in the day, Alan Garber, Harvard's president, said in a letter to faculty and students that the university would not submit to a list of demands made last Friday. Among them are that it eliminate DEI programs, screen international students who are 'supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism' and ensure 'viewpoint diversity' in its hiring." Good. Say no to him. For the universities/ companies/ law firms who cave to his demands, that won't be the end of it- he will continue to demand more things from them. If they're doing a calculation about how they can manage to kinda accept his deal- well, don't, because whatever he says is not the actual deal. If you accept it, it will end up being worse than what he said.

7. Haunted by hopelessness: 12 Zambians share their stories as HIV drugs run out (April 14) "An untold number of people with HIV have simply and suddenly lost access to their medication."

8. Should I stay or go? Immigrants across U.S. consider self-deportation (April 14) "'We're scared. We stay indoors all day,' Rosa, a heavily pregnant Honduran woman in Waukegan, Ill., told NPR back in January."

9. Trump can't revoke legal status of migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, judge rules (April 14) "The 'early termination, without any case-by-case justification, of legal status for noncitizens who have complied with DHS programs and entered the country lawfully undermines the rule of law,' wrote Talwani, who sits on the federal district court in Boston." A little bit of good news.

I'm FASCINATED By Charities Asking Me To Pay Their Processing Fees

Credit cards. Image source.

Here's something I noticed recently, that happened on several different charities' websites: I go to set up a monthly donation, let's say for $10, and then the website asks me if I want to pay for the credit card processing fee, by changing my donation to $10.30 instead.

I'm so fascinated by this!

Why are they framing it as "pay the processing fees so that your entire donation will go toward supporting our work"? When I was planning to donate them $10, I didn't care about the internal workings of how that $10 gets divided up and spent on different things. Asking me to pay the credit card processing fees feels like we're in a universe where the donor is like, "I want to give $10 to this charity. But what's this? There's a processing fee so the whole $10 doesn't actually go to the charity? Oh no, we can't have that! I want $10 to go to the charity! I need to add this small amount to my $10 in order to pay the processing fee."

Why does it matter that there's a credit card processing fee? This is really no different than just asking me "Hey could you donate $10.30 instead of $10.00?" And if I feel like $10.30 is fine, then I say yes. Why bring up the credit card processing fee, as if that matters? Are they also going to say "25 cents of your donation goes toward keeping the heat running at our office, would you like to increase your donation by 25 cents so that the whole original amount will go to the work we do?"

I mean, the fact that there's a processing fee doesn't really matter. They're just asking if you could give a little bit more, and then floating this excuse about the credit card processing fee so that there's some pretext of logic to their request.

When this happens to me, sometimes I say yes. If I just had a vague idea that I want to give this charity $10, but I didn't plan out a very exact budget- then sure, the 30 cents doesn't matter to me, so I say yes. But if I've already made a plan like "I want to give x amount of dollars to different charities every month, I will subdivide it among these different organizations, I will give this amount to this one", then I say no when they ask me to pay the processing fee. I've already made a plan! I've already decided what amount to give to charity! I'm not gonna just change it- if I was willing to give 30 cents more, then that would have been factored into the plan at a much earlier step.

This "can you also pay our processing fee" is the sort of thing that works well on donors who decided to give $10 just because it's a nice round number, not because that's the maximum amount that would make sense for their budget.

So it's presented like it's for donors who are so incredibly concerned about controlling the exact details of their donation, who feel like "it's VERY IMPORTANT to me that the charity receives 10 dollars from me, NOT less than 10 dollars due to a credit card fee"- but actually it's for donors who are so unconcerned that they're like "oh, 10 dollars, or 10 dollars and 30 cents? yeah sure whatever."

I really don't think there exists a person who says "I am willing to give exactly 10 dollars- oh but now that you've told me that credit card processing fees exist, that changes everything- now I am willing to give $10.30."

Don't get me wrong: when I say I'm fascinated by this, I'm not criticizing the charities. Nothing wrong with them asking for a bit more, and then making it painless for you to say either yes or no. Nothing wrong with that. It strikes me as a good strategy, because probably a lot of donors will feel like "oh sure whatever, just increase it by a few cents, who cares."

I'm just so fascinated by the psychology of it. Why bring up the credit card processing fee? It doesn't matter! I don't care what they specifically use every small part of my donation for- I just care about the work they are doing overall. (And I think if people are overly concerned about the credit card processing fee, that's illogical.) But instead of asking "hey could you maybe give a little bit more?" they say "hey can you maybe give a little bit more because of the credit card processing fee?" Oh my goodness, this is so fascinating.

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Related:

My Weird Hangups About Charity

Children's Bibles and the 2 Creation Stories

Diagram showing what God made on each of the 6 days of creation. Image source.

I've been reading the book "Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles," which IS AMAZING. One of the chapters is called "Conflating Creation, Combining Christmas, and Ostracizing the Other," by Mark Roncace. Let's talk about it.

So, this chapter is about how the bible has 2 different creation stories- Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. And 2 different stories about Jesus birth, found in Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2. Roncace examines many different children's bibles to see how they handle these stories. Do they tell only 1 of the creation stories, or both? Do they combine them? Same for the Christmas stories.

Here's how the chapter is introduced (p 193):

The Bible is a collection of books written by many different people in a variety of places over a long period of time in multiple languages to diverse audiences in a plethora of social, religious, political, and economic contexts. Children's Bibles are different. They, generally, present the Bible as a single book and are written by one person in one place, time, and language to a fairly specific audience. Moreover, while the canonical Bible naturally features a diversity of stories from multiple points of view, children's Bibles do not. Instead, they harmonize the canon's disparate voices. This ubiquitous tendency among children's Bibles thus eliminates one of the richest and most pertinent aspects of the Bible: its inherent otherness.

Bibles for children are, of course, shorter than the canonical version, so it is to be expected that some of the diversity will be lost. ... But still, abridged children's versions have plenty of opportunities to make the Bible's diversity apparent to its younger readers. Instead, they purposefully eschew such opportunities by blending the different stories or presenting only one of them.

!!!!!! Oh my goodness, this!

Children's bibles are NOT the bible. That has been pointed out by many of the essays in "Text, Image, & Otherness," and I'm so glad I read this book because it's such a good point. In this chapter specifically, we discuss how children's bibles are not the bible because the actual bible has different parts that disagree with each other, but children's bibles are "harmonized" so that the whole thing tells one consistent story throughout. No contradictions.

In this blog post I'll just talk about the creation story. If you want to hear about the Christmas part too, let me know in the comment section~

So, the 2 creation stories in the bible are:

Genesis 1: This is the story about the 6 days of creation. For each day, it says which things God created on that day. Day 1 is let there be light, etc etc etc, Day 6 is the creation of land animals and people. Male and female are created in the image of God.

Genesis 2: This is the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Adam is created first, but none of the animals are found to be a good partner for Adam, so God creates Eve from Adam's rib.

These are 2 different stories.

When I was evangelical, I had no idea that these were 2 different stories. I had read both of these in children's bibles, and also in the actual bible, many times. If you had asked me what Genesis 1 says, and what Genesis 2 says, I totally could have told you which parts were in which chapter. I knew these chapters very well. I totally never viewed them as being separate, contradictory stories though. 

It just totally never occurred to me. I believed the bible stories were true- that they really happened in the same universe that we live in- so obviously they both fit together onto 1 timeline.

From time to time, I would come across lists of supposed "bible contradictions," and the issue about 2 creation stories would be on those lists. I thought, "No, these aren't 2 stories. Genesis 2 is just giving more details about Day 6 of Genesis 1."

And actually, some English translators also try to pass these off as 1 non-contradictory story. In Genesis 2, after God creates the man, verse 8 says, "Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed." This is the NIV translation of the bible- but "had planted" is a choice- I have heard that "planted" would make more sense as a translation. (I don't know much about ancient Hebrew so I'm not sure I'm getting the details right, but this is what I've heard about the translation.) So if it's "planted", then you have a story like this:

1. First God creates Adam
2. Then God creates plants, and plants a garden, and puts Adam in the garden

But Genesis 1 says that God created plants on the 3rd day, and people on the 6th day, so the order of events in Genesis 2 doesn't match. 

But if it's "had planted", then Genesis 2 reads like this:

1. First God creates plants, and plants a garden
2. Then God creates Adam and puts him in the garden

So if you're translating the bible, and you really really believe it's all true and can't possibly have contradictions, you will translate it as "had planted" even though "planted" might be the expected translation of that word.

Take a look at this link to see how different versions of the bible translate this verse.

(Another way to reconcile this difference is to say that God created plants on day 3, then made Adam on day 6, and put some of the plants into a garden, and put Adam in it- so the planting a garden was a separate thing from when God first created plants. All of these attempts to reconcile the contradiction totally miss the point, though. The point is, it's 2 stories.)

Actually, even now that I've been ex-evangelical for a long time, and I haven't believed in biblical inerrancy for a long time, I still subconsciously think of the creation stories as if Genesis 2 is zooming in on Day 6 of Genesis 1 to give more detail about the creation of humans specifically. I wonder what it would even feel like to really internalize the fact that these are TWO DIFFERENT STORIES.

Page 194 of "Text, Image, & Otherness" says this:

While most readers of the present volume are presumably aware of the two disparate creation stories, the majority of people are not, as professors can attest by their students' lack of knowledge about these supposedly well-known passages. Perhaps children's Bibles are in part to blame, for they inevitably fail to present the two stories independently.

Wow, what would it look like for children's bibles to present these as 2 separate stories? You'd have to pretty explicitly say these are not true stories. I can't really imagine a children's bible doing that.

This chapter of "Text, Image, & Otherness" says that some children's bibles combine the stories- ie, the way I always understood the creation story back then. But, there's this problem (p 195):

Conflating the stories in this fashion omits the profound notion that male and female are created simultaneously and in God's image.

Wow. Hold up.

So, maybe one of the main points of the Genesis 1 version of the story is that male and female are created simultaneously, and that they are both made in God's image.

Wow. I mean, yes I always believed that men and women are both equally made in God's image, but the idea that being created at the same time is a significant detail is totally new to me. It's hard for me to even think in that direction, because I know the Adam and Eve story and I'm always subconsciously filling in Genesis 1 with the details from there.

But what if Genesis 1 is saying that men and women were created at the same time? And that this is important? Not like the woman is an afterthought, right?

I mean, I also feel it's hard to make a big deal about "this is important" because we're very explicitly saying that these are not true stories, so how can you really fixate on details like that and make a big deal out of them?

Anyway, my point is, this biblical-inerrancy fan theory that these 2 stories are happening in the same universe really changes the story. If you believe the fan theory, then you end up imagining a version of the story which isn't what the writers wrote at all.

Then "Text, Image, & Otherness" mentions another way that some children's bibles handle these 2 creation stories. Some children's bibles show only the man being created on day 6. And then God looks at the creation and declares it "very good," and then you move on to the story where Eve is created, OH MY GOODNESS. Whoaaaa, not cool. 

Yeah, first you believe the bible has no contradictions, then before you know it you're teaching kids that women aren't part of the "very good" creation God originally made, YIKES.

(Another common way for children's bibles to deal with this is to only tell 1 of the creation stories and just skip the other. Which is okay I guess, but both stories are making different points, so it's nice to have both.)

Then there's this part on p 200:

Finally, a couple of children's Bibles include both stories independently and relatively completely. They are both Jewish, not Christian, Bibles, which is perhaps not surprising since we are, after all, dealing with the Jewish Scriptures, and Judaism has a long, complex history of wrestling with its own sacred text. The only harmonizing redaction by the JPS Illustrated Children's Bible (Frankel 2009) is to retain the name God for the second story. A Child's Garden of Torah: A Read-Aloud Bedtime Bible (Grishaver 1998) significantly summarizes both stories for its audience, but does not blend the two accounts. It also features some surprisingly difficult questions for its young audience-- for example, What do day one and day four have in common?-- but none of these prompts a child to explore the differences between the two versions. In short, out of approximately thirty-five children's Bibles readily available in the United States, I was able to find only two that present both canonical creation stories. The rest conflate and eliminate.

Interesting! There are a few Jewish children's bibles that present the 2 *separate* creation stories, just like the actual bible does. Jewish people have been reading these stories way longer than Christians have, and there seems to be a tradition of really exploring the stories and accepting different interpretations of them- unlike the evangelical Christian approach of trying to make sure everyone believes the "correct" interpretation.

One more quote I want to copy from "Text, Image, & Otherness" (p 205):

In our globalized world, it seems self-evident that cultivating an understanding and appreciation of different views and ideas is an important task for parents and teachers. Children must learn to thrive among people of different races, languages, cultures, and religious traditions. The Bible, indeed, offers a wonderful resource for the facilitation of these skills and habits. Readers learn to listen carefully and attentively, to engage, evaluate, and interact with different voices in the text-- that is, they learn to think critically and to be spiritually and ethically sensitive human beings. But those opportunities vanish when children encounter rewritten versions that conflate stories and omit the various genres present in the canonical Bible. Children's Bibles ostracize the other instead of offering its readers the chance to meet and learn how to treat the other.

This is spot-on, and also very sad.

The bible is so rich and complex. There are so many characters. Writers were writing from different perspectives and for different purposes. Yes, the bible definitely can be a helpful resource for learning to listen to and empathize with a diverse range of people. But wow, that's so not what it was for me. When I was evangelical, everything was so black-and-white... All the violence in the bible that God commands, I had to force myself to believe it was right... God commands his people to commit genocide, to kill every person in the Canaanite cities they conquered, and I was a good Christian who believed all the correct things, and that meant believing that it was right to kill all those people. They were sinners, they deserved it. 

This is the exact opposite of learning empathy. If you read about the violence commanded by God in the bible, and you feel sad for the victims, well you need to stop if you want to be a good obedient Christian. God said those people deserved to die. How dare you disagree with God? Kill your conscience if it's getting in the way.

One especially ironic part of the quote above is the idea that children need to learn to accept people from different "religious traditions." Wow, I was very much taught that the bible said THE EXACT OPPOSITE of that. The bible was about how Christians are the only ones who know the real Truth, and everyone else's religion is bad and wrong, and they're all going to hell- we have to convince them to abandon their own religions and convert to Christianity.

Really sad, huh? Reading the bible could have been a way to learn about and value diversity, to empathize with both the winners and the victims of the stories. But no, not if you believe in inerrancy. Then reading the bible is about how we're right and everyone else is wrong, and God can kill you if he wants because you're a sinner.

That's why I'm so interested in feminist readings of the bible now. There's so much there, so much that I was never really allowed to think about when I was evangelical, even though I read the bible every day. I know these stories so well, but I find that if you just turn them at a slightly different angle, there are things that I never noticed before- like Genesis 1 and 2 being two different stories- and it's mind-blowing.

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Posts about "Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles":

"Text, Image, & Otherness in Children's Bibles" (I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH)
David and Jonathan's (One-Sided) Friendship 
Who Cut Samson's Hair? (a post about reading the bible for what it is) 
The way we write children's bibles is "an act of bad faith" 
Children's Bibles and the 2 Creation Stories
Children's Bibles and "presenting mass slaughter to children" 
Children's Bibles and "turning ambiguity into clear articulations"

Related:

If God Metaphorically Made the World in 6 Days, What Does That Even Mean? 

"The Wise Men Came 2 Years After the Shepherds" Is Just a Fan Theory

The Bible Stories As I Read Them Were Never Actually In The Bible 

The Bible and the Pixar Theory