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One Christian's Opinion About DC Comments
I invited a Christian to come visit this Blog. His blogsite is here where after looking around he said....
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After being challenged by the creator of the blog to read one of his posts, I spent some time looking around.
One thing that shocked me was the comments section. People, claiming to be Christian, left some of the most childish, mean-spirited, hate-filled comments that I have ever read in a blog.
Nice job showing the love of Christ.
Boy, that sent them clamoring to return to the Church.
I was more put off by the comments of believers than by the comments made by those running the blog. All the commenters did was to help them build their case of Christianity being a false religion.
When John wrote about his deconversion experience, he stated that one of his reasons for leaving the faith was: "...minus a sense of a loving, caring, Christian community". Well, these people are certainly enforcing the notion of a loving community, huh?
A loving and caring community is vital for the church and people of the church to flourish. There must be grace towards people's short comings, mercy towards their failings, encouragement to approach the future with holiness, a celebration of any and all forward motion people make in their lives, and support when there is struggle.
It's been said that the Christian army is the only army that shoots it's own wounded. I don't wonder why some people leave.
--Surly Dave
posted by John W. Loftus @ 7:47 PM
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Since I’m not one of the regular commenters over at DC, he’s not talking about me. Therefore, I’m a disinterested party to this particular post.
1.I notice that Surly Dave has a weekly “Bastard Report” on his blog. I guess that’s supposed to put a winsome face on the gospel, unlike those mean-spirited commenters.
2.I also notice that he doesn’t do apologetics on his blog.
I’d just say that I prefer the way the Christian commenters at DC do apologetics to the way he doesn’t do apologetics.
3.Generally speaking, the Christian commenters at DC strike me as quite restrained.
4.It wouldn’t hurt for Surly Dave to brush up on some of the “mean-spirited” things that the Bible has to say about apostates.
5.If Surly Dave doesn’t believe in “shooting our own,” then why is he sniping at the Christian commenters over at the DC? Isn’t that a case of friendly fire?
6.Is the Christian army the only army that shoots its own? Is secularism such a loving and caring community?
7.On the one hand, apostates hate the church because it’s too lax. They say it’s full of hypocrites.
On the other hand, apostates hate the church because it’s too strict. They say it’s legalistic and judgmental.
8.There’s a difference between the way we should treat someone who loses his faith and quietly leaves the church behind, and a renegade arsonist who tries to burn the church to the ground so that no one else can attend.
Surly Dave just wants to keep it fair. After all, the "mean" Christian DC commentors have actually demonstrated that Loftus has no clue what he is talking about on any issue, and that's just simply unfair when all Loftus can do is respond with "You're stupid, idiot."
ReplyDeleteIn the war of ideas, the charitable thing to do when your enemy is unable to shoot you is to shoot yourself for him. Otherwise you'd win, and that's just not fair.
Hhhmmm.
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to mention that I drink alcohol, smoke the occasional cigar, and is over-weight. I also golf, though I'm not sure if golfing is a sin, or maybe just the way I do it.
I have no problem with the discussion of errors and apologetics. Challenge and defend away! I don't do it on my blog because I'm to busy looking for bastards and discussing recipes...or sermon prep and growth and developement at my Church.
Comments like, and it disgusts me to even repeat it: "I bet your face looks like a fart smells" are what I'm talking about. What does this prove? When the debate breaks down to this level, everyone looses.
And then there's the arrogance!
But I think that the people who are condesending and arrogant in those debates would be that way in any debate.
Hi Dave,
ReplyDeleteI've no idea if mine was one of the comments that drew your ire (I was not the one to compare Loftus' noble visage to certain bodily emanations), but I'm sure there are times I've come off as arrogant or condescending or whatever so your comments might apply to me. So, in defence of arrogant people like myself :-), I'll just say that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to sound anything BUT arrogant to people who remain steadfast in their sin. Even Christ maddened the Pharisees with statements they presumed were arrogant--statements that were not actually arrogant, but were merely true.
But I have to say your first impression of DC was spot on: "At first I was tempted to engage in debate, but you can't debate against emotions." Amen brutha.