A post from Anonymous, with my regrets.

The following was posted to an article on Easter.  Barth Ehrmann,  mentioned below,  is a one-time conservative Christian minister,  whose faith was centered in his Bible,  not in a living Christ who exists outside the pages of "the Good Book."  Ehrmann now bills himself as "the Happy Agnostic,"  and spends his days (if not retired) teaching young and unsuspecting Christian students as to why their "faith is nonsense."   His life in the classroom is a perfect parallel to the storyline of the movie,  "God is NOT dead."  My written discussion (debate) with him,  did not go well for the educator turned militant atheist.  The discussion can be found, here.  

I published this comment only because I promised I would.  If I had it to do over,  I would not have not made the promise to publish this nonsense.  It is all about a personal attack on me,  and,  who is interested in that.  But it is a good lesson for us all.  This is my experience with nearly all Utopian "thinkers."  They have little to say on the issues,  so they go for the throat. But you all know this.  Rush is famous for saying,  "With the Libs,  it is always about symbol over substance."  If you are in the business of dealing with these people,  you know just how true Limbaugh's comment is. 

My discussion with Ehrmann was substantial,  proving that not all libs share in the ability to circumvent the real issues.  Rather than reading the following rant,  you might click on my link,  above,  and read the discussion with Ehrmann.   

Note: Apparently I posted the above without proof reading.  My apologies.  

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Make Easter that time of year that finds you in ag...":

Anonymous writes:  I invite the reader to look at the discussion with Ehrman. It proves exactly what I've been saying. Smithson sees Ehrman a 'failure' simply because he doesn't believe what Smithson believes. Did Smithson ever really examine the evidence Ehrman has presented in detail and refute it specifically? No. Does Smithson think for himself or does he appeal to an authority figure? Smithson's authority figure is Barth. He also takes comfort in numbers, a lot of similarly believing people. It's sad and revealing. More 'us against them' in Smithson's communication with Ehrman. Hard to read and redundant. Exactly why we have division in the world today. 


Smithson assumes that someone who teaches about the history of religion must be religious. Sorry, but teaching is not about indoctrination, it is about knowledge which is defined as scholarship - a search for the evidence based truth. As Ehrman put it, "It's when people close down thinking (by getting defensive -- or offensive!) that I think they do a disservice to themselves and to the reality around us. Education is not about teaching people what they already know, or think they know."

Smithson thinks because he has "faith" ... he knows more about the origins and historical framework of christianity than Dr. Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar, currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a leading scholar in his field, having written and edited over 25 books, including three college textbooks.

Smithson's reality isn't based on fact. It is based on his faith as a concept that he believes 'creates reality' ... as if believing in something will make it true. He says, "Faith makes belief in their existence and the content of their lives a reality". Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the very definition of delusion, unless of course he is speaking metaphorically, which I hope he is .... but knowing Smithson, I doubt it.

My point above is that this type of thinking, in Smithson's case, extends to his world view on politics and science. He speaks of "the reality of his belief system'. Sorry, belief systems for me will never depend of faith, they will always require the support of facts and evidence, testable and provable, probabilities of correctness. His world view is completely justified in his mind by a series of false analogies that we hear repetitively, (antiquated scientific claims proven wrong, mathematical axioms, unlikely conspiracy theories, etc...).

Smithson says, "Our relationship to truth cannot be logical... none of us can have any serious confidence in our abilities to think 'correctly.'" I agree that truth, like science, is a matter of probability of correctness. So why take the easy way out and assume truth via faith? It's a crutch for those who refuse or don't care enough about it to seek the evidence, or are too lazy and comfortable with their beliefs to do so. Shouldn't we come as close to probable fact as we can with the evidence available? That is what Ehrman is trying to do, and Smithson doesn't like it one bit.

Sadly, his world view prevents him from learning, it is more important to reinforce what he 'already knows'. This is the psychology of John D. Smithson.