Since breaking off contact with my youngest brother Mike (after a harsh e-mail to him a month ago) I asked him to remove all references to me from his I-Net church website. Instead, he has merely increased their number – while also mounting scurrilous attacks on atheists as a “cult”. It doesn’t matter to me if only one person visits his site in a year, the point is the attacks and insults exist and I believe they have to be rebutted.
In this blog entry I am going to deal with his “Welcome to atheists” page and why it is a despicable crock that no true atheist would accept.
He begins his “welcome” with:
Dear atheist ' Brothers and Sisters ' - First of all , I DO NOT 'condemn' you !! ( ONLY the Lord can do that ). But , if you all could just 'put away' your false pride for a moment , and let me give you some constructive criticism , you (HOPEFULLY) will be able to see the absurdity of atheism .
Well, this is really charming. He informs us he does not want to “condemn us” – but he will let the “Lord” do that for him. How nice to have an invisible surrogate “hit man” to go after atheists! Right afterward, he beseeches us to put aside our “false pride” so he can impart “constructive criticism” – totally unconscious of how this comes over. And that to any cognitively functioning atheist it is Pastor Mike wielding the false pride.
He then insists he merely wishes us to see the “absurdity” of atheism, totally blind to his own whole absurd proposition from which such advice is proffered: that he possesses all the truth in the universe, and it is incumbent on him to share its crumbs with us, and reveal the error of our ignorant ways.
With this kind of “welcome” who needs a dismissal with disrespect?
Undeterred by his mammoth ego and arrogance, Pastor Mike rambles on with a reference to me:
I 'confess' , that the ONLY atheist I know PERSONALLY , is my oldest brother- and freely admit (as I'm sure you all will) that there are radicals in ALL beliefs - INCLUDING Christianity . Frankly , I believe my atheist brother is the radical type - and I base this on HIS (past) words i.e., the last e-mail I recieved from him last month , in which he stated towards the end of the e-mail the following , " This world and universe are godless and without purpose, the sooner you get that into your fat head, the better."
It’s interesting that Pastor Mike references my letter (e-mail) to him, and I will say at least he got the tone of it accurately as well as the content. Again, to remind readers, this is the reaction of a person to a missive and religious card received by a brother who broke off all contact 14 years ago, and chooses only to renew it on HIS religious-proselytizing terms.
Yes, I know I could have ignored it, and came close to doing it. But the sheer chutzpah, especially after seeing what he had up on his site about me was too much. When he was five years old and I had to baby sit him, I’d clip him around the head if he got out of line. I regarded this as a verbal clip to a grown man acting like an infant.
Notice also how he refers to me as “the radical type” – which he generously notes can apply to “those of all beliefs including Christianity”.. Charming! I ain’t alone as a "radical"! Trouble is, Pastor Mike doesn’t clue us in on exactly what a “radical type” is. Is it someone who is outspoken? Well, judging from how Pastor Mike reacted to my various guest book posting on his sit initially, I would have say YES – this is what he regards as “radical”.
But he’s not content to leave it there, so he munches forth with more of his swill:
The FIRST thing that came into my mind when I read that was what the Bible says in Matthew 10:33 ; " But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. "
Here, the Pastor again demonstrates his abject ignorance of atheism and atheists. No atheist “denies” the superfluous creations of supernaturalism and religion whether they be “God” or Jesus. Indeed, most atheists DO accept JC as a historical personage, albeit NOT a god-man. He was rather transmogrified into godhood by over-zealous scribes, followers and a Church that needed someone to pin its heavenly future on – by way of his “Second coming”.
Nor do we deny “God” (despite the fact believers continue to refuse to define it) any more than we do Zeus, Odin, or the tooth fairy and Santa. We simply – as implicit atheists- refuse to invest mental resources in accepting them as relevant in any way to us.
Implicit atheists do not actively disbelieve in a deity, they simply withhold belief.
As I noted in an article published in the Mensa Bulletin, March 1994:
"Let's be clear about what constitutes Atheism and what doesn't. The Atheist - to put it succinctly, absolutely withholds investing intellectual/emotional resources in any supernatural claim. Indeed the word Atheism itself embodies this definition”
What is happening here is not denial or active disbelief, i.e. making a statement 'There is no god', but rather simply passively withholding belief/acceptance in a statement already made. Hence, the deity believer has made the positive claim. The ontological atheist’s is the absence of belief in it. No more - no less.
The same, of course, applies to Jesus as God –man. All the work of the Jesus seminar, as well as of numerous biblical scholars (e.g. John Dominic Crossan, Geza Vermes etc.) shows he was a fiery rabbi with vast charisma, a “Jewish Peasant Cynic” in Crossan’s parlance (see his: ‘Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography”) but no God-man. Hence, I am not “denying” Jesus so much as following up on the most current research.
But I digress. Pastor Mike rambles on in his own inimitable fashion:
Now , I would be less than honest if I said the latter didn't "bother me" - because , YES , IT DID . Actually , it didn't so much as "bother" me , as it hurt me ' inside ' , but I just recalled the words of Jesus HIMSELF , in John 16:20 ; " Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. " But I just put it in the Lords hands , and had to ' Let him (my brother) go ' - although I have NEVER , NOR WILL I EVER , stop loving him as a brother , or stop Praying for his Salvation , and YES . . I HAVE FORGIVEN HIM !!You see , I KNOW that HE did not say those words , per se , but that SATAN is 'alive and well ' inside him. And make no mistake about it - SATAN IS REAL !!
Here, he responds after quoting another part of my e-mail to him where I informed him I didn’t want to hear from him again . What's the big deal? Because he is family or blood-related I am obliged to have a relationship, or try? No, don’t think so. Family – siblings are the luck of the draw, nothing more. Sometimes, magically, one will also be friends with one’s siblings, but this is by no means a given. Most people I know in the atheist realm left their (intolerant) families long ago and created new ones among close friends with the same mental disposition and mindset.
In any case, again, it was Mike who broke off contact with me the first time. This was in an e-mail in February, 1994 where he bluntly stated he wanted nothing more to do with me, after I felt I had to decode an encrypted letter he sent to me about our brother Johnny – since it contained within it an implicit threat. I accepted his decision just as he now accepts mine, and thought nothing more of it, nor did I lie awake nights fretting.
Then, suddenly, in December last year I hear from him when he is in hyper-Jesus mode out to “save the infidels”. I am now supposed to accept it, and him and relate only on HIS “Jesus saves” level? Er.,….ah, don’t think so!
Dragging in “Satan” and demons is a new low, even for Pastor Mike. Since he refuses to accept I simply don’t like his odious and obnoxious self, the only alternative is to blame a mythical evil being, ‘Satan’. But again – this is soooooo typical of Christers in general who invoke the “Devil made him do it” wherever they can, since they lack the intellectual or emotional resources to process it any other way. Yes, to them "Satan IS real" because they lack the intellectual resources to process any alternative to someone that has the audacity to dismiss their pseudo-reality!
We are then informed by the irrepressible Pastor:
He (satan ) can get into ANYONE !! Additionally , I GENUINELY feel sorry for my brother , as (evidenced by his own words) he obviously has an ' empty and unfullfilled ' life - one that apparently has no meaning , love , goals , dreams , aspirations , etc . . He IS , I'm sorry to say , for all intents and purposes " Dead " !!
Oh, Satan can “get into anyone”! Wow! What a stunning revelation! And does he have proof or psychiatric evidence that another entity is sharing this body with me? No – he simply makes the assertion and expects the brain-jacked to accept it without comment of question.
And he “genuinely feels sorry for me” ….BWAAAHHAAHHHA! Boo hoo hoo and cry me a river.
WHY does he feel sorry for me? Because (in his parlance) I am “empty and unfulfilled”. Obviously because this little Jesus –freak is not in my life pestering me incessantly. Therefore, as we see from this it is HE that is empty and unfulfilled! He has no one to bring to the altar of salvation and proselytize to fulfill his pathetic destiny.
Of course, I am happy and relieved that he has gotten out of all those net scams – like peddling “sure fire gambling tricks for $5” and adult toys and videos- having now found Jesus. I am elated his life has new purpose. But because it does, he has no business dissing others’ lives, especially when he hasn’t kept himself current over 14 years. (If he had he’d note I have published three books in that time, with a fourth nearing completion.) Somehow I do not think this is being ‘useless” and “empty” though I wager it consoles Pastor Mike to believe it.
Not content with his initial chutzpah in relegating me to “uselessness” the sanctimonious sap goes on to relegate me to lacking “meaning, love, dreams,. and being “for all intents dead”.
How nice! Since he can’t have me in any sibling relationship he can control, he kills me off! As for meaning, unlike Mike, I forge and craft my own each day of my life. I do not need an invisible Daddy figure to do it for me, or to make me feel better. Nor do I need the invisible super Daddy for “love” - I have my wife of 32 years for that. As for dreams, of course I dream of attending the next conference of the American Astronomical Society and presenting my next paper there. What is more to dream? Oh, well I can also dream of a projected trip to Alaska (by wifey and me) in two years to see the Northern Lights during the Solar Maximum!
The last part of the Pastor’s lame welcome is the most appalling:
I also have no problem with ANY 'debate ' , ' opposing viewpoints ' , etc . . as long as it's done with a mutual respect of one another , and we can ALWAYS " agree to DISagree".
In fact, Pastor Mike has a serious problem in debating opposing viewpoints. This was in evidence last month when we exchanged (briefly) guest book entries, and even my younger brother Jerry quickly saw he was coming up short of rational answers. His response? He removed all of my comments, arguments – including an article he initially let stand – and merely claimed he was “protecting innocent victims from the demons of deception”
What I do hope is that he eventually draws the courage to put his actions where his digital mouth is – right on this blog, in the “comments” section. Since he will not permit exchange of comments on his site, without “filtering” (read: screening), then I invite him to come here and do it.
I understand two fellow atheists have already sent him the url for this blog via his guest book. (Which he still reads though he only posts entries from “true Christians”).. If he has any cojones he will take up the challenge and be willing to debate and even agree to disagree.
But I believe Mike lost his cojones a long time ago.
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