Mamma Mia!

I felt sick yesterday morning, having spent some time during the night in agitation. Nu's latest email had posed two or three problems for me, not the least of which was that it stirred memories of old religious woundings—some very old, some not so old. As I said on Sunday (quoting one of my emails from the Friday interchange), "in my earlier days [in my youth, I] spent many hours praying"—for what I can't quite remember, but possibly for reassurance that I believed sufficiently to be "saved." Not fun to revisit all that. Children don't deserve to have religion foisted on them in that way. Santa Claus is bad enough, but parents admit that hoax eventually. Childhood woundings. The more recent woundings were suffered during my ill-fated attempt to form a friendship with a jehovah (Tom S), whose talking points and Bible quotations were, if anything, even more rehearsed than Nu's. I exited that interchange to preserve my sanity.
    Nu and I have been friendly and have referred to each other as friends. We discovered early that we shared some basic values, especially the sense that "everything is holy" (if anything is, as I qualified it). Ironically, Nu seems to have inferred from that that I must "believe in God" and "be a Christian," after all and in spite of my denial. Nu won't allow that morality has evolved, that evolved consciousness shapes spirituality. In my view, of course, the "revelations" of the Bible grew out of that evolved consciousness; they were not imposed from outside by "God."
    The tone (and the "love" words) of Nu's latest message suggest a parent-child thing, with me the child to her mother:

Morris, This will be my final reply to you on this subject.
    I am sad to see your response. I think that over the last several years I have communicated to you in a very loving way....

She had sent me at least two previous notes of talking points and Bible quotations, and I reminded her most recently—about a year ago—that I don't respond well to being "preached at."

The motives behind my words have been very transparent. I would think that ultimately they are the same for every true Bible-believing Christian who shares their beliefs with any who do not believe. It is a desire for all men to know God and to believe on His Name. A desire that all men would give Honor and Respect to the Creator of the Universe. In all genuineness and sincerity. It is NOT to win a debate, ever....

No one "knows God"; it's all words and ritual, same as is "believing on His Name"—as though mouthing formulas to win something could make any sense. The Bible isn't all bunk, but John 3:16 certainly is.
    And we know virtually nothing about the creation of the universe. To say that "God created it" adds nothing to our understanding; it is a nullity. It's frankly hard even to see what wish it could fulfill, except perhaps in a primitive brain incapable of judging the inappropriateness to cosmology of the parent-child schema.
    Nu has nothing to sell; why is she trying so hard to sell it?

In closing, I will just add that the Bible was written so men might receive its message. The "evil" that you speak of is put there for a reason, that we may all realize that there is none good, not one, and that left to ourselves we are all capable of the most heinous of crimes against God and against our fellow man. This is patent throughout the entire Old Testament.

I might nominate this "explanation" of evil as "put there for a reason" for lamest half-gainer performed from the theological diving board. Pure twaddle.¹

The Good News of the New Testament is that although the heart of mankind was continually disobedient and rebellious to God, He did not leave us in that lost and hopeless estate, he sent a redeemer who was the only one qualified to satisfy God's holy requirements...He was conceived by the power of the holy ghost in the womb of the virgin Mary and born of her yet without sin.

Here, child, have another dose of this redeeming elixir!

The bible was written over a period of more than 1,500 years, by over forty different writers from every walk of life including kings, peasants, and fishermen in three different languages, and this message has been preserved and the integrity of the message has not changed. This is a miracle that could not be concocted or staged.

The books of the Old and New Testaments were variously selected by whoever wielded the power to decide; the dominant figures in the early church rejected dozens of other accounts of what people believed had happened. Whatever "integrity" the Bible has was an editorial decision, and "God" was not the editor.

In closing [yet again]: Plato and Socrates and Aristotle and Mohamed and all other great men inspired other men surely, but they died and are still decaying in their graves, but the One who claimed to be God and to breathe out the words of scripture Himself through His Holy Spirit (inspired) is not in His grave. He has risen, and is coming again to judge the world.

Says Nu, who obviously believes this without question and is impervious to any rational or skeptical challenge. Bible scholars disagree as to whether Jesus "claimed to be God." And the only use of the Bible's claim to be divinely inspired is to impress the gullible².

Dear Morris, that is all any of us care for you to know. We are not debaters or arrogant or any of the other things that you might be thinking. We are sincere and wish only God's richest blessings on you.

As if she cannot see that I am richly blessed, and certainly no less blessed than anyone in our email group.

This requires no response, please.

That "please," the unkindest cut of all!

And yet, that "Dear Morris"—heartfelt? Though not sure, one has to doubt it: the tone is too like that of a mother trying to manipulate a child. This has hurt me more than it has hurt you.
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1. Nomination subsequently ruled out of order.
2. From Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary:

   gull vt to take advantage of (one who is foolish or unwary)