September 28th,
2005
A few weeks ago,
a fan of my site, (who will remain nameless, unless he tells me to post it), emailed in with a link to a site called www.devinswecker.com. The
owner of that site, “Devin”, had written a little diatribe about how he thought women should dress, and the nameless
fan wanted me to respond to him. I did, and it turned into a huge discussion
about the existence of God.
As such, I’m
gonna post the back and forth here. I’m citing him as the author of his
own works, and I’m giving credit to his website, so I don’t think I’m breaking any laws here. I also TOLD HIM I was gonna post it, and since he didn’t tell me not to, I guess I have his permission.
As usual, I won’t
edit his points/counterpoints in any way.
Warning: Before
you start down this road, just know that this is some long ass shit. There are
a few “funny” parts, but mostly it’s a serious debate.
Let’s start
with Devin’s original rant, shall we?
***
A letter to the
girls I know
By Devin Swecker
There are two kinds
of men: Godly men, and worldly men. What kind of man do you want? I’m betting most of you said “a Godly man.” Someday,
you want to marry a man who loves God with every fiber of his being because he will be an excellent husband and father. He will honor and be true only to you. Most
women want a Godly man or at least think they do. Well, I think I have found
a way to tell you exactly what kind of guy you will get. I don’t even have
to know you! All I have to do is look at you.
The kind of guy you want or will get is advertised by the clothing you wear.
I know what men want. Trust me, I am a guy. I know more guys than you do and I know them better. I know
what we think, what we talk about, what we want, and what we look for, and it is different for each one of us depending on
our relationship with God. I’m sure you already know this, but men were
created differently than you. We have different desires and priorities. Our eyes and minds react very differently to some things than yours do. It isn’t disgusting, perverted, or wrong; it is wonderful and good! It is how God made us. It’s how we handle these differences
that separate a Godly man from a worldly man.
A worldly man doesn’t
control himself, rather, he looks at anything that attracts his attention or gets him excited.
A worldly guy has no problem when girls wear clothes that show off skin, like boxers, high or low cut shirts, low rise
jeans, and “cute” little swimsuits. He’s a fan of tight-fitting
shirts and pants that show off your form, he thinks they’re fine! Worldly
guy watches a lot of TV and R-rated movies, isn’t really offended by sexual content or nudity and secretly dabbles in
pornography. He’s a “Christian” and makes up a significant
portion of your church and youth group. He’s a really nice guy and sees
you mainly for your body. If you were to marry worldly guy, he’d bring
lots of baggage into the relationship, have intimacy problems, entertain thoughts of other women, and possibly cheat on you.
A Godly man is in
control of his drives and desires. He constantly seeks God and reads his Bible. He “walks in the Spirit” and isn’t set off by everything he sees. When immodestly dressed girls, magazine covers, or risqué advertisements come into
view, Godly guy quickly “bounces his eyes” away from the image. He’s
constantly guarding his thoughts and what he allows into his mind. He hates being
around girls that disrespect him and his struggles by wearing inappropriate attire.
Godly guy doesn’t watch much TV and is selective about the movies he sees.
He views you as a person, knows you and respects you. He has your best
interests in mind and guards against inappropriate thoughts of you. If you were
to marry Godly guy, he would give you the emotional attention you need, he would ignore other women and remain faithful to
you no matter what.
Unfortunately, there
are more worldly men than Godly men. And to make matters worse, to the untrained
eye, a worldly man can look a lot like a Godly man. So what can you do to only
attract a Godly man? An important way of delineating between them lies in how
you dress. As mentioned before, the clothes you wear advertise what kind of guy
you are looking for. If you dress immodestly, you will attract worldly guys and
scare away the Godly ones. It all comes down to the kind of man you want to spend
your time around and eventually marry. You cannot afford to be complacent in
this area of your life! You will pay the price someday.
***
Okay. While I’m fairly confident that this is, word-for-word, Devin’s original rant, I can’t
say with 100% certainty because I found it on this site:
http://barlowgirl.com/soundpost/forum_posts.asp?TID=9822&PN=1
I myself originally
read it on Devin’s site, www.devinswecker.com, but as of today, 9/28, that address no longer functions. I hope he didn’t take it down on account of my response, which you’ll
read shortly.
Just
a quick note: After reading this shit again, I can’t BELIEVE I didn’t lay into Devin right off the bat. I gave him a mild lashing, (posted below), but nothing like I would normally do. The simple fact of the matter was, I had no idea it would turn into anything, and I didn’t want to
spend any real time on a response.
Regardless, here’s
what I sent:
Dear Devin,
I read your article
entitled, “a letter to the girls I know,” and I must say, Devin, you’ve got some serious inadequacy issues. There’s a lot of guilt in there too, along with a splash of misplaced blame. Ya see, you’ve been brought up to believe that you should think/act/live a certain
way, (which constitutes your definition of a Godly man), but since it is your very nature as an organism to reproduce, you
find yourself unable to stay away from thoughts about hot chicks.
Wow, your parents
must’ve really done a mind fuck on you. Ultra conservative Christians amuse
me.
Lemme’ take
a shot in the dark here. I’m guessing you’re either a virgin, or
you’ve had only a few sexual encounters. If the latter is the case, you
were fumbling and uncomfortable and probably messed the whole thing up. (Oh,
and rest assured, the girls you were with told their friends how bad you were).
Hey,
don’t sweat it! Sex is a skill like anything else. It takes instruction and practice to become good. Not so much
for women, but us guys really gotta put in the flight time to properly pilot the jet.
Know what I’m
talking about? …No? I thought not.
That’s what
I’m getting from your article. First, you feel sexually unsure of yourself
and thusly inadequate. But you’re still a guy, and a girl walking past
you with a huge rack pouring out of a white spaghetti string tank top causes a little “lift” in the old crotchial
region. Then you feel all guilty and shit about wanting to nail her to a cork
board with your penis. Why? Because
you’ve been told such things are not Godly.
What makes you a
douche, however, is that you DARE to blame it on the girl. You’ve got SOME
balls, kiddo. You think the girls you know should dress FOR you?!? That they should literally arrange their attire around your bullshit internal struggle with sexual immorality?!?
I bet you have to
have your pants specially made to fit those enormous testicles.
Unreal…
Cheer up, though. God created you in his own image, right? So
God likes hot chicks too. There’s nothing wrong with it! You keep thinking like that, and all that guilt will turn you
gay. And OH, how God hates those gays, ya know!
(ß
insert sarcasm).
Try not to break
your leg getting off of that moral soapbox, Chuckles.
-Mike
***
From: Devin Swecker
Sent:
Sunday, September 18th, 2005 11:15
PM
To:
MichaelDescado@hotmail.com
Subject: Your guestbook entry
Hi Mike,
Believe it or not,
I understand why you feel and believe the way you do. Most of the points you
made are things I have thought about before, if not sympathized on. I used to
think of people who believed the way I do now to be fools, prudes, and ignorant stupid weaklings who simply force their morality
on others because of their own inadequacies. At one time I considered myself
an atheist and dictated my own morality. I thought I knew it all and I was absolutely
miserable, though I wouldn’t admit it.
Eventually,
events transpired in my life that forced me to re-analyze my views about everything, and though I couldn’t see it at
the time, I look now and undeniably see the hand of God on my life totally changing my world view, (as ridiculous as I know
that may sound to you).
What happened was,
I realized that my life wasn’t working, that I really had no clue what was going on, and that I ultimately had absolutely
no control over anything. I knew there had to be more and I made a promise to
myself to find THE TRUTH, no matter what it was, no matter what it did to me, because at least I could find comfort in knowing
what was real and could then base my decisions around that (self-reliance, God, unity with all things, suicide… etc.).
I never thought
that Christianity, what I was raised with as a child would ever win out. Through
a lot of studying and searching I eventually realized that beyond a reasonable doubt that God existed, and eventually, that
He was the God of the Jews and ultimately the Christians. Two books from the
Christian perspective that eventually clinched it for me were “The Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel and “More
Evidence that Demands a Verdict” by Josh McDowell. For a number of months
I didn’t want to believe that the faith I was brought up in actually was the truth (what are the odds right?), despite
the mounds of evidence I was unearthing. I kept searching in other areas of atheism,
existentialism, eastern religions, pantheism, and such because I didn’t want to simply accept something because it was
the way I was raised, and therefore, possibly the most “comfortable” to me.
Eventually, the
empirical evidence won out and I admitted to myself the truth I had found. That
God had created the universe, that what the Bible says (on the most part at least) is true and verifiable, and that Jesus
Christ was someone who was like no one else, and He was the only way to not only have eternal life, but have meaning in this
life.
My “Letter
to the girls I know”, my morality, my lifestyle, those are all things that are based on the truths I have found, and
it would be pointless to try to explain them or argue them to you unless you yourself had experienced those truths as well. I don’t know you Mike, but I believe that others can find what I have found
if they are TRULY open-minded and seek whatever is true. It takes guts and it
can be very painful. I won’t like to you, my life isn’t perfect. I’m not happy all the time and I still have some big questions. But my life is SO much better now. I have peace, hope, purpose,
and I am amazed at how the things in my life, as well as how I have changed for the better.
Anyway, there it
is. I’m only sharing this because of how valuable it’s been to me
and I really hope you can find the same thing. I’d love it if you’d
write me back man, even if it’s just to tell me how wrong I am.
Take care,
Devin Swecker
***
After Devin sent
this, he banned my IP address from his website. Nevertheless, I emailed this
back to him on September 19th.
Ah, Devin… It truly pains me to see an individual with such writing prowess fall to the dark
side. While my response to you was unrelated to my own website, I get emails
like yours all the time. Granted, they’re rarely written with coherent
sentence structure, but the arguments never change, the fanatically embraced perspectives never change.
First of all, I
sincerely doubt you understand why I feel the way I do. I’ve never categorically
dismissed individuals that believe the way you do as fools, prudes, or ignorant stupid weaklings. Those stereotypes are often true, but it has nothing to do with the root of the problem.
The root of the
problem is choice. People like you have the luxury of choice. People like me do not.
Your statement that
you were “absolutely miserable” is the key factor here, and it is one that is widespread and universal and shared
by most of humanity. An “atheist”, (as people like you label people
like me), does not dictate his or her own morality. Mortality is not an absolute. It’s a set of rules that society imposes, usually for the good of the whole.
Regardless,
I don’t kill or steal or rape because I’m afraid I’ll be struck down by God for it. Nor do I refrain from such things because I fear I’ll go to prison.
No, my sense of what you call “morality” comes from the fact that I have no desire to act that way- even
if I would benefit. Moreover, my restraint comes from the certainty that I don’t
want to live in a society where those atrocities would be allowed to be done to ME.
Ah, but the lines
of “good” and “evil” are never cut and dry, so morality is never cut and dry. After all, you might see abortion as evil, or respecting the rights of gay Americans as evil, or upholding
the Separation of Church and State as evil… while I do not.
I’m
sure you had your own epiphany about the supernatural, and have thus become totally convinced that you’re one of the
few that have discovered the “way” to salvation. Hey! Most of the world agrees with you. Unfortunately, there are
as many versions of that “way” as there are individuals who embrace it.
There are as many “Gods” as there are people who worship them.
Who’s right? Well, that’s a question that has not, will not, be answered- simply because
it’s a matter of faith. When you embrace the supernatural as your guide
for living, you’re robbing yourself of the purifying light of objectivity. You
cannot weight both sides of any given argument because you’re already predispositioned to judge it on the merits of
your particular dogma.
Where you see the
“Hand of God”, I see you embracing a set of mythologies that fit you, that comfort you, that allow you to answer
questions you normally couldn’t, (not without doing the required research, at least).
The
fact is, you DON’T have control. Neither does your God.
Scary,
huh? Hell yeah it is! Which is why
your particular mindset, (and its uncountable variations), is such an easy sell.
Like all biological
organisms, we’re hardwired to survive and reproduce. That’s it, and
that’s all. The pursuit of those two goals is what occupies the whole of
our lives. Unfortunately, we’re also cognoscente, which makes us intrinsically
aware that we will one day die, that we will cease to exist, and that’s horrific for a species like ours to accept.
Ah, so what do we
do? We embrace that first drive, the drive to survive, and we expound upon it
to foster wellbeing. You said in your email that, before you succumbed to God,
(and I’m paraphrasing), you, “had no clue what was going on”, and that you, “knew there had to be
more.”
Gee
whiz, no shit? Welcome to the human condition.
You betray yourself, Devin, and in the exact same fashion that 99% of us do.
You said, “I made a promise to myself to find THE TRUTH, no matter what it was, no matter what it did to me,”
but you short changed yourself by taking the easy/common way out.
“The Truth”
is what allows you to bring order from chaos, complacency from despair, happiness from horror… but it doesn’t
make it Fact.
I LOVE how you said
you never thought that, “Christianity- what I was raised with as a child- would ever win out.”
Why?!? Why did you never think that? Sounds like a rehearsed line
of BULLSHIT to me. What about Christianity, specifically, did you find unacceptable? Was it the part about eternal paradise through accepting Jesus Christ as your personal
lord and savior? Or was it the part about God forgiving you- no matter WHAT-
as long as you repent?
Despite what I’ve
said, I really have no problem with whatever your singular brand of faith is. You’re
one of the masses, my friend, and I have no reason to condemn you… as long as you DON’T STICK YOUR FUCKING NOSE
IN MY BUSINESS!!!
Alas, that’s
rarely the case. And do you know why? Because
you DARE to claim justification!!!
Lemme’
get this straight, two of the books that “clinched” it for you were written from the CHRISTIAN perspective.
Hmmm…
What perspective
were you EXPECTING to come away with, you easily led sheep? This is the very
reason that the Republican Right has the audacity to suggest Creationism should be taught as a science- their research consists
of reading morons that embrace the exact same philosophy!!!
It’s
pretty fucking easy to say, “Yep, I knew I was right!” when all you expose yourself to are those that agree.
And what’s
with THIS statement?:
“For a number
of months I didn’t want to believe that the faith I was brought up in actually was the truth.”
Again I ask, WHYYYYY?!?
As far as religions
go, Christianity is the FUCKING SHIT!!!
What were you rebelling against, James Dean? No matter what
version you put stock in, (and there are many), Christianity has the best life insurance plan all around… except maybe
for the Vikings, who have Valhalla… and the Moslems, who get forty some odd virgins… Wait! I’m getting off track here.
Since I’ve encountered your brand of dog shit about a billion times in my thirty two years
on this planet, the general consensus doesn’t bother me. I’ve heard
it all before. I guess the thing that ultimately pisses me off, is your use of
the word “empirical”.
From www.dictionary.com:
Empirical- Verifiable or provable by means of observation
or experiment. Guided by practical experience and not theory.
How dare you! It’s one thing to discount science
on account of ignorance. It’s another thing entirely to pretend to know it!
Like I said in a caption under one of your goofy faced pictures, If you were a man, I’d punch you.
Try this for me, Devin. Try learning the history of your
religion. I did. I did the fucking
work, and I didn’t do it from the perspective of an Atheist. No, I did
it from the perspective of a born again Christian that was hungry for God. My
personal trials in this regard are chronicled on my website in various places, so I’ll make no further arguments save
one.
You waxed all philosophical about what a “struggle” it was for you, and for the third time
I ask… Why?
Does it take more courage to embrace a comforting/simple/lazy/supernatural explanation for the world? Or to find out its mechanics without such beliefs… without the certainty that
there may, indeed, be no higher reason for it all? At least not one that distinguishes
us from any other life form.
An objective pursuit of knowledge is the single
redeeming attribute of mankind. Though rare, it is the driving force behind all
of our accomplishments.
-Mike Descado
Remember that the next time someone close to you gets hurt or sick.
Will you take them to a church? Where Jesus can work a miracle? Or will you take them to a hospital, where rational science can actually do some good.
You don’t have to answer, Devin. Like all of your
kind, faith is steadfast only within the lack of real world opposition.
Sleep tight,
-Mike
P.S. Oh, and by the way, what a cowardly move banning me from your website. I mean, your pussy ass has to approve all new entries to your guest book, right? Then what are you afraid of?
I would never ban someone from my own website. Know why? ‘Cause I can back my shit up no matter what…
Think about that the next time some hot-as-shit sorority girl comes sashaying by in a miniskirt, you
functioning eunuch.
Don’t jerk
off tonight. God is watching…
