Thanks for the kind words Lowell!

I'm glad you realized that the best beliefs (or non-belief in my case) are the examined ones.

I agree with you about the bad Christian music part. I've often wondered why Christians, who supposedly have god on their side, make the most mediocre works of music and art. (With a few expectations such as Bach). Today, Christians tend to be the followers. I think it has something to do with how Christians devalue themselves as humans. Christian art in Europe largely sucked until the Renaissance, which was a humanist movement.

That almost brought a tear to my eye.   Really, that was considerate.

I am a christian and personally I love questioning my faith. I have found many flaws within the church because of it and have left a number of them due to this. Many christians do feel the same. I know it is different in the US than here in the UK but I feel that a large number of young christians are questioning their faith more, and I think it is great that this is being brought on by organisations like the RRS. I will be commenting on these boards because I do so enjoy questioning myself!

God Bless
Ben Martin

Maybe it is that I am tired and ready to go home from work and thus I am more irritable than usual. Nonetheless, my instincts at the moment are to say that this olive branch is really a line of BS, just as much as someone reading us hapless atheists the rapture riot act for our beliefs would be.

In fact, the tenor these days with many Christians posting on the net seems to be either hyperbolic condemnations or entirely prostrate platitudes such as “you’re really doing a good thing getting people to think about their faith.”

When someone says something like this, especially without explicating what it is “we” do, I can’t escape the feeling that what this person is doing is playing the creationist trump card with a twist. If creationism can be seen existing in cohort style with science then the stalemate (however untenable it is in reality) is enough for many faithful to assume creation and their mythologies are fact. One need only feign enough respect for science, pretend to understand its implications, and then pepper what is understood with a “god of the gaps” scenario and one is good to believe in apparent "intellectual" peace.  

In a similar way, if a Christian disturbed by reams of rational evidence against his belief system can assert a soft spot for philosophy and rational thought without having to delve too deeply into the pesky specifics of these ideas on his faith, well then he can be applauded by us heathens and continue believing as he does.

This guy’s e-mail is the antithesis of what Dawkins discusses in the God Delusion, the perennial “I’m an atheist but” misnomer. It reads like “I’m a Christian but still hold logic and reason to be important.” I’m sorry, but this rings hollow for the juxtaposition and the ignored implications, just as much as the statements from a creationist applauding real scientists for the work they do would be.

Where it is true that a Christian can display logic in isolated ways in everyday life (just as anyone can), I’ve yet to meet one who can significantly handle the philosophical pitfalls that are attached to any of the tenets they choose to believe in.

This e-mail rings of a person who knows his faith is on shaky ground and it spanks of the same intellectual bankruptcy that leads others to chastise our existence in black and white terms. The only thing that is different is the approach. Kill them with kindness, some say. Is this an example of that worldview?

It’s possible this will be perceived as an attack on a person who needs time to find his way in the world. That might be a fair critique. I can’t decide that for sure. At the same time, I think the person who wrote this e-mail needs to hear someone say “put up or shut up” when it comes to his penchant for logical thinking. He wants Christians to do what “we” do only for Christ. Well, he’s a Christian, isn’t he?

Instead of masking displeasure with your faith in thinly disguised barbs against Christian music, why not apply some of that logic you claim to admire to something a bit more germane to the topic?

Cheers!

This email is fake.

Care to back up that assertion?

Dadvocate, please remove the broomstick from your buttocks.

apologies, apologies, I should have put it in a more well thought out manner. I'll restate, Dadvocate, I think you may be reading too far inbetween the lines of the email. It didn't seem to me that the mailer was mocking the site or trying to degrade the rrs. Perhaps you are just burnt out on fundamentalists coming here and trying to break your balls with the same trite, poorly thought out arguments.

 Feel free to delete the offending post if you so choose.   

How nice. A christian that actually endorses what we do! well, maybe not that far, but still.

However, as a realist, i frankly cannot trust him. I know, its not good to say that, but still. Its people like these, where you cannot view where their motivation is coming from, that you have to be the most careful of. I mean, atleast a christian who is bashing you, gets his motives from the bible, which are obviously identifiable. Yet this person...

Well, all i can say, is good job. Though your christian friends might frown upon you, we will always applaud. Perhaps you will be the first of many of your kin to change christianity for the better.  

Hi, I think its been a year and a half since I first posted that letter to RRS. I first heard about RRS from my friend Daniel from Taft who added RRS to his myspace. I’m originally from California but moved to Joplin, Missouri for 3 years while attended Messenger College. Which is the Christian school where I attended.

To let everyone else know my letter was real and the intent was sincere. I definitely don’t want to give to much information on a forum board to protect myself. But, the information I will give is that I attended first Taft College a community school and then I attended Messenger College. I majored in Global Missions and received Bachelor of Arts in that field. I no longer use my messenger email. My myspace is

www.myspace.com/lowellator I hope all of that is sufficient amount of evidence. I, for the most part adhere to orthodox christian doctrines. Although I’m more in the line of thinking of men like N.T. Wright and Rob Bell. I would like to say that the church might look at me like The Republican Party looks at Ron Paul. Although I’m no where as brilliant as Mr.Paul. Although I’m not 100% on everything they say. The last email I sent was not some sort of creationist trump card. You can’t say I’m a creationist the same way I can’t put a label on anyone on this website. For instance I can’t say everyone on this website all used to be Christians until they were spurned by someone in the church. So anyways that letter was purely out of good attentions. I’m not some sort of double agent from the church sent to convert the heathens at RRS to Christians.

The reason I wrote it was because at Messenger College they were thinking about posting some sort of response against the you tube challenge of committing the unforgivable sin. When I caught wind of what people were planning I told them to do nothing. That any response would only feed the resentment or just garner more tension between Christians and Atheist. I read some of the post from Christians on this website and I felt sick. I just thought there needed to be a genuine apology from a Christian. I’m not trying to say I got God all figured out. I’m not even say if my first email (this being my second) was necessary or if it was my place to do so. Oh yeah to get back to my school responding. So in the long run we didn’t respond. I wrote the email independently and doesn’t represent the views of messenger college.

So anyways God Bless and Ciao

seems to me like the guy just wanted to give a compliment.  the polite thing to do would be to say "thank you" or not say anything.