On April 27, 2011, a letter of mine was published in the Mille Lacs Messenger, a Minnesota county newspaper. It was given the title, Scriptures and science. It was the "letter of the week". It is posted on the Mille Lacs Messenger's website. The letter is in response to Rev. David Prosser's response letter to a Mille Lacs Messenger column by the Messenger's editor, Brett Larson. In response to my letter Scriptures and science , the Mille Lacs Messenger published Kathy Martinson's May 4th response letter "More on religion". Then, on May 11th, the Mille Lacs Messenger published my response letter to Kathy Martinson's letter. It is presented below.

One more round

by Thomas Dahlheimer
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In Kathy Martinson's May 4th response letter "Moreonreligion.html", she said that she and others were offended by statements that I made in my letter Scriptures and science. All of my letter's statements are true. This, I believe, makes no difference to Martinson and most other Christians who read my letter. A former Governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, once said, "Organized religion is a sham and crutch for weak minded people who need strength in numbers." Weak minded people need to believe what most people believe, even if science and common sense contradict their beliefs.

Kathy Martinson, in my opinion, you and the others you mentioned have sheared consciences and are not sane; you and they suffer with a religious delusional, mental health problem. The fear of being cast into "everlasting damnation" (Hell) at the end of your life, if you would choose not to remain in conformity with the majority keeps you and others entrapped in a fundamentally deceptive religion, the Christian religion.

In respect to your statement that the Roman Catholic Church "does not threaten one with hell", please read the following contradictory statement that is presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. "Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ. Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification, or immediately, -- or immediate and everlasting damnation." The Roman Catholic Church does threaten that if anyone does not "accept the divine grace manifested by Christ" (become a Christian) by the end their life, they will go to "everlasting damnation" in Hell.

The U.S. Catholic Bishops once wrote: "The whole Bible is spanned by the narrative of the first creation (Gn 1:3) and the vision of a restored creation at the end of history" (RV. 21:1-4).

Ask your pastor if the Biblical story in Genesis is not a myth that was taken literally and then used to formulate a foundational dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, the one that describes Jesus' supposed mission. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Jesus' mission is to "restore creation to the purity of is origins". Science (as taught in public schools) clearly teaches that the creation was not pure at its origins, and that neither was it pure for hundreds of millions of years before the first modern-day humans (or "Adam and Eve") came into existence on earth.

You quoted a Biblical scripture to express your belief that practicing the Christian religion is the only way to the Father. You wrote: "Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him." - John 14:6.

When quoting his guru, Paramahansa Yogananda, hailed as the father of Yoga in the West, wrote in his book Autobiography of a Yogi: "Theologians have misinterpreted Christ's words in such passages as "I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" (Jn. 14:6). Jesus meant, never that he was the sole Son of God, but that no man can attain the unqualified Absolute, the transcendent Father beyond creation, until he has first manifested the 'Son' or activating Christ Consciousness within creation. Jesus, who had achieved entire oneness with that Christ consciousness, identified himself with it inasmuch as his own ego had long since been dissolved.

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On May 17, 2011, the Mille Lacs Messenger published a response letter to, both, the above letter and my many other Messenger letters. I have it posted on my website. It is located at http://www.towahkon.org/Anti-Catholic-letters.html