Tuesday, September 11, 2007

You gotta have faith - says the Christian theologian

Although this is a quote from a review of a "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan, it seems quite apropos to the comment wars on some of the religious blogs.

From the September 2007 issue of The Atlantic:

This spurious show of open-mindedness recalls Hans Kung, the Swiss theologian who uses a comparable technique when defending Christianity against secular critics. The similarity is not surprising, considering that our dietary and religious habits are both acquired in early childhood, which makes them hard to break no matter what we learn in later life. The Pollan-Kung Technique goes like this: One debates the other side in a rational manner until pushed into a corner. Then one simply drops the argument and slips away, pretending that one has not fallen short of reason but instead transcended it. The irreconcilability of one's belief with reason is then held up as a great mystery, the humble readiness to live with which puts one above lesser minds and their cheap certainties.

1 Comments:

Blogger Miri said...

hah! that's exactly how my brother argues!

September 11, 2007 10:30 AM  

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