Greg Trimble, ladies and homeboys, decided it would be in his best interest, and not embarrassing at all, to pen an open letter to his atheist professor and post it on his blog for all the world to see.
I thought it would be funny to write back. Note: This will be a better read if you read his letter first. I have borrowed the style and structure of his letter, which was awful.
Dear Mr. Trimble,
You’re precious, Greg.
One day, I started teaching your class about evolution and the Big Bang and the Universe because they are proven theories supported by evidence that has been observed on a daily basis by the world’s foremost scientific thinkers. Your devotion to your faith forced you to refuse these facts. You raised your hand and challenged the factuality of these theories, after which I could not help myself but laugh. Your denial of facts, doesn’t make facts any less true.
It seems like you equate the recognition of these facts and the reality surrounding our origins and complexity, with anger at God and country – a connection any sane mind would fail to see. I don’t know if it’s just because you need desperately cling to the myths you were raised on for comfort or you’re afraid of looking like a gullible fool that you can’t stand the fact that science continues to find to evidence that shrinks the probability of an intelligent designer. Whatever Paul told Timothy in the Bible is of no consequence to me, being as there is no demonstrable evidence that the Bible is true. You might as well quote Bilbo Baggins.
So here’s the deal. We live in a country that was founded on secular ideals. There is no way around that. You can try to downplay the role of secular values in the establishment of this nation all you want, but if you study hard enough, there is no way to remove the very secular basis of our constitution and the Treaty of Tripoli, and the commitment to these ideals by our founding fathers. It is woven into our laws and the very foundation of this nation, to the point that other nations envy our secular government being as we were the first true nation to be established as such. No one, ever, can take this away from this great nation. You simply can’t.
It’s funny, ironic… no… it’s sad, horribly sad that you are living so well… and so free on the backs of those patriots that gave their lives in the name of our globally envied secular values and country. Now… all you do is blog at your desk and fight against the very things that enabled you to voice your factually wrong notions about not only the origins of life and complexity, but also the origins of our nation. You’re devoting your life to authoring nonsense that has no basis in reality, knowing the minds of the rising generation has access to it and simultaneously attempting to suppress and extinguish the only thing that has always kept this nation great.
If you don’t want to accept demonstrable facts… that’s fine. The great thing about facts is that their validity is not nullified by your denial of them. In fact… these facts would still be facts whether we existed to figure them out or not. So, I am not forcing anyone to accept anything that they stubbornly refuse to. But now look at what we have. A bunch of loud uneducated influential voices like yourself trying to turn a secular nation into a Christian nation.
You’re not trying to get rid of secularism. You’re trying to make Christianity the state religion.
Greg, you make my brain hurt
You say that atheism is nothing more than brainwashing… but I say it’s you that is doing the brainwashing. The worst part of it all is that you have a captive audience willing to follow your example of denying simple scientific facts. It’s sad that so many of these kids around me see the blog emblazoned with your name and think you know what you’re talking about… more so than scientists who have devoted their lives to the study of these proven theories. You evangelize your beliefs to curious, ignorant, and unsuspecting readers each and every day and then they grow up to be just like you until we have a nation of blubbering fools who consult their imaginary friend before they do anything.
Do you remember the stuff I taught about the Big Bang that every scientist believes? Well… even though many pieces of evidence that support it have been questioned, there is still enough evidence to make logical and reasoned scientist believe it is the best explanation. And even if there was no evidence, that doesn’t mean God did it.
It’s kind of like that with everything you write isn’t it? You write something as if there is no doubt that it exists and then stubbornly deny any evidence to the contrary. No scientist has backed away from the Big Bang Theory, only individual pieces of evidence that we may have been wrong about. There is a vast difference between the two.
Right now as we speak… there are thousands of Christian bloggers, authors, teachers, preachers, pastors, missionaries and politicians pushing their religion on the up and coming generation but any talk of science or reason is laughable…right? Almost any time someone questions any of you, you fly into a humorous display of stubborn refusal to accept reality. Why is it that you can have your religion and talk about it openly but I can’t even run for office in some states as a non-believer?
That is what it’s like today.
Yeah, That’s what I thought, Greg.
I honestly wonder if you and your fellow Christian leaders even consider the origin of the very tech you use, the medicine you take or the cars you drive. Every innovation, invention and boost to our quality of living has been made possible through science. The very fact you’re not dead yet, is because science has increased our life expectancy. Why do you think you get vaccinated or take antibiotics or your doctor scrubs up before surgery? Because the scientific method works and has proven the effectiveness of medicines, sanitation and microbiology. Not theology… biology. You’ve forgotten that. Heck… maybe you didn’t even know that. The branches of scientific study grew out of a desire of humans to better understand our world, our origins and our own health and well-being. But now we have religious and superstitious people denying the effectiveness of these advancements, putting the world in danger as a whole.
If you want to teach the youth of our nation about God, then you need to question why God didn’t make mention of sanitation, or antibiotics in his word. You would think that an all-knowing and loving creator would want us to know how to save ourselves, rather than wait for us to figure it out on our own using a method that has also given us reason to think he’s not real. You would think…
I do not believe in the devil. Of course not. I am a grown up and that’s pure lunacy.
The devil I don’t believe in has done nothing because he is not real.
I know you think you’re just doing the good work of God. Helping people discover how to be faithful. But you’re preaching a denouncement of reality. You’re preaching for people to go up against what the facts tell us; what the same method that discovered the medicine and sanitation that allows you to still breathe into your 30s has discovered. You’re not preaching for good or for the betterment of our world, you’re preaching to preserve an antiquated myth that is slowly being extinguished by more and more evidence, piling up by the day.
The last thing I want to ask you is this: Why do you think I care if you believe in God? I don’t. I do, however, care that people who believe in God, impose their outdated ideas on others, and I especially care when it seeps into policy.
Seriously. Religion slows the progress of science. A constant and mass refusal to accept demonstrable facts about our existence makes the progress slow to a snail’s pace.
Now that I’ve gotten that off my mind…I hope we can be friends! I really did enjoy some of the questions you asked in class! They pointed out how easily people can be convinced of absolute and utter horseshit with no basis in reality whatsoever …
Your Professor,
Prof McProfferson
P.S. The name of my class reflects the fact that we are life in the Cosmos and there may be others – it does not mean God.
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