2013 has been a wild year for me, one that was filled with a lot of growth, change, and challenges, I’m certainly not the same self-assured, cocky individual I was when I started on this journey. As I have been thinking through this enigma we call life I have invited hundreds of you guys into to dialogue, some of you have been nice, others naughty, but I appreciate you all nonetheless for challenging, debating, and inspiring me.
- This is pretty crazy but Google Analytics tells me there were 107,000 unique visitors (not just hits) to this website in 2013. Hard to believe that a regular ‘ol chap like me can have interacted with so many people, and I thank all of my readers for that opportunity!
- Also, turns out that I (Yuriy) have written 180,000 words this year! That’s 720 pages of college pagers (if we measure in double spaced Times New Roman font)! This is crazy! I have been looking at Masters degrees, and have noticed that an average course work before the thesis will amount to about 50,000 words, and the thesis is about 30,000 more words. That means I have written more stuff in one year, than a Master’s degree student does in two! But of course quality matters more than quantity, in this case, the quantity of my ramblings.
Anyway, below is a list of the most popular posts for this year, hope these provoke further thought. And of course, Happy New Year!
I’m not a big fan of Halloween, most of the time I don’t care either way, but when people started posting a very biased article condemning Halloween, I responded with a bit of satire. That did not go well.
As many know I went from being a Pentecostal youth pastor to asking hard questions (prompted by the Bible, ironically) that led me to doubt my Pentecostalism. This post was one of a few lengthy explorations of charismata, with ten questions than no one has been able to answer.
Many of my friends are such strong opponents toward the “homosexual agenda” that they are willing to boycott a corporation. Is that what Jesus would do?
Sex always sells. The word sex grabs your attention unlike anything else, that’s a fact. Fortunately this post isn’t merely a shameless attention grabber but does have some interesting stuff about sex. Go ahead and read it. Sex. Sex. See, you already want to, its psychology.
Since we’re talking about sex, you probably need to find and marry someone of the opposite sex for that. So here is how to make that person like you (this is written specifically for guys).
Congratulations! You did it! You are married now. Okay, fun times over, now you have to work really hard to make it work. Just kidding, marriage can be a lot of fun, but you have to be the right person and the right couple, are you?
This was once a summary of everything I knew about this world, and that is that most of the people on this rock in space believe in a huge lie: the perfect tomorrow.
After years of dishonestly allegorizing and ignoring the Old Testament, many of my simplistic views were crushed by rereading the Old Testament a few times, and as a result I wrote this. I got many responses, basically in two categories, the “it’s no big deal, this is all morally good” and the “you are a horrible heretic, God will punish you.”
I had been wrestling with Creation vs Evolution for over ten years. I was a staunch creationist who debated “Evolutionists” on the internet and had read most creationist books, but after critically exploring the Genesis creation story I changed my mind and embraced some form of evolution.
I revealed that I wasn’t the a spiritual superman that some believed, but just another weak chap, struggling in a dark and lonely world, praying and hoping that God was listening, but not always sure. 
Comments (1)