This short story, though, has the imagery and style of some of the great poets. You sir, are a good man, and I'll side with you on any front. Well, any front that stands to reason.

Like all godless bastards, I salute you, and fight with you, against the delusions of faith.

thanks for the ray of light.
Freebie G.

The Tempter represents what is easy and immeidately expediant. It is difficult to train yourself to think morally, especially when it seems that the rest o the world would prefer to continue to be selfish and narrow-minded. It is very difficult to maintain faith in our ability to make thw world better when it seems tha nothing changes, people keep fighting the same petty fights, ignorance and poverty runs rampant. It's hard to be hopeful in those stiutations. It is much easier to just cease to care about the troubles of the world at large. But I know one thing, whether or not we are capable of making things better, we sure aren't going to do it by burying our heads in the sand and ignoring the problems of the world. Our only hope is if we can go beyond what is easy and focus on what is right and what will help solve the world's problems.

"I can't discount the possibility that I'll change my mind in the future," I replied, "but that doesn't affect the fact that here and now, I must make my decision based on the best evidence available to me."

I feel the same way. It just so happens I came to a different conclusion. What is important here is the humility of your statement. You recognize that there may be more out there and that you are just doing your best. I am the same way. I know that I may be wrong. I will not dogmatically assert my view in the face of reason. This is why I come here, Ebonmuse, I really respect your viewpoint.

So... here is the tempter from the theist's point of view.

I too know the tempter. He has whispered in my ear when I have been abroad and when I rested in my home. Oddly enough he said very similar things to me, with a different spin. Instead of making me doubt faith in humankind as he did with Ebonmuse, he tried to make me doubt my faith in the possibility of God and the hope I have therein.

The commonality I see between myself and Ebonmuse is that we both have faith in something good. Ebonmuse believes in the good of humanity and reason, I believe in a good God. The tempter tries to destroy both of these faiths and bring all to hopelesness and chaos. He would have Ebonmuse betray his better judgement, he would have me betray myself in a similar manner, by chalking my experiences with God up to a psychological disorder and giving up the thing that gives me hope.

I do not think that the tempter takes sides. I do not think that the Tempter is the voice of religion or the voice of atheism. I believe that the Tempter works against all humanity regardless of their belief system. He takes no sides for this would mean that he is for something; but he is not. The tempter is for nothing. He is against everything. He is against that which is and is for that which is not. He seeks to bring all hope and goodness and reason and joy down into the abyss of chaos and despair.

Whether we believe in God or not, we must fight the tempter. He is against us all. So bravo Ebonmuse for defeating the tempter. I applaud you. He is defeated and he knows it. His only hope, the hope for destruction, is no hope at all!

With high regard,

Matt R.

Also, I know that before I REALLY started to think seriously about this issue, if someone had said to me 'Are you a Christian?' I would have said 'Yes' because it was, as you say, the default position.

Truthfully, since writing this post, I've come to think that the Tempter was exaggerating - no surprise there, really. Despite its apparent strength, organized religion may be more of a paper tiger than we suspect. Just look at the results from this recent Harris poll:

Nearly half of Americans are not sure God exists, according to a poll that also found divisions among the public on whether God is male or female or whether God has a human form and has control over events.

The survey conducted by Harris Poll found that 42 percent of US adults are not "absolutely certain" there is a God compared to 34 percent who felt that way when asked the same question three years ago.

42 percent! Elections have been won with much less than that. Notice, also, that the number of people who feel that way is growing. And the highest percentage of people who answered the question that way can be found among the younger age groups (here's the poll itself).

I don't mean to suggest that atheists are one step away from social dominance; no doubt, many of the people who are less than totally certain of God's existence are still theists of some stripe. But what this poll shows, I think, is that those people are not unreachable. I really do wonder to what extent it's true that the majority of people are religious only because it's the default position in our society and because they haven't been exposed to an alternative. If we could present a strong and clear atheist message, in a way that would directly compete with religious messages and undermine the stereotypes they disseminate, who knows how many people we might persuade? There have been other examples of once-widespread attitudes and beliefs dissipating within a few generations. So, yes, we'd be wise not to play down the strength of the forces aligned against us; but let's not psych ourselves out by assuming that their grip on people's minds is unbreakable. It may not be nearly as strong as it appears.

As far as the readers who see echoes of themselves in the Tempter... I'm not terribly surprised, to be honest. There will always be some people who listen to him.