This week I was given the knock down stunning argument against Christianity – wait for it….(cue drum roll)….it will knock you for six and destroy your faith or confirm your genius in being an unbeliever. Can’t stand the suspense? Ok, here it is – an official of the National Secular Society tweeted me the following link.
It must be important because the SSS (Scottish Secular Society) also gave the story prominence. A 68 year old former teacher is charged with possessing indecent images of children. Sadly it is a story that is all too common – but why was this one (amongst the many such stories) cited by the Secularists? What does it have to do with secularism? The logic (?) is simple. The man concerned was a church organist (cure crude comments on SSS Fb page). Now a reasonable person might ask what this has to do with Christianity. The trouble is we have no idea – we don’t know if he is guilty (that will be for a court to decide), we don’t know what his faith is, if he is a Christian or believes anything about Christ (I know church organists who are atheists) or that if he professed to be a Christian, his Christianity was in anyway a motivating factor. But that does not stop the atheist secularists who, although they also don’t know, nonetheless seek to make the link.
In a pathetic attempt at self-justification SSS stated “This is not so much about pulling up all the instances of sex crimes involving religionists – before I’m asked – as it is about demonstrating that there is something fundamentally wrong with organisations that promote such socially conservative attitudes to sex.” Therefore making a direct link between the alleged use of child pornography and the church. Unproven, unsubstantiated and unreasoning. It is the classic ad hom tactic. And it is typical of the atheist secularists. 95% of SSS posts are against religion, and many are ad hom attacks of this nature.
The latest in this trend is if a Transgender commits suicide the immediate response is to blame ‘oppressive religion’. In another example sent to me one atheist declares that an apparent suicide by a transgender in the US means “Isn’t it time to start banning and burning holy books and incarcerating those who preach from them?”
So lets take a deep breath and think about this. I will just make the following obvious points, and I apologise if they are too obvious for you, but it seems that sometimes prejudice can blind one to the obvious.
1) Using highly personal emotive individual stories (selectively reported) to accuse a whole group of people is dishonest and in one sense unanswerable. It is the ‘when did you stop beating your wife?’ type question.
2) Can you imagine what would happen if every time a black man/homosexual/Jew committed a crime it was pointed out that they were black, homosexual or Jewish? What would be the relevance of that? In the Dundee case cited above it is noticeable that the Secularists post it because of the ‘church organist’ part of his life (which has no relevance whatsoever) and don’t mention the fact that he was a teacher (which given the nature of the accusation is far more significant!).
3) You will also note that they don’t post the numerous stories about ‘non-religious’ people who commit abuse. For example in the news today is the story of the mother and her Lesbian lover who killed her daughter. Would I post this story because it shows that lesbianism can lead to child murder? Of course not. That would make me as bad as the Secularists! I don’t know the woman. I don’t know her motivation. I don’t know if her lesbianism had anything to do with it. So I would not even attempt to make the link. The story won’t be posted on the Solas FB page or the Free Church web page. This is not to say that there might not be a link, just as sometimes there might be a link between an abusers religious beliefs and their abuse. But to make or hint at such a judgement without knowledge, is not only ignorant but evil.
Last week I wrote a piece in which I wondered whether to some militant atheists, Christians who believe the Bible, are just one step above paedophiles. One of the secularists immediately responded, why one step above? and then stated that we were the same, giving as evidence an example of one ‘gospel singer’ who had had sex with a 15 year old. In the narrow, closed and twisted world in which they live, when they cannot answer the arguments, and when people don’t back down in the face of their bullying intolerant rants, they just reinterpret everything to confirm their own bias. And so in order to justify their stance they ended up labelling me as a closet atheist homosexual who is on an equivalent level with a paedophile. I guess to such people a church organist being accused of having child pornography is just further ‘proof’. God have mercy when we are faced with such illogicality and hatred. How can we ‘reason’ in the face of such evil?
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. 2 Timothy 2:25-26 (NIV)
David, the problem is that secularists don’t see themselves as trapped by the devil. Satan has blinded their eyes to the truth. You must keep on doing what you are doing in pointing out error, but always gently. Best regards Brian
If we as believers are accused of being unreasonable/illogical in our faith, how could faulty generalization, ad hominem, straw man and false cause laden arguments convince us that the secularist is rational?
Yes such tactics are I think obvious to any thinking person.
I wonder however to what degree talking about such gives it oxygen and fuels fascist elements to society. With all due respect David, sometimes I am surprised for a man of obvious intelligence, how much attention you give to such comments. I’m not saying that to be intentionally critical, but out of a genuine expression of desire to understand. I get where you are coming from at the same time. After all didn’t Jesus speak forthrightly against pharisees, Elijah against King Ahab and other Israelites for Baal worship against Jewish law and the apostle Paul sharply rebuke fellow Christians where there were disagreements over things such as food laws and circumcision and there actions were not determined by love? However were these rebukes not directed towards fellow believers and not unbelievers?
Yes there are ways of putting out fires. Pouring cold water on them is one, but also is removing the fuel and starving the fire of oxygen. I wonder if withdrawing from arguing sometime might be a better option. Yes the apostle Paul did say that we hold all thoughts captive and obedient to Christ in the context of demolishing arguments and pretenses that set themselves up against the knowledge of God. However there is one or two things Jesus said about pearls and what is sacred with pigs and dogs.
A church organist with alleged crimes described of course is the kind of controversy that sells papers and what SSS will jump on in their fb page. Nothing new there.
Ducatihero, in the words of Edmund Burke, all that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing
Yes and being good means resting your peace on people, If they are unwelcoming and not listening to testify against them take your peace back and walk away, not having anything to do with stupid arguments but instead being kind to everyone.
Reblogged this on The Failed Atheist Blog and commented:
An excellent demonstration of the poor logic and reasoning that often accompanies much of the criticism of Christianity.
It looks to me, David, as though you have found your twin in the SSS. Everything you accuse them of, is exactly what you do. But I suppose you can’t see it for the beam in your eye….
Brent, Thanks for your comment. I hope it is not true. Given that the article explicitly repudiates tactics such as using the fact he was a church organist to blame Christianity for his abuse, could you let me know one example of where I have done the same. Otherwise I will have to take your accusation as meaningless and without evidence.
Hi
Before I leave my comment about this post I will tell you a little about myself ( briefly) I am very much an Atheist and Secularist for numerous reasons that I’m not going to post here, anyway, I tend to like your posts on SSS for many reasons but mostly because you do tend to highlight their abject failings.
The secularist part does seem to be a front for other agendas that you tend to highlight regularly, I did mention this to them and made a few comments of such on their FB page and to their credit started a discussion on the topic, well for a few days anyway. Once I started to get some agreements they promptly acted, they changed their FB and promptly stopped allowing comments.
I cannot get through to Glasgow for their meetings as I’m sure that the majority of secularist Cannot do, I’m a believer of discussions and debate and others opinions matter, but unless you can get to Glasgow none of that’s possible. The SSS are as far as I can see is a closed shop and doesn’t really speak for Scotland’s secularists but for the agendas of the more prominent and dominant members of the “society”.
Don’t get me wrong, there are a couple of people that I have high regard for, but these are the people you don’t hear much from, as an organisation that has a somewhat high profile they may have a lot to learn, and in my opinion secularism is what they should be concentrating on.
Keep up the good work Mr Robertson and maybe you will have a society to debate with worthy enough to be called the Scottish secular society.
We have to realize that as cultural values drift further and further from Christian values, the greater the change which is called for by the preaching of the Gospel. And the greater the change called for, the stronger the resistance will be. Therefore, examples of hypocrisy will have their significance magnified.
Sex is not the only issue which opponents of Christianity are blaming the Church for. The Church has also been portrayed as an oppressor of man’s creativity and freedom. And one of the ways the Church has done this is through doctrine.
We should also note the Church’s past history at playing the hypocrite. Think of how much scorn the Church earned for itself prior to the French and Russian Revolutions by aligning itself with wealth and power.
Yes, we preach a stricter code of sexual ethics to the world and some, perhaps with some merit, will link how we have taught sexual ethics with the sexual misconduct by some of our own. And since we are calling for bigger and bigger changes in people’s lives as cultural values continue on their present course, we should expect the kind of reaction described above.