Today we have another letter-to-the-editor for you. It appears in the Courier Journal, a weekly newspaper in Florence, Alabama. The letter is titled His Wisdom and Human Foolishness, and the newspaper doesn’t seem to have a comments feature.
Unless the writer is a politician, preacher, or other public figure, we won’t embarrass or promote him by using his full name. We’re not sure who today’s writer is, because other than giving her name and her city (Sheffield), the newspaper doesn’t identify her. We’ll only use her first name, which is Janet. Excerpts from her letter will be enhanced with our Curmudgeonly commentary, some bold font for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]. Here we go!
America once respected God and the Bible, but now it holds God in contempt. God said He designed male and female and each species would reproduce after its kind. Biology and nature confirms this. Scientists [the fools!] proclaim that we evolved from one species to another without convincing evidence.
Great beginning! Then she says:
God designed marriage between one man and woman, which has proven throughout history to produce the most stable families. Society has determined that any family will work as well as what God provided through nature, with catastrophic results.
That’s horrible! After that she tells us:
God determined human life to be sacred. Violating God’s moral law produces unwanted children. Society’s solution — kill them in the womb. [Gasp!]
Janet continues:
God designed male and female with unique characteristics. However, humans have determined that we can choose our gender and mutilate our bodies, creating monumental problems for families and society.
Egad, we’re doomed! Let’s read on:
God promised wisdom if we ask, victory over our enemies if we honor Him, and gave government their power. He is banned from our schools and military, and religion is separated from government.
No wonder everything is such a mess! Here’s another excerpt:
God blessed Israel when they honored His law — otherwise they suffered tremendously. He sent His Son to save them, but they rejected and crucified Him. [Wasn’t crucifixion done by the Romans?] Though His grace, mercy, and forgiveness are still freely offered, most still reject Him. The Bible instructs us to learn from history. Our society prefers to erase it.
The letter ends with a scripture quote, so we’ll end it here. Great letter, Janet!
Copyright © 2023. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
“America once respected God and the Bible, but now it holds God in contempt.”
I realize God has problems with aim and thinks whole nations are one person when it’s convenient, but we can do better than that. America is not one person. (Unless you have bad God-eyesight like certain deities.)
@richard
To make God a mere designer, one constrained by principles of design … is not that holding God less than omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent?
@TomS
Yep and so is blaming entire nations for the actions of a few. Also blaming entire species for the actions of one serpent. Not exactly a rocket scientist deity.
@richard: Nor a rocket scientist letter writer! What a collection of misinformation about both religion and society.
@abeastwood
Yeah she had some doozies in there.
“Violating God’s moral law produces unwanted children.”
Then not being fruitful and multiplying and using contraception produces unwanted children.
“and religion is separated from government.”
Then Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are not senators.
Wow…..
Funny, I could have sworn that the three gay couples I know were many times told (NOT by me) that they were violating God’s moral law, but they didn’t have unwanted children. One of the couples did have a wanted child, two children in fact, having adopted; and a more ideal upbringing for those children I cannot imagine. Both have turned out very well indeed.
But fancy that! No unwanted children! Why… why… it’s almost as if Janet were talking ignorant, malignant, morally abhorrent, socially corrosive slander. And she’d be the first to tell you what a good, god-fearing, Church-going Christian she is.
I left the Church fifty years ago. For a number of reasons, as all the regulars here know. But one of the reasons was people like Janet.
A Rough Guide to the Three Big O’s of Janet’s Favourite God:
Omnipotent when creating the universe; can’t prevent abortions, though.
Omniscient when He sent His Son to save Israel; forgot to provide Jesus with a jet pack to fly far away from the reaches of the Romans.
Omnibenevolent enough when in a good mood, offering grace, mercy, forgiveness, etc to everybody; has no qualms, though, in vanquishing Janet’s (or America’s) enemies, or making Israel suffer tremendously when they strayed from the straight and narrow.
SC: As for the Romans crucifying Jesus. The Romans carried out the act. However the Pharisees brought Jesus to Pilates for punishment. One way to look at it, was that the Pharisees were judge and prosecutor. The Romans were the executioner.
@chris schilling
Whatever explanations there are for what appear to be lapses from the 3 O’s, they also apply to lapses from the Bible having the 3 T’s: the Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth.
(Literal Only Truth, Only Scripture [Sola Scriptura) is the Truth, Scripture is Sufficient and Necessary for the Truth).
C0nsider:
Even for mere humans, it is permitted to lapse from the truth, in certain circumstances. When someone is bent on murder, it is permitted not to give help by telling the truth. And we humans are bent on sinning (worse than murder!) so we have no right to expect the truth.
@Techreseller, the determination of their courts of a determination of death should’ve had as much bearing as a modern traffic court reaching the same conclusion in the modern day, and the gospels disagree quite a bit on when the trials took place or if they took place at all. A fairly typical “harmonization” requires three separate trials under Jewish law. If you say that all of Israel was responsible for the death of Jesus, as this writer does, it’s because you choose to read it that way.
Techreseller, that’s the story the Gospels tell. But there is a certain amount of reasonable doubt about how the responsibility is to be apportioned, if “responsibility” is the right word.
I remember being very impressed by S G F Brandon’s “The Trial of Jesus of Nazareth”, which argues that the Gospel accounts are essentially apologia, attempting to exculpate the Roman governor. I think now that that might be going too far in the other direction, but it’s definitely arguable.
The problem was that the entry into Jerusalem and the riot in the Temple implied that this Yeshua fellow was claiming to be the Messiah, and “Messiah” doesn’t mean “holy man” or “prophet”, or even “Son of God”. It means “Anointed”, as in King, ruler, governor. The Messiah was to return the holy land of Israel to the people to whom it had been promised, driving out the idolaters and foreigners. He was to be not merely a religious leader, but a military one, and he was to rule. Anybody making that claim was big trouble.
So both the Romans and the Temple authorities, the Sanhedrin, had reason to want this troublemaker dead. Each wanted to blame the other for it, because he was a popular holy man, but the Romans would have been less bothered by that consideration. Pilate didn’t want riots and insurrection – but only because it cost resources to put them down. The Sanhedrin, on the other hand, knew for certain that the Romans would utterly crush any revolt, and that if there was one, they, the priesthood, were very unpleasantly dead. That was what happened when the revolt actually happened, forty or so years later.
So who’s to blame? Me, I say everybody, including Yeshua himself. And if he had to die in that spectacularly horrible way because that’s what was needed before humans could be forgiven for being human, then the main culprit is the one who required that.
Jesus was the mastermind behind the whole thing before any of these people were even born. And a brilliant plan it was, for a turnip. Usually plans are better than that one.
Imagine of you hired a planner and they were like “We’ll start with drowning the world and then we’ll crucify ourselves and be crowned the king of the world and the fools who wouldn’t listen will perish forever MUAHAHAHA.” Time to look in the yellow pages for a new planner.
@richard
There is always the “explanation” that we do not know the ways of the Lord.
As I pointed out above, that the same (or whatever) “explanation” has equal validity for “explaining” away anything in the Bible which might not be according to human standards of truth.
And the same “explanation” is equally valid for “explaining” away any soundness for “Intelligent Design”.
@TomS
True but this is the religion of “have cake and eat it too”. I don’t know if anyone has been to Burger King but they have a slogan “have it your way” where creationists can have whatever they want whether it makes sense or not, and with extra cheese.
A three-godded religion that calls itself monotheistic is the very definition of having cake and eating it too. Not to mention the problem of omnibenevolent torture. Having omni-layer cake and eating it too is more like it.
bro bill says ““America once respected God and the Bible, but now it holds God in contempt.”……..I don’t hold god in contempt bill….
Where is all this hatred coming from ?
The writer doesn’t even hold God in contempt. I can’t imagine what they are on about unless they mean Amerigo Vespucci but I have my doubts that Amerigo held God in contempt.
“we dropped our anchor off the shores of that new land, thanking God with solemn prayers and the celebration of the Mass.” –Amerigo Vespucci
I think it safe to assume that indeed Amerigo did not hold his God in contempt since he offered it solemn prayers and then cannibalized the deity in some sort of bizarre superstition ritual.