Comments on: Fear Of The Unknown

By: Sparkles

Sparkles — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:31:36 +0000

So glad you are back to essay writing! And such a good point, I don’t think I challenge myself enough with alternate opinions. I’m afraid I can get easily frustrated and can’t come up with thoughtful responses. Maybe I just need to do it more, ‘eh?

By: ac

ac — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 03:13:38 +0000

I contribute nothing to civil debate. I, too, am hostile and full of rage. Bring it on, Coulter…

By: Jared

Jared — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 22:19:12 +0000

It’s hard to argue with those who legitimately believe you’re going to hell. I encountered this at my last job, also with a co-worker, who ultimately let me know that yes, I too was going to hell. Anybody who doesn’t accept God shares this fate. I asked him, “What about people who were never exposed to Christianity? They can’t be going to hell, can they?” Well, yes. I think there might’ve been some limbo or something in the answer, but it was still basically yes.

This ended in his lending me “The Case for Christ,” an apparent “forensic analysis” of some “DNA evidence” — a book that attempted, no doubt, to appeal to people like us. I too am ashamed to admit that I didn’t read it beyond the first chapter.

I find the best approach for common ground with conservatives is to remind them of their supposed libertarian, not authoritarian, roots — e.g., “Shouldn’t we keep government out of X [where X = the bedroom, obstetrician's office]?” But this approach is a non-starter with the fundamentally religious ones. They are, fundamentally, beyond reason.

By: matt

matt — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 21:46:32 +0000

Well, Miller vs. Coulter is obviously not a very good comparison. One’s a respected scholar and scientist writing about his area of expertise, and the other is Ann Coulter. I think I can decline to read delusional screeds without feeling too bad about myself.

It might be better to explore, “Why Miller but not Behe? Why Dan Savage but not Bennett? Why Greenwald but not D’Souza?” Or something like that.

In other words, I want to justify my intellectual discrimination by something other than tone and civility.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 21:32:33 +0000

The difference between Ann Coulter and Ken Miller is not just that one is wrong and one is right: it is that Ken Miller is thoughtful and civil while Ann Coulter is hostile and full of rage. She contributes nothing to a productive dialogue, whereas Miller purposefully engages the people who disagree with them and, though he disagrees with them, he does it in a way that doesn’t presuppose they are stupid, worthless, or evil (a la AC). I find this to be true in many comparisons of right-leaning and left-leaning media: to compare Rush Limbaugh, who likes to say thing like, “the liberals couldn’t be happier that two U.S. Marines were tortured in Iraq” is not the same as Paul Krugman’s well thought out, REASONED arguments. I know liberals as a group are not above reproach in this area, but they do seem to be a hell of a lot more civil most of the time.

Now, should we both be reading more CIVIL conservative writing? Probably.