As predicted, today the first of the snow in our current “big chill” arrived. Thankfully for us it was only a light dusting, and no ice, however that is due to change tomorrow, and get worse for Thursday.
Anyway, it does look pretty, just a pain with my daily commute!
Today was also the last full day of Beth’s parents visit to the UK. I have a batch of photographs from last week which I will get round to posting, and was planning to work on last night. However last night I was somewhat distracted dealing with the self proclaimed “UK’s Leading Atheist” Steven Carr who had taken an interest in one of my postings. Having posted three variations of the same comment on Sunday afternoon to one thread, and another comment to Beth’s posting on Re:Jesus, and two more yesterday, he was showing a suprising level on interest. What was somewhat annoying was that it was fairly apparent that he hadn’t been reading what I was saying, not so much wanting a discussion as taking it in turns to make comments, and for all the world reminded me of the times I have been doorstepped by Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons, in that you get the impression that they are tightly trained to deliver their particular line rather than participate in discussion.
I initially considered responding to the points, but then thought I’d dig around and see what Steven Carr had posted elsewhere, and also check my logs. He has an extensive website that details his beliefs, and also includes a number of debates he has had with theologians. He also appears frequently on Usenet newsgroups. Log wise I came across a specific search for God in the tsunami from Google that had come through to the site, so it looked like he could have been specifically looking for a Christian comment to respond to.
On that basis I decided that it would go nowhere if I carried on trying to discuss points with someone who seemed to only want to preach at me, so I decided to block his access, which I have now done. I’ve linked and quoted a couple of comments in my final response to him, so I won’t go over them again, but on a positive note it is a great example of why preaching at somebody doesn’t work, and perhaps something that Christian groups can learn from in how they deal with people who do not share their beliefs. It also reminds me of an incident when I was younger when a local Church managed to get hold of the mailing list of the local synagogue and proceeded to send them a mailing detailing why they should all become Christian. I’m sure everybody can guess how many converts the mailing produced, and of course the negative publicity the whole incident produced was significant. Whilst he has obviously considered his beliefs extensively, and feels that those beliefs should be shared, the method by which he chose to do so has only resulted in him being banned, or blocked from all sorts of sites, whereas a more reasonable, dare I say it, less evangelical approach may have worked better.
One final note, I’ve just heard on the news that the ongoing Charles and Camilla farce continues with the news that the Queen will not attend the wedding. Officials are quick to point out that it isn’t a snub as she will attend the blessing, and host the reception. PM again had a legal expert on tonight questioning the legality of the whole thing, so I suspect it will degenerate even further than it has done already.
Anyway, with that, to bed, as I think the journey to work tomorrow is probably going to be slow and filled with ice and snow. Roll on spring…