Friday, January 6, 2012

100 questions for the Christian believer

Piet was kind enough to drop by ask "To promote skepticism/critical thinking I wrote some questions for the Christian believer. Are you able to put the link to these questions at your blog".

Well, I'm happy to oblige, but...

Whilst I applaud the promotion of skepticism and critical thinking, I'm not sure how effective they will be, and don't really like the approach myself. The tactic is rather similar to creationists.

Years ago (before I discovered capoeira) I used to debate creationists online. Well, initially I'd respond to a genuine question regarding evolution. It was fun - I'd get to research and write an essay on some aspect of evolutionary biology. However, what would often happen would be that a creationist would come in, use copy and paste, and post over 100 questions/links to answers in genesis/some other creationist waffle.

It's not possible to answer all of those questions/points thoughtfully, or fully. If you don't answer them all, then the creationist will go "Ah ha! You couldn't answer this, therefore I'm right". You can't win.

Likewise, those questions are set up in a similar fashion, no Christian has the time to answer them all properly. I didn't even have time to read them all. They can't win.

I'm all for asking questions of believers (and for them to ask questions of me). But I'm not convinced this is the best way.

However, you can make up your own mind here:

The original questions
http://www.freethinker.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=8382
The translation
http://www.freethinker.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=10033

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for doing this. It is a small drop in the ocean. But maybe there a some people who start skeptical thinking after reading and following
    the path of secular Enlightenment.

    Best regards,

    Piet

    ReplyDelete

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