Learning Experience for the Christian Apologist

When I was a Christian I teamed up with other Christians, some of whom were Reformed, and we ganged up on Catholics. We'd laugh about how crazy their beliefs were and marvel at their inability to properly deal with our arguments. I'd learn a bit as I went.

But I learned a lot more when suddenly the disagreements within my own ranks came to the fore. I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with these people fighting for the true gospel and suddenly we've turned our guns on each other. That's fine really. Catholics are obviously supremely irrational. Since my fellow Protestants are so much smarter and more reasonable maybe we can make progress.

But of course it was a mess. They're really obnoxious. I never noticed before. They don't seem interested in understanding what I'm saying. I never noticed that before. Do they treat Catholics the same way? Do I? I needed to start paying closer attention to their treatment of their critics. These are my mentors. I expect others regard them as mentors. Maybe that is misplaced.

Steve Hays is not someone I knew while I was a Christian. But today he seems to be someone that others listen to. He seems to have a lot of readers at Triablogue. He's treated with respect. To me his inability to seriously interact with critics is more extreme than any other Christian I know. He's also among the most obnoxious apologists I know. But apparently Christians that read him don't see that.

Why? Same reason I couldn't see it. When they are on your team sometimes you don't notice.

James White didn't seem to notice. But maybe he does now. At least a little.

James White has others that contribute at his blog, and one of them, Jamin Hubner, has questioned evangelical devotion to the secular state of Israel (see for instance here). He raised this on his own personal blog, not James White's blog. So Steve, apparently dedicated to the secular state of Israel, essentially tried to compel James White to punish Hubner for this. Allahu Akbar and Omega Ministries. This compels James White to reply, which he did. Wednesday Musings. He's trying to be discreet with a title like that. Let's not have a huge division over an issue like this. Nope. Steve has a new post, once again trying to tweak White over his long running battles with Norman Geisler and Ergun Caner. Geisler Syndrome. White replies only to say wow, Steve didn't interact in a serious way with anything I said.

That's right. He didn't. But that's been going on for a long time in all of Steve's battles. This is the kind of incident that helps Christians see that for the first time.

How Different Denominations See Each Other

This is really spot on. Via Dave Armstrong.

Mark Perry's Accuracy

Mark Perry is a visiting scholar at the right wing American Enterprise Institute. He's Professor of Economics at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan, but presently on sabbatical. He's generally optimistic about the present state of the US economy. Here are some of his thoughts on the state of the economy just prior to the stock market crash in 2008.

July 02,2008. Don't compare us to the Depression. Things are looking great.

July 03, 2008. Cheer up. Look how great household wealth looks. It's a story you don't hear from our "disaster sells" media.

July 06, 2008. Things are looking great. It takes less work to buy food. People are working less. (I'm not sure where he gets this stuff. It's true that people spend less on food, but not on other fixed expenses. Family working hours are up a shocking 700 hours for the median two parent family since 1975).

July 09, 2008. People are way too pessimistic.

July 11, 2008. Subprime losses aren't that high.

July 25, 2008. Global warming? Irrational hysteria.

July 26,2008. Look at this incredible home ownership rate rebound.

July 27,2008. Like Ben Stein says, overall this economy is not bad.

July 31, 2008. We're not in a recession.

Aug 05, 2008. Disposable income looking good.

Aug 7, 2008. Home sales data looking good.

Aug 7, 2008. Jobless claims are looking good.

Aug 10, 2008. Amount of sub prime mortgages is too small to matter.

Aug 12, 2008. Real estate boom continues for US farms.

Aug 12, 2008. Why are liberals like Paul Krugman pessimistic about the economy while conservatives are optimistic?

Aug 12, 2008. Look at the amazing growth in US exports? Expect US GDP to be revised upwards.

What he says is not always untrue. He often plots data and just comments on it. But the tone was similar then to what it is now. Things are just great. But they weren't back then. We need to look at track records more, including those of the left. We need to ask ourselves who it is that learns from their mistakes and who it is that never admits to any all while recommending the same failed policies of the past.

Iranian Hostages and the US Media

An important element of this hostage story that isn't mentioned in mainstream media sources (via Greenwald). How did the Iranian guards justify their harsh treatment of the US hostages? Joshua Fattal explains in his interview with Democracy Now.

In prison, every time we complained about our conditions, the guards would remind us of comparable conditions at Guantanamo Bay; they'd remind us of CIA prisons in other parts of the world; and conditions that Iranians and others experience in prisons in the U.S.

We do not believe that such human rights violation on the part of our government justify what has been done to us: not for a moment. However, we do believe that these actions on the part of the U.S. provide an excuse for other governments - including the government of Iran - to act in kind.

Is this narrative even remotely being mentioned in mainstream sources. Unsurprisingly not. Glenn Greenwald's commentary is excellent as usual.

PBS Piece on Inequality

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

Give Michael Moore Credit

You might think that when you are hanging out with Hollywood types you're hanging out with liberals. Check out Michael Moore's acceptance speech at the Oscars in 2003. He denounces Bush and the war. Look at the Hollywood celebrities in the crowd. Do they praise him? They are uncomfortable and unwilling to be supportive. In fact Moore is getting booed extensively. He denounces a President that is "sending us to war for fictitious reasons." Rather prescient. To prevent him from saying more they queue the band and cut him off. These are your supposed liberals. Goes to show how much courage it took to make a statement like this in this patriotic atmosphere. But he was right.


Michael Moore - oscar speech by Pzychofreak

After making the movie Sicko he was invited on to Wolf Blitzer. Wolf had prepared a hit piece created by Dr. Sanjay Gupta which he played by way of introduction. Then Wolf turned to Moore to get his reaction. A total ambush. Moore handled himself spectacularly even though it was very difficult to respond to the various fabrications so rapidly. Totally slamming Wolf and CNN for their nonsense.



And if my memory is correct in every actual point of dispute between Moore and Gupta Moore was right and Gupta was wrong. Gupta said Moore was wrong to say we spend $7K per year on health care per person and in fact it was closer to $6K. The reality was by the time they did this interview it was even higher than $7K. Gupta said Moore claimed in Cuba they spend $25/person. In fact Moore had correctly stated they spend $250 per person. Gupta points out that Cuba ranks below the US in the WHO rankings but Moore had never denied that.

And I've talked before about how in 1999 Moore was doing what he could to alleviate the sanctions regime in Iraq and the consequent starvation. Watch here. At a time when nobody was talking about it. He was right then, right about the facts in Sicko, and right about our more recent invasion of Iraq, which he courageously denounced. Pretty impressive.

Tony Bennett - They flew the planes but we caused it

"because we were bombing them and they told us to stop."

Seems so simple.