Marilyn Sager’s letter (MG, 6/15/2019) is in dire need of a refutation. She states: “No doubt all of humanity is experiencing its last hurrahs.” However, there’s plenty of doubt and this claim has gone on for centuries. Following are replies to her five attributes: love of show and luxury is only exhibited by a tiny minority in the United States; yes, there’s a widening gap between the rich and poor, but some of this can be laid at the feet of the conservative politicians that produced a tax cut known as welfare for the rich; freakishness in art is in the eye of the beholder; there’s no evidence that an increased desire to live off the state exists; and prurience by fundamentalists helps to produce an obsession with sex. Criminal sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests as been in the news and has been going on for centuries. It has been revealed that some pastors and lay leaders of the Southern Baptist church have been equally guilty. This probably goes on in other mainline and independent churches since there’s no reason to believe they would be exempt.

Then she writes: “Worse yet, the Left in our country is openly anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Constitutional, anti-capitalism, anti-free speech, anti-Christian, pro-abortion, pro-violence, pro-immorality, and pro-indecency.” Whew! Pile on all the ridiculous nonsense you can on your opponents. Balderdash! This is dualistic and just her emotional ranting. The “Left” is not monolithic and to anthropomorphize it is an hypostatization fallacy.

Finally she states: “Remember that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God (2 Tim 3:16).” This epistle is pseudepigraphical, but even if it were by Paul, he wouldn’t be referring to the Gospels and other letters that were written after his death in 67 AD; he wouldn’t be referring to his writings since that would be presumptuous, so he must be referring to the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). However, a plain reading of these books depict a vicious deity that aids and commits wars and genocides on a massive scale. The OT contains mythology, sex, scatology, polygamy, slavery, cruelty, genocide, wars, threats, proverbs, and some history. There are prurient passages that you definitely would not want your young children to read. Clearly, the Bible is not from some deity, but is just an antiquated collection of writings by fearful, war mongering, semi-literate and superstitious people living in a remote part of the globe.