At the bottom of this piece http://mwillett.org/atheism/gods-motives.htm you finish up with “Religion is just a whole series of pathetic excuses for doing ridiculous things.” I think it’s a lot punchier with the following addition: Religion is just a whole series of pathetic excuses for doing ridiculous things in the vain hope of winning a suspiciously amazing reward so long as you believe and pass it on. It’s no different from the chain email’s that promise you a super new mobile phone if you forward it to five friends, without explaining how they get your home address (to deliver the phone) from your email. Any rational mind will smell a crock, but low and behold my inbox keeps receiving these things from some clown hoping for a free prize. Of course you can tell me to shove it, but I really like the analogy. Nick |
Hi Mr. Willett. I ran across your site today. I just finished reading your description of Jesusland and am glad to know that a person as intellectual as yourself can be so fair and accurate. I see that you are above prejudice, malice and unfair assumptions and that you have a clear and balanced view of your nation and the world. Thanks for your stellar example. - Call me Gert |
I guess they don't teach people very well in your part of the world if you could read that article and come away with the impression that the author was actually American.
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Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
Ah. Well, it's so much better to know that someone as intellectual as yourself can have such a fair and accurate opinion of a country that is not your own. My part of the world is actually North Carolina. I feel that my assumption that the author of that article was an American is quite valid given the way I generally see the southeast region of the US portrayed in America's national media coverage and political debates. Many of our esteemed journalists and political leaders have an equally accurate view of "Jesusland". Regards, gert |
Having made a false assumption in regards to where you live, I decided to read your bio out of respect. (I had already read a good bit of the other content on your site, but hadn't made it to your bio page yet.) Upon reading it, I found that we absolutely agree on one thing: there is such a thing as the truth. I am a Christian, but to be fair, I have to admit that I could be wrong. I have not blindly followed my faith. I have questioned, researched, etc. and am comfortable in my reasons for standing by my theistic convictions. I acknowledge that others have been on similar searches for truth and have reached different conclusions such as atheism or some spiritual belief different from my own. Unlike the politically correct crowd, I acknowledge that we CANNOT all be right. Logically, if I believe there is a God and you do not, we can both be good and kind people, we can both be honest and intelligent, but we cannot both be right. Thanks for the interesting site. There's nothing like a good debate to challenge one's own opinion to see if it can stand up to the truth test. (By the way, I still think your Jesusland article is full of crap.) - gert |
Do you just think that it is simply a coincidence that you believe in the same god as the last people to beat the crap out of your ancestors and instil in them the logic-defeating thought protocol known as faith?
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Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
Wow. Now that's an antagonistic statement. I don't think too many things are coincidental. But first, I don't judge my God on what people have done. I think you can look at any point in history (or in contemporary times) and find individuals in all faith groups, in all ethnic groups and in all geographical areas who have done wonderful great works and others who have done horrible things. There have been a lot of things done in the name of God that God would not approve of. There have been a lot of things done in the name of freedom that doesn't really promote freedom. I could go on, but I think you get the point. Also, I certainly don't concede the definition of faith as a logic-defeating thought protocol. I wonder and therefore ask, do you consider all people of faith to be brainwashed, devoid of logic or reason? Do you consider them no better than the "people who beat the crap our of" their ancestors? What must you think of me? And yet we've never even met. Interestingly, you have yet to defend your description of "Jesusland". - gert |
How would you describe the way that faith is used to change people's thoughts? Please draw clear distinctions between faith in things you think are worthy of it and faith in things which are unworthy and explain why the results appear identical, e.g. faith that Catholicism represents the true church allows people to burn with a smile on their face as does the faith that Protestantism is the true Christian faith or indeed that Hirohito is a divine emperor.
What do you judge God on? Killing every living man, woman, child and animal except for a few hand-picked exceptions. Is that a good act? Or was that allegorical, like Jesus dying for your sins?
If God doesn't approve of something why does he allow it to happen? Why does he allow false religion? Why does he allow people to feel empowered by faith in false religion? Why don't you know? Why do you trust such slippery answers?
Faith is a technique of self-brainwashing. It is a self-reinforcing concept. It is the single most dastardly thought anybody has ever had. No evidence is required to buttress any idea held to be worthy of faith, and faith itself can be used to believe that the idea is worthy of faith. Any idea can be upheld indefinitely against all contrary evidence, that is how faith works. How screwy an idea can be held with faith? Virgin birth. The Trinity. The miracles of Jesus and Moses. The idea that it is God that makes America great. 72 virgins awaiting the martyrs in paradise. All that and much more.
Why are you following the genocidal sky god of a foreign tribe? Are you absolutely certain it has nothing to do with that religion being imposed on Europe by the Roman Empire?
You wouldn't trust a man who claimed to be the Son of God if he was born in Wichita in 1958, would you? What makes you think different rules applied in "The Holy Land" in "Biblical Times"? You weren't even there. You are relying on a chain of hearsay of at least 70 generations, and every link in that chain was brainwashed by the idea that having faith was good in and of itself. A billion lemmings can be wrong. Just like a billion Muslims.
It is faith that kills in huge numbers. Not just faith in sky-pixies, faith in other ideas too. Faith allows people to murder with a smile on their face and the name of their god on their lips completely assured of the rightness of their destruction.
How many terrible and inhuman deeds have been done in the name of doubt?
What have I got to defend my description of Jesusland against? It is
my opinion. Yup, and It is still my opinion.
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Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
Faith in and of itself is not inherently "good" or "evil". Everyone has faith in something, be it in a deity, a process, a method, a form of government or whatever. Faith in and of itself is like having an emotion. Anger is an honest emotion. You can be angry in a healthy, helpful way, or angry in a very destructive way. Parenting in general by its very nature passes along values to children. In some families those values have a religious connotation; in other families they do not. You can teach people to be kind and respectful and to reason and think or you can teach people to be prejudice and full of hate and to not question. You can frame any of these things in a religious context or in a nonreligious context. Faith can be a very dangerous thing. It can be an excuse to accept what you cannot explain. It can be used as an unquestionable cause. But faith can also be a beautiful thing. It can provide hope and joy when there is none to be found in circumstance. Faith can give a person just as many reason to do good works as to wreak havoc. I think in the end, things come down to personal responsibility. If a child grows up in an abusive home, that child may be prone to be abusive in his own home as an adult. That doesn't make it right. At some point we have to take responsibility for our own actions and world view regardless of the influences that have played a role in shaping the adults that we become. If you believe in a cause that is pointing in the direction of bombing an abortion clinic or flying an airplane into a skyscraper or starting a fire on an SUV car lot, I think you have to stop and take a look at what kind of maniacs you're listening to. I think it is fair to judge God on whatever you use to define Him. In the case of Christianity, that would be the Bible. So yes, I think it would be very fair to judge God on the Biblical account of the flood. As a Christian I have struggled with the brutality I see in the Old Testament, but I have found some personal answers to this struggle. They are a little long to get into here, especially since you probably don't really care, but they have to do with taking the Bible in it's whole context and with the teachings of Jesus and with other things I see in the Old Testatment. I haven't cant tell you how many times I've heard Leviticus quoted by non-Christians because it has all these strict Old Testament laws. But the thing about Leviticus is that there's a chapter telling the Jews how God wanted them to act toward people and it's one of the sweetest things you'd ever want to read. And as for the laws, before it ever lists the laws and what the punishment is it teaches you how to seek atonement. I think God spent the whole Old Testament teaching us what we would need to know to understand the New Testament. I think questioning why God allows things He doesn't approve of is fair. I think assuming I don't know and only have slippery answers is not. I personally think that God made people because He wanted to have a relationship with us, but He wanted it to be real. It couldn't be real if it was forced. So we get free will. Heaven will be like things should be. Earth is like we make them. I don't always have all the answers. If I could completely grasp God and understand everything about Him, He'd be too small to be God. But that's not an excuse to just blow of the question. I have to keep seeking. In Galations it says something about us going from "glory to glory" meaning that we reach new levels in our understanding and in our likeness as we grow in our relationship with Christ. I think a good picture of that is children with their parents. I understand my parents on a very different level now that I'm in my thirties than I did when I was four. Regarding your assertion that faith can be a technique of self-brainwashing, it can be that, but it's absurd to draw the conclusion that it always is. If you take ANYTHING complicated, it is difficult to have all the answers. So what you do is look at the evidence available, draw a reasonable conclusion based on what you know, fill in the blanks with faith, and adjust as needed. That's what I have tried to do. Christians you don't think bug the snot out of me. In my opinion that doesn't make them wrong, just annoying. I have done extensive research and so far, the evidence I have found supports my Christian faith. It does not always support every little belief of the church. Just to give you an idea, things I have researched include: Believe me, I've given considerable time and effort to trying to determine whether my faith is justifiable or simply based on fables. I've got a lot left to learn and I'm completely sure that my "evidence" wouldn't convince you that I am correct. But I have reached a comfort level where I do not feel that my belief system is based solely on "faith". Now I must say (and this is VERY sincere) that I love your description "genocidal sky god of a foreign tribe". Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with it at all, but I love the wording. That's great. Actually the God I'm following is the I AM; the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End; Jehova-Rophe the Lord who heals; Jehova-Jirah my Provider; Jehova-Nissi, the God of Victory; Jehova-Shalom, the Prince of Peace; Lord of Lord; King of Kings, the Fairest of Ten Thousand.... I'm certain that I was called by God, and not by a Roman Emperor. Why do I believe in Christ when I wouldn't believe in a man
from Wichita? I believe that Christ was either crazy, a liar,
or the Son of God. He clearly claimed to be the Son of God. No
great prophet or teacher would make such an insane claim if they
were really a great prophet or teacher. So, He either was who
He said He was, or He should be 100% disregarded. So how do we
decide if He was who He said He was? My belief is based on the
following: Besides, I personally believe there is a God and I think that when you compare all of the major world religions, Christianity has the most evidence to support it. You also asked how many terrible and inhumane deeds have been done in the name of doubt? Maybe none, but I'll be a lot of inaction that can be pinned on doubt has allowed a lot of death and suffering. What about fear? How much "evil" has been done out of fear. Or hatred? Why are you picking on faith when it has so much company? You can have any opinion you want of Jesusland, but here's my take: In "Jesusland" there are people who are all the things you say (narrow-minded, obnoxious, reactionary, xenophobic, profoundly and proudly ignorant and full of hate). There are also people who are full of love and good intentions, who help beyond their means, people who are intelligent, witty, clever, kind, thoughtful, purposeful, patient, etc. I think to paint 3/4 of the US red and say that it's all like that is ignorant at best and hate-filled at worst. Besides, there are people with your "Jesusland" characteristics everywhere... look at some of the rap videos or take a gander at the terrorists' beheading tapes or go check out how rational people are in North Korea. So far, it seems to me that you are highly intolerant. I mean you like to talk a good talk, like everyone's entitled to their beliefs, and I don't think you're going to go dragging anyone behind your pick up truck or anything, but it seems to me as if you are asserting that anyone that doesn't agree with you is obviously an idiot. I mean I sometimes admire arrogance, but that's a little over the top. And the last time I heard that much hate spewed from someone it was from a KKK asshole. Surely your'e better than that???? Is it REALLY Jesus freaks who are the hate-filled unintelligent bigots? Or could it be the people calling them names? |
I don't think it is reasonable to say that everybody has faith in something, there is a huge difference between working assumptions and ideas you will happily destroy the world to defend. To use the same word for both concepts is unhelpful. Yes, everybody does have working assumptions or they can't negotiate life at all. If you ever meet anybody who denies the existence of everything and claims that everything is an illusion, including and starting with you, I suggest you drink their beer and see how they react, I guarantee they will reveal that they too have some working assumptions in common with most of humanity.
Working assumptions are necessary to function. You cannot do scientific experiments if you cannot assume that your equipment is what it seems to be and your measuring devices are meaningfully calibrated. Negotiating life is rather like climbing a rock face, to prevent yourself falling off you need to rely on some grasp on something solid, but you don't make any progress if you simply hang on to the one safe hand-hold. The scientific approach is to question all things, but not all at the same time. The religious approach is to never question the one apparently safe hand-hold. As a result religious people find science a real stretch.
Faith is always going to be dangerous. Faith allows people to act unreasonably and to think better of themselves for doing so. I will assume you understand and know the feeling of pleasure that can be obtained when you have proved yourself right and somebody else wrong. Vindication is a great buzz - "There! I told you I hadn't eaten the last chocolate. There it is. Do I hear a sorry?" Exhibiting faith is a similar thing but with the added flavour of serving an external worthy cause: vindication, personal triumph but seen (from inside) to be sincerely altruistic. Pride without guilt. It is not blowing your own trumpet, it is causing the heavenly host to blow it for you. It is a pure reward, guilt-free cerebral masturbation. But only if you believe that what you have put your faith in is good, which of course pretty much by definition you do. Seeing faith as being a good thing, which all religions do, is the start on the road to justifying any kind of action.
Faith has been used to justify some of the most evil acts the world has ever seen. Indeed you can just about guarantee that behind all the most gruesome and evil acts ever performed is a smug git who thinks he's a hero for acting on his faith: the Crusades, the mythical Abraham and his listening to the voices in his head telling to murder his family (and all the thousands who have followed suit since), the Oklahoma and World Trade Center bombings and so on and Pol Pot murdering in the name of his faith in communism. People who don't know what they are doing or why they are doing it tend not to wreak as much havoc as those who have a very clear idea about why they have to do it and why it doesn't really matter if people get killed along the way.
I agree with you about personal responsibility, an abusive background does not excuse abuse, and neither does a faith background excuse anything either. Having faith that abortion is murder does not justify murder. Having faith that God blesses America does not make being an imperialist aggressor right or allow Americans to fly over foreign countries abusing their national sovereignty as if that was their God-given right.
What car would Jesus drive off the road? I really should start selling
t-shirts with these slogans.
How do you cope with the knowledge that Jesus did not give a single speech
or sermon to a gentile until he was arrested and forced to speak with Pilate?
Doesn't that idea cause you some problem? He made friends with prostitutes,
fishermen and tax collectors, but only Jews. The god of Jesus the racist Jew
was the racist Jewish god. If Jesus met you in life he would ignore you so
as not to corrupt himself with speaking to a gentile, even if you weren't menstruating,
wearing mixed fibre clothes or eating pork. The Old Testament was written for
Jews and only for Jews. It describes the rules for God's own special tribe.
When it says thou shalt not kill it clearly means thou shalt not kill another
Jew. A Jew's neighbour was another Jew, that was so obvious nobody bothered
to state it, just as your blessed Founding Fathers didn't bother to state that
freedom and equality was something for white men, only an idiot would have
assumed otherwise. To the Jews the rest of humanity was an inconvenience, as
it is to most nationalists I suppose. Also the thou in the Old Testament was
always thou Jew.
Does the sweet passage you found in Leviticus refer to how Jews should treat gentiles with respect and honour? There is nothing sweet about keeping yourselves to yourselves and making up a whole lot of ridiculous rules which make spending any time with any outsider almost impossible. How much of a friendship can you build up with somebody who eats abominable food and keeps abominable animals? When the outside world is full of abominations you can easily cut yourself off from it, like the Amish do. For any meme, any infectious idea, isolation provides protection, while limiting the ability to spread. Christianity was a mutation of the Judaism memeplex that allowed it to spread while simultaneously surviving isolated in a pure form.
Does the journey you are on allow detours and a change of destination in the light of wisdom gained? Are your wheels well-trod rubber or flanged steel, useless off the rails? You can't explore anything on rails, all you can do is follow.
Don't you ever tire of being compared to and called a sheep? Do you ever intend to grow up? Are you happy doing what your father says for your entire life and then for eternity? Since when has "because I say He says so" been a satisfactory answer to any person's question?
The answers about free will and being too small to understand God were exactly the slippery answers I anticipated. Christianity has survived for centuries, of course it has effective defences, all philosophies that survive have defences. To survive the defences need to be good enough to convince the already convinced, there is no need for the defences ever to be good enough to convince outsiders, which is just as well when you consider some of the lame ideas that religious people have come up with. No doubt you can squirm with sympathetic embarrassment when you hear Catholics trying to justify the idea that priests (and only proper celibate Catholic priests) can make wine become the same substance as blood shed over nineteen centuries ago or Mormons trying to explain why it is perfectly reasonable to postulate Jews settling America and dividing into a wholly evil tribe and a wholly holy tribe. I squirm with sympathetic embarrassment for you trotting out such defences too. The fact that people you respect seem to accept those excuses as reasonable helps you to believe in them too, that does not mean that reasonable and fair-minded people accept them as plausible answers.
Faith can be self-induced brainwashing just as an elephant can be a large grey mammalian herbivorous quadruped but it is absurd to draw the conclusion that it always is. Well, actually no it isn't. It is up to you to explain what else it can be and why the same label can be fairly applied to two different kinds of thing.
What research have you done into the historical reliability of the Bible which was not written by people who believe in the special revelation of the Bible? By that I mean people who believe in the Bible as the word of God at the time they wrote their book, not who claim to have started the project with an open mind or a contrary agenda. I recommend that you read The Unauthorized Version by Robin Lane Fox, a book written by a respectable academic historian of the period (from the time just before the rise of Alexander the Great to the end of the Roman Empire, across from Persia to Rome) who understands what counts as historically reliable material. Robin Lane Fox is an atheist but fundamentally he is seeking after the truth. He looks at what the Bible is and what it isn't, who wrote it and why. It is very fair-minded, you will probably find it quite novel. It is certainly not written to convert people or to convince people that Jesus is a myth. He is an historian who is atheist, not an atheist who became a historian to further an agenda. If you asked Lee Strobel or Josh McDowell what the marriage customs of Persia were at the time of Christ or which gods were worshipped in Rome in 400 BCE they wouldn't be able to answer, Robin Lane Fox would, because he's a historian not a polemicist.
Is your one and only one true god the fairest of ten thousand gods? If so in what way? Most just, most beautiful, blondest or most real? And how many non-existent gods Jehovah is jealous of can dance salaciously on the head of a pin? What do the gods he is jealous of do when they are not existing? Why is worshipping the wrong god or the right (only) god by the wrong name or wrong prophet so heinous a crime that it is punished by an eternity of pain starting only at the end of this indeterminate bail period we call life?
Why is your dishonest lord, liar, lunatic false trilema so cut and dried? Why cannot Jesus be a combination? Have you ever met anybody who could summed up by a single word? Lots of people have claimed to be the Son of God, or the son of a god. Starting with the original, Alexander the Great. Was Alexander Lord, liar or lunatic?
Fulfilled prophesies are meaningless unless you can guarantee that
1] The prophesy identified is a prophesy of the Messiah, many of the passages claimed as fulfilled prophesies are nothing to do with any Messiah.
2] The people writing the Gospels didn't know what was written in the Scriptures. This is obviously a non-starter. Jesus wasn't converting ignorant atheists, he was preaching to observant and knowledgable Jews who would know their Scriptures better than modern Americans.
3] The gospel writers never made anything up.
Only a self-deluding Christian could read the gospels and conclude that this was history as it happened written by an impartial observer. A child just starting out as a historian or literary critic could spot passages which describe events which had no witnesses which nevertheless are written up in the same detail as events which were witnessed by several people and the bias of the author is apparent to anybody who is allowed to use their brain without asking prior permission.
The Jewish Messiah was supposed to rebuild the temple, rule the Jews as king, bring them all back to the true faith and be king of the world. Not even close. He hasn't even got the right name. The nativity story is shameless myth-making fiction designed to show that prophesies came true, I find some of Bart Simpson's stories more credible.
Many men have been reported to have performed miracles, by their supporters. After seventy generations of faith-empowered biased hearsay what possible weight can an unbiased fair-minded person put on these claims? There is no evidence from any non-Christian source of any of the miracles. The simplest explanation for them is that they did not happen. Don't you have any experience of what happens when cults are young? Look into the matter. Don't assume that the people mentioned in the Bible belong to some different species incapable of error or being inspired by a charismatic man into doing unusual things. People don't change, all cults are different but they all have a lot in common too, all cults are new religions started by the followers of charismatic men. Most don't survive very long, but if a cult survives seventy years the chances are it is still around today unless it was crushed by the huge momentum of a new religion. Once a cult has survived a hundred years why should you ever expect it to die? With every passing year a cult becomes more respectable and people talk less and less of deceiving widows out of their savings and supreme leaders engaging in orgies or drinking the blood of babies. Nero's attitude to Christianity is very similar to Dubya's attitude to Scientology or the Moonies. Religious persecution never has anything to do with fearing that those you are persecuting are right and you are wrong, only gullible faith-heads could swallow that absurd concept.
There is no archeological evidence for any events of the New Testament, not that we should expect any. There is no evidence for any settlement in Nazareth at the time.
You wouldn't trust a man from Wichita making exactly the same claims, having exactly the same claims made about him. You cannot look into or verify anything about Jesus. You could go to Witchita, but you wouldn't even do that. Because you know you don't live in the Holy Land in Biblical Times. In the here and now everybody who claims to be a prophet or the son of a god is a lying charlatan or a crazy lunatic. Why was it ever different long ago in a land far far away? It's the woo-woo soundtrack running in your head isn't it? The special reverence you have for the Holy Land and Biblical Times because of the reverence you have been taught to have for the Bible and the monsterous tribal god of that arrogant foreign nation. Of course the Jews in the there and then here and now (as it were) reacted to Jesus exactly like the majority of modern Americans would to a self-proclaimed son of God from Witchita.
Faith kills people. OK, so does fear and hatred but how many times does hatred and fear get an endorsement from a world leader? What other "virtue" kills people by the million? Faith is not a virtue, it is a character flaw, an evolutionary mistake, a weakness to exploit in others while you call it a strength. To a scientist it is gross professional misconduct.
It wasn't me that painted so much of America red, it was the US electorate. My own personal experience of Americans is very mixed, they are among the nicest and nastiest people I know. Those who are among the worst remind me a lot of the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, only the Americans have more weapons, more extreme religious views and less excuse to be proud of their ignorance.
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Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
There is no reason why skateboarding should even be conveyed as an "immoral" activity! These stereotypical thoughts are the reason to many of today's world. In it itself is a sample of larger problems, such as racism. I skate and live life the way its been given. The local skateshop supports kids and keeps them out of trouble from drugs and gangs. Instead, the shops invite skateboarding role models or teams to give confidence to the youth. I can not deny the fact that a few skateboarders do not have jobs and take drugs, but doesn't every "stereotyped" group in america have it's crazies?! In your skate article, you mention the fact of weaponized skateboards taking out ankles. Yet, I ask you what sport does not have the risks of injury?! In addition, I would like to know how many people have actually broken a bone from one of the deadly and weaponized skateboards?! Big deal, accidents happen! In the end, I want YOU to ask yourself, "Is it okay to judge skateboarders? Is it okay to think they are lifeless druggies looking for handouts?" I expect a reply soon. |
How many sports injure people who are not playing and don't want to be watching? It is ridiculous to compare a sport where people injure themselves or other willing players with an activity in which passers-by are injured by uninsured louts who tell them they should have been watching where they were going.
And yes, it is perfectly OK to judge anybody for anything in a free society. It cuts both ways you know, you can't say you're free to skate and nobody had better comment! This is part of my point in the article, skateboarders want to have things their way at all times: legal protection of their right to skate while the authorities turn a blind eye to drug use, trespass, graffiti and menacing behaviour.
Nothing degrades the user experience of a public space faster than it becoming the haunt of skateboarders, or possibly mimes. And the right to say that is far more precious than the "right" to grind the paint off somebody else's handrail provided for the use of the infirm.
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Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
whats wrong with you? honestly, why do you argue for fun? if you don't get paid, then don't you have better things to do than to get angry at others? |
It's fun and I'm good at it.
Why do you skateboard?
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Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
I skateboard because I want to make friends with some people. I believe when you share common ideas or beliefs, its a LOT easier to make friends. It's puzzling to me how arguing is fun? |
You can make friends with any form of a common interest, it doesn't follow that the interest is benign and to be encouraged.
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Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
you have way too much free time! |
Have you ever actually read the Bible?I just don't understand. I don't understand how someone can just not believe in God. I mean, just look around you, God's creations are everywhere. The sun, the moon, the grass, the sky, the air we breathe, and everything else we see, not to mention the sight you have to see these creations with. How is it possible to believe that God doesn't exist? How do you live day by day just thinking you are in it for yourself and the fact that you'll never find true love and happiness? I mean no disrespect in this e-mail, I just don't get it. I'm only 18 years old, and I've done all kinds of bad things throughout my life, drugs, alcohol, sex...you name it, I've probably done it, and my life was just falling apart. I was almost starving, I never had any money to pay the rent, I couldn't afford my car insurance, or any other bills, but then I found out about the true love of the one and only God, who sent His son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for the sins of every single person in the world, past and present and future. I became intrigued by all these things I was learning and I started to become closer to God. Things started going great for me after just a short little while. I got a better job, was able to pay my bills to keep going to school, and my life just started to come together. He truly changed my life and helped me find true happiness in Him. I just felt like I should share my testimony with you, because of all the great things the Lord has done for me. I'll be praying for you, that you too can see the true love and mercy of the Lord God Almighty. God Bless, Joe Roberts-Morris, AL |
I feel sorry for your lack of imagination and the terrible circumstances that led you into the hole you have created for yourself. Do yourself a favour and go out and explore the world, try going to a civilized country, expand your horizons. There is a another way you can live your life that doesn't involve being a brain-dead Jesus freak or an amoral waste of a skin. Just keep on doing all the good things that you are doing and stop pretending that some Jewish zombie is doing them for you. Try it, keep doing all the smiling, treating people well and the feeling elated stuff just don't call those feelings Jesus and see if it makes any difference.
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Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm just a kid trying to help a fellow man out. |
Have you the slightest clue about who I am?
What makes you think I have the slightest interest in becoming a Christian or hearing your rather short life story?
Believing in God isn't hard, any fool can do it.
Read a lot more of my site before you try to send me any more messages, I don't like repeating myself.
Well, you see, I've already tried all those things. I've traveled all around the country and even internationally, and I understand where you are coming from, but I never felt the way I do now. I now know that I have meaning and a sense of security in my life. I attend The University of Alabama at Birmingham, where I major in Vocal Performance, and I know that I want to be a contemporary Christian singer now. It's a feeling that is amazing, just to know that God has a plan for my life, and I'm not going to just fall in between the cracks of society and always wonder why I am here on this Earth. Have you ever just sat and thought about why you have been put here? I don't know if you believe in Evolution, or anything about the "Big Bang", but to me, all of that seems just like non-sense. How could the world and all the universe just be "imploded" into existence. To just look around and see how everything is so perfect down to every cell and atom, doesn't that just make you think about it? I know it's probably hard for some people to believe in God, but you just have to have faith. Have you ever been in a place in your life or a situation when you desperately needed help, but no one was there for you? I know I have and I finally figured it all out. God was there for me and if I just asked Him to be a part of my life and tell Him that I wanted to have a relationship with Him, I could always ask Him for help. He has helped me through so many things since I asked Him into my life. Like I said before, I know what I want to do with my life now, and it's more than just a "feeling" I have. It's a passion for music and a passion to be close to my Father God, like I have never felt before. It's indescribable! I had nobody or anything, and now I have the One True God, who will provide for me and take care of me. I know people think that if you're a Christian, you've just been brainwashed by family or friends, but for me, I found it out for myself. I just got really depressed about my life and was trying to find meaning, so I eventually picked up a Bible and started reading and it really got me thinking about everything. I soon found true happiness in my life and I know that one day when I die I will be able to meet God face to face. I know that I can't change your beliefs, only you can do that, but like I said in my other e-mail, I just wanted to share my point of view and tell you how amazing the love of God really is. -Joe Roberts |
Do I look like I have problems that a bit of self-hypnosis and cerebral masturbation could fix? Sorry, dumb question no doubt in your book everybody does.
My website is not a cry for help.
Whatever man, If that's really the life you want to live, just go ahead and see how far it gets you. |
Re eating horse meat:I emphatically do not share the American horror of horse meat, akin to the Moslem horror of pork. I have gladly eaten horse steak and mince while in France (where horse meat has largely disappeared). It is splendid lean red meat. To raise horses for the slaughterhouse is in no way more objectionable than raising cows, pigs, lambs, and chickens for slaughter. And you are right: if horse meat is valued, that means that horses themselves will be more valued. And it is much much better to turn an unwanted horse into meat than for it to be neglected and abused. Here's a billionaire who lost big: |
That rather proves my point better than it destroys it. He took an enormous risk with his shipping business, laying himself open to be wiped out. That was genuine risk taking. In later years he took bigger risks but with a smaller proportion of his net worth and when one of his largest (billionaire) projects failed he wasn't wiped out personally, which would have been the case if his shipping business (his millionaire business) had come apart at the welded seams. He walked away from the failure with his debts wiped away and with a claim on potential future profits which would have seen him having an income up to the age of 129. That's the billionaire effect! Billionaires never get wiped out and tossed out on the streets even when they fuck up on a massive scale: they either make money, fail to make money or make survivable (if huge) losses. In contrast millionaires do sometimes see it all wiped away because they put it all and more on the line. Billionaires sometimes commit as much as 80% to a project, millionaires often have to start at 120%.
If God doesn't exist, then how do you describe the devine miricles that happen all over the world everyday? And it does not make me happy when I talk about hell, it saddens me to think that so many will be damned for eternity and that so many will not experiance God's work in their life. So in no way does it give me any pleasure. I know that my words alone will not change your prospective nor will you change mine, usually it takes some thing very tragic to wake someone up and I pray that that will not be so in your case. I dont know why I even feel compelled to keep writing you but something keeps telling me that I should. I'm sorry that you feel the way that you do............Kim |
What divine miracles? Just because it stretches the imagination of a Bronze Age goat herder it doesn't follow that the only explanation for it is magic. I will not let somebody else's chronic lack of imagination and a need for an answer to "feel right" get in the way of finding out the truth. I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to expect the truth to feel better than a cute lie.
Why do you think a loving god would damn people for all eternity because he is hard to believe in? Give me your best explanation for that.
Explain why God allows people to worship false gods for thousands of years if it is so hurtful to him.
Explain why a god needs worship at all.
Explain how believing in a god helps that god with anything his omnipotence lacks.
Explain why believing in a fairy story is more important than living a good and moral life.
Explain how helping to free people from a life of superstition and belief in lies is some kind of bad act.
Explain why a god needs to rape a woman to give birth to himself in order that he be killed to save himself from having to give people yet unborn the punishment he knows they will deserve.
Hi, merry christmas, I've been a fan of your site for many years now and was just curiuos as to what you thought about Ron Paul in America. Would you support him? |
Very sexy, if you like that kind of thing. Oh, no that's RuPaul.
After a brief look at what he stands for I think RuPaul stands a bigger chance of being elected. Ron Paul is a man who values his own consistency too highly. This makes him very scary. It's not that you don't know what he will do it's that you know what he'll want to be seen to do. He has no light and shade, he is a fictional character in his own imagination who asks himself: what would Ron Paul do?
His attachment to states is just weird. States have rights? How? They are self-perpetuating historical accidents. If you don't want to live in California you can move but what do you do if you don't want to live in a state at all? My suspicion is he wants to big up the power of states to the point at which they can take up but not be able to effectively use powers he doesn't want to see any form of collective exercise. It isn't that he values states it is that he hates and fears the effective use of collective power in any form and he sees devolving the power down to the level one step below the unit that could effectively use that power as being a good way to thwart the will of the people to ever use collective power. He will always endeavour to ensure that the people are instructed from on high that they have no legitimate right to want to achieve anything through any form of collectivization. If states began using power he would be clamouring to devolve those powers down to counties or townships with a view to ensuring that the people only ever get to express any desire as individuals and never as collectivities of any kind.
His foreign policy should ensure he doesn't get elected, as will his
age. I don't think America is ready to become isolationist and non-interventionist.
While some people will support his stance on ending drug prohibition
and stopping the war in Iraq a lot of his other policies will scare them
away. On the other hand those policies on drugs and war will scare the
majority of petty-minded conservatives who might have been interested
in some of his other policies or lack of policies. While there might
be a lot of whoopin' and hollerin' I think he is destined to fail.
--
Martin Willett
http://mwillett.org/
but ron has won every debate he was in on tv, and he has raised
more money this RON PAUL 08! |
I want a world government not an American empire for the rather obvious
reason that I'm not American. But there is no chance of having a world
government because selfish right wing Americans are making pre-emptive
attacks on a movement that does not exist because they don't want a fair
share in saying how the world is run because they are far more comfortable
with their unfair share. For every American in this world there are 21
of us non-Americans and we're a bit pissed off with the idea that you
call all the shots and have a veto on everything. Does it never occur
to you that this is a bit unbalanced and unfair?
--
Martin Willett
re, yes, If Ron Paul looses I'm seriously going to move out of the country, to either Canada or Germany, he is the people's only hope of freedom, I agree with what Ron says, "freedom is young, tyranny is old", we were the first truly free nation but we allowed tyranny to creep back into power, that's why we need to go back to strict enforcement of our constitution, that's why it was created. we don't need world government in my opinion, collectivism is better achieved through free people than by governments any day |
Claptrap I'm afraid, typical American fear-inducing claptrap. In this case being afraid of your own government. Vote for the guy who curses government the loudest and put him in, errr, government. Then vote the bastard out! In the name of beating tyranny!
It is times like this that I am most glad that I'm not American.
I don't expect Ron Paul to win, nobody outside America does, that is why he is ignored.
Ask yourself how many non-American politicians of any stripe, in any country, who stand no chance of being elected can you name? What are their policies and why should you care?
--
Martin Willett
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