This was posted on behalf of Steve Hays by Evanmay, so I wonder who wrote it. (It seems very Hays-ish).
From what I understand all major evolutionists receive a lot of hate mail from Christians. As self-defeating as it seems, I think there is good evidence that Christians do violate standards of courtesy in responding to nonbelievers. I used to see a lot of "you are going straight to hell" messages on the Secular Web, it isn't reasonable to suppose that it all comes from atheists trying to stereotype Christians.
Dawkins says a lot of ridiculous things--even here some standards of courtesy have to be maintained.
5 comments:
I agree with you Vic, again. I know with a site called "Debunking Christianity" I'm sort of asking for it, but I too have been treated as less than human from my opponents. My problem is that the way some Christians treat me (not all, by any means) irritates me into responding in kind sometimes.
But anyway, I saw that list of the top 100 Christian sites and I think yours deserved to be in the top ten. I check what you say more often than any othe Christian site. Thanks.
Stephen J. Gould said he rec'd a letter once from a lady who praised God for giving him cancer.
And there was some rejoicing in print after Asimov's death by some creationists who told each other with glee that he was now in hell.
Another person who used to attend Evangelical apologetics seminars at a lake in upstate New York told me that he heard one speaker express thanks for Darwin's place of burial being in a church like Westminster Abby, which "makes it easy to spit on his grave."
Theists of a doctrinal or devout religious bent have sent people like John Loftus or I emails either "cursing" us, or "pitying" us (sometimes the "pitying" emails also contain psalm-like praises to their Lord about all He has done for them in their lives, a lot of "Christianese" language, phrases and Bible quotations).
The type of Christian who sends emails with "curses" and the kind that "pities" probably depends on the extent to which they believe God is "engaged" and/or "angry" with the world.
"If you think about people perceiving God as high in anger, low in anger, high in engagement, low in engagement, it results in four different types of gods," said Froese in a survey conducted by Baylor University. What researchers found was that the type of god people believe in can predict their political and moral attitudes more so than just looking at their religious tradition. Researchers found that none of the "four gods" dominated among believers. The data showed:
• 31.4 percent believe in an Authoritarian God, who is very judgmental and engaged
• 25 percent believe in a Benevolent God, who is not judgmental but engaged
• 23 percent believe in a Distant God, who is completely removed
• 16 percent believe in a Critical God, who is judgmental but not engaged
ON A HAPPIER NOTE...
Cheers to you, Vic and your site!
You contacted me years ago after reading Leaving the Fold, and we talked about philosophy, religion, C.S. Lewis, even chess. And you even asked my opinion of some of the theistic arguments you were presenting in your classes and requested my opinion of and early article you wrote on the AFR, and my opinion on chapters of your book before it was published. Today your book is on the shelves of my local library across the street from where I live, a few shelves away from my own book. Then, after you began your blog, I continued responding.
Both of our brain-minds are probably too "set" to switch world views at this point, at least it's unlikely because we've both thought a lot about a lot of questions and integrated all we know and hope to conclude about them at the moment. The brain-mind does get "set." It's a conservative mechanism I suppose, and to change our "mental architecture" would require some blasting perhaps? It's more likely the our brain-minds will adjust to lesser degrees at this point in our lives, making lesser changes, lesser adaptations to novel discoveries in science or to new puzzling questions. My view is one of questioning, and admitting I don't know what's behind the metaphysical curtain. At this point I have more questions than answers.
But one thing I am fairly certain of is that we've gotten along better than either of us has a right to do so...if we're supposed to be eternally separated in the end--a doctrine which our years of relatively congenial conversations have made me doubt *smile*
I also suspect that we both have a love of education, literature, film, music, talking things through with friends, and countless other things, and that we both hope that the parts of the world that lack education, nutrition, or other basic necessities of civilization, will not fall into barbarism, but discover the things that bond us together and cause joys to be shared and doubled.
Cheers!
Ed
Hello Victor,
You wrote:
“From what I understand all major evolutionists receive a lot of hate mail from Christians. As self-defeating as it seems, I think there is good evidence that Christians do violate standards of courtesy in responding to nonbelievers. I used to see a lot of "you are going straight to hell" messages on the Secular Web, it isn't reasonable to suppose that it all comes from atheists trying to stereotype Christians.
Dawkins says a lot of ridiculous things--even here some standards of courtesy have to be maintained.”
Sadly, the guys at Triablogue regularly **abuse** not only atheists but theists as well. Check out discussions they had with Henry a non-Calvinist Christian. Henry argued against Calvinism and Steve Hays accused him of being a false teacher and also said that Henry was going to hell. None of the others corrected Hays or disagreed with him as they should have. Henry was “sent to hell” merely for disagreeing with their Calvinism.
The wrongfulness of their actions is compounded by the fact that they **know** what the Bible says about **Biblical Apologetics** (i.e., the Bible explicitly and clearly states **how** we are to carry out our apologetic efforts: “And the Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will” 2 Tim. 2:24-26). A **biblical** approach to apologetics will include both the content of what we are saying (intellectually rigorous material presented clearly and logically) and also **the way in which we are saying it** (living out 2 Tim. 2:24-26 in our interactions with nonbelievers). Professing Christians who know the 2 Tim. 2:24-26 passage and yet violate it repeatedly have no excuses. The Triablogue people also know what the Bible says about how Christians are to interact with one another as well. If you look at the Triablogers posts you will find them repeatedly verbally abusing both nonbelievers and believers who believe differently than they do. So they are strong on the content of their apologetics but their way of saying things consistently violates numerous Bible verses.
Victor someone recommended that I check out your site and it is very encouraging to see that you **are** engaging in **biblical apologetics**. This is shown by the fact that you have healthy discussions going on with both believers and nonbelievers. Like yourself, I also enjoy discussing both theology and philosophy and my favorite game is chess. Keep up the good work; you are doing a very good job with your website.
Robert
PS- I enjoyed your book on the Lewis argument, do you have any plans for any new books in the near future?
Personally, I think we should always look to Jesus as our guide in these matters and read Matthew 23 if we run out of abusive things to call people.
“Anonymous” comments that: “Personally, I think we should always look to Jesus as our guide in these matters and read Matthew 23 if we run out of abusive things to call people.”
In my experience I have sometimes seen nonbelievers, though they claimed they did not believe the Bible, very ready to quote out of context **passages they could use** in an attempt to attack the Christian faith. “Anonymous” appears to be doing so here.
In Matt. 23 Jesus makes some strong statements against Jewish leaders of his time who were engaging in serious hypocrisy. Since Jesus was God in the flesh and knew people’s hearts, it is significant that while he was very compassionate and kind towards common folk who had various problems. He also was angered by religious hypocrisy. It is interesting that both committed Christians and atheists agree that religious hypocrisy is wrong and has some serious and negative consequences. It is also encouraging to know that God Himself shares in this distaste for religious hypocrisy. So Jesus speaks out strongly about religious hypocrisy during his time, in Matt. 23, and a modern person cites this today attempting to attack Christianity.
I’m guessing that “Anonymous” also has a strong distaste for religious hypocrisy. It is ironic that in attempting to attack the Christian faith, “Anonymous” actually uses a point with which he/she is in agreement with Jesus (i.e., that religious hypocrisy is detestable). Or does “Anonymous” not detest religious hypocrisy?
Robert
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