On Christian teachings

From: Laurence Shandy
To: Father Jonathan Morris, Fox News commentator
Re: Bill Maher

Dear Father Morris,

International literary icon Laurence Shandy here. It's been a while since I've written to a priest. Back in '68 I got into a bit of a word war with Father Winston Babcock of Wisconsin when I said in an interview with Life magazine that I was "bigger than Jesus". Father Babcock misunderstood me as claiming that I was more popular than Jesus, which is undeniably false. I wrote him to clarify that I was only speaking in terms of height. Jesus, being a swarthy Judean man, would most likely have been quite short, whereas I achieve a virile European grandeur of 6'2" (in heels). We eventually agreed to agree that there is no actual evidence that the Biblical Jesus even existed, so there was a happy ending.

However, I'm writing you today to discuss your recent editorial regarding the truth behind statements made by former c-list actor Bill Maher about the insane teachings of the Christian religion. Putting aside Mr. Maher's and your insistence on speaking of Christianity as if it were some kind of unified dogma (I mean really, when one group dances with snakes on Sundays and another believes in magic underpants, Christians fail to present any kind of unified front), I would like to address some of the points you raised. Mr. Maher, I'm afraid, is probably too busy scrubbing sexually transmitted bacteria from his remaining hairs to get back to you in a timely manner.

You say Mr. Maher is incorrect in maintaining that Christians believe the Bible was written by God and passed down to man. You claim that the Bible is a human work, though divinely inspired. Belief in the divinity of its message, according to you, is an act of faith. I fail to see the distinction between the two. Whether a semi-literate sheepherder claims to have received the word of God from His cloudy, moist hands or claims that his contradiction and absurdity-filled scribblings came to him from the Lord's inspiration, he is still a complete nut. Whether or not God told someone to say every animal in the world could fit on one boat doesn't take away from the fact that such a story is less plausible than a Roland Emmerich movie. I've even tried the faith route, but no matter how much I believe they can fit, there's no way I'm loading a herd of camels onto my yacht. Life, unfortunately, is nothing like Peter Pan. Save, of course, for the occasional pederastic subtext.

You also say Maher is mistaken in his claim that Christianity teaches God causes tragedies such as cancer, earthquakes, and child abuse. You counter by saying that the world is "out of whack" due to a misuse of humanity's God-given free will. First of all, if God is omniscient, then he knows a person's fate before he is created. Knowing that a soul will end up suffering for all eternity--even if God Himself has no hand in the suffering--why would He choose to create it? To put it another way, if I lived in a house made of chocolate and decided to adopt a dog that is deathly allergic to chocolate, aren't I responsible for that dog's inevitable demise? And wouldn't God be even more responsible, considering he also created chocolate and chocolate allergies? And just how are cancer and earthquakes a result of our mismanagement of free will? Are you suggesting they are punishments? Are you suggesting that the recently deceased rescue workers in the mines of Utah and White House Press Secretary Tony Snow are all somehow culpable for their own afflictions? If so, please spill the beans. As an occasional gossip journalist, I'd love to get some dirt on Tony Snow. Or at least something in which I am not also implicated.

You also take Maher to task for claiming Christians are taught to kill in God's name. However, there are numerous passages in the Bible which call for the stoning to death of adulterers and homosexuals, to name just a couple. How does this teaching correspond with your Church's stance against capital punishment? Were these sections of the Bible less divinely inspired?

Perhaps the answers to these questions would seem more evident if I were a member of the faithful, but I'm afraid my brain has evolved as a thinking machine. Try as I might, I just can't make it stop being inquisitive. Unlike the faithful, I have not mastered my free will enough to force my brain to shut off.

Best wishes,
Laurence Shandy, gentleman