Josh Sullivan received a “33-page handwritten letter lamenting my unbelief, urging me to reconsider, and ultimately appealing to a fear of hell for the decisions I make about what I choose to not believe in.” So he did what most intelligent young men would do — he wrote her back and explained why he thought the way he did.
The letter he wrote back is excellent, and I highly recommend you read it. You can also read some of his grandmother’s original letter. He posted both on reddit which has received almost 500 comments.
My only criticism is the footnotes. Many years ago I went through a phase where I fell in love with footnotes to the point where I would put them even in letters. It’s a turn off for most people though — it makes it feel really formal and people think you’re flaunting your erudition (which I was). That’s probably not the case for Josh, but regardless, my opinion is that footnotes are fantastic for scholarly articles, but not for letters. Endnotes would have been better if they were really necessary.
That’s only a minor quibble, though. Maybe I should have put it in a footnote…
Anyway, kudos to Josh for making his letter public!
PZ is faster than you, Daniel :)
I read most of the letter some days ago and it is indeed excellent, although to us unbelievers much of it may be old news. A re-response from grandma, now THAT would have been a very interesting read.
Yeah, I really don’t know how he gets through his email so fast. I’m usually days behind.
Erik beat me to it: Do you think Grandma responded? I enjoyed the letter, but I see what you mean about footnotes – much too many, much too big. I skipped a lot of them.
Nothing agitates people who hold a belief with reason to be hit with a reference to fact. My mother has gone off the deep end since Obama took office and thinks he’s purposely out to destroy the country and is a Muslim sympathetic to terrorists. I get at least one e-mail a day from her that is obvious BS that I will reply with a link to a reputable source that refutes the claim and cites where the data comes from. She frequently replies that she thinks that I’m an elitist and I’m “missing the point”.
The point that she’s a racist fundamentalist with a low IQ?! I’m sorry to say that about your mother, but from what you’ve just said the cap fits!
If you have some pages where there are more footnotes than text, then I question your ability to decide what is and is not a footnote.
But otherwise, a very interesting read. Let’s just hope this letter doesn’t cause Josh’s grandma to do something biblical… like stone him for heresy.
Josh wrote that he has since met with his grandmother and she didn’t say anything about it.
I like how the grandmother says she doesn’t know anything about Dawkins and later states that Dawkins is full of crap.
Her first 6 pages can be summed up like this: “What’s in The Bible is true because it’s in The Bible.”
Her story at the end (page 18?) is pretty telling. A couple of kids stand up and start singing “stand for Jesus,” and that’s all it takes to make the audience a bunch of believers again. Sheeple.
Well, supposedly his grandma has a masters in biology. Maybe he was trying to appeal to her scholarly side with the footnotes. Then again, how his grandmother can completely reject evolution while holding a masters in biology is beyond me. Doublethink at its finest I guess.
I learned a LOOOOOOONG time ago, when I had to write a similar letter:
Never teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
His Grammy is never going to read that letter. If she could understand it at all, she has to avoid it for her own sanity. She’s superstitious and believes in magical beings, spent her long life worried about pleasing these mystical beings. If the rational part of her brain is ever allowed to grow up and mature she’ll have to deal with a entire life given to woo and irrational behavior. Who knows how she’s behaved just because her priest or pastor or whatever told her. Has she hurt people in the name of an imaginary god? Could she have been happier or a better person altogether? Could her children have been happier? That’s a lot of shame and a lot of grief and there’s no way she’s going to sit down and accept that on the basis of a letter. It’s so much easier to dismiss it with more woo and decide the devil made him write that letter. This way, she can also feel sorry for herself and gain sympathy from others.
Her eventual small-minded retort will just make him lose respect for her. It’s sad but christians are not fully mentally developed and it’s a complete waste of time to bother explaining anything to them.
I don’t think I’d go so far as to say that theists are not mentally developed, however I think it could be fair to say that they’ve had their emotional development stunted by addiction to Woo Woo since birth.
I think you make an excellent point. My dad is 73 years old. It is very difficult (and, perhaps, impossible) for him to accept that his worldview and religious views (and the impact they’ve had on his life) have been wrong lo these many decades. Nonetheless, when he sends me emails that are filled with inaccuracies, I point him in the direction of factual information. In other words, I keep trying to do what may be impossible.
Hi everyone,
I’m the author of the letter.
To answer those who are wondering, I will certainly post an update as soon as I get a reply from grandma. Garret mentioned above that she has seen the letter and didn’t say anything about it. This is half-true. I made a trip to Texas in August after my grandmother sent me the letter, although I didn’t know it. The letter was sitting in my mailbox back at home and, while I had a very cordial visit, she never made mention of the letter she sent me.
When I returned home, I found the letter in my mail. What you’re reading now is my response to that letter. Just a quick update: I’m waiting for any additional feedback today before I send this letter to grandma. Then, first thing tomorrow morning, I’ll send this puppy Texas-bound and will wait for a response.
Thanks!
Josh
To clarify, my grandmother has not seen this letter yet. Kind of funny, since as of an hour ago my server reports 17,000 downloads of the letter. Seems everyone else has seen it but her.
My apologies. I thought your visit in Texas was after she had read your letter.
No worries. :)
I would take out the footnotes for sure as Daniel mentioned. They would only seem impersonal to her. As if you’re sending her a college thesis on religion or something. I would also leave out charts and pictures (with the exception of the pale blue dot) and statistics etc. Make it a little more personal, shorter and easy to read. Although she sent you 38 pages no need to respond in kind.
I disagree. I think he was right to go overboard. His grandma clearly cares, but she hasn’t very well thought it out, nor does she have all the facts. It’s the precise thinking that brought him to the conclusion religion is wrong, so why wouldn’t she want to know about it?
Awesome that you cited:
St. Augustine in the 4th century recognized the problem of literally interpreting the sacred writings of Bronze
Age herdsmen and issued a warning to his fellow Christians, saying, “Often a non-Christian knows something
about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and
even their sizes and distances…and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is
thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming
that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all that we can to avoid such an embarrassing
situation, lest the unbeliever see only ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn.”
-St. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim (The Literal Meaning of Genesis).
It is laughable – completely laughable when an ignorant Christian tries to talk science with me. Most of my family is convinced humans walked with dinosaurs because “anything is possible with God.” That is their only defense. I bring up the speed of light and see only blank stares.
This is a moving letter, and one I am happy to never have needed to write.
It is this kind of discussion that needs to occur between children and parents, brothers and sisters, friends, and other close relationships. In much of America (actually, in much of the world), atheists are seen as unreasonable, arrogant, amoral, crude, rare, and often even demonic or possessed. Unfortunately, many atheists see the religious the same way. Ultimately, we both know that neither of these is true. We need to show the world who atheists are–they are not some fringe group of Satanists, but their friends and family. And their beliefs and nonbeliefs are not denialism, evil, or closed-minded, but a rational and open search for truth in the face of dogma.
Dude, you posted your grandmother’s letter and your response online? Does she know? Are you going to tell her?
Grandma got pwned. Mr. Grandson has more gumption than me. My grandmother (mama) is the only person on earth I would lie to about my religious beliefs. Her own happiness supersedes my own hatred for organized religious and my own “devout” lack of belief. I would simply tell her that I have accepted Jesus and she has nothing to worry about.
This letter could kill any religious grandmother with a heart attack. LOL