Hate Mail

Michael Miller, Page 1

March 12, 2001:

I mainly am writing to comment on you comments about Christianity and the Creation/Evolution Debate. I find it insulting (and you are not the first to say it) when people who claim to uphold freedom of thought etc. constantly put down degrade and brush off Christians.

[Editor's note: notice how he can't separate the believer from the belief, so my criticism of the Bible amounts to a criticism of all Christians in his mind. That's an interesting mindset; if I criticize certain clauses in the American constitution, does this mean I hate all Americans?]

And I find it contemptible when someone reads an argument, obviously doesn't understand it, and then claims to have refuted it by simply stating that he doesn't agree with it. I never said that all Christians were ignorant, but all creationists certainly are.

As for your mention of "freedom of thought", I support freedom of thought wholeheartedly. This means you're allowed to be as scientifically ignorant as you wish. I also believe in freedom of speech, which means that I'm allowed to criticize you for it. Get it?

The difference between secular states and religious states is that secular states do allow people to think whatever they want, while religious states persecute people for improper beliefs. Freedom of thought is a purely secular notion, and from your attitude, it's pretty clear you don't understand it, based on the fact that you think it's a violation of freedom of thought for me to criticize you.

I am not stupid or ignorant. I have studied both science and the Bible. I have come to the conclusion that most of the time "man" has no idea what he is talking about.

Standard creationist dogma: man cannot understand the universe by observing it, so he should instead rely on subjective interpretations of selected passages from an ancient book of tribal mythology. Maybe you think that works better than the scientific method, and maybe you couldn't possibly understand physical phenomena by observing them, but don't go speaking for the rest of us. Some of us are capable of thinking for ourselves.

[Editor's note: why is it that every Christian fundamentalist tries to pretend that he's studied science? As the exchange continues, he will make it painfully obvious that he has absolutely no idea what he's talking about, so why bother with the attempted deception?]

You believe the Bible says the Earth is flat? Where?

Here's some fun Biblical astrophysics for you: In Joshua 10:12, the Sun and Moon "stood still" in the sky at God's command for an entire day, so that the Israelites could complete their bloody vengeance upon the Amorites. In Job 9:6, the Earth is described as being on "pillars". In Revelation 7:1, the Earth is described as having "four corners". In Matthew 4:8, the Devil takes Jesus up to the highest mountain, from which he can see "all the world's kingdoms". In Matthew 24:29, it is said that the "stars will fall from the sky".

A literal interpretation of the above portions of the Bible will lead to the conclusion that the Sun and Moon revolve around the Earth, which sits on pillars and is flat so that Jesus can see all its kingdoms from one mountaintop. It also has four corners, and the stars are but tiny objects in the sky which will fall to Earth on judgement day. In other words, literal Biblical inerrancy is only for the ignorant, the brainwashed, and the stupid. Smart Christians do exist in the world, but unlike you, they don't think the Bible is scientifically accurate.

My Bible describes the Earth as a circle (or sphere depending on how you wish to understand the original text) in Isaiah 40:22.

Yes, it uses the phrase "circle of the Earth", but your interpretation is based on a willful semantic misinterpretation. A circle is actually a flat object, and it cannot casually be interpreted as a "sphere" any more than "square" = "cube" or "painting" = "sculpture". Face it; the Bible describes a flat Earth. Not only does the word "circle" describe a flat object, but it would be impossible for Satan to show Jesus all the world's kingdoms from a single mountaintop if it were not flat.

I even have a book the details scientific principles the Bible has mentioned or alluded to that has taken man years to discover.

I'm sure that many scientifically ignorant books have been written by Christian fundamentalists over the years in an effort to contradict the historical fact that Christianity has been a mortal enemy of science throughout its entire history. Galileo was hardly the first one. Did you know that a thousand years ago, even mathematicians were persecuted by the church?

[Editor's note: see here how he repeats the recurring fundamentalist claim that scientific discoveries which eluded Christians for 1500 years were actually in the Bible all along, and it was just dumb luck that we discovered these things through the scientific method rather than the theological method).

The Book is called "Was the Bible Ahead of Its Time?" I don't have it here now so I don't know the author.

Fallacious appeal to authority. You mention a book but you provide nothing in the way of supporting arguments or examples from that book. It is most likely that this person, like you, willfully misinterprets portions of the Bible in order to generate the fraudulent conclusion that it is consistent with science when in fact it isn't even remotely close.

And not all scientist believe in Evolution. Dr. Behe of Lehigh Universtiy has doubts about it.

Fallacious appeal to authority.

[Editor's note: it isn't just fallacious; it's hypocritical; he ignores the authority of countless thousands of scientists who have specialized in biology and geology and astrophysics over the centuries, but he worships the authority of any individual scientist whose opinion he happens to like, even though that scientist is going against virtually the entirety of the scientific community. He's also rather vague about precisely what Dr. Behe says, and with good reason:

  1. Dr. Behe freely admits that he was raised Catholic, which means he's been heavily indoctrinated since birth, both at home and (most likely) in Catholic schools. Since Mr. Miller wants to make it seem as if a scientist can come to a creationist conclusion without a lifetime of indoctrination, that's an inconvenient fact that he would rather not mention.

  2. Dr. Behe actually concedes that all species are obviously the result of a gradual evolutionary process branching out from a common ancestor, and that the Earth is billions of years old. In other words, he is not a Biblical inerrantist. Since Mr. Miller claims that most Christians are Biblical inerrantists, this is another inconvenient fact that he would rather not mention.

  3. Dr. Behe claims that we're not sure how evolution occurs at the molecular level (as opposed to the cellular level), and he concludes that therefore, it must have been done by God, which is completely irrational (among other things, it is a horrendous example of the false dilemma fallacy). We didn't always know how the Sun worked, but we didn't resort to simply saying that God made it shine! That's where you can see the effects of Dr. Behe's childhood indoctrination kicking in, but Mr. Miller wouldn't recognize the obvious fallacy in that approach because he shares that mentality.

  4. Dr. Behe actually goes further than merely saying we don't know how evolution works at the molecular level. In fact, he claims that the scientific literature is completely "silent" on the subject! He concludes that this conspiracy of silence is the scientific community's way of admitting that they cannot explain it without an "intelligent designer". However, I suspect that the International Society of Molecular Evolution would take exception to his bizarre claim that no research whatsoever has been conducted in this area, and in fact, any idiot with a web browser can easily find a large number of molecular evolution research papers on the Internet. I find it very difficult to believe that a university biochemist could be so incompetent that he would honestly think a field of research is dead when it is not, so I can only conclude that he was willfully dishonest. Obviously, Mr. Miller wouldn't mention this glaring error (lie?) if he knew about it, but then again, I doubt Mr. Miller knows about it.

  5. Dr. Behe's dishonesty carries with it a significant monetary incentive. It is no secret that inflammatory, controversial papers are a "quick and dirty" way to fame and fortune for a university researcher, and that creationists will snap up anything which caters to their beliefs. He wrote a book which was targeted at the common (and easily debunked) leap of faith that "anything we don't yet understand is proof of divine intervention", and by pandering to this mindset, he made quite a bit of money for himself. Scientists who deliberately violate the ethical principle of honesty in publishing in order to sell more books are not a new phenomenon (there have even been published psychological studies "proving" that whites are the superior race). Naturally, Mr. Miller is not likely to recogize this either. In fact, I suspect that Mr. Miller actually has no idea what Dr. Behe said, because he probably heard Dr. Behe's name from another creationist, who heard it from another creationist, who heard it from a creationist website, etc.]

I know of a chemist with over a hundred patents who says it is bunk.

Fallacious appeal to anonymous authority.

In my own observation and opinion, evolution is kind of rediculous.

Nothing but an unsupported, subjective opinion.

If it is about adapting to survive better then why don't lower or underadapted forms die off? Why are they still around?

You assume a hierarchy of species in which some are "lower" and some are "upper", and the "lower" species are "underadapted". This is pure nonsense. Every species on Earth can be shown to be highly adapted to its environment.

When you ask why certain species don't die off, you merely demonstrate the staggering depths of your ignorance. Species have been dying off throughout the entire history of life on this planet! When the environment changes, a species which was very well adapted becomes unsuitable, and dies off. This has been happening all throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, right before our eyes, and it's been happening for billions of years. Have you seen any dinosaurs stomping around your neighbourhood lately? Trilobytes? Dodo birds?

Why do we not see this still going on?

We do see it going on! Human alterations to the environment have provided us with direct observation of the mechanism of natural selection in action, as certain species have thrived due to contact with us while others have perished. We have even (inadvertently) introduced certain animal species to parts of the world (such as Australia) where they were never seen before, and due to environmental similarities between their new and old environments, they thrived at the expense of indigenous life, thus upsetting the balance of the local ecosystem and causing a rapid change in the local environment. It amazes me that you could actually be ignorant of all this.

We've also seen evolutionary changes due to mutation, as evidenced most dramatically by bacterial adaptations, since bacteria can mutate much more quickly than larger, more complex organisms due to their relative simplicity. We've seen the mechanism of evolution work on both a large and small scale, but people like you carefully bury your heads in the sand so you won't be able to see it with the rest of us.

Also if I were to find a way to stretch my arm a little longer, that would not be passed on to my offspring because traits a passed genetically. How does stretching my arm change my DNA I pass on?

Heritable changes through evolution are not caused by physical alterations to a particular living specimen during his lifetime. That's not how it works, and you only demonstrate the enormous depths of your scientific ignorance by making this argument.

Thanks for providing yet another piece of evidence to support my longstanding conclusion that creationists are uniformly ignorant. Do you have even the foggiest idea of what evolution is?

[Editor's note: he is not the only one to send me this bizarre argument. I wish these creationists would learn to understand that evolution takes place from generation to generation, not in the body of an individual]

Sounds to me like evolution is pseudoscience.

Sounds to me like you don't even know what evolution or pseudoscience are, so your attempt to equate them doesn't carry much weight.

God Bless,
Mike

If I wanted God's blessing, or yours, I would have asked for it.

The LORD told me He loved me. I asked how much. And He said this much, and stretched out His arms and died for me. May you experience the Love of Christ.

No thanks. I vastly prefer the "original sin" of human knowledge to the "love of Christ".

[Editor's note: why is it that Christian fundamentalists have to pester you with their religious salesmanship even when they know perfectly well that you're not interested? Don't they realize how rude that is?]

Continue to Michael Miller, Page 2

Jump to sub-page:

Jump to: