The Compleat Heretic's Guestbook Archive:
Volume 21 (19 Oct 2006 - 13 Feb 2007)

This page was last modified on 14 November 2012.

Comments:
I'm so tired of people googling my name and going to your site. I signed your guest book 6 years ago and have since requested that you remove my entry. I see you have not removed it. Well if you intend to keep everything posted to your guest book up forever...here goes, your site sucks, I haven't engaged in this kind of dialog since I was 19, get a life. As far as homosexuality being unnatural, you have to either believe that humans are seperate from nature and everything we do from driving a car to investing in the stock market is unnatural, OR, that we are part of nature and all human behavior is natural. I encourage you to consider that latter concept.

Webmaster's Response:
Mr. McKinney signed my guestbook on 12 May 2001. Contrary to his assertion, I have no evidence he has ever requested I remove that entry. I save all legitimate e-mail, both incoming and outgoing, and do so in a typically anal-compulsive way. A keyword search of my all-too-many e-mail folders on various permutations of his name indicate that his two guestbook entries are his only communication with me. Of course, I may have deleted his claimed request inadvertently while I was purging spam from my inbox, but I rather doubt it.

Even so, my policy regarding removal of guestbook entries is very simple: I don't. My guestbook is a running record of my visitors' reactions to my site and its contents. The removal of any entry would compromise the historical accuracy of that record. Instead, I annotate existing entries as needed and have done so in Mr. McKinney's case. Also, I have edited the guestbook form to make this policy explicit.

Finally, Mr. McKinney's segue into my views on homosexuality arose from his visit to my 1993 newspaper opinion column, "Ban against homosexuals must remain." He spent nearly 18 minutes on this page which suggests he actually read it for comprehension. This behavior is commendable not only in itself but because it is also very rare in my experience. Even so, he obviously needs practice in this area-- and perhaps others. His criticism originates from the single use of "unnatural" in my response to Amy W. Goss in which I make reference to homosexuals' "unnatural, abnormal sexual behavior." As a hard materialist, I accept his basic premise that human beings are natural beings, part of the natural world. Accordingly, all things human are, by definition, "natural" writ large; thus megalopolises, exploitation of Earth's resources, and returning carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by combustion of hydrocarbons are all "natural." His mistake is that I'm not using this broad concept, but rather a much more focused one. In my commentary on human homosexual behavior, I refer to it as "unnatural" because it has no cognate in Nature.

-- The Compleat Heretic

Comments:
Ok, so get this: The local afternoon talk radio show down here has two hosts who get their theological knickers in a bunch at times. Normally, I just change the station when they go on their fevered little religious rants, but they found a way to get to me after all. This past week, they've had on a scientist who runs a web site dedicated to reconciling religion with science. Granted he's a physicist, not a biologist or paleontologist, but it's still disturbing. What do you suppose he's really up to? Could he really still be able to delude himself that way?

Webmaster's Response:
Both science and religion are human attempts to render the Cosmos comprehensible, but the equivalence ends there.

Science deals with the material world, the Cosmos as it exists physically, the realm in which we dwell as material beings. As a hard materialist, I assert that the subject of the work of science is the real world, the only world.

Religion, with its emphasis on a supernatural realm which purportedly exists above and beyond the natural world, is primarily an exercise in human fantasy. All too often, religion offers nothing but false causes for false effects (e.g., a Perfect Designer for the "perfections of design" in nature) and contrived solutions for contrived problems (e.g., Jesus Christ for Original Sin).

In science, truth is a matter of observation; that is, something is true if it conforms to what is seen in nature. In religion, "truth" is a matter of faith; that is, simply believing something to be true makes it "true." This epistemological conflict divides science from religion and makes any attempt to reconcile them a fool's errand.

As for your physicist, like many scientifically and technically trained people, he probably holds deep and sincere religious beliefs, but his training instinctively leads him to approach his faith with a scientific mindset. The problem for such people is that they fall into the trap of trying to conform their thinking into a coherent whole from the contradictory impulses of science and religion. Quite naturally, the results are always "disturbing."

-- The Compleat Heretic

Comments:
Best regards to heretics everywhere.

Comments:
I like to have a look at your site from time to time! See you again soon! Edward

Comments:
I liked the site. I too am fairly conservative and an atheist. Yes it's a weird combo.

Comments:
I want to find out about any anti-abortion groups, education, friends, ways to help, I want to do anything I can to save a baby. Your time will not be wasted. I will follow up on anything. I can tell you this, photographs of aborted babies are very effective. I saw some babies ripped to pieces in garbage bags. You can see in their face that they were in terrible pain. This has made me dedicate my life to save babies. HELP ME HELP THEM! Thanks so very much! boblodus@aol.com (Krista)

Comments:
Great job! I am impressed! :-)

Comments:
I have begun a children's book as well as a basic handbook on how to raise children in a "Godless" world...working title. Do you have any suggestions as far as publishing companies are concerned? Also, do you have a blog or mailing list? Thanks! LM

Webmaster's Response:
Having an interest in getting a prospective book published in the future, I've done some research on the subject. You'll probably need an agent if you're seeking to work with one of the major houses. If you're representing yourself, a small or independent publisher might work with you. You can always consider self-publication and use a local printer. As for a blog, I've considered starting one if only to give myself an outlet and an opportunity to write regularly and seriously and eventually may do so. While I don't have a formal mailing list, I occasionally compile ad hoc mailing lists from my guestbook entries.

-- The Compleat Heretic

Webmaster's Response:
After entering my site on a Google search of "How do pro-lifers feel about capital punishment?", "Anonomyous" [sic] visited as follows:

13:05:35 EST   The Compleat Heretic's Connections: Pro-life and Anti-abortion
13:07:04 EST   Contact Page
13:07:50 EST   Guestbook Central
13:07:55 EST   Guestbook Sign

Comments:
My students are interested in your site very much. I always aspired to understanding of each student and should visit your site. Now I understand, what so pulls them to you.

Comments:
I acually have a question that is how I found this site on Google. Maybe you can help me. I am trying to find out about other branches of Christianity, what they believe about witchcraft and hexes if they are real and so on. If you could please relay any information that you have that you could share with me that would be wonderful I am trying to help some out that is very close and very dear to me.

Webmaster's Response:
I'm as mystified as you are, as I don't think I've ever addressed the subject in which you are interested. My access logs weren't saved properly the day you visited, so I have no idea of the what and the where of your search result. Ahh, the vagaries of search engines!

-- The Compleat Heretic

Comments:
I completely support you!

Comments:
Continued success with your Great Work!

Comments:
I have devoted all life to it. Nobody understood me. My reasoning caused only sneers. People considered, that I only waste time. You have returned me to life, having collected on your site the most interesting information and the most interesting people.

For other entries:

Proceed to Guestbook Archives: Volume 20.

Proceed to Guestbook Archives: Volume 22.

See Guestbook Archives on the Compleat Heretic's Guestbook Central.

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