This I believe
In the email this morning:
Please forgive me for bringing up a name you might rather forget. I was just searching Stephen Morin’s name on Google and came across an article you wrote in April 2005. In it you were understandably skeptical about Stephen’s last words. He had been in every sense of the word evil and wicked. But if you never heard the story of his last kidnap victim, I would strongly ask you to consider listening.
Margy Mayfield was his prisoner for 10 hours, abducted from a K-Mart parking lot. She prayed with him throughout the day and told him that he needed God’s forgiveness, and by the end of the day, Stephen had accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. Margy left him at a bus terminal reading her scripture memory book (because she hadn’t had a Bible with her), and that is where the police found him after she managed to drive home and tell her story. Some comments are found following a write up of Stephen at [redacted]. No one who knew him at the end glosses over the horrific things he did. They just verify that he was a changed man. He knew he had to pay the penalty for him [sic] crimes, but when he was executed he also knew that, through no merit of his own, he was accepted by God.
Dear random Christian proselytizer;
Why, no. In the nearly five years since the article you saw was posted on my site, I have not, in fact, had hundreds of people send me email suggesting that I did not know the story of Margy Mayfield, despite the fact that even a cursory reading of my post shows that I already knew it well. I am forever in your debt!
That said, I know you folks claim to be fond of literal readings of things, so as an act of kindness I will explain to you that the preceding paragraph is not what it seems. It is in fact full to the brim with falsehood. I didn’t mean a word of it. “Lie” is a harsh word, and inappropriate besides given that I copped to the falsehood immediately. I prefer to call it trickery.
I am given to understand that trickery is looked down upon by people of your (what I will for lack of a better word call) “faith,” a field mark of the work of that demiurge you call “the devil.” I will admit that it confused me for a time that some of you go on to claim that “god,” or “Yahweh,” or ““Jehovah,” or at least someone fitting that description, has gone to immense trouble to mock up fossils with the false appearance of great age in order to “test our faith.” It’s bad when the devil does it, but good when god does it, and yet you further claim that good and evil are irrevocably distinct from one another.
I was recently thinking about this very issue, wandering alone in the desert, when I suddenly was suffused with radiance from out of nowhere, and I heard a roar like the heavens sundering and then the most heavenly music surrounding me, and I was sore afraid, and then it turned out to be some douchecanoe off-roading in his H2 with the highbeams on and the local Christian Rock station blaring.
The fact of the matter is, you have been tricked. Both your God and your Devil are false. They are both of them mere facets of a big ol’ hoax perpetrated on you and your fellow religious adherents by the only true deity.
Who also doesn’t exist. At least, he doesn’t exist as anything but a convenient literary metaphor for wishful thinking, confirmation bias, apophenia and pareidolia, and a whole bunch of other human behaviors that contribute to the prevalence of religious belief in this country, all wrapped up and embodied in a compelling wildlife avatar.
There is no god, and Coyote is her prophet.
Coyote remembers everything and never forgives. However, he takes nothing seriously. This mitigates his lack of forgiveness to a great degree. That, and the fact that he doesn’t exist. Where if I had received your email back when I believed, very tentatively, in the god of the Christians, I might have thought:
“Lord, why have you sent me these zealots, who see nothing in another’s suffering but a selfish opportunity to increase their own narcissistic pride in “witnessing” to you? Why hast thou set upon me these babblers?”
...and then, getting no answer, becoming vexed, now — now that my mind has been freed and my soul no longer torments me by existing — now I just say to myself
“Heh. Serves me right for posting on something that would draw the fundies like flies on shit. Good one, Coyote.”
...and then get on with my day.
Coyote could be that Special Friend to you, the one who never leaves your side, who knows everything about you and needles you incessantly about annoying shit and laughs. He could be that for you, if only you drop your false idols, your crosses and flails and hijabs and rhythm method of contraception and heterosexual exclusivity and fear of your inevitable complete irrelevance to the universe as a whole. He could be that Friend for you, if you ask him in.
I really think, random Christian proselytizer, that your mind would be much set at ease were you to welcome Coyote into your heart, which he would then gnaw his way out of and smack his lips. Remember that time you were walking by the sea, alone and much troubled, and you looked back expecting to see that yours was the only set of footprints in the sand, but in fact you saw the footprints of a dog leading up to you and then away, and there was a yellow puddle on your feet? That was him.
I would be happy to show up at your door with some pamphlets. I really think you’ll find them of value. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a song that will help you prepare your heart for Coyote’s unauthorized entry therein.
What a Friend we have in Reason,
all our intellect to bear!
What a privilege to carry
brains beneath your skull and hair!
Oft we cry in voices throaty ,
All beset with needless care,
All because we spurn Coyote
and his mangy shedding hair.
Yahweh burning up the bushes
Jesus nailed upon a stick
Krishna chasing gopi tushes
Gods, they really make us sick.
Have we trials and pain and twisting?
D’you see Jesus anywhere?
Try the god that’s non-existing!
Use what’s ‘neath your skull and hair!
He is wild and sly and stinking,
and there’s things stuck to His fur.
But He will not do your thinking
‘cause He’s not that sort of cur.
Only Reason ever grants us
liberation from all creed
And Coyote then depants us
and drops our clothes where He just peed.
Thank you, and god bless.
Comments
Well put. And what a lovely song!! Thanks.
Thank Coyote for the “changed my life” rating!
I love how they always assume they know something you don’t…
But more (and more non-sarcastically) than that, I love your Coyote song!
Nice. Very nice.
Very powerful. It made me think. And analyze what I believe. Thank you for your thoughts.
As always, well spoken. A most unequivocally supported perspective, I might add. You put a wry smile on my face - thx for that. Probably be singing song in my head for awhile…
This song will echo around campfires for the foreseeable future. Thanks! ^..^
Wonderful, just wonderful. Thank you!
Gullible person is gullible.
Remember that time you were walking by the sea, alone and much troubled, and you looked back expecting to see that yours was the only set of footprints in the sand, but in fact you saw the footprints of a dog leading up to you and then away, and there was a yellow puddle on your feet? That was him.
*sigh of appreciation*
I stumbled across your blog while doing a google search. My sister, Janna Bruce, was the second to last victim of Morin.
I, too, struggle with the way Dobson and Mayfield have portrayed this person as the “ultimate born again turnaround”. Maybe I missed it somewhere but I would think if this were true there would have been some real sorrow and heart felt apologies. Rather as his final words he asked God to forgive others (assuming he is referring to the executioners).
Correct me if I am wrong - I sheltered myself from some of the events. Mayfield did not call the police for several hours after leaving Morin at the bus station. Actually, it was her husband who did so. Morin did not turn himself in, he got caught. Not sure of where the divine intervention is here? Accept maybe giving the husband the wisdom to call the police and giving the police the ability to do their job.
Not a day goes by that I don’t think about Janna. I am a Christian who truly loves the Lord. So was my sister. Although you and I may not see eye to eye on Christianity, I agree with your skepticism in Morin’s last words. This was truly an evil person.
Sister, I am honored by your comment. You mention a few things I didn’t know. It figures those details would be omitted, rather conveniently, from Dobson’s version of the story.
Mostly, though, I am profoundly sorry for the loss of your sister to that monster.
Love it! Love it! Love it!
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