A Letter to My Pastor

Dear Pastor Gary,

When I tell my religious friends about the Tierrasanta Seventh-day Adventist Church, they are, at best, skeptical about my description of your views and approaches to leading service. I told them that my pastor does not believe in Satan or Hell, accepts the Bible as the work of men, does not take the Bible literally, believes in evolution, and his sermons are brief and humorous. Some of them even visited the church to either marvel at or confirm these assertions.

I have been attending Tierrasanta for over four years, and I wish to express my admiration for your open-mindedness that is so rare in religious circles. Your enlightened views are precisely what kept me coming to Tierrasanta. I view your message as being parallel to that of Thomas Paine, who writes in The Age of Reason, "I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy." I agree with much of Jesus' word and what you profess in your sermons; but I also agree with Douglas Adams when he asked, "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Those fairies being the 28 fundamental beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church as well as any form of dogmatic faith in general.

You are a follower of Christ—you promote love and kindness towards those around us, read Bible scholars, and accept scientific evidence. You tell us the Lord wants us to use Reason as our guide. "Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord in Isaiah 1:18. But with so many of your views being based on Reason, I frankly can not fathom that you are a pastor or a Christian. I stand by Benjamin Franklin, who said, "The way to see by Faith is to shut the eye of Reason." By professing faith you contradict your message. Remaining a pastor—regardless of the message—is engendering the acceptance of religious dogma worldwide. In addition to going against the advance of the Enlightenment, identifying oneself as a Christian—or with any other system of beliefs—ostracizes those identifying with other or no beliefs.

I really think that you retain the position of a pastor so as to have the trust of the congregation to remove in them the sense of guilt and fear that their religion instills in them. You tell us, “Don’t worry if you are saved for it is the Father's great pleasure to let you into the Kingdom,” and in the words of St. Paul in Romans 13:8, "He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law." As you said, the Bible is summarized in the aforementioned verses. You remind me of somebody claiming to be a psychic, who knows that he does not possess supernatural powers but justifies his deception to himself by believing that he does good through satisfying certain human desires, such as interacting with a deceased loved one or knowing the future, etc. Whereas in fact, he is promoting a distorted view of the world—as a place where miracles that defy the laws of nature are possible—leading them further from reality. By remaining a pastor you promote delusions, even if you yourself don’t accept all of the 28 Fundamental Beliefs, etc.

The Bible was written and rewritten by men to the people of their time, hundreds of years ago. Why then don't you seize using the Bible as a guide to deny things that promote fear and guilt and simply admit that the Bible is not a reliable source of knowledge? People are capable of leading secular lives while adhering to "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man" (Thomas Jefferson, on the moral teachings of Jesus) without being caged by fear, believing in miracles, and inadvertently stifling social and scientific progresses while imposing on the rights of fellow human beings. Wasn't this the reason why Thomas Jefferson wrote The Jefferson Bible?

I honestly do not see what is holding you back from renouncing Christianity, if you are indeed a Christian, as you claim. Does retaining your career as a pastor and your public image really worth the price of misleading the credulous masses? As Carl Sagan, the great American astronomer, wrote, "It goes with a courageous intent to greet the universe as it really is, not to foist our emotional predispositions on it [as religion does] but to courageously accept what our explorations tell us." I understand the pressures that could prevent you from leaving the Church: the embarrassment of admitting the falsehood of a long-held belief, the feelings of betrayal from family and the congregation, among others. But this act of renunciation of faith would be of even greater courage in the face of these adversities—courage that our world so desperately needs in promoting Reason—and not superstition—as our guide.

Sincerely,

Daniel

Is Religion Compatible With Science?

"Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Science can only determine what is, but not what shall be, and beyond its realm, value judgments remain indispensable. Religion, on the other hand, is concerned only with evaluating human thought and actions; it is not qualified to speak of real facts and the relationships between them."
-- Albert Einstein

As the two quotes point out, science and religion have two different non-overlapping functions. This is a normative view, explaining what the case is ought to be rather than what it is. Religion is compatible with science only as long as it does not make claims regarding the value judgments of the physical nature of the Universe.

Does religion even have the ability to answer questions regarding the nature of the Universe? The Bible was written over a period of 1400 to 1800 years, between around 1400 BCE and 100 AD. The scientific revolution occurred in the period between 1543 and late 1600. There is a gap of over 1500 years between when the Bible was completed and the beginning of the scientific revolution. There is no way that the people who wrote the Bible could base their writing on valid scientific evidence, and any valid explanations must be coincidences. So the answer to the question of whether religion has the ability to answer scientific questions is... "No".

Religion is a constantly evolving institution, and, as we have seen throughout history with cases such as Galileo and Creationism, it is possible for religion to be incompatible with science. So the answer to the question of whether religion is compatible with science is... "It depends." The compatibility issue only arises when religion is used to explain natural phenomena, like the origin of life, which is exclusively the concern of science.

The Question of the Existence of God - Irrelevant

Note: Herein, god refers to the Judeo-Christian god.

Some time ago I wrote in my journal that "I believe the question of the existence of God is irrelevant, just like the question of the existence of any supernatural being is irrelevant." But then I asked myself "Irrelevant to what?" Now I finally elucidated to myself what I meant by that statement.

ARGUMENT:

The question of the empirical existence of God is irrelevant to the validity of religion. In other words, the proof of god's existence (if it is possible to obtain) would not serve as a reasonable support for theological dogma, because even if god exists it does not logically follow that the Bible is the word of god, i.e., that god authored the Bible.

• Objection: The validity of theological dogma does depend on the existence of god because god has to exist in order for the Bible to be the word of god, i.e., if god does not exist, then the Bible can not be the word of god.
• Counterargument: Yes, and this also means that if god does exist, it still does not follow that the Bible is the word of god. In other words, god is a prerequisite for the Bible to be the word of god, but the existence of god does not make the Bible the word of god.
• If the Bible is the word of god, then god exists. It does not follow that if god exists, then the Bible is the word of god.
• So if god exists, it does not mean that religion is true. But if god does not exist, it means that religion is false.

IMPLICATIONS:

Christian apologetics should seize trying to prove the existence of god through rational means, as the Lee Strobel's book, The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God--it is inconsequential to Christianity's validity, or any other creed for that matter.

P.S. It is amusing that Christians dismiss arguments against their religion as irreverent rant. But I will save this topic for a separate occasion.

The Road to a Secular Society

"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines."
-- Bertrand Russell

"The time appears to me to have come when it is the duty of all to make their dissent from religion known."
-- John Stuart Mill

The Road to a Secular Society, or How to go About Persuading Society to Renounce Religion:

Religion is not concerned with truth. Reason alone can not sway a belief that is not based on reason. So to change the society's beliefs, it is necessary to promote freedom from religion just as freedom from slavery was promoted--though eclectic means. The following four steps serve as a:

• Plan of action. (enable action)
• Call for action. (motivate action)

1. Promote reason.
1. Raise the stakes of reason. Encourage people to value evidence-based reason over private feeling.
1. Steer the educational system to teach critical thinking and that reason is the only means of arriving at truth.
2. Have respectable people promote reason to raise the prestige of being rational.
2. Make a strong case against religion. Make it absolutely clear that religion is irrational, contradicts reason, and harmful.
1. Create and expose the disadvantages that religion brings, i.e., hinders scientific progress (especially stem-cell research and evolution), opposes LGBT political causes (especially same-sex marriage), anti-abortion, indoctrinates of children, supports unhealthy practices (especially the abstinence-only sex education), and the inability of a non-believer to hold high U.S. political office, etc.
   
2. Raise awareness.
   
1. Have non-religious people voice their opinions through books (such as Letter to a Christian Nation), movies (such as Religulous), music (such as John Lennon - Imagine), public discussions (such as at parties), and through interactions with those around us (such as casual conversations with friends and family), etc.
   
2. Realize and expose the problems that religion brings (to make it less respectable). Popularize the arguments against religion and the faults of arguments for religion.
3. Enable, empower and motivate non-religious people to advocate against religion.
1. Enable. Provide and distribute the arguments against religion. Provide a means for non-believers to voice their beliefs (through organizations such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation)
   
2. Empower. Emphasize the large number of people who share their views (16.1% are unaffiliated with any particular faith in the US, which is the largest group after Protestants, with 51.3%, and Catholics, with 23.9%, and among Americans ages 18-29, one-in-four say they are not currently affiliated with any particular religion). Create supportive communities and regular gatherings for the non-believers.
3. Motivate. Lower the bar for religious tolerance to make way for action by emphasizing that inaction in the face of irrationality and assault on reason is contributing to the injustice.
4. Make it comfortable and desirable for religious people to doubt and reject their faith, so that they don't feel like they are losing by rejecting their beliefs.
1. Comfortable. De-stigmatize atheism. Show that atheism is a sign of open-mindedness.
   
2. Desirable. Popularize the problems with religion. Show that atheism is a prestigious position.

Daniel Dennett - Breaking the Spell
Christopher Hitchens - God is not Great
Sam Harris - The End of Faith
Sam Harris - Letter to a Christian Nation
Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Infidel
Mark Twain - Letters from the Earth
Carl Sagan - The Varieties of Scientific Experience
Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion
Dan Barker - Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists
Bertrand Russell - Why I Am Not a Christian
Bill Maher - Religulous (film)

http://religions.pewforum.org/reports

My Religious Beliefs

"All thinking men are atheists."
-- Ernest Hemingway

A Personality quiz about your religious and spiritual beliefs

http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx

Your Results

The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

How did the Belief-O-Matic do? Discuss your results on our message boards.

1.	Secular Humanism (100%)
2.	Unitarian Universalism (96%)
3.	Theravada Buddhism (80%)
4.	Liberal Quakers (78%)
5.	Nontheist (78%)
6.	Neo-Pagan (65%)
7.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (60%)
8.	Taoism (60%)
9.	Mahayana Buddhism (46%)
10.	New Age (46%)
11.	Orthodox Quaker (37%)
12.	Reform Judaism (37%)
13.	Sikhism (34%)
14.	Jainism (33%)
15.	Baha'i Faith (24%)
16.	Scientology (24%)
17.	Hinduism (22%)
18.	New Thought (21%)
19.	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (18%)
20.	Seventh Day Adventist (17%)
21.	Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (15%)
22.	Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (13%)
23.	Eastern Orthodox (10%)
24.	Islam (10%)
25.	Orthodox Judaism (10%)
26.	Roman Catholic (10%)
27.	Jehovah's Witness (6%)

I don't subscribe to a religion or to any set of established beliefs. Religious ideas are enunciated as dogmatic teachings rather than as the product of experience or of argument and proof. I strive to accept and reject only those ideas which I myself found to be probably true or false based on my critical evaluation of evidence. This is surely a huge burden in living life, but I see no other way to live my life righteously but to doubt everything. I am greatly disturbed at the thought of abandoning my mental faculties as a tool of the re-establishment of beliefs based on the perpetual re-evaluation of new information.

“Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.”
-- Henry Louis Mencken

“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”
-- Richard Dawkins

"I think if we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from, we will have failed. I think this search does not lead to a complacent satisfaction that we know the answer, not an arrogant sense that the answer is before us and we need only to do one more experiment to find out. It goes with a courageous intent to greet the universe as it really is, not to foist our emotional predispositions on it [as religion does] but to courageously accept what our explorations tell us."
-- Carl Sagan, final words in the last lecture presented in the book The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

Religion is not concerned with truth. People believe in religion not because it is rational, but because religious faith is respectable and brings certain tangible benefits. In other words, religious people claim that religion is "true" despite its irrationality (they still deny that its irrational) and they made up their mind to not doubt it due to the various benefits that their belief brings (the life is made easier to bear due to the belief of eternal life, that there is someone who cares about them, being a part of a presumably supportive community of other religious people, etc.). Religious people find support for their beliefs in fallacious arguments, with the irrationality of the arguments being positively correlated to the strength of the belief.

The Bible is not a moral guide, for the reason that it does not provide sound justification for its claims. However, there are some parts from which everybody can learn something good. It is for this reason that I attend church (The Tierrasanta Seventh-Day Adventist Church)--even to this day. And it is for this reason that Thomas Jefferson created The Jefferson Bible, or The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, by leaving out the supernatural and the inconsistencies from the New Testament.

Thomas Paine, an avid advocate of reason and freethinking, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, similarly to Jefferson, rephrased the main doctrine of the Bible in his own secular terms:

"I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy."
-- Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."
-- The Bible, Micah 6:8

Religion, with some of its instruction being very good, teaches many other things, some of which are harmful, and an otherwise good-natured person who has vowed to follow the good moral values of Religion also feels obligated to follow these harmful doctrines.

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."
-- Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate in physics

"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities."
-- Voltaire

Religious doctrine is the wrong means of arriving at morality, because doctrines are not based on reason and therefore can establish anything as moral. Religion has it backwards--it asserts that "an action is moral because God says it's moral", whereas a reasoned response (assuming God exists) would be "God says that an action is moral because that action is moral", and yet an even more rational response (without assumptions) would say "morality is regardless of God."

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."
-- Albert Einstein

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
-- James Madison

Therefore, what makes a person virtuous is not a blind belief in the morality of certain actions, but a reasoned belief in what is moral. It is not what one believes, but how one arrived at those beliefs that makes a man virtuous or otherwise. A person that believes, based on creed, that good things are moral is not virtuous, because that same person might believe that evil things are moral based on the same creed. Thus, a person who bases his or her moral values any dogma can not be a virtuous person. In contrast, only a person that comes up with what is moral based on deliberation and reason himself or herself can become a virtuous person. What is virtue? It is the knowing of what are virtuous actions and performing these actions.

"Religion either makes men wise and virtuous, or it makes them set up false pretenses to both."
-- William Hazlitt

"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines."
-- Bertrand Russell

"Religion is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions."
-- Albert Einstein

"Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities. [...] If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity."
-- Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism (1939)

"Religion is an illusion, and it derives its strength from its readiness to fit in with our instinctual wishful impulses."
-- Sigmund Freud

"[Religious ideas] are illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest, and most urgent wishes of mankind. The secret of their strength lies in the strength of those wishes. As we already know, the terrifying impression of helplessness in childhood aroused the need for protection—for protection through love—which was provided by the father; and the recognition that this helplessness lasts throughout life made it necessary to cling to the existence of a father, but this time a more powerful one"
-- Sigmund Freud

Faith brings an array of benefits, such as a belief in a purpose and the immortality of the soul, a like-minded community, meditation, the comfort that the assurance of eternal life brings, including the cessation of the need to challenge oneself. By following any creed, no matter how good, he sets up a false pretense that he is wise and virtuous when he is neither.

Re: Answer This Bible Contradiction

An email I found way back from April '06, my Junior year of High School (it'll make most sense if read form "bottom-up"). This is on what I used to spend my time...


from Daniel
to William Stewart
date Mon, Apr 17, 2006 at 10:07 PM
subject Re: Answer This Bible Contradiction
mailed-by gmail.com

William,

Thank you for putting the contents of the link back on you web site.

I see what you mean, and I think I see why our views deviate. fear is innate thus It is not wrong to fear. Fear, including fear of the unknown, comes from ignorance. Ignorance is the nature of fear. That is why the haunted house works; for a couple of times, at least. When you enter, you don't know what to expect, therefore you fear of being shocked unexpectedly; however, after you know when and what is going to shock you, and after you learn that what first shocked you was merely a plastic object in the shape of a life-like skeleton that had a couple of red lights in place of eyes, you suddenly develop understanding and fear disappears.

You fear because you Expect that there is something that is going to shock you, therefore claiming that you Know that there is something to expect, However you do not, and can not Know (even if someone else tells you) that there is something to expect that is going to shock you until you actually experience it yourself. And therefore to fear is to claim to Know something that you don't, and that is ignorant. That, however, does not mean that it is wrong or wicked to fear.

So, to answer the question:

Was it ignorant for me to fear what I did not know about?

Yes, because there was an assumption that there is actually something to fear. That assumption was not based on knowledge, and therefore it was ignorant to fear.

Is it bad or wicked to fear the unknown? Or does it mean that one is presumptuous? No; one may make a judgment, based on past experiences or from what one obtained from other sources, that there is something to be expected. That is caution. However it is not knowledge, and one may not Know what it is and therefore it is ignorant to state that one does.

A mere belief in something does not make it "knowledge." It can not be justified (by reason), and it is not necessarily true. You can state that you do Believe what something is, but you can not state that it is knowledge. Many times in history did people assume something to be knowledge or truth and it turned out to be a mere belief.

Your account has provided me with a clearer understanding of your decision.

You said that you assume that I reject G-d. I am puzzled by your reason for your assumption. I do state that I do not accept, however, I do not reject nor deny the Bible or G-d. To not accept does not mean to reject or deny, there is a difference. Do you see? It would be ignorant to say that I know that the Bible is wrong, since I can not prove that it is not.

I do believe in certain parts of the Bible, but I do not accept all that it teaches, and do not accept as truth everything that it reveal; I want to see why people do. I do not know if G-d exists, however that does not exclude the possibility that I believe in G-d or that He exists.

I am writing this not because I want to disprove your beliefs, but because I want to find the truth.

Do you believe that there is a possibility of you being wrong?

Sincerely, Daniel

[this is where the conversation diverged]

from William Stewart
to Daniel
date Sun, Apr 16, 2006 at 4:55 AM

Daniel,

Sorry about the page "disappearing" like that. The host for
our site updated their servers, and only documents which
were online prior to the beginning of the process were
carried over to the new servers. Thus, anything after March
5 needed to be uploaded again. I have now done so. Thank you
for pointing it out to me.

If you will look through the ATA articles, you will note
that almost exclusively the articles deal with whether verse
A contradicts with verse B. This is a defense of the Bible,
not my personal faith. However, in the case of Legion's
rant, he did not speak against the Bible so much as against
my personal faith. If somewhere in his rant you can find a
Bible contradiction, please point it out to me. As such, in
my response, it was my faith which was primarily defended.

I understand that particular page does not fall in line with
the stated purpose of ATA. However, the attitude and claims
of Legion are not uncommon among those who are opponents to
the Bible (ie. Bible believers have a blind faith, are
promoting hatred and are ignorant). Thus, I thought it good
to respond to his rant in ATA, even though there was no
supposed Bible contradiction presented. I'm sorry that my
departure in this instant from the stated purpose of the
page offended you.

William

>from Daniel
>to William Stewart
>date Sun, Apr 16, 2006 at 12:40 AM
>
> William,
>
> You state that I "ridicule" your reason for not fearing.
> The purpose my commentary was not in any way to ridicule,
> or laugh at, your reason. I think that you have
> overreacted. My purpose was to introduce to you my point
> of view, so you can consider my belief.
>

> In answering "yes" to my question: "By "Scriptures," do

> you mean the Bible (and not your faith)?" You have not
> provided me a logical reason. The reason I asked is
> because your response to Legion (which I am unable to
> access now on the web) appeared to me as if you are
> defending your own faith and your actions- your own
> beliefs - and not the "Scriptures," as I included here:
>
> My faith has not caged me, it has set me free."
>
> And here:
>
> You assume that I have not questioned the Bible. Please
> tell me, what do you know of my journey of faith? You are
> sorely mistaken in thinking that I have just accepted the
> Bible without questioning it. You are correct, to do so
> would be blind faith, which indeed would be ignorance.

> However, the development of my faith has been based upon

> evidence, not a blind leap.
>

> It seems as there is no reference to any "Scriptures" or
> the "Bible" and that you are only stating your own beliefs
> , and that is not what is stated in your web site's
> mission statement "*OUR

> MISSION<http://www.lookinguntojesus.net/answering.htm> *"

> nor I see how that would help in answering the atheist. I
> find your response to be contradicting with your purpose.
>
> I am sorry that I can not access the link previously
> pointing to your response to Legion; I also can not find
> it on the Web. I ask you to make the link available again.
>

> Sincerely, Daniel
>

from William Stewart
to Daniel
date Sun, Apr 16, 2006 at 5:24 AM

Daniel,

I think your premise is incorrect. You are claiming that it
is ignorant to fear that which we do not have knowledge of.
If you will consider the nature of fear, I think you will
notice that it is the opposite of what you are claiming.

Prior to a couple weeks ago, I had not flown. I did not know
what the experience was like, and thus was fearful regarding
it. Was it ignorant for me to fear what I did not know
about?

Ever been in a haunted house at a fair or such? The basis
upon which the haunted house works is fear of the unknown.

I do not fear death, not because I do not know what it is,
but because I do know what it is. The Bible reveals what is
on the other side of death. If I walk in the Lord's way,
there is no reason to fear death.

Why did I accept? From the time I was a child, I believed in
God. My grandparents (who raised me) were not overly
religious, but regardless I sought to know about God. I
became a Christian at age 17. At that time, I simply
accepted the existence of God and the Bible as God's word.
Shortly thereafter, I began to investigate the authenticity
of the Bible; I began to look at evidence for the existence
of God; I began to seek proof of the resurrected Christ. My
faith is not just "I believe God exists and that the Bible
is His word", but is now based upon seeing evidence that
these things are so.

That's a very brief account, but hopefully complete enough
to answer your inquiry. May I ask why you reject the Bible
and the existence of God? I am assuming that you reject
both, since you will not even write the entire word "God"
(ie. G-d).

William


> from Daniel
> to William Stewart
> date Sun, Apr 16, 2006 at 12:44 AM
>
> William,
>
> You asked me:
>
> Am I to understand that you do not fear death? If so, why
> not?
>
> Yes, you have understood me correctly. I do not fear
> death. To fear death means to claim to know what death is
> and therefore to claim to know that there is something to
> fear. To claim to know of something which one has not
> experienced is ignorant.
>
> I have a personal question for you. I realize that your
> acceptance is between you and G-d, so I do not expect an
> answer, and I will do my best as not to assume anything if
> you don't. I am sincerely curious: why did you accept?
>
> Sincerely, Daniel
>
>
> > from William Stewart
> > to Daniel
> > date Fri, Apr 14, 2006 at 9:26 AM
> >
> > Daniel,
> >
> > Thanks for stopping by our site. You asked a couple of
> > questions, which I will answer herein.
> >
> > You asked:
> > By "Scriptures," do you mean the Bible (and not your
> > faith)?
> > Yes.
> >
> > You state that you share my opinion with regard to not
> > fearing death, but then ridicule my reason for not
> > fearing. I do not fear death, for I believe what the
> > Bible reveals about death. I am not assuming something
> > about the unknown. I am accepting what God's word
> > reveals.
> > Am I to understand that you do not fear death? If so,
> > why not? Do you KNOW what is beyond death? Have you been
> > there to see?
> >
> > You also asked:
> > By "defend," do you mean "Scriptures" (and not your, as
> > an individual's, favor in G-d's eye's)?
> >
> > Our intent with ATA is to defend the Bible by responding
> > to supposed contradictions. Your question didn't make
> > sense to me. By "defend", I mean "defend". What are we
> > "defending"? The "Scriptures".
> >
> > If you could clarify that question, then perhaps I can
> > give you a more complete response.
> >
> > William J. Stewart
> > Kingston, Ontario
> > www.lookinguntojesus.net
> >
> >
> > > Name: Daniel .
> > > Comment: To whom it may concern,
> > >
> > > I have two questions. After reading your response
> > > to a visitor's (Legion's) "RANT" (April 2, 2006 /
> > > Volume 6 , Issue 14:
> > > http://www.lookinguntojesus.net/ata20060402.htm ) And
> > > your "OUR MISSION" statement
> > > (http://www.lookinguntojesus.net/answering.htm), I had
> > > developed a few question that I hope you could answer.
> > > Your Mission Statement says that your mission is "to
> > > defend Scriptures effectively against Bible
> > > antagonists."
> > > You sated in your response to a visitor that "the
> > > development of my faith has been based upon evidence,
> > > not a blind leap." By "Scriptures," do you mean the
> > > Bible (and not your faith)?
> > > Also, I share your opinion in your "responding to
> > > supposed contradictions" in that "I am not afraid of
> > > death." I see why one would not be; one can not KNOW
> > > what death is, unless one has experienced it. However, this
> > > statement goes beyond reason "I am confident that when
> > > I die, I will go to a better place." To be sure in something
> > > that we do not know is to assume we know about it, and
> > > that is unwise. By "defend," do you mean "Scriptures"
> > > (and not your, as an individual's, favor in G-d's eye's)?
> > >
> > > Sincerely,
> > >
> > > Daniel,
> > >
> > > 14/04/2006 09:03:48
> >
>