An Answer for Arkenaten

Update:

Be sure to read the comments for Arkenaten’s response. Thanks!

Anyone who has visited Anne’s site – My Life Uncut…Almost has probably met Arkenaten. As a tireless advocate against the existence of God, he tends to show up at her site, and occasionally mine, to toss out a few bits of his opinions and wisdom that usually make my head want to explode. I simply hate an illogical argument…

Today, I feel pretty peaceful and as such, I feel like I can address some of these arguments without letting my own human anger get the better of me, and to not tie up all of Anne’s WP memory, I’ll just see if I can’t lure him over here. I have a less than strict policy on language so he might feel a little more comfortable responding here.

So, let me say this first, Arkenaten. The anger you may hear in my “voice” isn’t directed at you, but is instead directed at the only real enemy I have, and that is satan. You may think I hate you, but you would be very wrong. I hope some day you are saved. I don’t wish for you go to hell, and I’m not interested in seeing God humiliate you. When you talk, I hear satan’s perfect voice luring doubts. I hear your voice puppeting the hatred satan has always harbored toward Jesus, knowing full well that Jesus would defeat him and take the throne he had so desired and envied for himself. So, please don’t think this is a personal attack.

Here’s how one Christian girl responds to long-winded diatribes laced with dusty old supposed logic and random references to little-known authors, philosophers, saints, etc, and all laced with an attitude of superiority and disdain.

I don’t have to prove God’s existence to anyone. Leaving out the “tired old book — the Bible“, God has actually proven Himself to me and an entire church full of people here, and a million times to me alone.

I don’t use intelligence as a measure of a person’s worth, as evidenced that I went to private school with people who ALL have achieved greater worldly successes than I have. I tend to feel more drawn and respectful for people who have had to overcome terrible, painful things in their lives. It is a point of reference for us that I consider a starting point for a real relationship.

So, let me explain why your careless words bother me. Anne has a real patience and love for a different kind of people, and I respect and admire that. But, I’m not going to insult you by pretending that I want to love you into the kingdom of God. I’m not dishonest, not even with the crappy parts of my nature. I have a feeling the more I read your writings and the more I interact with you that you are simply really, really angry. And believe it or not, that makes a point of reference for you and I to understand each other too. So, let me give you a glimpse of the world from my perspective.

I had an adult man molest me for years while I was a little girl. That person was a professed Christian. Tell me, how do you deal with how slow time is when you wait in the dark, afraid to go to sleep? Years ticked by slowly.

I went to authorities but they were uncomfortable with the subject matter back then and because they were unsure how to proceed, they just ignored the problem, leaving me, a little girl, to deal with a problem that they themselves had no clue how to fix. Tell me, are you lonely? I’ll bet I know loneliness better than you do.

How do you respond when your own mother refuses to acknowledge this horrible situation because she can’t afford to financially care for all the other children in your family? What did you think that felt like? What does “betrayed” mean to you, Ark?

Instead of having crushes and learning what it meant to first fall in love, I learned that touches were painful, and I still struggle with people touching me to this day. Is this a point of reference you and I share? When other girls were dreaming of white weddings and playing at being mothers, I was dreaming of murder and maiming a specific person. Am I evil, Ark? I know what hate feels like.

To hide his own behavior, he would tell anyone who would listen what a liar I was. I was accused unjustly, and labelled incorrectly. When I thought the nightmare was finally over, I found out that I’d been so scarred that the nightmare would continue to live on in me for decades, always haunting every interaction with mankind I’d ever have. Can you tell me what disappointment, hopelessness, grief mean for you?

I went to a church pastor who informed me that a demon that my own father had passed on to me had caused this person to stumble…in other words, it was my own fault. Can you say you’ve ever felt betrayed by God Himself?

I went to the world’s “intelligent” people, and they were full of big words, medicines, and science…but none of it made a difference. I know big words, too, Ark. I don’t use a lot of them out of rebellion against those same people. For people who were supposed to have a lock on the education game, they were powerless to fix what was broken in me too…My whole being right down to my sense of who I was was destroyed. Intelligence, education, science…they were powerless to give me my self-esteem and sense of worth back. They don’t make medicines for that.

I was angry at everyone in this world, and at myself as well, for not being able to pick up and move on. To not be able to just let the whole thing go. Drugs would help for a moment, but it took more and more, and it was never permanent.

I tried to be better for my kids and for my husband, but you can’t sell an image very long, and I was unable to keep up the pretense, no matter what my reasons were.

I studied Buddha, Taoism, and every manner of new age crap looking for something that would make my heart stop hemorrhaging, and that includes most forms of Christian variations. You aren’t talking to a person who grasped at the first lifeboat that I could locate and threw myself all in…I tested the God I serve now because I don’t like to be tricked. I don’t like anything or anyone having any power or control over me. And I don’t trust easily…So, if God couldn’t handle me questioning Him, then we had no basis for a relationship, because there could be no trust.

I eventually picked up that tired old book — the Bible, and I began to read, absorb, re-aquaint myself with the words in it, and they became alive. I had gone to a Christian school, Christian churches. I’ve always know God was there, but I had split when I felt He had not lived up to His end of the bargain. In the end, I didn’t find God in a church. He came straight to my room when I called out to Him.

Without drugs, professionals, churches, medications…nothing, Jesus began to lead me out of the darkness I lived in. There is simply no way someone who isn’t even looking for God is going to understand that. There are no words that will sway a hardened heart.

I write all of this to say this, Ark. When you carelessly run your mouth off, being ever so witty and clever, aren’t you as mean and evil as this God and religion you’ve declared war on? How are your intentions really different from Stalin or Hitler, or the many, many Christian Crusader’s wars you continually bring up? Hurting other people for the sheer joy of pursuing what you selfishly want to make your own existence more tolerable is simply the same thing. Self-love above what is good for someone else. Basic motivation that has varying, horrifying results. Isn’t that what the motivation was for the man who thought my life and well-being was secondary to his getting off??

Let’s say, just for the sake of argument that you are right, and I’m deluding myself. Is it more merciful of you to shake me out of a delusion and let me sink back into the hell that I lived in than to let me be healthier and happier now? Is the rush that you get by “proving” your theories and stirring people’s pots,  more important that the happiness people get from their religious beliefs?

People who are honest with themselves first always show that trait, no matter what they say or do, and it is a trait that I respect. We both know that your intentions aren’t to help your fellow man..I know this because I had a close friend who was a real atheist, and while her beliefs made me nuts, her motives were really rather good. You aren’t worried that we Christians will rise up and start the Crusades again, injuring innocent people everywhere. I imagine a lot of people can see through the words to your heart, even if you yourself aren’t being really honest with yourself.

I don’t have any clue where you are going when you die. I’m not stupid or simple enough to believe that God doesn’t have a better grasp on the “light that you walk in”, and people like Anne, who God put specifically on this earth for people like you, will probably always be a plague to you as long as you live and resist. Sorry. None of that is my business. What is my business, though, is that I’m positioned here for those who have experienced Hell already, and I won’t let you toss out nonsense logic without calling you on it. Not when those who are still weak can so easily be swayed by satan’s very excellent deceiving abilities.

— Bird