http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/fundamentalists/articles/gastrich.html
My Advice about debating with Christians
by Edward T. Babinski
David Lee:
Hi, I had a mini-debate with a man named Jason Gastrich. As soon as it
became obvious I was doing well in a debate he booted me from his list
and on a public newsgroup made remarks accusing me of making
slanderous remarks. He also claimed to know you and said he was a good
friend of yours. I told him I knew Ed and that post was the one that
was booted from off his "forum." As soon as he starts losing he starts
accusing you of using foul language. Jason also deleted a URL I made
claiming it wasn't allowed, but let Charity post two of his. I just
wanted to know if you knew of this man?
David mail me here:
david_lee376@hotmail.com
Ed Babinski:
Hello David, (you can also pass this along to Jason and his group, or
anyone else for that matter),
Jason Gastrich rings a bell from a while back, we exchanged some
emails and nothing was decided between us. *smile* I strive to remain
polite in most cases with everyone I meet. Hey, making enemies is
easy, especially when discussing "hot" topics. Keeping the pot from
boiling over is the difficult part.
I have not been on Jason's list, but of course, if you join an
Evangelical Christian group you should expect the Referee's judgment
calls to be at least a little slanted in favors of the Ref's favorite
team. I have noticed that most Evangelical websites I've visited,
notably the young-earth creationist ones, and the hard line
conservative apologetics ones, do not provide links to "heretical"
sites of fellow Christians (like old earth creationists! or moderate
historical Bible scholars), let alone links to freethought sites that
question the Bible's history, science, etc. While the freethought
sites do tend to provide links to conservative Christian sites.
*smile*
When worse comes to worse in an email conversation there are a few
things you can do:
1) Take a long walk or shoot some hoops, take a deep breath, stretch,
and only dive back in after you're calm, relaxed and refreshed --
keeping in mind that taking whatever you do 'too seriously' is also
one of the signs of an imminent nervous breakdown. *smile*
2) Remind yourself that you're just one person, you can't change the
world, and that people are addicted to their beliefs, they identify
their beliefs with their own egos and defend them like their own
children, and that the mind of man is wonderfully versatile at
inventing the most imaginative excuses rather than admit things it
doesn't want to admit.
3) Keep in mind that people avoid change until the pain of remaining
the same is greater than the pain of changing.
4) Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by
ignorance.
And...
5) The only books or ideas that usually influence us are those which
have gone just a little bit further down our particular path than we
have gone ourselves.
The wisdom of Line 5) may explain why most people, Christians
included, do not usually seek to debate those with views near their
own, they usually prefer people with views further from their own.
There is less chance of such views connecting with their own and
altering them. (Kind of like the way an immune cell needs SOMETHING to
latch onto on the surface of an invading bacterium before it can
interact with it and destroy it.) If young-earth creationist Biblical
inerrantists debated mostly old-earth creationist Biblical
inerrantists their interactions would have the most chance of being
the most friendly and productive. But neither side really wants that.
They want to destory the "infidels" who live far off in the distant
land of evolutionary biology. *smile* It's more fun to hack your way
through a thick jungle of views you differ with much more, cutting and
slashing the thick vines in your way with your machette.
Oddly enough, Evangelical inerrantist Christians agree they have an
inerrant perfect book along with the Holy Spirit "leading them into
all truth," but even with those two BONUSES, they can't get fellow
Evangelical inerrantists to agree on the meaning of a host of verses
in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
It seems that they should tackle their fellow brethren, those who
agree with inerrancy and the Holy Spirit's truth leading ability,
i.e., before trying to convert others who don't share those two HUGE
supernatural bonuses. I mean, theoretically it should be a piece of
cake getting brethren to agree on lesser matters of Biblical
interpretation if they first agreed that they had a perfect book, and
they both prayed beforehand for the same Holy Spirit to guide them
both into ALL truth. Yet in practice, conservative inerrantist
Christians have a habit of not even being able to get along with
fellow members of their own denominations. It's been that way since
Calvin and Luther didn't get along (Luther thought Calvin's view of
the Eucharist was "damnable" and threatened people with hell who
agreed with it). See the first website below.
-----
Yang
a.a. #28
AthD (h.c.) conferred by the regents of the LCL
a.a. pastor #-273.15, the most frigid church of Celcius nee Kelvin
EAC Econometric Forecast and Sorcery Division
Proudly plonked by Lani Girl and Crazyalec (aka aka Yang's little poltregeist *****)
The Bush 'balanced' budget: 1.6 trillion and worsening
The Bush 'economic' policy: 12 million FEWER jobs than Clinton and counting
The Bush Iraq lie: -1546 GIs, one friend's co-worker's son and mounting
Having Bush ***** up my country: Worthless
.
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