In a discussion on Abiogenesis Saintnow said this.

Saintnow: "Sincere belief in things that cannot be tested or shown to be real is foolish"

The irony of this statement didn't seem to dawn on him.

I agree it's hypocritical, though I'll make a comparison from daily life to argue it's human nature...

You see people every day who may be @holes or scoundrels or losers. They may even be domestic abusers. Usually someone in their life still loves them anyway, has accepted them, and seems almost impervious to their behaviors which drive you batty. And if you confront that person who stays with them you'll hear denial, misdirection, and attacks upon yourself for daring to question that which they love. Those supporters may go on indefinitely, all their lives, even though you're pretty sure they aren't clueless to the problems others point out. But the thing is they're not ready to give up on loving that person. They may be afraid that they'll never find another. Or simply that too much of their life has been wasted on a lie if they ever simply agree you were right. It's so much easier to continue than to wake up and challenge. Well, these people are like the religious. They desperately want to believe God is there, he is good, he is going to reward them and also to smite the people who didn't stay true to God, and that he is uniquely THEIRS. And even when they're surprised once in a while by a little blowback (like a hurricane that hurts them along with everyone else) they'll dismiss that as OK, because really he truly does love them, doesn't he? Look, they're still alive. Their house is gone, and a couple of their kids are dead, but only because of God's grace did the rest of them live. Well it sounds like a battered woman justifying her lover, doesn't it? But they crave that love. And they truly fear what they have left if they ever admit there's a problem. So they solider on. And so they point at you, at science, at anything that disagrees with their binky, and say you haven't really proven their God is an @hole. Though you have. Instead they say science is the arrogant @hole for daring to have it's own theories, for trying to date animal fossils, and conducting archeology and anthropology, and studying outer space, and all of those things yielding evidence conflicting with what their God supposedly told them was the truth.

I'm saying it's human nature to not want to let go of that which you love, and to react to those who challenge it as vultures just trying to tear you apart.

You ask a very good question!

And in view of the fact not one Christian has tried to answer it...at the time of this writing...I would hazard that most of them know deep down that they are indeed guilty of being hypocritical in this regard.

For example, they will claim that the process of Abiogenesis is impossible, but then readily believe that Bronze Age Jewish carpenters dead for there's days can rise from their grave and go to heaven and become their God!

Or...that a Hebrew sky god can stop the sun in the sky so as to provide his people with a bit more time to slaughter their enemies!

These wacko Christians will deny the existence of Transitional Fossils...of which we have thousands...that show Evolution step by step.

And then they will eagerly swallow a fable about how that sky god can part a. Sea so his people can pass thru it.

The Bible is totally devoid of any science.

Yet they claim that all these thousands of Geologists who have repeatedly dated the earth to be over four Billion years old are wrong!

Why do they do this? Ignore the total absurdity of many of their Bible stories but yet rail against modern science? Which some of them seem to know precious little about?

The only thing I can come up with is that they were brainwashed as kids. Deluded. Mislead. Or...they are trapped in an absolute form of denial. One so severe that it borders on the neurotic.

They often remind me of the old fable of the ostrich with its head in the sand.

Or the guy who plugs his ears when somebody attempts to explain how this idea is false. Going....Nah nah nah nah I can't hear you!

LOL

Thanks. This is a great debate question. I hope to see at least a couple of Christians respond. Or at least try to!

SS