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Hey Bob,
I've started a fun series of experiments using those
little cut and fold pamphlets of yours. I thought you'd get
a kick out of it. Here are the links to what I've done so far:
An
Atheist Pamphlet Experiment
Fri, Apr. 16th, 2004, 12:58 pm.
I decided
to do some laundry and I discovered that there are those Awake! and
Watchtower magazines (which are published and distributed by Jehovah's
Witnesses) in our community laundry room.
| I've
seen them there before, and I leave them alone even though it
pisses me off. |
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I'm sure
this statement won't make me popular with some people, but I honestly
think that joining a Jehovah's Witness church is as dangerous as
joining most cults out there. I don't say this because I think they're
"weird" (though it is weird that a JW is supposed refuse blood transfusions
on a religious basis, even on the edge of death), but because I've
known a couple people who were Jehovah's Witnesses and I feared
for them. One of them even attempted suicide when he suspected he
might be gay, because of how drastically extreme the JW ideals are.
And I know at least one person who was raised JW and she thinks
of it as a cult now. So this is part of why, today, I started to
throw these in the trash then stopped because of the following two
thoughts:
#1: These
might belong to someone. Maybe they keep them here so they can read
when they come out to do laundry.
#2: Even though they're screwed up, they have a right to publish
this stuff, and I guess it's legal to leave it in public places....
but wait, that means I can do the same.
Thus
begins the Atheist Pamphlet Experiment.
I decided
that if they get to spread their extremist views, I would spread the
other extremist view: that there's no God at all. I never ever ever
tell people what they should and shouldn't believe, but I thought
both views needed to be represented here. So I simply placed them
with the JW magazines, as seen here:
12:00 noon, April 1, 2004.
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How long
will these atheist pamphlets last in the bible belt????
You can
see the pamphlets in detail here, I used the first two.
So, the
point of this? Really, my own amusement. I'm curious to see how
long they'll last. This is, after all, the freaking bible belt.
I'm guessing they'll be torn up and in the trash by tomorrow. There's
no way they'll last through the usual evening laundry hours tonight.
I'm thinking
I should start doing such experiments in general. I think it would
be highly amusing to document. And I'm sure Normal Bob would get
a kick out of it, too.
Atheist
Pamphlet Experiment Results
Sat, Apr. 17th, 2004, 02:59 am
I should
so be in bed right now, but I realized that I was already being
bad about documenting The Pamphlet Experiment (if you've not seen
that, click that link to see what I'm talking about before reading
on), so here's my update.
I should
have checked on the pamphlets at 5 or so (before leaving to hang
with Jen then David), but I didn't. *hangs head in shame* But I
did return with my camera at 2:20am, not too terribly long after
getting home.
The evidence:
2:20am April 17, 2004 |
The atheist
pamphlets are gone. The Jehovah's Witness magazines remain otherwise
untouched.
I
could see no trace of the pamphlets on the floor, in the trash (but
I didn't dig through it, though there was clearly new trash in there),
or outside the little window.
Findings:
Inconclusive
The life
of these pamphlets could have been anywhere between 2 hours and
14 hours. Bad me for not keeping closer track!
The pamphlets
may have been in the trash, in someone's home trash, or in the pocket
of someone who found them amusing. I'm leaning toward them being
in a trash can somewhere. But I did feel pleased that the JW magazines
were clearly untouched.
And then
I wondered what the next step should be. Should I try the exact
same experiment it again? I decided that if the results were identical,
I'd be let down (damn, I'd make a really crappy scientist). But
those magazines were staring me down.....
So here's
where they are now:
2:25am April 17, 2004 |
Yes, they
are in my kitchen trash.
So
sue me, I trashed them. I honestly worry about preteens picking
up those magazines and becoming inspired to join JW. Christ, why
not leave magazines promoting a new Jones Town style cult so they'll
grow up to kill themselves with koolaid? If kids find God, that's
great, I'd just rather they do it in a church that doesn't preach
that something like a freaking blood transfusion is wrong in the
eyes of God.
And it's
not like there won't be another Watchtower and another Awake! in
there next month.
Atheist
Pamphlet Experiment #2
Click here
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| “In
case you had not yet realised... Allow me to qualifiy...
do you only publish e-mails in your hate-mail which are
comically stupid?... I suppose that I shall know the answer
to that question by checking your hate-mail section for
a copy of this e-mail.” |
Subject:
What purpose does your site serve? (Hatemail?)
Normal
Bob,
I recently
found your site whilst looking through a message board that
I frequent, and I must say I found it somewhat disturbing
on two counts- the first being the stupidity and immaturity
in the e-mails which people have sent you, and which you have
published in your hate mail archive; the second being the
irrelevance of your site to the actual issue of the existance
of God.
In case
you had not yet realised, I am a Christian. Allow me to qualifiy:
I was born and brought up as a Protestant, but I realised
that there is much criticism, amongst Believers and Non-Believers
both, that one's beliefs are based solely on one's up-bringing,
and so I took it upon myself to review both sides of the argument,
and then draw a conclusion. Not that that matters really,
I just wanted to show that I'm not one of these "OMGWTF j00
MADE TEH BAED DRESS-UP! j00r GO TO H3LL!11!" people who so
often seem to show up in your hatemail. This brings up a point:
do you only publish e-mails in your hate-mail which are comically
stupid, or any which disagree with you? I hope the latter,
since otherwise you are totally misrepresenting a religion
and deceiving fans and customers. I suppose that I shall know
the answer to that question by checking your hate-mail section
for a copy of this e-mail.
Anyway,
the real point which I wanted to make by sending this e-mail
was that your site seems to lack any real fact or argument
on the on-going debate, surely your obvious artistic talent
(and apparent abundance of free time) could better be spent
producing and publishing some actual arguments, or reasons
which, in your eyes, Christianity must be wrong. If you don't,
then there is no way that anybody can counter, or present
their side, and therefore the only time of communication is
in the form of people calling you a blasphemer or telling
you that you're going to hell. Since you obviously are knowledgable
about the subject (I note, for example, your capitalisation
of the H in Him, His, He, etc. when referring to the Lord,
as is proper), and also have strong views on the subject,
wouldn't it be much better for your site to have content on
the ongoing debate? Actual e-mails pertaining to the matter
could be published, you could put your side in the hope of
backup or intelligent response, open forum debates could be
held, etc. Right now, all your site is now is an advertisement
for some fridge magnets designed to piss people off, which
seems a waste in the extreme. I can't actually see the reason
for this, the only causes I can think of are laziness or fear
that Christianity would come out better in a debate, but since
you obviously put a large amount of work into your site the
first seems unlikely, and as you are so certain in your stance,
the latter seems unlikely to.
What
it is really imporant to remember is that not everything in
the Old Testament is to be taken literally. Most of your fun-poking
which actually has some grounds in the religion is based on
the Scriptures, or a view of Hell and eternal life which has
stemmed from them, when in reality very few Chrisitans believe
100% in the Old Testament, especially since Our Saviour, Jesus
Christ, told us that many of these laws are not what paramount,
but the Love of the Lord. I needn't go on, you know this as
well as I.
In closing,
I hope very much that you will consider what I have said,
I really can't understand your stance or the course you have
taken with your site, but I certainly hope to hear from you,
and also I look forward to seeing this in your Hate Mail section
(hint hint).
For now,
A. Crowley
just_dig@hotmail.com
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To the distinguished
and respectable A. Crowley,
I hasten to direct
immediate acknowledgment of your, how shall we say, highly
literate correspondence you so recently put forth to my Inbox.
Your chastening critique, whilst impressively observant, struck
me also as subtly overt.
In case you had
not yet realized that which I put forth to you now, I am hardly
one who heeds a letter such as yours and holds it in terribly
high regard. The elementary usage of haughty Jedi Master verbiage
scattered throughout those misspelled run-on sentences leaves
a reader (like myself) only to contemplate the overall intelligence
of its author, perhaps even leaving one to wonder if the soapboxer
could indeed be even lesser on the food chain than one of
his aforementioned hate mail disappointments.
In closing, I'd
like to assure you that I will take great joy in posting more
emails like the one you have bestowed upon me and I most sincerely
want to extend the hand of gratitude to you and your professors
for the honor of responding to this eloquent manifesto.
For now and for
truly,
B. Smith, Esquire
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| “records
of Jesus' death show that the curtain at the temple did
indeed split, and that he did indeed rise after being
crusified.” |
Well, that was...
different. Forgive me for writing an e-mail at 1.00 in the
morning, it probably didn't help. But really, what reason
do you have not to believe in God? He's the only real way
in which we could have been created (seriously, evolution?
I haven't yet found a valid explanation of how, say, a heart
is useful without veins, or visa-versa; and, if it isn't,
how they both evolved at the same time), records of Jesus'
death show that the curtain at the temple did indeed split,
and that he did indeed rise after being crusified. What about
the creation of the universe? If there was only a vacuum,
then what caused the Big Bang, and how did it come about when
there's no time in a vacuum. If there was some gas or substance
which eventually caused the Big Bang, where did that come
from? It can't have just "always been there", because if it
had, then it would have been waiting an infinitely long time
to finally explode, and surely for it to explode, a certain
chain of events would have had to have happened, and this
chain would have had a finite probability, and therefore would
have taken a finite amount of time to happen... therefore
it can't have been around for an infinite amount of time.
So there, evidence
(I won't use the word "proof") for the existence of God...
now give me some evidence why he doesn't exist, or tell me
what's wrong with the above arguments. And, no, I don't mean
a few inaccuracies in the Bible (especially the Old Testament),
since the chances are very high that it would not have been
written down completely accurately anyway, and unless you
own the original and speak fluent Hebrew, many inaccuracies
you know about may well be errors in translation.
For now,
Anthony Crowley
just_dig@hotmail.com
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Anthony, your brain
seems to be trying to function but it isn't doing a very good
job of it.
Your arguments
and theories are virtually nonsensical. Is your first proposal
suggesting that there's no way the heart and its veins could
have evolved in conjunction with each other? Really, I have
no idea where you're going with this. I think the reason you
have yet to hear an explanation for this puzzle is because
you don't seem to be able to digest the simplest of concepts.
Evolution isn't
something that happens separate from outside influences (a
lone heart evolving separately from its components). It happens
in cooperation with everything else. Living things
evolve because of their surroundings, their prey and their
predators, their desperate need to survive and the demands
placed upon them. And not everything evolves at the same rate,
or even succeeds in evolving at all! Gasp!
Did you know that
there are many creatures that've failed at evolving? Do you
know what happened to them? They died! They became extinct
species with hearts and veins that did not function properly,
or they had a food source that ran out or a system that could
no longer adapt. Some of them never even evolved into existence
to begin with! But cheer up Anthony because there were other
creatures that did evolve and they became a little bit stronger
and a little bit smarter thus increasing the odds that they
would continue to survive. Please tell me what it is that
you do not understand about this.
Records of Jesus'
death? What the hell are you talking about?!? Is there some
notarized coroners report that's been unearthed from some
2,000 year old time capsule? Please tell me that these "records"
aren't bible passages. How disappointed I shall be if this
is what you're referencing as evidence.
How can something
happen inside of a vacuum when there is no time in a vacuum?
My god, was it 3AM when you wrote this second letter? Anthony,
ANYTHING can occur when time is no longer a factor! That means
you've got an infinite window of opportunity waiting for something
to happen, and when it does (and I assure you that in eternity
something will eventually happen) the chances that another
happenstance will follow is 100%! There's no stopping it at
that point. It is inevitable, thus a beginning to the evolutionary
chain.
As for where did
it all come from? What chain of events occurred to begin it
all? I suppose that the same question could be asked of you
as well. My feeling is that there's a greater chance of an
eternal lifeless universe than an eternal living being. Then
there's the fact that the only evidence of this eternal living
being is from our imaginations. It leaves little reason to
lean towards the wishful thinking heavenly wonderland for
all who believe and a loving presence encapsulating the universe
who watches over us all. There just isn't the kind of evidence
that stands up in a science lab to support this world of make-believe.
Anthony, when you
actually begin to study evolution you then begin to understand
how life works. Things can be explained and there's much to
be gained from understanding the basic rules of life. It's
almost as elementary as accepting the fact that we pass down
our traits to our children, and then they do the same with
theirs. Life evolves for better or for worse. The God-created-it-that-way
explanation encourages very little research and basically
presents itself as explanation enough so stop trying to figure
it out. This is why opting for Creation is a cop-out.
You've actually
made some noticeable progress since that amateurish Old English
manner of speakage you were trying to shovel out before. I
can only hope that there's the same amount of progress in
your rationale as well.
Bob
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