Let Sleeping Sheep Lie
I know I’ve been negligent in posting this week, but I have been working on a longish post that requires a lot of research. In the meantime though I have decided to break my usual tradition of avoiding New Years resolutions.
Over the last week I have seen some completely baffling bullshit from people who identify themselves as Christian. Against my better judgment I have entered into conversation with some of these people.
This has got to stop. I am wasting my time and there is no point in debating and issue with someone who will use the Bible as a source of authority.
Over at BlogCatalog the simplest conversation can be hijacked by people who feel an overwhelming urge to cast aspersions on science for no other reason than to see their words in ‘print’.
After one such person decided to argue that believing in the Theory of Evolution required an act of faith because its a "theory", I realized that nothing I can say will help that person see past their religiously indoctrinated views. It was this comment that did it:
kristilinauer You talk about evolution as if it’s scientific fact. Interesting….
It’s called the THEORY of Evolution. A scientific "theory" is "an accepted hypothesis", and a "hypothesis" is "an educated guess." So Evolution is nothing more than "an accepted educational guess."
Since evolution can’t be proven (which is why it’s not called a LAW), it takes a great deal of FAITH to believe in it.
After reading that, I did respond with a short explanation of how I felt that despite any flaws anyone can find in evolution, its still a better answer than any alternative I have seen, including the Bible.
Then Kristi responded by pasting the contents of this article: Scientific Hypothesis, Theory, Law Definitions. I suppose she felt that using About.com as a definitive source honestly felt to her like an act of intellectual integrity. In other comments, she had made clear that she felt both Wikipedia and the New York Times were sources that she rejected when quotes from those disagreed with her rigid views on issues. The issue at that time was the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. She had voiced frustration that while the US was expected to help out after any disaster like the Asian Tsunami, no other countries helped the US. When she said " Yet when tragedy occurs within our own borders, I don’t see other countries lining up to help, as with Hurricane Katrina.", a blogger replied with links to Wikipedia and a New York Times story with this lead:
Hurricane Relief From Abroad Was Mishandled: Confusion over how to handle the emergency supplies, offers of military assistance and $126 million in cash that poured in from foreign governments after Hurricane Katrina meant delays, and in some cases wasted opportunities, in aiding storm victims, federal officials acknowledged Thursday. …
Thousands of ready-to-eat meals donated by governments, as well as loads of medicine, were never used, because officials learned only after they arrived in the United States that they did not meet federal health standards. Instead of distributing the supplies, the federal government spent $60,000 to store them.
(This is a very educational article that I highly recommend if you have time to read it.)
After reading her rejection of the New York Times, I couldn’t help hearing echoes of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter’s choral chants about the evil of the ‘liberal media’.
This post is not about Kristi or any other "person of faith" who chooses to ignore facts in favor of articles of faith. It’s about my difficulty in ignoring those people. I am going to make a real effort to just ignore these kinds of statements no matter how much my fingers itch to respond.
I grew up in an evangelical church and was taught the same things that Kristi and others like her were taught. Over time I realized that a closed mind is a cold and hard place to inhabit. I wish I could find the words to get everyone to at least open their minds to the world around us. The world and all the life in it is so fascinating and ‘miraculous’ to me in both its rich complexity and its simple building blocks. Why someone chooses to dumb down their senses and mind and emotions regarding the natural world is something I will never understand. The best I can do is to not waste my own resources beating against a intellectual brick wall.
Anne, thank you SO much for commenting. I did a lot of Googling of your name to try to find anything you had written regarding evolution but didn’t find much. I did see in your About.com bio that you were granted your Ph.D. in biomedical science so I pretty much assumed that you were not a “Six Day Creationist” like Kristi from BC.
I too was surprised to see someone trying to use your description of scientific terminology as a way to try to discredit evolution and natural selection.
I should probably point out About.com is part of the New York Times, and as such is a pretty credible source, if I do say so myself. I also was amused that anyone would use a quote from my site to try to argue against evolution.
Tiffany, I have seen plenty of threads started by people with an axe to grind with religions, but I don’t think those are as common as threads that are started with the presupposition that the forum community is entirely Christian. In fact, after just going through the most recent 8 pages of threads, the anti-Religion threads are very active and tend towards controversial subject names, but are still a minority. And – we may disagree on this – I see many of them as a reaction to the last couple of months of religious heavy posts.
Its not a reaction that is at all productive and it just aggravates the situation. Baiting people when you already have learned how to push their buttons is like shooting fish in a barrel and bores me. But I can understand why people create those threads out of frustration with certain people.
While I agree with most of what you’ve said here–especially the part about how engaging in these conversations is futile for all concerned–I feel compelled to point out that a large number of the religion-related threads and religion-related thread hijackings on BC are started by anti-religious people. Not all of them, but at least as many as are started by Christians attempting to evangelize. Like Will, I tend not to bother to open those threads (whichever side they come from), but this post and many other comments I’ve seen on the issue make it sound as if there’s an onslaught from the Moral Majority going on over there, with no acknowledgment of the fact that many, many of the “religious” threads are topics like “Was Jesus a Terrorist?” and “How Can Anyone Believe the Bible?”
There is something very wrong with the USA when people take things that are not remotely directed towards them release their ire on a writer. People in the original colonies were fleeing religious intolerance. I guess enough generations have passed that thew reality of our history has been forgotten. So many Christians (not all by any means, but a very vocal subset of them) have become the very thing their spiritual ancestors fled in coming here.
Yes, if I see from the topic title where a BC thread is going, I don’t even peek. On a side note, it can be hard sometimes to avoid the wrath even when you don’t think you are encouraging anything. I posted a negative review on my blog about a History Channel show and was puzzled by a couple of emails I got and a comment about the post on another site. Turned out that my, (I thought humorous), reference to an “all inclusive rapture” was viewed as heresy by some.
Sometimes you can’t think of everything in advance and despite no intentions to do so, offend someone. It seems that people such as you refer to above are the easiest to offend, so sometimes are just best avoided.
i’m always so certain that a rational discussion can be had amongst open-minded individuals about any topic … that we can agree to disagree on certain points yet still discuss other areas of the issue. and then i am forcefully reminded that some people do not have open minds … through experience or fear or whatever, they have found a way to shut down and see just one small area and are convinced that is all there is of the world. or, at best, that everyone should inhabit that sliver of the world with them. kudos to you for even resolving to stop engaging them. it’s hard!
The New York Times is famous, world wide, for its self correcting mechanisms and its continuous publication of corrections and such when a mistake is made. I can understand disagreement over some of their opinion material but in this case, the article was simply a report on an assessment released by House of Representatives committee. It’s pretty hard to mess that up since the source material is easy to check.
I have been just avoiding those threads on BC cuz it’s just too frustrating to argue with such ingrained and _willful_ ignorance. OTOH at times I question and doubt the veracity of some things in the NY Times and Wikipedia myself…
Glad to see that I am not alone Dawn. The thing is, I know many people of different faiths who can discuss issues like evolution, life after death, the value of prayer, and other issues in a calm and engaging manner. I’m spoiled I guess by that. The reason for the post was to remind myself that I need to really pay attention and recognize the queues that tell me if that sort of engagement is possible or if it is just lain not gonna happen. On BC I find things tend towards the second condition.
The same comment got to me too. It gets bad over on BC sometimes. The comments some of the more vocal folk on there get so ridiculous at times it tends to make me cringe. It’s hard for me not to argue too but it’s pointless to argue with people who aren’t looking for truth but just want a platform on which to preach about God to the masses.