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Off-topic: Climbers who believe in Jesus 6-Feb-2011 At 3:15:15 PM dave h.

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On 6/02/2011 Wendy wrote:
> Accept all contradictions that are appealing, turn a blind eye to a few
>others, can you jump up and down about following a few of them to the letter
>just to round it off? Maybe argue about a few obscure details and ignore
>any obvious questions?

I'm sick of people accusing Christian's of intellectual laziness without being specific. To everyone who's been playing this card, I say in the nicest way possible: please either put up or shut up (ie if you want to talk about Christians ignoring internal contradictions in the Bible, etc, be specific - point to a passage, and we'll talk about it).

I think what most frustrates me is that people are generally unwilling to give 'the other side' the benefit of the doubt. People like wetwideandslippery say (irrespective of whether he believes it, others do) that people of faith are mentally ill; Wendy suggests (in not quite so many words) that we're intellectually inconsistent and lazy, etc. I think I copped "utterly moronic" from Duncan a few pages ago. I'm not offended by this. Doubtless there are people who call themselves Christian who fit the description. That some people are happy to think that we're *all* like this makes me sad. And quite frankly it just discourages me from even bothering to try and discuss this with people.

I was encouraged when ODH asked me some questions. Nice not to be typecast immediately...

Neil - good private schools with no religious background - Sydney Grammar School. While it's part of the GPS, it was founded as a secular school in 1854 by an act of NSW Parliament. My understanding is that it's almost militantly secular.

jacq - that's a little unfair. If Mike Treder can blame me for all of those things, surely I should be able to blame you for the victims of Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, etc. Anyway your atheism doesn't offend me, and as you say, attacking people will never persuade them. I thought the skeptoid article (Harold posted a link) was very even-handed and I broadly agreed with it.

Anyway, thanks for attending my little pity party. Now that the concrete in Sydney has stopped melting (for our listeners in Mexico and Canada, a cool change just arrived) I'm going to go and do stuff.