The format for this email is that first I am going to quote the full email sent to me in a small font, then my quotes from and replies to that email. Quotes from the email are in purple, my response in normal text colour.
From: Paul Gaveston
Hello,
I am not writing this e-mail to attack you on your beliefs as your website is designed to attack Christians and others on their beliefs. My intent here, however, is to inform you on some fallacies in your explanations.
First of all, I would like to say that I am very much a Christian, and I am also a fan of science, especially astronomy. Coming from both ends of science and religion, my findings on the matter are very different from your point of view. God does exist and the laws of nature and science were created by God as the laws of the universe. Where do I come up with this conclusion? If you have void nothing...in other words oblivion, then how could the universe be created? So in your website when you claim that there is no God and the creation around you is whatever you say it is, then what you are really saying is that you can make "something" out of "nothing"? Gee whiz that would be really neat. That would solve the worlds problems on fossil fuels and resources. If you can make something out of void nothing, then by all means show me. I would love to see that. And I hope you don't try and say that the universe made itself out of nothing because that would mean the universe has a mind of it's own and a sense of being. That rocks experience pain, and have life. Ok, so let's put all religion beliefs aside and just think from a scientific point of view. There's still a hole in science because science shows you cannot create something out of nothing. So perhaps before you pull out your Bible on the subject, you should pull out your science book first and read up on that part. Then it will become a lot more evident that "something" had to have put the universe here.
I noticed that your e-mail name was "atheistdivine", which I'm assuming references that you don't believe in a God and you really actually believe yourself to be your own God, hence the word "divine". This is natural thinking, many religions of the world believe this. So I must ask you this. If you are your own God, then how come you don't have all the answers? How come you can't answer with proof your own arguments? Your entire website is speculation on how their cannot be a God. Yet you yourself can offer no proof that there isn't a God. Furthermore, when someone e-mails you some ideas to help you see otherwise, you explain each sentence off as some rational explanation or rather bizarre excuse to not believe there is a God. This sounds like the typical rebelling teenager who claims they know everything there is to know about life and all 5.99 billion other people in the world don't know what their talking about and are wrong and well, that's just the way it is so there. Right? Does this sound familiar to the attitude you are portraying in your website? I think most parents would say that's pretty immature. It sounds like you are claiming to be the master of the universe. You've got all the answers! Let me ask you this. Allow me to pose this idea real quick. Do you think that perhaps the purpose of your website is not really to denounce God and Christians, but rather because you have a subconcious desire for conflict and creating mayhem among the majority? In other words, are you one of those types that likes to just throw words out at random because you like to get a rise out of people? You like to piss people off because it gets attention to you? I could be wrong, but just wanted to ask before I go on with anymore explanations. I hope you are not just trying to get a rise out of people because then I am wasting my time writing this. But if you truly believe and adhere to what you say, then please allow me to go on.
On the section of your website called "Crap Christian Ideas" where you state that our Bible says non Christians are damned. Wow, that really shows your immaturity on the matter. It might help to read the text you are trying to disprove before actually making judgements about it because that just makes you sound ridiculous. They taught that in English class. I believe it was called "hasty generalizations". The sentence, "To God, we are damned..." is very interesting. If you could, I would really like you to quote to me the passage in the Bible that says that. I've studied evangelism for quite awhile now and haven't ever seen a quote like that. How amazing a God that teaches love, acceptance and forgiveness would turn right around and say "Damn you!" Again, my good man, your claims have no grounds of even making the slightest sense. Please don't make stuff up to try and prove your point. It only makes you look un-intelligent to people you are trying to impress.
To answer your question about Darwin and his findings. There's really no proof to show either way. First of all, we see many creatures have evolved. So what if they did? That doesn't mean God doesn't exist. There is also proof that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago. We have the proof in museums. That still doesn't prove God doesn't exist. As a matter of fact, the Bible states that time to God is pretty irrelevant and only relevant to humans. It also states the difference in time to us and God is not the same, which means the creation of the world in six days in Genesis could have happened over millions of years to us and only six days to God. The fact of the matter is we don't know. And I'm not about to make a website telling everyone I have it all figured out and that's the way it is so everyone else is wrong. There are some things we aren't meant to understand and never will. There are questions you will not have answered until you meet God face to face and have the chance to ask Him those questions.
It sounds like you are pretty bitter on the subject because when I read your website I hear bitterness in your words. There is nothing in the Bible that says you are damned because you are not Christian. As a matter of fact, it says otherwise. It says God gave you a lifetime to figure it out in your head. You have the truth staring you in the face and you have Satan covering your eyes with a veil so you can't see it. There is nothing God wants more than to have a personal one on one relationship with you. He longs for a relationship with you so much, and the Bible says he will never forsake you. But you have forsaken Him. You've given up completely on Him...saying "Nope sorry, I don't care what good things you have for my life, I don't want anything of it. Good bye". So in actuality, you're making your own decision on what you want. Again, you are telling God you are the master of your own realm. What's the point of this? Do you really want to spend the rest of your life being bitter on the internet or would you rather rest from it and enjoy peace for once?
Please feel free to post this response on your site, but please please please, if you are going to critique my response line by line with counter arguments then PLEASE research what you say and back up your counter arguments with truth instead of just words. I am very curious to hear what you have to say about my response. Thank you for your time.
- Paul
P.S. - I forgot also to mention the part of your website that tries to say that the Inquisition, Crusades, etc were all bad fruits manifested by good trees. I'm glad to see you attempt to back up your thoughts with passages from the Bible, saying bad fruits cannot come from good trees. However, the problem here is that you are just flat out not using your head. Think! There's a difference between saying you believe in God and really believing in God. You let the actions of some self-proclaimed Christians make your judgements on all Christians. It's the same thing as saying, "Well, Osama Bin Laden is a muslim and he kills, so let us judge all muslims as evil!" Yeah what a mature way of thinking. That will really solve problems. I have a better idea. Let's allow the actions of some crusading knights that lived 1000 years ago judge how we see people today! That's a super idea! Point here is, THINK before you talk.
Hi Paul,
Thank you for taking the time to email me about my website.
First of all, I would like to say that I am very much a Christian, and I am also a fan of science, especially astronomy. Coming from both ends of science and religion, my findings on the matter are very different from your point of view. God does exist and the laws of nature and science were created by God as the laws of the universe.
Are you a theistic evolutionist then? If you are, then you are likely to be from a much less "fundy" end of Christianity, and therefore are someone I have less of a problem with. Were it not for the fundies, my website would not exist.
Where do I come up with this conclusion? If you have void nothing...in other words oblivion, then how could the universe be created? So in your website when you claim that there is no God and the creation around you is whatever you say it is, then what you are really saying is that you can make "something" out of "nothing"?
On my website you will notice there are no discussions about science, the origin of life, the universe, or whatever. This is for a very good reason, I am not a scientist, and my last encounter with science was when I was 16, so I do not consider myself qualified to discuss the various theories about science. Personally, I think evolutionary theory as it now stands is probably right, but it is not something I give a great deal of thought to because I am incapable at the present time of distinguishing what is true, and what false, of the various arguments.
Ok, so let's put all religion beliefs aside and just think from a scientific point of view. There's still a hole in science because science shows you cannot create something out of nothing. So perhaps before you pull out your Bible on the subject, you should pull out your science book> first and read up on that part. Then it will become a lot more evident that "something" had to have put the universe here.
Christianity also claims something can be made out of nothing - God.
I noticed that your e-mail name was "atheistdivine", which I'm assuming references that you don't believe in a God and you really actually believe yourself to be your own God, hence the word "divine".
There is a section on my FAQ about this. The word "divine" as I am using it means "theologian" or, more appropriately in my case "theology student". It does not mean that I believe I am a god or divine being - that would put me in the category of the nutters out there who claim to have heard from gods, and I am certainly not one of those.
If you are your own God, then how come you don't have all the answers? How come you can't answer with proof your own arguments? Your entire website is speculation on how their cannot be a God. Yet you yourself can offer no proof that there isn't a God.
I do not claim to have "all the answers", it is religion which claims that sort of knowledge, not I. There are arguments against the existence of God rather than just refutations of the arguments for the existence of a God, but I have yet to go through them properly with a view to putting them on my website. As I understand things, however, these arguments are not particularly good, nor need they be, as the burden of proof is upon the believer who claims to know there is a god, not the unbeliever who claims there is no evidence of such a god.
Furthermore, when someone e-mails you some ideas to help you see otherwise, you explain each sentence off as some rational explanation or rather bizarre excuse to not believe there is a God.
I take it you are here referring to my posted email discussion with someone? I did not post that in the best way, as I rather unfortunately lost their original email. As you can see from this email, I customarily reply quoting the other person's words in chunks, with specific replies to those points underneath. Its a habit I picked up from message boards.
This sounds like the typical rebelling teenager who claims they know everything there is to know about life and all 5.99 billion other people in the world don't know what their talking about and are wrong and well, that's just the way it is so there. Right? Does this sound familiar to the attitude you are portraying in your website?
First off, I am not a teenager. And secondly, I have never claimed, either in private life or on my website, that I know everything. As I pointed out previously, that is the preserve of believers, not unbelievers. I am quite well aware I do not know everything, and I am also aware that there may be problems and false statements within my webpages, because I am not infallible. To claim there are no mistakes would be to claim I was "inspired" by someone/thing. I would, however, also like to point out that because "the majority" believes in something, does not necessarily make whatever they believe in right. A comparable situation is that of Copernicus - the majority did not believe his theory that the earth revolves around the sun was correct, yet it was eventually proved to be so.
Do you think that perhaps the purpose of your website is not really to denounce God and Christians, but rather because you have a subconcious desire for conflict and creating mayhem among the majority? In other words, are you one of those types that likes to just throw words out at random because you like to get a rise out of people? You like to piss people off because it gets attention to you?
The purpose of my website is to, in some small measure stop the growing dominance of the web with theistic (and specifically Christian) arguments. It also exists because of the behaviour of Christian apologists and evangelists who attempt to force their beliefs upon others. I am flattered that you think my website is of such strength that it will cause mayhem among Christians, its intent is to perhaps make the odd Christian think about the beliefs they are basing their lives upon.
On the section of your website called "Crap Christian Ideas" where you state that our Bible says non Christians are damned. Wow, that really shows your immaturity on the matter. [snip] The sentence, "To God, we are damned..." is very interesting. If you could, I would really like you to quote to me the passage in the Bible that says that. I've studied evangelism for quite awhile now and haven't ever seen a quote like that.
Oh dear.
Paul, from this comment I suspect you are a theological liberal, as fundamental Christians do not tend to make such comments. However, the Bible most clearly states that everyone is damned before salvation, and that only those who are saved by belief in Jesus can be saved.
For example:
John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
John 8:24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.
John 12:48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
Revelation 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
As you can see from these verses (there are others), the Bible states that those who are not Christians (do not believe in Christ) will not be saved, that those who do not believe will be burnt in the lake of fire. Furthermore, seeing as the wages of sin are death (Romans 6:23) and that unbelievers will die in their sins (John 8:24) we can see that all those who do not believe in Jesus will die in their sins, and therefore be punished for them in that same lake of fire.
How amazing a God that teaches love, acceptance and forgiveness would turn right around and say "Damn you!"
This is precisely what the God of the Bible does say, many times. As Christian theologians put it, God is love, but God is also justice, and justice demands death for unforgiven sin. Sin can only be forgiven through belief in Jesus, therefore those who do not believe in him are damned. All have sinned (Romans 3:23) therefore all are damned until those sins are forgiven by Jesus (eg Acts 3:19).
To answer your question about Darwin and his findings. There's really no proof to show either way. First of all, we see many creatures have evolved. So what if they did? That doesn't mean God doesn't exist. There is also proof that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago. We have the proof in museums.
On my website there is nothing about Darwin except for the section in "Crap Christian Ideas" about the claim that Darwin recanted on his deathbed.
It sounds like you are pretty bitter on the subject because when I read your website I hear bitterness in your words. There is nothing in the Bible that says you are damned because you are not Christian. As a matter of fact, it says otherwise.
I am not bitter about Christianity, but I do dislike it, especially the fundamentalist forms. I dislike other fundamentalist religions, but as I know relatively little about them, certainly not enough to fill a website, I do not discuss them.
Again, the Bible very clearly states that nonChristians are damned.
Do you really want to spend the rest of your life being bitter on the internet or would you rather rest from it and enjoy peace for once?
On the contrary, I am rather more happy now than I was when I was a Christian. Many other exchristians have also found that they are more fulfilled and happier once they no longer had a "god" whom they had to try to believe in and who was obsessively interested in their lives.
Please feel free to post this response on your site, but please please please, if you are going to critique my response line by line with counter arguments then PLEASE research what you say and back up your counter arguments with truth instead of just words. I am very curious to hear what you have to say about my response. Thank you for your time.
As you have signified your agreement, I'm going to post this on the site. I will include your full name, but not your email address. Please get in touch if you feel I've misrepresented you or misquoted, or if you do not wish your surname to appear.
However, the problem here is that you are just flat out not using your head. Think! There's a difference between saying you believe in God and really believing in God. You let the actions of some self-proclaimed Christians make your judgements on all Christians.
We have no evidence to show that those who did such things as the Inquisition and the Crusades were not Christians - they believed they were, and they certainly had enough evidence from the Bible to justify holy wars, judging from the amount of holy wars God led the Israelites into, and went into battle himself.
It's the same thing as saying, "Well, Osama Bin Laden is a muslim and he kills, so let us judge all muslims as evil!"
I would say that the actions of Bin Laden show that there is some evidence in the Quran to allow him to justify to himself and his followers the attacks on innocent people on September 11th. That does not mean all muslims will kill, any more than all Christians will kill others, but it does mean that there is enough justification in their holy books for a minority to justify killing.
Thank you for responding to my website.
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