Hate Mail

Michael Miller, Page 5

March 19, 2001:

[Editor's note: At this point, he sent a couple of messages to which I didn't bother responding. It had become clear to me that there was little point in continuing, due to his incessant use of broad, unsupported generalizations, in conjunction with his refusal to debate specific points. I was under the erroneous impression that if I simply stopped responding, he would stop pestering me with his inane bleatings. Unfortunately, I was wrong]

[Quoted] "More standard-issue creationist dogma. My definition of the scientific method is the accepted definition ..."

Accepted definition by who? Just the scientists. According to some scence definitions evolution is as valid a philosophy as Creationsim is.

[Editor's note: notice how he complains that only "the scientists" accept my definition of their method, as if we should go to people other than scientists in order to find out how science is practiced! It was at this point that I simply threw up my hands in disgust and decided not to bother replying. It takes a special kind of arrogance to declare that his personal conception of the scientific method is more accurate than the one being promoted by practicing scientists and described in every textbook]

I don't mind your choice of beliefs but when you start putting down others for having different set of beliefs then I get upset. That's actually what I am disagreeing with you about. Your whole website is geared to put down and belittle people who believe differently from you. From your complaints about Star Trek fans to Creationist and Christians. Anyone who disagrees with you is either stupid or beneath you. If you are representative of your way of thinking then I don't want it. I may not have been entirely kind myself and I apologize for it. I just don't like seeing good honest people being ridiculed for believing what they believe.

[Editor's note: now he tries to paint himself as heroic defender of the downtrodden, and he resorts to the strawman attack that I am attacking Christians as a monolithic group, rather than attacking the Bible directly. He apparently fails to notice that I take pains to point out that not all Christians are alike, and that I specifically criticize the Bible itself rather than making broad generalizations about all Christians, many of whom are perfectly willing to admit that the Bible is a seriously flawed document. His problem is that he cannot separate the believer from the belief, so a criticism of the Bible amounts to a criticism of all Christians in his mind]

[Quoted] "Exactly. You define morality in terms of obedience to your God. Therefore, by your view of morality, everyone who doesn't agree with your beliefs is immoral. That is an inherently bigoted attitude, but since you are a bigot, you obviously can't see it for what it is."

And if there is no outside Authority (God) to base your morality on then what right did the US have in judging Nazies when they were legal and moral in their own defined set of morality?

[Editor's note: apparently, he didn't notice that the Christian Nazis were convicted of crimes against humanity, not crimes against God (whose Old Testament spirit of merciless genocidal hatred was very much alive in the Nazi death camps). He also failed to notice that it was human beings who defeated them and human beings who judged them, while his "outside authority" sat on the sidelines, saying and doing nothing. Wouldn't a divine miracle have been handy before Hitler killed more than ten million people? And this idea that we have no right to judge others is tiresome, to say the least; if someone commits a crime against humanity, then humanity does have the right to judge him! Does the victim of a crime not have the right to justice?]

The US is a Republic. Read the Declaration of Independence. Lincoln refered to that document as the founding of this country. It happens to mention God quite importantly.

[Editor's note: this is another reason I didn't want to bother responding. I dealt with this argument in my web page, but he obviously didn't read it. Few things are more annoying than having to repeat oneself in the face of a heckler who needs to hear something several times before it sinks in. In the site, I mentioned that the Declaration of Independence mentions the deistic "Nature's God" rather than the monotheistic Christian God, but fundamentalist egocentrics tend to assume that any use of the word "God" must be a reference to their particular conception]

[Making excuses for Christian atrocities] But I can guarrantee you that most of them claimed Christianity but probably not, just like the Jewish leaders in Christ's time.

[Editor's note: this is an overused escape clause. Notice how he tries to claim that all the Christians who committed atrocities couldn't really have been Christian irrespective of the sincerity of their beliefs, because he assumes that to be Christian is to have superior morality. That assumption itself is a form of bigotry; it is based on the belief that Christianity = morality, which feeds the mindset that Christians are morally superior to non-Christians because of their religion. In other words, if anyone committed an immoral act, then they couldn't possibly have been Christian!]

[Defending the use of belief in order to disprove observation] Belief can be quite rational and valid. You believe everything you read by the people I mentioned to be accurate don't you?

[Editor's note: notice how he assumes that I must share his mindset of authority. He mentioned Darwin and Stephen Jay Gould, and he assumes that I must treat them as infallible authorites, just as he treats the Bible's long-dead authors as infallible authorities. This is a common assumption among fundamentalists, who are eager to believe that science is no more rational than religion. In reality, I would never be so foolish to assume that everything written by Darwin or Stephen Jay Gould must be correct. Evolution theory, and science in general, does not depend on the infallibility of any authority, whether he be named Newton, Einstein, or Darwin (none of whom were infallible). The scientific community incorporates all the valid ideas from all the researchers in history and it freely discards their mistakes, because it is not dogmatic]

[Quoted] "Hitler believed that the glorification of God was best achieved through the extermination of Jews and atheistic Bolsheviks. Do you consider it irrational to criticize those beliefs? A belief demands criticism if it is immoral."

That was not excatly Hitler's objective. That may have been what he stated but not exactly what he was attempting. And how are my specific beliefs immoral?

[Editor's note: notice how he admits that Hitler's stated objective was to glorify God through the destruction of Jewry (as outlined in Mein Kampf), but he insists that through his apparent clairvoyant ability, he can peer into the mind of Hitler and determine that this isn't what he really meant. I had no idea I was dealing with someone who could read the minds of long-dead psychopaths! Also notice how he demands that I provide evidence that the Old Testament is immoral, even though I already have an entire series of web pages devoted to Old Testament atrocities]

[Defending the union of church and state despite the horrors of the Dark Ages] State religion does not equal Christianity. And some of those questioning were Christian themselves.

[Editor's note: do you find his evasions as tiresome as I do? I made the point (in the previous post) that the Renaissance didn't begin until people were finally willing to oppose church doctrine in public, and he retorts by pointing out that Christianity was not the only form of oppressive state religion! How does that disprove my point? What about his second "point", which was that some of the rebels were Christians? Galileo was a Christian too, but unlike Mr. Miller and his ilk, Galileo was smart enough to recognize that the Bible is not scientifically accurate]

[Quoted] "I am hardly a medical encyclopedia. However, are you saying that this has only happened to you? Are you saying that it is medically impossible? Because if it isn't, then it's no miracle."

Not impossible but very unlikely, since the docs were at a loss to explain it.

[Editor's note: he admits that his survival was not impossible. The doctors didn't think he would make it, and this becomes a miracle of divine intervention in his mind. Notice the incredible hubris of this interpretation. Tens of millions died horribly in the wars of the 20th century, regardless of religious beliefs, and God didn't intervene to save them. But Michael Miller is sick and his mother prays for him, so God decides to intervene on his behalf? What a very special boy he must be!]

[Quoted] "So the doctors told you that the echo is not very accurate (hence the need for invasive procedures to get a better picture), yet you interpret any discrepancy between the echo and the cath as a miracle."

Yes, but the next echo showed normal flow. Wouldn't it have show the same as before?

[Editor's note: notice how he assumes that inaccuracies should be completely repeatable (obviously not fully comprehending the unpredictable nature of inaccuracies). Echocardiograms are basically a form of ultrasound imaging, and I've seen ultrasound images. They're pretty damned fuzzy, and in fact, there have been babies whose gender was incorrectly identified in vitro, using the same technology. To put it bluntly, if ultrasound imaging can miss an entire penis, it seems obvious to me that it's possible to get an incorrect and non-repeatable reading of an artery or valve]

[Quoted] "Some people recover faster than others. It happens. Most people don't attribute this to miracles."

Yes but cardiac patients don't recover so well, especially those with conditions such as I and after such an trauma to the body.

[Editor's note: you almost have to admire him, in a twisted sort of way. He is so doggedly bull-headed about his preconceived notion of divine intervention that he is absolutely impenetrable to common sense. Some people are simply more robust than others, and recover more quickly. When it happens to an atheist, it means that he's simply a strong person and a fast healer. When it happens to a Christian fundamentalist, it's a divine miracle! When that obvious point is made, he ignores it completely, and he simply reiterates that he recovered very quickly. I wonder how he would explain the fact that general population statistics show no correlation between Christian fundamentalism and life expectancy, if God routinely intervenes in order to prolong the lives of believers]

Science believes that it has all the answers or that if it doesn't it will given time have then. It's beginning to become overinflated, just like some of the egos within the science community.

[Editor's note: now he's resorting to the common notion of religious humility as opposed to scientific arrogance. This is one of those ancient arguments which is mindlessly repeated throughout fundamentalist country, but which makes no sense when exposed to the light of day. Fundamentalists believe that they are humble before God and that scientists are arrogant because they won't subordinate natural law to Biblical stories. However, this definition of humility and arrogance is predicated upon God as the point of reference. Since God is unobservable and unverifiable, we might ask why we should be using him as a point of reference!

If we use the natural universe as our point of reference instead of God, then the situation reverses itself. Suddenly, we can see that it is the fundamentalists who are supremely arrogant, their egos bloated with the belief that their personal faith is so powerful that it can erase natural observations, override logic, and move mountains. Their literature is supposedly infallible, and some sects (eg. Catholics) periodically anoint spiritual leaders (eg. The Pope or the Mormon Quorum of Prophets) who are also regarded as infallible. Scientists, on the other hand, can now be seen as quite humble, since every one of their theories is completely subordinate to the strict edicts of nature and logic. They hold none of their own number out to be infallible, and even the greatest theories of the most legendary scientists can be discarded or narrowed in scope of application if contradicted by observation. So who's really humble, and who's really arrogant? When taken from the only frame of reference which is observable and verifiable, it is quite clear that it is the fundamentalists whose arrogance is beyond compare]

[Quoted] "You obviously didn't get the point, did you? You thought you saw an angel. You were happy about it. The nurse saw that you were happy. Your mother saw that you were happy. That is not two people who verified that you had been visited by an angel; that's two people who saw that you were happy. There's a huge difference."

They weren't questioning my happiness. I wasn't happy. I was peaceful. [Editor's note: ooohh, big difference] Also they mentioned the glow about my face. Granted it might have been a weird light reflection but the coincidence was amazing. I suddenly wake up and sit up, a light hits upon my extremely peaceful face just as a nurse walks in.

[Editor's note: it's amazing how he so consistently sidesteps points rather than dealing with them. His mother and nurse saw that he was "peaceful" rather than "happy". How does this nitpick affect my point, which is that they verified his mood rather than his tall tale of angelic visitation? As for his bizarre story about a "glowing face", it seems obvious to me that the act of sitting up might put someone in the path of a ray of light coming through a window. It's not exactly a miracle, it's one of those stories which tend to be exaggerated over time, and it's also not documented in even the most superficial way. Do they have pictures of this unearthly glow? Or just the vivid recollections of a mother who was understandably desperate to see evidence that God is helping her son, and a nurse who wanted to humour her?]

[Quoted] "Obviously, you missed the point completely, which was that your method of "proof", if applied to Santa Claus, will prove that he exists. Therefore, there is either something horribly wrong with your method or you must believe in Santa Claus."

Interesting but not relavant since Santa Claus has never brought such a change in my temperment in the hospital before a major surgery.

[Editor's note: is it any wonder I stopped responding to this guy? I point out that his method of reasoning is obviously flawed by using a Santa Claus analogy, and he retorts by pointing out that the analogy is irrelevant because it didn't actually happen to him. It's apparent that he doesn't understand the purpose or concept of analogies]

[Quoted] "Who said that "logically" you should be dead? If you can actually produce some sort of medical evidence to show that your survival was actually an impossibility, then by all means, provide it. Otherwise, you're just misinterpreting pessimistic doctors as a miracle."

So having no blood going to the lungs for about a week does not cause death. Wow, that's something I never knew. Thanks for enlightening me.

[Editor's note: you've got to love the way he exaggerates his own health problems in order to prove that his survival was miraculous. His original article only described restricted blood flow, but upon cross-examination, it's suddenly become "no blood" at all! Wow, I'm a true believer now. How could anyone question that?]

[Quoted] "No thanks. Many of the worst things that happened in my life came from churches."

And some of the worst things that happened to me came from people like you. So what does that prove?

[Editor's note: Notice how I provided specific descriptions of the racial and religious discrimination that I suffered at the hands of religious bigots, and he retorts by making vague reference to suffering at the hands of "people like you" without providing any examples at all. I find it highly unlikely that his experiences mirror mine, since I doubt he has ever been told to "stay with your own kind" by a person quoting some sort of Holy Book of atheism. And while he was born with a bad heart (which would have come from God, in his belief system), he was saved by multiple surgical procedures (which came from science). By insisting that the scientific method has done him nothing but harm, he merely demonstrates his incredible ingratitude ... again]

[Quoted] "I've personally been a victim of both racial and religious hatred."

So have I.

[Editor's note: I would love to know what kind of "racial and religious hatred" a white Christian faces in America]

[Defending my in-laws' disownment of their daughter for the crime of dating me] That's point of a Christian not being unequally yoked. See how it tore her family apart? They could say you took her from them without regard to their position. They may have thought you corrupted her by saying how ignorant they were for their beliefs. To be honest I don't know.

[Editor's note: Notice the multiple layers of bigotry here. He talks about how I "took her from them" when I started dating their daughter against their will (it doesn't occur to him that she dated me of her own free will, and no one "took" anyone). He talks about how I "corrupted her" by criticizing her beliefs (notice how he assumes that I ridiculed her religious upbringing from day one, even though that would have been the worst pickup line in the history of romance).]

You may have influenced her to question them about some things and they became afraid of what you may lead her into.

[Editor's note: Why is it bad to influence someone to ask questions? Questions aren't a bad thing! The only people who fear questions are people who don't have any good answers. And yes, for the record, I did inspire her to question some things, such as her parents' racism, which led them to confront me and ask "why don't you stay with your own kind?" She also questioned the religious bigotry that her parents shared with many other Christians, such as the minister who strung us along for months and then suddenly cancelled on our wedding at the last minute, explaining that he wouldn't help a Christian marry a heathen (he could have told us that before, but he apparently decided it was better to wait until it would be almost impossible to book another church and minister). There was certainly a lot to question, and when her questions were answered with Biblical justifications, she then questioned the Bible itself. If you're a Christian and you believe you have the answers for those kinds of question, that's fine (although, of all the answers I've ever heard, the only good one was "I'm a Christian, but I don't necessarily support the Bible"). But if you think that questions should never be asked in the first place, then you're suppressing critical thought, which is a sign of cultist indoctrination.]

If you were anything then like you are know I understand their point.

[Editor's note: He reveals more about his personality. Apparently, as long as I was an atheist at the time, he "understands" all the things they did, such as insulting me, disowning their own daughter and cutting off all forms of support, and asking the minister to sabotage our wedding (which he did). In other words, if you're an atheist, then as far as Mr. Miller is concerned, people can do pretty much anything they want to you, short of breaking the law, and it's OK.]

[Quoted] "If you want God, you can have him. Just keep him out of the public schools and the government, where he would be an abomination and an invitation to the same human rights abuses which have been endemic to every state religion in history."

That's just your opinion.

[Editor's note: I love this kind of empty "rebuttal". It would have been a lot more convincing if he had provided even a single example of a state religion which did not lead to human rights abuses]

Continue to Michael Miller, Page 6

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