Madness everywhere?

Thanks to Dave for alerting me to darwinator’s attempts at debating with another Christian, zapata king.

Hey darwinator, I thought it was just you and me!

Madness reaches the inevitable impasse

The internet is an amazing platform to get an exchange of thoughts and ideas going, to have conversations with people you’d normally never encounter in everyday life.  Such has been the case with darwinator, an atheist who somehow one day happened upon my humble blog here.  The discussion has been interesting, but it seems to have reached, what I hoped would not be, an inevitable impasse.  Here’s what has transpired:

1. darwinator Post #1: darwinator calls me a nut-ball, claiming that my belief in communication with Jesus should label me as crazy
2. Rob Post #1: I respond on my site, mainly because he doesn’t allow comments; I clarify some misconceptions he had of me
3. darwinator Post #2: He responds to my post with a new post on his site, furthering the discussion
4. Rob Post #2: I respond to this (again, on my site) with the intent of surprising him, and again clarifying misconceptions
5. darwinator Post #3: Although succeeding in surprising him, I also apparently disappointed him with Post #2.  (OH NO!)  More misconceptions arise.

And herein lies the problem with internet communication.  (With any written communication, really.)  You can try to get a point across all you want, but however the reader reads what you’ve written, they may misinterpret something, such as the emotion behind your words, or otherwise.  The otherwise is a big problem; the writer doesn’t know what a reader brings to the table.  I think that has happened here, on both sides.  darwinator started this whole thing because of my writing here on this site.  Looking back on it, I can see how he misunderstood what I was saying – but that’s my fault, not his.  He certainly has opened my eyes up to my style of writing; it appears I assume too much of my readers in some cases, so I need to be careful of explaining things more thoroughly to the non-Christians reading what I write.

So here’s Rob Post #3.  I’m not purposely trying to end the discussion with this one, but I realize it may do so.

The “madness” continues…

So, darwinator responds to my response to his post about me.  Confused? Click those links and get caught up.

Ready?  Ok.

I thought a lot about what I should write in response to darwinator’s latest response.  More specifically, I thought about what my motives were in continuing the discussion.  Was I trying to defend Christianity from attack?  No, because I don’t believe that’s the duty of a Christian.  Was I defending myself from attack?  No, I’m not being attacked per se.  Was I trying to persuade darwinator to believe in Christianity?  Not sure; it would be nice if I planted some kind of seed, but that wasn’t really it either.  Was I responding in anger to a blow to my pride?  Maybe my first response was a bit; but no, not this one.  In the end, I chose to respond because it is probably the most civil discourse I’ve had with a non-Christian (nut-ball term aside), and for the sake of reason and logic it shall continue.  What happens from here is up to darwinator.

First I’ll first address some statements he made:

A response to “madness”

This post is actually for a guy called darwinator over at Cathartic Relief.  You see, you can’t comment on his blog, and since he recently wrote about me, I thought it only fair to at least be allowed to respond with a trackback!   (You gotta love it here at WordPress.com – I found out that he linked to me from my stats page!  Cool stuff!)

Let’s see what darwinator has to say…

I’ve read a lot of his stuff and the kid can write.

You’re making me blush!  No, seriously, thank you.  Whenever people say this to me it is quite humbling.  Also, thanks for thinking age 28 still puts me in “kid status!”

He loves George W. Bush and everything the man stands for, which doesn’t say too much for his ability to think critically…

Low blow, but that’s ok. 

His writings on Jesus pretty much qualify him as a nut-ball. You see, Rob believes that Jesus Christ is literally controlling his life. He believes that Jesus is making decisions on his behalf and overtly guiding him on his journey through life.

Ouch!  Now we’re getting personal!  Well, if I was the only one who believed and did this, you would be correct with the nut-ball analysis.  However, I am in the company of billions of people over the last 2000 years.  We can’t call that nut-ballish with that many people involved.  The only answer to this: Jesus has to be a real live person who interacts with us.  And so then what makes me any different from people who seek a guru to give them guidance? (Well, *I* say the difference is that Jesus has the answers while the guru is grasping at straws, but for the sake of argument I’m comparing “life coaches.”)  And to be fair, I’ll have to look back at my posts and see, but I don’t want to imply that I’m being controlled by Jesus, as opposed to Him guiding me.  I have used the phrase “I gave Jesus control of my life,” but what that means is I trust in Him so much that He tells me where to go and what to do, and I do it - by choice.  I have the free will to go another way.  And I have gone another way many times.  His ways lead me to success; my ways usually put me into trouble.  Funny like that.

Wow. Seriously, wow! My purpose isn’t simply to mock Rob’s beliefs…

Well, at least you’re honest about that.

… It’s more to consider the question of how far Rob would have to go before his beliefs could be clinically described as crazy.  I’m claiming he wouldn’t have to go much further. In fact, I believe if he claimed that he heard the voice of Moses, or Mary, instead of god or Jesus, he’d qualify. In the world I live in, hearing voices and claiming to be driven by forces outside oneself automatically qualify one as crazy. How come religious belief sidesteps the nut-ball label?

Speaking as someone who plans to be a psychotherapist, you do make a good point, but only from the starting premise that Jesus does not exist.  If He does, and interacts with us (albeit differently from other people), then it is perfectly normal and not nut-ballish.  (I’m starting to enjoy the term “nut-ballish.”)

Good luck to Rob. I hope the voices and pictures don’t tell him to start hurting people.

This is where you crossed the line, darwinator.  Anyone who claims Jesus told them to hurt or kill has been greatly deceived by satan.  And if you knew the person that I am (which I try to make evident on my site) you would realize how utterly ridiculous that statement was.  Your cutting remark reeks of condescension (and because I doubt you’d say it to my face, cowardice), and I resent that you and other bloggers continually imply that Christians such as myself are in the same league as other religious extremists, namely militant Islamists.  Religious fervour in the Christian sense doesn’t mean killing people who aren’t Christian – and any “Christian” who says otherwise, even those in history who used Christianity to further their own selfish need for power, is a deceived Christian.

God has a reputation for dishing out the hurt, like that one time where he drowned everyone on Earth except Noah. That wasn’t too nice.

For all our sakes, I am grateful He promised, in His mercy,  never to flood the earth again.  Mercy is getting what we don’t deserve.

Note: I never intended this post to be an attempt to convert or even sway darwinator’s thinking about Christianity.  I only wanted a chance to respond. 

(Of course you’re welcome to continue the dialogue, darwinator, should you so choose.)