Evangelical Atheism
I check Facebook everyday. I am not on their constantly and I miss lots of stuff, but I recognize that this is the way we have chosen to share personal news. In addition to that, though, it has become a collage of bumper stickers, spam, political rants and shared internet content. I make comments on the picture of my sister in law with Mike from American Pickers. I hide shared pictures from people who flood my feed with pictures of angels and kittens with bile raising, peppy sayings. I ignore political posts and angst ridden adults whining about how bad their life is. I never repost anything, even if it makes me part of the 97% that doesn't care and I am not going to like anything, just to read a joke or see a stupid video. When I post, it nearly always is a like to this blog. I have a routine.
This routine, though, gets broken by evangelical atheist posts. For a long time I have had friends who would qualify as either atheist or agnostic. But for most of our history together, this facet of their being was not brought to the front. It wasn't the defining attribute of who they were. Kids, friends, family, even entertainment choices were discussed more than their lack of belief in God. This, though, seems to be shifting, and I am not sure what to do with it. More and more, these friends are posting to Facebook with aggressively anti Christian jokes or news articles, which places me in an odd position. They have left the realm of listening to the Dawkins and Hitchens of the world and taken to the pulpit themselves.
So, what is a Christian man to do?
I could hide these posts, but in doing so, it feels like I would be pretending someone is something they are not. I would be intentionally not looking at the very things this person desires to be identified with. This might be the best course of action, but it feels like it misses the mark.
I could take up refuting the outrageous claims, which seem to be the supporting structures of these things. Not that long ago, one of these friends made a point of writing on creation and dinosaurs with feathers, but in his argument, which wasn't well founded, he made not attempt to see what the word of God actually said, nor did consider the variations of how this scientific discovery easily could align with God's word. I thought for a moment about highlighting this on his post, but I realized I don't know why he is even posting this.
If he is a troll, posting to stir up the Christians who might read it, I would just be adding fuel to the fire. You never feed trolls. At that point it is an emotional game, where the reaction is more important than the truth. On the other hand, if he is seeking a genuine confrontation, the most I could hope for is to prove him wrong, which doesn't draw us any closer, nor does it make him a believer. The closest he would get would be an understanding that he can't support this argument. It is in substantial to the abundance of things he has to believe to get to this point.
So, I can't support his posts and it seems misguided to work to refute them. So, what do you do?
posted by Jason Smith @ 9:31 AM
4 Comments
4 Comments:
I've been thinking of writing about evangelical atheism for a while. It's baffling to me that the whole goal seems to be to tear down other people's faith because when you think about it, they are spreading the gospel of nothing. When your faith is in nothing, what is the motivation to evangelize?
Justin, I had a discussion about this last Friday with someone. Essentially the argument comes down to evangelical atheists growing weary of having the faith of others presented to them.
Personally, were I a believer in a purely mechanical universe and that we are all in evolutionary competition with each other, I would be delighted that so much of my competition was wasting their time and money on the opiate of the masses.
Two somewhat connected thoughts here. First, I think it's probably incorrect to assume that he is either trolling or looking for a confrontation. A third alternative in your scenario is that he genuinely believes what he is saying and really believes a Christian's life would be made better by believing as he does. In that case he may be reaching out with good (albeit misguided) intentions to better your life.
Second, assuming the following is a possibility I think we should do our best to disseminate what we believe to be the truth when we have the opportunity. He probably won't change his opinion right away, but you may plant a seed of truth that grows over time as it is joined by the right combination of experience, information and inspiration. Best case scenario he is a seeker of truth just like you and your words eventually play a role in persuading him. Worst case scenario he scorns your words and you don't speak to him about it further.
None of the above is intended as an endorsement of Facebook as a discussion platform. I've never been part of a successful deep thought exercise in a room with any more then 6 or so people, let alone 900 million.
In any case, interesting and thought provoking post.
I agree with Matt's penultimate paragraph. It's why I hated World Cultures discussion sections (too many students with too many different viewpoints) and why I don't do Facebook. I guess if I did and I found myself in your position, I'd probably just send said friend a private e-mail that said something along the lines of, "You probably know we don't see most things the same way. I'm interested in your posts, but I just don't find discussions of these topics in the public square to be all that beneficial. If you're interested in engaging in a private discussion, let's set up a time to talk." Or something along those lines, anyway. If he takes the bait and you then have a good conversation, great. If he doesn't take the bait, at least you know where things stand. And if he takes the bait but is only interested in a one-way bludgeoning of you with his views or in trying to get a rise out of you, you can then put a halt to further conversations of the same nature until he's interested in a two-way exchange of ideas.
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