Re: Christians and intellectual integrity and honesty
Ian Dorion (dorioni@intellinet.com)
Sat, 19 Apr 1997 11:51:27 -0600
> >>>On Sunday April 13 Dave gave us this quotation. [below]
> >
> >>Dave, would you please be kind enough to give the reference for it.
> >>Thanks, Ralph
> >>>
> >>>"The complexity of life requires an explanation."
> >>> - Dan Barker
> >
> >>(DAVE 4/15) Ralph: Sure (actually, it's odd - I often include quotes
>
> >>but this is the first quote I have been asked for the reference for -
> >>twice actually - wonder why)
> >>Rhonda Jockisch sent me "Losing Faith in Faith" by Barker (thanks
> >>Rhonda) some time ago, and I have often referred to it. Actually, I
> >>like the book. I don't agree with most of it, but I like the way it is
> >>presented - fair, easy to understand, and fairly thorough.
> >>Page 134 under the section "Does the Complexity of Life Require a
> >>Designer?"
> >
> >RALPH NIELSEN
> >Thanks, Dave. What you have done with Dan Barker's quotation is what
> >many fundamentalists do with quotations. They quote them out of context,
> >they quote only half of them in order to make it appear that the persons
> >quoted support their arguments, or they do both. In either case they are
> >committing an act of deliberate deception. How typically Christian!
> >
> >Here is the entire quotation:
> >
> >The complexity of life requires an *explanation.* Darwin's theory of
> >evolution, with cumulative nonrandom natural selection *designing*
> >for billions of years, has provided the explanation.
> >
> >Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith, p. 134.
>
> HOBBS
> Dave, you seem to be a nice person, one who tries to be a good person
> and to live a good life, and you seem to be reasonably intelligent
> (other than a few mental blind spots); I would expect that in any normal
> social or business interactions I would likely be able to trust you and
> rely on you.
>
> But, the above really does speak volumes about your intellectual
> integrity and honesty, or lack thereof. I would expect a public apology
> to the list; but since you are, after all, a Christian, I have to wonder
> whether you really are moral enough to provide one, or honest enough
> even to allow yourself to see that one is called for.
>
> To all, before I have to leave:
>
> Any possible doubts I might have had before my arrival on this list
> about whether I was wrong in rejecting Christianity on both intellectual
> and moral grounds have been thoroughly dispelled by the Christians on
> this list, especially the ones who have stayed around for month after
> month regurgitating the same tired and thoroughly refuted claims without
> even acknowledging, much less addressing, the refutations. I expected
> that inerrantists would come and go on the list. I thought that a few
> might see the light (remember Joe David?) What I did not expect is that
> anyone would continue in the thoroughly dishonest and deceptive manner
> in which the long-time Christians on the list have done. And the thing
> that really baffles me is that I think they are not being intentionally
> dishonest and deceptive; they are being dishonest with themselves, and
> so, somehow, aren't even aware of it.
>
> When I was a Christian, I was sure that I was right. But, I hadn't seen
> the other side. I grew up in a rather insulated Christian environment,
> and so all the information I had to work with was filtered to me through
> Christian sources. But when I was finally presented with the evidence
> against Christianity, when I recognized the problems in the Bible, when
> I learned such things as the real science of evolution and the cognitive
> sciences, when I recognized that other people experienced other gods in
> the same way I experienced mine, I found that I had to give up my
> Christianity.
>
> When I first came on the list, it had been many years since my wife and
> I had been involved in religion, and our families are either not
> religious, not religious any more, involved in "liberal" forms of
> Christianity, or, if they are inerrantist-type Christians, don't seem to
> care to spend any time with us. So, I had been away from this mindset
> for quite a while. It has been very interesting to be in a forum in
> which I have been interacting with people who still believe the way I
> used to. And it now thoroughly baffles me that inerrantists can see
> blatant contradictions right in front of them, which they would
> immediately recognize as contradictions if they were in any source other
> than their idolized Bible, and deny that they are contradictions. When I
> was finally presented with them, and with all the other intellectual and
> moral problems with Christianity, I couldn't help but see, and I had to
> admit, that I had been wrong. Why can't you?
>
> My experience on this list has been very instructive; reading the
> Christians' posts, and thinking back to when I was a Christian, I've
> learned quite a lot about the psychology of sufferers of what I have
> before labeled as the "true believer syndrome"; and I find the syndrome
> and those who suffer from its accompanying willful ignorance and
> intentional rejection of reason and common sense to be even more
> bizarre, frightening, and potentially dangerous that I had realized.
(Ian 4/19) I don't see why it is so difficult for the Christians to see that
they are not being honest. I believe they know that they are not being honest
and equate it to a cutesy little game to see if they can B.S. their opponents.
I never could understand them until I got into discussions with them on the
net and finally on this list.
Dave Court dosn't see himself as being at all like the Christians I worked
with but I see little difference. I'll tell everyone right now, they would
have made excellent Nazis because whatever the boss told them to do, they did,
and they didn't care whether it was right or wrong, moral or immoral.
I'm having a problem with being disconnected every few minutes so I'm cutting
this short.