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[This message was written in response to August Feedback]
I am glad to hear that even though you have diffent opinions than most, you are willing to defend others rights to say what they have to say. Often, we find that people who trying to argue their beliefs, do so by trashing other religions. They also say that people who do not agree with them should not be allowed to speak. It impresses me that you print dissenting comments as well as supportive ones in your feedback section. I find it encouraging that a group of freethinkers exist that do not disagree with other people's right to disagree.
http://www.berkshire.net/~ifas/fw/9611/evolution.html
On my first day of work as a new assistant professor at the Permian Basin branch of the University of Texas, I signed in and bantered with one of the university secretaries, a nice woman who wanted to make me feel welcome. After we established that I did not wish to purchase any Amway products, she invited me to go to church with her family that weekend. "Oh, no thanks," I said.
"It's a lovely Lutheran church. You'll love it." After a few more urgings on her part, I gave her the truth: "Um, actually, I'm an agnostic." "Oh. Well, I don't think we have one of those churches here. You'll probably have to drive to Lubbock."
That was my introduction to the community in which I was to live and teach for three years. Each week I seemed to discover a new facet of the city's religious fervor. At faculty orientation, a history professor told me of a note that he received from a European history student explaining she would not attend class that week. The lecture topic: Darwin and the influence of On The Origin Of The Species on late 19th-century English social policy. Even discussion of the theory of evolution as an historic event was not acceptable to this student.
I started my senior-level university evolution class with an introduction to the scientific method, and a brief history of the development of evolutionary theory, including its legal status. About a month into my first semester, I got my first hint that all was not well. I found a photograph of me from the student newspaper taped to my door with horns, blacked out teeth, and a "666" on my forehead. I took it down; another one was put up the next day. This seemed annoying but harmless.
Shortly after, the first assignment in my evolution class was due: a written review of a Stephen J. Gould paper. Here I discovered the anger of my students at being "forced" to take a course in what they perceived was blasphemy. Although I never stated my religious beliefs, by being the teacher of this subject, I was assumed to be an atheist, a communist, and a source of evil. Here is a sample of comments garnered from those student papers:
"The Word tells us there will be many false teachers in the end times, and I firmly believe that anyone who detracts, further interprets or lessens the context of the Word by applying worldly standards and principles is falling into Satan's deception and rapidly becoming one of those false teachers."
The persuasiveness of Gould's argument annoyed one student: "Just as some religion has attempted to manipulate with emotion, Gould has tried to coerce with intelligence."
I learned that one of my students was required to "confess" to the sin of attending my class before her whole church congregation. She eventually dropped out of class.
I also ran into conflicts when I taught my environmental ethics course. At least half the class maintained there was no need to be concerned about environmental deterioration, because the Apocalypse was coming. One student wrote: "I believe the Lord insti tuted marriage for the purpose of procreation and He did not set limits on family size....I believe the Lord is coming back to the earth to take the Christians to Heaven before overpopulation will have a chance to destroy the earth!"
This all became a great deal more serious when I began to get messages on my home answering machine threatening to assist me in reaching hell, where I would surely end up. I also received threatening mail messages: "The Bible tells us how to deal with non believers: 'Bring those who would not have me to reign over them, and slay them before me.' May Christians have the strength to slaughter you and end your pitiful, blasphemous life!"
An envelope containing student evaluations from my evolution class was tampered with. A student wrote a letter to the president of the university claiming that I said in class that "anyone who believes in God gets an F." Despite the fact that she had never been in my class, and it was clearly untrue, a full investigation of the charge ensued.
There were other problems. Often I arrived in class to find "Dr. Feminazi" scrawled on the blackboard. An emotionally disturbed student assaulted me on campus. In town, Maurice Sendak's award-winning book Where the Wild Things Are was removed from school libraries, as it might "confuse children as to the true nature of Beelzebub." The California-based Institute for Creation Research (ICR) preached in the county stadium to 10,000 local people.
I finally resigned when I received an admonition from the dean in my yearly reappointment letter to "accommodate the more intellectually conservative students with a low threshold of offensibility" in my evolution course. Rather than compromise my academic freedom, I chose to leave what seemed to be a dangerous place.
After 3 years of research, I can offer a detailed & comprehensive explanation on how the christian religion(s) started and went through its evolution. No hate, just a down to earth reconstruction. Some teasers: Jesus was crucified in 28ad, Pilate was the one who (by accident) started christianity in the winter of 26-27ad, most of the theology is due to Appolos, an early "christian" preacher (52-55ad) who gave us the pre-existant Son of God who sacrificed Himself to "save" all, "Luke" was a philippi woman christian leader who wrote a gospel around 90ad, the Revelation was actually first written as a jewish text in 71-72ad in Antioch by an ex temple priest, later to be added on & christianized around 95 ad. And a lot more, also OT books like Daniel & genesis & job & jonah. It is crystal clear: In many case I can go under the skin of these NT & (some) OT books authors and I can answer the 5 'W' questions and some more. It is fascinating. It is a trip in past time to relive how a world wide (but murky) religion came into being. Is there any body out there???
I happen to come across your Secular Web page. I am surprised! Why so much trouble about promoting your cause? Isn't it already the prevailing philosophy all over the world?
Maybe you keep running into religious - and even christian - Web sites. If this is true, maybe you should ask yourself some questions: if fighting Christianity is something so important to you, isn't it not possible to have God trying to speak to you?
It is just a question. But would you care to aswer it?
PS: Your idea of the Darwin-fish ist just great, I like it!
Internet Infidels Response:
Hi:
> I happen to come across your Secular Web page. I am surprised! Why
so much
> trouble about promoting your cause?
In many countries, the United States especially, secularism is a very unpopular philosophical position. I see you are writing from France. Atheism, agnosticism, humanism, etc. must be more accepted there :-).
> Isn't it already the prevailing philosophy all over the world?
In some places, it is, but I don't think it can be considered the prevailing philosophy all over the world. But one can hope :).
> Maybe you keep running into religious - and even christian - Web
sites.
If
>
this is true, maybe you should ask yourself some questions: if
fighting
> Christianity is something so important to you, isn't it not
possible to
>
have God trying to speak to you?
I believe that all positions, especially those of revealed religion, should be open for critique and inquiry. I am not convinced there is a god, so I certainly don't think such an entity is talking to me.
> It is just a question. But would you care to aswer it?
>
> PS: Your idea of the Darwin-fish ist just great, I like it!
Thanks, but it really isn't the Internet Infidels' idea. See http://www.evolvefish.com.
Thank you for you interest in the Secular Web!
THOUGHTfully Yours,
Clark Adams
It is considerably imperative for you to examine the "thought provoking" statements that is about to be uttered. You are convinced that there is no God, but down in the depths of your heart you couldn't possibly totally rule out the possibility. Every man knows that when he acknowledges that there is a God, he also acknowledge that he will stand before Him and be judged by Him. It is difficult to face these facts, but "the truth hurts". Please answer the questions below, and if you have the answers, please reply.
1) The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that it is proven that the universe is moving from an organized state to a disorganized state. For example, the sun is getting smaller each year and it will eventually burn out. How could universe have always been here, without refuting the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
2) LOVE, HATE, SADNESS, ANNOYANCE, ANGER, ENVY, ETC. How did emotions evolve? How long do you have to shake up a test tube full of molecules before they start loving each other?
Homework: Create an ant. If everything happened by accident, surely you are smart enough to create an ant.
A small portion of evidence have been presented and your theory has been exposed. As much as you would like to ignore the things of God, He is everywhere. Ignoring facts does not make you smarter than a man who acknowledges them.
A few simple facts of life:
Ignore your car payment= You have no carMy friend, why would you want to go any longer without experiencing salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ? You are probably thinking right now that I am a fool, but this "fool" will inherit the Kingdom of God. You might try to say, "Your interpretation is wrong!", but my experience is right! Let's talk about healings, deliverances, and demons trembling at the name of Jesus.
My friend, the only you can get the arrow of the Lord out of your heart is to repent. Right now, as you have read this message, the arrows of the Lord have pierced your heart, and Satan with his demons are battling over your soul. Every Christian has had to battle the attack of the satanic powers over their soul. Every man has sinned, because he was born into sin.
How can you get the arrows of the Lord out of your heart? Pray, and confess your sins before God. Ask Jesus to come into your heart and to forgive you of your sins with his precious blood. After praying this prayer, confess before men that you are born again and made a brand new person. Jesus said that if you confess Him before men, then on Judgement Day, He will confess you before the Father. He will confess you before the King of kings and Lord of lords!
Internet Infidels Response #1:
We would be happy to comply with your request for an answer to your questions, but your questions indicate that you have not read very much of the Secular Web, which answers most of your questions. We recommend you search the Secular Web Library. We would be happy to answer any questions you have remaining.
Thanks for writing the Internet Infidels.
Sincerely,
Internet Infidels Response #2:
Dear "Friend:"
Let me add a bit to what Jeff wrote by stating that the most fundamental question each of us must answer in life is how we determine which facts and concepts are "true" and which facts and concepts are "false." The study of this process is the science of epistemology.
Most of us try to have our epistemology both ways. We try to be faithful to science in every way except in our adoption of religious concepts. In that field alone, we adopt a different epistemology; the epistemology of "blind faith." There is no way to prove or disprove many of the asserted facts and concepts about Jesus or God. None of us were there, and there are NO reliable records which would be accepted as proof one way or the other.
But we need not get into such a narrow argument. The problem resolves itself by simply realizing that the species "homo" has been around for over three million years, while the Christians and Jews are less than about four thousand years old. Prior to four thousand years ago, we adhered to OTHER religious views which had NOTHING to do with the God you advocate.
Now, if you are one of those religious bigots who refuses to accept the proof of science as to Darwin's Theory of Evolution and the age of man on this planet, then I can only pity you for following a "dead end path" to intellectual suicide..... To try to put you back on the "right" path, ask yourself the following: is your God so weak that He cannot stand up to examination by modern science???? If so, then you have a pretty weak God, and I doubt that a weak God would be able to do much for His followers.....
I take the time to create this more detailed answer because I FEAR YOU and people like you. Down through history, it is the religious bigots who have put the torch to scientific knowledge. Just look up in an encyclopedia what happened to the Great Library of Alexandria. In the fifth century, the Christian bigots, led by "St. Cyril of Alexandria," (not to be confused with the other saint by the same name) murdered the female head of the library in a particularly brutal way, and within a few months, drove all the scholars away and burned the library.
There are certainly many other examples of religious persecution of science, particularly during the days of the Inquisition (which was far more ingrained in the Catholic Church than many would like to admit).
So, as a pure matter of self-preservation, I would ask you to broaden your mind a bit with the study of at least SOME history over and above what the Christians would like you to read. I suggest "The Lessons of History" by Will and Arial Durant as a good starting point. It is only 102 very small pages with very large type, so it is a quick read.....
If you choose to close your mind to the REAL truth, and follow the bigots down that path towards destruction, then we are destined to meet one day on the lines of battle......
I am a cadet at the United States Military Academy, and I was interested in getting in touch with some of the members of the usafa freethinkers spire. I would like more information on their beliefs and activities. Please forward this to one of the members. thank you/
Could you please post the Infidel's official response to Behe's "Darwin's Black Box"? I did a search on your site and found nothing on Behe.
Also, I see the late Greg Bahnsen's name come up in various articles but I cannot find a transcript of a debate between him and someone else. Do you have one?
Internet Infidels' Response:
Thanks for writing.
I've never heard of Behe, but if he wrote a criticism of evolution I recommend you check out the talk.origins site. You can find a link from our "related topics" page under "miscellaneous".
Concerning Greg Bahnsen, we do not have any transcripts of debates between him and someone else. So far as I know, no such transcripts exist.
Best wishes,
I would just like to tell all of you that you are doing a great job! I know the feeling of being "singled" out, especially living in Lanc, PA. My spouse was raised catholic but does not "practice" the religion, (Yes, there are some very heated discussions and it is interesting around their holidays). If I can support you in anyway, please let me know!
After reading the articles in your August forum, I have come to the conclusion that Atheism is another word for ignorance, and I don't use that word lightly. Over that past few years I have gone head to head with Atheist and many of the subjects that I brought out, were done so to show their ignorance. For example, I brought out the Air Force's mind-computer and mention what it could do. Atheist took the bait and said I was either lying or living in a world of fantasy. Well, I got the last laugh knowing that the Air Force was about to release the info on their mind-control computer, which they did last March. They deny the existence of ESP which I brought out, and now, the CIA reported its use for over 20 years, and other intelligent agencies were involved as well. I knew about "Operation Stargate" and Project: Scanate since the mid-70's and I brought it up knowing that many atheist didn't know about them and would--out of ignorance--deny that which they don't understand such as in the reality of God. I did this to show that their ideals are based on ignorance and in faith of their flawed and so-called scientific evidence. Evidence that I had no trouble picking apart as I have done many times before when used in denying God. Another point, I will pit my personal experience against anything that Atheist can dream up as far as the existence of God is concern. My experience against their theories. Theories that change with the weather. One last note. I don't intend to use "Ignorance" in a dismeaning or negative manner in describing Atheist, but if the shoe fits. I'm here and waiting.
Internet Infidels Response:
> lying or living in a world of fantasy. Well, I got the last laugh
knowing
>
that the Air Force was about to release the info on their mind-control
> computer, which they did last March. They deny the existence of ESP which
What is the name of what you are talking about? I am aware of mind-control experiments by the CIA in conjunction with the Army in the 1950s (MKULTRA), but I don't know what you mean by a "mind-computer." I am willing to listen.
> I brought out, and now, the CIA reported its use for over 20 years,
and
> other intelligent agencies were involved as well. I knew about
"Operation
> Stargate" and Project: Scanate since the mid-70's and I brought it up
> knowing that many atheist didn't know about them and would--out of
> ignorance--deny that which they don't understand such as in the reality
> of God. I did this to show that their ideals are based on ignorance and
The evidence for successful remote viewing by these projects is rather mixed, at best, which is why the projects were discontinued. But what is the relevance of ESP to the existence of God, anyway?
> the weather. One last note. I don't intend to use "Ignorance" in aGiven your tone, I find this rather hard to believe. You seem to have quite a chip on your shoulder.
I was surprised to see the "mock[ing] celebration of the historic non-event" of Creation by the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, N.Y. [The Scientist, Nov. 11, 1996, back page.] I believe they were a year premature, since when comparing to A.D. years, the years B.C. must be reduced by one and sign changed--there is no year zero. Thus 4004 B.C. corresponds to A.D. -4003, which when added to A.D. 1996 gives 5999 years. In fairness, they should have noted that the careful scholar Bishop Ussher did not add the month and day, but this speculation was made by his contemporary John Lightfoot [1]. There were many such Creation computations, including astronomer Kepler's 3993 B.C.; also, orthodox Jews begin their dating at 3760 B.C.. However, Ussher's date was inserted as a marginal note into the Great Bible in 1701 by Bishop Lloyd, thus becoming dogma by association. I do hope the Center has another party next year!
[1] Lightfoot, John, [1642] 1825 "A few and new observations on the book of Genesis..." Reprinted in The Whole Works of the Rev. John Lightfoot D.D. Edited by John Rogers Pitman, 13 vols. London: J.F. Dove.
This should be added to your mailing-list list :-
The Church of Virus - An Atheistic Memetic Religion
http://www.lucifer.com/virus/list.html
I was really psyched to dicover your page (I got to it through links from Jesus' Home Page). I grew up in a small town in Minnesota that had the highest ratio of churches per capita in the US (or so popular rumor went). It's great to know there are so many others out there who share my beliefs. Growing up I thought there were only about 5 of us in the whole United States.
So naive.
So glad to know all the people on this list are out there.
Origin of Species, 1859
"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amount of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic abberration, could have been formed by natural selections, seems, I freely confess,absurd in the highest degree."
Internet Infidels Response #1:
This is an out-of-context quotation. The full statement is:
"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of Spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei ["the voice of the people = the voice of God "], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."
To quote the talk.origins archive:
Darwin then went on to describe how some simple animals have only "aggregates of pigment-cells...without any nerves ... [which] serve only to distinguish light from darkness." Then, in animals a bit more complex, like "star-fish," there exist "small depressions in the layer of [light-sensitive cells] -- depressions which are "filled ... with transparent gelatinous matter and have a clear outer covering, "like the cornea in the higher animals." These eyes lack a lens, but the fact that the light sensitive pigment lies in a "depression" in the skin makes it possible for the animal to tell more precisely from what direction the light is coming. And the more cup-shaped the depression, the better it helps "focus" the image like a simple "box-camera" may do, even without a lens. Likewise in the human embryo, the eye is formed from a "sack-like fold in the skin."
For more information, see
http://earth.ics.uci.edu:8080/faqs/ce3/sec2%2D1.html
Internet Infidels Response #2:
Darwin did, indeed, write this. However, if you read his Origin of Species, it will become very clear that Darwin fully believed that evolution could account for the human eye. Indeed, he presents powerful evidence in favor of the evolution of the human eye. It is mentioned as a kind of test case. In effect, Darwin is saying that from an untutored viewpoint, the evolution of the eye seems quite impossible. Thus, it makes a good test case.
I argued this very quote with an editor to a scientific creationist newsletter, and he finally admitted that he was wrong, that he had misquoted Darwin. If necessary I can supply lengthy quotations and arguments based on Darwins book to make the point even more clear.
If an author has been quoted so that he seemingly contradicts the clear intent of his work, then that author has been quoted out of context. This quote about the eye is one of the very favorites of scientific creationists. Creationist authors have had plenty of time to get these particular facts straight, but they spend so much time copying from one another, and so little time doing any real research, that the error is passed on like the family jewels.
Best Wishes,
Dave Matson
Origen of Species, 1859 Charles Darwin
"For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I arrived."
"There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been origianlly breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one."
Reflecting on his work near the end of his life, Charles Darwin confessed: "I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them."
Bedridden months before his death Darwin was often found reading. When one visitor asked him what he was studying he replied..."Hebrews, still Hebrews. The Royal Book, I call it"
After speaking on "the holiness of God" and the "grandeur of the Bible," Darwin declared: Christ Jesus and His salvation. Is not that the best theme?
Internet Infidels Response #1:
> Reflecting on his work near the end of his life, Charles Darwin > confessed:
Darwin's "confession" that you cite does not consist of Darwin's words, but it comes from a tale told YEARS after Darwin died, by an evangelist lady, named, "Lady Hope," and she announced it at an evangelistic conference, all to her self-aggrandizement. There is not a single creationist who has studied Darwin's works (especially his late-written autobiography which was published after his death) who believes the Lady Hope story is true. The Creation Research Society, a major young-earth organization, as well as the Institute for Creation Research, have debunked Lady Hope's story. In fact, the CRS past president, Wilbert Rusch, even wrote a book debunking the Lady Hope story, and it was sold by the CRS. And there's even the very recent book, THE DARWIN MYSTERY by James Moore that covers the story and again demonstrates its fallaciousness.
Some of the more glaring aspects of its untruth lay in the fact that no one but Lady Hope ever knew of Darwin's "denial of his theory and reconversion to Bible belief." Everyone who knew Darwin knew what his opinions on such matters were, and they were far from Lady Hope's opinions on such matters. Just read Darwin's autobiography published after his death. Or consult the records of his bereaved wife who would certainly have been more cheered if her husband had drawn closer to the Bible beliefs she had.
And, Lady Hope implies that Darwin's ideas were published while he was still young. This is emphatically NOT the case. Darwin was quite old when the ORIGIN was published.
> "I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out
> queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my
> astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of
> them."
>
>Bedridden months before his death Darwin was often found reading. When
> one visitor asked him what he was studying he replied..."Hebrews,
still
> Hebrews. The Royal Book, I call it"
The "one visitor" you mention was Lady Hope. Everything you wrote above comes from the "Lady Hope" fairy tale, belonging solely to HER and no one else.
> After speaking on "the holiness of God" and the
"grandeur of the Bible,"
> Darwin declared: Christ Jesus and His salvation. Is not that the
best
> theme?
These are the words of Lady Hope, not Charles Darwin.
> Origen of Species, 1859 Charles Darwin
> "For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in
this
> volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to
> conclusions directly opposite to those at which I arrived."
This is from the Introduction to the ORIGIN, and you must read FURTHER to understand what he wrote IN CONTEXT. I have published this saying in context in my newsletter, CRETINISM OR EVILUTION? and shown what a horrible job of scholarship it is to yank such phrases from Darwin's mouth out of context. I can e-mail you the web address where Darwin's full phrase is given in context, if you like.
Best, Ed Babinski, former fundamentalist and author of LEAVING THE FOLD: TESTIMONIES OF FORMER FUNDAMENTALISTS, and editor of CRETINISM OR EVILUTION
Internet Infidels Response #2:
The first quote is just a modest (and realistic) statement by Darwin to the effect that he is fully aware of the many objections that might be raised against his book, which was only intended as an overview to A MUCH LARGER work. (In the same light, I am fully aware of the many arguments that scientific creationists might make against radiometric dating. In saying that, I am not in the least implying that they have a leg to stand on!) He is saying that he has not carelessly overlooked these points, to which a great deal more might be said had there been adequate space. Yes, difficult arguments might be made, but Darwin was confident that he would prevail.
In the second quote it sounds to me like Darwin is praising evolution, which creates so much diversity from just one (or a few basic forms) of life. He is saying (I suspect) that there is grandeur in this evolutionary view of life.
The last 3 quotes sound like the kind of pious lies that Christians are so good at. Did you know that virtually every atheist and freethinker of note has inspired these kind of lies, especially as regarding deathbed scenes? Lies concerning alleged deathbed conversions have the advantage of not being refuted by the principle character. In that Darwin's work was a major (if unintended) blow to Christian doctrine, pious lies have became attached to his name.
Dave Matson
Internet Infidels Response #3:
> Origin of Species, 1859
> "To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for
> adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different
> amount of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic
> abberration, could have been formed by natural selections, seems, I
> freely confess,absurd in the highest degree."
I have examined this quotation in its full context in issue number 3 of my zine, CRETINISM OR EVILUTION, which is on the web at the TALK.ORIGINS ARCHIVE. There's a whole lot more to this quotation than meets the eye. I hope you'll ask for further info and read it yourself IN CONTEXT, as it is published and discussed in my zine.
Best, Ed Babinski, former fundamentalist and author of LEAVING THE FOLD: TESTIMONIES OF FORMER FUNDAMENTALISTS, and editor of CRETINISM OR EVILUTION.
Could you direct me to some info about faith healing ( particularly in pentacostal churches like the Assemblies of God). I have co-workers who are telling me all about their fellow church-goers getting their aching backs healed and how these "electrical charges" occur when people are being "healed". I bring up the fact of all the other human suffering going on while these non-life-threatening ailments are being cured. How can I rebut these first-hand accounts of these healings?? What is REALLY happening in these wacko churches?? Are their minds so convinced of the possibility of being healed that it actually happens?? What about these "shocks" of power that are knocking these people out and supposedly curing them?? I've been told that these people lay there for HOURS until they recover their senses.
Hi friends!
>I am the editor of the Peruvian Journal of Applied Philosophy (RPFA), a periodical oriented to freethinking, agnosticism and humanism. I would like to receive more information on your meetings and events. Thank you.
Hello, Infidels,
Your site is without question the best of its kind I have seen. It is fair (as fair as is possible to be with people who do not trust themselves to perceive reality), and the debate is kept on a high plane.
I am currently writing a critique on Francis Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live?, which has constantly threatened to turn into a major effort as I attempt to dispel every single half-truth and equivocation that Schaeffer uses. At one point I had a page of notes for every 2 pages of text, but now I am only concentrating on essentials.:)
I understand that many in your organization have read Schaeffer a great deal, both as former fundamentalists and atheists brushing up on the opposition's tactics. I have a few questions for those who are experienced with Schaeffer's work.
Is he as dishonest as he seems to be after 100 pages of HSWTL? Are his other works as full of fallacies and equivocations? How does he purport to be a defender of western culture when he attacks the fundamental essentials of that culture? Does he ever define christian "absolutes?" And, most importantly, how influential was he on the christian apologists?(Quite a bit, I'd say; I encounter his thought quite a bit in my CCC-member friends.)
If you have the time to reply, please contact me at [excised]. If you don't have the time, please tell me if I can expect to hear from you before this is posted in the feedback section.
What is your source that the exile lasted 48 years?
My sources have the following chronology. . .
The exile lasted 70 years, from 421 - 351 BCE
The decree from Cyrus to rebuild the Temple came in 372 BCE.
I note here that it is 49 years between the beginning of the exile to the time of Cyrus' decree. (The fact that the exile was near the end of 421 and the decree came earlier than that in 372 might account for how you arrive at 48 instead of 49) However the exile didn't end until 351 BCE, the same year the 2nd Temple had been rebuilt.
Besides, if you claim that the exile was 48 years, then you would also have to classify Moses as a false prophet as well, would you not? Or is that your intent?
This article and another article are on the Suck web site. Its pretty good. Perhaps you've already seen it.
http://www.suck.com/zerobaud/archive/
You,sirs, believe in evolution, therefore you are evolved monkeys. MONKEYS,MONKEYS,MONKEYS!! Nothing worse than a barrel full of MONKEYS!! I think I love you...
Internet Infidels Response #1:
That would still leave us a notch above you
Rob Berry
Internet Infidels Response #2:
There is no "true and correct" transcript of the debate which occurred between Thomas Henry Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, the Bishop of Oxford, at a meeting of the British Association at Oxford on June 30, 1860, but the "best view of the evidence" is that the exchange went something like this:
At the end of his part of the debate, Bishop Wilberforce turned to Huxley and inquired of him:
"Was it through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey?"
When it was his turn, Huxley replied along the following lines:
"I asserted - and I repeat - that a man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a _man_ - a man of restless and versitile intellect - who, not content with an equivocal success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious prejudice."
(The above quotations are taken from The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Revised Fourth Edition, 1996.)
I guess things have not changed much in 136 years.....
Give me a break, God killed everyone but Noah and his group at the great flood. Then he wrote a commandment that said don't kill. Do as I say not as I do!!!!
That says it all.
To whom it may concern,
My name is John Yang and I am looking for the book "The First Hundred Million" by E. Haldeman Julious.
It is a rare and out of print book. Any suggestion?
Internet Infidels Response:
Well, it is rather obviously NOT one which we have here, in http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/e_haldeman-julius/
Prometheus Books has reprinted at least one book by Haldeman-Julius because I checked it out from the Central Library of the City of Los Angeles not long ago.
That leads me to my best recommendation: go to the oldest and largest central library you can get to and look there. Libraries which fulfill that criteria will generally have a LOT of "rare and out of print" materials. I can virtually guarentee that a copy exists in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. without even looking.
But, I really don't have a better answer.
Wait a minute..... Alta-Vista did return a link: http://www.lib.usf.edu/spccoll/guide/for/h1for.html refers to a reprint of that book in 1974 by Arno Press. That page also has a link to http://library.pittstate.edu/spcoll/ndxhjulius.html, which is one of the main collections of Haldeman-Julius material, with links and references to other collections.....
I hope this helps you out!
First let me say that I really enjoy your site. I had wanted to read "Beyond Born Again" many years ago but I never did and now your organization has enabled me to do so online.
I have a question. Several Hard core Christian Fundamentalists have mentioned and/or studied some phenomena in the bible called "hebrew codes." These are hidden messages in the original greek and hebrew scriptures that predict things such as nazi germany and the holocaust, as well as say things like: Jesus is the messiah or something to that effect. Has there been any (non-fundamntalist) research or criticism about this? The codes would seem to suggest that the bible WAS literally and innerrantly the Word of God as the chances of these messages being hidden in the bible by pure chance are astronomically low. Is this true?
Information about them are at:
http://www.nsol.com/home/bpybus/evidence.htm
My spiritual search has been a rather hectic one and I think this is an important and intriguing issue. Please contact me if you have any information on this...
Internet Infidels Response:
Not particularly.
I haven't studied this in detail, but the few news programs or articles I have wandered across make it clear that these "readings" are along the lines of interpretations of the prophecies of Nostradamus. In other words, they take an ambiguous text and "read in" the meaning that they think they can achieve.
The key part for me was where they showed how they had to arrange the text in certain ways to get the "proper" inscription, or use words from different languages to get a "meaningful" answer.
I'd like to read a skeptical review of this stuff by somebody who is well enough versed in Hebrew to be able to actually compare the "real" texts with the assertions being made about those texts. So far, this matter hasn't interested me enough to hunt one down.
Perhaps you should try a good search engine, like Alta Vista, to see if you can locate a "skeptical" review of this matter.
But my gut tells me it is yet more contrived "truth" by the great purveyors of contrived "truth."
I just wanted to make a few comments regarding "Do you believe in Evolution?" First off, good work! As a high school student in Anchorage, Alaska [a highly conservative/born-again state] I am always confronted with similar questions on Evolution and Atheism. This page has given me further insight as to how I can respond more effectively to such ludicrous questions. Also, if anyone knows of a site(s) that show direct contradictions in the Bible, I would love to find them. I only know of a few contradictions, but I would love a vast arsenal of them in my on-going war on ignorance (in religious terms). Thanks again for the great pages! Keep up the good work!
Internet Infidels Response:
Did you check out our "Bible Errancy" topic index at: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/
One article which discusses places where the New Testaments directly contradict themselves is at: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/paul_carlson/nt_contradictions.html
I hope this helps you out!
Also, if you find some other interesting sites on this subject, please let us know! However, you should first check to see if we already have them listed in our Modern or Historical Libraries (the dividing line between the two being about 1970).
In the historical archives you have an article entitled "Atheism of Astronomy". It is very good, but hard to read. Here is what I did to make it more legible for my old eyes:
I downloaded it and added "STRONG" near the beginning and "/STRONG" near the end. Still using Netscape to read it, this method works like a charm!
Hope this helps.
Internet Infidels Response:
I took a look at this article with my IBM Web Explorer (OS/2), and it looks the same as any other article on the whole Secular Web. I also looked at the "raw" HTML code for this document, and I don't see anything "strange" which would alter its display, other than the HTML tag "CITE" is used a LOT near the beginning of the document. Once you get into the regular text part of Chapter I, there are no "active" tags which could affect your viewing.....
I would suggest that this is a "personal problem" and that you should reconfigure your copy of Netscape to use different fonts; in particular LARGER fonts, since what "STRONG" does is switch to a "BOLD" font in most browsers (including Netscape).
Under the circumstances, I don't see us changing the "standard" way that the Secular Web is written to include "STRONG" in every file in our library.
I hope that this helps you out.....
You obviously have no spiritual understanding of what the Scripture implies or outright states. It is always disheartening when someone allows a root of bitterness to grow until it consumes their whole lives. May God open your eyes to His glorious truth.
Internet Infidels Response:
You obviously have no understanding of "How to Win Friends and Influence People" (c). It is extremely arrogant and rude for you to presume to know why we don't share your views when you have not even met us.
Sincerely,
I enjoy your web site tremendously. But I think that it would be a great addition if you could include debates in Realaudio or other streaming audio or even in streaming video. I am never able to see this type of debate where I live and would love to have access to them. I'm sure there are others who would enjoy it too.
Has this ever been considered?
Internet Infidels Response:
I can't say that it has, and it probably won't be due to cost.
While the realaudio modules for the end users are "free," the code to run on the server costs big $$$$$$$, and it also requires a server which is a little more powerful than is our little bitty Linux machine sitting on a small piece of a T-1 line.....
Now, if you know somebody who might be willing to make, say, a $100,000 donation to the Internet Infidels to fund this project, we would LOVE to do it..... But right now, such an investment is a bit beyond our means.....
Why Not! I can Have some fun with the other side! You can't prove it one way or the other to ME!
I'm extremely grateful for the secular material that you've generously provided on the web. If this material were the only thing on the web, the web's existence would've been justified.
when you meet God, tell him your reasons for your non-belief. i'm sure it will make for some interesting intellectual discussion, since you seem inclined to believe that mans intellect is, by default, the upper echelon of thought in the universe. of course, since man has not the mental capacity to comprehend eternity on either the time or space planes of reasoning, and yet eternity is the only logical extension of our infantile understanding of the time-space continuum, any use of a purely logical explanation for any part of our existence is proof enough that our own naivete should support the existence of a much superior being. that you question this is merely proof that God has also compassionatly bestowed upon us the free will to be, like Him, a superior spirit in this endless and fascinating universe.........peace be with you
Internet Infidels' Response:
Thanks for your message. Of course, such a discussion would be stupid, for assuming God exists then presumably He is all-knowing, and thus would already know why nonbelievers lack belief. However, the assumption that God exists is precisely that: an assumption. In fact, on this note, I think you would do well to read philosopher Ted Drange's article on the "Arguments from Evil and Nonbelief". In my opinion, Drange makes a very convincing argument that the number of nonbelievers in this world, while not evidence against all different conceptions of God, does constitute evidence against the god of evangelical Christianity. Check Drange's article out, it's worth a read.
This message was written in response to
Grrr! You are SERIOUS, maintaining among the "criminals" in your listing Pastor Roberson of Wenatchee.??? Better follow up on that one. He and his wife were cleared easily by the jury.
Your credibility suffers. Better for you to take a look at the Sheriff's idiotic, self serving conduct in a classic witch-hunt paralleling the original one in Salem, 1690's.
Granted, some of the most gullible are also the victims.. Round and round it goes, making the entity of a satan ever more credible. Meanwhile, traditional legal safeguards have become a shambles in the US.
[This message was written in response to Emmett Fields.]
Found your URL on the WWW, and thought you might like to look at mine at
http://www.jesussilenced.com/
for tangible evidence that Christian fundamentalism or literalism is the longest-continuing and most destructive fraud ever perpetrated upon humanity.
I read your thing on sin is not man's fault and I think deeply on that subject as well as many others.Definetly GOD made us with a curious nature and eve ( if she existed ) was just merely using that curious nature something GOD created us with.And the serpent, the tempter was just intensifing that curiousity. The bottom line is GOD new we would fall to such a temptation. If this is true why did he let it happen is my question. What is your comment on the probe that is showing temples and faces that somthing built on MAR'S surface. I'd really like to know. Your sin is not mans fault was a very interesting point of view.look forward to talking to you more see ya! By the way my name is [excised] .
ATHEISM
Having recently been introduced to the Internet, I must start by pleading considerable ignorance of what it actually contains, or more precisely, of what you can realistically accomplish with it. I must also point out that I am by no means easily impressed; However I was stunned and extremely pleased to discover the sheer mass of readily accessible information on the net, and even more impressed to see that you atheists had seemingly formed a niche for yourselves, on what can only be described as a very recent medium for communication. In any event the purpose of this note is not to review the Internet; neither is it a piece on my impressions of cyberspace. Infact, I am only writing this as a piece to argue one simple case; namely 'atheism'.
I do not believe in the formation of small fringe 'clubs', which vaguely purport to express their views on atheism. I do not agree that the activities promoted by these web sites achieve much in terms of advancement of our views. It is my conscious opinion that such sites could expand to far greater strengths, with the correct direction. What does all this babbling amount to?, I hear you ask. Well simply one thing, the millennium is approaching, and the Christians will be celebrating 2000 years of lies, deceit, and above all, ignorance. Let us work together to end this irrationale. We have the time and we have the resources at our disposal. Let us all unite to eliminate the artificial blinkering of these sad souls who are human in every sense, except their inability to independently command their hidden intelligence.
I am looking forward to the celebrations for the coming of the year 2000; But not because it will celebrate the alleged crucifixion of an imaginary magician, for whom we have never been presented with even a shred of evidence to corroborate his supposed existence; But I will celebrate the millennium because it must signify the death and burial of human ignorance, the death of the concept of a 'g'od, in any shape or form, and the birth of LIFE, for as atheists we all believe in LIFE, as opposed to death!
I really love your web site, I expect to check it out quite often. I found it when researching an area of interest of mine. I am trying to find some explanations for some passages in Genesis which I find perplexing, if you have any answers for me, or can guide me to someone who may I would appreciate it.
First in reading Genesis I found in the story of Abram that on two seperate occassions he introduced his wife Sarai as his sister. On both occassions it was to Kings or Pharoahs who were attracted to her and both were very angry when they found out he lied to them because they did not want to have any part in anything sleazy. Abrams (now Abraham) son Isaac also did this with his wife. The only explanation given is that they were afraid that they would be killed for their wives sakes. What might the significance of this story be? Why this particular lie, what did they hope to gain?
I also wondered about the passage in which Noah is found uncovered in his tent when he is passed out drunk. His son, the father of Canaan finds him naked and tells his brothers, who put a cloak on their shoulders and walk in backward to cover him. When Noah awakes he knows that his son (Canaans father) saw him naked and curses Canaan, and says that Canaan will serve the other two sons? Huh? Does it seem like there is more to this story?
I guess my interest lies in trying to understand not only from an emotional level the roots of the Christian religion, but also the historical roots. What events shaped the religion that is such an important part of our culture, what is real, and what is myth??
Thanks for the great site!
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