A Stone-Cold Liar

That's me, according to Phil Johnson over at TeamPyro. He's decided that my rejection of Christianity is to be explained by calling me a liar. No time for any extended look at Phil's post here just now, and I'm not sure what there is to say in response to someone who dismisses all you say as lies, anyway. Here's the comment I left for Phil on his blog earlier. It's not likely to show up in the comment stream there.

Hey Phil,

If you have the courage of your convictions in saying what you do here, I encourage you hear from my friends and family, who remain devout Christians, about my commitment, and more importantly the "fruit" I was known by as a Christian. I'm happy to make it convenient for you to hear from them if you are willing to report back here what testimony you receive from them.

I totally understand that no evidence presented will prevent you from leaning farther the way you already incline -- away from anything that's problematic for your worldview; you can dismiss all that just as easily as lies on their part or a decades long conspiracy on my part to "walk the walk" just to... well, just because of demons I guess you might conclude.

In any case, I bet my wife, former pastors and others would be willing to spare a few minutes to share their understanding of my beliefs and commitments when I was a Christian, even as they might commiserate with you about my rejection of the faith; for them, having real world evidence to deal with -- a relationship with me over time in the real world -- it's not so neat and convenient as the position you've helped yourself to here.

I don't expect that to change your view, but I do think it would commit you to a more honest appraisal of the evidence, having to call me a liar over against the real experiences of those who know me best. I'm sure you can and will maintain your conclusion, because if your blog shows anything about you, it's that certitude and a priori conclusions are what's really divine to you.

But readers would have some background information to contrast your claims with. Even if they agree, they will have had more to work with in judging.

It's convenient to say "I'm too busy" to have a phone call that takes a fraction of the time it took to write your post. It's tempting, I'm sure, to just assume that anyone around me is also under my amazing powers of deception, and therefore of little value in understanding what background is here. But I'm offering, all the same, just because getting an honest view of the situation, any situation, is a good ingredient in making judgments. It's a hassle for me, too, to set that up, especially given the futility it represents in changing anything for you. But I'm willing, just in the interests of doing better than just carving the reality out we like best with our keyboards, and offering soothing and self-medicating rationalizations for our readers.

Let me know if you want to take me up on the offer, and I will put you in contact with people who can speak to the evidence and experience they have of me as a committed, engaged, fruit-bearing Christian. An honest look at the reports of those who know me best won't fit nicely into your narrative here, I anticipate, but that's the thing with being honest: sometimes the pieces don't fit as neatly as you'd like, and sometimes it leads to dissonance, contradiction, and yes, bane of all things Pyro, uncertainty.

-TS

If Phil wants to look honestly at the subject he's addressing, I'm willing to support some further analysis. Does his claim fit with the views of my family, friends, and colleagues, that I'm a liar or a generaly dishonest person? I'm all for looking at the evidence, evidence which should support Phil's allegations if they are true, right? As above, once Phil's convinced of a conspiracy theory, there's no talking him out of it, as the talking just becomes part of the conspiracy in his view. But just for the record, if Phil wants to make personal contact with the people who've known me best, I'm fine with that -- let the evidence show what it shows.

In any case, in the words of a friend who emailed to alert me to Phil's post this morning: "you should have seen this coming... this is what they do."

Fine.

If the retort is nothing more than just to dismiss everything I've said as a lie, and focus on discrediting me and my integrity personally, that's just more evidence against Phil's brand of Christianity as a credible, defensible set of ideas. When you have to resort to dismissing your critics and ideological opponents as liars who can't be even given credit for meaning what they say, there's not much poorer you can get in terms of argument and apology.