Can someone explain this to me?
This was a post on the Debunking Christianity blog. It's by Loftus and then when I answered some another atheist comes in:
Loftus:
Now what the hell is going on here? This guy assumes that I can't admire Lewis? Is that it? Or is it he doesn't believe that I was ever bothered by Lewis?
I just think it's a reached a point where they cannot be talked to anymore. They are beyond the point where it is possible to have a civil conversation with them. Every time I ask for confirmation that this is not the case they prove to me that it is.
Martin Luther King did not try to sit down with the KKK and have nice little rational discussion. Why? Because they would never do it. They were murdering people, they had no intention of having a discussion. They had absolutely zero respect for MLK or anyone black. Now it appears to me that this is the case with about 90% of the atheists on the net. I ask atheists to prove to me that they want to have intelligent civilized discussions and they just tell me I'm full of hate.
I would really love for them to show me that I'm wrong, by actually having such discussion. They just start every dialogue with the snide arrogant attitude and it goes down hill from there. There are plenty of atheists who don't act this way. John Loftus is one of them. He catches some flak, some of it for things of which I can empathize, but he doesn't act this way. He has never once said anything remotely hostile like this to me.
How can we achieve understanding? Is this a lost cause? Why is there such a large contingent of atheists who act this way, and yet some real gems who don't. Why can't we get them to be the model?
Loftus:
I find it odd that otherwise intelligent people can misread so badly what Beversluis had written about C.S. Lewis. I think it's because many Christians hold Lewis in some sort of iconic status that any criticism, even a mild one, and even if correct, is seen as a personal attack on their hero.
9:17 AM, June 26, 2008
Blogger J.L. Hinman said...
I couldn't stand Lewis for a large part of my Christian life. I only began to finally gain some respect for him as i began going to graduate school and actually learned enough to realize that he knew a great deal more than I did.
The problem is that skeptics can't understand faith. Probably they are too busy being skeptical about it. So faith is transitory. I grows. Growth means change. so when faith changes skeptics think it's been lost. Its not lost it's just changed.
8:59 PM, June 26, 2008
Delete
Blogger Logossfera said...
And this answers perfectly the question "Do christians lie for their faith?"
3:38 AM, June 27, 2008
Now what the hell is going on here? This guy assumes that I can't admire Lewis? Is that it? Or is it he doesn't believe that I was ever bothered by Lewis?
I just think it's a reached a point where they cannot be talked to anymore. They are beyond the point where it is possible to have a civil conversation with them. Every time I ask for confirmation that this is not the case they prove to me that it is.
Martin Luther King did not try to sit down with the KKK and have nice little rational discussion. Why? Because they would never do it. They were murdering people, they had no intention of having a discussion. They had absolutely zero respect for MLK or anyone black. Now it appears to me that this is the case with about 90% of the atheists on the net. I ask atheists to prove to me that they want to have intelligent civilized discussions and they just tell me I'm full of hate.
I would really love for them to show me that I'm wrong, by actually having such discussion. They just start every dialogue with the snide arrogant attitude and it goes down hill from there. There are plenty of atheists who don't act this way. John Loftus is one of them. He catches some flak, some of it for things of which I can empathize, but he doesn't act this way. He has never once said anything remotely hostile like this to me.
How can we achieve understanding? Is this a lost cause? Why is there such a large contingent of atheists who act this way, and yet some real gems who don't. Why can't we get them to be the model?
Comments
Well, if you were to start the conversation in some manner other than your usual opening gambit of declaring that atheists are stupid, ignorant, uneducated and incapable of learning they might be more inclined to reply in a respectful manner.
Also, comparing people you've never met to Nazis and white supremacists, as you do on your blog, (and need I remind you that the KKK considers itself a "Christian" organization?) pretty much guarantees an angry response.
You reap what you sow, Joe, and lately what you're sowing is hatred and bigotry.
You've become everything you say you hate.
I never start it. I don't I never start it, yesterday on carm excepted.
but that was my parting shot.
There's a large contingent of people who act this way. As long as human beings are inhabiting groups, they will always contain both jerks and gems. The Christian church is no different. Some really nice people, some really obnoxious crum-bums. That's the way it is.
ahaha, good point. I guess I'm paranoid. You know, I've heard that, but I just figured it was a rumor stated by my enemies.;-)
6/28/2008 07:25:00 PM
good point. I still remember the worst time I had on CARM was when I tired to argue for evolution with a bunch of the "we must destroy evolution crowd." I wound up saying to myself "so this is what all those atheists are on about?"
Does anybody have a new irony meter please?
Mine has just broken.
I had to buy new one after William Lane Crais said human beings had intrinsic value and then wrote about how children had to be killed if they get in the way of God's plans.
These irony meters don't last long....
this just proves my point, there are those atheists who can't think critically, can't argue fairly, can't think in rational proportions.
Thanks God all atheists are not like that!
I wonder how upset Hinman would be if Logosferra has atually mentioned him or referred to his post in any way whatever,or even implied that he had read what Hinman had written.
But I can't really see Hinman thinking there is something on the Internet that is not about him.
ahahahahahahah ;-)
God knew that if these Canaanite children were allowed to live, they would spell the undoing of Israel. The killing of the Canaanite children not only served to prevent assimilation to Canaanite identity but also served as a shattering, tangible illustration of Israel’s being set exclusively apart for God.
--------------
CARR
I wonder how Crag found out that God 'knew' that if the children lived, they would interfere with God's plans for Israel.
Craig claims the Holy Spirit 'whispers' to him.
Perhaps Craig hears voices telling him what God knows about killing children.
How else can the Holy Spirit 'whisper' to Craig , except in a voice - a voice that presumably only Craig hears.
Your "criticism" of Craig is entirely out of line with his purpose:
Quoting from Craig:
"How do we reconcile this command of God to kill the children with the concept of his holiness?"
If he would have said "We may never know," that would have been easily dismissed as an appeal to mystery. But when Craig--perhaps knowing the complexities--makes assertions, then you make sport of him claiming to know the mind of God. When it is highly characteristic of the model of God that thinking a thing and knowing it are the same thing. Any conjecture made on the mind of God is equal to God's "knowing". If we've already presumed fallibility and ignorance on him, then we cannot begin to explain how an all-knowing God can do X.
Confirmation, yet again, that atheists take the shortcut whenever they think it's there.