Should Sceptics* Comment on Christian Sites?

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This post was written for Bruce Gerencser’s blog last month. In case you missed it there (What? You don’t read Bruce’s blog?) here it is again in slightly amended form.

Is it ever reasonable for non-believers to comment on Christian blog sites? I know Bruce compares it with turning up at a church service and arguing with the preacher, and a recent comment on Debunking Christianity described it as ‘bad manners’. But are there circumstances where it’s reasonable to do it?

Can I suggest a couple of scenarios where it might be? I should declare first that I rarely comment on Christian sites – I have a life to live, after all – and have, I’d guess, done so no more than a dozen times in the past three or four years. This hasn’t been to promote atheism, but to counter the ignorance and intolerance of some Evangelical sites.

So here are my thoughts on when it’s okay to stray over to the dark side and engage with its denizens. First is when True Believers arrive on this site and tell me, usually in no uncertain terms, where I’m wrong. This is often for the same few reasons that are directed at other sceptic bloggers: I don’t know the Bible well enough; I misinterpret it; I don’t know Jesus the way they do; I was never really a Christian. Having batted these ad hominems around for a while, some commenters decide there’s nothing for it but to recommend posts of their own. They provide links to their blogsites that will set me and you, my reader, straight. Now and then (but not always) I’ll take a look at and, if appropriate, comment on what they’ve written. After all, they have specifically invited me round to their place; I haven’t gate-crashed, they wanted me to visit so they could enlighten me. I have, as a result, the right to reply, to let them know they haven’t. I don’t, if I can help it, argue theology or push any particular ideology, but I have been moved to point out that the Bible is open to multiple interpretations and theirs (or, I suspect, their minister’s) involves a considerable degree of cherry-picking to make it compatible with their orthodoxy. Of course, they have the right, and the means, not to publish my comment if it upsets them too much.

Second, Facebook’s algorithm – and that of other social media sites presumably — is fond of finding extreme Christian sites to add to my much-neglected page. Invariably I delete these and tell the algorithm I want to see fewer posts of this sort. It complies for a short while before it decides I really do need to know that Jesus is my friend or that I’m headed straight to hell. (Honestly, you write a few articles that mention Jesus and God and the entire Internet thinks you want to be cosy up with JC.) Now and then, and rather more frequently than I’d prefer, the nuttier sites that pop up announce that atheists have no basis for morality and are shaking their collective fist at God who’s feeling mighty wrathful about it. Alternatively, these sites find the need to headline the scourge of homosexuality, which likewise is bringing the Western world, and more specifically America, to the verge of destruction. Now I happen to be both an atheist and a homosexual (I don’t have any trouble with this word despite its use by some as a slur). I feel that, as sites disparaging either atheists, gays, or both have intruded on my FB page, it is again perfectly appropriate for me to respond, which, every few years, I do. Prejudiced, ill-informed, hateful opinions about me and my kind, be they atheist or gay, need to be challenged. These bloggers’ claims that their anti-atheist, anti-LGBT rhetoric is a ‘ministry’ or a demonstration of love are disingenuous. They’re nothing of the sort.

So I suggest to these bloggers that they are wrong. I like, also, to remind them that their Saviour commands them to love their neighbours as themselves and to love and pray for their enemies, to which they invariably reply, ‘even the devil can quote scripture’. I have been known to point out too that Jesus expects them to feed the hungry, help the needy and care for those less fortunate, and that sitting at a computer for hours on end, trashing non-believers and ‘sodomites’ (I do object to that one) isn’t what he had in mind.

Am I wasting my time? Almost certainly, but I can’t stand by as ‘loving’ Christians judge me, and others like me, as fit only for hell – and sometimes for more worrying, tangible fates in the real world.

Commenting on Christian blogs is not always for the faint-hearted, nor is it something I’d advocate. Many don’t even allow comments, so certain are they that they’re right (or perhaps they’re just fearful of contradiction; faith is, after all, a very fragile thing). Occasionally, however – a couple of times a year – I feel compelled to counter their attacks on others.

What do you think?

*British spelling, of course

13 thoughts on “Should Sceptics* Comment on Christian Sites?”

  1. While I do commrnt on a couple of Christian sites, contrary to what some God-Botherers have asserted I do not seek them out or hunt them down. Rather, I will follow a link I come across, usually posted on an atheist or non believers blog, and it is curiosity that drives me there.
    If I feel the content is worth leaving a comment I will engage.
    And when I say worth leaving a comment it will usually be because I see the opportunity to have a bit of fun.
    After all, if someone…a believer.. is brave enough in the 21st century to post an OP on a flat earth, or why dinosaurs roamed the planet with humans or why evolution is simply a theory and I am going to Hell because of Original Sin then I don’t see why I can’t ask a few pertinent questions.
    After all, these people walk among us and they breed.
    😉

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    • Ark, there really are Christians who are not flat-earthers and think that evolution is not an issue of faith. We leave evolution to the biologists. And there are also some who do not believe that original sin has anything to do with going to hell.

      You are beating a dead horse when those become the issues.

      But that seems to be the case for everyone from the big-name secular Bible scholars down to the skeptics with a blog and a book. They are fighting with their Fundamentalist past. Okay. But it makes the discussion less than interesting.

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      • Don: Arguing with Christians who believe differently than me is beating a dead horse.

        Well, Don, that’s the thing isn’t it. It’s not a dead horse. There are millions of young earth creationist Christians out there. Just because you believe a different Christianity doesn’t make those Christians disappear.

        Just ask Ken Ham. The correct interpretation of Genesis (i.e. his interpretation) is vital for salvation.

        It’s sad that The Lord God Almighty is such a shit communicator. But there we are.

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      • It’s tricky knowing what counts as a real Christian these days. We know for sure it’s not Creationists, flat-earthers, those who believe in original sin, fundamentalists, evangelicals, those who interpret the Bible literally, those who interpret it metaphorically, prosperity gospellers, abusive church leaders, mega-church pastors and believers who don’t conform to Don’s idiosyncratic version of Christianity. Dead horses the lot of them.

        Also on Don’s list of those with nothing legitimate to say about the Faith: people who are ‘fighting their fundamentalist past’, scholars with books to sell, mythicists, bloggers who don’t read Ancient Greek, those who were never ‘really’ Christians to begin with, those who haven’t experienced Jesus the way Don has, and anyone who has the temerity to disagree with him (Don that is. Jesus is in no position to object). These can all be dismissed with a Camp rhetorical flourish.

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  2. I invite comments, though the blog isn’t set up for long conversations. But here’s one about climate change that may be interesting. Biblical Musing

    I am sorry you all get so much unfriendly responses. Dabates can become that, but they need not be.

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  3. I think any messaging campaign takes all types. I tend to cringe whenever I see one of those “5 Things Atheists Need to Stop Doing” posts or videos. Different approaches reach different audiences. If you want to comment on Christian sites, go for it. If you don’t, don’t.

    I’ve never sought out Christian sites to read and/or engage. I have tried to engage a few I was led to by atheist sites. I’ve given up on that however because I find it futile (for me at least).

    My little fundamentalist literalist Christian church made the mistake of telling me that there was no contradiction between science and scripture. If we understood things well enough, we’d see that God’s word and science line up perfectly. God is the author of science after all.

    I was a natural student from a very young age wanting to read all the books and understand all the things. The church’s position gave me permission to do so. It was this desire to know as much as possible that would drive me away from that church, Christianity and all the gods I’ve been presented with. I wanted to learn the truth about everything and the truth is Christianity doesn’t stand up to reality.

    I used to make the mistake of thinking others wanted to know the truth as well. But commenting on Christian sites made it clear that most Christians don’t want to know the truth of things, they want their presuppositions confirmed and defended at all costs. God likes all the same things they like and he hates all the same people they hate. That’s pretty darn comfortable.

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