How can you be so sure that everything you hear from God is the correct message when other people who are equally as certain get completely different messages? You are quick to point out when people have conflicting messages, that means they aren't who they claim to be or are hearing messages from someone other than God. Have you ever stopped to consider you might be one of those people? How can you be certain you're not?

I see that you are very good at quoting scripture when it suits your needs. But for every passage you quote, there's usually another passage that says just the opposite. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us which parts to believe and which parts to throw out (Jesus even tells us it's all true). I'm glad yo pick out the good things; that means you are probably a good person yourself. But by picking and choosing just those parts that you like and want to believe, aren't you just creating God in your own image?

Here are just a few examples of God's compassion and love I found that seem typical of his character. There are countless others just like these, and they far outnumber the kind of references you quoted:

Deut 20:10-17 - God commands his people commit mass genocide against all the 6 different tribes that happen to be on the land that he promises to the Jews. He tells them to kill everyone (woman and children too). God then instructs his chosen people to enslave the rest of the world, and kill anyone who resist. Is this what you meant when you said you have seen the unity in people all with the same message?

Psalm 137:9 - Inspired by God's love, the Psalm writer tells his readers to be happy by smashing children to death, "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."

Hosea 13:1 - God butchered Samaritan women and had all the unborn fetuses of their pregnant women ripped from their wombs and their babies smashed on rocks (I guess the Psalm writer was correct).

Deut 28:53 - God says cotton/wool blend clothing is a sin, just as adultery and homosexuality are sins. He goes on to promise he will torture your children and make you eat them if you disobey even one of his laws.

Deut 22:28-29 - Do you think it a loving act to force a woman to marry her rapist? God Does, for this is what he commands. And if she is raped in the country and no one hears her cry out, then the towns people are supposed to stone HER to death (God's laws, not man's.)

Luke 14:26 - Jesus talks about family values and tells his followers "If any man comes to me, and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even for his life, he may not be my disciple." What a loving God.

Luke 19:27 - Jesus ends his parable about himself by saying "those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them--bring them here and kill them in front of me.'"

I just don't understand how you can believe these acts are from a God that is pure love? Do you just sum it all up to having faith and believing "God acts in mysterious ways"? Or maybe you just have a different concept of love than I do.

A woman who was a Buddhist wrote me and a few things about her beliefs, which caused me to think carefully about some things which I think gave me a moment of insight (though not the kind she was expecting) that I'd like to share here.  I'm posting her letter followed by my response:

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(Her letter)

"...buddhism is the closest religion to what i believe in. I took my beliefs and tried to find the perfect match and the best i could come up with is buddhist. I feel like the lotus flower undefined by its environment like the enlightened mind which is never influenced by any kind of worldly condition. Suffering is universal and is caused by ignorance."

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(My Response)

I've met a lot of fellow atheists that became Buddhists because it offers moral code without the need for a God to justify it. I like it because it offers more insight into the nature of suffering and the human condition than any other religion. The best the others can do is to tell you to do as your told. But as a critical thinker, I believe Buddhism answers too many questions with another question, or is simply too vague and elusive when it tries to answer the most difficult ones.

Please don't think I'm trying to attack your beliefs. I'm just trying to understand the things that don't make sense to me. But what do you mean when you say "the lotus flower undefined by its environment"? It seems like you're taking some liberties with the word "define" to mean something other than how we normally use it. People give things definitions, not the environment. So really the environment doesn't "define" anything; we do. Sometimes we use the environment in a definition, but then the lotus flower would not be an exception since it's whole life cycle is controlled by the environment.

Your last statement is also confusing. I can think of countless examples of suffering that is not caused by ignorance. Ignorance doesn't give people cancer, or cause droughts, or genetic disorders, or bowl obstructions. Even psychological disorders have a genetic link. And what do you mean by saying suffering is universal? Do you mean among people, animals, all life? Do you mean trees go through emotional suffering? How about rocks? In evolutionary terms, there is some truth to this. The competition for limited resources is the driving force for evolution, and with out this, all life on earth would exist as simple single celled organisms. So if we link suffering to this competition, then life as we know it would not exist without it. It's a very deep and disturbing thought, but in some ways, joy, happiness and life itself would not exist if it wasn't for the suffering that results from competition among organisms.

Again, I'm sorry. This is just how I am. I just think when someone, ANYONE, comes up with answers to life's most important questions, that we should carefully examine these answers for validity and not just faithfully accept them; otherwise we'd end up with more people trying to martyr themselves to get 72 virgins in heaven.

And yes, I do realize this has a huge negative effect on my sponge-worthiness. ;)

The following text is a copy of my reply to a devout Christian woman who expressed an interest in me. She was quite pleasant and flirtatious, but was saving herself for marriage (again). Her reasons for abstaining from sex were based purely on the Bible, which marked the beginning of a doomed conversation and exposed some revealing things about the Christian way of thinking. I had previously pointed out that nobody follows most of the Bibles rules which are cruel and unjust. If we did, we�d be forcing women to marry their rapist, stoning Doctors for working on Sunday, killing any heathenistic neighbors, keeping their children as sex slaves, stoning children who don�t behave, and forbidding women to work as teachers, doctors, lawyers, or have any position of authority over men.

She replied by saying that �Jesus did more to advance the dignity and personhood of women than any other leader in history� and used the story of the �good Samaritan� and �the woman caught in adultery� as examples. She even went as far to say that God�s commandment that women marry their rapists was a good thing that protected women.

My reply is posted first, followed by her previous letter.

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(My letter to the Christian woman)

The story about the woman caught in adultery is my favorite story in the Bible. It�s one of the few noble and morally uplifting stories I could find. I especially like a certain legend that goes along with it that says when Jesus asks �Let him who is without sin cast the first stone�, he took a stick and wrote in the sand the sins of all the people around him. I really like that story, but it directly contradicts the teachings of the Old Testament (Lev.20:10). If that wasn't a good law then, why did God make it? Has he since changed his mind? And why did Jesus say that �Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law (eg. Stoning adulterers, marry your rapist), till all be fulfilled.� And �Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments (eg. Wear a cotton/wool shirt), and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven (MAT 5:19).�

How does the story of Jesus�s refusal to follow his own law and spare one woman�s life make him an advocate for women�s rights? Even his RELUCTANT aid to a Samaritan woman after calling her a DOG does nothing to advance women�s rights. And do you think that even comes close to making up for his actions (as God) when he butchered Samaritan women in Hosea 13:1 when he had all the unborn fetuses of their pregnant women ripped from their wombs and smashed their babies on rocks?

You said some upsetting things in your last letter, but what really upset me personally is when you said, �I realize that no amount of reasoning or debate is going to move someone from their philosophical position - it certainly didn't for me.�

What gives you the right to make that claim? My philosophical positions were FORMED by REASONING and DEBATE, and I change them when a well reasoned argument is presented. Just because you are incapable of changing your beliefs in the light of reason does not mean I share your faults. What you actually did was provide the definition of �FAITH�! A person of faith is a person who will never, ever, change their mind no matter the amount of evidence or reasoning against them. There is no bigger enemy to the pursuit of truth then faith, which is why I have rejected it from my life. You are clearly a woman of strong faith since you said; no amount of reasoning will change your mind. This is what cult�s demand of their followers, and what Jesus commands of his.

As a person without faith, I am free to consider evidence, such as the history of how the New Testament was created. It was not a book that simply appeared in its entirety. It is collection of stories that were put together centuries after the incidents it describes. The vast majority of stories about Jesus didn�t make it into the Bible and were burned by early Christians: stories that portrayed Jesus as a very different person. The same divinely inspired people that burned children as witches for simply having a mole in the wrong spot are the same people that decided which gospel stories were true. And many of the stories were edited and added centuries later. For example, we have early writings of John that match what is found in the Bible with a few very important exceptions: There is no mention of the trinity, and the story of the woman caught in adultery is completely absent. They were both inserted centuries later. This is strong evidence that they never happened. This wouldn�t matter to a person of faith.

But even faith does not explain to me how you can possibly conclude that a law that forces a woman to marry her rapist is good for a woman! Have you seriously considered what you�re saying? Even if it saves a woman from a life of being single and without property, that still doesn�t make it the least bit good. Does your faith prevent you from empathizing with a woman who is raped by a filthy old fat man, only to have God force her into a situation where she will be raped every night by the same man for the rest of your life, who smothers her screams with his sweaty hand, crying herself to sleep only after he finally tires of raping her? Do you honestly believe that living with this humiliation day after day is better than living with her father or some other family member? Most would rather die then accept the fate that you and God would have for them. And as you pointed out, she could never marry again even if she did find a loving husband because Gods law (not man�s law) commands that she be stoned to death at her father�s house if any man tried to marry her when she�s not a virgin.

And one thing should disturb you more than anything else: There is nothing in the Bible that says raping a virgin is wrong. Nothing! There is nothing that says slavery is wrong or that says abortion is wrong. But there are countless examples of God himself performing/commanding abortions, ordering rape, commanding his people to take slaves, killing women and children and even forcing parents to eat their children. And the Bible makes it clear these were God�s commands or actions, not men. All these things should disturb anyone with modern sense of morality, but not you.

If you really are a Bible believing Christian, then why don�t you take the law regarding mixing cotton/wool clothing seriously? Does the Bible say you can pick and chose which of God�s commandments follow? God says cotton/wool blend clothing is a sin, just as adultery and homosexuality are sins. He said he will torture your children and make you eat them if you disobey even one of his laws (Deut 28:53).

If Christians would simply read the Bible, they�d be bombing clothing stores instead of abortion clinics. At least Victoria�s Secret would be safe; there are no commandments against women�s silk underwear.


P.S. � I�ll have to reconsider my interpretation of 1st Cor 7:15. I was only using that for fun anyway and didn�t seriously expect you to consider it as an excuse for heathenistic bathtub fun. Paul seems to indicate the only reason for a Christian to stay married to a heathen is to prevent their children from becoming heathens.

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(Letter from the Christian woman)

Wow, lots to talk about here. Good! Okay, first the Biblical stuff. (I could exposit ad infinitum, but I'll try to be pretty brief here...)
1st Cor 7:15 is actually talking about marriage and divorce. It says that in the case of an unbelieving spouse walking out on a believing spouse, the believer is not bound to that person anymore.
Deut. 22:21 is more complicated. Again - context is key to understanding any passage. In the time this regulation was decreed, women had very little social standing. (Not God's idea, btw - Jesus did more to advance the dignity and personhood of women than any other leader in history - see the acount of Jesus and the Samaritan woman, the woman "caught in adultery", his friendship with Mary and Martha, etc.) Anyway - a woman back in that day was dependant totally on men - her father and then her husband. It was critical to her survival that she be married and then have sons. If her virginity was compromised, it would most likely kill any chance she had of getting married. Therefore, the man who did the compromising would be, according God, responsible for her and be required to marry her. This decree was done to PROTECT women. As much as it sucked to be a woman back then, this was a good thing. Yeah, I know it sounds appaling, but the alternative was that a woman could be raped, and then not only would she have to deal with the horror of that violence against her, it would pretty much guarantee that she would never marry and therefore wind up destitute.

And to clarify - I do not choose to remain chaste until marriage because I am "bound" by any law. I make this choice because: I know that it is best for me physically, emotionally and spiritually. Sex is an activity that spiritually and emotionally bonds one to another. (If you want empirical proof, ask anyone that knows anything about the biochemistry of the brain and they will confirm that.) When a man and a woman have sex, they create something new - they literally and figuratively become one flesh. They become part of each other. Besides pleasure and procreation, this is one of the purposes of sex, to bond a husband and wife together. But when people do this with more than one person, it creates a situation where that person is leaving pieces of him/herself with multiple people. This damages wholeness. It took me a LONG time to really understand this. I am still healing from the poor choices I made when I was younger. I didn't know any better, but I got hurt, just the same.
Hope that makes some sense to you. I realize that no amount of reasoning or debate is going to move someone from their philosophical position - it certainly didn't for me. But since you threw these things out there, I did want to address them. I appreciate that you ask. Folks who really have faith in their belief system do not fear when they are questioned... rather, they relish it! I'm one of those. Please feel free to ask me anything, and if I don't know, I will point you to someone who does.

...And as for not mixing cotton and linen fibers, I have no clue about that one. I don't worry about it too much, though - I stay away from linen - it's murder to get the wrinkles out of it!