EMAIL DISCUSSION BETWEEN MYSELF AND
PIERS ANTHONY
Dear Piers
When I was on a brief
interlude in Goulburn (New South Wales, Australia) in the early
2000s, God spoke to me in dream just before I woke up. His
voice was the same texture of voice talked about in the Bible.
The voice of a multitude, not a variety voices, but one tone and one
voice but with the strength of a multitude. It was a very thick
voice. It also sounded like a computer voice in a sense, like
Majel Barrets computer voice in Star Trek the Next Generation, like
it was absolutist - not human, but a living being regardless, so much
more superior to a human. I was able to understand the nature
of his infinite within the voice, it was like golden lightning, and
it was absolute truth. It also had the nature of centrality -
that God existed at the centre of things. He said to me the
words, either 'Build on My Rock' or 'Build on the Rock' - I didn't
write it down at the time and can't remember exactly, but it is
definitely one or the other - and he made it clear in my thinking
that his rock was the biblical people of the Hebrew Bible.
Whether I liked this or not, that is the way it was and still is.
He spoke to me two more times since then in that voice. God
exists, and if we query him whether he exists, and are prepared to
repent according to the requirements he will place down for us, he
will let us know of his existence. Atheism is wrong, so is
agnosticism.
Thanks
Daniel Thomas Andrew
Daly
Canberra, Australia
http://noahidebooks.angelfire.com
RESPONSE FROM PIERS
From: Piers
Anthony <piersa...@hipiers.com>
Sent: Sunday,
24 June 2018 4:46:42 AM
To: Daniel Daly
Subject: Re:
Yahweh exists
Thank you for your note. We have printed it
for Piers Anthony and he gave us the following answer for you:
Just
as the Apostle Paul had his vision on the road to Damascus, you had
your vision. But I'm pretty sure God did not tell you to disrespect
those whose visions are other than yours. If God exists, he surely
has reason to accept atheists and agnostics. They are not wrong, just
different from your belief.
Piers
Anthony
PiersA...@hipiers.com
www.HiPiers.com
MY
RESPONSES TO PIERS
Daniel Daly
Reply
Sun 24/06/2018 6:35
AM
To:
Piers Anthony (PiersA...@hipiers.com)
I
would counter by arguing that out of Theism, Agnosticism &
Atheism there is a position which is factually correct. Thanks
for the reply Mr Anthony. Appreciated.
Dear
Piers
(Sent Wednesday 4th of July 2018)
If possible, may I
have permission to publish online in my letters sections your reply
to this email discussion?
I will publish the letter I wrote to you
and my response, but won't publish your reply without your
permission.
Yours sincerely
Daniel Thomas Andrew
Daly
Canberra, Australia
P.S. If you don't mind, and if
there is anything you would like to add, feel free. If you
would rather I forego
publishing your reply I understand and
accept that. Take care.
RESPONSE FROM
PIERS
Piers Anthony <PiersA...@hipiers.com>
Thu
5/07, 3:58 AMThank you for your note. We have printed it for Piers
Anthony and he gave us the following answer for you:
I stand by
what I said, being a militant agnostic, and you are welcome to
publish it in your online letter section.
Piers
Anthony
PiersA...@hipiers.com
www.HiPiers.com
MY
RESPONSE TO PIERS
Daniel Daly
Thu 5/07, 7:11 AMIf someone
really believes God probably does not exist, they are an atheist.
It's a bit of a joke to call yourself an agnostic on the idea that
theoretically there might be a creator or that it's a small
possibility but I really don't think so. Agnosticism is
ambivalence. You are undecided in a more genuine way, and while
you think there might not be a God, you also think there might be
one. Usually the position is that you admit you don't really
know. Piers claim that he's a militant agnostic falls on death
ears unless he's prepared to admit that the possibility of God
genuniely existing is a consideration. If he is happy enough
with the idea that, yeh, guess there's a small chance, but probably
not sweetie, then he's an atheist. Militant agnostic? I
don't think so.
RESPONSE FROM PIERS
Piers
Anthony <PiersA...@hipiers.com>
Reply
Fri
6/07/2018 1:06 AM
To:
Daniel Daly
(danielthoma...@live.com.au)Thank
you for your note. We have printed it for Piers Anthony and he gave
us the following answer for you:
To the recent
commentator:
Interesting that you think that my lifelong
agnosticism is really atheism, and that you are free to redefine my
belief. With similar license I could choose to think that your belief
in God is a delusion. The one is a valid as the other, no?
Piers
Anthony
PiersA...@hipiers.com
www.HiPiers.com
MY
RESPONSE TO PIERS
Daniel Daly
Fri 6/07, 8:28 AMBelief
in God can be a delusion for some people, unless their faith
experiences are solid enough that the spiritual encounter is more
than just a feeling. Would Mr Anthony like to share his
understanding of life, the universe and everything with dear old
Daniel Daly? I was an agnostic after leaving the catholic
church at 16. For about 6 years I viewed that belief in God was
not really provable. Eventually, after reading an argument from
a book on philosophy, which I will confess I stole from the local
Tuggeranong library, the argument being that what we see around us in
this world has complexity and order to it, leading to the conclusion
that there is probably a designer behind our world, I became a
believer in God. This was deistic faith - deism. I had no
religious beliefs yet about God. Later, when encountering a
discussion with a Pentecostal Christian girl, I bought a bible
afterwards, and read the entire book of Job at a local catholic
church. I concluded that this was witnessing to God, and the he
was good. I felt I could sense that the nature of God, as it
says in a psalm, was goodness. To me God can be found by man,
if man has a desire to know if God is really there or not. I
would be curious, if PIers has the time, to know why he feels that
there is probably not a God, or that this world can really just come
from a big bang, and there be not much other answer to this grand
design apart from mere chance?
RESPONSE FROM
PIERS
Piers Anthony <PiersA...@hipiers.com>
Yesterday,
7:09 AM
Thank you for your note. We have printed it for Piers
Anthony and he gave us the following answer for you:
Herewith
my thoughts on God, per your request, which I will run in my
next, August, HiPiers column. Details may change when I edit it, but
this is the essense.
I have made no secret of my religious
agnosticism, but not everyone chooses to accept that. Some seem to
think that I must have not read the Bible, or heard of Jesus, or
simply not have thought about it enough, and that it is their mission
to persuade me to come to Jesus and save my soul from everlasting
torment in Hell. I do not suffer fools or rascals gladly, but do take
seriously those who are serious. I have an ongoing dialogue with
Daniel Daly of Noahide Books, http://noahidebooks.angelfire.com/,
who says that atheism is wrong, and so is agnosticism. Oh, really? I
responded “Just as the Apostle Paul had his vision on the road
to Damascus, you had your vision. But I'm pretty sure God did not
tell you to disrespect those whose visions are other than yours. If
God exists, he surely has reason to accept atheists and agnostics.
They are not wrong, just different from your belief.” He
replied that he would argue that out of Theism, Agnosticism, and
Atheism there is a position which is factually correct, and asked to
publish my letter in his letters section. I replied “I stand by
what I said, being a militant agnostic, and you are welcome to
publish it in your online letter section.” He responded with a
discussion concluding that I was probably really an atheist.
“Militant agnostic? I don't think so.” Oh? I replied
“Interesting that you think that my lifelong agnosticism is
really atheism, and that you are free to redefine my belief. With
similar license I could choose to think that your belief in God is a
delusion. The one is as valid as the other, no?” As may be
becoming clear, while there is an element of humor in my “militant
agnostic” description, there is also an element of warning. I
don't just smile and let arrogant ignorance pass unchallenged. He
replied with an invitation for me to share my understanding of life,
the universe and everything with him. Okay, since I think my readers
may also be interested, here is a more extended discussion.
When
I was a child, circa 1940, I was told that the night before Christmas
Santa Claus traveled the world on his sleigh, delivering presents
simultaneously to every child in the world. I thought that was bovine
feces, and never believed. Subsequently they told me about God: he
was an old white man with a long white beard sitting on the edge of a
cloud, looking down and deciding which mortals on the ground below
would be admitted to Heaven and which would be relegated to Hell. The
decision seemed to hinge mainly on whether a person subscribed to
Jesus as his Savior. I smelled more bovine feces, and never believed
in that. But since it may not be fair to let a child's definition
govern the existence of God, I clarify that it may be a matter of
definition. If you define God as Truth, Beauty, Compassion, Honor,
Rationality and the like, then you can say I believe. But the moment
you get into the supernatural, my acceptance fades, and God as
commonly defined by the Bible is supernatural. One fan of mine did
have a good take on that: she said she regarded God as natural. But I
don't regard burning bushes that talk, or folk rising from the dead,
or the conversion of water to wine and wine to blood as natural. For
most folk God is almost by definition supernatural. Indeed, only
magic classified as miracles can make a Catholic saint. So by
accepted standard definitions, I am an unbeliever. But, say the
Theists, the universe is far too complicated to have been formed by
mere chance, so God must have created it. Oh? Then who created God?
If he had no creation, being eternal, well, why not the same for the
universe? It is not a persuasive argument.
What then of
agnosticism, which is uncertainty? Here we have three broad
classifications. The Theist says that there is a God, and probably
adds that He is My God, while all others are false. For thousands of
years folk have killed each other and made wars because they have
different gods. But I want to know where is the proof? What actual
objective evidence is there that any god has ever existed? Don't
quote the Bible for this; that is a compendium of the writings of
believers. Anyone can believe what he chooses, but that has no
objective validity. Some may believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster,
others in Zeus. None have made a sufficient case for me. The Atheist
says there is no God. Okay, where is his objective evidence? He can't
prove his case any more objectively than can the Theist. So as I see
it, Agnosticism is the only sensible position. It is not a vague
uncertainty, but a demand for rigorous mathematical or scientific
proof. Until persuasive evidence is presented, my private impression
is that there is no God. Don't confuses that with atheism. I believe
that the sun will rise tomorrow morning—that is, that the sun
will continue shining and the world will continue spinning—but
I can't prove it, so I am agnostic on that score also, but I do look
forward to another day.
I am not anti-religion, merely
rational. I married a minister's daughter, and we have been together
62 years. I have written about belief and religion, notably my
quarter million word novel Tarot, unfortunately broken by a
publisher into three parts. Therein Brother Paul, of the Holy Order
of Vision, is sent to the planet named Tarot to ascertain whether the
supernatural manifestations there are or are not God. It's quite a
challenge. I like to say that if you can read it and not be offended
at some point, you don't properly understand it.
But let's
assume, for the sake of debate, that there may be a God. His ways are
devious indeed. I remember a famous story by Arthur Clarke, “The
Star.” I read it scores of years ago, so may misremember
details, but have the essence. They discover an ancient alien
civilization far from Earth that was a miracle of technology and
deportment, an ideal we well could emulate. But it was destroyed when
its star went nova. We learned of its existence only when the light
of the nova reached us, two thousand years ago, but we noticed. The
concluding question is “What was the need to give these people
to the fire, that the light of their passing might shine above
Bethlehem?” What a question, and it echoes in my mind as I
remember my own personal history. When I was sixteen my cousin Teddy
was fifteen, a grade behind me, at the same boarding school. He never
finished; he got cancer and died. It was a shock I never entirely got
over. If there is a God, it seemed that he faced a choice in the
ongoing story that human history is; as a novelist I am a kind of god
of my fiction, and I do encounter difficult choices. It seemed it was
necessary for one of two boys to die, Teddy or me. He had everything
going for him, being a good student with many friends and a likely
future in his father's successful business, while I was a disturbed
character with little prospect for success; few would ever miss me.
But God made His choice, and he was the one taken, while I was left.
What was the need to give this fine young man to the fire, that I
might survive? It seemed to make no sense. I visited Teddy's family,
sleeping in his bedroom, getting to know and love his sibling, who
seemed like the perfect little sister. I saw the awful impact his
death had on his grieving family. Well, the ensuring half century
suggests that I, with my erratic creativity, did things that
conventional Teddy would not have done, such as becoming a writer who
has received hundreds of letters from fans telling how my books
helped them through dark times and may have even saved their lives.
Did God, cognizant of the future, choose to save those lives instead
of the one life of Teddy, though there was no way he deserved to die?
Was it simply a numbers choice, like steering a train onto the track
that kills only one person instead of several? That was not a choice
I could have made. Teddy's untimely death continued to disturb me,
and finally I concluded that death out of turn was wrong, for people
or animals, and I would try not to contribute to it. I became a
vegetarian in college, so as not to kill animals on my behalf, and
have remained so for 65 years so far. That is about as close as I
come to religion; my vegetarianism has religious force. It was the
one requirement I made of my wife, and she became a vegetarian for
me. I am not against religion, but neither do I have any brief for
it. I think of the way that God was a woman in the old days, circa
3,000 and more years ago, and the Israelite religion had to compete
with neighbors who offered sex with seductive priestesses as a kind
of worship. It was hard to compete. So Israel, and later
Christianity, tried to make sex itself, together with attractive
young women, sinful, ushering in the ugly misogynistic millennia that
have suppressed the rights of women ever since. It's a shame.
We
married, and soon my wife was pregnant. But it went wrong, and she
had a miscarriage at about four months. That catapulted me into the
US Army, because in the 1950s the draft took all fit young men who
were not fathers. She rejoined me in Oklahoma—and suffered
another miscarriage in 1958, at about five months. Then, out of the
army and in civilian life, I had the worst day of my life. I lost my
job, my wife lost her third baby at about six months, and my doctor
told me that my concerns were all in my head. It turned out years
later that my depression and fatigue derived from low thyroid
hormone; levothyroxin pills ameliorated both. So it wasn't in my
head, it was in my neck. It left me with an abiding dislike of
abortion, because that was technically what happened to those babies.
They died because they were forced out early. But the loss of our
third baby, who lived only for an hour, freed us to gamble. My wife
went to work so I could stay home a year and write full time, and in
that year I made the breakthrough, selling my first two stories. It
was a small beginning, but it was to lead in due course to a
phenomenal career that made me wealthy. I think it would not have
happened had any of those three babies survived; as parents we could
not have have afforded the gamble. So here is the question I ask of
that theoretical God: what was the need to give those three innocent
babies to the fire, that I might have my career?
But my wife's
doctor thought he had managed to fix the problem that cost us our
babies. My wife had a septum in her uterus, that divided it so that
there was not room for a baby to grow to term. Once that was fixed,
we carried two babies to term, finally having our family. But my
career was in difficulty. When I protested getting cheated by a
publisher, I did nor get a settlement; I got blacklisted for six
years. One publisher did not honer the blacklist, so I got through,
but not in the way I would have otherwise. Then came the miracle: the
publisher may have cheated one too many writers, and got sued, and
the errant proprietors fled, and the company was taken over by
another. The new administration sent me a brochure inviting me to do
business with them. I wrote back “Don't you know you're
blacklisting me?” They said things had changed. Then I had to
wrestle with my conscience: should I resume selling to the publisher
that had blackened my name with lies and crippled my career for six
years? True, it was under new ownership, but it was the same
publisher. It was the hardest decision of my career, but I concluded
that forgiveness was better than grudge, and I wrote and submitted a
fantasy novel. It was A Spell for Chameleon, the first Xanth
novel, an if ever there was a turning point in my career, it was
there. Here was the key: the new editor, Lester del Rey, had written
for this publisher before, and when he got there he looked up the
records of his own book, and discovered that they had been cheating
him by crediting him with 69,000 sales when the true figure was
169,000. That's why he understood my situation. What were the chances
of such a coincidence happening? Or was it divine intervention? The
series continued, and the fifth Xanth novel, Ogre, Ogre, may
have been the first original paperback fantasy novel—that is,
no hardcover edition—to make the NEW YORK TIMES bestseller
list. I had achieved the stratosphere, thanks to a popular series and
the publisher's effective promotion. So in effect I forgave them, and
they made me wealthy. But my experience with the unfair blacklisting
left me extremely cynical about the ethics of publishers and of the
writers who knowingly support them, and today I actively expose
publishers I catch treating writers unfairly. I can do it because I
am now independent of writing sales and have the will and the means
to take it to them, and they dare not mess with me; I will take them
to court and win, because I have the resources to do so, as I did not
before. I have also supported self publishing, and helped make it
feasible in a way it was not in the past, in part by my support of
and significant investment in Xlibris when it was a fledgling
enterprise. Was that the service God wanted of me? Was I deviously
guided to help other writers gain their fair chance to achieve their
dreams? The average bestselling writer seems to have the attitude “I
got mine; too bad for you.” I am not average, really, in any
respect, because of my bitter experience. I don't know, but a case
can be made. God did what was necessary to save lives and improve
publishing, using a disenchanted agnostic as an instrument in a
manner that a believer might not have had the stomach for.
If
there is a God, he must be a cynical brute.
Piers
Anthony
PiersA...@hipiers.com
www.HiPiers.com
MY
RESPONSE TO PIERS
Daniel Daly
Yesterday, 9:01
AMThank you very much for the detailed life response. I'll
treasure this letter, and print it off one day for a personal copy
for my physical records. Dealing with the Christian God as the
popular thing, its often taught that into hell go all the
unbelievers. Dealing with the God of Torah, this is not the
case. From what God teaches me about half of mankind usually
makes it to the next life - the heavenly afterworld. It is the
faithful and the decent who make it. He has no plans for hell,
and does not get off or delight in fitting some vessels to
destruction as Apostle Paul informs his devoted Ecclesia buddies.
God is decent and caring - and he provides a home of life for all who
call upon his name. His name is Yahweh/Jehovah. He is not
giving to the fire souls which don't make it to the heavenly
eternity. They are souls which he has judged do not have the
characteristics for eternal perpetuity in their conduct, actions,
atitudes and behaviours. In time such souls cause society too
much chaos and problems, the very hard core part of this humanity
doing more than just being rough and sarcastic, but citizens who end
up in jail and can go around destroying other peoples lives at the
drop of a hat. But it's more than that. The next life is
the same as this one. Each year of our calendar builds a new
level upwards in heaven, where the Earth's infrastructure of all
types is built again for the citizens of mankind from that yearly
generation. What you earn from life on planet earth in that
earthly year - your abode, should you fulfill the minimum of half the
year plus a day in owning it - becomes your property for that year in
that level in heaven. And as the years pass by, your property
and ownership increases. Whatever goods and services and
memberships and geographies visited and institutions connected to and
people met - this forms the basis of your rights in life. With
God your 'Rights' is the fundamental factor. These rights are
the basis of your eternity ahead of you. A saying I use is
'What you acquire in life you acquire in life for eternity.'
And the ability to have children in the heavenlies is where the
sub-levels of each year are born, and your heavenly offspring fill
such sub levels. If you have the strength of eternal heavenly
seed in you, your offspring will be propogated eternally in the
sub-levels of each years level. Many don't have the strenght of
eternal offspring through their heavenly seed - some do. In
heaven there IS a reward, as life on earth is valued by God because
of its challenges and difficulties. Humans living on earth go
through a struggle - this is the making of them. The reward for
your struggle if you serve correctly in your human function is
eternal life in heaven. Now, in this sense, God is not
interested in about half of mankind usually, as they do not display
the codes of behavioiur fit for eternal endurance. They have not
tempered themselves in their choices to achieve this result.
This is what the Lord teaches me. I share it with you freely.
Thank you. P.S. I enjoyed your life story.
RESPONSE
FROM PIERS
Piers Anthony <PiersA...@hipiers.com>
Today,
12:43 AMThank you for your note. We have printed it for Piers Anthony
and he gave us the following answer for you:
Thank you. I'm glad
that your belief offers a fairer system than the standard model. It
reminds me of reincarnation, where each life contributes, positively
or negatively, to the next one.
Piers
Anthony
PiersA...@hipiers.com
www.HiPiers.com
MY
RESPONSE TO PIERS
Dear Piers
God speaks to me through
my mouth. I am a schizophrenic, and I hear voices in the
distance. But the spirit takes over my mouth and speaks to me
in a logical and coherent manner, with thinking behind it. I'm
pretty sure it's not another aspect of my own mind hidden from me,
like you see in those TV shows of people with split personalities.
I've spent the last 22 years reading the bible, and have tens of
thousands of chapters of the bible in my system of knowledge, and am
happy that the voice is representative of the divine, and not a part
of my imagination. God does have a sense of humor with me.
He does take me for a walk up the garden path from time to time, but
this is the punishment he dishes out for my excessive prayers, as he
has to do spiritual work in sanctifying various things from my
prayers, and he pays me back in his frustrations in this work.
I pray psalms, mostly, the full psalm, for the sanctification,
salvation and prosperity of various people and institutions in
society. Mostly from the English speaking world societies, but
also other cultures a bit. I am comfortable personally that God
speaks with me, but I understand if people think it is my
schizophrenic mentality within me. I dont' think it is
personally. I hear voices at a distance from time to time, but
have a feeling that there are spiritual realities going on with some
mental health people, and that demonic oppression often an answer to
the voices which speak inside peoples head, but also angelic
visitations also. They tend to prey on naive souls, and pick on
their paranoias, as many people have not yet worked out a belief
system on various issues of life, and are prone to attacks from
darkness on these issues until they have firm convictions and are
able to resist evil on these issues. The devil can (Fuck) with
your head until you know what you believe and why you believe it and
have convictions and standards which the devil and the darkness can
not defeat. Yet while the darkness speaks, so does the light.
This is part of my life. As you would know, Piers, I am a
regular human in this living experience of life on earth as you
yourself are. My conclusions have been reached through my own
cogitations of thought and thinking. I have not concluded an
agnostic argument - I had been through that from about 16 to 23 years
of age. I have a conviction and a belief that God the Creator
does exist, and after a while it became apparent to my living
experience that he was the God behind the biblical system. A
neutral deistic God was a consideration, but God expresses to me that
he does care about his creation, and have an interest in it, and does
reveal himself to people who are willing to abide by decent living
principles. I would just like to conclude saying this - I am
thinking human being just like yourself. I also have logic and
reason and rationale thought behind my beliefs in life. Thanks.
Daniel Thomas Andrew
Daly
Canberra, Australia
P.S. I have read the first seven volumes in the Incarnations of Immortality, the first 9 Xanths, and Battle Circle. More will come one day. Reading Time is the Simplest Thing by Clifford D. Simak at the moment, which I am really enjoying. Many of your contemporaries in Sci Fi and Fantasy I have read works of, especially in former years.