A reader sent in an email written to him by his father. It is a shame that some people feel the need to write these sorts of manipulative letters to their own children.
Dear Son,
Your mother and I love you with all our heart. It would be the greatest disappointment to us if you do not return to the faith and you were to die before us and we would not be able to bury you from the Catholic Church and in a Catholic Cemetery. There is a Saint Pius X Catholic Church in ______. God has provided us with His assistance through His Church from the cradle to the grave by means of His sacraments such as Baptism, Confession and the Holy Eucharist. Just remember that we are God’s children and as our creator, He loves us beyond our understanding. He came on earth to die a most horrible death for us. However, if we reject His love by offending Him, we condemn ourselves to live without Him for all eternity, which is the ultimate loss for any human being.
By committing one mortal sin against God, such as intentionally missing Mass on Sundays and Holy Days, whose children we are, and if we die unrepentant for each and every mortal sin, we will lose Him. Of course, we also need to repent of every venial sin too. Get yourself a good catechism and a good examination of conscience and go to a priest at St. Isadore’s church for confession. Go over the ten commandments and the precepts of the church.
We will never give up on you. May God Bless you.
Love and Prayers,
Dad
I’ve written similar emails in the past — thankfully, they never had my intended effect and only seemed to anger people. Imagine that.
Funny, my first response to this email would be a request to stop randomly capitalising words.
“He came on earth to die a most horrible death for us.”
Firstly he died like a lot of people had and there are also many, many more people who have had worse deaths. Secondly I don’t count someone who “died” to come back to life again as that bad.
“…many more people who have had worse deaths.”
Whenever somebody tries to tell me that crucifixion is the worst way to be executed I always bring up the old Persian practice of “boating.” It’s had to find much information on it, but what there is will turn your stomach.
I need links. I’m having no luck on Google.
You don’t really want to know.
Now I really want to know.
Here you go. Ugh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism
Nice, in my weaker moments, I’ve often thought child rapists should die in a similar way.
That’s kind of…. well I want to say sick, but that’s just not descriptive enough. It’s just somewhat interesting to me (I guess that would make me sick) for humans to invent a way to torture to death other humans by messing with their digestive system. I don’t usually find such morbid subjects this interesting. I know historic versions of torture are particularly cruel, but this just seems especially inventive as well. I wonder how well it worked as a deterrent.
Sorry to check back so late, but it looks like you’ve got your info now.
One fun torture / murder that the Romans came up with was to construct a wooden cow in the middle of an arena, douse is liberally with urine from cows in heat, tie the condemned inside, and release a bunch of bulls to rape them to death while the crowd cheers.
I’m pretty sure that is at least as bad as crucifixion.
One Inquisition torture/execution method was to overturn a metal bowl full of mice on the heretic’s stomach and heat the bowl The mice burrow away from the heat. I think that might be more horrible than crucifixion. Shorter, though.
I think that was used in one of the Fast and The Furious movies if I recall correctly.
And in a Terry Goodkind novel, I think. Figures.
And in 1984. Except with rats.
How can you be so heartless? Jesus sacrificed his Easter weekend for you!
But what about Gadalf, he also gave up his life when he fought the big fire breathing monster and also returned. Does he not deserve to be worshipped too?
I think I would say:
“Hey Dad, thanks for your email.
I have a couple of questions, if you don’t mind. First of all, if this God fellow created us and is all powerful and such, then why did he have to turn himself into a corporeal entity called Jesus and get himself tortured to death in order to convince himself to forgive us? I mean, doesn’t that seem a little messed-up to you? Honestly, if this God fellow is all you crack him up to be, then he knew what would happen and what the end result would be, so why couldn’t he just forgive us without self-harming and suicide by cop? I mean, it’s not like he’d have to obey his own rules or anything is it – he can’t have had to, because suicide is against his rules, right?
Second of all, if he’s put himself through the equivalent of hell for the sins of all the christians, then hell really can’t be that bad, can it? I mean, let’s look at this as a matter of proportion: A whipping and a couple of days nailed to a plank to repay the sins of every christian who would ever live? There’s billions of them! My own personal sins over an entire lifetime can’t rate more than stubbing my toe in punishment – and I’ve done that a hundred times here on Earth (where Jesus did his suffering), so by your logic I’m going to heaven anyway. In fact, I’m in heaven credit – there must be an extra nice heaven reserved just for me!
Thanks dad, you’ve made me think about this and now I feel a whole lot better knowing I’ll go to heaven whatever I do.
Love,
Your son.”
Consider the suicide by cop reference stolen.
My question is how can anyone be a member of an organization that actively protected pedophiles? Be a Christian if you want, but Catholic? I know some wonderful Catholics, I’m engaged to one, but I just don’t get it. Maybe it’s because I’m not a joiner, and this is partially why. I never became a member of a church as an adult because I knew that I would never agree 100% with their theology or their decisions, but if I ever found out my church or denomination was practicing illegal things I would be so done with them.
I suffer the same bewilderment.
If my nephews were in a secular, nation-wide child care organization that was exposed to employ hundreds of pedophiles and child abusers and the CEO not only knew about it, but actively assisted in covering it up, their parents would go apeshit; the people in charge would be in a jail cell by the end of the day and awaiting the biggest class-action lawsuit in lawsuit history.
But those same nephews go to Mass every Sunday, and their parents support the Catholic Global Child Abuse Program via the collection plate.
We watched a movie last night and at one point someone made a $4,000,000 donation to a local Catholic church. I thought of all the worth charities out there that could have put that money to such good use.
Isn’t a Saint Pius X church imply Society of Saint Pius X, the reactionary Catholic group that was making its own bishops (including one who thinks the Holocaust didn’t kill anywhere as near as many Jews as historians think) over the disapproval of the Vatican? That group was somewhat reconciled with the Vatican earlier this year.
I’ve received birthday cards like that.
Daniel, if you used to send letters like that, I am so glad you later saw the light and were converted!
Great example of “religious” poo. It’s always burdensome, oppressive, demanding and deceptive as opposed to spirituality (the true message) which is liberating, loving, powerful, transformative and true (it’s the truth that sets us free).
Jesus had the harshest words for the “religious leaders” of the day. Better to be an outright atheist than bound to religious crap’ola.
Funny how I agree with virtually everything you said, except that I would replace “spirituality” with “science” (oh, and maybe I would remove “loving”). What makes you think spirituality, which has no evidence or empirically successful record, is better than science, which does, in these respects?
Dear son–
I love you, but I’m insane.
–Dad.
I think religion is more of a disease or an addiction than insanity.
I think addiction fits really well.
Dad,
I am sorry you think so. Here’s what I think: When you die, there’s no heaven. You can repent or not repent and there will be no difference. The hereafter doesn’t exist, so we will surely go to the same place. You may do as you wish, but I have chosen not to bother.
I’m glad you haven’t given up on me, but I’m doing ok. I am glad I have parents who love me no matter what and take an interest in my life. No need to worry so much, however. I’m glad you are thinking of me and that you care, but I don’t think it is good for your heart. Please get yourself to a tackle shop and take a few days off to go fishing. Do it right now. When you die and there’s nothing there, you would have wished you didn’t worry so much about me and took better attention to live your own life with fewer cares, if you could.
If you don’t like fishing, I’ve heard golf is fun. Bird-watching, photography, classic cars, needlepoint, Civil War re-enactments, it doesn’t matter to me, as long as you find something else to enjoy the years you have left, and stop worrying so much about my soul. I think that what’s best for you, and best for me, is if you find a more productive and enriching use of your time. That’s all you are given, and even though you are intrusive and threatening at times, I want you to know I care for you and don’t like to see you wasting your time to hassle me like I am some child with a messy room and a dog he keeps forgetting to walk. Your letters on this subject appear urgent, and I would just feel better knowing you were doing ok and that your life wasn’t wasting away. The next time I hear from you, it better be a picture of you and a really big fish, or something along those lines. I mean it. I would love to know you are improving your outlook in life. It’s never too late.
Love, your son.
Those things you listed are fun, but not productive. If he REALLY wants to use is time well, he should do something that helps others, either today or in the future, like donating or volunteering to a charity, doing scientific research, inventing new useful technologies, or generally anything that gives more than just temporary satisfaction.
It doesn’t matter either way when you die. I was more suggesting what a little R’n'R might be good for the dad, because heart disease, you know.. you are projecting some sort of idealistic intentions – using words like “should” when you know sending him out like that just causes him preaching to others.
So, you can write your own reply to dad, if you think his life is worthless unless he serves soup or runs a coat drive. I think goading someone into volunteerism is guilt just like Catholic guilt, and your definition of productive is too much like work. Relaxation doesn’t sound productive, but it can be. It’s restorative and enjoyable and healthy – a highly recommended use of one’s time. It allows people to care for themselves. It’s all temporary. I wasn’t trying to write a spiteful letter.
anything that gives more than just temporary satisfaction.
Everything is “just” temporary satisfaction. If you love fishing and hate charity work, then fishing is way more productive. You and yours have enough problems without worrying about strangers’! Unless you like that sort of thing.
I’d rather be an honest bastard than a crooked saint.
I’d also like to say how thankful I am to my parents and their wonderful acceptance of me no matter what I do. They’ve always shown me true unconditional love and would never write a letter like this to me. Thanks, Mom and Dad!
No doubt! How twisted do you have to be to write something so hateful to your own kids?
Intentionally missing Sunday mass is a mortal sin? How awful to have a religion that is such a guilt trip.
Post them or they didn’t happen.
F*** the father who wrote that.
That is the best tactic to use against fascism, doesn’t matter if its family members or close friends. Ridicule them – then ostracize them.
Fascism? What an odd thing to say.
It’s confusing there are 2 Michaels on this page.
It is immensely helpful that one of them looks like Wilford Brimley.
For some reason the headline made me think of dark matter, and wonder why one had to repent physics.
John C,
What about your spirituality is “true” and how can you really know?
JC has been asked this question dozens of times and has never given a satisfactory answer. His definition of to know is different than yours. Don’t bother.
Bucky, you can know in exactly the way He said you can know. All the best.
Supernaturalists claim not only to know things they can’t possibly know, but to be certain of them. Many fallacies arise from this premise of allegedly (but impossibly) certain knowledge. For instance: “Science can’t tell me how life began, but the Bible can, so it’s more true.” Seriously. I don’t know how to break this circle, I think the person has to see it himself.
“I don’t know” creeps a lot of people out. I can’t really figure it, either. Well, some socialization probably reinforces this; in school, you are rewarded for having an answer and penalized for not having one; you are generally penalized less for hazarding a wrong answer than shrugging your shoulders. While ostensibly this is to encourage children to expose themselves to being corrected, I think many internalize the lesson too generally and come to shun the state of being without an answer. And the higher the stakes, the more the panic.
I have to agree with you that not knowing the answer to many questions makes it way easier for people to lie to themselves about most anything. It isn’t until people quit worrying about the questions they haven’t got answers for I guess we will continue to get those that are such as the writers of the above letter.
He knows he has the truth in the same way that every other believer of every other persuasion know they have the truth. That’s as close as you’ll get to an answer.
In 1971, my dad wrote a very similar letter to my sister, who was 19 and had just left home. She stopped going to church and witnessing to her (non-christian *gasp*) best friend. The letter was the protestant version of the above – about how my sister needed to take every opportunity to witness to her friend, be an example and go to church, because if something happened to her friend she would go to hell and it would be my sister’s fault. We came across this letter recently during a move, and my two sisters (both of whom are now atheist also) were so horrified. It also explained why we have been pretty messed up in our adult lives, and why life became sane when we completely rejected christianity. In my view, this is child abuse. I wish it could be made illegal. If we threatened our children with hellfire in any other context, we would be considered sadistic and unfit parents. Why is christianity always given a pass?
Janet – it is given a pass. So much about religion has to do with guilt. Guilt is an incredible and powerful controlling force. Take for example: “if we reject His love by offending Him”
This statement causes guilt – if you buy into the whole drama. My gut reaction is to ask, how can an omnipotent being get offended? I’m just too much of a nerd or too logical to accept this statement or to think of “God” as a human up in the sky.
Yes – “love me or else”. It’s a setup for abuse and manipulation. AND that’s not love. But it took me years to figure that out. Thanks for your comment.