First, I am here because I did not go through with my plans to end my own life so many years ago at the age of 13.

When I was entering my mid-forties I became overwhelmed with feelings of gratitude. I would wake up every morning feeling so incredibly thankful to be alive with a loving partner and two beautiful young children.

After reaching out to my closest friends and family for advice, it became clear to me that spreading this thankfulness/gratitude outwards into humanity was the best option.

Fast forward a little bit until I discovered a niche interest group on Reddit. Namely, /r/AcademicBiblical where I could learn and contribute for several years until I founded /r/AskBibleScholars. Both subs have worked together in order to bring the best biblical scholarship, down from the ivory towers, to the general public.

With my interest in humanities and my background as a web developer, I decided to create https://askbiblescholars.com which has functioned as a blog for the aforementioned scholars.

Over the past 6 months I’ve been working with developers to build a Q&A functionality into that .com site. I am, currently, alpha-testing this on my own machine here at home.

But wait…there’s more!

I’ve been beta-testing stuff all the way back to Orkut and Gmail and I guess that’s why I’ve always found my self in these current circles such as Beeper.

That’s what drew my attention to Tildes and why I spent considerable time there during testing phases. During that time, some of us that were using that site, decided to try something else.

We grouped together on Discord and did a lot of talking…some have said that we talked far too long before taking action. Finally, we settled on Lemmy as a software platform in order to launch Beehaw.

Circling back around to why I am here…

I am incredibly thankful to be here right now and I want everyone else to feel this way.

  •  isosphere   ( @isosphere@beehaw.org ) English
    11•11 months ago

    Thank you for starting the instance!

    I recently got myself a set of Robert Atler’s translation of the Hebrew bible. I’m an atheist, but I thought his footnotes would be my best chance at appreciating the old testament in the way people talk about it. So far there’s some pretty interesting tidbits!

  •  sintamo   ( @Sintamo@beehaw.org ) English
    10•11 months ago

    Oh wow, /r/AskBibleScholars (and /r/AcademicBiblical) were instrumental to me years ago when I began to lose my faith, and helped me arrive to the much healthier place I am now. I had no idea the same person was, in part, responsible for Beehaw. Hopefully we can bring some of those communities here in due time - they do too much good to be lost.

    Thank you, Chris. I am so thankful that you’re here right now, and it’s a pleasure to be here with you.

  •  Pooh Bear   ( @poohbear@toons.zone ) English
    8•11 months ago

    Thank you for sharing your story ❤️ I was in the same boat as you growing up, and I like to think by being able to show up in the world the best way you can in the present is the best way to honour those struggles and use it for good.

    And look, it’s brought random strangers all around the world together - what can be more serendipitous than that?!

  •  pushka   ( @pushka@beehaw.org ) English
    7•11 months ago

    Hello !! Glad and thankful that you’re here too ! 💕✨

    There were so many turns to this journey ~ so beehaw spawned from a Bible scholar community? Wild ~~

    I grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist church, which is kind of a closed community like Mormonism , but more biblically like the Baptist church , also folowing kosher and Jewish traditions and a hint of doomsday conspiracy theories~ but after all of that I feel they are very obsessed with scholarship - every week ½ of the Sabbath is the sermon/service, and thres a “Sabbath-School” where everyone in the world follows a Bible study guide following either a topic all through the bible or one character / book of the bible ~ very uni-vibes but for church ~ (also there’s a prophet ~ )

    Alas I have no faith as of 2012 … 😵🫨

  •  PenguinCoder   ( @Penguincoder@beehaw.org ) English
    2•11 months ago

    Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

    This community has that unity and I pray never loses such.

    Thanks for sharing with us and your work on everything. Don’t burn that candle at both ends friend.