This week I got involved in a long back and forth comment conversation with a Christian homeschooling parent on a blog post about homeschool regulation. To make a long story short, near the end of the conversation I wrote the following:

A child who is brought up to believe in creation is mostly likely (depending on the specifics of it) being taught bad science and missing out on what good science really is. And that is a shame.

To which she replied, in part:

Good science according to who? Darwin theory is a theory. Science is not just Darwin , Mr. Tracy.

I responded by using an excellent quotation from Sam Harris‘ recent article about Francis Collins:

Good science according to whom? How about the vast majority of professional scientists? A theory in science is a well established and robust set of explanations for a complex array of facts. Darwin’s “theory” has been enormously successful in what it explains. But this is not just about evolution. To quote from a recent piece by Sam Harris: 

“The goal is not to get more Americans to merely accept the truth of evolution (or any other scientific theory); the goal is to get them to value the principles of reasoning and educated discourse that now make a belief in evolution obligatory. Doubt about evolution is merely a symptom of an underlying problem; the problem is faith itself—conviction without sufficient reason, hope mistaken for knowledge, bad ideas protected from good ones, good ideas occluded by bad ones, wishful thinking elevated to a principle of salvation, etc.” 

In today’s world where faith breeds needless conflicts we need now more than ever to ground our descendants in the firm principles of rational thinking. You are bringing up the importance of values. I agree, values are important, and one of those values is precisely this – the capacity to not fall into the intellectual trap of faith as an excuse for a lack of firm knowledge.

She responded to the Harris quote with the following paranoid rant:

Ok, so in other words you think we should be forced to believe in evolution? We cannot be forced to believe in evolution any more than you can be forced to believe in God. Nobody should be “obliged” (forced) to believe anything that we don’t agree with . Not me, and not you. I don’t consider you, or any atheist a radical, or backward, dilusional, or warped for what you believe. I don’t believe I should be considered any of those things for believing as I do. I disagree with you, but I respect your decision not to believe. It seems as though that is not the case for me, and all other Christians, and it’s very sad. We are slowly losing our rights in this country, because we believe there is a God. Call it what you want, I call it religious persecution.

Usually what Christians say in response doesn’t flabbergast me anymore. This one did. It is as if this woman has ingrained into her head an image of atheists as evil, militant, Christian-bashing persecutors who would like nothing less than forcing everyone to give up religion. The image still remains and she still responds to this image even when I try and say something that flatly contradicts that image.

If this is any general indication of what we have to deal with (or some of the Christians in Iowa) then I am deeply disheartened.

After my initial period of flabbergation (I think that is a new word) wore off I wrote the following to her:

I am honestly quite baffled at how you could possibly go from “The goal is to teach children to value the principles of reasoning and educated discourse” to “So you want to force people to believe in evolution, take away our rights as Christians, and then persecute us.” Nothing in your response even remotely reflects any of the points made in Sam Harris’ quotation.

Forced to believe in evolution? No. Take away your rights? No. Persecution? No, no, and no. Sam’s point was simple. We feel that anybody who truly values rational thinking and educated discourse will not only agree with evolution on its own terms but also do away with dogmatic faith also all on their own. There is no force involved here. Does that make sense? I hope so.

Here is the thing. And I know that it goes both ways. Try and actually understand the real position of people before you mouth off on them.