The Loser Letters by Mary Eberstadt (anti-atheist broadside)

[Doomed Harlottt]

I mentioned in another thread that a very conservative Catholic friend of mine gave me the above-named book. I am settling this Friday evening to read through it from front to end. However, I've already looked ahead and it looks craptastic!

 

THE PREMISE: A 20-something woman named A.F. Christian (i.e. "A Former Christian") is writing to her heroes, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. She wants to give them suggestions as to how to win new "converts" to atheism. For unknown reasons, she talks like a particularly vapid Valley Girl -- referring to God as "the Loser," addressing Dawkins and Hitchens as her "BFFs," and saying things like "atheism is so obvious, duh!" She also capitalizes "You" when addressing Dawkins and Hitchens. I guess the author thinks that atheists worship them in place of God?

 

There is a crazy-making moment in each chapter, so I will post on each chapter as I go along. Not sure how interesting it will, but it will get it out of my system!

[Doomed Harlottt]

THE FORWARD: Atheism = eugenics!

The narrator expresses concern that a believer might point out that she is Dawkins' and Hitchens' only convert, despite millions of book sales. Then -- wham!

In other words, he's going to paint our side as somehow intellectually unfit. And the idea of being called unfit, to this newly minted Atheist, is just too much to bear. Back when I was a Christian, I was taught to embrace those kind of people - You know what I mean, the maladaptives. But as an Atheist, even a new one, I've learned to despise them all as Nature's mistakes.

Nice, huh?

[AudreyE]

Your "friend" disgusts me. I cannot imagine anyone except a self-centered asshole giving this to another person as part of a "thoughtful" discussion of your differences.

[emmiedahl]

So it's a retooling of the Screwtape Letters, with atheists cast as the demons. I am not an atheist, but this still offends me.

[debrand]

THE FORWARD: Atheism = eugenics!

The narrator expresses concern that a believer might point out that she is Dawkins' and Hitchens' only convert, despite millions of book sales. Then -- wham!

Nice, huh?

Sounds as if they are encouraging a prejudice against atheist. Apparently, lumping all the members of a group together is all right as long as you do it for god.

So, they think that atheists despise handicapped people?

[Sola]

Hey y'all be sure to tell my daughter that her mother must hate her as she's an athiest and atheists hate disabled. Dont forget will you

[Witsec1]

There's plenty to satirize in the New Atheist movement, or any movement made up of human beings, but this sounds dreadful. To write good satire, you need to know something about the subject.

[Gizmola]

What fantastic bullshit. I can't wait to hear more. I try to keep my sense of humor when I hear of the godly trying to imagine atheists' thoughts, etc. It's always such hyperbole and I have never understood how anyone with even a grain of intelligence can think it's true.

[Doomed Harlottt]

LETTER ONE: Atheism = No Sexual Morality (You can read the whole chapter here: http://www.ignatius.com/promotions/lose ... xcerpt.htm)

In her first proper fictional letter, the author takes on the Sexual Revolution. Illustrating just how batshit she is, she claims Dawkins and Hitchens are out of touch with youth when they advocate things like contraception:

The second point I'd urge You all to consider - and again, it's not the kind of thing guys of Your age might know if You'll pardon my saying so - is that when we Atheists say with a straight face that deep-sixing the old sex rules will make everybody happy, we're dissing the experience of most people who have passed through college since the godless generation. I mean to say, that's pretty much everyone under the age of fifty. The Gen Xers on down have all seen firsthand the same things this former Christian did - that all this rutting and strutting and getting free contraceptives and living for the moment was not exactly the way Atheists all paint it in their books, i.e. as some fantastic liberation from the sexually repressive hand of the doddering Church.

Hey Mary, just because your kids tell you what you want to hear about how awful it is having access to free condoms doesn't mean that the rest of us under 50 feel the same way!

It's cute how she thinks Dawkins and Hitchens are the old fuddy-duddies here.

Maybe You somehow weren't around for all the hangovers and detoxing, the panicked trips to the shrinks and the clinics, the door slammings, and crying jags and suicide threats that so many of us think about whene we think about college . . .

Um, I don't remember anything like that from college. Except maybe a few hangovers. She later references all those girls in college who had abortions -- but you know, I never heard of anyone in college or anyone I've ever known getting an abortion. Because, you know, we had access to reliable contraception. It's crazy, isn't it?

. . . but some of the rest of us saw enough to get pretty sick of all that and were tempted to think that a rule or two about how some members of the Species ought to treat others might not be all bad.

That's funny, I remember all sorts of rules of sexual morality from my days at my eeeevil secular feminist college. Like CONSENT. And SAFE SEX. And NOT CHEATING. I love how this crazy lady thinks that if you don't follow all the rules of her particular church that the alternative is a free-for-all orgy with no morality whatsoever.

[slickcat79]

There's plenty to satirize in the New Atheist movement, or any movement made up of human beings, but this sounds dreadful. To write good satire, you need to know something about the subject.

This. I'm pretty sure this Mary person gleaned all of her information on atheism from Way of the Master. In fact, are we sure she's not Ray Comfort incognito? :shhh:

[CynicMom]

This is just like The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis, only dumb.

Has she considered the idea that Dawkins and Hitchens are not the same person?

[Doomed Harlottt]

In this chapter, the fictional narrator A.F. Christian claims that her college course in Logic made her doubt atheism because it is "contradictory." Obviously, atheism itself cannot contradictory since it merely means the lack of belief in any God or gods. I think what she's really getting at are "contradictions" in some of the criticisms of religion made by the new atheists.

She specifically takes on the argument that belief in a deity is ubiquitous throughout human history because it serves as a kind of wish fulfillment, a comforting fantasy to help us cope with death and uncertainty. In response she makes 2 arguments:

1) She asks how it could possibly be wish fulfillment to posit a God who is vengeful, mean, strict, misogynist, homophobic and genocidal as the New Atheists claim the Judeo-Christian God is? And how is it wish fulfillment to make up a God who is so strict with the rules?

Now on the other hand, a deity who would let me smoke and drink as much as I want, drop five pounds without going a-rex again, string up that judge from juvie court (long story), send my boyfriend packing on the grounds that we Humans aren't "hardwired" to be married for life (so true! more on that later); now there's a god this former believer could have gotten her head around, a god who turns bread into iPod minis and water into Grey Goose vodka - nowwe're getting somewhere! That's what I'm talkin' about if You know what I mean.

Of course, I think a mean God who smites your enemies might well be the ULTIMATE in wish fulfillment -- and a punitive God could also explain the calamities and uncertainty that pervade life. Not that all religious believers posit this kind of God. I'm just saying.

And it's also not quite true that belief in a deity is as universal as she claims. Others can correct me if I am wrong but I don't believe that either Chinese religions (Confucianism and Taoism) or Buddhism are theistic.

2) She then says one could just as easily argue that atheists are engaging in wish fulfillment by denying the need to have to answer in the next life for our lack of moral restraint.

This is a cute, and not unfair point. It is quite true that the possibility of self-interested motives in adopting one belief or another has little bearing on the truth of that belief. Of course, I'm not sure why she would assume that atheists lack moral restraint.

[Angri-la]

So it's a retooling of the Screwtape Letters, with atheists cast as the demons. I am not an atheist, but this still offends me.

Bingo! I was just about to say the same thing-- you beat me to it so often! even the words are rip offs of the well written books of C.S. Lewis

[valsa]

This actually would sound kind of hilarious to me, as an atheist, but only if it weren't a real, published book.

I'd tell your "friend" that it's unlikely the person who wrote this book has ever even seen an atheist, let alone sat down and had a discussion about religion with one.

[Witsec1]

Maybe give him a dvd of Julia Sweeney's "Letting Go of God"?

[Doomed Harlottt]

Ugh. I thought I was going to zip through whole thing tonight but I'm already fading fast. I almost forgot this little gem from the sexual revolution chapter:

I'll confess a terrible weakenss here and say that even now, after I've evolved so far, I still want to reach for the Xanax just thinking about an Atheist like any of You dating my hypothetical daughter - as opposed to, say, a nice, antiabortion, save-sex-for-marriage Christian.

I love how she thinks it is so obvious that, of course, any parent would see that a daughter would be better off with an anti-abortion, save-sex-for-marriage type. Which is kind of silly if she is writing to try to persuade someone with pro-choice values. As someone who actually believes in choice and the value of women's health, I would be much more nervous to have my daughter dating an antiabortion person than a guy like Richard Dawkins. What if my daughter gets pregnant and has a health scare? Is Mr. Antiabortion going to try to talk her out of taking measures to protect her health?

[Jezebel]

I just tried reading the sample chapter, and gave up halfway through. There's only so much willful ignorance I can tolerate, and she rambles on for too damned long.

The book is allegedly "satire." But to write successful satire, you have to know your subject well enough to understand its absurdities, and you have to be funny. And the author of this mess? Fails--and fails hard--on both counts. She doesn't understand young people (does she even know any?), atheists (ditto?), or, apparently, anyone else who is not a tight-assedly devout, finger-wagging Catholic moralizer. And while her tin-eared attempt to capture "the way kids talk today" is briefly amusing, it's definitely not in the way she intended.

What a mess. She has no damned clue about anything she's written about.

[debrand]

Beyond telling us how awful atheists are, does the writer give any evidence for a supreme power? It sounds as if the writer's argument is "Atheists are awful people who do awful things. That means god exist."

I've noticed that a lot of Christian apologetics seem to be made up of one liners intended to make the believer feel better. No real thought is involved and the believer isn't doing anything that would actually make the nonbeliever want to join his faith.

I found someone else's article on the book. Doomed Harlot, you might like to konw that other people dislike the book. I tried to read a snippet of it but the writing style is atrocious.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008 ... _of_ma.php

[AudreyE]

Of course, I think a mean God who smites your enemies might well be the ULTIMATE in wish fulfillment -- and a punitive God could also explain the calamities and uncertainty that pervade life. Not that all religious believers posit this kind of God. I'm just saying.

Such good points. The "just world hypothesis" is an almost universal wish, and Christianity is built around that. And you've exposed the assumption that it's Christianity vs. atheism. In fact, not every faith posits a vengeful God in the first place, so that undermines the entire argument quite a bit.

I think wish fulfillment is only part of it. There's also a big element of projection. Humans are vengeful bastards, so our images of God sometimes turn out that way, as well. Not surprising.

[debrand]

1) She asks how it could possibly be wish fulfillment to posit a God who is vengeful, mean, strict, misogynist, homophobic and genocidal as the New Atheists claim the Judeo-Christian God is? And how is it wish fulfillment to make up a God who is so strict with the rules?

[.

Notice that she does not state that her god isn't a cruel and vindicitive being. Her point seems to be that humans wouldn't have invented a nasty supreme power who committed genocide throughout the Old Testament and, according to the last book of the bible, will eternally torture parents who get a mark to feed their offspring. The fact that her god is so horrible and cruel is proof that he exists.

Her rational is insulting to Christians. She gives no defense against the atheist view of her god but instead pretty much admits that he is an ass.

[lawfulevil]

Both a hilarious and edgy send-up of today’s atheism and a serious work of Christian apologetics, THE LOSER LETTERS will have the believers cheering — and the atheists wondering what hit them.

No, unfortunately I already know what being slapped in the face with stupid feels like.

It’s messed up, isn’t it, when you think of how otherwise puritanical our own times are, that the church’s notion of sexual discipline should seem so funny to so many people? After all, it’s the only kind of discipline that’s out of bounds! We all know that people who eat too much are pigs, people who drink too much are drunks, people who don’t exercise are slobs and parasites on the body politic what with all their health costs, and people who smoke are just as disgusting as it’s possible to be, like an old person crossed with a fat one wearing a fur coat and eating venison and cake at the same time or something — and the rest of us are all really put out at every one single of those kinds of people for being such slobs and so hard on our own eyes and wallets. You know?

Let's fix society by being even more nasty and judgmental, because hating fat people, addicts, the sedentary, and smokers isn't enough hate. We have to judge other people's intimate relationships or the whole country will slide into a moral cesspit, dammit!

And somehow the atheists are to blame despite Christians being by far the majority in this country.

nationalreview.com/articles/225126/onward-anti-christian-soldiers/mary-eberstadt?pg=3

...Yeah, this woman is completely deranged.

[BayLee_10]

Bill Maher said it best, 'The wonderful thing about being an atheist is that it doesn't take up any of your time.' I'm paraphrasing, but it's close.

[valsa]

I'm sure this is 100% wrong but it almost seems like this book is trolling the "believers" that are supposedly cheering for it.

Imagine if an atheist wrote a book parodying all the stupid things people believe about atheists- and no one realized it was a parody. Seems like it would be a lot like this book.

[Doomed Harlottt]

I'll keep going if you guys can stomach it. Here we have some serious arguments and then the random, obligatory slam at France! France sucks! Duh!

First, the author points to the many religious charities worldwide. She also cites a study based on data from the year 2000 by Arthur C. Brooks showing that believers in God give significantly more to charity than non-believers. I don't know much about the numbers but the following points come to mind: (1) Atheism is not a religious belief system, but rather a lack of belief in God. As such, it is a big tent that encompasses everyone from thoughtful secular humanists to people who are simply apathetic to skinheads to all sorts of people. In a way, comparing atheists to organized religions is a sort of apples-to-oranges exercise. I wonder how you know people who identify as secular humanists compare to religious givers? (2) Atheists are becoming more organized, especially in the last 12 years with the explosion of the internet. There is reason to beleive that giving by atheists has improved in that period. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/2 ... 63925.html at the Huffington Post. (3) Certainly atheists give so much in time and money to charity that it is impossible to argue that a belief in God is necessary in order for people to care for their fellow human beings in need. (4) Sometimes charitable endeavors can backfire when they are not based on reason. I am not by any means intending to slam all religious charities, but (to give an example) it bothers me when religious charities actively thwart access to contraception among the poor people they purport to serve based on their own "God said so" beliefs. (5) None of this has much to do with whether God exists.

NOW HERE IS THE MORE FUN WINGNUTTY STUFF -- the inevitable slam at France, specifically the 2003 heat wave in which approximately 14,000 elderly people died:

Now everyone official says he knows the reasons why this happened - because of heat topping 100 degrees during a month when most of the city, including much of the nursing home staff, went on vacation. Well, there's Secular Europe for You: Granmamma's in a "home" getting heatstroke, and her family, or what remains of it, is too busy with Eurail and Ryanai and vacation ooh-la-la to care. And so Nature got to dispose of a whole lot of unfit people at one swoop.

Wow, way to slam grieving family members based on your unfounded assumptions, lady! According to Wikipedia, many parts of France have virtually no experience or infrastructure (such as air conditioning) to deal with summer heat waves because their summers are generally cool (a fact I can attest to, since I froze my ass off in Paris last July and August). Moreover, the people who died were the relatively fit older people, not the ones in nursing homes who had people to care for them. I am sure people went on their normal vacations without any inkling that their older relatives were in any jeopardy.

Then she basically says that atheists not only are less likely to give to charity but are actively opposed to helping others:

Do we really want a society, say, abounding in family-minded people who take in other people's unfit offspring? Next thing You know, after that, people might get the idea of protecting, say, crippled infants, or people in comas, or Alzheimer's or Parkinson's patients, or other unfortunate parasites on our Species. And how Natural is any of that? Answer: Not!

[debrand]

Her statement on Frnace leads me to think that some of her true feelings are seeping through. I don't think that she wants older people to die but Europeans, to her, are less caring than we Americans.

I don't remember the exact numbers but a surprisingly large number of Americans die each year due to lack of acess to basic health care. Only an idiot would try to claim that Americans are more loving toward their elderly than other countries.

It is also very cold blooded of Eberstadt to use a natural disaster to claim that the French people didn't love their older relatives. I think that the example speaks more toward her own lack of compassion than France's.

Really, how is this book not making fun of Christians?

I have an idea for a book, a Christian pretends to be an atheist writing a book against Christianity just like Ms Eberstadt. However, she ends up making Christianity look like bad.