Hate Mail

Michael Miller, Page 14

July 8, 2001:

[Quoted] "You defended Jesus' use of the word "dogs" to describe members of the Canaanite race (even one who were willing to pledge allegiance to him), by saying that he was merely describing their place in the "hierarchy"."

What you seem to forget is that this was a man-made hierarchy not God made. She was just explaining that she understood her place among men but she wished to be in a place of His choosing.

She "understood her place among men?" And you're not ashamed of this? If one has a "place among men" defined by one's race, then one is living under racism.

What you don't seem to understand is that the hierarchy that the Bible discribes was a construct of man and not God.

You are ignoring the fact that it was Jesus who described the Canaanite race as "dogs", and according to Christian beliefs, Jesus is the perfect son of God. Therefore, according to Christian fundamentalist dogma, this racial hierarchy which you describe as a "construct of man and not God" was accepted by Jesus, the perfect Son of God!

If we had not turned from him we would not be selfish and produced the "haves" and "have-nots" that created the hierarchy.

A hierarchy which Jesus himself supported.

When God called the Jewish people He called them to be separate from the world of the selfish and the evil.

So they murdered everyone in their path. Who was really "evil"?

There was no hierarchy within the jewish community that God set up save the priests.

Of course there was no hierarchy within the Israelites! The Nazis had no racial hierarchy within the Aryan race either.

God did not even what them to have a king as He was their King. And anyone who decided to turn from their ways and follow after God was to be welcomed into the family. That has occured many times and is recorded numerous times in the Bible. Ruth is such an example. And it is the same today for Christianity. We turn no one away that wants to follow Christ.

But you want to ruthlessly persecute those who do not want to follow Christ. That's why you are religious bigots.

[Quoted]" ... attempting to segregate people who don't believe the same things you do)."

I wouldn't segregate those people I would just stay away from them because they could influence me in ways that I would not notice right away.

Hmmm ... is that the sound of furious backpedaling I hear? Let us review your previous statements, Mr. Miller:

On June 7, 2001, you used the analogy of an "an isolation ward" to describe your preferred treatment of religious minorities.

On June 8, 2001, you said that you thought the people of your country should be "pure behaviourally". You also described religious plurality as "relativism", which you had previously described as having been logically refuted (on April 2, 2001).

And finally, on July 7, you said "Of course I support religious segregation ... all religions can't be right, can they?"

But today, you suddenly say that you would not segregate people whose beliefs differ from yours. Isn't there a commandment somewhere about not lying, Mr. Miller? If memory serves, it's number nine.

[Quoted] "You decide that other religions are false (without a shred of evidence). You conclude that members of those religions should be quarantined, ie- isolated from the rest of society. Perhaps you would put them in concentration camps, eh?"

And you decided that all religions are false how does that make you better then me? Should we all be put into concentration camps, so we don't corrupt you and your children?

Stop bearing false witness against me, Mr. Miller. I never said that I thought people with invalid beliefs should be put into concentration camps. In fact, I made a point of saying that they should not be put into concentration camps. You, on the other hand, said that people whose beliefs differ from yours should be shoved into "isolation wards" and segregated from the Christian majority. That is what makes me better than you (that, and your habit of bearing false witness).

[Quoted] "If my neighbour thought that 2+2=5, I would think he's an idiot but I wouldn't try to quarantine him."

So you would let such a person teach your children math then? Oh...you wouldn't. Why not? Aren't you being bigoted against him or her for that way of thinking?

You really have no idea what the concept of bigotry is, do you? You seem to think that if I won't let someone teach mathematics in spite of a total lack of qualifications (which he couldn't possibly have if he thought that 2+2=5), that this somehow constitutes bigotry. In reality, it merely constitutes an insistence upon academic standards and teacher qualifications.

You continually try to misrepresent me in order to make it seem as if I am just as bigoted as you, but you're fooling no one but yourself.

The point I was making was that she was in an environment where she had little or no exposure to Christianity and yet she still became one.

Nonsense. It is impossible for someone to grow up in America and have "little or no exposure to Christianity".

Since you seemed to think her and I think a like. We have many differences. Some even include our faith yet we don't put each other down about our differences.

Yes, and I'm sure those differences are huge. Tell me, does she disagree with you about core issues, such as the validity of Mary's virgin birth story, or the perfect judgement of God?

And Hitler wasn't a Christian. He thought he was god or at lest his pesonal servent here to wipe everyone out who did not fit a specific race.

Read "Mein Kampf". He thought he was fighting for the glory of the Lord, and he said that quite clearly. He never thought he was God, nor did he think he was immortal. You are simply making up imaginary facts which please you, to replace the real facts which embarrass you.

I challenge you to find quotes from Mein Kampf which demonstrate that Hitler was not a Christian. I have already provided quotes (in my site) which demonstrate that he was a Christian, and I can easily provide more.

That is not what a Christian is and if you think it is then no wonder you believe such as you do. You need to find someone who can explain it properly to you. And no I probably am not a great person to do it. At least not in your case.

In other words, you can't justify your argument, yet you refuse to admit defeat so you try to waltz away with some vague assurance that if I talked to somebody who a better communicator, I would suddenly understand your point of view. Does it ever occur to you that if you can't explain your point of view without making yourself look like a racist, religious bigot, that perhaps there is something wrong with your point of view?

[Quoted] "You're not getting the point, which is that they would be useless without their training in medical science."

I have noticed, which is what I am trying to get across to you, that without their religion they are pretty useless or at best ineffective. I would rather go to a religious physician then a non-religious one. I stand a better chance. And isn't that the goal? Best medical care?

As usual, you completely ignore the point, which is that doctors need science in order to be effective.

Let me put that point in stark relief for you: Take a faith healer with strong religious faith but no scientific medical knowledge, compared to a doctor with enormous scientific medical knowledge but no religious faith. Now, let's suppose you have suffered a gunshot wound. Who would you go to? The faith healer with religion but no science, or the doctor with science but no religion? Do you want to die, or do you want to live?

Furthermore, you have made a wildly fanciful statement that doctors are "useless" without religion. I challenge you to find a correlation between aptitude and religious faith in the medical profession. I challenge you to find a correlation between mortality rates and religious faith of doctors in attendance. As usual, you have casually made an extraordinary claim without a shred of evidence.

[Quoted] "they made a misdiagnosis, and when they realized their error, they immediately sent you in for "shunt surgery" that saved your life. Without that surgery, you would have died."

There was no misdiagnosis. Right after birth they diagnosed me with a heart murmur and a few other defects of which I don't want to get into. The kind of murmur I had and the gray of my skin and the inablilty to breathe, their medical training had told them that I had a very great chance of dying within hours.

You say there was no misdiagnosis, but then you go on to describe the misdiagnosis. They thought you would die within hours. You didn't. Obviously, there was a misdiagnosis. You don't see that?

The fact that the surgery occured one week after the closure of the flow of blood to the lungs seems to have missed you. Can you explain why I survivied long enough to get the surgery after a week of no or very little oxygene getting to my brain and body?

You want to see miracles, so you see miracles. The doctors misdiagnosed a partial blockage as something that would kill you within hours. They were obviously wrong, since you continued to breathe, albeit poorly. They sent you in for surgery, and after the surgery, you were breathing comfortably. No miracle required.

However, that's not how you interpret it. You interpret it as follows: the doctors diagnosed a severe blockage that would kill you within hours. They could not possibly have been wrong because they are omniscient, therefore you did have a very severe blockage that would kill you within hours. You lived for many days despite this severe blockage, which was medically impossible given the severity of your condition (the existence of which we know with absolute certainty because the doctors' initial diagnosis was infallible). Therefore, God saved your life. Ergo, you were saved by a miracle.

Do you see the problem? Your explanation for this chain of events adds an unjustifiable assumption as well as an extra term. The most straightforward explanation is that the initial diagnosis was simply incorrect. You, on the other hand, assume that the initial diagnosis was infallible (a ludicrous assumption, since no doctor would claim that medical diagnoses are infallible). You conclude that divine intervention saved your life, thus adding an unnecessary extra term to the equation. In other words, you commit the ubiquitous Creationist intellectual crime of discarding a reasonable explanation which requires no extra terms, in favour of a incredible explanation which requires extraordinary extra terms.

I thought you can't starve the brain of oxygene for any amount of time and expect survival let alone no brain damage.

How can you be sure there was no brain damage?

I am grateful for what the surgeons had done, I even after my total correction surgery gave my surgeon a prized possesion of mine for his role in allowing me a relatively normal life.

Did you tell him that you would someday write to people on the Internet about how medical science is useless and you were nearly killed by it?

But I am also grateful to God for preserving me till I could get the surgery and for placing a surgeon who normally stays the night with his kids after surgery since I had major problems during the night after the total correction.

So God compelled him to stay, and it had nothing to do with his own free will? That's two examples of your bizarre miracle theories. First, you assume that God kept you alive despite a condition that would kill you within hours, because the initial diagnosis was infallible and divine intervention was therefore necessary. Then, you assume that the surgeon stayed not because of his own free will or any professional motivations, but because God forced him to stay, presumably by manipulating him like a puppet. In both cases, perfectly reasonable explanations (a mis-diagnosis, and a personal decision) are ignored in favour of extraordinary explanations (a divine miracle, and God seizing control of the surgeon in order to make him stay).

[Quoted] "Without that shunt surgery, you would have become a statistic."

I still am a statistic. At least to the purely scientific doctors. To the others I am a person with feelings and a life.

So people without religion are incapable of recognizing human beings as anything but statistics? They are incapable of recognizing the lives and feelings of others? Upon what do you base this wildly bigoted accusation?

Also I am a new statistic in that I am part of a first or second generation of Adult survivors of this defect. They have aboslutely not idea on what to do for me now. They can't even decided or discover the cause of my stroke.

Yet you are alive, even though you would be dead if not for the shunt surgery. And you still claim that medical science is useless.

[Quoted] "It simply doesn't occur to you that diagnostic tools are not omniscient ..."

Isn't just convenient for you to say the science hasn't discovered it yet. That's science's version of religion's claim that God did it.

Once again, you attempt to equate logical, scientific methods to your wild superstitions. If science (or technology, in this case) has failed to produce a diagnostic tool which is omniscient and infallible, that is hardly an assumption or a logical fallacy; it is a simple statement of fact.

However, the religious assumption that God must be responsible for every unexplained phenomenon is NOT a statement of fact. It is an unjustified assumption and a logical fallacy, known as the false dilemma fallacy. Look it up.

[Quoted] "You have failed to provide a single example of an observation which violates the laws of science. Instead, you seem to misinterpret the imprecision of ultrasound imaging to be a miracle."

That doesn't work. The echo after the cath showed no blockage where it showed it before. It was the same echo tech and there was vast difference between the two.

And ultrasounds have shown a fetus to be a male, whereas previous ultrasounds had shown it to be female. Does this mean that the child suddenly changed genders, thus requiring a divine miracle? Or does it mean that fuzzy ultrasounds are hardly infallible? Yet again, you ignore an obvious reasonable explanation in favour of an extraordinary explanation which requires indefensible assumptions (of infallible diagnostic tools) and extra terms (divine intervention).

What you don't know is that an imprecise echo is usually and underestimation of a problem the catheterization tends to show the true nature of the problem. And it is usually much worse. It is rare when it is the other way around as in my case and even when it does occur the doctors have no explaination for it. Maybe science hasn't discovered it yet.

You are taking tendencies, misinterpreting them as laws of science, and then declaring that the minority of incidents which go against the average are therefore violations of that law and unexplainable by science. Have you ever seen an ultrasound? They are fuzzy. There is no law stating that an ultrasound must always underestimate the severity of a problem, and there is no scientific mystery generated if it overestimates it.

[Quoted] "Provide one example in which I base arguments against Biblical inerrancy and Creationism upon "emotions" or my "supposed feelings of racism from Christians"."

Your explaination of your experience with your wife's family screams of it.

Yet another strawman fallacy. That was a personal story about the impact of racial and religious bigotry on my life. It was not an argument against Biblical inerrancy and Creationism. You seem to think that if I dare to mention personal experiences of religious bigotry, then I have effectively based all of my arguments against Biblical inerrancy and creationism upon those experiences.

Try to get it through your skull: my arguments about Biblical inerrancy and Creationism are separate from my arguments about religious bigotry. A personal anecdote related as an example of the latter has nothing to do with my logical arguments for the former.

So I say again: provide one example in which I base arguments against Biblical inerrancy and Creationism upon "emotions" or my "supposed feelings of racism from Christians". If you cannot do so, then admit that you were wrong.

Logic can be used to validate some of the most evil of things.

More vague, unsupported claims. Describe how pure logic can be used to validate evil. Provide an example of an evil action along with a completely logical justification for it.

I know I've read it and that's why I'm impressed. I must have gotten to you on some level that prompted you to do that. It is typical of people to show off to others how right they are when deep down they may be doubting themselves.

I chose to publicize our argument so you assume that you must have "gotten to me"? That's rich. It doesn't occur to you that I put you up there because it would strengthen my argument about religious fundamentalists, did it? If something really disturbed me or made me question my position, why would I respond by immediately broadcasting it to the world? Shouldn't I be suppressing it, the way scientists are supposedly suppressing evidence for creationism? I am part of the vast global evolutionist conspiracy of silence, right?

Yes I know I didn't touch your point here but I am getting tired and I don't have access to your publication right now.

In other words, you cannot answer my point, and you never will. Just like you've ignored every other point I've made. Let me remind you once more: you accused me of ignoring your points. I challenged you to find a single example of a point you made which I ignored. You said you were too "tired" to find such an example even though you obviously had enough energy to write this long post. However, it is obvious to any observer that it wasn't fatigue that kept you from providing the example I asked for, but pride. You have too much pride to admit that you'd simply made up that charge out of thin air, without bothering to see if it was true.

[Trying to prove that science is based on appeals to authorityt] They always go back to the "approved scientific method" to make sure they did things right and it was created by experts and has it's authority of them.

The scientific method is not based on the authority of experts. It is a method whose validity has been demonstrated by a proven track record of success as seen in the technology that has resulted from science. It is a method which has been analyzed and accepted as logical and reasonable by philosophers around the world.

And if you don't follow that method then someone will bring back to mind these experts and how they said something should be done. I have nothing wrong with that. I just wish you would see that point.

You have no point to make. No one ever mentions the names of experts when instructing you to follow the scientific method. They mention the logical justifications for the method and its proven track record. There is no need to appeal to the authority of "experts". In fact, I defy you to name the "experts" upon whose authority the scientific method supposedly rests.

[Quoted] "Appeals to authority assume infallibility on the part of the authority, but no scientist is held to be infallible. That's why repeated, independent verification is required for all scientific theories, and that's why all scientific theories are eternally subject to revision if new evidence arises."

Except evolution.

More lies. Evolution theory has been revised repeatedly since its inception, and scientific debate continues regarding many specific aspects. Yet again, you rely on vague unsupported claims. Provide an example of a properly documented piece of evidence which contradicts the predictions of evolution theory and which has been ignored by the scientific community.

[Quoted] "Religious dogma, on the other hand, assumes infallibility of all the numerous authors of the Bible. No independent verification is required or even possible. None of it is subject to revision in light of new evidence. Get it now? Or would you like me to restate the distinction yet again, this time without the multi-syllable words?"

What new evidence?

The scientific evidence that the world is billions of years old, for example. The scientific evidence that stars are enormous celestial objects that dwarf our planet, rather than being small objects which can potentially fall to Earth somday. The scientific evidence that all life evolved from a common ancestor. You know ... all that stuff which you ignore.

Here's a challenge for you: describe the general requirements for a piece of evidence that would cause you to accept that the Bible is not inerrant. In the end analysis, you will eventually be forced to admit that there is no piece of evidence which would fit this bill, and that your religion is dogma.

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