P.Z. Myers is as dense as they come. If he wants to talk about arrogance, then isn't it more arrogant to claim that Almighty God could not possibly have made friends with any human beings? Who the hell is this backwater junior college pipsqueak to tell God what He can and cannot do?
His latest wisdom:
But then, you elected this profoundly stupid man to be your governor, so it's all your own fault. I was reading an interview with Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana that was just embarrassingly bad.
To me, the core of the Christian faith is humility, which starts with recognizing that you're as fallen as anyone else. And we're all constantly trying to get better, but... so I'm sure I come up short on way too many occasions.
Our country was founded -this is just an historic fact; some people today may resist this notion but it is absolutely true- it was founded by people of faith. It was founded on principles of faith. The whole idea of equality of men and women [and] of the races all springs from the notion that we're all children of a just God. It is very important to at least my notion of what America's about and should be about and I hope it's reflected most of the time in the choices that we make personally.
The core of Christianity has never been humility, but arrogance. This is a faith that claims its followers have privileged contact with an immortal, omniscient being, that claims that believers are especially loved by the most powerful intelligence in the universe, and that those who believe most devoutly will be rewarded after death with cushy lives in paradise, while the rest of us burn in torment for eternity. Governor Daniels needs to crack a dictionary.
hu•mil•i•ty
noun
a modest or low view of one's own importance; humbleness.
There is nothing humble in believing one has an inside line to god. Sure, Christians talk about being "fallen" and "sinners", but what it's all about is false modesty: we're all fallen, but Christians get to be saved, and you don't.
What's all this crap about "privileged contact? and an "inside line"? God will befriend anyone who refrains from being a total dick and turns toward Him. If P.Z. arrogantly chooses Hell, there's no one to blame but himself.
Our genius high priest of Science!--who is often in a state of high moral outrage--goes on to say in the same post:
There is no eternal standard of right and wrong.
Fine then; it's good to know that by your own standards, your rantings have no real lasting moral force. But if others do not so choose to emasculate themselves, and choose to humble themselves before an objective moral law, I guess that's arrogance.
3 comments:
"If you believe something without compelling evidence, you're a moron, ..."
And, generally, the persons who make that claim reserve to themselves the right to decide what is and isn't "compelling."
"... but if you think you do have compelling evidence for what you believe, you're arrogant."
And, they frequently this second part of your statement as their fall-back position.
Matteo, have you seen this?
Alan Keyes: The evolutionist's comical dogma
Myers also fundamentally doesn't grasp what "humility" means in the Christian sense. My father told me how to understand the term, and I've always remembered this quote: "The humble person does not think less of himself. He merely thinks of himself less."
C.S. Lewis also had a good comment on it in Mere Christianity:
"Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call 'humble' nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all."
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