Intellectual Honesty and a conversation between Pastor Cook and “The Christian Debunker”
November 23, 2006 by markii
Today I listened to an interview/debate between Pastor Cook and “The Christian Debunker“. Both were very intelligent and showed intellectual honesty with one another. What bothered me, was one of the the people who called in, Paul Manata, and how Paul bullied his way in the conversation. (You can download the podcast here). My thoughts on the podcast and on intellectual honesty are as follows:[original source] Mark G. said…
Hey guys, I just got done listening to the podcast- it was very interesting!What bugged me the the most was when Paul Manata almost got off over his supposed “victory” in the “debate” when all the Christian Debunker (sorry, i forgot your name) was doing was being intellectually honest and admitting to some “absurdities” in his own worldview. He did this just to have some humility and commonality and go from there intelligently in the conversation. Paul has the type of personality to jump on these opportunities as if the other is admitting defeat and this just hurts the conversation or “debate”. I hate it when I am involved in a conversation or debate and when trying to show humility and admit ignorance on a certain point, the other jumps on this as an opportune time to declare victor.
This prevents us from being able to have civil discourse and interesting discourse, as well. There is so much we could learn from atheists, Jainism, Christians, Buddhists, Mormons, etc. but if all we care about is “winning the debate” then no one ends up being edified. Nothing is learned. Ego’s are puffed up, that’s all.
Also, I thought it was funny when you said [to Paul Manata when he was arguing a seemingly ridiculous point], “are you listening to yourself”? It is interesting to see the cognitive dissonance occuring in others right before our eyes and they can’t even see it happening.
…Quotes relevant to this post:
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”. -Charles Darwin
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s own ignorance”. -Confucius
[...] This statement shows why I love the Scientific community so much (atheists/rationalists/realists very much included). The following quasi-theological atheistic world-view shows many traits I find highly applaudable including integrity, intellectual honesty, and continual self-analysis/doubt, which in the end promote progress. The point is not that all religious people are bad; it is not that all bad things are done in the name of religion; and it is not that scientists are never bad, or wrong, or self-deceived. The point is this: intellectual honesty is better (more enlightened, more useful, less dangerous, more in touch with reality, etc. ) than dogmatism. The degree to which science is committed to the former, and religion to the latter remains one of the most salient and appalling disparities to be found in human discourse. Scientists spend an extraordinary amount of time worrying about being wrong and take great pains to prove others so. In fact, science is the one area of discourse in which a person can win considerable prestige by proving himself wrong. If there is an argument against “evangelical” atheists like Dawkins, Weinberg, and myself it must take one of these forms: [...]
[...] scientific evidence for something confirming their beliefs as well- as in this case. Damn their intellectual honesty and desire to promote good [...]