From Freethought Firefighters International:

Life does matter and I think everyone, even the most devout Christians, realize this in spite of the rhetoric they get from the church.  I think people are not nearly so confident in their hoped for dreams of immortality in a pie-in-the-sky afterlife.  I think this life is very important to people, and that is why they do everything they can to extend it as long as possible, but recognizing the inevitable, they convince themselves that this life is not all that there is.

I love life myself and I hope it lasts for a long time to come, but if it doesn’t, so be it, at least I was alive and did something productive with it by helping others in their times of need; at least I experienced life and had a family.  Whatever our life spans may turn out to be, just being alive is something to be cherished and should never be down-played or seen as unimportant in terms of some hoped for “eternal life.” Death is the natural end to life and while it is sometimes horrific and almost always painful for the surviving loved ones, it is grotesque to assign some special divine significance to it beyond the natural indiscriminate world we inhabit.

Flying Free ‏ @FlyingFree333 “History teaches us that no other cause has brought more death than the word of god.” Giulian Buzila #atheism #god #christian #islam

Catherine Deveny ‏ @CatherineDeveny Intelligent Design. Let’s rename it Confirmation Bias Design#atheistcon

Randall Reynolds ‏ @randallr01 “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”—Seneca the Younger #Atheism#p21

Marco the Atheist ‏ @marco_iO9 If you think that a childbirth is a miracle, your bar for miracles is preposterously low. #atheism #teamjesus #jesustweeters #teamgod#god

Dr. David Warmflash ‏ @CosmicEvolution The gods work in mysterious ways..mysteriously similar to random chance. #religion #faith #atheism #atheist #nontheist

Truth Obsessed ‏ @TruthObsessed Theism is quite literally the belief in god(s), it is a positive claim, and requires evidence. #atheism #religion

Truth Obsessed ‏ @TruthObsessed “It may not be said that there is no God. However, it can be said that there is not reason to believe in one.” Christopher Hitchens #atheism

Truth Obsessed ‏ @TruthObsessed The important differences between Christianity and Islam are not found in their holy books, but rather their culture. #atheism #religion

Flying Free ‏ @FlyingFree333 “In the affairs of the world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the lack of it.” Benjamin Franklin US founder #tcot #gop #teaparty #jesus

Flying Free ‏ @FlyingFree333 All religions,all superstitions,are guilty of the same crime; renaming delusion as faith & making it a virtue. #christian #jesus #god #bible

In my own search for the truth, I’m quite certain I used this method to put my own faith to the test, even if it was done subconsciously (i.e. I didn’t have a term or methodology to describe what I was doing).

The “The Outsider Test for Faith …” is, in my view, the strongest chapter in former pastor, John Loftus’ book, “Why I Became an Atheist.” In this chapter, Loftus describes a method by which Christians can examine their own faith and their reasons for belief by treating their own beliefs as they would any other. Assume, hypothetically, that you are, perhaps, a Buddhist or a Muslim, and that Christianity actually has to convince you of its truth. In this way, the believer for a moment (or however long it takes) essentially takes on a different mindset as a mental exercise. As I said, I didn’t know I was doing it at the time, but I believe that, as I was investigating the greater claims of Christianity and the Bible, I did, as it were, step outside of my faith for a time, sort of like a dying person’s claim to have “spiritually” stepped outside of his physical body to examine the prostrate body on the operating table.

Loftus explains it well here:

When believers criticize the other faiths they reject, they use reason and science to do so. They assume these other religions have the burden of proof. They assume human not divine authors to their holy book(s). They assume a human not a divine origin to their faiths.

Believers do this when rejecting other faiths. So dispensing all of the red herrings about morality and a non-material universe, the OTF simply asks believers to do unto their own faith what they do unto other faiths. All it asks of them is to be consistent.

The OTF asks why believers operate on a double standard. If that’s how they reject other faiths then they should apply that same standard to their own. Let reason and science rather than faith be their guide. Assume your own faith has the burden of proof. Assume human rather than divine authors to your holy book(s) and see what you get. …

So the OTF uses the exact same standard that believers use when rejecting other religions. If there is any inconsistency at all it is not with the OTF. It is how believers assess truth claims. For it should only take a moment’s thought to realize that if there is a God who wants people born into different religious cultures to believe, who are outsiders, then that religious faith SHOULD pass the OTF.

If Christians want to reject the OTF then either they must admit they have a double standard for examining religious faiths, one for their own faith and a different one for others, or their faith was not made to pass the OTF in the first place. In either case all of their arguments against the OTF are based on red herrings, special pleading, begging the question, the denigrating science, and an ignorance that I can only attribute to delusional blindness.

One can never truly put his faith to the test without, at least for a time, removing himself from it. I’m reminded of Jesus’ pleading with Peter to step out of the boat and walk on the open water, except this time, the script is flipped.

Religious folks talk a lot about spiritual inspiration. Well, how about inspiration, made possible by science, that brings a deaf woman to tears?

The following is absolutely unmatched by anything I have felt spiritually and more inspiring than any church service I have ever attended. No thanks to any god and much thanks to medicine and science, a deaf woman hears her own voice and that of her husband for the first time:

If I were still a believer, I would have credited what I am about to share as some sort of divine revelation. Since I’m not and since what I am about to share pecks very large holes in the belief of a caring, all-powerful God, I will merely call it a coincidence.

This evening, I was thinking about how I wanted to begin my review of “Night” by Elie Wiesel — ”A slim volume of terrifying power,” according to The New York Times — which recounts Wiesel’s experiences while under German imprisonment in the Auschwitz concentration camp and elsewhere.

At this point, some may say: “Have you not read this before? I read that in high school.” No, somehow, I’m not sure how, this one slipped by me. It was mentioned in passing conversation one day a couple months ago, so I decided to get a copy.

Moving on, for anyone who doesn’t know the story, “Night” tells the story of a young Elie Wiesel, who after living through hellish conditions and watching his father waste away (ungracefully die, heartlessly carried away and tossed away with the other bodies as if he was a mutt) in Nazi concentration camps, returns from captivity with his faith shaken to the core.

I had an introduction for this review already in mind and was ready to begin typing when it occurred to me that, perhaps, I should consult John Loftus’ “Why I Became An Atheist” because I remembered that he included two chapters titled, “The Problem of Evil” in his book. I had not remembered this from my prior reading of Loftus’ work, but he actually begins these two chapters with a quotation from “Night.” I thought that was quite coincidental. Following is the quote from “Night” Loftus selected.

Recalling the day he arrived at the Birkenau Nazi camp, Wiesel writes:

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.

Never shall I forget that smoke.

Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.

Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.

Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.

Never shall I forget  those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.

Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.

Never.

And Loftus picks up with this:

The problem of evil is known as “the rock of atheism.” Michael Martin considers this problem so significant that out of 476 pages of writing and defending atheism, there are 118 pages in his book on this one issue alone, which is a quarter of his book!⁽⁽¹⁾⁾

“Night” is an easy read in word only. As you follow Wiesel and his family as the Nazis begin clamping down on his hometown of Sighet in what was then Transylvania, creating a ghetto in Sighet and eventually deporting thousands of Jews to concentration camps across the region, you learn that Wiesel, once a devout Jew who read his Talmud daily, was slowly losing his faith as he witnessed atrocity after atrocity, not the least of which was eternal separation from his mother and the death of his father.

As the prisoners traversed the European countryside in cattle cars, transported as if they were livestock and hopping from one camp to another, the Jews were barely given enough food to live and many died along the way, their bodies simply tossed to the side of the road at each stop.

Wiesel recalls one instance where human beings, pushed the point of severe starvation, fought like animals over a piece of bread:

I saw, not far from me, an old man dragging himself from the struggling mob. He was holding one hand to his heart. At first I thought he had received a blow to his chest. Then I understood: he was hiding a piece of bread under his shirt. With lightning speed he pulled it out and put it to his mouth. His eyes lit up, a smile, like a grimace, illuminated his ashen face. And was immediately extinguished. A shadow had lain down beside him. And this shadow threw itself over him. Stunned by the blows, the old man was crying:

“Meir, my little Meir! Don’t you recognize me … You’re killing your father … I have bread … for you too … for you too …”

He collapsed. But his fist was still clutching a small crust. He wanted to raise it to his mouth. But the other threw himself on him. The old man mumbled something, groaned, and died. Nobody cared. His son searched him, took the crust of bread, and began to devour it. He didn’t get far. Two men had been watching him. They jumped him. Others joined in. When they withdrew, there were two dead bodies next to me, the father and the son.

I was sixteen.

I thought this scene was made all the more shocking because Wiesel reveals his tender age at the time. Although the prisoners often endured cold and harsh weather conditions, oftentimes, the sun was shining, and if a prisoner merely looked up, his heart could be brightened by the clear and bright sky. But one only had to look around to notice the stark contrast between sunny day and the dark path of disease, famine, suffering and death that was being cut across Europe. Like Albert Camus in “The Stranger,” Wiesel points out this striking and nearly unbelievable paradox between the sun and an unforgiving sky.

Believable or not, it happened, and 6 million Jews, God’s supposed chosen race, were herded up like cattle, tortured, starved, beaten, stripped from their families, worked to the bone and gassed, their lifeless bodies thrown into pits like so many of their brethren. Perhaps they were the lucky ones. Unlucky was Wiesel, who witnessed live infants being tossed into the furnace. And it was this image, among all the others, that struck me the most about “Night.” This was the only book that I can recall that summoned nightmares the night after completing it.

And where was God in all of this? Wiesel asks the question numerous times in the book, and we can formulate only one answer. In 1940s Europe, God was nowhere to be found, the skies were silent and Adolf Hitler, who promised to exterminate the Jews, was the only one who actually lived up to his promise. Believers will likely say that all those bad things happened to the Jews (“Bad” being a decided understatement) because we live in a fallen world, where we can expect all kinds of nasty things to happen to humans since we live under the curse of Adam. Thus, slavery, the Salem Witch Trials, the Holocaust, Hurricane Katrina and Sept. 11, 2001 can all be explained away because of the curse, and God can shirk responsibility for all of it. Fine, but only a monster can watch infants be tossed into furnaces while still alive and not intervene if he had the power to do so. And, if he exists, he did indeed watch it with folded arms. If he did not watch it, he is not omniscient.

So, we are now forced to deal with an impasse. Here again, I’ll pick up Loftus:

So the extent of intense suffering in the world means for the theist that either God is not powerful enough to eliminate it, or God does not care enough to eliminate it, or God is just not smart enough to know what to do about it. The stubborn fact of intense suffering in the world means that something is wrong with God’s ability, or his goodness, or his knowledge. I consider this as close to an empirical refutation of Christianity as is possible.

Thus, whether we consider the case of human beings being treated like cattle in mid-19th century America or humans being, again, being treated like cattle in 1940s Europe, as portrayed in “Night,” believers must face these two questions: how can God be all-loving and watch his creation suffer every form of ridicule and human depredation and how can he be omnipotent with all the power in the universe to end such suffering or see that it doesn’t begin in the first place? Even more, suffering to his supposed chosen race of people?

No book that I have ever read brings these questions to the forefront with such brutal honesty. And I think it may be for that reason that The Times used the words “terrifying power” to describe this short, but seismic cattle car ride through the bowels of man’s darkest hour.

Rating:

1. Michael Martin, “Atheism: A Philosophical Justification“ [↩]

On the assumption that it’s all true, this website points out that some 2.5 million (2,476,633 to be exact) were apparently killed by God in the Bible, which as the site creator points out, is a gross underestimate of the actual total. As the site notes,

It doesn’t include, in many cases, women and children, and it completely leaves out some of God’s more impressive kills. (Like the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the firstborn Egyptian children, etc.)

So what happens if you use estimates when the Bible provides only numbers for adult male victims or no numbers at all?

25 million.

This is the estimate of the number of people God killed directly in the Bible, including women and children.

Here’s a detailed chart accounting for each of them.

Recent philosophy graduate Chris Hallquist (http://www.uncrediblehallq.net) has recently published an open letter to believers about the problem of evil against an all-loving god. In the letter, Halquist references the following chilling news story:

IN THE EARLY HOURS of New Year’s Day, 1986, a little girl was brutally beaten, raped, and then strangled in Flint, Michigan. The girl’s mother was living with her boyfriend, another man who was unemployed, and her three hildren including a nine-month-old infant fathered by her boyfriend.

On New Year’s Eve, all three adults went drinking at a bar near the woman’s home. The boyfriend, who had been taking drugs and drinking heavily, was asked to leave the bar at 8:00 p.m. After several reappearances he finally left for good at about 9:30 P.M. The woman and the unemployed man remained at the bar until 2:00 A.M. at which time the woman went home and the man went to a party at a neighbor’s home. Perhaps out of jealousy, the boyfriend attacked the woman when she entered the house. Her brother intervened, hitting the boyfriend and leaving him passed out and slumped over a table. The brother left. Later, the boyfriend attacked the woman again and this time she knocked him unconscious. After checking on the children, she went to bed.

Later, the woman’s five-year-old daughter went downstairs to go to the bathroom. The unemployed man testified that when he returned from the party at 3:45 A.M. he found the five-year-old dead. At his trial, the boyfriend was acquitted of the crime because his lawyer cast doubt on the innocence of the unemployed man. But the little girl was raped, severely beaten over most of her body, and strangled by one of those men that night.

Hallquist then says:

The only point I have to make in this letter is that I’ve never been able to think the following thought: “An all powerful God who loves us all might well have allowed a five-year-old girl to be raped, beaten, and strangled to death,” and that I honestly can’t begin to understand how anyone could think it, though apparently some do. The rest of the letter will provide an indirect sort of explanation as to why.

While his letter was addressed predominantly to believers and how they can possibly believe in an all-powerful god who watches such things take place and does nothing — and Hallquist raises numerous interesting questions — he addresses the final portion, at least partly, toward non-believers and how they might address Alvin Platinga, who argued from the

doctrine of libertarian free will, that free will exists and is incompatible with our actions being determined. This leads quickly to the point that, if God wanted to create a world of people who have free will, he couldn’t have determined that they always freely do right, even being omnipotent. That much may seem obvious, but Plantinga’s real contribution, as I understand it, was to argue that it’s possible that God, even being omnipotent, might not have been able to create a world where people freely do good without there being any evil.

We aren’t referring to a university professor’s letter, but that of a recent college grad. As such, some points seemed a touch forced or misunderstanding of doctrine. For instance, doctrinally and from a believer’s standpoint, it’s not that God necessarily allows evil to take place but that evil is a consequence of man’s fall in the Garden and a consequence of living in a fallen world. So, when speaking on the matter, I typically, as indicated above, usually avoid the word “allowed” and tend to simply say that God oversees evil taking place and does nothing (For this surely can’t misread doctrine if God is omniscient). But this was a thought-provoking letter, and I recommend both believers and non-believers read through the 10 or so pages.

Hallquist did invite replies to the letter from both non-believers and believers, and here was mine:

Chris,

Intriguing letter on the problem of evil. I’m a former believer, and while the problem of evil was a convincing reason not to believe, it wasn’t my only reason for making the decision.

From that standpoint, I can, perhaps, offer a clue into what I suspect many of my former churchgoers might say in response, and it runs parallel to Platinga’s case: God would not create a being without free will because he wants us to choose to be good to each other and, most importantly, choose to believe in Him. Believers, I think, would say that God was not interested in creating slaves or robots or mindless followers. Man absolutely needed to be able to make up his own mind on whether to believe in his creator, or else, we are zombies. I, to the contrary, think that creating a perfect, or at least, better, environment for humans, and stamping out evil at every turn (immediately stopping the rapist before the act occurs, for instance), would not be outside the grasp of a truly all-powerful god. It would surely present a better case for his existence rather than utter silence in the face of untold anguish and misery down through the ages.

Of course, I can take it a step further: If God created us, and knew that evil would be introduced into the world and knew that he was introducing us, without our input, into some spiritual chess match between good and evil (God and Satan, or whatever other unknown dichotomy might be at play), and then demanding we make a choice between him and eternal fire, then we are and were never really free. Free will, if you believe in a divine creator and in his allowance of evil into the world, is an illusion in my view.

Or, as Christopher Hitchens likes to say, from the believers standpoint, we are made sick and commanded to be made well. This is not free will. And I think believers are wrong in making such claims unless the claim is only from deism. In that case, it may be possible to have true free will without the threat of an intervening god throwing us down to pits of perdition for not choosing correctly.

Frightening, just frightening what some folks are cooking up …

Pastor Terry Jones plans to burn multiple copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Credit: Chip Litherland for The New York Times

Pastor Terry Jones of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., whose plan to memorialize 9/11 by burning copies of the Koran, represents everything that is wrong with evangelical America and with our collective response to the debate about the proposed mosque near Ground Zero: intolerant, filled with animosity toward those who don’t believe as he does and as fanatical as the rest. Jones forgets that it wasn’t Muslims in general that performed the heinous acts in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, but religious fanatics like himself, willing to do whatever it takes to assure that their particular savior’s message is heard. In short, no better or worse than those who are willing to live or die for their faith. For believers, of course, it makes no difference.

Religion, if left unchecked and nonsequestered, will tear our existence as human beings apart and that fills me with despair. And as much contempt as Pastor Jones might feel toward the Koran, I feel toward this type of dogged and demonizing intolerance toward other faiths. I don’t care what another human being believes, but if that belief oversteps its bounds and meanders into the public sphere, then there’s a problem. And this egging on of other religions, especially those known to be the harborers of terrorists is, there is no other way to put it, dumb to the Nth degree. But I don’t hold much faith that Pastor Jones has caught on to that nuance.

I want to address another argument from the Handbook of Christian Apologetics book that I’m currently reading. As we have seen, the authors are presenting 20 common arguments for the existence of God. They aren’t necessarily claiming that all of these arguments are airtight or irrefutable, but are simply listing some of the most common polemics and their subsequent commentary. Here, I’ll attempt to deal with

9. The Argument from Miracles

I’ll address these: 10. The Argument from Consciousness, 12. The Argument from the Origin of the Idea of God and 13. The Ontological Argument in a future post (s).

The argument from miracles begins with a false premise. Here is the list as presented in the book:

1. A miracle is an event whose only adequate explanation is the extraordinary and direct intervention of God.
2. There are numerous well-attested miracles.
3. Therefore, theere are numerous events whose only adequate explanation is the extraordinary and direct intervention of God.
4. Therefore God exists.

The authors follow this list by saying that if you believe that miracles occur, that the believer must believe in divine agency. But who is to say the miracle didn’t take place by some other means or by some other agency? It’s an elementary argument, I know, but sometimes, people label unusual happenings as miracles, when in reality, they are, indeed, very, very rare, but not divinely driven. Take a person who was cured from a presupposed incurable disease. This occurs, not with frequency, but it does occur. Did God shine on the healed folks and not others? Were other factors involved that led to the person getting better of which doctors may not have been aware? All that notwithstanding, we still have not adequately grasped the power of the mind to heal nor of the body.

Now, the authors call a miracle “an event whose only adequate explanation is the … direct intervention of God,” but a miracle isn’t quite that. A miracle is a suspension of the natural laws, and if we grant that God exists, we must also grant that any number of other supernatural or spiritual beings could exist. So, a miracle does not necessarily have to be governed by God. It can be governed by any number of other supernatural entities floating around, be them demons or angels or something else, for if we open up the possibility of God, we open up the possibility of just about anything in some supposed spiritual realm.

My thoughts on the second point are simple enough: I would like to know what the authors mean by “well-attested miracles?” Any miracle in the Bible is not well-attested. I’m sorry to break the news. The earliest gospel is at least about 40 years removed from the actual events, and even if a gospel-writer said he saw with his own eyes the miracles of Christ, that wouldn’t necessarily make them true. We are 2,000-plus years removed from those events and copy after copy after copy after copy removed from that still. Even if I claimed aliens descended on some field in the haze of night, I would have a tough time convincing someone else that I wasn’t delusional. So, the proof needed to validate the suspension of the natural order is immense indeed. I wouldn’t be able to convince the village idiot that I saw a UFO tonight in some corn field. How much more difficult is it for folks to claim the divinity of only one of numerous supposed and deluded prophets roaming around the desert 2,000 years ago, for according to the Bible’s own record, numerous false teachers were at work during the time the gospels were written. To add a few more to their number doesn’t sound like that large of a stretch to me.

Here is a hilarious look at what happens when we take “cherry picking” the Bible to its extreme ends. Sent from a friend of mine on Facebook, below is an open letter from someone, still unknown as far as I know, based on Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s previous apparent comments on gay folks. Sent to me as an innocent and funny look at the Old Testament’s questionable moral code, there’s more than meets the eye. But first, here’s the e-mail:

Why can’t I own a Canadian?

In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant
Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus
18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance.

The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, written by a US man,
and posted on the Internet. It’s funny, as well as informative:

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I
have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that
knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend
the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that
Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination … End of
debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other
elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and
female, provided they are from neighboring nations. A friend of mine
claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you
clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in
Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair
price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her
period of Menstrual uncleanliness – Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how
do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a
pleasing odor for the Lord – Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors.
They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus
35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated
to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an
abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than
homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there
‘degrees’ of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I
have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading
glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room
here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair
around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.
19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes
me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two
different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments
made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also
tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go
to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them?
Lev.24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family
affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy
considerable expertise in such matters, so I’m confident you can help.
Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan.

I removed the supposed “author” because I don’t want to play any part in some sort of misattribution. In truth, according to Snopes.com, the letter has apparently been attributed to numerous people over the years, dating back to 2000. On Dec. 8, 1998, Schlessinger reportedly called gays “biological errors” and “deviants:”

I’m sorry; hear it one more time, perfectly clearly: If you’re gay or a lesbian, it’s a biological error that inhibits you from relating normally to the opposite sex. The fact that you are intelligent, creative and valuable is all true. The error is in your inability to relate sexually intimately, in a loving way to a member of the opposite sex — it is a biological error.

Interestingly, the above letter has been attributed, falsely, to a certain University of Virginia professor, James Kauffman, who did not pen the letter, and said so on his website. Interesting, he kept a running log of the e-mails and correspondence that he has received because of the misattributed work.

I have often enjoyed listening to Schlessinger’s advice on the radio. Nonetheless, whoever the author, Schlessinger’s past remarks, if true, are contemptible, but for the record, she is reported to have given up her Orthodox Judaism in 2003, saying that she did not feel a connection with God and was frustrated by the effort that she had put into faith. I hope she has altered her views of homosexuality and science, but even so, we at least agree on one point.