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Tuesday, May 25, 2010
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A recent letter to the editor of the local paper really got me going. I try not to directly attack organized religion but this clown actually took a swipe at secular humanism and that REALLY gets me going. It makes sense to read the original so that you can see my reply in context.
Here
is the original.
Recently an atheist opined in this column that you cannot prove God exists. Really? Perhaps she should look in the mirror and figure out how she “evolved” from a hairy ape. How about the complexities of her own body? Childbirth? How come the solar systems are in perfect order? Ever see a bird fly? The proof of God is endless if you open your eyes and look for it. There is only one God and he is returning soon to save mankind.
Look around you—corruption, moral decay from special interest groups, divorce, abortion, hunger, etc. Do you really think this “feel-good” mentality is going to improve man’s existence? It’s nothing new. Believing in God requires constant work in overcoming human weakness. Being an atheist requires nothing. Of course, secular humanism is man-made. That’s the problem.
Bart Smith, Kenmore
Here
is my reply.
A May 10 letter to this column claimed that the proof of God is all around us. The author went on to give examples of the complexities of the world as proof of such a creator. Actually, these complexities grew over the course of billions of years. We have a very good understanding of how they happened and we can even observe them today. The mistake is thinking that they happened overnight and resulted in perfect specimens (the human anatomy is surprisingly flawed). Besides, even if there was a creator, the Christian still has all of his work in front of him to prove that the Christian God is that creator.
The same letter also chided secular humanism. I’m not sure that the author would want to go back in time to a period where secular humanism was not allowed to exist. People were burned at the stake for believing in the wrong God, science was forbidden, people were enslaved and women were possessions. All of these acts are either condoned or demanded by the Bible. It was the secular movement that led the way in fighting these battles, and we continue to fight them today to ensure that all people have the same liberties in spite of what any holy text might say.
Once again, it is generally not my intent to directly attack a given faith but I thought it necessary to say what I said because the author of the original article not only chided secular humanism but felt the need to claim that his own faith was the only way to... well, be saved, I guess. The ironic part about all of this is that it is the secular thinking of our founding fathers that allow the author to have these kinds of beliefs. Had it not been for their actions we would be forced to follow whatever church had won the last battle (as a side note, if a couple of battles went the other way in the third and fourth centuries, Christianity would be just another one of the thousands of religions that came and went).
I am fortunate enough to have a lot of friends that are Christians. I would say the vast majority of them recognize that secularism needs to happen so that we can in fact have the most liberties. You don't have to go back too far in history to see what happens when holy men run the hen house. That is also the great thing about secular humanism - believers and disbelievers alike can come together. Those that think that a given religion's main goal is love and peace are sadly mistaken.
To those of you that wrote me privately - thank you very much!
Here are some of my past letters to the editor:
January 2009
November 2009
May 2009
November 2008
SATC Awfulness, Facebook Creepiness
More in MAY
Scenes from Childbirth Class
Comments (2)
Comments (2)
Created by
muchgooder
on
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 1:55:09 PM
Thanks Bubba, i thought so as well. It isn't his belief that I have an issue with, it is the history of these beliefs as they have been applied around the world. If nothing else he is ignorant of history.
Created by
Bob
on
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 3:57:21 PM
Obviously Bart Smith is very uninformed, uneducated, and has a very narrow view (in other words, he has his head up his ass).
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