I really wonder if some people who email me are capable of thinking rationally — why else would they send an email to a vocal atheist that says:
how can u not believe in christ? or god? i am def. praying for you…ive seen miracles…im a believer.
Someone who can’t imagine why a person would not believe in Jesus or God doesn’t know very much about rationality or even their own religion. It just shows they are blind followers.
how can u not believe in capital letters? or punctuation? i am def. parsing for you…ive seen the monkees…im a believer.
Ha!
Colm wins.
What will you be doing with your shiny new interwebs, Colm?
Surfing to Disneyland.com, surely?
The flipside to no capital letters is random capitalizing of words. I’m not sure which is better.
Nor are they very pursuasive. I’d make a comment about them being homeschooled, but I saw all the backlash on that one.
DC, I am homeschooled, and I’ve known how to punctuate/capitalize/etc. since I was ten years old. Believe it or not, the ones who type lyke dis are usually public-school students. Sometimes they feel that since their teachers make them do it right in school, they shouldn’t have to put in the extra effort the rest of the time. Lazy kids.
AnonyMouse, I went to a public school and I’ve always been very careful about my punctuation and grammar. I am horribly offended and demand you apologize and pay me damages. Or cookies.
Quick, everyone pile on, rise up in outrage!!!
Publik scoohl is KO!
Brun Them Homscheoolrs!
I am a product of the public education system. As such, I was exposed to the standard, substandard training in readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmatic in Hicksville Arizona. As I have gotten older though, I have realized that a person’s written word carries at least as much weight in the mind of the reader in terms of evaluating the writer’s competence as the integrity of the argument he is presenting.
So, over the years, I have studied on my own, and practiced to the point that now I believe that I can present a cogent argument in written or verbal form, and most of the time, the recipient can’t tell that I am from a place where you will find real lost teeth in the urinal in the local Walmart!
Probably work at McDonalds…
:P
People who announce they are praying for you are either a] wasting their prayer time, or b] lying through their teeth. I vote ‘b’.
they say “i’m praying for you” like it is a threat.
It is a threat, Tilly. When a complete stranger says “I’m praying for you”, it means “I’m gonna make you convert whether you like it or not!” Or, if you prefer, “Since I’m not tough enough to do it myself, I’m gonna get my dad to beat you up!”
“I’m praying for you” also translates to “You are defective morally by virtue of not thinking as I do, so I will make a statement that paradoxically makes me look good while insulting your values.”
I’ve also known “I’m praying for you” to mean:
“I really don’t have words for you, so I’m doing the only thing I know to do”
…and that’s ok with me. Do I believe it’s really going to help me? Nah, but it may, in some form help those that believe prayer helps. And who couldn’t use positive thoughts anyway?
Me.
I feed on suffering.
We have found Ty’s secret weakness. Kill him with kindness!!!
He shall burst from emotional indigestion.
Eh, at worst I find excessive kindness and good cheer vaguely annoying. Sort of on the same level as morning people.
Sic ‘em, early risers!
I love how this guy thinks. I’VE seen miracles, so how can YOU not be a believer? Srsly, how can you refuse to doubt my OBVIOUSLY RELIABLE anecdotal evidence?
Personally, I’ve come to a belief system that others might find a little weak, but that I don’t feel really detracts from my personal atheism: If gods exist in some form (I think they might – shoot me if you like, but I’m sticking with it), then he/she/they are either really indiscriminate (will do miracles for ANYONE with sufficient belief) or there are a darned lot of them, because they seem to be causing miracles all across the board. (Miracles =/= little old ladies cured with cancer or kids born with tails.) In any case, none of them created the world, and they can’t be particularly important since many people get along just fine without invoking them.
I’m not sure I understand you
Just in case… you know, for someone with sufficient belief an ordinary event or a casualty can be seen as a miracle
These people are the reason a British movie about Charles Darwin can’t find a US distributor.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6173399/Charles-Darwin-film-too-controversial-for-religious-America.html
The last thing we need is a film industry that’s afraid of these wankers.
It better get to Canada. Paul Bettany is hot.
As hard as I’ve tried, I can’t overcome the logic of the dude’s argument. Miracles trump logic every time.
Especially miracles that only he’s observed! I mean, how can you argue against that?
Isn’t making a big show about praying for people, pretty unchristlike? I think JESUS would back me up on this, thats the guy you christians all look up to right? If your not praying secretly, then your prayers are pointless.
mathew 6:5-6 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
So Daniel, even if God was somehow real, you don’t have to worry about getting converted, because God won’t listen to that hypocrites prayers anyways.
When I was a xian, I always thought those verses supported my opinion that organized religion was garbage. If you want to see the most blatant hypocrisy imaginable, just attend a church for a while and get to know the people who attend it. They’re so full of shit it isn’t even funny. I always found it disgusting, and after the amusement wore off, I stopped going altogether. It didn’t take long after that for me to start questioning a whole lot of things in biblical scripture. The only possible result of that kind of thinking is the wholesale abandonment of religion; at least in my case.
ha ha, no arguments here. I am so glad to be done with all that crap. I feel like my life is just finally begining for real after all those years.
Be glad you made the change relatively young.
I wasted three decades on that crap.
Grrrr.
I suspect the mailer’s criteria for “miracle” are pretty low.
Rainbow? Miracle.
Hit every green light when running late? Miracle.
Having enough beer for unexpected guests? Miracle?
Dirty Windows and Images on Cheeze Sammiches.
Miracle.
Your team wins the game after you pray? Miracle!
Cop only lets you off with a warning after catching you speeding? Miracle!
You see Jesus on a piece of burnt toast? Super Miracle!!
When I was still a smoker, I was totally broke once. Upon looking all over my apartment for a cigarrette to no avail, I sat down on the couch in defeat. Just then, I felt something with my elbow. It was a box of Marlboro’s, and it was almost full! Coincidence? I THINK NOT! In your FACE Atheists! IN YOUR FACE! *raspberry* times infinity (which christians will enjoy, while you sinurs burn! LOLCAKEZ!)
What’s “def. praying”?
Probably like Def. Jam Records, only with praying instead of rap.
Eff jesus! There, was that so hard?
You can’t do that! God is ineffable!
But he can Eff others or Jesus wouldn’t be born.
LOL: good ones!
As someone implied, I really wonder what they hoped to accomplish with this letter? Did they think that you would read it and the idea that somewhere, some mysterious, pure soul was praying for you would make you look up from slurping the warm blood of babies from the goblet made from the skull of your first puppy and pause, a tiny tear forming on the scaly skin at the corner of your red, glowing eye as you wondered if, perhaps, there might be another way, and a place for you in their heaven–that place you so often dreamt of but until this moment assumed was out of reach to a wretch such as yourself?
Really. How exactly did they expect this to play out in their head?
When I read something like this, “i am def. praying for you” it has the same creepy emotional impact on me if they said, “i am def. masturbating about you”.
So I shouldn’t tell you?
Ewwwwww.
that’s flattery at its best
So it’s ok to tell Tilly.
gawd h8s spell chx
u speled spel rite, ur goen 2 he77.
Have you guys seen the hate mail section of the site for the “Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster” [1]? It’s full of awesome stuff like this.
Daniel: You should definitely post more of the hate mail you get. It’s extremely entertaining.
[1] http://www.venganza.org/category/hate-mail/
LOL!!! “you are a fucking retarded piece for even remotely thinking your big pile of spaghetti created this earth”
What I love about that hate mail page over at FSM is that nobody gets the irony. Nobody.
I love when they are giving arguments against His Noddlyness that could be applied to their deity
Yes, I need a new ironymeter everytime I read the hate-mail section
priceless
Thank you for this link. I had to stop reading because I was laughing so hard tears were streaming down my face and I couldn’t see the screen anymore.
Creation science, intelligent design, historicity of Jesus, etc. – these are all red herrings and attempts to lend credibility to a position that has none. We consistently get duped into debates as if they are valid, competing theories.
Science is about observing repeatable, demonstrable, predictable events and being open to revising your theory when the data requires it. Believers are unwilling to modify a world view that demands unyielding certainty, even in the face of evidence. There is nothing scientific about that; it is rigid and close-minded.
Warm and fuzzy fairy tales of hope and magic have no place on the podium beside evidence and science.
Then again, we have tabloids and television channels dedicated to celebrity voyeurism, so you have to wonder if we’ll ever rid ourselves of this idiocy?
But of course, the fact that some Christians are not able to prepare rational arguments certainly does not prove that they all can’t. In many groups of people (athiests, Honda owners, men, women, etc.), some will be eloquent and some will not be. That does not in itself prove that whatever a group might believe is false.
There are several intelligent Christians in academia who have prepared incredibly well-argued cases for why they are Christians, based not simply on what the Bible says (what you might call “blind faith”) but on extra-biblical and scientific evidence as well.
Surely you aren’t arguing that ALL Christians are “blind followers”? It seems to me that there are in fact many Christians who have devoted a great deal of thought — and logic — to their beliefs.
Cheers!
Aaron
You’re reading into this if you think I’m saying all Christians are blind followers and incapable of rational thought. I said some people who email me.
Where’s the logical connection of me criticizing someone who sends an email like that, and saying that all Christians are like that? Doesn’t seem logical to me, and I sure didn’t say that.
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for the clarification. I was tripped up by the rather vague “they” are blind followers. Given the clear anti-Christian theme of the site, I suspected that you were attempting to paint all Christians as “blind followers”. I see now that you are referring to “Someone who can’t imagine why a person would not believe in Jesus or God”.
Cheers,
Aaron
“I suspected that you were attempting to paint all Christians as “blind followers”.”
Nah, that’s what THEY do
(kidding)
“There are several intelligent Christians in academia who have prepared incredibly well-argued cases for why they are Christians”
So?
There are brilliant scholars in every religion. Does this mean they are all true?
“Surely you aren’t arguing that ALL Christians are “blind followers””
Develop reading comprehension skills. I will quote what Daniel actually said, “Someone who can’t imagine why a person would not believe in Jesus or God doesn’t know very much about rationality or even their own religion. It just shows they are blind followers.”
Where in that statement does he use the word “ALL”?
“intelligent Christians in academia”
St. Augustine spent a great deal of thought and writings trying to determine if a cannibal who ate nothing but human flesh would be redeemed at the end of times when his body, now nothing more than the cells of that which he ate, was reassembled. This was one of the great intelligent Christians you speak of (who also invented limbo, recently discarded as an unnecessary spiritual realm…)
That actually sounds like a neat thought-experiment.
Yes, I could imagine a lot of physicists doing that same exercise
Read Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things with its updated last chapter on Why Smart People Believe Weird Things; they are so emotionally attached and enculturated to that belief system, and intelligent, that they are able to convince themselves with their own intellectual strategies that somehow it is valid, even in spite of their rational mental framework.
“how can u not believe in christ? or god? i am def. praying for you…ive seen miracles…im a believer.”
Now this absolutely boggles my mind. But it is definitely a ‘keeper’. Thanks for sharing this jewel Daniel.
the “ive seen miracles” part is key. It could be something like his daughter being told she has 3 months to live, papa cries and says some prayers, and suddenly she becomes healthy again! A miracle!!! You cannot persuade such a person that it was not a miracle. To them it was and it was absolutely god’s handy work. Amen – Jesus saved my girl – Amen. Praise be to the Lord!
Exactly; religion/belief in gods is a defence mechanism.
God is not a “coping” mechanism, far from it.
Of course not your god, John C, he means all those other and false gods; yours is different
Totally different. Because the “god” that resides in your blood-pumping organ is absolutely the real one, right? Riiiiiiight.
all ur soulz r belong 2 us
i can haz mirikul?
ncloud ftw
Related:
http://loltheist.com/2009/08/21/the-first-apostle/
Because teh blasphemy is teh funneh
The statement “i am def.” troubles me. Here this good christian is trying to save you and the lord won’t even cure him and return his hearing. Of course the next few words “praying for you” indicates he is not troubling upstairs about his own afflictions, just yours. Maybe its like a chain letter, he prays for you and you pray for his medical problems?