A Rational Chain E-mail

My friend Charles composed the following email as a response to a ridiculous christian forward he got call "Untimely Deaths". He thought I might like to share it with you. So here it is, including the angry christian email reply he already got and his reply to that at the end. His version had the classical large fonts, underlines and bold text that inflammatory emails often have, but for the web, I had to strip most of the formatting. If you decide to send this on to your christian friends, feel free to make them more at ease by using insanely large font sizes, underlines, unreadable colors, etc. :P

Do you have the COURAGE to Read this whole E-Mail?????

The TRUTH about UNTIMELY DEATHS!

John Lennon (Singer):
Some years before, during an interview with an American Magazine, he said:
"Christianity will end, it will disappear. I do not have to argue about that. I am certain. Jesus was ok, but his subjects were too simple. Today we are
more famous than Him" (1966).
Lennon, after saying that the Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ, was shot six times.

Is god lazy? Lennon said he was bigger than Jesus in 1966. Mark Chapman shot him in 1980.
Fourteen years later! Was god too busy all those years assassinating other sinners? Is he a procrastinator?
"Oh yeah, that one blasphemous beatle. I really should smite him."
The next day:
"Crap! I forgot! again!"

And so on, for the next fourteen years!

MARILYN MONROE:
She was visited by Billy Graham during a presentation of a show. He is a preacher and Evangelist and the Spirit of God had sent him to preach to her.
After hearing what the Preacher had to say, she said: "I don't need your Jesus"
A week later, she was found dead in her apartment.

Of course, the fact that Marilyn Monroe was Jewish is inconsequential!

Now consider:

Saloth Sar, better known as Pol Pot, was the leader of the Cambodian communist movement known as the Khmer Rouge
During his time in power, Pol Pot imposed a version of agrarian collectivization, forcing city dwellers to relocate to the countryside to work in collective farms and forced labor projects, toward a goal of "restarting civilization" in a "Year Zero".
The combined effects of slave labor, malnutrition, poor medical care, and executions resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.7 to 2.5 million people, approximately 21% of the Cambodian population.

Also, he was not a Christian. Also, he lived to be 70.

Aleister Crowley, born Edward Alexander Crowley, was an English occultist, writer, mountaineer, poet, playwright, yogi, and possible spy He was an influential member of occult organizations, including the Golden Dawn, the A∴A∴, and Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), and is known today for his magical writings, especially The Book of the Law, the central sacred text of Thelma. He gained notoriety during his lifetime, and was denounced in the popular press of the day as "The wickedest man in the world."

And yet lived to be 72.

Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, was a French aristocrat and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle. His works include novels, short stories, plays, and political tracts; in his lifetime some were published under his own name, while others appeared anonymously and Sade denied being their author. He is best known for his erotic novels, which combined philosophical discourse with pornography, depicting bizarre sexual fantasies with an emphasis on violence, criminality, and blasphemy against the Catholic Church. He was a proponent of extreme freedom (or at least licentiousness), unrestrained by morality, religion or law.
The term "sadism" is derived from his name.

Lived to be 74.

Idi Amin Dada, The military dictator and President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979.
Amin's rule was characterised by human rights abuses, political repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings, nepotism, corruption and gross economic mismanagement. The number of people killed as a result of his regime is estimated by international observers and human rights groups to range from 100,000 to 500,000.
A polygamist, Idi Amin married at least six women, three of whom he divorced. He married his first and second wives, Malyamu and Kay, in 1966. The next year, he married Nora and then Nalongo Madina in 1972. On 26 March 1974, he announced on Radio Uganda that he had divorced Malyamu, Nora and Kay.
Kay died on 13 August 1974, Her body was found dismembered.

Lived to the ripe old age of 78.

Finally, the REAL TRUTH comes out!

UNTIMELY DEATHS?

Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds.
In the time it takes you to read one E-mail full of "little lies for Jesus" at least 200 people will have died of starvation.
Over 4 million will die this year.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh EVIL?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”

- Epicurus (Greek philosopher, BC 341-270)

Use Your Brains.

Charles already got an angry response and replied:

On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 5:35 PM, (unnamed Christian) wrote:

Man is where evil dwells not God. Don’t blame MAN’S shortcomings, cruelty, greed, racism, etc,,, on God!. Man has a choice….all of us have a choice. What we do with that choice is up to us. Our hand is not being forced by any being including God….use you brains!!!!!!!!!!

Charles' reply:

An intelligent man would never blame god for any of those things, because he understands that god is but a creation of man.
Don't devalue all humanity by blaming all the world's injustice on them. You do not only the world, but yourself a disservice.
It is ludicrous to claim that the people who died in the earthquake in Haiti choose that to happen. As ridiculous as claiming that children choose to die of starvation.
Saying that "all of us have a choice" is the biggest "blame the victim" pile of steaming... well you get the idea, that religion ever propagated.

If you believe in god then you already believe in a place god created that is without suffering and yet all the people there still have free will, it is called heaven.
There is no reason an all powerful god couldn't have made earth the same way. Unless he is just a dick?

But again, that would be silly to blame the world's problems on an imaginary being. As silly as blaming people for things that they have no control over.

Things just happen, good and bad. It is a result of living on an imperfect natural world we have by chance evolved to live on.

Maybe someday you can see reality without the "Jesus glasses". Good luck with that.