If you fight against God's will there are consequences and there is no point in blaming God or his people when you suffer the consequences.

There is no possible way to counter an argument centred on faith on its merits. It can't be done. Granted, ridicule also doesn't work.

If I believe that global warming is caused by a decrease in the number of pirates then there is no argument based on merits that can cause me to change my mind.

Our rights come from God and being True to Him - not from the mere fact that we exist as individuals.

If you reject the enlightenment, equality, individual liberty, and democracy based on your belief in "God's will" and "chosen people" then an impasse is created. Some other common ground could be searched for though it would be a difficult process. We could explore what being True to God means and see if there was some point where similarities between - say 'equality' and being True to Him lead. Unfortunately the diary format does not easily lend itself to such exploration.

That said, I suppose you are right. No one is likely to challenge your belief structure in a way that you would recognise as valid, just as you have not challenged our belief structure in a way that we would recognise as valid.

As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some other observations on the word revelation. Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.

No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it.

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication -- after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

Age of Reason by Thomas Paine

_{aspiring to genteel poverty}

- Jake

Austerity can only be implemented in the shadow of a concentration camp.