The Atheist Blogger

I get email all the time through my contact form, but I rarely get actual physical mail. The rare exceptions are when people send me their books to read. Today though, I received a letter:

A letter from afar

The “AAA” stands for “Atheist & Agnostic Alliance”, and that is my address, which I released in my post “Edging Further Away From The Closet“. The post mark says “LONG BEACH CA 908″, and there are two “USA FIRST-CLASS FOREVER” stamps on it.

What was inside was even stranger. No contact information or anything to hint to a sender; just two pages of 18 bullet points:

1. Day and night was created on day 1 – impossible since the sun was not created until the fourth day.
2. The first woman was created twice: first time on the sixth day (in God’s image) and sometime after the seventh day using one of Adam’s ribs.
3. Since Adam came into existence on the sixth day, how could he or anyone know what happen on the prior five days, and in what sequence, and how long it took?
4. Since Adam and Eve did not die after eating the forbidden fruit, God is a proven liar. If God should speaking to you, be skeptical.
5. The flood story does not make any sense for many reasons. One is that the amount of water would have to be four to five times that which presently exists on earth. Another is that the floods would have destroyed all ice and glaciers, since ice/snow will float on water. From ice core samples (using a tree ring type dating), ice has existed intact in Greenland and Antarctica for over 110,000 years – not the 4000 years B.C estimated from the Bible. Another reason is that water of a depth of five or so miles would have killed off all vegetation so that the released animal would have nothing to east except each other.
   Since the flood story is so obviously fiction, this implies that all stories (Genesis) earlier than the flood are also myths.
6. The anti-abortionists are fond of quoting “Thy shall not kill”. However, with the flood, God committed mass murder by drowning everyone except for eight Jews. The religious do not seem have a problem with these horrendous murders.
7. If the population started with eight Jews after the flood,how did the world create the large variations such as Eskimos, Australian Aborigines, Navajos, African Pygmies (under 5 foot), Tutsi (often 7 foot), etc. unless by evolution.
8. Matthew and Luke listed absolutely totally different genealogy for Joseph starting with King David. One or both must be in error.
9. After birth, Matthew says that the family went southwest to Egypt. However, Luke says the family went north to Nazareth; one or both is lying.
10. Three Magi (eastern so called wise men) went to Jesus’ birthplace. They got lost and first went to Jerusalem. Although the distance between Jerusalem and Bethlehem is only about five miles, they went to the head ruler, Herod, to ask for directions. All they really had to do was ask anyone in town. In addition, the needed a star to show the way, for five miles, barf. Any star will be about the same size as our sun, roughly a million miles in diameter, as well as very hot. Changing the star position from east to south of something that size is ridiculous. Also, something of that size could not pinpoint the manger. Placing a star close to earth would have incinerated earth.
11. Luke misstates the year of Jesus’ birth as being in the reign of Herod. Herod died in 4 B.C, whereas Jesus is believe to have been born in 4 A.D.
12. John says that Jesus was crucified the day before the Passover meal, whereas Mark says that Jesus was crucified the day after the Passover meal.
13. The Bible says absolutely nothing about abortion. The following is taken from one of Sam Harris’ books. It is estimated that 50% of all human conceptions end in spontaneous abortion, usually without the woman even realizing she is pregnant. In fact, 20% of all recognized pregnancies end in miscarriages. If God exist, he is the most prolific abortionist of all.
14. The religious believe in “Intelligent Design” and are opposed to evolution. However, “Intelligent Design” would more accurately be described as “Deeply Flawed Design”. Human variations include cancer, blue babies, cleft lips, Down’s syndrome, appendicitis, allergies and allergic reactions, color blindness, seizures, polio, leprosy, leukemia, insanity, autism, etc, etc. Why would a perfectionist God take credit for these? Various individual groups of people are resistant to malaria, smallpox (which wiped out many American tribes), and tolerant of dairy products. The protection usually occurred because some of their ancestors survived these conditions, which is basic evolution. We are probably are very fortunate that there are flaws. with the millions* of animal species that have occurred over millions of years, we are one of them. [*Perhaps up to 100 million or more.] This brings up a question. It has been estimayed that 99% of the species are extince. If God is so intelligent, why the destruction of so many species?
15. The Jews were slaves to the Egyptians and Babylonians for hundreds of years. Many of the Bible stories are taken/plagiarized from the myths of these two people and surrounding communities.
16. If God ever existed, then God must have been around just prior to the “Big Bang”, some 13 billions years ago. Since the conditions immediate after the explosion were gaseous, then God was surely destroyed. Why be concern about a dead God?
17. Why would a God create dinosaurs and then kill them all off? Not a very bright move.
18. The Bible allows slavery, multiple wives, murder (of unbelievers) and the father to sell his daughters into prostitution.

Not entirely sure what to make of this. Some of the points are good, others are quite petty, and some are just plain silly (16???). So thanks for your efforts random stranger. If you feel like revealing your identity then please do, and in future if you want something posted on the blog, you could try contacting me online and save the postage costs (especially if it is just a few pages).

Not that I mind getting mail that is :D