Why Debate Dogma?
Religion January 14th, 2008Pat Condell has changed my thoughts about debating Christianity (and religion in general.) His points here are simply too compelling to ignore.
“I think to engage dogma in debate is to legitimize it…”
Pat, I think I finally agree with you. That nascent feeling that something was wrong with my approach, swimming in the back of my brain, has been nurtured by this simple message. There is no reason to be polite about this. It is time to stop giving superstitious nonsense anything but a sound, derisive tongue lashing. I’m done with appeals to logic, softly spoken words and side stepping comments that might cause pain through ridicule. Primitive superstition deserves nothing less than complete and utter ridicule and scorn.
I’m done being diplomatic toward nonsense. I’m done with my old hobby.
A sincere thanks, Mr. Condell.
2 Responses to “Why Debate Dogma?”
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January 16th, 2008 at 05:42
But if you do that you will be no better than that which you hate so much. For relgions are the ones that tend toward intolerant scornful attacks on anything they dont agree with. You cant in your attempt to fight them become that which you hate or else you start the process all over again.
January 16th, 2008 at 15:33
I’m not talking about walking up to people on the street and jumping in their face with a hearty attack of their beliefs. I’m simply changing my behavior toward their action of that very process toward me.
I’m no longer going to debate these people on the grounds of reason, as they ignore reason. You’ve lost before you’ve started. There’s no point in trying to reason with them. Instead, I’m going to treat their unfounded, ridiculous ideas with the kind of respect they deserve; on par with that of astrology, Scientology, reading tea leaves and believing four leaved clovers bring you luck. It’s superstitious nonsense and I will denounce it as superstitious nonsense. There’s no hate involved in the process, it’s simply a matter of refusing to give ludicrous ideas any possible credit, no matter how many people are fool enough to believe it, based solely on how ridiculous their argument is in light of reason.
As an example, if someone came up to me on the street and told me that if I don’t wear pink Mickey Mouse underwear everyday, a giant, invisible hermit crab named Norman will chase me down and eat me, should I attempt to reason with this individual and this idea? Should I engage in a quiet debate with him, carefully showing him how analysis of the evidence at hand rejects the idea of giant, invisible hermit crabs with proper English names? Is it possible to reason with someone that forgone from reality? Will it accomplish anything to do so?
Why should I give someone who comes to me with an unsupported story of some Jewish guy, born from a virgin, who was his own father, who came back from the dead in order for us to symbolically cannibalize his flesh and accept him as lord over our lives in order to remove an evil magical force on our souls, put there as a curse placed on us from a magical sky fairy, because he’s pissed off that some woman in the past was fooled by a talking snake into eating the fruit of a magic tree - all in order to go to a magic place after we die, instead of living in everlasting pain and torture (because the sky fairy loves us); any more credit than the giant, invisible hermit crab?
Seriously, a talking snake? A magical tree? Some invisible being that no one can provide even the tiniest shred of evidence for? A virgin giving birth because she was impregnated by a magical sky fairy? Someone coming back from the dead and walking on water?
Can anyone looking at any of these claims in the light of reason, take them seriously? It’s utter nonsense, it’s fairy tale lunacy and I’m going to laugh at it as such.
It’s not a cycle of hate, it’s a cycle of logic and general reason over superstitious bullshit. It is about denying any validity for soundly stupid ideas.
My response is no longer to attempt reason with unreasonable people. Like the man with the giant, invisible hermit crab, my response will be to laugh and say, “That’s stupid beyond words.” Then I’ll move on. I have no vested interest in helping them free themselves from their own stupidity.
Though for good measure I might yell back, “Look out! Norman’s right behind you!”