Christian Boobs

Now if that title doesn't snag some search string referrals, I don't know what will. But calling Christians boobs will certainly snag some rebuttal. And maybe that's their intent. Is name calling simply the way in which sophisticates choose to enter dialog about such issues as evolution and human origins?

Well then, let's continue the discussion! Great jumping off point is Chuck Colson's column at Townhall.com titled, Over the Line: Are Christians 'Boobs'? Here's a speculative post (by NY Times' Thomas Vinciguerra) that social critic H. L. Mencken might have written if he were alive today and blogging about contemporary events.

"Sanity has triumphed in Dover, Pennsylvania, where the boobs who tried to foist intelligent design on the local lyceums have been soundly thrashed . . . Would that this victory were permanent. It will take more than jurisprudence to retire the forces of ignorance. Meanwhile, we can only hope they engage in less egregious forms of buncombe - like installing the Ten Commandments in public squares, or speaking in tongues."

Ditto Colson: Ha, ha, ha. Very funny. Colson continues:

Of course, Mencken referred to Christians as 'rustic ignoramuses' when he wasn’t calling us worse things. But he also had insulting things to say about women, Blacks, and Jews - comments that today we recognize as both ignorant and offensive. To its credit, the Times would never dream of trying to be funny by calling Blacks and women mentally inferior, or by imitating Mencken’s viciously anti-Semitic comments.

Like I said, maybe this is just their way of entering dialog with people of faith. To speak intelligently about subjects with which they disagree is below the standard of a sophisticate. But I suspect that in their hearts they know there's something to the opposition's position and so they keep engaging in this rhetorical diatribe in order to justify their ignorance. Otherwise, they'd simply ignore us altogether.

Case in point. I recently engaged in a spirited exchange where someone challenged me to find a list of ID proponents that was better than their list of Darwinist proponents. Look. That's not even a challenge. What they've done is, like the NY Times . . .

. . . exposed [their] ignorance of the kind of people who espouse intelligent design. Does it realize it is calling Albert Einstein a boob? Einstein once said: "God does not play dice with the cosmos" - he found design in the universe. Scientist Fritz Schaefer - four times nominated for a Nobel Prize - is another "boob" who believes in the intelligent design theory. So does Professor Michael Behe, the Lehigh biochemist who has proven the "irreducible complexity" of the human cell structure. And then there is Oxford Professor Antony Flew, the famous British philosopher. Throughout his long career, Flew argued that there was a "presumption of atheism" - that is, the existence of a creator could not be proved. Intelligent design caused Flew, at the age of 81, to reverse himself and acknowledge God as creator. Flew is "ignorant"?

My take: Adherents to politically correct views are not truly tolerant of intelligent dissent. I wonder if the reason they mock, ridicule, and name call is to make themselves feel better and justify their position. Maybe that's it. Maybe they feel they have to protect their views or they'll become irrelevant. Maybe lashing out is a survival instinct. And maybe that's by design.