Emotional Rhetoric, 1; Critical Thinking, 0

"The next time someone tries to tell me that being Christian is the embodiment of logic and reasoning, I don't know what I will do," a young woman on IRC commented. Well here is a really crazy notion for her to consider: engage the person in a critical analysis on that issue.

Her comment was in response to something I had said earlier in a conversation with someone else; namely, that an in-depth study of logic and critical thinking ironically led me from atheism to Christian theism: "The unexpected thing was the fact that a commitment to reason and critical thinking eventually landed me in the Christian camp," I had said.

But for all practical purposes it is impossible to engage her on that issue because she has a vitriolic aversion to anything that even resembles "religion talk." What I find very disappointing is the sheer ubiquity of this attitude among those who identify themselves as atheists. It is alarming, the number of atheists I encounter that exhibit it. They will take time out of their day to hurl such gratuitous invective, but to engage the issues critically is somehow not worth their time. It is very disheartening to observe such priority in their values, where they have time to invest in supercilious rhetoric but not critical analysis. Such intellectual irresponsibility was part of the reason I ended up rejecting atheism, and the atheists I interact with today continually demonstrate that my conclusive observation is still relevant and accurate.

In the words of English philosopher Herbert Spencer:

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation."

Shove This Down Your Throat

"What I can't stand is Christians who shove their beliefs down my throat."

Of all the ill-thought rhetoric coming from atheists, this oddly phrased tripe is one of those heard most often. (The verificationist mantra tops that list.) I am going to ignore how improbable that notion is, beyond anything other than hyperbolic rhetoric, and instead focus on another, far more revealing aspect of this issue: the fact that we Christians are routinely subjected to a militant campaign of atheistic beliefs.

After presenting a theistic argument for metaethics (values and morals), someone responded to me with, "Well, that's your opinion. And you're entitled to it." And that remark gave me pause. For maybe the first time ever, I actually stopped and gave that remark some thought. Well now, what does he mean by this statement? Quite simply, he means that what I presented is 'not fact'. More elaborately, he means that one cannot 'know' these things are so, these things I presented about God and metaethics; it is merely my personal perspective on something which is ultimately unprovable (i.e. there is nothing within reality to which the terms of my propositions correspond).

But do you realize what he has done? He doesn't realize it. By telling me that the sum of my argument is only so much 'opinion', he has shoved HIS beliefs down MY throat, because his statement is true only under his particular belief system! (In this case, some version of Scientistic Agnosticism. Some fundy atheists out there might object to the idea that they have a 'belief system', but it matters not because they do have one. No, it's not atheism; but it is atheistic.) The epistemic virtues that produce a statement like that certainly do not stem from my belief system. Such virtues are found somewhere else: in practically every case, the atheist's belief system. By insisting, in a matter-of-fact way, that my metaethics argument is only so much 'opinion', the atheist has shoved his beliefs down my throat—

—and is truly a hypocrite.