News and Record LTE Blog Roundup
By Anthony | December 3rd, 2005 | 11:57 pmOver the past few days I’ve been involved in a couple of discussions over at the News and Record’s Letters to the Editor blog that relate to some topics recently discussed here at Plead the First.
The first takes place on the letter entitled “A Higher Standard?” The letter writer, questioning a previous letter writer who contended that Christians gave up the main tenets of their faith to get Bush elected, states that the Democratic alternatives don’t represent a higher standard for Christians. My contention in the comments is that the policies of today’s Republican party are out of line with the expressed priorities of the Bible. The conversation ranges from homosexuality to homelessness, and features an appearance by Michele from Chosen Fast with some informative stats on homelessness in Guilford County.
The second letter is entitled “Intelligent Design Belongs in Schools”, in which the writer argues that … uh … Intelligent Design belongs in schools. Guess the News and Record nailed the headline on that one. There seem to be some misconceptions about a few things, and I’m predicting that the conversation is about to quickly devolve into personal attacks and circular arguments. So if you don’t like that sort of thing, go read it now while it’s semi-civil. And if you do like personal attacks and circular arguments, then you probably already read the LTE blog anyway.
December 5th, 2005 at 1:01 am
PotatoStew: Thanks for inviting me to the conversation in the LTE that eventually wound up touching on homelessness (or actually, ended up focusing on it!) Lately, I’ve hestitated to jump into the shark-infested LTE waters because, as you note, it’s not always pretty. And I don’t like ugliness. Debate, good. Disagreement, fine. Meanness, soooo uncool. But I appreciated the opportunity to get some accurate information out there, and in the end, it was fairly well received.
One thing I like about Greensboro bloggers is that even when we disagree (which is often!), most folks are still able to have civil discourse. That’s as it should be. In the “real world” I have friends across faiths, genders, sexualities, races, cultures, political parties and levels of comedic appreciation. And although we may have spirited conversations, we are able to hang out and have fun and love each other, no matter what. That’s how I wish all the world would be.
As for the ID (and similar) discussions, I just finally had to exhale deeply, roll my eyes, snap my gum and say, “Are we still ON that? He MADE it, ok? ALL of it. When you get to heaven you can ask Him how He did it. Until then, I am sooooooo tired of y’all fighting about it! Now let’s go help some poor people.” 😉
December 5th, 2005 at 10:33 pm
I’m glad you were able to join in. And I must say, you are almost certainly more patient than I am, and I consider myself a pretty patient guy. I strive to be calm and decidedly un-mean in discussions, but it really gets my goat when someone accuses me of something (ignoring facts) and then immediately, unapolagetically, and repeatedly does that very thing. It also makes it very difficult to advance the conversation if someone is going to dismiss anything you say for some vague and unspecified reason, and so I usually end up bailing out of those debates at some point.
Regarding the ID thing (at the risk of making you snap your gum some more), I agree: After a century of scientific research supporting evolution, it’s hard to believe we’re still on that. 😉 Seriously though, the concept of evolution and the belief that God is responsible for making all this don’t need to be mutually exclusive. It’s only when someone has a definite idea of how God must have done it that the two concepts start butting heads.
And even then, it isn’t an issue for anyone other than that person until people start trying to require ID in science class before it has decent scientific support. Imagine for example if you found out your kids were being taught astrology as a legitimate, scientific theory in school, and you can start to imagine why some people have a problem with school boards trying to insert ID into their curriculum.
But everyone has their own areas of interest, so I’ll leave it at that, and let you get back to snapping your gum and helping poor people. 🙂
December 5th, 2005 at 10:40 pm
Thanks for my late evening laugh (out loud!) — that last line definitely got me. 😉
And I developed patience from parenting teenagers and serving in ministry. Both of which, of course, are still ongoing…