You Have Such a Closed Mind

Here is an email I received in response to one of my essays.

You Have Such a Closed Mind

I respect your opinion on how u believe and ur atheistic view of the universe. Trying to argue with someone like you is nearly impossible because your so rooted in your beliefs only a miracle by God himself would make you understand the incredible power that God has over our lives.

I have been debating this with Christians since I was 15 years old. I keep asking for the evidence. Why do you believe the Bible is the word of God? The best Christians ever offer is circular reasoning by quoting from the Bible a claim that it is indeed the word of God. The Muslims do the same with the Qur’an. They at least offer the weak evidence that the Arabic poetry of the Qur’an is so good, no human could have composed it. I don’t speak Arabic, so I can’t validate that claim. Christians don’t even offer that.

Sometimes Christians say "It feels in my heart that the Bible is true; you have to have faith without evidence." Unfortunately, it feels is my heart that the Bible is a great cock and bull story. There is so much scientific evidence it is untrue, that it would take some pretty impressive counter evidence to convince me otherwise and nobody ever provides any. They just berate me for not having faith in the ridiculous without evidence. To me doing that would be wishful thinking at best and idiotic naïveté at worst.

Still having faith in Creation and believing that there is an all powerful God around us takes as much faith as believing several billion years ago the universe compacted itself into a tiny atom than erupted causing the entire universe to form over another billion years. I know you say that believing in God is like believing in Santa Claus but believing in dirt that makes the universe is just as improbable.

The very existence of the universe is awe-inspiring. However, I don’t see how adding a God to mix makes it any easier to explain. Then where did God come from? Who designed and created him? If he is self creating, why should not the universe be also capable of self-creation? You might see my Gödel argument why the universe is necessarily so awe-inspiring to us humans. Speaking as a logician, the universe is everything that exists, which means it includes God plus the creation. So why is it so impossible that the universe is capable of self-creation?

i don’t really want to get into a big discussion bout all this… b/c i’m sure u’ve heard all of this before. But God has proven himself real to me over and over again. I don’t need the evidence of the past to show me he’s real i can see him working in my life right now.

God has been totally silent for me. He was totally silent for all the millions dying of AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) in Africa, or the orphans left behind to fend for themselves. He was totally silent while the Macah Indians sacrificed whales and danced drunken on their carcasses. He was totally silent while the tuna fishers slaughtered most of the world’s dolphins. He never lifted a finger to help the Jews in the Nazi concentration camps. If God exists, he seems to have a very hands-off approach to running earth. To me his actions are so subtle as to be undetectable. If there was a God, he seems to have done all his work designing the universe, then set it off to run on its own.

God seems to play no favourites with Christians. They are stuck down by calamity just the same as anyone else. He is just as unresponsive to their prayers as anyone else’s. There is no evidence that God holds Christians in any sort of exalted status. The Bible tells the Jews and Christians they are the chosen people, but it was egotistical Jews and Christians who wrote it. What did you expect them to say, that Jews and Christians were no better than anyone else? That’s not God speaking, that’s pride — the equivalent of today’s flag-waving patriotism.

I have met people who told me that God told them to do such and such a thing. Often these things were rather mundane, sometimes foolish, sometimes self-serving. It seemed to me these people were just imagining things in order to feel important. Even if everyone else thought they were a loser, at least God took time out to talk to them.

The Bible says God is love. I have seen love work miracles. But this has nothing to do with the hoary tales of the Bible and the fire and brimstone. The Bible and the church just get in the way of people’s natural love for one another by teaching them to be judgemental and intolerant.

Thank you for your time

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