Friday, June 27, 2008

The Loser Letter number 7

Apropos of nothing: Ok, I've discovered the source of the mystery from yesterday: I truly only have 297 posts (now 298), so maybe I popped the cork a little early. It turns out that for some reason, I had three unpublished "drafts" that Blogger has been tracking--and that these are duplicate posts to ones that are already out there, so they don't count. Bummer. But that means I get to celebrate again in a couple of days, right? I mean, I'll take all the excuses to celebrate that I can.

Anyway, Mary Eberstadt continues with her "Loser Letter" series at National Review, which are written by a hypothetical former Christian who's converted to Atheism, but (in Screwtape Letters fashion) is warning all the current crop of Atheist writers why their arguments and approaches aren't likely to be making too many more such converts.

I missed writing about Letter 6 from last week, so here it is: Do Atheists Know Any Human Women, Human Children, or Human Families?

Letter 7 is here: The Unbelievably Annoying Problem of Christian Moral High Ground, which is primarily about the Abortion Issue, and how that is playing out among the youth of America--in ways that don't necessarily result in advantage for the Atheist side of the culture wars.

Anyway. As far as the backstory on these letters is proceeding, I'm getting a little suspicious. The writer keeps dropping hints about herself, a little in each letter. We've learned that she's in some kind of weird rehab center, with a Director who's a midget who wears a red cape; we know she's learning German; we know she became an atheist after dating one named Lobo, who she also met in rehab and now considers a loser... and she hasn't explained any of this. And she keeps saying that she's almost done with her critiques, and that she's almost ready to explain what it was that convinced her to leave her faith and become an Atheist, but she never quite gets around to it. Now, she says in the current letter that she'll eventually get to all this in the last three letters, that all our questions about her weird circumstances will eventually be answered... but I'm becoming increasingly skeptical, and think this is some kind of lead-on that will take a weird turn at the end.

Have any of you been reading these things? What is your take on all this? You think my suspicions are justified? Just a thought....

3 comments:

B. Durbin said...

My thought is that she is overdoing it. The people she is attempting to reach will be turned off by the caricature and the other people who read this will only have their stereotypes reinforced, or will be turned off by the silliness.

Jarrod J. Williamson, Ph.D. said...

Sounds like she has been getting her ideas from Letters to a Christian Nation.

Read it. One or two good points, otherwise unimpressive.

harry said...

Numbers are really a mystery which cannot be solved. People who can solve this mystery go crazy with numbers.
=====================================
Harry
http://www.christian-drug-rehab.org