Hate Mail

Jonathan Boyd, Page 1

August 23, 2001:

Hi Mike, not sure if you'd remember me (I'm the guy you mistook for a racist because I called you Wong, rather than Mike), but I thought you might be interested in a couple of things I have to say. I was reading through your whole creationism/evolution/morality section, which I'm finding quite interesting so far and may get round to commenting on in more detail some day, when I found a rather big error.

I've heard that before ...

[Editor's note: this guy is an old hand at Usenet debating, and he's fond of the Ad Hominem attack: attack the argument by attacking the man. Notice how he starts his message by subtly painting me as defensive and unreasonable in the very first sentence. Supposedly, I've unjustly accused him of racism in the past! I don't recall any such accusation, but it's a moot point, because he will demonstrate in the following exchange that he is a racist, by approving of the horrible treatment of the Canaanites in the Old Testament.

Like most modern racists, he will simply use code-words in order to pretend that his racism is something other than racism. Many racists replace "race" with "culture", ie- "I don't hate Jamaicans as a race, but I have problems with their culture." Others, like Mr. Boyd, replace "race" with "family", or in this case, "God's people" (his way of describing the Jews, who supposedly descended from Noah's son Shem). Like most fundamentalists, he feels that it was OK to massacre all of the women and children in dozens of Canaanite cities, because they were merely making the "Holy Land" pure for "God's people" (note that the Spanish Conquistadors would later use the same rationalization to justify their brutal genocide of natives in the Americas). The Canaanites were a race descended from Ham's son Canaan, and since Noah cursed him, the entire race was cursed to subservience, thus making it OK for the Israelites to slaughter and/or enslave them. I know what you're thinking: it's bizarre and barbaric. Well, that's the way most people would react, but not your average Christian fundamentalist, and not Mr. Boyd]

In your Biblical Morality: The Ten Commandments section, you've made a common mistake in listing one of God's covenants with the Israelites as the second set of the Commandments. If you read Exodus 34:1, you will see that Moses is instructed to bring stone tablets up Mount Sinai for God to write the Commandments on. God clearly says that he will use the same words that used before. The second set is no different from the first.

The fact that he said he would write the same words does not mean he actually did write the same words. You assume his infallibility.

[Editor's note: this is his "rather big error"? He is basically arguing that God said it was so, therefore it must be so, even if the following text doesn't support that conclusion]

The ten items you have assumed to be the revised Ten Commandments are in fact part of a covenant between God and Israel, which Moses is instructed to write down himself in Exodus 34:27. Note that it is Moses that is instructed to write them down, not God. As God said that he would write the Commandments out himself, it is clear that the covenant you have listed is rather different one to the covenant of the Ten Commandments.

Wrong.

Exodus 34:27 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel."

Exodus 34:28 Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant--the Ten Commandments.

You mentioned Exodus 34:27, but you conveniently neglected to mention Exodus 34:28, in which it is stated that he wrote those words on the tablets, and that they were described as the Ten Commandments.

In other words, this is yet another Biblical self-contradiction, as I have already stated. God said he would write the same words on the second set of tablets as on the first, but the Bible clearly describes much different words being written on the tablets, by Moses rather than God.

There are a few other errors [Editor's note: not nitpicks, not issues, not criticisms, not alternate possible interpretations, but "errors", eh?], some of which I'm actually discussing with someone who appears to be an imitator of you, Damien Sorissico a.k.a. Durandal of ASVS.

Translation: "someone who agrees with me, and who you therefore assume to be some sort of acolyte". It seems to be the religious inclination to assume that free thinkers simply follow different leaders than they do, rather than thinking freely.

If you don't mind, I could bring the same points up with you. One point you make that he doesn't, however, I would like to discuss now - your claim that females hold no status, particularly as holy anointed people in the Bible and that none were disciples of Jesus. This is quite wrong. Several of the Judges of ancient Israel were female. Several books of the Bible are specifically about holy women e.g. Ruth and Esther and Jesus had several female followers such as Mary Magdelene.

Wrong again.

Mary Magdalene was not a disciple, therefore she hardly disproves my claim that none of Jesus' disciples were women. Moreover, I said that none of the "prophets and anointed holy persons chosen by God in the Old Testament" were female, and that is still true as well. The fact that some women gained positions of power in Israel (a situation which God himself decried as evil in Isaiah 3:12) does not mean that they were prophets, or that they were anointed by God himself.

[Editor's note: It amuses me that he mentioned the Books of Ruth and Esther. In fact, I strongly suggest that you check out the Books of Esther and Ruth at BibleGateway. The Book of Ruth is so short that it wouldn't even fill a pamphlet, and it tells the story of a woman who was widowed and then got herself a new husband by putting on perfume and laying at his feet. The Book of Esther is about how Queen Vashti angered the King by refusing to display herself for his guests, so she was exiled and replaced by a more obedient wife: Esther. These examples were supposed to disprove my claims about the Bible promoting subservience in women?]

Just one last thing before I go to bed. You seem to be under the impression that Jesus was trying to correct the Old Testament laws, fix mistakes. You couldn't be further from the truth.

Matthew 5:17-20
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfil them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practises and teaches these commandments will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

Thank you! I had a vague recollection of some passage in which Jesus stated his full support for the unspeakable evil of the Old Testament, but I couldn't remember where I had heard it. I will add this useful information to my discussion of Jesus' immorality at my earliest convenience.

Jesus' standards (and therefore those of God) are here shown to be higher than suggested by the Ten Commandments. Impossibly high in fact.

That depends on what you define as "high", doesn't it? He defines obedience to the laws of the Old Testament as "righteousness", whereas any thinking human being will see them for what they are: hatred and intolerance.

In the Old Testament, the way to God was through obeying the Law. Earning your way to Heaven.

By mercilessly butchering those who oppose God by not believing in him. Obedience over morality: classic militaristic, amoral mindset.

Jesus makes it very clear that God's standards are far too exacting for us to be able to do that. We are not considered good enough to have a hope of getting to heaven by our own deeds.

You define "good" incorrectly. God's standards in the Old Testament make it clear that he demands mindless obedience and loyalty from us, not "good" behaviour. As far as he's concerned, our "moral" failings have nothing to do with violence and hatred (of which he approves), but rather, they are related to our inability to be sufficiently mindless, obedient followers. We apparently insist on thinking for ourselves on occasion, thus making us "evil". The Old Testament defines knowledge and free thought as "evil", thus making the seeking of knowledge a sin.

This point is made so that people will understand the need for God's grace. Rather than trying to earn our way into Heaven through good deeds, we must instead rely on God forgiving us when we ask and removing our sin, to make us pure and worthy of entering paradise. Jesus didn't come to make the law easier, or less harsh - he came to show that it was impossibly (by human standards, ridiculously) hard and that we must find another way.

Impossibly hard to be a completely mindless, amoral follower, yes. We have minds, and we are naturally inclined to think occasionally, or worse yet, to question the morality of God's hatred. Truly, God sets impossible standards to live down to, although some, such as the medieval Crusaders and Inquisitioners, tried their damndest.

If you really want to understand Christian beliefs and argue against them from an informed stand point, I suggest you read 'Mere Christianity' by CS Lewis - it makes all the concepts very clear. I'm not saying you'll agree with them, I'm just saying that you'll be in a better position to argue.

If he makes any good points, then by all means, explain them. Otherwise, don't waste my time evoking his name. If I actually went out and read everything that religious zealots had instructed me to read since I put up that website, I would have no time to eat, sleep, or work.

[Editor's note: This is a very common tactic among creationists and Christian fundamentalists: "I can't really explain it, but go read this book and you will see the truth". I wish these people would learn to get it through their thick skulls that this is not a valid argument!]

Lack of knowledge is why I'm not discussing evolution - I have no intention of entering into an argument I have virtually no knowledge of.

[Editor's note: He admits that he has no knowledge of evolution versus creationism so he won't try to argue the point, but it's pretty obvious that he's made up his mind anyway. A reader recently sent me a quote from one of Mr. Boyd's usenet posts (on a sci-fi newsgroup, which I verified with Google Groups), where he reveals his thinking: "Actually, I don't know whether to believe in evolution or not. Natural selection happens, but evolution? Genetic material can be lost, yes, but added? Never seen evidence to support that." Notice how he is careful to state that he has no position, but he immediately follows that up with a popular creationist argument! He's obviously absorbed and accepted some creationist pseudoscience (the "no way to add new information" argument is a classic creationist ignoramus argument which is easily debunked through observation, since gene duplication followed by mutation will effectively append new data, as will many other biochemical processes). He will undoubtedly accuse me of cynicism for saying this, but it seems to me that he's probably reluctant to stand up and admit that he's a creationist in a sci-fi newsgroup because such an admission might erode his credibility there]

I suggest you gain more knowledge of Christianity before trying to argue about it - your list of Christianity's central three tenants makes no mention of God's love for us all and his desire to have a loving relationship with us, which is at the very heart of Christianity and is why we believe we were created.

"God's love for us all" is not a tenet. Moreover, that "love" has been expressed through repeated mass murders, encouragement of violence, and promises of even greater purges in the future. He is indistinguishable from Stalin in that respect, and if that's what you call "love", then you and I obviously have a serious disagreement on English definitions.

I by no means know everything, or even half of all there is to know about Christianity, but I would be happy to try and answer any questions you do have.

Perhaps you could answer why a God who supposedly loves us has repeatedly committed mass murder against us. Perhaps you could answer why a God who supposedly loves us values mindless obedience and worship above the way we treat one another. Perhaps you could answer why a God who supposedly loves us has no interest whatsoever in our happiness or fulfillment, but instead, he only cares about our worship for him. Perhaps you could answer why a God who supposedly loves us has made it clear that it is a conditional love; he only loves us if we mindlessly obey him, but if we don't, then he hates us, he will slaughter us, and he will condemn us to eternal torture.

If you reply to this, I apologise for any reply in me replying to you. I've got a busy month ahead preparing to start university, so I'm not sure when I'll be on the net. Anyway, I hope this makes for interesting reading.

I think it's interesting in the sense that you betray a dogmatic refusal to recognize God's abusive nature for what it is.

In my experience, good Christians recognize that the Old Testament is a litany of horrors. Bad Christians don't. Which group do you belong to?

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