<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On May 27, 2005, at 7:35 AM, <A href="mailto:John-C-Wright@sff.net">John-C-Wright@sff.net</A> wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">On May 11th, Samantha Atkins wrote: "Careful who and what you claim as your own.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Do you claim Pat<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>Robertson as your own? If so I don't think it is in my nature</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">to be insulting enough."</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Surely I should have answered this in a more timely fashion. I hope you will</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">forgive me if draw the conversation for a moment back to a point it has past,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">and a small point at that.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Television evangelists are certainly figures of fun to modern intellectuals,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">what with their high hair and southern accents. We can all get a moment of</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">cheap, malicious pleasure from contemplating our superiority to them, can we not?<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>This hardly has anything to do with it. Especially for me. I am from the deep south originally and I still have a bit of the Southern drawl and speech patterns almost three decades after leaving that part of the country. But I digress on top of your digression. Why would you start with such a pointless and utterly false characterization of what I find utterly contemptible about Brother Pat? </DIV><DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">But look at the other side of the equation.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I know a man who gave up cigarettes and strong drink because he heard Billy</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Graham preaching. I have heard of a man who was comtemplating suicide, who had</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">the pistol loaded and sitting next to him, but who decided to watch one last</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">television show before doing himself in: by coincidence (though I call it</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">providence), the television station happened to be carrying a southern preacher,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">preaching against suicide. He put off his dark deed for a time: when next he was</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">tempted, he again loaded his pistol, and again snapped on the television for one</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">last show before his end. By coincidence (though I call it providence), the</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">television station had made a mistake, and rebroadcast the same sermon. This</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">coincidence and this sermon changed the man's mind, his heart, and his life, and</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">he put his pistol and his desire for self destruction away.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>So what? I could recount such anecdotes from all sots of proximate causes all day myself. But if you have listened to and read the books of Brother Pat you know that he preaches a level of hate and fear mongering of when the "culture war" fills the streets with blood that is far beyond any "Good News" or conversions. He has done so and been very influential for a good number of years. It is for these reasons that I brought him up as the icon of all I doubt that you or any rational good human being would want to be associated with. It would have been good if you had done your homework about the man before assuming such trite objections on my part. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Now, you may feel free to mock these men and what they do: but as for me, I have</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">never saved anyone's life by my words, nor convinced anyone to give up a bad habit.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">To insult others is also in my nature, Miss Atkins: indeed, a lifetime of</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">practice has made me expert at it, and it is only with the greatest effort that</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I forebear when barbed and petty wit rises to my lips or bubbles from the end of</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">my pen. My humble suggestion is that if you are interested in your own spiritual</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">development, or if you wish to live the life worthy of a philosopher or a hero,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">a life of reason, self-command, temperance and justice, that you also forbear. I</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">apologize if this bit of advice sounds condescending, for I do not mean it in</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">that way; but the danger of indulging in a malicious nature is that malice soon</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">begins to seem normal: we come to enjoy it.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV>Thanks for the moral advice. What I said was no insult. This creature has earned a place at the deepest level of whatever hell may exist.</DIV><DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">To answer your question, I am happy and proud to claim Pat Robertson or any</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">other Christian as one of my brothers. For that matter, I am happy and proud to</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">claim men of other religions, even shallow modern inventions, as my brothers,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">or, if they will not have me, as my cousins.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>You utterly miss the point. I am one of the most inclusive and generally altruistic people you could wish to meet. This isn't about me. It is about how you separate wheat from chaff in your new found faith. It is about where you stand. It is about whether you retain the ability and willingness to draw important distinctions.</DIV><BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Perhaps you have in mind a list of every wicked or embarassing thing a</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">television evangelist has ever done, so you wonder how I can claim kinship with</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">such Tartuffes. It is because I have in my mind a list of every wicked thing I</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">have done, and I leave to a judge more stern and more just than I am to deal</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">with the sins of other men.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></FONT><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD">Thanks for the hackneyed philosophy. Please respond again when you know enough and are honest enough to actually address the question.</FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD">- samantha</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>