Received 4.12.2001

Hello, how are you? I am doing a paper on atheists being true believers in denial and I just had to email and tell you that my theory is correct. Why else would you put together a website and spread evil things about something you have not taken the time to pray and seek God about?

God is not the type to harm people or lie! He ALLOWS things to happen to them by the workings of the Satan but GOD IS IN CONTROL OVER ALL THINGS BECAUSE HE MADE THIS EARTH AND HE CAN TAKE IT BACK! God is God and HE can do that. God is a father figure that loves His children and has outstretched arms to catch them when they fall or sin against HIM. Why else would HE have sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross? He is the Good Shepherd and He takes care of His sheep, His children. From personal experience I can go on and on about how HE has brought me through some horrific stuff that I inflicted on myself and others that He allowed to happen to me so that I may be blessed with an abundance of faith, patience, adoration, admiration for HIM and the surrendering of my complete being. When God called me into the marvelous light He wanted all of me. Not some aspects of my life but ALL of it. Who am I to betray the love that sent His only begotten Son to DIE for some one like me and YOU. Please check out the bible verse in the New Testament of the Holy Bible. It is John chapter 3 verse 16. Ask God to touch your heart and really meditate on these words. If YOU truly desire it in your heart to understand and get to know HIM for who HE truly is then you will be saved by grace and mercy and will receive the most precious gift from God-your salvation! You can take this however you want to. I hope and pray that you take this and at least read John chapter 3 verse 16. If you do not own a bible then I will write the verse for you. It is:

"For God so loved the world that HE gave HIS only begotten SON. That whosoever believeth in HIM shall not perish but have everlasting life."

Translation: God loved the world so much that HE gave HIS Son. Whoever chooses to believe in the SON's death and resurrection, they shall not die a spiritual death but have everlasting life with the Father-GOD in heaven forever!

Have a blessed day!

My Reply:

Thanks for writing. You touch upon several topics that are worthy of commentary.

I deny that I'm a believer in denial!  Actually, I just thought it would be funny to state that.  Seriously, though, atheists don't deny things at random for the sake of denial. They deny things that lack evidence, things that are unsubstantiated. I don't believe in the tooth fairy, not because of my commitment to denial, but because the evidence has not convinced me she exists.

You write that I am spreading evil about things I haven't taken the time to pray and seek God about. Here at my evil website I did a survey where I asked people if their parents were religious. 78% of the 127 atheists who responded grew up with parents who believed in God. Atheism is not the default religious affiliation for the vast majority of people, especially in the United States. For most atheists, arriving at an official position of disbelief is a painful reconciliation between what they perceive in the world around them and what they have been taught by their parents since childhood. The atheist position is often misunderstood by Christians who equate it with evil.  This can create an environment where becoming an atheist means alienating friends and family, perhaps even impeding one's career. I would wager that the typical atheist prayed long and hard to their parent's god while trying to deal with the doubts that eventually became too compelling to ignore.

On the topic of my spreading evil, I have to ask you, if I were a Scientologist would I be spreading evil? What if I were a Hindu? A Mormon? A Catholic? At what point would my beliefs be close enough to your own that I would no longer be a messenger of evil. Is religious tolerance evil? Is the separation of church and state evil?

You write: "God is not the type to harm people or lie! He ALLOWS things to happen to them by the workings of the Satan but GOD IS IN CONTROL OVER ALL THINGS..."

I agree that God does not harm people because I don't believe God exists.  The fact is that good things and bad things happen to all people, regardless of their religious beliefs, at about the same ratio.  Reward and retribution are not rationed out by supernatural score keepers. 

Since you are a Christian, however, there are some things you should ask yourself about this topic.  Who created Hell?  Who created Satan?  We are all familiar with the story of the great flood.  How many children and babies did God drown with it?  Was he just allowing the innocent children to be killed?  You have no doubt read the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).  Jesus teaches us not to ignore the suffering of others.  Why doesn't God follow his own teachings?  Should Christian fathers follow God's loving example and kill their children if they don't obey, just like God did with the flood?

Deuteronomy 21: 18-21 says they should:

"If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. And they shall say to the elders of his city, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear."

You also write, "God is a father figure that loves His children and has outstretched arms to catch them when they fall or sin against HIM."

In Genesis 38: 6-10, God kills Onan for spilling his semen:

And Judah took a wife for Er his first-born, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah's first-born, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him. Then Judah said to Onan, "Go in to your brother's wife, and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother." But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother's wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother. And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD, and he slew him also.

In 2 Samuel 6: 2-7 God kills Uzzah for trying to keep the Ark of the Covenant from falling off his cart:

They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it. David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the LORD, with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals. When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled.
The LORD's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God.

 

The Old Testament is filled with examples like these, things that don't feel like model behavior for the ultimate loving father figure.  What kind of loving parent would sentence their child to Hell?  What crime could they do during their short life on Earth that justifies an eternity of suffering?  No human father would wish that upon their child.

As far as Jesus dying for our sins, if Jesus has always existed and still exists now, what was really sacrificed?  In the span of an eternity, the crucifixion would amount to an infinitesimally small pin prick.  Has God given up anything?  And why is the sacrifice only effective for people who believe Jesus died for their sins?  It seems awfully petty for an omnipotent being to only reward people who acknowledge his sacrifices for them.  And why would a loving God pick such a violent solution to the problem of man's sinfulness (a problem He created in the first place).

I'm glad that Christianity helped you get through "some horrific stuff." I'd like to respectfully point out, however, that YOU are the one who got through it.  I don't know the details of your story, but it no doubt took strength from you to learn from your mistakes and resolve to make a change.  You deserve the credit.  I won't deny that a church can provide a network of like-minded friends who can offer support, but my point is that nothing supernatural is happening here.  Congratulations to YOU on turning your life around.

Lastly, I will leave you with Leviticus 26: 14-39, where the Lord tells the Israelites what he will do to them if they don't obey his commands.  For effect, imagine a loving human father telling this to his child.  For example, "If you don't clean your room I will force you to... eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters."  Let's bask in the Loving Father's unconditional love...

"`If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over.  I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit.

"`If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.

"`If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. I will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it.

A reply from another reader.  Received 4.27.2001

If ever I needed proof that to believe in Christianity you have to flush your common sense down the toilet, then that latest letter is it. The guy says he is writing a paper, so presumably he's in some sort of academic environment. This would suggest a modicum of intelligence, but really what sort of logic (which is the only way anyone can ascertain whether a 'theory is correct') is on display here. He takes his own personal evaluation 
on what is evil and applies it to all atheists including yourself, presumably based on an assumption that this is a universal set of truths. This then allows him to suppose that you are acting out of some willful, malicious intent, purely because he cannot and will not step out of his own framework of beliefs.

The God of the Jews, adopted by the Christians and Muslims is a god of wrath, jealousy and vengeance, so to say he is not the type to harm people is nonsense; your examples from the Old Testament show this very well.  Any monotheistic religion has a very fundamental problem when they claim the One God is a god of love, as there is mountains of evidence to suggest otherwise. 

I say to this person and others like him that atheists refute utterly the existence of any gods or goddesses, they are not turning away from something they KNOW to be true otherwise they wouldn't be atheists. In saying this I am not espousing evil, as I personally do not believe in the concept of evil as some mystical and malevolent conscious force either. If unpleasant things happen they are because we live in an imperfect world and are
imperfect beings engaged in complicated relationships and interactions, not
because of demons or spirits or other such gobbledygook. To atheists the story of Jesus is at best an interpretation of historical events and at worst a set of lies. To me as an atheist God did not give his only son because there is no God and Jesus was a man who died for religious and political reasons and whose life story was used for religious and 
political reasons by (amongst others) a failing Roman empire and a power hungry
ex-apostle to found a new dynasty through the church.

This person's "theory" is not correct. It is conjecture and the opinion of someone with a belief system which they have every right to hold, but which is devoid of fact, reason or basis and which therefore cannot be proved as correct. Much like any religion I might add. An opinion is not a thing with concrete, solid reality, it is a perception of the world. If I was 
marking that paper, on the basis of such lazy thinking it'd get an "F, must try harder".

Best Wishes

Martin