I engaged in several interesting mini-conversations over at John Loftus' blog "Debunking Christianity". While talking there about why religious people keep insisting that atheism is a religion, I had an interesting exchange where I shared my thoughts on what is the major problem with religious nutjobs. I will quote myself responding to a regular contributor at DC called Daniel:
"Daniel, there is zero chance that you could explain that to someone like Kent Hovind. I document religious nutjobs and still spend an unhealthy amount following these personalities (some of whom I call religious nutjobs). The main problem is that they never update their arguments or reasons in light of criticism. For example, I am doing a series on Matt Powell, a Kent Hovind protege, who is a relatively young guy (younger millenial or older Gen Z), and he still uses the same tired arguments that Hovind made in the 80s. This is the heart of the problem. If I corrected you on a historic or scientific fact, you might not entirely change your view, but you would update your view based on a correction, counter-argument etc. The people I call "religious nutjobs" do not. So, even though Ken Ham and Kent Hovind have every piece of evidence from philosophy of science to biology refuting them, they will still claim that evolution is just a religion, and not even correct that minor detail."
I used to spend an unhealthy amount of time monitoring religious nutjobs, also, but I had to stop, as it was wasting too much of my mental power. I also found that it worsened my depression. I fell into a major depression, almost two years ago, because of something completely unrelated to religion. However, I found that keeping tabs on religious nutjobs would aggravate my already existing depression. This is why, of late, I have become much more interested in Irish History than in countering religion. I find it hard now even to watch reaction videos, as reaction videos still have the apologist talking, and trying to mislead, deceive and gaslight his audience. I find apologetics utterly bewildering. I agree with Captain Cassidy that apologetics is really a form of abuse, and it is a form of abuse that I subject myself to less and less, these days, even when it comes to atheist debunkings of apologists on YouTube. Cassidy is one of the few counter-apologists who has the correct contemptuous tone for these “conjobs”, as she calls them.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ciaran for that thoughtful comment. I agree. Observing abusive apologetics is a form of self-torture. I also wonder why I am willing to inflict it on myself so often. But, at least, I have a healthier outlet now publishing in my own free time.
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