Quotes of the Week: The College Atheist

12 CommentsQuotes of the Week

I’m re-introducing this category that has been in mothballs since May 30, 2008.

There are so many great interactions when I witness for Christ that I’d like to share what I think is the top response for the week. Here’s this week’s quote:

“I better leave now before I become uncivil.”

—A young atheist’s response after talking to me on the campus of El Camino College. I refused to budge on any of my answers to his questions about things eternal which caused him great frustration. Here’s how I answered him: “Go ahead and be as uncivil as you want. You will have an opportunity to see Christianity in action!”

Comments (12)

  1. theB1ackSwan

    Reply

    The obvious problem with these segments is that the quote is taken out of context. Even with the best of intentions, it does the rest of us no good to what he was reacting towards.

      • Steve Sanchez

        Just the obvious ones. He came from an evolutionist position; I told him that it took more faith to believe that than believing a loving God created us in his image with purpose, etc.

      • theB1ackSwan

        Ignoring the lack of evidence of your deity, I don’t understand how you can, with all good intent, state that evolution is a theory based on faith when it clearly isn’t.

      • Quasar

        “I don’t understand how you can, with all good intent, state that evolution is a theory based on faith when it clearly isn’t.”

        I can!

        Steve honestly believes that evolution is a theory that requires faith because, despite the best efforts of a variety of people, he refuses to accept evolution is what it is.

        He’d much rather cling to (to use a term coined by Ray Comfort) “Street Evolution”, which can be described, in true Living Waters fashion, as “Nothing created everything and then rocks magically turned into fish and then people the end.”

        Nevermind that the theory of common descent is in reality emergent from and dependant on a variety of different lines of evidence (Phylogenetic, Paleantology, Biogeography), and is continually being tweaked and improved at a micro level to more perfectly match the data we have on hand… no, that theory is not the one Steve believes takes faith to accept, because he refuses to be aware of it.

        In his world, it’s much more comfortable to believe that evolutionists are all morons who believe faithfully in the theory of magic fish-people.

        My apologies: that was slightly more sarcastic than intended.

      • vintango2k

        You know this train of thought when it comes to evolution was something that Kent Hovind would tell his listeners during one of his ‘science seminars’. Hovind had called Ray Comfort a friend of his, now I don’t want to declare they’ve collaborated, but their thoughts on this subject use similar verbiage and lingo…. and a general lack of curiousity when it comes to this subject. Something that you seem to try to mirror Steve, hopefully we can change that!

      • Nohm

        Vin wrote:

        “and a general lack of curiousity when it comes to this subject.”

        I’ve seen this same lack of curiosity for nearly all subjects for evangelicals and fundamentalists, of all religions. It’s one of the most fascinating things about them.

        I think it’s because they feel that they already have The Answer, so why bother searching for alternative answers? I don’t really know, but it’s something I’m very curious (heh) about.

      • Quasar

        That… that’s actually an astonishing insight into your mindset, Steve. Not that you think you already have the answer (that we already knew), but that you think all the questiosn of life, the universe and everything can be boiled down into something as simple as 2 + 2.

        It’s gotta be at least six times nine.

        Seriously though, the idea that the existence and biodiversity of life is a question that can be answered the the satisfaction of anybody with “God made it” is one of the single most alien idea ever to me. There’s so much complexity, so much beautiful, terrible and completely bonkers stuff in nature, that “just because” is the most demeaning answer I can imagine getting in response to asking why.

        If I’d been raised in a creationist household, that idea of an answer for EVERYTHING would have been the beginning of the end for my faith.

      • Nohm

        “If I’d been raised in a creationist household, that idea of an answer for EVERYTHING would have been the beginning of the end for my faith.”

        Hence my point that a lack of curiosity plays a big part in maintaining the belief, while an abundance of curiosity tends to be problematic for the belief.

        “Yes. We do have the answer. Why look for another answer for 2 + 2?”

        Because it appears to people like myself that you’re saying “2 + 2 = x”, and when I ask what ‘x’ is, you say “it’s 2 + 2”.

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