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05/25/2004: "Responding to a Letter From an Atheist"

-----Original Message-----
From: name removed
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 1:57 AM
To: pjconway@realists.org
Subject: RE: What is the difference between Tiananmen Square and The World Trade Center?

patrick, I can no longer go in listening to your falacious reasoning. though I understand that the chinese govenment is a tyranous entity that participates in all manner of in humane acts, your accreditation of this to atheism is a false association. there are many atheists in the world who do not believe that unjust acts against humanity should take place, and just because there are some who do there cannot be a logical connection made between this select group and all other members of the group. for if this were a possibility then all the atrocities committed in the name of god would be immediate condemnation of all believers in god. further this would mean that all germans are anti-Semitic simply because hitler was, a statement which is obviously false. because the chinese government is actively practicing savagery against its people and they are atheist simply does not mean that the cause of the savagery is atheism (instead of say greed or any number of other motives), nor does it mean that atheism will inescapably lead to such savagery.

Response:
The question we must ask is; do fanatics create flawed ideologies or do flawed ideologies give rise to fanatics and violence. Many Nazis did not put Jews in gas chambers; however, once the ideology moved people to commit those atrocities, Nazism must be viewed as a violent ideology that can no longer be tolerated. Christianity burned people alive in the name of God, Judaism's atempt to rebuild and ancient civilization in the modern world brought us war and terrorism, Islam encourages suicide bombers to crash plane-loads of humanity into buildings and atheism killed 30 million people in Europe and 40 million in Asia.

Why is Nazism anathema in our universities, while every child in elementary school is indoctrinated into atheistic evolution, and Christianity, Judaism and Islam are spoon-fed to children in religious schools and services? Please read the link “Darwinian Holocaust” on the website.

further the connection that you draw between tiananmen square and the world trade center (that is the implication that because one act was assumed to be caused by atheism that the other was) is also an obviously false relation. those members of Al-Quida who bombed the world trade center, given that they were really Al-Quida members, were acting under what they believed to be the authority of their god. this was no case of atheism run amuck, it was a religious statement of jihad, a principle found in the koran, which is their holy book that was directly given to Mohammad from allah. to imply that this was a godless act, or rather an act preformed by atheists is an outlandishly false claim that only an uninformed simpleton would accept.

Response

The point I was trying to make is; there is no difference between the atrocities committed by ideologically driven fanatics, be they atheist or religious. The end result is the same – the slaughter of our fellow humans and the deterioration of society.

further I am disgusted at your appeal to the world trade center as a means for pandering your ideologies about atheism. this connection, faulty as it is, is bound to tug at the heart strings of americans and win some sympathy for your point of view based solely on emotional merit not fact. It disappoints me to see someone as seemingly intelligent as yourself be caught up in such falacious argumentation and personal bias as to let it effect your judgment. if in the future you insist upon these fallacious rants I will have to insist that you do not send them to me. I would however like to reiterate that I this response in no way supports what is taking place in china, it simply cannot support tyranous proclivity here either.

Response:

Are those who suffered under the Nazis “pandering” when they ask their fellow humans to prevent that kind of slaughter? We all must point to the wanton slaughter of our fellow humans by ideologues of any stripe, including the atheists.

The ideological crisis in academia can and must be resolved – we need your help to accomplish that noble goal.

Thanks again,
Patrick

Please click on the link "more" below to read the accompanying letter.




-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Conway [mailto:pjconway@realists.org]
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 10:29 AM
To: 'name removed'
Subject: RE: What is the difference between Tiananmen Square and The World Trade Center?

Dear Friend,

Thank you for taking the time to write. Unlike most in atheism and religion you are willing to continue to discuss this critical intellectual crisis.

Atheism and religion have killed hundreds of millions of people, and now the atheists in North Korea and the theists in Iran are threatening to bring weapons of mass destruction to the streets of our cities. This conflict can and must be resolved quickly, not with weapons of war, but with our intellects.

Is there a solution to the clash of ideologies between atheism and religion? The answer is yes; all conflicts can be resolved if the participants will merely be open to the possibility that their position is flawed. We can’t all be right.

If we can solve the mystery of human existence with one definitive and verifiable truth, it will give humanity inner and universal peace and release a surge of progress and prosperity that we cannot now imagine. That is a noble goal, and those who participate in the eventual solution to this crisis will not be forgotten by history.

I am convinced that I have found that solution. I am also convinced that I have only seen the tip of an enormous iceberg of truth. It will take many more minds and years of research, to follow this initial discovery to its logical conclusion. I do not ask anyone to agree, all I ask is that intellectuals read my book and address it on the merits.

Thank you again for your comments; I will respond to them within the text of your letter below.

Ideology free,

Patrick


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