Dear Jimmy,

I’m glad you enjoyed my letter to you and I’m especially glad you’re giving the matters I discussed (in the mail) some thought.

You mentioned that you’re not so sure your will had anything to do with you getting locked up. Well, surely you’d agree that your present predicament is the result of your behavior. And your behavior was the result of choices you made. I only wanted to point out that your choices were determined by the mindset you had acquired as a consequence of your personal experiences. Or, another way of putting this is, factors such as brain chemistry, hormones, and unconscious memories (that may be stirred up by present day situations) all have an effect on your feelings, thoughts, and behavior--effects that in many (perhaps most) cases may be unknown to you while you’re experiencing them. These factors are not within your control and certainly are not the result of your own deliberate making.

For example, if you had been born and reared in the Mid-East among a bunch of Jew-hating-Arabs, then possibly you would choose to strap a bomb to yourself and get on a bus loaded with Jews. Of course, your mindset didn’t develop under such environmental circumstances. Nevertheless, your present choices are the net effect of a male Caucasian’s genetic structure and the environmental circumstances to which you had been previously exposed to as an individual.

I choose not to do drugs not because I have more moral integrity than you, but because I don’t want to do drugs; and I don’t want to do drugs because of the environmental circumstances I was exposed to either diminished my desire or made the thought repulsive to me.

I suspect you’ve overheard family members visiting there telling an inmate, "Honey (dad/son/brother/nephew/whatever), I hate it that you’re in here with all these criminals." Yet, you knew durn well the man wasn’t any better a person than anyone else, yourself included.

I won’t agree that your life got screwed up every time you used drugs. I do imagine that is an exaggeration. Furthermore, I suspect that your life got screwed up moreso when using drugs than when drugs were not influencing your thoughts and behavior (which would be impossible (drug influence of the will) if the will was truly free).

I’d like to add that when your life gets screwed up enough, when the drugs cause you to suffer enough pain, you will gradually loose your desire for drugs.

I had a craving for something that was as bad for me as drugs were for you, so I understand your predicament. I also understand how a person justifies his actions to himself. I mean, I felt I wasn’t hurting anyone, and I’m sure you "reasoned" your choices and behavior to yourself in much the same way that I did. All humans do.

You tell me that God is a causative agent who acts on your will, which means your will isn’t free. So at least that much we agree upon. And if it works out that you never steal or do drugs again, then that is great—providing your belief doesn’t cause evil in such subtle ways that you don’t notice.

Christianity can claim title to more denominations and sects than any other religion. In fact, there are probably as many different forms of Christianity in the world as there are Christians. And what is most interesting, they each use the Bible to prove themselves right and the other fellow wrong.

The only sects of Christianity I see as truly subtly evil are the ones that promote the Dogma of Eternal Damnation. I see them as subtly evil for several reasons:

• They cause the individual to be an adherent out of fear of Hell instead of love of God.
• Regardless of how much love an adherent may claim to have, the fear of Hell can and does (this is a historical fact) result in the adherent burning people at the stake and committing other atrocities.
• Injustice. The notion of eternal damnation as just punishment for doing something as trivial (and actually reasonable) as being skeptical in regard to man's religions is a notion that  breeds injustice.
• Promotes lies, ignorance, and intolerance: The notion that you can freely believe Peter Pan is God and Never-Land is real is pure nonsense. You can pretend to believe. You can witness the "truth" of the pretense to everyone you meet. But, if the mindset you’ve acquired--because of circumstances beyond your control--finds the idea too unbelievable to be true, then you cannot believe, no matter what. The same causal law applies to a Non-Christian being threatened to believe in Jesus or else. If the Non-Christian's mental processes find the assertion absurd, then he (or she) cannot believe, no matter what.

Do you know which group of Christians I’ve heard condemned by Christians more than any other group? Guess. I’ll give you a hint. They believe Hell is merely the grave. They don’t believe "sinners" will be kept alive for eternity in order to make them suffer for eternity. They believe that when you die, if you are not a "good Christian" then you will decompose and be gone forever. The group is called Jehovah's Witnesses.

You will find that any group who believes in the Dogma of Eternal Damnation is subtly evil. Of course, since the evil is so subtle, it probably will go unnoticed by you. But if you are patient and observe long enough, you will be able to see the evil for what it is. Beware of Christians and Christian Groups that promote the notion of eternal damnation.

So when you tell me that God is a causative agent that is acting upon your will, making you not want to do drugs or steal, I don’t have a bit of problem with that. In fact, I’m happy for you. But if you tell me that your God is going to give my grand-children eternal life so that he can subject them to eternal torment, merely because their circumstances have turned them into good little atheists, then THAT is a subtly evil belief I have a real problem with.

By the way, how many varieties of Christianity did you try out before you settled for the one you have? Was the one you settled for anything like the one you were taught as a child? Never mind. You don’t have to answer that question. I was just wondering.

Anyway, you will note that on the other side of this letter to you is some email correspondence. I was forwarded an email (with the subject of Red Friday) about patriotism. A lot of patriotic emails have been circulating the Internet as of the last few years, starting not long after the "9-11" incident. The letter I had sent you was still fresh on my mind. And I thought the present day surge of patriotism served as a perfect example of causally determined behavior. The "Red Tide" email had been cropped because Sue already knew what it said. And the remainder of the email text was really irrelevant to the issue I was discussing with Sue. I don’t know if you would be interesting in reading it or not. My intent is not to try to inspire or stir patriotic sentiments in you but to help you realize "free will" is an illusion.

By the way, Sue is the widow of Bruce K. And Bruce was Aunt Bea’s younger brother, whom she raised after her father’s death. Bruce and Wallace grew up together. Bruce was about 4 or 5 years older than your Cousin, Wallace.

Your father just got back from working out of town. He is going for his first divorce-hearing tomorrow. He wanted to make sure this was an appointment he doesn’t miss.

PR is out. I don’t know if he was just at the Pea Farm awaiting trial or what. Never mind, your dad just told me that he had to spend 30 days (he thinks) for stealing steaks from Winn Dixie. He is back at home with a bad cold. Nicole thinks she is coming down with it too.

Okay buddy, that is all from the home front, take care.

As always, Uncle Wayne.