2 posts tagged “reason”

Christian Thinker Brian Trapp has a lesson on hyperbole in response to the opening paragraphs of an article at Daylight Atheism and, ideologies notwithstanding, it's something everyone should read and ponder.  Read and watch Brian systematically dismantle an emotional rant with facts and sound reasoning as he exposes the writer for being guilty of the same sort of "wild-eyed rhetorical bombthrow[ing]" as those he targets. 

I don't post this to needle atheists nor, God forbid, in support of the religious right but rather as an example of how anyone can be so consumed with zeal for any ideology that s/he loses sight of reason and adopts a fundie mentality.  In this case, it just happens to be a Christian exposing the flawed fundie rhetoric of an atheist.  Far too often, imo, it's usually the other way around.  So, please, don't read Brian's article as a defense of Christianity (altho' I'm sure he intends it as such) but rather and a broad appeal to truth and reason no matter what ideology you embrace.

The truth is, that the greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter... But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors.  Thomas Jefferson Letter to John Adams (April 11, 1823)