I made a bloggers mistake last week – I stepped out of my blog niche, and started talking outside of the topic and purpose of Communicate Jesus.
When I wrote ‘Reflections on watching ABC1′s Q&A with Richard Dawkins‘, I made the mistake of critiquing the content of Dawkins’ argument. This was a mistake, not because I agree with Dawkins (nothing could be further from the truth), but because debating the existence of God, absolute v subjective morality, how the world came into being etc – are not subjects that I desire to discuss on this site. It’s not that I am uninterested in those topics – there’s just a limit to what can be discussed (we won’t be discussing the Premier League either, just to make that clear also!).
For this reason and a couple of others, I concluded that online religious debate isn’t a good idea.
This was met with a varied response. Some accused me of running from debate. Some thought if I start the debate I should stick around to finish it (it would be a 24/7 pursuit to answer all the comments that came in). Others thought I should set the example for how Christians should debate these topics online.
This prompted me to think further about the benefits of online religious debate, and, aided by debate stirred up by Dawkins and Deveny in recent weeks, I’ve read a lot of articles with a goal to observe the type of debate that takes place.
- I’ve kept an eye on a debate on the Thinkers’ Podium website.
- I’ve read two articles by columnist Andrew Bolt – ‘The barbarian of our age‘ (about atheist Catherine Deveny) and ‘No faith in their hatred‘.
- I’ve read Jeremy Halcrow’s post on ‘Atheists and cyber-abuse‘ on the Sydney Anglicans website.
- I’ve read the Sydney Morning Herald’s letters pages on 16 March and 17 March.
- I’ve read a post by religious blogger for The Age, Barney Zwartz, ‘2500 people with nothing to talk about?‘ – that attracted over 650 comments!
- I’ve read another post by Barney, ‘Atheists won’t win friends and influence people‘.
- I’ve read The Australian’s ‘Dawkins preaches to the deluded against the devine‘. Wisely, I think, The Australian didn’t permit comments.
This behavioral observation hasn’t just been a recent endeavour either. I’ve engaged with atheists online several times in the past 6 months – on Twitter, on this website and on others.
My conclusion this week is even more definite than it was last week – I cannot see any benefit to debating with atheists, about religion, online. Primarily, this is because of the attitude of many of the atheists whose opinions I read. Take for example, three letters in the Sydney Morning Herald today:
“When reasoned debate is confronted by unreasonable faith, it is hardly surprising that the standard of the discussion is lowered. But to blame the reasoned debater for that outcome is surely unfair.”
“Let’s put Richard Dawkins’s comment about Steve Fielding in perspective. Dawkins had just sat next to a man – a senator, no less – who weakly and ineloquently confirmed on national television his belief that the earth is about 6000 years old. The real issue here is how anyone espousing such a belief and all that comes with it, particularly someone who makes decisions affecting all of us, escapes with a mere name-calling.”
“Neil Ormerod says ridicule does not pass for reasoned argument when it comes to considering candidates for sainthood, yet considers a reasoned argument to be: ”If medicine can’t yet account for it, it must have been God.” Ridicule is exactly what he should expect.”
The general attitude of atheists towards Christians seems to be “We don’t have to be polite because you’re stupid”. And it’s no surprise that atheists have this attitude when they have a role model like Richard Dawkins. Speaking of former British Prime Minister (and recent Catholic convert), Tony Blair, Dawkins says “I’d like to think we didn’t have a complete idiot for Prime Minister”. As Melanie Phillips contends:
“Indeed, he [Dawkins] seems almost to believe that, since everyone who believes in God is stupid or evil and Christians are stupid and evil because they believe in God, those who oppose him must be Christian and can be treated with contempt.”
My question is this – how can you debate someone who thinks you’re an idiot and that anything you say is utter stupidity? That’s no platform for any meaningful discussion, and yet this is the attitude of many of those atheists I see in debates online.
Of course, not all atheists are like this. But the vast majority of those I have engaged with are angry, rude and dismissive. I can’t see a way of engaging online that doesn’t throw more fuel on the fire, let alone advance the discussion.
I’m writing this post because I want us, as Christians, to carefully consider how we use our time, and how we use technology, and particularly the internet (in this case) to bring glory to God. We need to think very carefully about engaging in these debates online, and it would take a lot of convincing to get me back into the arena.
There are great opportunities for offline debate. For example, John Lennox is compelling when he debates Dawkins in ‘The God Delusion Debate‘ (and I’ve asked the ABC to invite him onto the panel of Q&A when he arrives later this month). Not to mention conversations in person, between believers and non-believers.
I think there’s also opportunity for great discussions between Christians and agnostics, and people from other religions. I even think there is opportunity to have discussions with atheists who aren’t out of the Dawkins/Deveny mold.
But for those who seek only to mock, scoff, deride and ridicule, I think we need to speak less, and instead, take seriously the whole-of-life approach encouraged by Peter in 1 Peter 2:12 -
“Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”
Do you agree with me? Why or why not?
Update (14 April 2010)
- Bruce at the Thinkers’ Podium responds in “Comment Thread Besmirched“.
- Nathan has written a similar post – “Eight things I’ve learned from arguing with atheists online and why I (mostly) can’t be bothered anymore“. The Friendly Atheist has written a response – “A Christian explains why he won’t argue with atheists anymore“.
(Feature image attribution: Magnolia Red)
Now’s not the time to throw in the towel Steve.
The reason is that great text you quoted. We need to “lead such good lives among the pagans.”
Being online is a part of living today. That’s where our pagan mates are living so we need to live and interact there too.
But I think we need to limit our aims to “leading a good life”. Not “leading a good argument.”
Rather than hoping that you’re going to come up with a killer syllogism (very hard in 160 characters on Twitter) see if you can come up with a really nice observation. And that’s especially when we’re on out-and-out debates about the existence of God.
I think a good example is on The Punch yesterday. The Article was “Atheists can do better than saying believers are stupid” (which is a good point itself, but I’ll get back to that).
The first bunch of banter went as follows:
Eric says:
07:10am | 16/03/10
Evangelical atheists are just as annoying as evangelical Christians.
Pete says:
08:28am | 16/03/10
dunno Eric, from personal experience I think evangelical Christians are far worse….
Tom says:
09:43am | 16/03/10
Placing reliance on God for running our country is a lot smarter than those who place it on Cate Blanchett.
Muttley says:
10:20am | 16/03/10
Tom, i disagree. At least we know Cate Blanchett exists….
M B Andrews says:
11:35am | 16/03/10
Muttley, does Cate Blanchett really exist? I think we need to be more skeptical.
It’s a soft shot, sure. But it does gently undermine the final absurdity of skepticism. And being gentle is a big part of things. On other blogs, instead of bluntly correcting people, I’ve quietly pointed out something that they might find interesting. So to a lady called Julie who was ridiculously claiming that all children are atheists, I submitted the following:
@Julie If you’re interested in the default worldview of children, you should definitely look up the research done by the Oxford scholar Dr Oliviera Petrovich. Her research with children in Japan, which is a non-theist culture, seems to indicate that children innately believe in a transcendent creator.
We need to love our blogging neighbour. And I think we do that in trying to find ways to serve them – with useful knowledge, with humour and the long lost art of Christian manners.
And I think it will actually work. The tide of sympathy has turned against Dawkins – as the title of that article in The Punch revealed. But it will only continue to do so if we Christians show exemplary grace whilst under fire.
Hi Steve,
The reason I devote some of my spare time to doing just this is so that people who arrive on objectionable posts on atheist blogs via genuine google searches asking questions need to see the gospel proclaimed at that time.
I’m happy to discuss things with atheists so long as I can promote Jesus on a platform to people who are at the very least thinking about the question of God.
Matt and Nathan, this is why I love the blog format – it is so useful to hear different perspectives and be challenged in our conclusions. I’m encouraged to hear how and why you are both using the web to engage, and to be far more fruitful than I have been! Thanks for sharing this encouragement.
It reminds me of these two proverbs:
Pr 26:4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself.
Pr 26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.
They make some good points over at Thinkers podium Steve!
Wayne