Friday, July 28, 2006

The Classic Cop-Out

I thought I'd be done with quoting e-mails, but this one is just too good an illustration to pass up. The conversation started yesterday when we were talking about how the Bible oppressed women. I brought up Timothy 2:11-12, where it said that no woman should teach or have authority over a man, in order to simply give an example of the oppression. Somehow this got misinterpreted as me claiming the church was still exactly like this, and things just kept going. The full quote is as follows:

I’m done talking to you its not worth it…people say something and you don’t even read it or even care you come right back with what you think and that’s final…this is something I believe in…words are words..its how you interpret it…I respect women to the fact that I would vote one as my president…yet I go to church every Sunday listening to what I believe in and how I should try to live my life..if you even go to church you would know God doesn’t expect you to live your life as it says in the Bible he just says try you best….thats the great thing about faith you don’t always have to be right or wrong but you will know that your faith will help you in the end…there isn’t a right or wrong in faith so you can’t step in a say that’s just wrong because if you think that the world is reading the Bible and going out there making women their slaves then you must live in a different world then me because I don’t do that and I don’t see that..it’s not how I live my life and you telling me that I think this of women is wrong

Ugh. Grammar, grammar, grammar!

Anyways, I'll give some translations and replies to it now:
I’m done talking to you its not worth it…

Translation: I don't know how to reply to that argument, so let's end the discussion.
people say something and you don’t even read it or even care you come right back with what you think and that’s final…

Ad hominem; please attack the arguments and not the arguer. I am reading everything and am trying to respond to all the relevant points made. Besides, I'm suspecting the same of you, but I'm not saying it.
this is something I believe in…

"...so my mind is closed to thinking about it logically."
I respect women to the fact that I would vote one as my president…yet I go to church every Sunday listening to what I believe in and how I should try to live my life..if you even go to church you would know God doesn’t expect you to live your life as it says in the Bible he just says try you best….

Wait, didn't you say you were done? What's with more arguments? Also, translation: You don't go to church so you can't understand religion. Wrong, I have gone to church. I even attended a Catholic school for a while. It was those experiences that drove me away from religion.
thats the great thing about faith you don’t always have to be right or wrong but you will know that your faith will help you in the end…there isn’t a right or wrong in faith so you can’t step in a say that’s just wrong because if you think that the world is reading the Bible and going out there making women their slaves then you must live in a different world then me because I don’t do that and I don’t see that..it’s not how I live my life and you telling me that I think this of women is wrong

Really? No wrong in faith? I think Daylight Atheism argued against this quite well, so I'll just let you read those arguments.

1 comment:

Bronze Dog said...

Nice takedown.