THIRD STRAIGHT EXCHANCE WITH A FUNDAMENTALIST

> From: "H_____ K____"
> Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 21:21:48 -0700
> To: geothomas
> Subject: RE: Your reply of 9/21/2004
>
> Dear George,
>
> You seem to be reading my letters for the sole purpose of finding something
> in which you can prove me wrong, or prove yourself intellectually superior.
> I did not enter into this discussion to enjoy a battle of wits.
> I write to you as one beggar who has found some food to another.
> I write to you as one who has found peace with God and is not afraid to die.
> I write to you as one who loved science while denying the existence of God,
> and now loves science even more while embracing God.
>
> Please read my reply of 9/21/04 again, and this time respond by summarizing
> in your own words what I said.
> After that, I would be glad to hear any additional comments you might have.
>
> Howard

_________________________________________________________________

Dear Howard,

This is how I summarize your two first letters to me.

As a child you were indoctrinated into the Christian Church, but you didn't much think about the import of the Book words which were given you as an explanation of why people die.

You grew up and went to college and took science where you learned the objective and predictive methods of science. Neither did they take.

Then some "nerdy" guy talked to you about your death which you'd been ducking for awhile and told you that your fear of death could be overcome by believing there was an eternal life if you just held the right words in your head as an explanation for reality. So you gave up the scientific method of approaching the truth and went back to subjective methods: i.e. "literary interpretation" or "exegesis" of the Bible, "hearsay evidence" as recorded in the Bible and "appeals to the authority" of the Bible. I must note that none of these are in the least objective or scientific. To give up the methods of science for the subjective tools of religion does not show a respect or love for science because the methods of science are all that's important about science, not the results which from time to time can be wrongly interpreted. Which is why I say you don't love the scientific methods which answer nearly all your initial list of doubts to me. Instead you go to myth and literature for you answers. Have you read Dawkin's The Blind Watchmaker?


To return to summary. Currently you hold the words in your head that you are saved from your own death by believing that a Prince named Jesus died in your place for his father's sins, and you take seriously your roll to witness to the heathens like myself, because if you don't do that, then you will have no justification in condemning me to death in your head. That would make you feel guilty. So, since we are social animals, and you'd like me to be part of your herd, before you condemn me to be outcast, you take this one effort to bring me into your fold. And, if I refuse the word of your book as the truth, then I deserve what comes my way, eternal separation from the "in" crowd. It will be for me like an eternal junior high where all the insiders get all the privileges while us outsiders "rot in hell" as the ever popular saying goes.

Is that a correct summary of your historical background?

Now to summarize your literary interpretations from the collections of writings that the Roman Empire selected from thousands of documents to be the "correct words" for the insiders to heed.

The King of Heaven gave his peasant a command, and since the peasant didn't know that it was wrong to disobey the King, he did what the King told him not to do, and the King, in his pride and pomp of power (a thoroughly human mind he has, eh?) condemned the peasant to death and all his progeny too. Then (again slipping into his human and imperfect mind once more) the King felt sorrow that he'd done such a stupid thing and, so, to make himself feel better, he created a Princely son who he then crucified in place of himself for the King's own wrongdoing.

Now, according to your lights, I, a human in a democracy no longer subject to Kings and their whims, way along in the line of Adam, am supposed to like this Kingly fellow who murders his son for his own Kingly wrongdoing when I know that any responsible Child Protective Services officer would quickly remove a child from the home of such a Kingly child murderer. I'm to believe that, somehow, my believing in this murderous King and his plan for me, I will not have to die like all the other animals around me and sleep an eternal sleep? No wonder Martin Luther said we must be irrational to believe the Bible, for only someone without reason can believe it.

Now, here's my take on this fiction—pretending for a moment, it were true. Since my Dad Adam was innocent when he was punished, I'm not going to accept this King's unjust and crazy rule. I'll choose to give sway to my anger at this God/King fellow, for if I accept his side of the story, I betray Adam, my dear and loving dad, and bow myself to this tyrannous King's insanity. By continuing to obey the King, I perpetuate his rule and his wrong doings as the King. I become an accomplice in the death of my own dear daddy. Even if I must die, my courageous rebellion is better than to perpetuate this nasty and insane King's rule over the land. After all, I've discovered democracy and freedom, I'm done with Kings and Princes, so with courage and right on my side, I lift my fist against the King and, by doing that, end his unjust reign in my heart and over the land of the suffering humans who are still burdened by his authority.

Is that a summary of the King's plan for me to have eternal life? How do you like my rebellion? And by the way, I just created for the first time in my life, a true metaphorical tale for why we ought all to reject this King stuff in the modern world of democracies. Won't you lift up your yoke under the King's irrational might, and facing death with courage, overthrow his unfair and irrational rule?

Unfortunately, the experience of history tells us that many of the King's subjects, afraid of death and lacking courage, have often done the King's dirty work for him. They kill and otherwise silence anyone who dares oppose their King. Better to live in slavery, they say, then to face death and oppose tyranny.

From one man with the scientific spirit to another man who used to have the keys and tools of freedom but who gave them away to return to the Kingdom of Crazy King,

Geo