Kevin Roose > Quotes

“False conversions are a wart on the face of Christian evangelism.”
― Kevin roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“...I realized how naive I was. My aunt Tina was right: this stuff does exist, and it does hurt people, and although there are lots of people at Liberty who condemn violence against gays--including Dr. Falwell himself--the number of students who want to give them the Goliath treatment isn't zero. In fact, the number who live in my room isn't zero.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“At most schools, the social, intellectual, and spiritual components are confined to separate experiential spheres. We party, we learn, and we contemplate the metaphysical, but we rarely do all three simultaneously and en masse. Maybe most college students aren't looking for spiritual euphoria from their schools, but I can't say I blame the ones who are.”
― Kevin roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“As frustrating as the battle for purity must be, I suppose it's easier if you've got company.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“Did I really like cooking, or did I just like the way my Instagram photos of home-cooked meals made me look like a balanced, well-adjusted adult? How many of my beliefs and preferences were actually mine, I wondered, and how many had been put there by machines?”
― Kevin Roose, Futureproof: 9 Rules for Surviving in the Age of AI

“A Christian jerk is still a jerk.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“LeCun made an unexpected prediction about the effects all of this AI and machine learning technology would have on the job market. Despite being a technologist himself, he said that the people with the best chances of coming out ahead in the economy of the future were not programmers and data scientists, but artists and artisans.”
― Kevin Roose, Futureproof: 9 Rules for Surviving in the Age of AI

“Without cynicism and cursing, what will I say to people?”
― Kevin Roose

“Christian pop culture can be worthwhile if done well, but bad Christian pop culture isn't redeemed merely by the fact that it's Christian.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“No community adheres completely to its stereotypes.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“Instead of trying to hustle our way to safety, we should do what Mitsuru Kawai did—refusing to compete on the machines’ terms, and focusing instead on leaving our own, distinctively human mark on the things we’re creating. No matter what our job is, or how many hours a week we work, we can practice our own version of monozukuri, knowing that what will make us stand out is not how hard we labor, but how much of ourselves shows up in the final product. In other words, elbow grease is out. Handprints are in.”
― Kevin Roose, Futureproof: 9 Rules for Surviving in the Age of AI

“i don't think college is something you should tough out.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“A recent survey said that 51% of Americans don't know any evangelicals – even casually.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“If prayers emitted light, you'd see ours (Liberty students') from space.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“In the irony-in-hindsight department, Dr. Falwell also chided Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1965 for getting involved in public advocacy, saying “preachers are not called to be politicians but soul-winners.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“The author's mentor advises the NAKED method of breaking the ice at the first meeting: Name, Address, Kin, Experience, and Dreams.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“When the author admits to Christians that he was not a Christian himself, he says their dialogue became "distant and rehearsed, like a pitch for Ginsu knives.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“Seen at Liberty University: "I hope the Rapture happens before my student loans are due.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“In the evangelical world, prying can be an indicator of compassion.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“I’m still adjusting my mind to all the earnest God talk I’m hearing at Liberty. From time to time, it still feels like I walked onto the set of a Lifetime movie. But one thing has become clear: these Liberty students have no ulterior motive. They simply can’t contain their love for God. They’re happy to be believers, and they’re telling the world.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“No matter how good AI [artificial intelligence] gets, humans still want role models, and we want to be inspired by human greatness. This is why we cheer for Olympic swimmers, even though speedboats go faster.”
― Kevin Roose, Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation

“Fellowship" is a Christianspeak for "flirt with unsuccessfully".”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“It’s hard to watch Liberty students singing along to worship songs during convocation, raising their hands and smiling beatifically, and not wonder whether they’ve tapped into something that makes their lives happier, more meaningful, more consistently optimistic than mine.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“When it comes down to it, no matter how pious or like-minded he might be, a Christian jerk is still a jerk.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“AI is better than humans at operating in stable environments, with static, well-defined rules and consistent inputs. On the other hand, humans are much better than AI at handling surprises, filling in gaps, or operating in environments with poorly defined rules or incomplete information.”
― Kevin Roose, Futureproof: 9 Rules for Surviving in the Age of AI

“I can’t help believing that Liberty’s conservative evangelicalism is just one of many possible outcomes of a centuries-long process of religious evolution. If Jonathan Edwards had decided to become a blacksmith or a pastry chef instead of leading the Great Awakening, would evangelical Christianity still have become America’s dominant religion? I have a hard time thinking so. When you take the historical view, it seems just as likely that Quakerism would have taken over the country’s religious landscape, and instead of Thomas Road Baptist Church, we’d have Quaker megameetings with TV cameras showing twenty thousand people worshipping in silence.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“It’s hard to keep harping on Liberty’s intolerance, though, because just as my aunts are nothing like the demonized stereotypes of gay people that are tossed around at Liberty (they’re both psychologically balanced, with stable jobs, healthy family lives, and a long-term, monogamous relationship), the majority of my friends at Liberty aren’t the intolerant demagogues Tina and Teresa picture when they think of Liberty students. In Tina’s latest e-mail, she mentioned that she and Teresa had run into a group of fundamentalist Christians at an equality rally in Spokane. She described them as “negative and hateful,” and reported that they were toting signs with messages like “You deserve Hell” and “God is angry with the wicked every day.” Maybe I’m deluded, but that just doesn’t sound like my hallmates. Most of them believe homosexuality is a sin, yes, but they’re not going to picket pride parades on the weekend.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“I have to say, after talking to my friend, it was hard not to feel like I have the better deal at Liberty. Sure, it’s frustrating not to be able to relieve sexual tension, but with that option off the table, I’m free to be totally transparent. The whole interaction feels more honest, more straightforward. In the words of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, “our entire motivation in relationships is transformed.” I’ve said things to Aimee tonight that I would never say to girls back in the secular world for fear of alienating them. Strange things to say to a girl who looks really beautiful—like, “You look really beautiful.”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

“You sort of lose your nonfinance friends,” he said. “My friend might be in Teach for America, and they can’t afford to go out to the places I go out. It’s shitty, because for the first time, it’s almost like money matters. In college, you’re all living in that dorm. Here, there’s hierarchy. And that level of spending, all the time, means that you just naturally grow away from people who don’t work in the industry.”
― Kevin Roose, Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street's Post-Crash Recruits

“All week, we’ve heard pep talks like this one from Scott at last night’s post-Razzle’s debrief: “To me, here’s the motivation to evangelize: If I’m a doctor, and I find the cure for a terminal illness, and if I care about people, I’m going to spread that cure as widely as possible. If I don’t, people are going to die.”

Leave the comparison in place for a second. If Scott had indeed found the cure to a terminal illness and if this Daytona mission were a vaccination campaign instead of an evangelism crusade, my group members would be acting with an unusually large portion of mercy—much more, certainly, than their friends who spent the break playing Xbox in their sweatpants. And if you had gone on this immunization trip, giving up your spring break for the greater good, and had found the sick spring breakers unwilling to be vaccinated, what would you do? If a terminally ill man said he was “late for a meeting,” you might let him walk away. But—and I’m really stretching here—if you really believed your syringe held his only hope of survival, and you really cared about him, would you ignore the rules of social propriety and try every convincement method you knew?”
― Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University