My letter to Ev

Here's the letter I just mailed back to Ev Cherrington. I believe the phrase you will be searching for is "fish in a barrel," but sometimes it matters a lot to state the obvious.
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Mr. Everett Cherrington:

Thanks very much for your letter and comments. I can't say I appreciated them, but it certainly gave me a lot to think about. I would like to address some of the points you made, beginning with the pamphlet you gave me from the "ex-gay" organization Exodus International.

The central point I was trying to make in my editorial was that I think it is an absolutely worthless endeavor to form an argument based on what I and many people believe to be a work of fiction. We could go on all day talking about what could possibly be true and what isn't true in the Bible, but in the end it carries no moral or intellectual truths in it that I couldn't otherwise either reject or come up with myself. That's why I complain when people like Eric Chamberlin use scripture in order to prove any point: it is simply not possible, scientifically, to prove that the Bible is inerrant, but there is plenty of proof to the contrary.

The pamphlet entitled "What the Bible Says About Homosexuality," in this regard, is an absolutely disgusting and misleading piece of Christian propaganda, and I would suggest you actually try to seek out and talk to gay people in the community that do not see a need to become born-again and are happy the way they are. I know you are trying to argue that it is essentially a humanist position to want to "save" gay people rather than kill them like the Nazis did, but in my mind, a life of forced, unreasonable shame can be a fate worse than death. The fundamentalist Christian position that homosexuality is somehow a "choice" has been proven demonstrably false, and the fact that you still claim it as fact merely paints Christianity as a cultish philosophy utterly opposed to new ideas or ways of thinking. But then again, isn't that all religion, at its core?

The pamphlet bewilderingly states that members of the gay community are, "aggressively pushing for acceptance of their lifestyle." Oh, how awful that must be, the fact that they don't want to be discriminated against and they want the same rights as everyone else. Quite an agenda. It's the same agenda that Jews had in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s and yes, the same agenda that Christians had during the days of the Roman empire, when they were being fed to the lions for professing their beliefs. And yet somehow you have come to believe that your beliefs trump all others, and that it is right that certain people should be discriminated against, as long as it's not you. Some would say there is a thin line between your way of thinking and hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan; I say that line is nonexistent. It's hate, pure and simple.

You also said in your letter something that I've heard many Christians argue when I bring up the point of how simply barbaric and amoral a lot of the Bible is: you say, "the standards were high and God desired for people to obey; children to obey their parents [...] but Jesus came to die for our sins in abolishing the law. Many other commands in the [Old Testament] are not followed in modern times as they are no longer applicable." Presumably, you are referring to my aside that Deuteronomy 21:18-21 demands that disobedient children be stoned to death. To you, Jesus' sacrifice made it so that this portion of the Bible is no longer relevant. I don't know how one goes about cherry picking which parts of the Bible are still relevant and which aren't, but I know that many people have very differing opinions, and these differing opinions lead to wars and death. I tend to view death and murder as morally abhorrent, but I guess you don't as long as it's on the cause of "righteousness," whatever that means.

I have carefully considered everything you have said to me and I reject all of it, happily and wholeheartedly. I feel I am a better person for not believing the dangerous and divisive aspects of the Bible, or the Quran or anything else. As such, I can live my whole life without feeling guilty or shameful because I am afraid of some invisible, petty deity is judging me, and I can be open to new ideas, new ways of thinking, new people and new activities. But it's not enough that merely I think this way, and that's why I wrote a letter to the Tribune. I believe the Bible has been a horrible impediment of world civilization and I am prepared to argue this with anyone. That doesn't mean that I hate anyone who professes a religious view, and it never did. In fact, many of the people I love the most are religious for different reasons, and many of the things I love about those people stem from their religion. However, this is not about them, this is about people like you who choose to justify hate and bigotry under the guise of religion.

I hereby extend an offer to a debate, whether in a public or private forum, so I can perhaps communicate these grievances and maybe even ask you a few further questions. In any case, feel free to write back, but please don't bother arguing with me unless you want to use logical arguments based on reasoning and observation. Otherwise I'm just not going to be very receptive.

Sincerely,
Nathan Sacks