The Sunday school 'teacher' who is supposed to provide religious instruction for the 16 - 19 class has got to be one of the most unintelligent people I have ever met. This week, our class was about creationism. We had to write down some verses from the Bible to paraphrase the concept, which didn't take long, and then the topic turned to refuting "evolutionism". First of all, we received these little "icebreaker" cards that look like business cards but contain comments and supposed statistics and evidence for intelligent design. We were told to use them when we were talking to a friend or when any scientific topic came up, because they are supposed to be phrases that inspire people to denounce evolution. All the usual arguments were arrayed, such as "Houses don't form themselves. They are built by builders. Obviously our home, the planet earth, was built by the most intelligent of all builders, God", and "Isn't it wonderful how God gave us a world where everything is in perfect harmony with our needs? The temperature, the water and the position of the sun have been carefully designed by God to provide us with an ideal home. All of our needs are met by God". Happily, though unfortunately for the teacher, not many people in the class are full-on believers of intelligent design in the strictest sense. Most of them believe God controls evolution, but at least they do accept evolution, so the poor teacher got a lot of questions, and she couldn't answer any of them. I asked whether this information was supposed to refute macro-evolution or micro-evolution, and she said "It doesn't matter. Both. God designed the elephant and God designed the insects. All creatures big and small were designed just right. None of them evolve." Wow.

There was a new girl in the class today. Her parents have gone to the church for a while but I've only seen her once before. She obviously hates it. Before services, she was crying in the parking lot and her father was screaming at her. In class, she wouldn't speak. She sat two chairs away from me though and I noticed she has cuts and cutting scars all over her arms. She had her sleeves pushed up and everything, so everyone could see, except I don't think the teacher noticed because otherwise I know she would have freaked out. Anyway, that was sort of interesting.

When I was ten, I came to live with my aunt and uncle, with whom I still live, unfortunately, and will until I'm eighteen. You see, despite raising me single-handedly since his divorce from my mom when I was three and a half, and giving me a wonderful life, my dad had become convinced that as a gay man, he was incapable of being any sort of real father. His relatives, including my aunt and uncle and a number of the extended family - though, thankfully, not my grandparents - pressured him incessantly ever since he came out when I was seven. He received cards on his birthday that contained hostile tracts labelling him and those he loved, like his long-term partner Leo, abominations. When he dared show his face in family gatherings with his siblings and relatives, he was told that he was putting me in jeopardy, that I would be sexually abused by promiscuous gay men in his home, that he would possibly catch and somehow infect me with AIDS, etc. These actions turned a strong, capable man into an insecure shadow, and when I was ten he finally surrendered to three years of hate-filled letters and phone calls full of dire warnings. He gave me to them and entered a treatment program designed to 'cure' homosexuality, run by a church ministry. That was the beginning of my Christian life and at the same time, the key to its destruction.

( very long testimony of sorts )

So, my uncle, in his never-ending battle to convince me that everything non-Christian is awful and bad, gave me a Timothy LaHaye book to read. LaHaye is the man who wrote the "Left Behind" series, about the rapture and such. Anyway, ths one is called "The Battle for the Mind" and is quite a bit older, written in 1980. It's all about secular humanism, which according to him is evil and running rampant and destroying the whole of society. I read it, most of it, and it's so utterly ridiculous that I don't know why he bothered writing any of these words on paper, but when I went to my uncle earlier to discuss it, he stopped me after a few minutes and said he wasn't going to argue and that "you know in your heart it's true, and God is real and all of this nonsense has to stop". By nonsense he means things like not wanting to go to church, being "unwilling to admit you're a Christian when you know full well God made you and loves you and gave his son to save you from your own wickedness" and not hating my father, who is gay, who my uncle constantly tells me is committing the worst of perversions...because of course all gays have 837495739473 sex partners and are on fire with AIDS, including my father, with his monogamous partner of twelve years. Oh, but I'm rambling. Anyway, I have some questions that I would love to have answered. Anyone care to try?

1.) On page 52, LaHaye writes "Interestingly enough, the happiest, most-fulfilled, and most-contented people in our land are those who obey God". Can this be proven? Where? Also, if this is true, why are the divorce rates among Protestant Evangelical Christians the highest in the United States? Divorce would seem to me to indicate unhappiness.

2.) LaHaye says "It is not reason that causs a person to disbelieve in God. Only prejudice - that is, a preconceived judgment - can convert an individual to atheism. If his conclusion were based solely on reason, the evidence so strongly favors a believe in God that unbiased people must accept the reality of His existence". However, he fails to cite any of this overwhelming evidence. So, where is it? What is it? In any case, this statement makes no sense. Can you defend it? I don't think so, because the idea that one cannot be an atheist unless they have a prejudice against God shows a complete lack of understanding about what atheism is. Atheism isn't anti-Christianity, it's disbelief. Hating God, deciding not to acknowledge God, these are different concepts.

3.) Is atheism old, or isn't it. On page 60, LaHaye makes the inane statement that "atheism is not a very old concept and is rarely mentioned by the ancients". Hmm...so, which is it? Because, if atheism is not very old, it would never be mentioned by the ancients, but if atheism is rarely mentioned by the ancients, it is very old. If it is not old, the ancients wouldn't have mentioned it at all. Perhaps it was not significant to the ancients, or was more rare, but it certainly existed if they mentioned it even once. All I can conclude from this is that LaHaye is either a liar or an idiot. Care to clarify?

4.) "They [humanists] are really after the young...That is why -- in the name of "health care", "child's rights", "child abuse" and "the Year of the Child" -- they are pressuring political leaders to pass legislation taking control of children away from their parents and giving it to the state", writes LaHaye on page 67. Can someone explain what this statement even means? Is LaHaye - or are any Christians - actually of the opinion that wanting to prevent child abuse is some grand humanist plot? How does health care factor into this? How does protection for children mean stealing children from parents?

5.) On page 69, LaHaye makes the case that humanists want to be able to carry out "the murder of preemies or children born with defects". Cite references. This surely does not meet the definition of anyone I know.

6.) After a variety of passages describing how humanists hate America and want to thwart American democrac, LaHaye has the audacity, or maybe is just dumb enough to write "As we have seen, total liberty - or as they call it, democracy - leads to anarchy....Democracy is a fantasy! Men must be governed by moral laws that curb their natural "fleshly" instincts and impose ethical mandates upon their activities". Is this the opinion of most Christians, that a theocratic regime is preferable to democracy? Do most Christians like how Saudi Arabia is working out? How have we seen what LaHaye describes - anarchy? Where is the anarchy?

7.) Probably the weirdest thing in this book is on page 99, where, in large, bold letters, LaHaye has written "Christianity = Science". Is there even any way of possibly interpreting this statement to make sense?

That's enough for now.