Part 3

----- Original Message -----

From: Steve Locks

To: Dr Anthony Garrett

Sent: 11 June 2000 20:43

Subject: Re: Some follow up points

Dear Dr. Garrett,

You wrote:

<< First, there is a huge difference between knowing about Jesus and knowing

Jesus. Many evangelicals who have not had experience of the Holy Spirit are

in the former category but aren't aware of it. >>

The "you were not true Christians" claim. Given all I have said so far and the evidence available via my website, this really is clutching at non-existent straws. Why would God go to the trouble of incarnation and crucifixion only to allow Christians to find Christianity untenable, or give "spurious" experiences and "incorrect" interpretation to those who spend so many years trying to live the Christian life?

Jesus Christ has been invited as many a personal saviour by multitudes of ex-Christians, who once felt, as you probably do, that they had a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ. Christianity was once the centre of the universe for many of us. Lived it, thought it, felt it, preached it, discussed it, prayed privately and publicly, taken religious groups and been thanked for encouraging other Christians and helping them in their walk with Christ. Felt moved by religious experience and lost in numinous feeling of connection with God. Taken holy communion, partaken of agape's, retreats, missions and ordination classes. Written many books of Christian thoughts. I think it's fair to say we have sought and experienced.

How do you know that others have not had the correct experiences or that you have not had incorrect experiences but are not aware of it? How do you know that your experiences are of the "Holy Spirit?" How do you know that it is not Muslims, Buddhists or atheists who are having the "correct" mystical experiences? Do Moonies think they are in a cult or do they think they are having the correct experiences of the true Messiah? How do you know that others have not had the same experiences you have had (or better)? If you would detail your experiences and Christian denomination etc. then I will dig out some stories from ex-Christians with similar backgrounds and reported experiences for you. This is a ludicrous claim of yours given the wealth and diversity of experience of ex-Christians and the complete inability of their fellow Christians to tell that they were not having the "correct" experience whilst they were Christians. Just as I said, you have to believe we were not "true Christians" or otherwise your faith is in danger. I have already had this debate at length here http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/seek.html

<< About hell. You talk about many groups which have claimed that they and

only they have a true understanding of scripture, so why should my view be

right? You can use this argument to dissolve any interpretation of any

text, so it isn't a useful way to argue. >>

Not "any text," only those arguments that are special pleading. It is very useful to point out special pleading as it quickly exposes fallacious arguments. You learn this from any primer on logical thinking. From "Straight and Crooked Thinking" by Robert H. Thouless:-

"There is a common fault in argument arising from the influence of prejudice which may be employed deliberately as a dishonest trick but which is more commonly used unwittingly by a speaker who is mislead by his prejudices. This is the use in one context of an argument which would not be admitted in another context where it would lead to the opposite conclusion. This is special pleading."

Many Christian claims are special pleading and therefore at fault. To claim something for Christianity (e.g. the veridical nature of mystical experience) that you would not accept for another religion (e.g. the very different mystical experience of Buddhists and Daoists demonstrating their veracity rather than Christianity's) is a fallacious argument. Therefore such arguments carry no weight. http://stripe.colorado.edu/~morristo/ivanhoe.html Not "all texts," or arguments, have special pleading, but many religious ones do.

<< It is true that the Hebrews were told to occupy the promised land and kill

the Canaanites. But it is not true that the Canaanites were innocents. The

patriarchs were told in Genesis that their descendants would remain in

Egypt for 400 years "until the sins of the Canaanites had reached their

full measure" - which archaeology has shown included human sacrifice and

horrible degradation. The Hebrew invasion was judgement on them. >>

Well, I am surprised after all. It looks like you actually approve of this. This is genocide that you are apologising for. Would you commit these killings if you were one of Moses' people? Would you use this defence at a war crimes investigation? Do you honestly really approve of this massacre without even the slightest unease?

What about the "little ones," babies and animals? Were they guilty of some heinous crime worthy of brutal slaughter too? Was it really necessary to capture the virgins for rape? What crime worthy of such horror did those horses that were hamstrung commit and the babies that were ripped out of their mothers' wombs? According to the bible, God killed King David's baby because David had committed a crime even though he spends ages saying he is sorry. Excuse me if I don't worship your god.

Please explain why the bible god who orders and kills so many babies (I think you believe the killing of the first born actually happened) is just and a god of goodness and love. Maybe you are worshipping a Bronze-age Hebrew tribe's battle god, evolved into strange forms over the millennia through a complex series of councils and heretic burnings. Maybe these stories are Temple legends, written to make the Hebrew people look like they had a mighty history for primitive peoples impressed by such things. http://www.infidels.org/secular_web/feature/1999/edelen03.html If instead you think this really happened and God ordered it (as the bible says) then explain about the babies and animals and why the virgins had to be raped.

It is absurd to call somebody "good" if he doesn't live up to any of our normal standards of goodness. But it's surely no less absurd to do this when the person under discussion is God.

The nineteenth century English philosopher, John Stuart Mill, was so convinced by this line of argument that he said it was dishonest to call anyone "good" who did not live up to the highest human standards of goodness. With considerable bravado, Mill said that he would prefer to go to hell than to call such a being good.

If, instead of the "glad tidings" that there exists a Being in whom all the excellences which the highest human mind can conceive, exist in a degree inconceivable to us, I am informed that the world is ruled by a being whose attributes are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn, nor what are the principles of his government, except that "the highest human morality which we are capable of conceiving" does not sanction them; convince me of it, and I will bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I must believe this, and at the same time call this being by the names which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain terms that I will not. Whatever power such a being may have over me, there is one thing he shall not do; he shall not compel me to worship him. I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go. [From "Reply to Mr. Mansel", my italics]

Mill's main point is clear. It would indeed be "glad tidings" to learn that God is good in our sense of "good". But if He is good only in some other, mysterious sense, one that does not rule out extreme cruelty toward his creatures, that would not be glad tidings. Mill thought it would be dishonest and cowardly to use the word "good" to describe such a being. http://stripe.colorado.edu/~morristo/judge.html

To which I would add: Those in an abusive relationship, the real victims, often do call the cruel abuser good whilst blinded by the total power they perceive is held over them and the confusing messages of love and cruelty given by this person. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/seek.html#stockholm

And once again, if Christianity is a religion of love and it contains

extremely unloving elements then it is in trouble. Why should one call

God "good" if he is contrary to what we feel good is. Somebody could call

rape good but I don't see why we should believe that. The problem of moral

values are the same for Christians and atheists. It is we who must judge

whether the scriptural god is good. You think he is, I think the evidence is

against it.

It seems very ironic to me that the cruel passages are so vigorously excused by some evangelical Christians whilst it is also scriptural for Christians to sell all they have to the poor or else they are lacking something according to Luke 18:22. Only a minuscule proportion of Christians actually take this important advice. Personally it didn't even occur to me when I was a Christian, but now I have brought it to your attention do you really believed God so approves of this that he told us in human form that we should sell all to obtain riches in heaven? If so, then why are you not doing it? I wonder if this indicates that there is always some doubt in most Christians about Christianity. Something that hints that it doesn't really ring true with reality. So few who claim to be "true Christians" take Jesus seriously enough to give all their money away.

<< It gets up a lot of non-Christians' noses when Christians say that they

(Christians) are going to heaven and the non-Christians are going to hell.

I sympathise; I believe this is a complacent misreading of scripture. Most

of the warnings of hell were delivered TO BELIEVERS, and the parable of the

unready bridesmaids/virgins with the punchline "I never knew you" clearly

shows that self-proclaimed Christians can end up in hell. >>

This is so awful. How malicious do you think us to be that I, or anyone, should find it more just that there are also Christians in hell? This is multiplying the atrocity. It would upset me tremendously to see anyone at all in hell. Some of my best friends are Christians. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/feedback/michael_strezinski.html I couldn't bare the sight of anything like this. How you can accept this is way beyond me, and beyond the imagination of ex-Christians of previous hell-belief I have spoken to who cannot understand how they used to believe something so incredibly heinous. This god you worship sounds very wicked.

All this worry about "getting to heaven" is egotistical. Personally, I am not that interested in my self and no longer have a big enough ego to worry about my own soul. As some Buddhists say, belief in God is "unskilful" in that it can actually harm the spiritual life of a person, making them too wrapped up in their own "salvation" (not to mention the damnation of others rather than connection with their brothers and sisters and the wider universe). The universe is too interesting a place to me for me to be a Christian. To be a Christian requires too much looking inward which is unhealthy and egotistical. "I" don't matter to "me" that much! You are living in a world with something fundamentally spiritually wrong with it as a Christian. Not a recipe for full happiness and connection.

All the feelings had when religious were human and natural feelings that were mistaken for divine and supernatural things. I think this stunts them, no matter how good they where thought to be at the time. The fact is that we were missing out as Christians on the real world. Not only was our view of reality mistaken, but we were also too often wrapped up in our own ego or "salvation." It makes a huge difference to intelligent complex animals like ourselves when we really believe something of such vast ramifications which is false. When we know the real source of our feelings they can be far more powerful. Such was the experience of so many ex-Christians as the world came more into focus out of the confusing mist of misinterpretation that is religion. The more seriously one took their religion then the greater this transformation experience may be.

<< Many people who say hell is incompatible with a God of love mean

incompatible with a God of unconditional love. >>

The love of this god you portray is that of an abusive spouse. I will get a lot of email from other Christians apologising for you after this. Many believe the Christian god to have unconditional and infinite love and it is we who do not respond to him. But we have been there! I have an ex-nun friend who says she left Christianity because after her years as a nun she finally admitted that a relationship in which one of the partners is silent is no relationship at all.

I love my daughter unconditionally. That makes me better than your god. Should I torture her if she gets some ideas about me wrong, or experiences me in the wrong way? It seems I behave better even though I don't have the infinite resources of your "big" god to understand and love the complex flawed humanity that we are. Why should we love a God who divides sheep from goats and condemns those we love and understand?

<< But that view of God is not scriptural. He gives a free shoice and loves those who choose him. Don't blame me or other believers if you don't like what the bible says; blame

God - he is big enough to take it. >>

I blame believers for having faith, for making a virtue out of believing things. Attempting to wilfully believe and trust is neither virtuous or responsible. We should have working hypotheses about life, always open to refutation, not faith.

I blame believers for not investigating the other side of the argument seriously. If one makes huge claims for reality with eternal consequences then one does indeed have a duty to seriously and critically examine those beliefs. Evangelicals are particularly to be blamed if they fail to do this because they attempt to persuade others, particularly malleable young people with little knowledge or critical faculties, of their own poorly-examined beliefs. I find this irresponsible. Those for whom religion is a private affair are less to blame, but even there I find unexamined beliefs an unadmirable quality.

I blame believers for not being intellectually honest. For not admitting to any consequences for using fallacious arguments such as special pleading.

I blame believers for being more concerned about dogma than charitable action. For putting their energy into promoting their beliefs whilst keeping their money. Only Christians who take Luke 18:22 seriously deserve listening to. I blame believers who are more interested in promoting belief than promoting charity or love. You said yourself << If Spong is loving I am glad, but from what I have read he is very unscriptural! >> I blame believers when holding on to their religion (including a "relationship with Jesus") is more primordial than love and truth.

I blame believers for being scared of what their god might do to them or not give them if they dare to wonder if he really is good.

I blame believers for not having the charity or good grace to really seriously examine why most of the world disagree with them, for not treating others like equal human beings as they are, able to think and feel in the same way, for assuming that we are missing an insight when there is no evidence for this but rather much to the contrary.

I blame believers for telling people that they will go to hell, for causing huge psychological upset to countless people and for the brutal history and ongoing cruelty in religions.

I do indeed blame believers for irresponsibility and dishonestly.

I also forgive and understand believers because I once was one and know from my own experience, and a pooled wealth of experience from others, what it is like to be in a religious belief system (read "think you have a relationship with Jesus Christ," or whatever your particular religious line is. One Christian told me that to "invite Christ in" is "as false a gospel as has ever been preached" see http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/seek.html). In my opinion Christians are as much the unwilling and unknowing victims of Christianity as they are its perpetrators. So although repeated fallacious arguing is annoying, I find it difficult to get into a very foamy lather over it in private debate. Watching people suffer under the pressure of evangelism is more upsetting, but not as much as the thought of the slow burning of heretics and other continuing horrors. http://www.truthbeknown.com/victims.htm http://holysmoke.org/haught/

<< He gives a free shoice and loves those who choose him. >>

I would still love my daughter if she rejected me and thought me the world's most complete moron.

<< ...if you don't like what the bible says; blame

God - he is big enough to take it. >>

It is of course ludicrous to ask an atheist to blame the Christian bible god for anything. I can no more see the point in doing that than in blaming the Norse god Thor for making a racket with thunder and lightning whilst I'm trying to sleep. Neither can I bring myself to thank Bacchus for the gift of wine. If you thought that Islamic theology was cruel for the extremity of its hell punishments for non-Muslims would you complain to Allah? It is special pleading again.

If the Christian bible god was "big enough to take it" then he could accept us all in heaven. If the god you have portrayed existed then he would be revolting and I definitely would blame him, but without any reason for believing in his existence I can no more blame him for wicked biblical passages and Auschwitz than I can blame evil elves for making my computer crash. I save my computer wrath for Bill Gates, and my annoyance at Christianity for dishonest Christians.

This http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/posts.html#rant is the sort of thing you might find people saying on Judgement day.

<< Best wishes >>

How can you feel such bonhomie when there is the question of hell hanging over people? How can you spiritually connect with those who do not have your "relationship with Jesus," "spiritual eyes" or whatever your terminology may be? The greatest benefit I discovered when I left Christianity was the disappearance of a spiritual barrier for me between people. When I had strong religion, my feeling was that if someone did not know God, then they where "not yet fully human" (though I did the best to not think this, it was there). A "non-Christian" was "spiritually misguided" and it was impossible to properly relate to or feel for such a person. I was in a "spiritually superior state". Now I see Christians just as people but with a mistaken belief, just like I may disagree with someone's politics, in that it doesn't mean I am in a different relationship to God (or Jesus) than them! There is a big difference between disagreeing with someone and thinking your relationship with a deity is different. I now see us all as vulnerable human beings full of hopes and fears and psychological tangle. The relief from religious problems and the fresh perception of a world I had hardly seen before, and the real ability to accept people deep down has made me very happy. For me there came a feeling of all people and nature being in the same boat together, a feeling deep down of "brotherliness" and most of all a sense of complete understanding and acceptance of life. From all this came great compassion for our messy human situation and remarkable connection with a world that I finally felt I understood. None of this is what I had expected to find and I was completely shocked to find so much spiritual love outside of religion.

Our conversation can be found at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/feedback/garrett/1.html also available via http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/feedback/listing.html and http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/conversion_asymmetry.html

There is much more I would like to say, but I think that will do for now.

If you still won't read my URLs, then think of them as references in a paper, to show if I have backup for what I say and to enable further study.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/paul_obrien/gentle/atheism9.html http://www.u.arizona.edu/~cashton/atheism/page5.html http://infidels.org/infidels/web.scan/1998/scan11.html

Steve

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Leaving Christianity: www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~slocks/decon.html