A Post for Marshall...

Years ago, I wrote a two part post that explained how I moved from "here" to "there" on the topic of marriage equity. I was raised and lived for the first ~30 years of my life as an extreme conservative Christian in the traditional Southern Baptist church mode. Given that, I was, of course, extremely opposed to any normalization of "the homosexual agenda..." I certainly did not intend to be unloving or ungracious towards anyone, but in hindsight, I surely was.

At any rate, I was solidly opposed to "gay marriage" - vehemently, so. I was absolutely certain that not only was the Bible and reason clearly against any sort of gay behavior, I had no room in my worldview for any Christian possibly even hinting at thinking it was possible. And yet, here I am today, fully recognizing (and repenting of) my errors in thinking and behavior from that time. In these two posts, I explained  how I moved from one position to the other and, not only that, but how I did it based on Bible study, prayer and reasoning from those two alone. At that time in my life, there was no room for any other way to "prove" anything.

Here are those posts...

My Journey, Part 1

My Journey, Part 2

Conservative blogger, Marshall recently said that I left questions unanswered there. I'm putting this post up to give Marshall a chance to ask a question that he thinks I left unanswered.

He, of course, does not find my process or reasoning compelling. That is fine, I wouldn't have found it compelling before I reached this point in my life, either. Now, I could not imagine anyway to find it anything but compelling.

The point I always make with Marshall and his comrades is that, just because the argument is not compelling to them, does not mean, 1. That there is no rational argument being made or, 2. That no one else could possibly find the arguments compelling.

It would be my guess that the main reason he doesn't find my arguments compelling (other than the cultural bias against it, and cultural biases being very hard to overcome) is that he approaches the Bible differently than I do. Where he finds literal history and literal commands from God, I find interesting stories that are told in mythic or epic fashion, and NOT literal commands from God.

Maybe, if one accepts the more fundamentalist view of the bible, my reasoning is terribly faulty. However, the real world fact is that not everyone finds the fundamentalist view of the Bible to be rational, moral or, in fact, biblical. So, you can't say, "You HAVE to hold my view of these texts and, given my view, you are wrong..." That is true only if I hold your view and I do not, so I am not in any rational, moral or biblical way compelled to accept your view.

Having said that: Feel free to ask your question, Marshall.

Anti-Intellectualism is Stupid

Anti-Intellectualism quote of the day (in response to my question, "Do you think all experience is equal: That the mailman who walks through a poor neighborhood and the social worker who has researched and studied poverty and worked as a case manager directly with the poor are equally informed as to the causes and effects of poverty in the lives of the poor? Or do you make room for the notion that people who actually work for years in a field might possibly be better-informed on the topic?...")

Social workers are trained to give people the benefit of the doubt and in my experience do so to the point of overlooking the obvious. They tend to make excuses for people because they’re trying to help. So no, I don’t generally trust social workers’ experiences. Look at all the kids they leave with negligent parents, yet try to remove kids from homes where parents let them walk to school for a block or two in safe neighborhoods. 

[Courtesy of John at the ironically named, Sifting Reality blog, although the attitude is not unique to him, so I'm talking about the comment, not the person...]

There is such an arrogance and wholly uninformed presumption and ignorance in that statement, that one hardly knows how to respond. Why are people like this? Have they been burned by, in this case, what the feel is a bad social worker so they project that hurt feeling out on to all social workers? And does this  person feel the same way about other professionals? Water quality experts? Car mechanics? Psychologists? Where does this ignorant hostility end?

Lord help us.