A lot of people have a lot of really bad ideas. Some really bad ideas seem to have no rational support whatsoever. They completely lack evidence. There’s no reason a person should believe certain things.
But is that really true? Some of us have believed crazy things in the past and we’ve changed our minds. If we reflect on our own past bad ideas, we would probably give ourselves a little more grace. I know I tend to do that.
If we’re thinking about how we used to hold some very wrong idea, we would probably say that we had bad evidence. Or we didn’t understand the evidence.
But when looking at others, we (at least I do) have the temptation to wholeheartedly believe that certain ideas completely lack any modicum of rational foundation — that their idea randomly materialized from absolutely nothing, and floated around in the ether for a while, and popped into their head, and they grabbed onto it.
“Atheists believe the universe came into being from nothing. It had no cause. It wasn’t there, then *poof* there it was. It’s ridiculous! It’s stupid! There’s no reason whatsoever to believe that!”
However, when we believe that no reason exists to believe in a really bad idea, then that bad idea just randomly materializes itself in people’s heads out of nothing, we’re being functionally atheistic. We’re saying something can come into being from nothing at all. And we’re getting angry at our opponent for it.
I’m not preaching relativism here. Quite the opposite. Truth exists. There are true things and untrue things. There are good ideas and bad ideas. There is a correct way to interpret evidence and an incorrect way to interpret evidence. Reality is not flexible.
But what this means is, there is actually a way to get the truth wrong. It’s possible to interpret evidence incorrectly. It’s not possible to create an idea from nothing.
So What?
When we start to believe that our opponents have no reason whatsoever to believe what they believe, a few things are happening:
1. We’re judging others far more harshly than ourselves
As I mentioned earlier, we don’t often look at ourselves this way. Just those dummies over there, even though we have (or still are) guilty of exactly the same thing. This is a pretty hypocritical approach to engaging with other peoples’ ideas.
2. We’re guilty of slander
We’re accusing someone of something that isn’t true. Of course our opponents have reasons to believe what they believe, or they wouldn’t believe it. They may be bad reasons. It may be bad evidence. They may be using bad logic. But they do have reasons, however poor they may be.
3. We’re falling for propaganda
Isn’t it crummy when someone says that about us? This happens all the time. How many times have we heard things like:
“There’s no evidence for God at all. People who believe in God are stupid.”
“There’s no reason whatsoever to believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead.”
“You seriously think that loving God’s law means convincing other’s to follow it? You’re insane.”
“You believe that masks don’t work to prevent airborne illnesses? You clearly don’t believe in science.”
“You’re a climate denier if you believe that humans can’t change the weather.”
The list goes on.
All this accomplishes is straw-manning our opponents and shutting down conversation. And conversation is the solution. If we shut down conversation by believing our opponents hold to entirely random positions, then what good are we doing?
This is a tool that the enemies of faithful Christians use to destroy us. It’s a weapon forged in hell and used by Satan’s allies. Why would we use the same evil weapon against our opponents? It’s not the weapon of truth. It’s the weapon of liars. If truth is on our side, we should be doing everything we can to not shut down conversation.
Reason Isn’t Actually Infallible
I heard someone say one time that reason isn’t the light by which we see things. Reason is our eyes. We can use reason in darkness or we can use reason in the light. But reason can make mistakes, just like the rest of our faculties.
Evidence exists for every position. No position is entirely random. This means that no matter how stupid or wrong a position is in reality, we can never honestly say that a position has no evidence whatsoever.
We’d do well to take our opponents a little more seriously. More respectfully approaching people in conversation
If they shut us down, awesome. Blessed are those who are persecuted. If they yell and scream, blessed are the peacemakers.
Christian on Christian Propaganda
It’s one thing when unbelievers use these tactics against Christians. It’s still really bad when Christians return the favor on unbelievers. But it’s worse when Christians use this evil argument against other Christians.
Recently we’ve seen certain positions be suppressed, silenced, and shut down in the Christian world. Anyone who believes certain views totally within the realm of orthodoxy are branded as heretics or idiots.
The recent trendy topic to totally shut down is Christian Nationalism. It’s cool to attack it and its supporters, and it’s even cooler to avoid any kind of engagement with the big-name pro-Christian Nationalist players.
If the truth is on the anti-CN folks’ side, shouldn’t they want to discuss it? It’s not a good look.
If we’ve learned anything from the Left, it’s that whenever there’s a position that they try to silence, right or wrong, it’s probably worth listening to. The scariest thing is, more often than not, it seems like the positions that are silenced are actually correct.
Can we please start acting like good guys and having conversations about things we disagree about instead of seeking to cast out anyone who says anything that doesn’t line up with the narrow doctrine all of the cool kids in our club believes?
