lfa

epistles from the irreligious

(Or: Not all my email is from crackpot Christians.)

Below is an article I received via email from a reader in America. Although he has no problem having his article published in 'The English Atheist', he does not want his name to be acknowledged on this page - for personal reasons. No problemmo - and thanks for your contribution! At this point I will invite other Atheists to contribute to this page, especially if they find themselves in a religiously restrictive situation. Anonimity, if requested, will be guaranteed.

Epistle One:

"You mentioned on one of your pages about the Pope being infallible. Let me get a few things straight about this whole Pope thing... The Pope is supposed to be the most Holy man on the planet, this is not by divine intervention, but by a vote by several very old men who have never had sex with a woman. They lock themselves in a small room until someone says uncle and takes the job. This is quite similar to other religious beliefs such as the Indians, and Greek baths in San Francisco. Think of what it must be like in that room. You know how old people are, they can't control their bowels, they nod off to sleep, they have to pee every 20 minutes and it takes them 5 minutes to walk to the bathroom, then 10 minutes to do their thing while they're in there. Now let's be dead serious for just a second. Old people just smell funny any way. I'm thinking this is a field trip I am gonna have to pass on. Finally after how many days of waking each other up and trips to the latrine they have a mean round of one potato, two potato, three potato, you're the Pope! After the winner is selected they fire up the hibachi and have a party. All the smoke coming out of the chimney you know they have a big fat marley joint fired up. Hell. God put it here why shouldn't they enjoy it too?"

"The only miracle this guy has ever seen is the fact that he got picked!"

"Now the pope has quite a racket going. He has his hands in everything. He gets to jet set around the world in the lap of luxury and never has to pay a dime for it. He just says a few things in an ancient dead language and then zooms back to the airport, and off to another one of those high paying public appearances. He can promote from within, he gets to pick who the freaking Saints are! He has to decide if they really performed a miracle. The only miracle this guy has ever seen is the fact that he got picked! I am convinced this guy has to be certifiably insane! He can stand before millions of people in the world, and spout religious rhetoric about what God says, and means, and is. Without batting an eye say with firm conviction that God is alive and well in all of us. While never looking around to see how utterly screwed up the planet really is. Does he not know that the first time a member of a third-world country with different beliefs then the Popes will just about kill his mother to have a shot at the man. They would drag him through their streets and hang in front of city hall while pissing in his hair. But God is alive and is all knowing and will look out for him. It seems to have worked so far."

The following article has been contributed by Jim Howell. He has been kind enough to contribute some other items - which can be found here. Many thanks to Jim.

"This is rather long, but here is the story in its entirety. It is from the
San Jose Mercury News, Friday, September 1, 2000, page 6A. Interestingly,
almost every sentence is a separate paragraph.

[Headline] Pregnant sect member in custody

Attleboro, Mass. -- A pregnant member of a fundamentalist sect who is
suspected of covering up the death of her last child was ordered into
custody Thursday after she refused to submit to a court-ordered medical
exam.

The exam will evaluate the health of Rebecca Corneau and her unborn baby and
determine how far she is into the pregnancy, said Gerald FitzGerald, an
assistant district attorney for Bristol County.

Prosecutors believe Corneau, 32, is 8 1/2 months pregnant.

"I think Baby Corneau is safer today than Baby Corneau has ever been,"
Bristol County District Attorney Paul Walsh said.

Corneau was escorted from the courthouse by state troopers after the judge
issued his order. Walsh said he didn't expect her to be released until
after she gave birth.

Judge Kenneth Nasif ruled two weeks ago that Corneau, whose sect preaches
against medical care, is an unfit mother, and placed her three children in
state custody.

He denied Walsh's request Tuesday to lock up Corneau until the baby is born,
instead ordering daily checks by a nurse. But the nurse was barred
Wednesday and again Thursday from examining Corneau at the home she shares
with several other sect members. That led to the judge's new order
Thursday.

Corneau is one of 13 members of the Christian sect suspected of burying the
bodies of two infants in a Maine park last fall.

Her son, Jeremiah, was thought to have been stillborn, but prosecutors now
say they have evidence that the infant lived for several minutes, and that
the boy's death was preventable. The fundamentalists file no birth records
and do not use hospitals or doctors.

Another child, 10-month-old Samuel Ribidoux, allegedly starved to death
after he stopped nursing. Prosecutors say that, by all accounts, the child
was developing normally until the group stopped feeding him.

David Corneau, Jeremiah's father, is among eight sect members behind bars
for refusing to cooperate in an investigation of the sect. Samuel's father is also jailed.
No charges have been filed."

[end of article]

Epistle 2:

The following has been contributed by Bob Howard from New Zealand. It describes why he has no belief in a supreme being, and is considered, interesting and informative. I found it a pleasure to read. If you have read most, or all of "The English Atheist" you will see that some of Bob's ideas do not match with mine, therefore I am now declaring this page a "Zone of Atheist Democracy". Enjoy:

"I was baptised a Catholic and sent to Catholic schools. I have mixed feelings about that. At the time Catholic schools in Australia produced better results than the state schools but of course children were indoctrinated with Catholic nonsense. I was told I had to go to church and take part in religious activities which being naturally rebellious got my back up. I left school at fourteen and a half and flatly refused to go to church anymore once I was away from that environment. At that age it was pure rebellion hardly an intellectual exercise.

All through my 20s I never gave religion a thought. When I was 30 and mature I began to wonder if there was anything in it. I took all the books I could find from the library plus any religious material which came my way. But after wading through it all I came to the conclusion religion had little substance but was a matter of what one wanted to believe. That was partly because of the variations in what people actually believed.

In Sydney after world war 2 there was quite a Catholic/Protestant rivalry. It was not uncommon to find one business employing a majority of Catholics and another employing a majority of Protestants. The Catholic priests would tell their flocks to stay away from Protestant churches in case they were influenced into doctrinal error. If a Catholic had a friend marrying in a Protestant church he/she was supposed to go and ask the local priest for permission to attend the wedding. That further put my back up. There was no way some hack priest was going to tell me where I could or could not go.

I have always been an avid reader particularly of science. It is a natural progression for a thinking person as he ages to realise religion is steeped in the ignorance of the past while science gives a more realistic view of life. For instance the demon possession of the New Testament has all the earmarks of mental illness. Though as one commentator put it since germs and virus were unknown disease itself was seen as a demon. We know Christianity developed during a time of superstition and supernatural events yet Christians insist their religion is unique and has not just responded to the culture of it's time. I have tried to impress on Christians usually to no avail that virgin births and resurrections were a dollar a dozen in those times. If Jesus hadn't been presented as a miracle man he would not have impressed the Greco-Roman world.

You say you don't believe Jesus existed. I disagree and think he did. All large longlasting movements usually have their base in an outstanding individual whose thinking was advanced for his time and who was usually a charismatic person able to influence large numbers. I think that sort of founder existed. What I don't believe are the miracles surrounding him. I think he was highly embellished after his death. The highlights of his life were stressed by his immediate followers who passed them on to the next generation who embellished them a bit more and so the myths were born. At a time of ignorance and illiteracy and nothing like the record keeping we have for reference gossip and hearsay would be rife. We only have to look at our own backward societies.

Christians "know" they have the exclusive truth.What bothers me is the Islamics and the Hindus also know they have the exclusive truth. They can't all be right. If I am true to my intelligence why should I be punished for my beliefs just because they don't coincide with Christians. The Christian god is a very small minded individual. Logically one of the main things which tells me the Christian god does not exist is that he is so human and has changed character over time. The OT god was brutal and contemptuous of human life. With Jesus he became just and loving but even so only a couple of hundred years ago his agents were thundering fire and brimstone from the pulpits. Now that sort of attitude does not suit our modern intellect hell is just separation from God. Through the ages God has been whatever people wanted him to be.

As time goes on science rolls back the boundary where God is needed to explain natural phenomena. We have reached a point where we can explain the existence of the universe with no god at all. In fact postulating a god to be the cause only takes the mystery of why did it all happen one stage back - who or what made God?"

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