If you’ve ever engaged one of God’s gentle people™ in discussion about one of their pet topics – the infallibility of scripture, evidence for the resurrection, the ‘abomination’ that is homosexuality or some other damn thing – you’ll know that, sooner or later, they turn nasty. They resort to name-calling and personal attacks; they tell you the reason you’re arguing against them is because you just want to wallow in your own sin – and, boy, are you going to suffer when it comes to judgement day.
Fellow-blogger, Bruce Gerencser has recently experienced this kind of thing from some twerp self-appointed ‘preacher of God’s word’ called T.C. Howitt, over on the Reasonable Doubt blog. I’ve been subjected to it innumerable times too. Eventually, you retreat; not because you’ve lost the argument or don’t have anything reasonable left to say but because there is only so much battering you can take. Then, as Bruce says, the bible thumper declares victory; the foe is vanquished – God’s word prevails! Even supposing this to be true, it is a Pyrrhic victory; the defence of doctrine is at the expense of others’ well-being and is achieved only by hurting them, usually intentionally so.
We shouldn’t be surprised by this of course; it has been the church’s way since the very beginning, from Paul’s tantrum about other evangelists he wished would accidentally castrate themselves (Galatians 5.12) to the massacre of native Americans by those passing on Jesus’ good news in the 16th century, right through to present day ‘hate’ preachers like Steven Anderson and Franklin Graham. Christianity is, and always has been, a nasty, bullying religion that cares only about its own preservation, never other people.
Those who proselytise on its behalf might care to read one of Paul’s better bits of self-promotion (1 Corinthians 13.1-2) which, if it is part of God’s infallible Word™, applies to those Christians today who have nothing better to do than hang around social media:
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
We might add that if the only way you can win your argument is by demolishing your opponent psychologically, you demonstrate that you are without love, making you in the eyes of ‘men’ and your own God, worth precisely nothing.
rejectingjesus, 
Amen, a timely word.:)
LikeLike
You said, “you’ll know that, sooner or later, they turn nasty. They resort to name-calling and personal attacks; they tell you the reason you’re arguing against them is because you just want to wallow in your own sin – and, boy, are you going to suffer when it comes to judgement day.”
You cannot show that I “resort to name-calling and personal attacks,” but you can show abundantly that I’ve told you that you just want to wallow in your own sin. I’ll agree with that.
This does, indeed, inspire people like Bruce to run away.
You then said, “Fellow-blogger, Bruce Gerencser has recently experienced this kind of thing from some twerp self-appointed ‘preacher of God’s word’ called T.C. Howitt”
Now that’s name-calling. Even with a strikethrough. Trump recently did the same thing with a verbal strikethrough: “Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me ‘old,’ when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat?’ Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend.”
You know that’s wrong and hypocritical, yet you do it anyway because it serves your desires. That’s problematic.
Also, all preachers are appointed by Christ (Mark 16:15). I can only ask that you give me the benefit of the doubt when I say I’d rather not take this abuse from people like you. Before I was born again, I had a cruel heart and verbally stomped on a lot of Christians. Left to my natural inclinations, I would never appoint myself as a preacher.
LikeLike
I can show you resort to name calling and personal attacks; see your exchange with Bruce Gerencser here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rationaldoubt/2017/10/biblical-inerrancy-not-intellectually-sustainable/, where you question his intelligence, integrity and honesty, and imply he has some sort of spiritual halitosis. Bruce is a good guy and you hurt him, quite possibly intentionally. He didn’t run away (see, you’re implying in that remark that he’s a coward); rather, he declined to engage with your unpleasantness any further. I’d say that shows wisdom.
Maybe I shouldn’t have suggested you were a twerp and I’ll remove it from the post if you want, but, honestly? – that’s what it seemed to me you were being. (BTW, I can call you out on it because I don’t follow a leader who says not to call others names. You do.)
And right on cue you sneer about ‘people like (me)’, meaning, I guess, those who ‘wallow in their own sin’. If that’s why you think we don’t subscribe to Christianity’s spurious nonsense then it would be a truly pitiful pay-off. I enjoy a spot of sin as much as the next man (sometimes with him) but it doesn’t provide much to ‘wallow’ in, I can assure you. Still, rather that than the murky waters of self-righteousness.
LikeLike
You’re confused, lying or downright ignorant about what qualifies as name-calling and personal attacks. Which is it?
Do you think that was a personal attack? Name-calling? It was neither.
I’m quite polite and pleasant to most unbelievers, but I speak in harsh terms to aggressively unrepentant sinners such as yourself, sometimes employing descriptions that they will find insulting and offensive — yet they are accurate and sober descriptions.
Yes, people like you. I’m speaking specifically about people with blogs about rejecting Jesus. The world typically celebrates sinners like you, which may make your short and pitiful existence on this earth quite enjoyable, but I rebuke it in Jesus’ name.
You celebrate your sin and rebellion (“I enjoy a spot of sin as much as the next man”) and that makes you an enemy of God, a pig revelling in rotting garbage and his own feces. Needs to be said.
Have you heard of tough love?
But you, even you, can be washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by His Spirit (1Co 6:11).
LikeLike
And this, ladeez and gennlemen, is what’s known as ‘being hoisted by your own petard.’
LikeLike