Of all the people I've met in my life, comprising a great diversity of ethnic, religious, political and philosophical backgrounds, the least agreeable of all were hardcore atheists or militant agnostics.
If I was Fr George Rutler, I would have thrown Hitchens remarks back in face. I would have said, "And just how many children have you molested, Mr Hitchens?"
But then, Fr. Rutler is a better Christian than I am.
Hi Dave,
I simply adore Fr. Rutler. In defense of Hitchens, if he only knew how charitable and wise the man on whom he spewed hatred was, he would rend his garments in contrition. But he's so lost and broken, his mind so benighted and his heart so drenched in vitriol that we must pray our heavenly Father to forgive him since he knows not what he does.
While some former Christians can get on with life without being psychologically damaged to the point of that poster whose disturbing screed you republished, it seems that many do end up mad men much like the end Fr. Rutler predicts for Hitchens should he not be won over by the Church and her teachings.
That phenomenon would be a very interesting topic to pursue, IMHO. I see so many former Jehovah's Witnesses become angry agnostics and atheists. And in dialoguing with them over the last eight years I'm constantly struck at their loss of rationale, fairness and the palpable hate and despair pouring forth from their hearts. What is that all about, anyway? I honestly don't understand it - for it's not my experience.
I was reared a Jehovah's Witnesses, was excommunicated, lost all my friends/my good name, even lost family members for many years. I spent years searching for Christian truth in various Protestant denominations and eventually read my way into the Catholic Church. Yet, I look back on all of it with such joy. It's all so meaningful and beautiful to me. My heart is bursting with love for humanity regardless of one's beliefs or actions. And I owe that to the Catholic Church and the divine sacraments she administers.
http://www.catholicxjw.com/
james...amescaputo.html
When I did flirt with atheism I found it wanting at every turn. And when I watched debates between the best representatives of atheism and theism, the latter always won the day by a long shot. (Many thanks to Dr. William Lane Craig!)
It's a shame, Dave, that you can't find noble-minded atheists with whom to discuss these matters. But arrogant and stonewalling atheists are actually furthering the Christian cause. No doubt there are plenty of fence-straddlers reading these exchanges and growing in respect for the rationaliity and muscularity of our Catholic faith and our philosophically rich/comprehensive worldview. None of this is for naught.
Keep up the good work!
James P. Caputo
Great comment. Let's see how well John Loftus will do in representing atheism, in my latest posted dialogue. I have had constructive debates with atheists, especially with Mike Hardie and Susan Strandberg and a few with Steve Conifer, whose respect I eventually seem to have gained (we horribly clashed at first). I know one friendly, cordial, non-polemical atheist personally who often attended group discussions at my house (the lone atheist among Christians). They do exist, but they are the minority.
We must admit, though, that often Christians get angry, act stupid, and say stupid things when asked to defend what they believe. They need apologetics as badly as many atheists need simple courtesy and politeness towards Christians and Valium to calm down their ferocious repressed anger.
Hi Dave,
I agree that Christians often get angry, act stupid, and say stupid things when asked to defend what they believe. In watching my former Jehovah's Witness brethren act that way when I questioned my own faith, and seeing similar reactions in my Protestant brethren when I made my journey toward Rome, I promised myself to never run from dialogue and investigation. I believe whole-heartedly in the splendor of truth and that it is only confirmed and better understood when subjected to scrutiny. As you say, this leads to a glorious freedom that I wish all our Christian brothers would come to experience.
Also, in watching you never shrink from debate with credentialed Phds and the like, I learned that coming to the truth of a matter is not a perogative of the "experts" or scholars only. Rather, truth has a biting quality that undoes all the sophistries of falsehood.
James
James
Here I am Dave, one of the “cronies” that don’t dare come to your blog. You started off this particular blog with dishonest assertions to the effect that we attacked you, with statements of: “Twelve or so insulting atheists against one Christian attempting to participate in rational discourse: that sounds fair and right, doesn't it?” and (concerning Jim Arvo) “…exhibit such irrational anger and hostility. In our sub-dialogue regarding Van Allen he reiterated this over and over…”.
Dave you are the one making the attacks, not any of us. Statements like:
“…quite irrational, rude, absurd, and foolish…”
“…condescending, hostile, patronizing…”.
Concerning this blog, did you really think that when you posted, only ONE of us would respond? That is a completely unrealistic expectation. We were not ganging up on you, just responding to your posts. You made statements that you could not substantiate and you were called on it. That is not attacking you. In your response on your blog, you quote me using a sarcastic tone, implying that I am one of the examples of unfairness and close mindedness that you had to deal with. You made an implication and I disagreed with it. Is my disagreement evidence of anger or irrationality?
Yes we have attacked xtians in the past, as evidenced by your cherry picking of Dave’s website, but it is only usually after they attack us. Sorry, but I find it offensive to have people yell into my face that I am going burn horribly in their hell.
Here is a real example of an ad hominem attack:
Dave Van Allen said: “Can you show me any evidence outside your book of myths for the existence of a mysterious, maniacal, meglomanic [sic], Jewish deity living somewhere in the sky that has promised everlasting retributive horror to be reigned [sic] down on all those who have the wrong thoughts in their heads about his existence?”
And your response: “Thank you very much, Dave Van Allen, for being a quintessential example of the proverbial (Irrationally) Angry Atheist.”
Did you address his question? No. You employed a not too subtle form ad hominem, the very thing that you accuse us of.
Here is the original blog, in it’s entirety as this early this morning. Maybe your readers can find the angry insults that you claim exist:
Dave Armstrong wrote:
I have posted a lengthy reply to webmaster Dave's deconversion story on my blog. I don't know if I am allowed to post the URL, but I believe my name will include the URL to my blog, where it is currently near the top. Anyone is welcome to come comment.
I make sure that all atheists and agnostics are treated cordially and respectfully on my (Catholic) blog.
posted: September 27, 2007 EST
eel_shepherd wrote:
Dave (Definitely Not The Webmaster) wrote:
"...my blog, where it is currently near the top. Anyone is welcome to come comment.
"I make sure that all atheists and agnostics are treated cordially and respectfully on my (Catholic) blog."
Is there some sort of limit on posts here?
There is a space limitation for individual posts that is from Haloscan, not me. You need not post that whole exchange. I have all of it regarding Dave and Jim Arvo, and linked to it repeatedly.
You can complain all you like, about my person or method, but I am interested in replies to my arguments. That ceased long ago on that forum, and so I left, because obviously no constructive discussion was going to take place.
I don't deny that I made any personal remarks at all. I certainly did. But I think they were justified as replies to what was coming my way. An "ad hominem" is warranted or justified if indeed the person is guilty of what he is accused of, by means of hard evidence.
And what did you think you were getting from Jim Arvo? He did address your arguments, quite well in fact. I also addressed your arguments, in my own small way, as did others. There was constructive dialogue. Jim did not launch an ad hominem and neither did I. Nobody called you names, asserted that you were stupid, what have you though I admit that we have done that to others. You are claiming an affront where none was given and I am trying to understand why.
I answered Jim and nothing came of it. It didn't advance. He was always welcome here as are you and anyone else. You don't see people here jumping in and insulting you, do you? For the most part, I don't even get many comments when I write about atheism.
Jim started to get insulting near the end of our exchange (though less than most others at Ex-C). He also commended a bunch of other posters in the thread who definitely were being insulting. You find the following remarks in my post on the debate about Judas' death:
Here it is, with his words in italics:
ME: Yet you have not dealt with my arguments themselves. You've only nipped around the edges and engaged in "meta-analysis." That is usually a clue that a person doesn't want to deal with the argument and wants to shift the discussion to extraneous or presuppositional factors. Sometimes that is good, but in the present case, I think it is obfuscation.
Okay, now you have become quite rude.
So you say. I'll let the reader judge whether that is true or not.
That's usually a give-away too. It usually indicates fear of being upstaged.
Is that an ad hominem attack? You tell me. My supposed imaginary "fear" has something to do with the discussion at hand?
I was quite clear that I read only part of your writings, and only responded to part of them. If you actually have something of substance to offer, then please direct me to it, or recap it here. I honestly don't have the time to sift through all you've written looking for something that may make sense to me.
Well, I have enjoyed it, even if you haven't. Thanks for your time.
. . . If you cannot bring yourself to admit that the clear surface meaning of the two Judas accounts are problematic, then it seems to me that you cannot even enter into the debate in a meaningful way IMHO.
Right. And this is what it almost always comes down to in these sorts of discussions. The atheist point of view (on yet another alleged biblical contradiction) is, we are told, self-evidently true. If the Christian can't see that, then there is no discussion. Basically, to disagree at all is to preclude any meaningful discussion. And that is "logic" as viciously circular as it can get . . .
=======================
Now, perhaps I was wrong in charging obfuscation, but I didn't think Jim would be sensitive. Nevertheless, I can take my share in the blame for that remark. But he still said the objectionable things that led me to conclude that constructive discussion had exhausted itself.
Perhaps your remarks were of a higher calibre. Mainly I felt that good dialogue couldn't occur on the other forum because it had become the familiar Internet "feeding frenzy" with the outsider being descended upon by 10-12 partisans. Sorry, I can't answer 12 people at once, esp. if many are being nasty and rude.
But if you can discuss things amiably and intelligently here, you are more than welcome.
Nobody called you names, asserted that you were stupid, what have you though I admit that we have done that to others. You are claiming an affront where none was given and I am trying to understand why.
Fair enough. Here is the evidence from that one thread (my comments in brackets):
RD: . . . the total fallacy of religions is anyway? Your longing for a belief in the after life that you are willing to deny the obvious? The obvious truth being, that it's all a lie . . . you are expected to go beyond your own intellectual honesty and accentually lie to yourself knowing full well deep down inside it could not possibly be true.
[I'm a dishonest idiot with an infantile crutch who wants to believe an obvious lie. This is not an insult?]
RD: mental delusions of psuedo [sic] grandeur . . . incredable [sic] imbecilic nonsense . . .
[I'm pseudo-psychotic, and an imbecile]
"boomSLANG": ....and we make sure that all self-righteous theists are treated like people . . .
[why should I automatically be considered "self-righteous", esp. after I had just stated that atheists were welcome on my blog and would be treated politely?]
Bill: Whatever the belief, motivation and emotion behind your actions, you can be sure they are personal and not driven by god or pure rational thought. They are emotional driven.
[My beliefs have no rationality at all, and are based only on personal factors and emotion]
Dave Van Allen then started in with a completely irrelevant personal attack designed to marginalize me as a suspect person. I already dealt with this in a separate post.
DVA: For those interested in how Dave A has spent the last few years trolling sites similar to this one, click here and here.
[This is an outright lie. The link was to one pist from the Debunking Christianity. I documented how I was there for 3 1/2 months and engaged in 19 major dialogues with several people. Yet this is considered "trolling"?]
DVA: To read what other Christians think of Dave A's theology, click here and here and here and here and here and here.
[the links were all to anti-Catholics, who think that I'm not even a Christian. Obviously they will not agree with me. But this is what is called a "skewed sample"]
RD: What we have observed here folks from the comments left from Dave Armstrong, is the effects of that poison. We've tasted it and it made us sick so we stopped drinking it. I suggest he do the same.
[condescending and rude; not conducive to respectful conversation]
Anonymous: Dave Armstrong, want you please come back and tell us about the miracles of Garbandal?
[irrelevant to anything and unnecessarily mocking and provocative]
I wrote at ExChristian.Net:
To Huey and to others who claim that my strong words somehow represent a blatant contradiction of my claim to treat atheists courteously on my blog:
First of all, my words were warranted in light of the crap I have been receiving here in this very thread.
Secondly, a person's ideas are not identical to himself. I was referring to an atheist who showed up on my blog. They are treated politely and courteously, not just by myself, but pretty much everyone. We don't indulge in insult-fests such as went on in this thread.
That doesn't mean I use kid-gloves and walk on pins and needles. I speak my mind, and quite directly, as you can all see. Doesn't mean I am rude and impolite.
John Loftus showed up recently, and he was treated politely. He asked if I would reply to some of his papers, and I did (spending several hours on it). But he insulted me on my blog before he ever saw that I had responded.
Some may object to my post on angry atheists. Yet Christopher Hitchens is a public person who acted despicably in public to a well-known priest (one who was a hero of 9-11, in fact), calling him a child molester and the like, two inches from his face. If he wants to act like that in public, we have every right to use the example as a counter to the self-promoting atheist image as peaceful, polite, always rational, respectful folks. It's not always true. Any group of people is varied, but atheists are no better or worse than anyone else, and there are many irrationally angry atheists, as I know well from firsthand experience.
I also gave many examples from this blog of the rhetoric of "hate" against Christians and Christianity; the highlight being one person's graphic descriptions of clawing away at the faces of Billy Graham and Jesus and screaming how much he hates them. Yet we Christians are constantly characterized on this blog as haters. I saw many dozens of such statements while I was doing that search.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If you want to act as if you are so intellectually superior to Christians and treat one who shows up as if he was an infantile moron, then don't object if said person documents some of the manifestly objectionable behavior of some of your own (in fact, the very person who was the subject of the post under which is this combox).
None of that has anything to do with personal politeness and being willing to dialogue with anyone who can sustain a rational, amiable discussion. I'm all for that. But it clearly wasn't happening here, so I left.
I'm only here now out of my desire to publicly acknowledge a gracious apology and to respond to Huey's feeling that nothing objectionable happened here in this thread.
If any of you are truly interested in a constructive dialogue with a thinking Christian (not the fundamentalist know-nothings you constantly harp about); one who doesn't say you are automatically immoral or will go to hell for sure, or were never a Christian, I'm your man. But it has to be a real dialogue, not the insulting rhetoric that we saw in this thread.
I.e., a dialogue on my blog, not here, where I have already concluded that it is impossible. I've had dozens of wonderful dialogues with atheists and agnostics in the past: some among my favorite dialogues with anyone whatever.
What kind of limitation do I have in posting here? Is it a numerical count of letters or what?
Yes; the length for any one post is about as long as my post above right before yours.
What you can do is save your entire comment, then if it doesn't all post, wait a minute (because it doesn't like rapid posts in succession) and post the remainder in a second post.
I myself can go into Haloscan and lengthen the post and it works, but no one else has access to my account to do that.
I know it's frustrating but there seems to be no way for me to change the word limit at Haloscan.
As you said, fair enough.
RD said: “…accentually (sic) lie to yourself knowing full well deep down inside it could not possibly be true.” And you responded:
(Brackets removed) “I'm a dishonest idiot with an infantile crutch who wants to believe an obvious lie. This is not an insult?”
I have to agree with you there. It is the same argument that xtians use on me, usually in the form of ‘why do you hate god?’. I do not, deep down, presuppose the existence of a god any more than you, deep down, do not. I myself have always found it insulting that people assume, without knowing the first thing about me or my thought processes, I MUST believe in their god. Well I don’t. But my lack of belief does not imply that you MUST share that with me. You had a common xtian argument turned on you and yes, I would call that insulting. And I won’t even go into the next of RD’s comments.
boomSLANG said: “....and we make sure that all self-righteous theists are treated like people . . .” and you responded with:
“why should I automatically be considered "self-righteous", esp. after I had just stated that atheists were welcome on my blog and would be treated politely?”
First of all it is hard to discuss topics of this nature without generalizing. No one can start off every assertion with ‘this does not apply to everybody but…’ but never the less, an attempt to make everybody aware of that unspoken preamble should be made. Yes Dave I have read where you have done so on your blog. Your disclaimer at the beginning of this particular blog speaks volumes! However to address this particular topic, all I can say is that with all the obviously self-righteous theists we do see on Ex-Christian.net we tend to indulge in knee-jerk reactions. I am not offering that as a defense, just an explanation.
I will post later for two reasons; 1) I am at work. 2) I am uncertain as to what length of post I can get away with given Haloscan’s limitations, which I understand by the way. To type the Britannica by way of a response would require a massive amount of bandwidth which would require an even more massive bank account.
I will finish this post with the following: I now see where you are coming from and as I read more of your blog, I will see more. To show you where I am coming from I will tell that I am a die-hard atheist whose best friends are VERY devout christians. I introduced them, was the best man at their wedding (18 years ago) and still consider them to be the best people I have or ever will meet. I do not hate christians. That would be bigotry. I do however detest fundamentalism of all types as it seems to invariably lead to unreasoning hatred. I personally don’t care if you worship trees on Mondays and rocks on Tuesdays. Just don’t tell me I have to.
Excellent, Huey.
I understand about knee-jerk reactions. I knew full well that was a large reason for what went on in that thread (though it doesn't make it any less frustrating to be on the receiving end).
But the trick and task for both sides is to try our very best to approach individuals as unique individuals. It's tough because we have strong beliefs, and we have all met many jerks from other viewpoints, but we must do it if we hope to ever accomplish anything.
I don't make these assumptions that fundamentalists make. I have never been in their place. I was never taught to think that way. I tried to make that clear when I visited Ex-C but it was just too much to overcome. I used to be an evangelical Protestant but I was never an anti-intellectual, anti-science fundamentalist. Right now I am in a debate with a young-earth creationist. I never held that viewpoint. It's a tiny minority of Christians who do believe things like that which might be truly regarded as "anti-science."
But even if everyone acted like a perfect gentleman I still would have refused to debate 10 people at once. Nothing is ever accomplished by that. It seems rather obvious to me that people should lay off a bit and let a few people dialogue with a newcomer, so as not to overwhelm them. One person can only do so much. It's tough enough to even get one person to stay on the subject and have a decent dialogue.
Then I get to hear all these complaints about how rotten other Christians have acted. I am happy to apologize on behalf of Christianity for them, but that is as far as my responsibility for their behavior extends. You know: "speaking on behalf of most Christians I know, I am embarrassed that some of our number act towards you as they do. They don't represent me or Jesus Christ in a proper, loving fashion."
I can say that; I'm happy to do it. But I shouldn't have to bear the weight of every bad behavior a Christian has done, anymore than an atheist should have to apologize because Communist murderers have been officially atheists.
All that out of the way, I think we have made a constructive beginning and could have some great discussions. All I ask is to be given half a chance to dialogue with atheists, without being prejudged and dismissed before I hardly get to say anything, as a dishonest, science-hating, atheist-hating, anti-intellectual ignoramus. LOL
Take care!
"Just don’t tell me I have to."
BTW that is a generalized statement, not directed to you personally.
Dave said:
“All I ask is to be given half a chance to dialogue with atheists, without being prejudged and dismissed…”.
Not a problem! The best discussions I have ever had on these topics have been with Pastors, Priests, etc, usually sitting with them at the foot of their pulpit. It has always been members of the laity that give me headaches. I try not to prejudge but being human I undoubtedly still make that mistake from time to time.
I cannot promise to get back to you in a timely fashion at all times as I am not yet master of my time (and probably never will be) and there will be times when I will need to digest your comments and viewpoint, perhaps do a little research, before formulating any response. Then there are times when the grandkids get a’hold of the computer in their grandmother’s office and I have to spend 3-4 days fixing the home network. 
atheists at times really get on my nerves with some of the hateful and arrogant things they say, however i don't think it compares with the arrogance and hate i've witnessed from christians. i believe christianity can inspire a person to become someone amazingly humble, kind, generous and many other wonderful things, but it also can lead a person into arrogance, hatefulness, and judgementalism. atheists seem to be somewhere in the middle.
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