{"id":9595,"date":"2012-07-26T17:45:54","date_gmt":"2012-07-26T22:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/?p=9595"},"modified":"2017-01-24T17:54:50","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T22:54:50","slug":"marc-barnes-is-like-ted-williams-hitting-400","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2012\/07\/marc-barnes-is-like-ted-williams-hitting-400.html","title":{"rendered":"Marc Barnes is like Ted Williams Hitting .400"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/85\/2012\/07\/ted_williams_moxie.jpeg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-9597\" title=\"ted_williams_moxie\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/85\/2012\/07\/ted_williams_moxie.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"251\" height=\"190\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And just as fun to watch. Take for instance this post he wrote yesterday, which has gone as viral as the Spanish Influenza, being seen by close to 37,000 people in a little more than 24 hours. Like Ted drinking a bottle of <em>Moxie<\/em>, Marc wades right in.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Oh dear. Matthew Inman of <a href=\"http:\/\/theoatmeal.com\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">the marvelous web-comic, The Oatmeal<\/a>, seems to have experienced that exquisite twitch all modern atheists are doomed to experience \u2014 the I-know-what\u2019s-best-for-you-silly-religious-people-come-heed-me spasm. This particular train of thought requires the thinker ignore the vast majority of Christian belief \u2014 which is entrenched in reason \u2014 and focus solely on minority caricatures of the creationist or the wailing-out evangelical, caricatures firmly established and grounded in The Holy Internet Worldview. Having thus defined the term \u201creligion\u201d, the moral high ground is taken, the sneers are unleashed, and all religious people fear and tremble, for atheism has demonstrated itself as supremely reasonable, authoritative, scientific, and gosh-darnit it\u2019s a wonder everyone just doesn\u2019t convert on the spot. <a href=\"http:\/\/theoatmeal.com\/comics\/religion\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Check it out<\/a>.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Now I know it\u2019s an impossible task, rebutting with clunking prose what is claimed by fantastic comics, but someone\u2019s got to try, if only for this reason: It\u2019s no kindness to the atheist to let him forever believe that the religious have all the intellectual history of a WBC preacher. I mean goodness, what if he stumbles upon a Dominican? The shock would kill him. Thus and therefore and onwards then, in that frustrating step-by-step manner:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/badcatholic\/2012\/07\/how-to-suck-at-your-religion.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Read the whole, charitable, piece.<\/a> It is a <em>tour de force<\/em>. Then share it with your friends, your teenagers, and your youth ministry folks in your parish. While you\u2019re at it, share it with your priest and your RCIA leaders too. Let\u2019s share it all the way to Pluto and back! You never know, but Marc\u2019s treatment of this may even help Matthew Inman turn the corner and view Catholicism in a new light. Stranger things than that have happened.<\/p>\n<p>Bravo Marc Barnes! Well done. Very well done, indeed.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_9596\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9596\" style=\"width: 475px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/85\/2012\/07\/TJI_Ted-Williams.jpeg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9596\" title=\"TJI_Ted-Williams\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/85\/2012\/07\/TJI_Ted-Williams.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"475\" height=\"302\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9596\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Captain Ted Williams, USMC, in the cockpit of his F-9 Panther, Korean War<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>And just as fun to watch. Take for instance this post he wrote yesterday, which has gone as viral as the Spanish Influenza, being seen by close to 37,000 people in a little more than 24 hours. Like Ted drinking a bottle of Moxie, Marc wades right in. Oh dear. Matthew Inman of the marvelous [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,232,36],"tags":[208,481,467,53,176,12],"class_list":["post-9595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-learning","category-living","tag-charity","tag-defending-the-faith","tag-new-atheists","tag-other-blogs","tag-reason","tag-truth"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Marc Barnes is like Ted Williams Hitting .400<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"And just as fun to watch. Take for instance this post he wrote yesterday, which has gone as viral as the Spanish Influenza, being seen by close to 37,000\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2012\/07\/marc-barnes-is-like-ted-williams-hitting-400.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marc Barnes is like Ted Williams Hitting .400\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"And just as fun to watch. Take for instance this post he wrote yesterday, which has gone as viral as the Spanish Influenza, being seen by close to 37,000\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2012\/07\/marc-barnes-is-like-ted-williams-hitting-400.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Why I Am Catholic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-07-26T22:45:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-01-24T22:54:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/files\/2012\/07\/ted_williams_moxie.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Frank Weathers\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Frank Weathers\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2012\/07\/marc-barnes-is-like-ted-williams-hitting-400.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2012\/07\/marc-barnes-is-like-ted-williams-hitting-400.html\",\"name\":\"Marc Barnes is like Ted Williams Hitting .400\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-07-26T22:45:54+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-24T22:54:50+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/#\/schema\/person\/e10b038fe974070cf79eed8a68e30ebc\"},\"description\":\"And just as fun to watch. 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