From: "Thomas"
Subject: Re: Please read with an open mind

I am writing in response to your article on about.com. I ask that you think about how you got here.

I hate it when someone writes to me to criticize an article I have written but never bother to even hint at exactly what article they mean. There are over 13,000 pages here on this site and I’m not a mind reader. Unless someone tells me specifically what page they are responding to, I can’t figure it out.

As to the question of how I got there, that’s easy to answer: I was born. I’m not clear on why any further answer is necessary.

The answer is unexplainable because nobody knows. But I do know: It's the miracle of God.

Interesting: first Thomas says that the answer (to what? how we got here?) is “unexplainable” and that “nobody knows,” then he turns around and says that he knows and gives his “explanation”: his god. Was he mistaken when he said that the answer is unexplainable, or is he mistaken when he offers his explanation? Both sentences can’t be true.

At least, that’s the way that logic works. Anyone relying on logic for their position can’t make such an argument, but I get the distinct impression that Thomas here either doesn’t understand or simply doesn’t care about logic. Too often, I receive messages from people and I could swear that the very concept of “logic” is foreign to them.

I hope you find him because once He is in your life, you will know what true happiness is.

This presumes that I do not already know true happiness,and Thomas does not know me well enough to make such a claim. Unfortunately, I often hear from people who do think that they know me well enough to offer their opinions about what I am feelings, what I am thinking, and what my life is like. That’s extremely arrogant, but it happens so frequently that I have to wonder if there is some standard chapter in evangelical manuals on making judgments about strangers. Is this something learned in church or taught in books?

Aside from that, Thomas obviously fails to provide any good reasons to think that the claim 'god exists' is a true one. If he had any, I would assume that he would have actually provided them. Instead, he just makes vague statements about his god and assumes that that is sufficient. Perhaps in some circles the idea of actually supporting one’s claims is rare, but as far as I am concerned nothing else is sufficient.

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