Dawson Bethrick has attempted to defend his cartoon analogy. Pruning away the tendentious rhetorical assertions, this is more or less the substance of his claim:
“What is childish is Christianity, a worldview which elevates fantasy and make-believe above reason and rationality, ultimately because of its commitment to metaphysical subjectivism - the view that reality conforms to someone's intentions.”
Okay, so according to Dawson, reality never conforms to someone’s intentions. That’s a beautifully self-refuting statement, and I thank him for absolving the reader of any need to take his words seriously.
If you go to Dawson’s blog, you will find a lot of posted material, consisting of words. These words are real. They exist.
But, according to Bethrick, his words don’t conform to his intentions. Apparently, what he intended to communicate, and what actually appears on the computer screen are two different things. His fingers have a mind of their own. He mentally directs his fingers to type one thing, but they rebel and type up something else entirely.
This must be a terribly frustrating experience for Bethrick. And given the mutinous state of his digits, the reader can never know what Bethrick meant to say. Maybe he was trying to post a recipe for walnut fudge brownies. But darn it if those seditious digits of his didn’t thwart his culinary intentions.
“As a supernaturalist, he wants, on the one hand, to assert the existence of invisible magic beings which can create their objects out of nothing and manipulate them at will, informing his worldview with all kinds of bizarre and silly notions of miracles and miracle-workers; on the other hand, he wants the respectability of a serious worldview, even though only the self-loathing can take it seriously as a guide to one’s choices and actions. (I’ve yet to meet a Christian who consistently governs his choices and actions as if the world of objects actually do conform to the conscious intentions of an invisible magic being; and the dishonesty required to affirm such a worldview while operating on opposite fundamental premises can only lead to self-loathing.”
All he’s done is to posit a contradiction without demonstrating a contradiction. Another lame assertion in lieu of an argument.
But, to continue:
***QUOTE***
The logic of the analogy is pretty difficult to miss, especially once it's been pointed out. The apostle Paul himself provided us with a precedent for drawing an analogy between the creator-deity of Christianity and its creations as he imagined the relationship between the two. To illustrate that relationship in concrete terms, he likened the creator-deity to a potter, and its creation to a lump of clay which it molds in conformity with its desires. The apostle draws this analogy in order to shield his god from critical questions, such as those having to do with its motivations. The apostle wants people to believe that his god created everything and gave all creatures their natures such as they are precisely what it wants them to be, but at the same time he does not want people to think that his god is morally responsible for what it has allegedly created. Romans 9:18-22 gives us the apostle's rationale:
“He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?’ On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this,’ will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?”
Clearly the goal here is to put a stop to critical thinking. To convey his reasoning, Paul draws an analogy between a potter and the lump of clay he uses to produce a 'vessel', such as a bowl or other household item. Essentially, Paul is saying that his god is free to make a bowl with a big crack down its side, and then condemn that bowl for being useless for holding soup. (Yes, his deity is that big, folks.) Since the potter intended the bowl to be useless for holding soup in the first place (after all, it doesn't make mistakes), Paul is saying that the potter is right to condemn it, and that the bowl has no business asking the potter, "Why did you make me like this?" Of course, if the potter fashioned the bowl with a conceptual form of consciousness and moral inquisitiveness, he would be quite foolish to expect the bowl not to question his motives as a potter. Not having a good answer in such a case, the potter would simply resort to saying "It's my right to do thus!" and presume to have scored a victory. If it turns out that this is not sufficient to put an end to moral inquiries, the potter can threaten the bowl with eternal torment if it persists in asking such unanswerable questions.
***END-QUOTE***
One characteristic feature of online apostates is their persistent inability to interpret Scripture. In Rom 9:17-22 & 11:32, Paul presents a teleological theodicy. Certain means are deployed to achieve a given end—the manifestation of God’s mercy and justice.
Paul did not appeal to God’s potentia absoluta and leave it at that. Rather, he explains to the hypothetical critic that God does, indeed, have an overarching purpose, and he goes on to explain in what that purposes consists.
“Similarly, Elmer Fudd cannot say to his cartoonist, "Why do you always make me fail when I twy to shoot dat wabbit?" The reason is because Elmer Fudd is doing precisely what his cartoonist wants him to do, and he's not supposed to question the cartoonist's motivations. In fact, a cartoonist can guarantee that his cartoons will not ask him such questions by creating them with no consciousness of their own, and no moral inquisitiveness. They'd certainly be easier to control that way.”
Does Bethrick believe that his computer keyboard can talk back to him and challenge his intentions? Or does Bethrick believe that he can impose his will on the medium to make it say and do whatever he wants? If so, then Bethrick must imagine that he’s living in a cartoon universe wherein his fingers and keystrokes conform to his wishes.
“Indeed, if Paul's clay is sufficiently analogous to the Christian deity's creatures, how is a cartoon, whose fit within the context of Christianity's claims is so much stronger than Paul's clay, any less analogous? Indeed, to whom did Paul show that the potter's clay is sufficiently analogous to the Christian deity's creatures? If Christians find Paul's reasoning in Romans 9 sufficient for purposes of illustrating his point, how is the cartoon universe analogy any less sufficient?”
It’s disanalogous inasmuch as Bethrick is indulging in a bait-and-switch tactic. The true reason he seizes upon the cartoon analogy is due to the fictitious connotations of cartooning. Bugs Bunny isn’t real. So his actual, albeit unstated, argument from analogy is more like this:
a) Cartoons are fictitious
b) The Christian worldview is analogous to a cartoon
c) Ergo, the Christian worldview is fictitious
But there are a couple of elementary flaws in his reasoning:
a) In order for his analogy to work, he must show that Christianity is analogous to cartooning it is fictitious aspect.
He has, however, offered absolutely not supporting argument for that comparison.
b) He also has the analogy backwards. In cartooning, the cartoonist is real,—but the cartoon is fictitious. So even if the analogy held, it would be predicated on the actual existence of the (divine) cartoonist.
To make his case, Bethrick needs a reverse analogy: the cartoon is real, but the cartoonist is fictitious.
So Bethrick has failed to show that Christianity and cartooning are relevantly parallel, and even if they were analogous, the analogy undercuts his contention.
“Moreover, on what basis can a Christian discount the element of imagination here? What is the substance of the believer's prayer requests, if not the improvement of the present state of affairs that he imagines his god can bring about? Do the believer's imaginings exceed his god's capabilities? Can his god not also create talking rabbits which operate heavy machinery and conduct symphony orchestras, just as a cartoonist imagines? The real question is whether or not the believer acts as if the universe is the cartoon his worldview conceives it to be, or an objective realm which does not conform to any subject's whims. Does he own up to his confession, or does he shirk it? That is the question.”
A Christian who understands the theology of prayer will pray according to the promises of God.
God is not a genie. Prayer is not an exercise in rubbing Aladdin’s lamp. You don’t get three wishes.
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