Anyone who wants to see Martin Wagner launch further into the stratosphere and continue on with vapid, logic-challenged personal attacks, go here:
http://
debunkingchristianity.blo...556162361007323
I responded:
You're acting like an absolute ass, misrepresenting my argument almost without exception. There is no point in interacting with you any longer. You either have a very poor knowledge of how logic works or you are so prejudiced against Christians that you can't see or accept what I am contending (I don't see how anything else could explain the abominable nature of your reasoning). Anyone with a fair mind can see how you have distorted my arguments.
For those who still want to look at rational scientific evidence, I have provided much polling data from reputable sources (mostly secular, from what I can tell) in the entire last half of my lengthy paper on my blog, . . .
Final statement of mine on this debate, at DC:
----------------------------
Many thanks to Daniel for replying to what I actually argued, rather than a straw man. How refreshing! You can have the last word. I look forward to future interactions with you.
My overall argument (rightly-understood) is, I believe, backed up by the research I provided. I'm sure much more similar research could be produced. But I've spent enough of my time on it, as far as I am concerned.
As for all the asinine charges thrown my way: I have never said that all atheists are sexual liberals or wild, promiscuous playboys, etc. Anything I wrote that was taken in that fashion was either misinterpreted or not written clearly enough on my part [one such statement of mine that was apparently taken in the wrong way - I take the blame for it - was clarified by a bracketed disclaimer on my blog].
Many times I am writing generally and making broad observations, not necessarily meant to apply to the one I am dialoguing with.
In any event, I can assure all here that I do not entertain any such view. You can either believe that or call me a liar or an idiot, as some have done. Feel free.
It is rather obvious, on the other hand, that atheists on the whole are more sexually liberal than conservative Christians. But probably not by much, I would imagine, seeing how readily Christians are compromising their faith when it comes to sex.
Hi Dave,
Not to come across offensive, but your interlocutors strike me as fundamentalist Christians who have unreflectively embraced atheism all while retaining their simplistic categories of thought and stultified logic.
It would seem to me that their attributing polar views to you is but a projection of their own polarized view of the world and caricature of the faith. It would be interesting to ask these folks what their impression is of the Catholic Church. I'd bet that most would describe it as an atavistic entity, a medieval vestige. Few, I'd imagine, even realize that the Catholic Church played an enormous role in building western civilization in its contribution to International Law and science, that it is a large tent under which the greatest artists and philosophers have resided for 2,000 years and counting.
Had they any clue of the Catholic patrimony to which we are privy (and thought past their noses and reflected on that fact that you're a professional apologist for said entity), they would not impute imbecility to you and your arguments, or dismiss you out of hand as some backwoods dolt. But, alas, they are coming to the exchange with character judgments, which no argument or proof can upend.
I recently had a similar experience with a former Fundamentalist Christian, who today is a very successful lawyer. We were going to debate the lecitness of homosexuality and in his first installment he immediately started out by informing me that he usually doesn't elect to interface with fundamentalists, but was making an exception in my case. I forwarded him a link to John Paul's Encyclical Fides et Ratio and told him that much of what I wanted to discuss had to do with the philosophical theories found therein. He then immediately gave way to invective:
Here is an excerpt of his response:
>>>>Youre young, sophomorically-ignorant and full of warring spirits...On the most brilliant day of your cerebral ascendancy there was never a moment when you were capable of a composing a worthy condescension in my regard...Youre young and ignorant. In an engagement with me
way out of your class. Yes. That was patronizing. I am your intellectual and learned superior at this point. Not in terms of I.Q.perhaps--if we can ever agree on what that is, but in terms of experiential data and analytic prowess. My working vocabulary (intellectual/verbal/analytic/forensic tools) are superior to most, and I think that includes you.>>>
Rich, huh? It didn't take long to discover that this gentleman was wholly ignorant of scripture, Christian history and philosophy. His apologetic was pure sophistry and flowery rhetoric - his ignorance commensurate with his bombast.
Moral of the story; many times such bombast is a cover-up for an unstudied position.
Hang in there, Dave!
James
ROFL! That clown has Martin Wagner beat by a long shot. What a scream!
Thanks for the encouragement. It's all part of the game. It gets furstrating, but one gets used to it after 25 years of apologetics.
I think the latest nonsense can probably be explained by what I call the "atheist & new Christian in town" syndrome. It's happened many times to me. I go into some atheist forum and then someone decides that I am a pompous ass and ignoramus, a troglodyte and imbecile. This happens simply by virtue of my being a Christian. That's because they may have met others who actually were that, and projected it onto me, or they haven't met many Christians and accept the widespread atheist stereotype (which you see all the time in almost any atheist forum (there are some notable exceptions that I have found, such as Jim Lazarus's blog).
Sometimes after a while, these same people would figure out that I was not at all like they caricatured me to be, and we even go on to have some good dialogues. It happens so much that the time has come to give a name to the phenomenon.
THanks for the thankless work Dave. You always hold up under pressure.
Yw, slow. I appreciate the vote of confidence.
Should I have emailed this Dave? Anyway its from First Things. God bless
THE REAL PLEASURE OF SEX
http://www.firstthings.com/ftiss...405/
public.html
The survey found, for instance, that women who were sexually active by age fifteen were more likely to express dissatisfaction with their current sex life than those who abstained.
The finding does not fit the doctrine of the sex indoctrinators who airily assert that kids are going to do it anyway and therefore they should learn to do it early and right as good, clean, healthy fun.
The more disconcerting finding in the Redbook survey- disconcerting at least to the secularly enlightened-is that women who rated high on the religion index were having a lot more fun in bed.
Not only did more of the highly religious women say that their sex lives are "very good," but they apparently did not have a lower expectation of what sex should be. Women who had sex only with their husbands, for instance, experienced orgasm twice as often as women with multiple partners.
Among married "traditionalists" (those who strongly believe that sex should be reserved for marriage), 72 percent report high sexual satisfaction. That is 31 percent higher than unmarried "non-traditionalists" (those who take a more casual view of sex outside of marriage) and 13 points higher than married non-traditionalists.
According to Dr. David Larson of the National Institutes of Health, greater sexual responsiveness among the faithfully married does not appear to be connected to any special sexual technique.
Rather, it says here, he found "that sexual responsiveness and satisfaction are significantly affected by the relational context in which lovemaking takes place."
"Women are more likely to be orgasmic when they feel secure, loved, and trusting that their man is around to stay. Without a doubt, marriage provides a foundation that increases the odds a woman will be able to risk a level of vulnerability that goes beyond the ability to participate in the act but enables her to 'let go' and experience orgasm."
Commitment to marital fidelity and permanence, says Larson, "is a great motivator to make things better," including physical intimacy.
Further gleanings from an article by William Mattox of FRC include the finding of UCLA psychologists that sexual satisfaction is closely related to the absence of sexual anxiety.
One reason the faithfully married have an easier time with intimacy is that they enjoy greater sexual freedom.
Not sexual freedom in the sense in which the term is commonly used, namely, the freedom to do what one wants, including the freedom to sleep around.
Rather, they have greater sexual freedom in the sense of freedom from the anxieties that bedevil sex for many, if not most, who are not monogamous.
They are
1. free from guilt about violating their own sense of morality.
2. free from fear of sexually transmitted diseases.
3
3. free from fear of out-of-wedlock pregnancy.
4. free from fear of comparison to other partners.
5. free from fear of losing the partner to another.
Taken all in all, it looks much more like sexual freedom than what is commonly called sexual freedom.
Mattox deplores the fact that, in all the messages about sexuality given to young people today, there is little mention of marriage and the joys of marital intimacy.
The several sides in the debate over teenage sex tend to frame their messages in negative terms-e.g., "abstinence" and "safe sex." The messages tend to be aimed at avoiding problems connected with sexual irresponsibility.
They are, says Mattox, fear-based messages and it is unrealistic to expect teenagers-who are poor risk assessors and believe they will live forever-to respond to warnings about what might, in their view, happen to someone else.
Even if fear-based messages did work, Mattox thinks they don't communicate what needs to be communicated.
"Sex is very different from smoking or drug use. Whereas these are bad ideas at any time and under any circumstances-hence the legitimacy of the 'just say no' message-sex is a wonderful thing when it is entered into at the right time and under the right circumstances."
The upshot is that biblical teaching, moral reflection, common sense, and scientific research converge on the conclusion that good sex comes to those who wait.
"If we really are as interested in sexual gratification as we say we are," says Mattox, "maybe it's time to reconnect sex with marriage."
Fabulous! Thanks! I was looking for an article exactly like this.
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