Last night as I was doing my usual reading online, occupied as I very often am in looking up information regarding the Christian Reconstructionist movement, or Dominionism, or Theonomy (these labels are commonly used interchangeably, but there are distinctions between them which I haven't quite worked out), and I wound up at a site called Ex-Christian net.
The site is run by an Ex-Christian named Dave Van Allen. It started small, but has grown considerably. Being inspired by Mr. Allen's testimony regarding his deconversion from the Christian faith, I wrote him a small letter of appreciation. Mr. Allen graciously responded, and quite promptly I might add, given the high rate of traffic at his website, and given that he must receive quite a large volume of personal messages and email. He thanked me for my message and asked to post it on his site in a letters-to-webmaster section, which he says consists predominantly of negative messages from Christians seeking to re-convert him. I was happy to ask him to go ahead and post my letter.
I also responded to a letter from a Christian posted recently at ExChristian.net, which prompted a rather lengthy thread. This person had coyly introduced the TAG into one of his posts. This argument will rear its ugly head everywhere, and it won't only be used by Christians arguing from a Reformed perspective. The best refutation I've read so far is this one, by Objectivist Anton Thorn. I know that many people, probably even most people, think of Objectivists as secular cultists, no better, and in fact similar in many ways, to fundamentalist theists. I will say that Objectivism has indeed generated a certain number of block-headed sycophants and "fundies". I encountered a few at more than one Objectivist forum, and I even met one Objectivist author via email whose responses to me were such that I immediately discontinued correspondence with him; but there are also those who are extremely bright and fiercely independent, and I believe that Anton Thorn is one of those.
One should consider that the biggest gun in the TAGist's arsenal is the fact that modern philosophy offers precious little by way of any firmly grounded epistemological standpoint, with Objectivism being one of the few, and certainly the most noticeable, exception. TAGists love to pick on people like Bertrand Russell, for example, first for his famous book on why he was not a Christian (guess the title?), and second, because his epistemological views changed through-out his career. Now, most people would say that that was a good thing, because, and I'm paraphrasing Nietzsche here, 'convictions are a no-no.'
Just don't be too sure of that.
The site is run by an Ex-Christian named Dave Van Allen. It started small, but has grown considerably. Being inspired by Mr. Allen's testimony regarding his deconversion from the Christian faith, I wrote him a small letter of appreciation. Mr. Allen graciously responded, and quite promptly I might add, given the high rate of traffic at his website, and given that he must receive quite a large volume of personal messages and email. He thanked me for my message and asked to post it on his site in a letters-to-webmaster section, which he says consists predominantly of negative messages from Christians seeking to re-convert him. I was happy to ask him to go ahead and post my letter.
I also responded to a letter from a Christian posted recently at ExChristian.net, which prompted a rather lengthy thread. This person had coyly introduced the TAG into one of his posts. This argument will rear its ugly head everywhere, and it won't only be used by Christians arguing from a Reformed perspective. The best refutation I've read so far is this one, by Objectivist Anton Thorn. I know that many people, probably even most people, think of Objectivists as secular cultists, no better, and in fact similar in many ways, to fundamentalist theists. I will say that Objectivism has indeed generated a certain number of block-headed sycophants and "fundies". I encountered a few at more than one Objectivist forum, and I even met one Objectivist author via email whose responses to me were such that I immediately discontinued correspondence with him; but there are also those who are extremely bright and fiercely independent, and I believe that Anton Thorn is one of those.
One should consider that the biggest gun in the TAGist's arsenal is the fact that modern philosophy offers precious little by way of any firmly grounded epistemological standpoint, with Objectivism being one of the few, and certainly the most noticeable, exception. TAGists love to pick on people like Bertrand Russell, for example, first for his famous book on why he was not a Christian (guess the title?), and second, because his epistemological views changed through-out his career. Now, most people would say that that was a good thing, because, and I'm paraphrasing Nietzsche here, 'convictions are a no-no.'
Just don't be too sure of that.
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