Seeking some opinions about a quote

[salival]

Hello all,

I was surfing thru the website of a band that was recommended to me to listen to and while reading some of the interviews I came up with a quote here is what the quote said:

“I feel it is much easier to defeat Christianity with knowledge and intelligence rather than big words and extreme feelings.”

What do you think that this claims implies? That Christianity has no knowledge or that it cannot hold under close scrutiny?

From: mourningtheancient.com/negura.htm

 

[Vonier]

Doesn’t it play into the most bigoted and stereotypical view of people of faith? They’re less than intelligent, completely mislead because they lack the knowledge that the author of the quote obviously believes he or she commands. A very elitist attitude if you ask me.

 

[RSiscoe]

salival:

Hello all,

I was surfing thru the website of a band that was recommended to me to listen to and while reading some of the interviews I came up with a quote here is what the quote said:

“I feel it is much easier to defeat Christianity with knowledge and intelligence rather than big words and extreme feelings.”

What do you think that this claims implies? That Christianity has no knowledge or that it cannot hold under close scrutiny?

From: mourningtheancient.com/negura.htm

One of the tactics (and a very successful one) of Atheists, is to pose difficult questions that the average person cannot answer. They point to apparent contraditions to shake a person’s faith. There are answer to their questions, but most people don’t have them. When they are faced with an apparent contradiction, or a difficulty they cannot answer, it will sometimes stay with them until they get the answer. If they come accross several of these, they may eventually fall away.

Their was a person on these boards that this happened to. When I saw him swallowing the atheists arguments, I went back to read his earlier posts to see how he thought in the past. In the past he defended the Church. Then he started talking to an Atheist who won him over. By the end he was defending the Atheist position.

So, when they say the best way to defeat Christianity is with knowledge I think that is what they are referring to. It is not actually with knowledge, but with specious questions. They pose difficulties that the average Catholic can not answer.

This works particularly well in our day when so many Catholics have been pooly catechized.

 

[Cherub]

salival:

Hello all,

I was surfing thru the website of a band that was recommended to me to listen to and while reading some of the interviews I came up with a quote here is what the quote said:

“I feel it is much easier to defeat Christianity with knowledge and intelligence rather than big words and extreme feelings.”

What do you think that this claims implies? That Christianity has no knowledge or that it cannot hold under close scrutiny?

From: mourningtheancient.com/negura.htm

I don’t believe this implies anything at all, unless the one who said it can offer proof of knowledge or intelligence. It could be that this is a tactic he is using to avoid having to actually speak to the issue, precisely because he lacks the ability to wield any “big words and extreme feelings” of his own – something he has apparently felt pro-Christian arguments consist of.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

The writer is claiming he has more power by being indifferent than by being angry.

Being angry and anti-X (where X is Christianity in this case) actually gives control over to the other side.

While the writer is using this knowledge against Christianity, the knowledge is itself compatible with Christian teaching, I believe.

When Christ taught us not to hate our enemies, I believe He was saying that for our spiritual benefit, not to protect our enemies from our wrath. If we, as Christians, hate people like this or Catholic-bashers or whatever it is that gets our goat, then we have given them emotional control over our own selves, and consequently bind our own spirits. Christ’s teachings free us from this.

This is why I find some of the more effective tactics of the anti-religious folks to be ironic. When people go out and figure things out on their own, it turns out that Christ could have taught them as much if they had listened to Him instead of going to the school of Hard Knocks and come to a secular version of the same wisdom.

Alan

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Defeating Christianity?
Defeating God?
Wow, talk about the ultimate power trip. . .
Satan himself can’t defeat Christianity. Death itself succumbed to Christianity.
Yet some person who didn’t even will himself into existence on his own thinks that he is so knowledgeable and intelligent that he can “defeat Christianity with knowledge and intelligence”.

Poor soul. Christianity thrives on knowledge and intelligence; it certainly isn’t defeated by them. Right knowledge and right reason are gifts from God to enhance our souls and minds in His service, not tools that “destroy Him”.

 

[Della]

salival:

Hello all,

I was surfing thru the website of a band that was recommended to me to listen to and while reading some of the interviews I came up with a quote here is what the quote said:

“I feel it is much easier to defeat Christianity with knowledge and intelligence rather than big words and extreme feelings.”

What do you think that this claims implies? That Christianity has no knowledge or that it cannot hold under close scrutiny?

From: mourningtheancient.com/negura.htm

This person isn’t an atheist, he’s a bona fide pagan. He believes in god and godesses. What knowledge and intelligence does it take to believe in mythologies that no one can prove true? This guy is only fooling himself and so not worth the time and efforts of Christians to disabuse him of his hubris.

 

[BibleReader]

salival:

Hello all,

I was surfing thru the website of a band that was recommended to me to listen to and while reading some of the interviews I came up with a quote here is what the quote said:

“I feel it is much easier to defeat Christianity with knowledge and intelligence rather than big words and extreme feelings.”

What do you think that this claims implies? That Christianity has no knowledge or that it cannot hold under close scrutiny?

From: mourningtheancient.com/negura.htm

 

[BibleReader]

salival:

Hello all,

I was surfing thru the website of a band that was recommended to me to listen to and while reading some of the interviews I came up with a quote here is what the quote said:

“I feel it is much easier to defeat Christianity with knowledge and intelligence rather than big words and extreme feelings.”

What do you think that this claims implies? That Christianity has no knowledge or that it cannot hold under close scrutiny?

From: mourningtheancient.com/negura.htm

What a wonderful question!

The main reason why it is difficult to read Thomas’ Summa is that Thomas recognized the extent to which it is necessary to devise new language to talk about God at the limits of human knowledge, at that level where human knowledge and apprehension j-u-u-u-u-u-u-st begin to fail, and faith must j-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-st begin to take over, because our minds just don’t reach that high.

A quick, simple example: We say of God that He is “ineffable.” Oooh! Look out! A big word! Why do we use that big, scary word? Because it is an easy way to say that God is where our minds can not go. He is a thing as to which full mental grabbability is not possible.

Well, a lot of theology is like this.

So, if the person who posted the comments you transcribed here insists on “avoiding big words,” well, more power to them, but it makes talking to him or her about God difficult.

“Knowledge” and “intelligence” which is instead of “big words” may be something of a deception. Non-“big words” like “prove” in “Hey, 'prove’that God exists” have an *awful * lot of baggage attached to them.

I find that most intent on “defeating Christianity” are also mental plodders. “All the tea in China” will be necessary to convince them of one teeny, tiny point. Heck, we can’t even convince 3/4s of the fertile, married Church-going Catholics to abandon contraception! How can we possibly convince someone like this of more than a minor concession here and there?

Keep talking to them, however. The ripple in the pond travels farther than most people think. And pray for conversion. God always answers prayers.

 

[Asimis]

Della:

This person isn’t an atheist, he’s a bona fide pagan. He believes in god and godesses. What knowledge and intelligence does it take to believe in mythologies that no one can prove true? This guy is only fooling himself and so not worth the time and efforts of Christians to disabuse him of his hubris.

Yes he is, but in response to your argument, he would just tell you that you cannot proof Christanity true either and that Christianity is as much mythology as Paganism.

So…it cuts both ways.