Deconversion stories from Biblical Errancy
ERB
Letter #800 from ERB of Illinois
I'm writing to thank you for the enormous research effort and scholarship that you put into your book, "The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy!" I read the work from cover to cover, more like I would a novel, than the way I usually utilize books that I purchase as reference materials.... It was that captivating to me! You are to be congratulated on creating such a well-organized and useful tool for us free-thinkers to use in our discussions with the zealots who confront us at work and play to spread their narrow and one-dimensional views! Thank you so very much. Your book made me aware of other valuable resources, such as Gerald Sigal's "The Jew and the Christian Missionary," which I also studied and enjoyed.... Are you still available to do radio talk shows as a telephone guest? If so, I would like to arrange for you to be heard on the radio station that I work for! WJBC-AM is the top-rated station here in our community and, while I am not personally on the air much anymore, I am quite sure that our 9 a.m. to Noon host, on weekdays....or our 6 a.m. to Noon host on Sunday mornings would be happy to interview you on-the-air in whatever style you might prefer.... At the very least, I could deliver you a huge radio audience for the promotion of your book and the information it contains.... It is something few of us in this very conservative Judeo-Christian fundamentalist Midwestern community have ever had the chance to hear! I was raised in the Church of Christ, but was never the blindly accepting child my parents wanted me to be! Every time I questioned anything about "God" or "the Bible," I was immediately chastised and instructed to accept everything as truth or face eternal damnation in "Hell"!
Don't misunderstand me. My parents were wonderful people and I had a good childhood for the most part,but their religious views created a horrible fear of death in me that spoiled many years of my being able to just enjoy all the wonders and pleasures of life! I am 51 and only in the past several years have I been able to separate myself from their indoctrination, develop my own beliefs, and begin to live life as I wanted. Your book helped me do that!... I can't accept the masculine Jewish God of the Old Testament who supposedly fathered the "messiah," Jesus, with his earthly bride...nor can I accept the trinity, or any of that. I see "Mother Nature" in the beauty of a flower, for instance, but I also appreciate the abilities and talents of mortal men in their designs for automobiles and buildings, and all they have been able to accomplish in medicine, computers, communications, and science, using only the raw materials that have existed since whatever caused this universe to come into existence....
As for the afterlife, I am simply not going to worry about it any more! I really enjoyed your thoughts in this regard.... Would it really be "heaven" if I had to spend it with a bunch of people I couldn't spend 5 minutes with, let alone eternity? Do we escape death and enjoy eternal life by faith, grace, works, a combination of the three, or none of the above? I don't know and no longer care! All I really know for certain, is that my (expletive deleted--Ed.) detector has been buzzing at full volume for many years in regard to the "bible," and now I have a better understanding of "why." The "God" of the "bible" is a creation of man, not vice versa.... I would gladly work to further disseminate information of the type I discovered through your efforts. Too many have been, and continue to be, misled for too long.
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