You are the most hateful, horrible evil man I have ever found. How dare you presume to know more about how to raise my child then I do! [Name] is a good Christian and if she has any questions she can find the answers in the Bible. I’d tell you to read it yoru self but it would burn your fingers to the bone. There is no room for doubt in the love of Jesus Christ. Doubting His love is rejection of the Holy Spirit which is the greatest most unforgivable sin. She is NOT old enough to be talking to perverts on the computer. She is a CHILD! I saw your Web site now and see that this is so much worse than I could have imagined. [Name] will be on her knees with her father and me praying for forgiveness for what you have done. You are the devil’s servent and when you burn the angels will sing.

Please do not punish your daughter any further for this. I have no problem with your being angry at me, but your daughter is completely innocent of everything but stumbling upon a Web site and asking a question. Depending on how she uses the Web, she may have even been directed to my site inadvertently. Now is a time to explain to your daughter why you are concerned, not to punish her for trying to use her mind or sending a curious e-mail.

Take a step back and look at this situation. Don’t let your anger make you do something that you will later regret.

On you opening page you ask if ‘you want to ask about your new religion.’

That is as far as I’ve gotten because I felt that the ‘religion’ reference deserved a response. (It is funny.) But certainly you must know that being an atheist is the opposite of having a religion. As in, not subscribing to any superstitions whatever.

Best to you. B

Good point. That was a mistake on my part and I have remedied it.

im agnostic because i believe that one cant either prove or dissprove that a diety exsists or not because there is no real evidence.

Fair enough. From that position, you could also call yourself an atheist if you thought that the possibility of a deity existing was particularly small, even if there was no proof of no god (which would be close to impossible to come up with in any case). But if you feel that there being a god is just a likely as there not being a god, then calling yourself an agnostic is probably the best choice.

Hello, from the Atheists club on DeviantArt. Keep up the good work.

And hello back to you! For my curiosity, could you tell me what kinds of things your atheist club does so I can share it with my blog readers?

But I don’t wanna be an atheist !!!!!
Do I have to die , in order to be let out of this thing ???

No. A note from your mother will also be acceptable.

I am a mother and a Christian. I monitor my daughter’s email and saw that you recently sent my daughter [name] an email encouraging her to “think about” cher Christian values which is just a slick tongued way of tempting her to turn her back on the Lord. My daughter is 15 and still a child. She relies on her parents for moral guidance and should be free from the machinations of a child preditor such as yourself. I can only imagine where you would have tried to lead [name] if I had not been there! She should have told me immediately when you contacted her and she has lost her computer priviliges for two weeks. If you continue to harass her or attempt to contact her in any way we will inform the police. I will pray for your soul.

Madam, I have no idea who your daughter is. I receive a great amount of correspondence through my IAmAnAtheist Web site and blog, and most of it is either anonymous or signed with a screen name. I don’t know the age of most of the people I correspond with, and frankly I feel that anyone old enough to write to me with an intelligent question is old enough to receive an honest answer. These aren’t toddlers asking whether Santa exists.

I encourage all people -- religious or not -- to think carefully about their beliefs, and frankly I think you should, too. How is your daughter supposed to resist temptation and know right from wrong if she is not confident to her core in her own religion?

I must be very clear here -- I didn’t contact your daughter, she contacted me. And to be further frank, if she lives in a house hold where inquiry into the religious beliefs of others gets her two weeks of lost computer privileges, then no wonder she is asking questions behind your back. You might do better to give her a little freedom now rather than trying to keep her bottled up and risking a full-scale rebellion when she’s old enough to head out on her own.

I appreciate your offer of prayer but, frankly, I think you need to use them at home first.

Hi,

One of the problems in discussing issues of self-worth is that we cannot view them objectively when it comes to our own situation. Our own self worth is so important that, for our psychological well being, we have to defend it.

Concerning your analogy. Wouldn’t the driving force behind the great chef be pride? And pride manifests itself as a feeling? And isn’t pride closely related to self worth?

I agree with you that we can point to motives of pure self interest for helping others. In fact, gaining feelings of pride or self-esteem from helping other people are also motives of pure self interest. The problem is that if we truly recognize that our motives for helping others are pure self interest, it destroys the very feelings of self esteem that we were trying to achieve. The difference between altruism and “feel-goodism” rests in self-deception.

When a chef prepares a great meal, that food is just a means to satisfy a need for his/her self esteem. Likewise, when we do our good works, the people we help are just a means to satisfy our self esteem.

I think I understand where you are coming from, but I am honestly not sure what the ultimate point is. I suppose one could look at any sane, voluntary human action and find a way to say that it ultimately was motivated by a desire to feel good. But this exercise, so far as I can see, really tells us nothing and may in fact be deceptive in that we cannot truly get into the minds of others. It also may tend to devalue what we would label altruistic actions, and that could have significant social cost.

I disagree with your statement that recognizing self interest destroys feelings of self esteem. My personal ethics are derived from self interest, but I get satisfaction from knowing that I live as philosophically consistent a life as possible.