Sunday, April 16, 2000 11:08 PM
From: JamminJamin
I find your site interesting. Yes I am a Christian and no I'm e-mailing you to persuade to you anything. Sorry I'm not a scholar or pastor or missionary, infact I'm still in college. Yes I will pray for you and no that will not be a waist of time for me to do that. (Speaking from personal experience.)
You have such a pashion on ripping (or should I say exploiting) on something many people hold spiritual and true. It's in a sense, uncovering a conspiracy theory. It can be very intrigueing in a human being.
I don't doubt your knowledge on Hebrew and Greek etc. I'm glad you took the liberty on teaching yourself those ancient forms of communication. One day, maybe I'll learn them.
You are a very intelligent man; you roll your eyes to any form of Christianity and faith and are probably wandering why many people are so stupid to believe these things and waiste their time on them. That's why scientists etc. lose their intelligence when they are Christian (how you say).
Yes I know you are probably well adversed in science and other technical aspects of the world. To me, science and math are just discoveries of how God (sorry I capitalized the "G" in God, you'll just have to bear with it.) created this world.
It has to be exciting for you find mistakes and contradictions in the Bible! And I'm sure you're thirsting for more. You are very proud of your differences and you will stand firm to the death for them. You've made that point abundantly clear.
You attack what you cannot see. You need some kind of physical (wether touch, smell, hearing, seeing, tasting) experience for you to believe that God exists. To let you know, you're not going to get it. Personally, I've experienced unusual things in my short life. Not everyone gets those experiences. And I'm not going to tell you what they are because I know it would be a big waiste of typing. But it happens everyday believe it or not. Many will consider them coinsidences or try to tag them with some scientificul reasoning. No I'm not attacking science. I find science facsinating! It explains the world better. Humans have that drive for discovery and goals.
You were born probably in a non-Christian family or maybe were but rebelled against church, I don't know. Parents have a huge influence in children. That's why poeple believe in Buddhism, Judaism, etc. (Why do you think the Bible has so many translations.) If you were born in a "strong" Christian family, you will not be having this fun little website you have today. If I didn't have such a good family I would probably be in a world of the "worldy".
You are a kind and friendly man. No I don't hate you. (I personally don't like using that word.) I'm not going to scream in your face telling you that you're going to hell or all of what people have told you. You can argue and contradict til' you're blue in the face to me but I will remain faithful.
You do not believe what lies beyond this physical world everyday! I wish you wouldn't be so stubborn on your faith against the Bible. You do not believe what you are missing of what goes on in this world more than science specifies.
Believe it or not, you think the way I do (not believe the way I do.) I hope you are having fun ripping on people in their faith. Your pride is beginning to get the best of you though. And it shows on your website.
You are probably the type of person who believes in himself. I know many people like that. Alot of the things on your website is written in frustration and anger towards people who are against you. I know how that feels. And you feel proud in detecting their weak points like their lack of knowledge in Greek and Hebrew etc.
I'm glad this topic is giving you a good reason in life. Humans thrive on confrontations and debates.
Sorry if this e-mail makes no point or that some of the things I say are obvious. I'm not attacking your faith directly or attacking you. I'm just trying to understand you.
I'm sorry if you've heard these things from other people before and I know you probably won't give much thought to this e-mail so I'm not expecting one back from you. (Which is good because I don't have the time to get pointlessly ripped on if that would be your intention of responding.)
Maybe on one of your debates against a Christian you should have the Christian against the Bible and you for the Bible. Just see how much your train of thinking will have to shift for you to make your arguements. You may find it quite interesting and difficult for the both of you.
Anyhoo, enough blabbering. If you've read this far I will be amazed.
You take care of yourself. Have fun in your arguements for that is probably one of the major "joys" in your life.
Yes, "God Bless" you (Sorry if that statement offends you.) I will be praying for like I said. I'm sorry that in your view, when you die, that will be it and all this argueing will be pointless so please enjoy as much physical life as you can here on earth, for it will never come again. I am priviledged to type to someone of your stature. Christians would like to have people like you, but that will never happen of course.
Since I won't be hearing from you, please recite in your mind good ol' John 3:16. For if you ever want to think about being Christian, that is the sole verse we hold dear and sets us apart from everyone
else.. . . . . . . . . .ooooh! you don't know what you are missing! Something science and philosiphy and theology and math etc. can't explain . . . . okay, enough of that . . . . . .take care Mr. Gibson.
Hello JamminJamin,
Thank you for writing in. It is good that you are in college and I hope that your studies are going well and you are getting from them what you hoped for.
My passion is not for ripping or exploiting anything. My passion is for sharing the other side of the story of which there has historically only been one side told. I believe that the side that I am sharing is the truth whereas the lies and deception that have been propagated by organized Christianity have had plenty of airtime. While others have come before me who have shared this truth and certainly others will follow, I feel that it is important to do my part.
In fact, it is not exciting for me to find errors and contradictions in the Bible. It is more like additional confirmation for the position that has been shored up through my studies these past four years.
You see, I didn't approach the Bible with the intention of finding mistakes. I approached the Bible with the hope that it would give me some sort of direction in my meandering life. Instead, I found a book which could not keep its story straight. Read in context, the contradictions leapt out at me and gave me reason to doubt what I had always been told about the book. Reading further in the Bible only confirmed these doubts and made me into a non-believer. I truly believe that anyone who takes the time to read the entire Bible without a specific, fixed position in advance - that is, they read it with their mind open to ANY possibility - will come to the same or similar conclusions.
I am neither going to confirm nor deny your speculation about me. Suffice it to say that on some you were correct and on some you weren't. If the subject of my website was Sam Gibson, this would be a valid topic for us to discuss. As the subject of the site is the Bible, I will stick to that topic.
I find nothing in the rest of your e-mail to comment on, save for the paragraph about John 3:16. It seems to me that you are taking an overly-narrow view of Christianity. There are literally thousands of sects of Christianity in America alone. To think that one verse groups them all together is not really considering what makes them all separate from each other. I would suggest getting past the superficial understanding of Christianity that you seem to have and find out about the vast differences in beliefs from one sect to another. You might just be amazed.
Thanks,
Cygnus