Matthew Green's Contributions To Debunking Christianity

Matthew Green recently posted another article with a lot of personal comments in it, mostly about Steve Hays and J.P. Holding, but also about me. That's the nature of so much of what Matthew writes. Even when he's offering to have a "friendly" discussion with somebody, he'll use vulgarity and tell the people he wants to have a "friendly" discussion with that he "loathes" them, that they should "drop dead", that they ought to be "bitch-slapped", etc.

Imagine if Steve Hays repeatedly made public comments about how he would commit suicide if the people he disagrees with convinced him that he was wrong. Imagine if Steve regularly larded his posts down with four-letter words and references to how the people he disagrees with should "drop dead", should be "bitch-slapped", etc. Imagine if Steve regularly cited as some of his primary sources men who are so far out of the mainstream that they take the radical position of denying that Jesus existed (like Richard Carrier and Robert Price). It's true that I and other Christians (like Steve Hays and J.P. Holding) sometimes mistreat people, use bad arguments, or err in some other manner. But have any of the people Matthew has been criticizing acted in a way that's comparable to Matthew's behavior?

I want to briefly address three issues Matthew has mentioned again. (And it ought to be pointed out that much of what Matthew asks Steve Hays has already been answered by Steve many times in many articles at this blog. Apparently, Matthew hasn't read much of Steve's material.) Regarding my plans for the future, Matthew wrote:

"I am curious as to Jason's plans are for the future. If he working on an M.A. or Ph.D. degree? I will be this next year, working on my M.A."

My education is in a field that isn't directly related to apologetics, and I have no plans to return to school.

Matthew has also repeated his criticisms of an article at my web site:

"I said this after I got the strong impression that Jason was condescending towards the retired couple. I got a strong impression that Jason was just another arrogant apologist right up there with Robert Turkel and Jonathan Sarfati."

I don't know which article at my web site Matthew has in mind, but it might be this one. It's a short article that has four sentences written by me, followed by a more lengthy quote from a book by John Piper. Read what John Piper wrote, then ask yourself whether Matthew's characterization is reasonable.

Finally, on the issue of who I link to in my posts, Matthew wrote:

"Jason Engwer repeatedly linked to Robert Turkel and that's why I concluded that he was a spin-doctor. I thought that by putting himself in the same league as Turkel that he was, in effect, endorsing him uncritically, perhaps even hero-worshipping Turkel."

Again, if Matthew can distance himself from Farrell Till, then go on just afterward to approvingly quote something Till wrote, then why can't I link to J.P. Holding? I'm not comparing J.P. Holding to Farrell Till. Holding is far more reasonable. But the same general principle applies. Matthew repeatedly cites sources like Farrell Till and Richard Carrier while distancing himself from those sources at the same time. And on other occasions, such as in his associations with his fellow writers at Debunking Christianity, he doesn't tell us what he agrees with in their writings and what he disagrees with. If Matthew can cite sources he disagrees with and associate with other people without telling us what his relationship is with each of them, then why can't I do the same? The errors Matthew criticizes J.P. Holding for are far less significant than the errors of Richard Carrier, John Loftus, Acharya S, and other people Matthew has associated himself with.

I think that much of what Matthew writes in his latest article is true. He probably does get along relatively well with his father and other Christians. He probably does have some desire to be more friendly with some people he hasn't been friendly with in the past. He probably is open to correction on some issues related to the historical evidence for Christianity, for example. But if all of those positive attributes are accompanied by so many references to suicide, vulgarity, how he "loathes" a person he's speaking with, how he thinks the person should be "bitch-slapped", etc., what are we to make of that sort of instability? However I, Steve Hays, J.P. Holding, or other people may have erred in our treatment of Matthew, I think that we've been much more reasonable in our treatment of him than he's been in his treatment of us.

Even on the historical and other apologetic issues we've discussed with Matthew, he acknowledges that there are many of these subjects he hasn't studied much, and that he often isn't sure just which position to take. If he's so unsure of his position on so many issues, and he's prepared to commit suicide if Christianity is true and has so little respect and self-control that he regularly uses vulgarity, for example, should he be writing articles for Debunking Christianity or for any other such blog?