This is one of the rare times that I will have to disagree with you, Miko. The economy of cautious’s one word answer is a good idea.

Bluntness is a good technique, at times. For one thing, it’s good for shaking a certain type of people out of irrational thought. I know I intentionally give a fairly rude response now and then when I think the situation calls for it (e.g., when religionists suggest that I should be meek to help dispel their atheist stereotypes). To borrow a chess term, it’s a good technique for gaining a tempo.

But it’s also good for immunizing people against doubt. Then they go on to say, “yeah, I gave that evolutionist a list of objections and (s)he just responded ‘No.’ Talk about being dogmatic. If only they could open their minds to evidence like we Creationists have.” There’s a fair argument that we ought to use the evidence, seeing as 100% of it supports our side (even if it won’t make a difference in nine cases out of ten).

On the other hand:

Yes it gets tiresome to talk to someone who may not really be listening, but as I said that’s not the one to whom I’m really talking. We can get more efficient in our responses but we should avoid becoming terse or dismissive.

I’ve gotten to the point in life where I really can’t direct my responses towards hypothetical listeners anymore. For the copy-and-paste sorts, we’re constantly investing effort into refuting the same claims over and over while they’re investing almost no effort to keep repeating them. What we really need is a pre-written form letter response, so that we can respond to copy-and-paste on its own level.

(And while we’re on the subject, I can’t resist bringing up this, even if everyone has already seen it: http://www.400monkeys.com/God/ )

But your response must have more than accurate information and sound logic; it must also have good demeanor.

This is tough to do all the time (as anyone quote mining any of us would find out) but it is good advice.

I wish we all could plunge the knife in while so subtly avoiding dismissiveness and rudeness.

You caught me. Yes, sometimes I slip and lose my temper. Sometimes when I do it can get really ugly, so that’s why I try hard not to. Well all I can do is for the umpteenth time resume my better behavior. Okay, now to the stuff I was writing while you posted that:

I understand and generally agree with your not wanting to waste your breath in reasoning against dedicated ignorance. I hold little hope for people like some here who spout canned arguments that they cut and paste without really thinking about them. Instead, I’m hopeful for someone like yourself as you were several years ago, who may be reading these conversations. Someone whose words we never read, who is eavesdropping and reluctant to speak because they’re near a tipping point.

You’re right that I didn’t go through the difficult personal struggle that you and so many others here have done, so perhaps I am unrealistically optimistic about it. I think your own experience with that transition is of great value for insight. Some of it must be idiosyncratic to you, but much of it may be similar to the process that many others go through. (In fact that would make an interesting subject for several people to discuss; the common experiences and processes that people went through to get from where you were to where you are now.)

I’ve walked with many people through a difficult metamorphosis of a different kind, recovery from addiction. Much of it involved letting go of old ideas and beliefs and embracing new ones. One thing I witnessed was the power of the overheard remark. As a counselor I could be very persuasive but when I was talking directly to my patients they were naturally on their guard, knowing that I was, even if gently, assaulting their old beliefs. Often a basic principle of recovery that I was trying to convince them of would just bounce off. However when later they overheard two others discussing a similar idea it slipped into their minds and they began to accept it. I think it was because the remarks they overheard weren’t addressed directly toward them so they weren’t on their guard and were more open-minded. These experiences can be so subtle that I think often people don’t remember them as being as significant as they are.

You said that much of the process that a doubting believer goes through is only within himself, but it still must involve reading and overhearing the words of others. Think back to how you were long ago, when the old beliefs were just beginning to form cracks and chips; when you were near a subtle tipping point. An argument by an articulate and patient scholar respectfully addressed directly to you against your beliefs might still have backfired and set you back for many years, because it inoculated your guardedness. But overhearing the same remarks as a lurker or eavesdropper might have quietly infiltrated and started the snowball rolling.

So that is why I try to get myself past my discouragement and respond patiently and respectfully to people here who are apparently entrenched. It’s because these are not private conversations, they’re very public and many more people are listening than are speaking. It’s to those whom I will never meet that I’m really speaking.

Only MORONS give any credence to unconfirmed stories. They’re the modern version of fairy tales. Get me some Peptol Bismol.

Perhaps if I had your wit, Richard, I could get away with ridiculing Christians as morons without it seeming that I was being “a bit irresponsible [by] shrug[ging] them off and [by being] flip in [my] responses.” I wish we all could plunge the knife in while so subtly avoiding dismissiveness and rudeness.

We have no idea how many people read this stuff, or how it influences their thinking. It seems a bit irresponsible to shrug them off and be flip in our responses simply out of fatigue and frustration. Yes it gets tiresome to talk to someone who may not really be listening, but as I said that’s not the one to whom I’m really talking. We can get more efficient in our responses but we should avoid becoming terse or dismissive.

I’ll end up saying it a thousand times here: One’s demeanor is just as important as one’s argument. If you “win” an argument but through rudeness turn another person away from rational thinking, then what have you won?

Richard, I don’t attempt to win arguments with the far-out few that occasionally come here. I think it’s a pointless exercise. In saying that I am not being dismissive of their humanity, just prudently measuring my efforts. I think I understand your view, but have I not also correctly understood from your own finger tips that you did not participate, as I did, in the fundamentalist experience? I am not surprised that you take a more optimistic view of such matters.

Now, I realize that young fundamentalists nowadays must be in certain respects different than I was in my younger days, but I can recognize rabid fundamentalism when I read it; and this kind of infectious disease rarely is reasoned away, no matter how sweet and kind the reasoner.

If a true-believer harbors doubts, then ultimately, if he/she is lucky, those doubts will work their way to the surface where they can confront the person, and maybe he/she will take the big step into freedom. But, that’s a process that happens mysteriously, mostly by one’s own efforts, that cannot be hurried, and that is, most importantly, relatively rare, in my experience. A likely pattern for the fundamentalist is to work through stages of belief, reforming aspects of their faith, rather than proceeding straight from fundamentalism to atheism.

However, I could be mistaken by drawing conclusions from my personal life experience with such a transition, and my personal and extensive experience with varieties of fundamentalists.

This is one of the rare times that I will have to disagree with you, Miko. The economy of cautious’s one word answer is a good idea. The “few” who are really searching won’t need our help.

then it will be one of the rare times that I will have to disagree with you. We have no idea how many people read this stuff, or how it influences their thinking. It seems a bit irresponsible to shrug them off and be flip in our responses simply out of fatigue and frustration. Yes it gets tiresome to talk to someone who may not really be listening, but as I said that’s not the one to whom I’m really talking. We can get more efficient in our responses but we should avoid becoming terse or dismissive.

I’ll end up saying it a thousand times here: One’s demeanor is just as important as one’s argument. If you “win” an argument but through rudeness turn another person away from rational thinking, then what have you won?

(Iâ??m thinking of making this my rote response to this kind of dreck. What do you all think?)

Oh, I donâ??t know, Cautious. Whether Chris deserves a response depends on many things, including what else you have to do on a Sunday afternoon. I would avoid a rote, brusque or dismissive response because as Miko points out, the value of your response isnâ??t for him, itâ??s for the many other people who may lurking here, people who are not as entrenched as he is, who are still questioning and seeking intelligent answers. If you want to prevent young people from catching Chrisâ??s kind of active ignorance, you may have an audience of prospects right here.

But your response must have more than accurate information and sound logic; it must also have good demeanor. If you are dismissive or disrespectful in your tone to the principal person youâ??re responding to, the others will be turned off and turned away, and itâ??s really the others whom you could reach.

Chris,
You make a big deal about gaps. You used the word six times in your two comments. Some people who stress this are said to worship the â??god of the gaps,â? where their god is hiding in the gaps in scientific evidence. The problem with this strategy is that each year the gaps get smaller. Eventually the gaps will be too small and too few for reasonable people to accept that your god is hiding in them.

Studying the fossil record is like putting together an enormous jigsaw puzzle without the luxury of the picture on the box top. There are billions of pieces and many pieces are lost forever, so it is a challenging task. However with any jigsaw puzzle with an unknown picture, there comes a moment in the assembly process when it becomes unreasonable to insist that we cannot tell what the picture is portraying. Whether itâ??s a seascape, a farm scene or a bouquet of flowers, there is a moment when the missing gaps are no longer sufficient to cast reasonable doubt on the overall subject. . For the fossil jigsaw puzzle that moment was reached 148 years ago. To say that one cannot know anything about the picture until 100% of the pieces are in place is absurd.

The video was not intended to be a definitive proof of evolution for all people for all time. The message was about the irony of the Creation Museum being built on fossil deposits that are very valuable in the study of evolution. You complained about a straw man argument; for you to refute the video as if it was a complete dissertation on evolution is a straw man of your own.

As Miko has suggested the rest of your arguments and questions, if they are indeed honestly asked, would better be taken to people and resources better than my poor skills, such as TalkOrigins.org or evolution.berkeley.edu

The sad part is that there are a few people out there who really do care and would be willing to listen. And distinguishing them from the drive-by posters who are copying-and-pasting material from BadCreationistArguments.com is not always easy to do. Perhaps we should just link them to TalkOrigins.org, since it’s already covered all of the ground they’re asking about.

This is one of the rare times that I will have to disagree with you, Miko. The economy of cautious’s one word answer is a good idea. The “few” who are really searching won’t need our help.