Over at Slate, Christopher Hitchens describes what he’s learned from his debates with folks like Douglas Wilson (apparently a repugnant character):
Wilson isn’t one of those evasive Christians who mumble apologetically about how some of the Bible stories are really just “metaphors.” He is willing to maintain very staunchly that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and that his sacrifice redeems our state of sin, which in turn is the outcome of our rebellion against God. He doesn’t waffle when asked why God allows so much evil and suffering—of course he “allows” it since it is the inescapable state of rebellious sinners. I much prefer this sincerity to the vague and Python-esque witterings of the interfaith and ecumenical groups who barely respect their own traditions and who look upon faith as just another word for community organizing. . .
. . . Thanks to the foolishness of the “intelligent design” faction, which has tried with ignominious un-success to smuggle the teaching of creationism into our schools under a name that is plainly stupid rather than intelligent, and thanks to the ceaseless preaching of hatred and violence against our society by the fanatics of another faith, as well as other related behavior, such as the mad attempt by messianic Jews to steal the land of other people, the secular movement in the United States is acquiring a confidence that it has not known in years, while many of those who put their faith in revelation and prophecy and prayer are feeling the need to give an account of themselves.
He had to have numerous debates to learn that? Tell him that next time he can just ask one of ‘us’. We could have told him that.
Or maybe the motive is to fill seats? hmmmmm.
newenglandbob wrote:
“He had to have numerous debates to learn that? Tell him that next time he can just ask one of ‘us’. We could have told him that.
Or maybe the motive is to fill seats? hmmmmm.”
Is there something wrong with that? I don’t understand your objection to the debates or to his comment.
Hitchens is (sort of) admiring Wilson because he staunchly adheres to irrational stances. This is not a good reason to pal around the country having the same debate over and over. Everything seems to be black and white with Hitchens. I don’t think we need to go to the weird place that Massimo occupies but some of Hitchens stances are bizarre and some of his arguments are plain wrong. Sometimes a little finesse is called for. He thanks the fanatics for their outlandish behavior, as if that settles all issues. I see much turning for the worse, not for the better.
This is not a good reason to pal around the country having the same debate over and over.
I would disagree. I think it’s important to expose the foolishness of fundamentalism to the light of day as often as possible. There is a chance that someone, somewhere, will notice how dumb it all is, someone who wouldn’t have realized it otherwise. And few people are better at exposing the dumbness than Hitchens. Regardless of Hitchens’ motivations, or psychology, or whether he’s right about everything, (who is?), these debates seem to me to be definitely a good thing.
I think the IDiots made a mistake when they decided to forgo the YEC nonsense, mainly because it made it all the easier to focus on how essential evolution (the real stuff, not the magical “evolution” of a Behe) is to biology.
YECs actually care about the details (while dealing with them hideously badly), and can easily lose the point of evolution and biology in a thicket of obfuscation and relativism.
The IDiots simply give up on the details, which are crucial to science, and attempt to return to the broad analogies of pre-science and of religion. It’s both transparently bad science (even if it gulls a few), and is a resort to what is obviously religious “thought,” the inexact “analogy” that ignores all important and telling details.
The YECs seem not to realize that science isn’t and won’t be their friend, while ID tries to prevent science by substituting religious analogies for causal science. Only a lawyer like Johnson, or the truly bad thinkers of the DI, would be likely to fall for that.
So yes, I think that ID has generally been bad for religion, partly by denying the legitimacy of the true masters of obscurantism, the YECs. Partly, though, by attacking science and its methods directly, which no honest person could tolerate.
Glen Davidson
http:/tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Wow I just read some of this guys stuff!!! He is over the top, but he does base it on scripture. His argument is basically : “You cannot condemn abortion and homosexuality and ignore the fact that the bible is also pro-slavery”
http://www.tomandrodna.com/notonthepalouse/SSAIW_Page_06.htm
I posted some excerpts from his article on our local religion forum. Will be very interesting how they attempt to explain all of this away, especially since a lot of the most recent threads have been on homosexuality.
http://www.texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?topic_id=1510976&forum_id=15
If you are in a lifeboat and one faction advocates chopping holes into the hull do you debate with them, or just toss them overboard and row on?
Make no mistake, you have to toss them overboard. That means not debate them but humiliate them and then cast them adrift.
There is no debate to be had with liars.
Krubozumo Nyankoyem,
That may be true, but it is also true that if one person on a boat is trying to get the other 12 to tip it over, you can save yourself, and the others, by exposing the one as a dangerous fool.
The only question is: Is Wilson chipping through the hull or rocking the boat???
Otherwise known as a trojan turkey.
Doug Wilson and his church in Moscow, ID also run a “liberal arts” college called New Saint Andrews College. Its approach to the origins and evolution of life is solidly young-earth creationist. One of Doug’s sons, Gordon Wilson (who claims a PhD in biology from George Mason University) teaches science there. He is also a member of the Baraminology Study Group, an organization based I think at Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee, which focuses on the study of baramins, or “kinds” of organisms. One example of Gordon Wilson’s work is an abstract on the problem of “natural evil” that he published in 2004. This takes up the question of why some animals eat or are otherwise mean to other animals, when we know that before the fall, all god’s creatures had everlasting life, lived in harmony with one another, and were abundantly provided for. Earlier this year, P.Z. Myers over at Pharyngula featured this abstract, which among other things generated a lot of discussion of one of Wilson’s citations, which was to “Satan et al.” Here’s the link to that discussion: http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#AFrnYl/scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/03/where_do_satan_et_al_publish_a.php/
Several years earlier, Ed Brayton had posted Gordon Wilson’s “natural evil” abstract in one of his dispatches:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2004/09/more_prevarication_from_iders.php