To Respond or Not to Respond; That is the Question
From time to time a friend will send me a link to a site that attempts to deal with an argument of mine. I'm glad people are thinking and attempting to deal with my arguments, of course. But some of these sites are filled with so many obvious straw man type arguments, non-sequiturs, either/or fallacies, and/or ad hominems that it amazes me these writers actually think they've considered my arguments at all. I don't think this is just a matter of believers who are blinded by their faith, although that's certainly a factor. It's that they cannot think. There are rules for thinking critically and these people cannot do it.
In any case, when I see these types of sites I figure it won't do any good to respond because if they couldn't think critically in their first post they won't be able to do so a second time in response to my comment.
In any case, when I see these types of sites I figure it won't do any good to respond because if they couldn't think critically in their first post they won't be able to do so a second time in response to my comment.
4 comments:
I watch sites like that for a while, hoping they get better. Sometimes they do. I revisited our old friend Dan at debunking atheists today and found him still making our arguments for us, so I doubt I'll go back.
Many Christians attain deep personal comfort knowing that there is merely a response to challenging arguments in which the interlocutor comes out with their faith intact after having "done battle" with the infidels.
Bad arguments, strawmen, and other fallacies are most often the only thing they offer; but if you look at threads around the net (Theology Forums, Prosblogion, etc.), many theists seem to think that in light of the fact that there are intelligent theists dealing with intelligent atheists, their faith is justified and/or always justifiable.
The main function of CARM, Tektonics, Triablogue, and other such websites, and the "Apologetics Ministries" of Bill Craig (reasonablefaith.org), Frank Turek (CrossExamined.org), Greg Kokul (STR.org) and the other clowns of their ilk is to bolster peoples faith as a direct function of evangelicalism. Period.
Bad arguments? Poor rebuttals? As you can tell, it doesn't really matter, actually. The fact that there are people offering counter-arguments--however poorly argued for or erroneous or badly constructed--gives legitimacy to peoples faith and (temporarily) kills the horrible doubts. You've seen these people and their presentations on places like LeeStrobel.com and GodTube.com and it is thereby immediately clear what I mean.
Seriously, look at some of the apologetics that seek to resolve, for instance, Biblical contradictions. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. The creationist ministries (AIG, for instance) are even worse, as you all know. But mostly this stuff works. It works beautifully to assuage doubts of the insecure masses whose faith has been nailed into their heads with the weakest reasons and held up by the thinnest of intellectual threads. By engaging and recognizing them, you only are a part of what their function is and it is a mistake to think that they are engaged in an intellectual pursuit of truth.
We tend to forget that there's a reason it is called "Apologetics." Apologetics is politics and sophistry, people; pure and simple.
In “Crazy for God” (p. 33), Francis Schaffer's son, Frank Schaeffer, says it best about the purpose of these people and their activities:
“It is no coincidence that about 99 percent of evangelical books are written to help people order their lives according to an invisible world when everything in the visible world is challenging faith. The title of almost any evangelical book could be "How to Keep Your Faith in Spite of..." fill in the blank, college, art, science, philosophy, sex, temptation, literature, media, TV, movies, your homosexual tendencies, your heterosexual tendencies... in other words, every break you take.”
The only thing you should take from these sophists, John, is that you're doing something right. They are not there to actually give a legitimate, intellectually serious challenge to you, but to berate you and, by proxy, demean and illlegitimize what you have to say in order for them to keep their dogmas intact.
I've counted over SIXTY books published in "response" to the publications of the so-called "New Atheists". Seriously, there is, like, two new ones every single month! This only confirms what has been said above.
Great comments from Brena. Thank you. I enjoyed reading that.
Got to agree with Brena. I have blogs and web pages ranging over topics from politics to atheism to computer science. Some years ago, a right wing creationist started obsessively following me and posting "rebuttals" to just about everything I wrote. Even stuff that didn't really make an argument... like I'd post "I've been reading about peak oil and I'm concerned" and then he'd write a post ridiculing me as a crybaby.
Friends advised me to just ignore it, and I have to say that was the best advice I could have gotten. I briefly flirted with the idea of prolonged exchanges with him, but when I saw how single-mindedly personal he was, I decided it wasn't worth it. So I refer friends to his online "shrine" to me so that they can have a laugh, but I don't even read it myself anymore.
The thing is, I started blogs to express what was on my mind. They're not always deep thoughts, but they're mine. At my best I strive to be witty and interesting and cover topics that people will want to read about. He started a web page about... me. It can easily get infuriating if you waste a lot of energy on it, but if you step back and think about it you'll see that it's oddly flattering.
I mean, who are you? Just some guy writing down his opinions. But it seems that your opinions are so fascinating that this guy has to devote his life to bringing down... not just atheism, but you personally. That's kind of cool, isn't it?
So just enjoy the recognition, and buy him this shirt ;)
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