More Mail!
Welcome to page 2 of the mail for Atheist Lost in Space Fans. Webspawner has a limit as to how much can be put on a page, so this supplemental page was necessary. Sorry about that. Us cheapskates can't be choosers. :) And now on to the mail:
Subj: Seamless
Date: 11/16/1999 1:08:30 PM Pacific Standard Time
From:
To: Lisfan2666@aol.com
Hi!
I happened across your web site and thought I'd drop a line.
I grew up watching Lost In Space, Star Trek and Star Wars. I really
enjoyed these shows and also loved keeping track of the US space
program. I was raised by Christian parents who really did love me, they didn't just say it, they demonstrated it. In my experience this type of parental love is not only found in Christian parents, but in parents of all beliefs (or non-beliefs). However, I was taught to believe in God. I took my beliefs seriously when I was young and never had a doubt. As I grew older my love for science grew, I wanted to grow up to be an astronaught / scientist / explorer all rolled into one.
Now I'm 37 and I've done things most have only dreamed of. I've enjoyed the excitement of being an Air Force pilot, I have been a qualified aircraft commander in four seperate airframes (T-37, T-38, B-52 & B-1). I've taught students how to fly 4 ship formation, flown solo aerobatic jet formation, etc. I had a tremendous amount of fun in the military. Now I work from my home, in the beautiful Black Hills of SD, and with the help of my wonderful wife of 14 years I'm raising my two wonderful children. My daughter and I summited Longs Peak(14,256') in CO this summer, she's only 11. My son is 7 and sharp as a tack. I also love my work, writing computer code is problem solving at its best! When I talk with my old high school friends back in IL all I hear from them is "defeat", my job stinks, my wife sleeping around on me, my kids suck, etc. I wonder why the difference, I mean, we all had similar dreams and goals. Was I smarter? Did I work harder? Was I just luckier? Did my parents love me more? What's the difference!? Maybe they just gave up,
faced with an unfair world and disapointments they just got tired of
fighting. I've never won a fight in my life, I've never had to fight. I just roll happily along with my head in the clouds. So I must request, if you have any love for me, your fellow man, please... when you discover a way to prove God doesn't exsist, don't tell me.
Thanks for listening,
Oh my. It's hard not to be smug when presented with a letter like this. You come across more like a convenient strawman for Atheism than as someone promoting their own beliefs.
Oh well. Sometimes one has to respond to an easy target. I take no pride in pointing out the painfully, festeringly obvious flaws in the above letter.
First of all, it's rather obvious that you skimmed over what I said on my pages, and didn't bother actually considering what I said. Why else would you resort to the already discredited 'can you prove it didn't happen' variant?
I see that you're happy in your delusion, and you take some pride in it. I do wonder what will happen to you when some adversity comes into your life. You seem to base your delusion on the belief that your life has had no troubles. Or maybe you just aren't seeing them. Personally, I will take an unpleasant reality over a pleasant delusion any day. Walking with your head in the clouds only serves to keep you from seeing the hazards ahead.
Such letters as I have received are instructional, in that they show that there is no real depth to Believers' philosophy. Most of them try to find a new way to say "Can you prove it didn't happen?" or some other futile attempt to shift the burden of proof. There's nothing to this belief in god stuff-- nothing but self delusion, as the above correspondent shows aptly.
Subj: (no subject)
Date: 99-10-28 22:25:02 EDT
From:
To:
Lost In Space is my favorite, but you need to get a grip on reality and see the light. You're headed down the wrong path, my friend.
Oh, for crying out loud. You're not even trying here. Your letter is hardly worth the effort of printing, save for the fact that it shows that the Beleievers can't come up with a decent counter argument.
Subj: My Thought of I Kings 14:10
Date: 99-10-26 16:21:39 EDT
From:
To:
No, Gods love does not have limits. Why didn't you mention the very verse before it? We are reading about a corrupt King (Jeroboam), who had attained his position by the grace of God alone. It all starts from after king David, all the kings who followed David gradually got worse and God had to make an example out of Jeroboam. If you have kids of your own, take for example. Suppose one sets fire to your house, you will be angry at them and punish them but you will still love you child. Sometimes God must destroy sinners to keep them from spreading their evil deeds unto their descendants. Do you realize that even punishment is also an act of love? It's basically the same thing as us giving someone the death penalty for violent crimes. It's not about getting even, but seeing to it that justice is served to deter future crime. God passed down his terrible wrath onto Jeroboam so future kings will not fall into the same evil deeds. And he didn't kill Jeroboam, he only destroyed his body. Jeroboam's pirit is still alive and is waiting for final judgement.
This is easily the most moronic letter I have ever received. It is so self contradictory that it amazes me every time I read it. "...he didn't kill Jeroboam, he only destroyed his body." I'm waiting for a murderer to use that as his defense. I'm sure the prosecuting attorney will buy it.
It is apparently acceptable to you that urinating against a wall will incur the death penalty. What the heck: the punishment comes from god, and god, being god, can do no wrong, and any seemingly arbitrary,
capricious, or evil thing god does is OK, because our minds are too puny to understand the Big Picture. Oh yeah.
If Atheists want an excellent example of the sheer perversity of christianity, your letter will be a prime example. To quote Don Saunders of American gay Atheists:
"What you believe isn't just wrong. It's disgusting."
From:
To:
Subject: ALISFS (Athiest Lost in Space Fans)
Date: Thurs, 20 Oct 1999
Hey,
I read one of the letters to written to you about the website you had, and inside the letter this person asked you "why you became an athiest?"
Based on what you said about the reasons you became an athiest would seem to some people like very good reasons, but I was just wondering since you said you were at one point in time a "True Believer", what you think a "True Believer" is? ( I am not going to tell you what my personal definition of a "True Believer is; all I would like to know is your definition.)
Oh, lovely. The old "define your terms" monkeywrench in the cogwheel argument. Sigh. As if this had any relevance. A "True Believer" is someone who believes in his little belief system, whether it be xianity or UFOs or political beliefs. This person believes what they believe, and no counter argument, no matter how sensible or well constructed, is going to change their mind. Said Treu Believers often can't come up with legitimate arguments of their own, preferring to parrot others, or go to rhetorical dead ends, like variations on the old "Can you prove it didn't happen?"
Also, you said that "if someone who claims to be a Christian does
something wrong then that person was obviously not a Christian, by
definition." I think that once you give me your definition of a "True
Believer" is then I will know the answer to the following question. Based on what you stated above, do you believe that if you do something wrong (sin) that you are not a true Christian?
I am parodying the idea, put forth by christians, that they cannot do wrong. Jimmy Swaggart repeatedly sees prostitutes? No, that doesn't reflect on christianity, since Swaggart is not a true christian. Christians like to make their beliefs nonfalsifiable. They believe that by being a chreistian, somehow they are more moral. In fact, they have even convinced themselves that their religion is the same thing as morality-- you can't be moral and an Atheist. Their standard answer, when confronted weith a fellow christian that has done wrong, is that said person wasn't a real christian.
Somehow, they never got the idea that a nonfalsifiable belief is also a nonvalid one.
Another point that I would like to mention is that also in this letter you stated that, "When you ask Believers what would falsify their beliefs, they say something like 'I know I am right'". The above statement should not have been included in the letter in my humble opinion because I personally feel that it is not fair to accuse everyone who is a "believer" that if they were presented with the question, " What would make your beliefs false?" Not everyone who you classify as a "believer" would say 'I know I am right'. Just like it wouldn't be fair of me to say the every agnostic or athiest would say their beliefs were right if I asked them, " What would make your beliefs false?" I am not being biased against agnostics, athiests, or anyone else who has a different belief system from me. My point is that only if you had talked to every "believer" in the whole world that same question and gotten the same answer everytime, then and only then could anyone make a statement like that.
Oh, brother. So no one can make a declarative statement at all, then. Until they've polled everyone in the world, of course.
I've talked to enough TB's; I've gotten nearly the same answer from every one of them. Come to think of it, you have evaded the question: What wopuld falsify your beliefs? Every thoughtful person has mulled this over. You might want to consider it too.
I do believe I've answered the above question somewhere on this website. Just in case I haven't, all I would need would be unambiguous prove of some manifestation by god. The parameters of that would be: It couldn't be faked by humans (thus no weeping statues, spoon bending, and so on); it would have to be big, as befitting god (thus someone soldering two pieces of aluminum together wouldn't cut it), it wouldn't be a rationalization of something that has already occured ("golly!! Just look around you!"), and it would have to be unambiguously from god. Heck, god, being god, would know what to do.
So, again, don't evade the question: What would falsify your beliefs?
One last thing, and then I'll shut up. You said, "I am often accused of being closed-minded". I am unable really to say if you are or not, but after reading your response to some people who were "Christian", and how you either told them to "shut up", made fun of their writing style, or you didn't even thank them for at least taking the time to read opinions about God and the Bible, I think that they probably deserved more than a slap in the face.
Oh, I should be polite to them too. Nope. Not necessary. I remember one debate with a pro paranormal type (it's amazing how similar the woo woos are). He eventually blurted out that I didn't even care about his feelings. What relevance his feelings had with the debate at hand I could never quite figure out.
Funny, you seem to be quite hospitable to the woo woos' attacks on me.
The tempation to respond with "Yes, they also deserve a knee in the groin" was almost overwhelming, but I managed to resist. :)
This is just what I observed so I can't really accused of being
closed-minded. I just wanted to close by saying that I think that you wrote a pretty good athiest article, bu what I got out it was that you were mainly just dissing Christianity. If you pulled in a few pieces of scientific evidence against the Christian faith and informatiom that would support your article, I think that it would be very convincing.
Oh dear. Yet another permutation on the old "Can you prove it didn't happen?" I should carry a club with me in debates, the club having the words "Burden of Proof" etched on it. Sigh. Even with a few good applications of that club, I don't think the message would sink in. :)
Here I go, for the 1000th time: The burden of proof is
on the person making an assertion. If I said I had a giant, radioactive two headed kung fu cockroach with a human brain as a pet, would I then be able to prove the existence of that cockroach by folding my arms and saying "It's up to you to disprove it."? If I got a following of people who have never seen the cockroach, but who believe it is real based on my say so, would that then make it real? If a lot of people said that their belief in the kung fu cockroach made them happy, would that make it real?
The burden of proof is on you, no matter how many times you try to foist it off on me.
From:
To:
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 23:28:49 -0700
I just added a new item to my site -- it's a comparison of what Jesse Ventura and the Founding Fathers said about
religion.
-Casey
Escaping America
That's a nice little website! There's a lot of good material there. I've got it bookmarked.
for
Message-ID: <77baaf99.25239336@aol.com>
I think it's so sad that you do not have any belief or hope in our God. He is a living God, and a fearful God. I have felt his presence, and his word (The Bible), teaches us that he will return and you must be saved or you will be doomed to hell. I will pray that you will get some sense into your mind, because you simply do not know the truth. I am so sorry for you.
I did get some sense in my mind: despite your prayer, I'm still an Atheist. Since your prayer failed, does that mean that god does not exist? :)
I suspect you meant fearsome instead of fearful. But then again, with you woo woo types, it can be hard to tell. Would you care to elaborate?
Anyway, thanks for writing. But in the future, could you improve your rants a bit? It was hardly worth wading through the spam in my mailbox to find your screed. If you insist on being a troll, could you at least be an entertaining troll? :)
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