Very nice. Can I repost this elsewhere?(giving you credit of course)

Wow, that was an emotionally stirring speech

Good point as well, But I think that if he just changed it to mean their belief system... No one (well I guess someone could) blames the fundies now for the past mistakes... but their belief system makes that possiable and even requires violence it in some certain circumstances.

The letter shouldent sound like blaim.... just saying that they have an immoral system... they dont automatically act on it.

I didn't know that much about Galileo so..

But, Ya - that is what I meant... The letter was against the evangelical's mindset and belief system

[quote=BrianTrent]Dear Evangelicals,[/quote]
Dear Fundy Atheist,

I've got some random thoughts for you. I don't feel like addressing all of this.

[quote]I don't mean to pick a fight, but I've had enough of you.[/quote]
Wow. What a contradiction. You're saying you don't want to pick a fight, but open with a very pointed, "fighting words" statement. Way to go.

[quote]But you really crossed the line by calling us "un-American" and "traitors." You should have quit while you were ahead.[/quote]
I most definitely agree, and I will always criticize Christians who do this. It makes me angry, actually.

[quote]You see, your medieval, fundamentalist, evangelical views are a rot in this country as surely as the Taliban was in theirs.[/quote]
Well, that's certainly a loaded comparison. Weren't you saying you didn't want to pick a fight?

[quote]America is [b]not [/b]a Christian country. We were founded on a secular Constitution, and the first [b]ten words [/b]of our Bill of Rights (say it with me - Bill of Rights, not Bill O'Reilly) state that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." But you disrespect both documents.[/quote]
It's also interesting that this was written to protect religion from government, not government from religion.

[quote]You disrespect America's founding fibers. You long for that era of history when religion was unquestionably in charge of every aspect of our lives: The Dark Ages.[/quote]
I'm pretty sure most of them don't, actually. You're resorting to unfounded generalizations.

[quote]You believe in Apocalypse.
We believe in progress.[/quote]
Meh.

[quote]You celebrate disasters and human suffering.
We invent medicines and find rational solutions to the challenges of Earth.[/quote]
Wait, what? Evangelicals celebrate human suffering? Wow...

[quote]You resent independent thought and public education.
We strive to know ourselves and our world, and improve both.[/quote]
Well, I come from an Evangelical family, and I go to public school. Does that make me some kind of freak?

[quote]You say we're "immoral."
I point to the fruits of [b]your [/b]morality: Imprisoning Galileo, slaughtering Hypatia, burning the Great Library, torching Bruno, and giving the world your sense of justice: the Salem witch trials and Torqamada's rack. I point to your Crusades, Inquisitions, and the way, as Mark Twain put it, you took a nation of men and turned us into a nation of worms.[/quote]
Yes, because Evangelical Christians of the past few years, to whom you're addressing this letter, are responsible for a grand total of [i]none[/i] of these.

This is also the Guilt by Association fallacy.

[quote]You are kindred spirits of Islamic terrorists, who will murder in the name of their god. The words of Mullah Mohammed Omar and your own spiritual leaders (Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell in particular) ring the very same notes in the same hateful chorus.[/quote]
Yes, of course. Falwell and Robertson are calling everyone to strap bombs to themselves and blow up innocent civilians...Evangelical Christians totally do this all the time!

[quote]You both thirst for blood and destruction; you both call for the silencing of women, the collapse of liberty, and the rooting out of pluralism with dynamite. The only difference is that the Middle East has no separation of church and state, a goal you seek to attain in America.[/quote]
Vague generalities again.

[quote]You want to base America's moral codes on the Bible, which endorses genocide, slavery, murder, hatred, and savage sword-point intolerance.[/quote]
Soundbites. I really don't feel like going into these again.

[quote]I call you unpatriotic, un-American, traitors not only to this country's core but to our entire species. We progressives, we secularists, we freethinkers are the ones trying to advance civilization. You and your ilk try to keep us chained to the 8th century.[/quote]
Did I read that correctly? Now you're criticizing Evangelicals by the same methods that they used against you, and you despised? Hypocrite.

You're also begging the question of secularism's validity again.

[quote]You want a war, you got one. In case you haven't noticed, a lot of us are no longer biting our tongues when we hear your maniacal Bible-driven vomit.[/quote]

[quote]Welcome to a New Year. Your high priest in the White House isn't too popular anymore.[/quote]
Bush isn't a religious leader, ass.

[quote]Secular voices are cracking into your media fortresses. People are standing up, calling you out, and remembering their history. They're calling you the American Taliban, religious zealots, witch-hunters.[/quote]
Oh, I'm sure they're terrified now.

[quote]I call your evangelical, fundamentalist philosophy the rot of civilization. And I really didn't want to pick a fight.

But you started it.

Brian Trent[/quote]
Wow...You contradicted yourself not once, but [i]twice[/i]. Kudos on that.

Your not atheist? I am guilty of that assumption... ( I just assumed... doesn't bother me but it came off that way in your letter...)

Wait, you are saying that there is a mainstream religious group openly advocating the killing of people who disagree? I need some pretty damn good proof.

The VERY few islamic people who preach violence are in no way mainstream. There are always the wacky few people, but the religion they choose as a guide religion (the one they spin off of) has more to do with their parents religion and indoctrination. People find the excuses that are there, but most people get that killing is bad, religion or no.

More so than christianity?

For real, what you should be worried about more it Scientology. They have killed people when the extortion doesn't work.

You make no sense. If these people want to commit suicide, I will let them. They are improving the gene pool by removing some of the elements too stupid to realize killing yourself is a bad idea. Bottom Line: It is their choice, with no bad long term consequences.

And you don't make sense... these people are free to choose their own destiny... but in polygamy (which the FLDS church is WAY into) people tend to have TONS of children (like 30-40 for one man) - the flds people can kill themselves... but everytime I go to walmart I see a woman with her hairdo in a weird way and about 12 children. When I am talking about mass suicide... I don't mean that everybody gets a choice... children have to drink the coolaid too you know.

[quote]P-Dunn,
I'm not about to get into a flame-war. You disagree, that's your right. Of course, you are wrong in calling me an atheist: I'm not. To disagree with evangelical philosophy doesn't by default make someone an atheist.[/quote]
I'm happy with just discussing your letter, which seemed like it was aimed to start a flame war. It was insulting and had a scalding tone, which is why it seemed hypocritical to me that you said you didn't want a flame war.

Okay, you're not an atheist. What are you?

[quote]We can agree to disagree. I will address some of your points and then let this be:

1. Freethinkers and secularists have been assailed for years now; there is nothing wrong with a little fight-back as Rational Response Squad is doing. I don't want to pick a fight with fundamentalists. Sometimes you have to talk back.[/quote]
Did I ever say there was anything wrong with someone defending their beliefs?

Of course, you have to wonder how "rational" the Squad is when they say that "Jesus never existed," misuse scripture and misinterpret blasphemy in their challenge, and put DVDs in churches.

[quote]2. You wrote: "It's also interesting that this [First Amendment] was written to protect religion from government, not government from religion." Sure, no argument. But that's beside the point, since I was addressing the constant fundamentalist charge that America is a Christian nation founded on allegedly Biblical principles. It's not.[/quote]
It's not beside the point if you're using a Constitution reference that doesn't support your argument to support your argument.

It is true that [i]most[/i] of the Founding Fathers were Christians. It's also true that the Pilgrims came to America for religious freedom from the tyranical church in England. They wanted to practice their branch of Christianity in a place that wasn't affected. I think the case can be made that America was first settled and founded on Christian principles.

[quote]3. About evangelicals and human suffering... I'd like you to see how these kinds of people react whenever there's a tragedy. Remember after 9-11 Falwell and Robertson gleefully pointing fingers at "secular America?" There are also more than a few groups praising disaster as advance-shots of the apocalypse and punishment of those they dislike. [/quote]
Many Evangelicals I know can't stand Falwell and Robertson. They don't represent the large portion of them at all, and shouldn't be given as a great example. Neither should the Phelps's. You're merely resorting to stereotypes.

In fact, my father (an Evangelical Christian) said that, "Every time Robertson opens his mouth, the cause of Christ goes back 50 years."

[quote]4. The same mindset of yesteryear, which gave us the Inquisitions and murders and Crusades, is still present today. It is also advocated among many pro-theocracy groups. You missed my point.[/quote]
Wait, wait. Pro-Theocracy groups desire that we kill people who don't convert? Can you point me to some mission statements that say that, please? I don't take well to assertions.

[quote]5. I don't know if you've read the Bible. I have. Check out Deuteronomy to see how many times the Bible insists that you kill someone if they worship a different god than you do, or if you don't listen to a priest. These aren't soundbytes. They're quite real, and anger me when I hear people claiming we should be following the Bible word-for-word. I'm sure you're not one of those people, but there are more of them than you think.[/quote]
Yes, I've read the Bible...Not the whole thing yet. I've read Deuteromony. I understand that it doesn't apply to me, because it was written as a covenant with very specific people in a highly different social context. When people say we should follow Deuteromony, they don't understand what they're really saying.

[quote]6. Whether or not Bush is a religious leader is a highly debateable point.[/quote]
Bush is a "leader" who happens to be "religious." That doesn't make him a "religious leader." He is not head of any church. He has no seminary training. He is no pastor, and has no qualifications to be one.

[quote]Let me sum up my feelings about religion this way: I have a Hindu friend who believes eating the flesh of cows is sacred. I respect her belief. But if a Hindu administration were elected in this country, I don't want them passing laws based on the Bhagavadgita. There's a secular Constitution to be protected and abided by (it states quite specifically that it is "the supreme law of the land.")[/quote]
I agree.

[quote]I don't expect either of us to convince the other, but it's good that we listened. Real debate isn't about finding cracks in someone's armor, but rather about having dialogue and trying to find common ground.[/quote]

I am pretty sure we are all people. We are much too complex to classify in a single word.

Yeah, but I think that our basic beliefs can be summed up in a single word or two. It takes paragraphs, books, or papers to properly convey our position to people... but many single words do do (haha) a good job

[quote]What do you disagree about? In other words, what fundamental disagreements do you have? Haha... play on words...[/quote]

Hahah, I like your play on words.. *chuckles*

[quote]Bush is a "leader" who happens to be "religious." That doesn't make him a "religious leader." He is not head of any church. He has no seminary training. He is no pastor, and has no qualifications to be one.[/quote]

I think that we had faith based initiatives - and that is a religious action by a leader... (but other than that I know little... so i could be wrong in even bringing this up...)

[quote]Which, I think, raises the question of why people who sit around looking at books that are several thousands of years old are somehow qualified to take a gander at the universe and say "HEY, I figured it out! Ya, you know that book from a REALLY long time ago? Ya, that is it. That right there is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. I give that a 99.9% certainty. No, make that 100%. Final answer." Ya, right...[/quote]

Haha, - we got one up on the Christians in Utah, we got a book that is more like 200 years old and says that our new (but still very very old) prophets can interpret the bible how they want.

I still think those programs are bad, but that is economic, not first- amendment territory for me.

And I think we have one of those things were we are using the same term in two different ways. He is not a leader of a religion ('cept the crazies at Jesus Camp). But he is a leader who is religious.

But I could be wrong.

Best of luck,
Josh