Hate Mail

Michael Miller

Michael V. Miller is a devout Christian fundamentalist from Pennsylvania. He is a classic case study in the Christian fundamentalist mentality, and he exhibits all of the usual psychological symptoms:

  1. Unquestioning acceptance of those who claim to speak on behalf of divine authorities (ie- the authors of the Bible). In other words, habitual reliance upon appeals to authority

  2. Inconsistent approach when dealing with appeals to modern authorities. While he ignores the overwhelming majority consensus of the scientific community, he uncritically accepts the opinion of any isolated creationist individual within that community, no matter how vastly outnumbered or resoundingly refuted by his peers

  3. Deep-seated intolerance of other religious beliefs (when pressed, he actually admits that he thinks religious minorities should be segregated from the Christian majority)

  4. Stubborn refusal to hold God accountable to any ethical rules (thus excusing him for all the horrible atrocities of the Old Testament)

  5. Mindless parrotting of long-refuted Creationist arguments and mysterious failure to respond when each and every one of those arguments is easily refuted in turn.

  6. Refusal to acknowledge contributions of science to human society, as best demonstrated by the ingratitude inherent in his personal belief that God, and not medicine, was responsible for the success of the heart surgery that saved his life when he was about two months old.

Every post in our exchange is reproduced here, although you should be forewarned that this is a rather long exchange. I reproduced it in its entirety only because you can see the gradual progression, where he reveals more of his bizarre attitude with each message. As a result of its sheer length, it has been broken up into individual messages:

Page 1: The usual introduction, plus some generic cut-and-paste creationist arguments.

Page 2: Pseudoscience, appeals to authority, strawman versions of evolution theory, and of course, his personal testimonial about the miracles God has worked in his own life (while in the cunning disguise of human doctors who performed life-saving heart surgery on him)

Page 3: Change of subject. He abandons almost all of his arguments without admitting defeat on any of them, and switches gears to his new idea, which is to defend the logic of the fallacious appeal to authority!

Page 4: He continues his Quixotic defense of the appeal to authority, and he spices it up by adding some new cut and paste creationist arguments (while still refusing to acknowledge my rebuttals of his previous arguments). He also lies about the events of Exodus 32 in order to bolster his argument that God is not immoral, even though it is ridiculously easy to look it up. And finally, he expands his attack on science by deriding the medical professionals who saved his life as incompetents.

Page 5: He is still stubbornly defending the appeal to authority, as well as his claims of a personal faith healing miracle. Again, he throws in a new twist: he saw my personal home page which described the racial and religious discrimination I suffered at the hands of my wife's parents (they disowned her, they tried to sabotage our wedding, and they told me to "stay with your own kind"), and he proudly sides with them, because they're Christian and the Bible says it's OK.

Page 6: An attempt to prove that faith healing is scientifically valid.

Page 7: Now he tries to defend Biblical morality. Of course, one might question the legitimacy of his moral opinions in light of his support for my in-laws' racial and religious attacks on me, but it will only get worse from here.

Page 8: More of the same.

Page 9: He reveals more of his true colours, by explaining to me that religious minorities should be treated as a dangerous disease, and quarantined in "isolation wards" so that they won't infect others.

Page 10: He reveals more of his scary attitudes by helpfully explaining the Biblical "hierarchy" of race to me (just in case I was living under the delusion that I was equal in status to a white person), as well as continuing his thread in defense of Biblical morality and the need to segregate religious minorities.

Page 11: More of the same.

Page 12: After seeing that he had been published on the "Hate Mail" pages, he came back with pure appeals to authority.

Page 13: More appeals to authority. I'm still hoping that he might come up with something new, but that hope is fading. I suspect that the debate has already exceeded his intellectual limits.

Page 14: He's definitely exceeded his limits. This time, he spews some of the most bizarre leaps in logic and strawman fallacies I've ever seen.

Page 15: Interminable and repetitive. All the same arguments, all the same evasions. The only interesting thing about this one is the way he ignores every challenge to put his money where his mouth is.

Page 16: Once again, when faced with an array of challenges he cannot meet and arguments he cannot refute, he simply ignores them all and starts fresh, returning to his "personal miracle".

Page 17: This may be his final message (if so, then it's long overdue since he hasn't said anything interesting in a long time). He says his health problems are worsening, which is unfortunate, then he uses them as yet another opportunity to attack atheists (big surprise).

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Last updated: June 23, 2001

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