This is a letter that I sent to a man claiming that taking prayer out of school and teaching evolution directly lead to all teenage suicide. His findings were completely false, so I couldn’t help but write this one. It’s three pages when hand written, but it looks a lot less epic when typed. Oh well.
If you’d like to see his blasphemy for yourself, go to http://www.trashevolution.com.
You’ll either laugh or cry.
Dear Sir,
I came across your site called “Trash Evolution”, and there was something bothering me about the teenage suicide section. your model basically proposes that all suicides result in not believing in God and thus having no hope, but psychiatric disorders actually contribute to 90% of all US suicides. A psychiatric disorder is not caused by hopelessness because of a lack in belief of God. It is caused by the lack or over-production of certain chemicals in the brain–usually the lack of endorphins (causing depression) or the over-production of dopamine (a cause of schizophrenia). These chemical imbalances are caused by poor diet, prenatal infection, and heredity. a lack of heavenly belief does not cause chemical imbalances (and thus depression), as depression is a clinical illness. These psychiatric disorders cannot be cured by simply shoving evolution aside and believing in God, but are cured through medication, counselling, and general support. Many depressed teenagers to go religious support-groups, and yes–that helps. But it is not a full cure, especially when the people running these clinics are not trained professionals.
Furthermore, your correlation between taking prayer out of schools/teaching evolution in schools and increased suicide rates is completely unfounded. The past fifty years have seen a dramatic rise in teenage stress caused by a higher emphasis of getting into university, increased social pressure, and poor health habits. These poor health habits (often a lack of organic foods or increase in toxic farming chemicals) can lead to many psychological disorders, because chemicals can act as agonists and antagonists in the brain (similar to opiate effects on the production of endorphins). People with these disorders are more likely to fall under societal stresses, hopelessness, and anger because they cannot physically produce the chemicals needed to keep their brains stable. A strong belief that you son’t matter (because of no faith in God) may lead to increased hopelessness for these people, but it in no way leads to depression. So, your model of lack of faith leading to depression leading to suicide is incorrect. For a small portion of suicides (where belief [or lack thereof] in god is essential to the suicide), the model would be: depression leads to increased stress (fed by lack of faith) leads to suicide. Still, the majority of suicides are not caused by thinking they don’t matter, but by other stressors linked to chemical depression.
Please, base your findings in fact rather than speculation and false correlations. Just because I could say that there are less fish in the oceans because more protestants have decided to eat fish on Fridays (as more protestant Christians have begun to follow Lent), does not mean that it’s the direct reason why. Most Americans know that the main reasons for a lack of fish are caused by an increase in global population and over-fishing by many Asian countries (specifically Japan and China for tuna). Your model was as incorrect as my analogy above–or, rather, as unfounded in actual fact. Just because two things rise as the same time does not prove a positive correlation between the two–that’s elementary statistics. So, please, fix your model.
It’s sites and Christians like you who feed atheistic thought. They believe that all Christians are mentally stuck in the 1100s because of the lack of acceptance of fact and progress in Christian societies, and then they figure, “Why bother?” And it’s not even about evolution, but about not being willing to accept or be open-minded to view points not matching precisely with the Bible. Many parts of the Bible have been changed by the church and have been used only as a tool to explain natural phenomena. Many of these phenomena have been fully explained using modern, technological advances, and the changes (some occurring even in the last few centuries) prove that the Bible is not the direct word of God, but the humanised version of His teachings.
If you want to appeal to those atheists you are trying to reach, I recommend using fact instead of your own unfounded ideas and speculations. May you find the true light of God instead of being stuck in your narrow-minded ways.
Sincerely,
Melissa Stone
Truman State University
(I also included my mailing address.)
PS: Your email wouldn’t work, which is why I resorted to actual mail.
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