The Pugnacious Irishman

Yesterday I wrote a post on Richard Dawkins and one of his latest books titled The God Delusion.

That post garnered a few comments. One of them was from a gal named Susan.

Click on the link above to see the post and her comment. I think her comment deserves its own post.

Susan,

First, I think you misunderstood my first line. After I said being an atheist “is all the rage” I said “at least that’s what you’d think by a selective viewing of the media.” That second sentence makes a difference–my point was that a small batch of very evangelical atheists are utilizing the media to try to make theistic belief passe’ and unthinkable. Their books have sold well, and they are all over the media.

I looked up some of the passages you cite, and I have no clue how you can make them out to be saying “who you should kill” or “who you should hate.”

Here are a few examples:
Luke 19:27–The *Parable* of the ten talents. Jesus is *telling a story* about servants who were given a certain amount of money to invest. Two of the servants invest the money and get a return, the last one kept the money laid away.

In v26, Jesus gives the overall point. He quotes the king in the story: “I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. v27–But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them–bring them over here and kill them in front of me.”

–I ask: where in that do you get that the Bible commands Christians to “kill those who do not believe in Jesus”?

Second example: Leviticus 26:29 Read the whole passage. It is about the punishment Israel will receive if they break the covenant and disobey God.

v27: “If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places…”

–I ask: where in the world do you get that God is commanding Christians to kill children and babies of enemies?

Third example: 1 Cor 11:14
In a section on appropriateness in worship, Paul says, “Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory?”

Sounds to me like the same thing as saying in *our culture* “guys, don’t show up to church in a dress, ok? Its appropriate for women, but not for you.”

Where did you get from that that the Bible commands Christians to “hate men with long hair?”

Susan, did you even read these verses? I’m not going to bother going through every one, because its not worth it.

Afterall, by the looks of it, it appears as if you didn’t give a second thought to this list at all. Why should I?

It looks like you merely copied them from some crack-pot atheist website. The danger of making lists like this is that some people will actually look up the passages and call your bluff. If you want me to take you seriously, you have to do better.

And your attempt to try to make context reading “namby-pamby” is…well, I don’t know what to call it, but its definitely not persuasive. Susan, all you are doing is name calling and using loaded language without argument, which is the very same thing the “New Atheists” do themselves.

Reading things in context is something we do naturally all the time outside the Bible, so why do you cry foul when we try to do it with the Bible?

Let me illustrate. Lets say I get a letter in my email from a girl I just took out on a date. It begins:

“Rich, I had fun last night. You are cute and funny.”

Pretty good, eh? Not so much. The letter continues:

“Funny looking, that is. You are only cute in the sense that my pug is cute. I had fun because it was such a riot laughing…at you. Your breath smells like garbage and you have enough backhair to make a pine forest. Please stay away from me, you dweeby, socially-retarded stinko.”

Read *out of context*, the first line looks promising, but read *in context* it has a totally different meaning. We do this all the time, and for good reason–meaning in the written and spoken word flows from whole to parts. You can’t just rip a verse out of context and try to make it look like whatever. You especially can’t get away with not even quoting the verse, but just announcing the reference in a list and slapping some title on it like “who you should kill.”

Are you kidding me?

And your last jab about “please don’t hurt anybody” is frankly childish and patronizing. If you want to discuss contrary views on this blog, you are welcome to. Bring the heat. But don’t talk down to me. That will get you banned.

Susan, the confidence and, yes, arrogance you display is not warranted by the strength of your arguments.