The Dumplin' Dumbash Page

On "Apologetics vs. Bible-based faith"

This is a simple one, because poor Dumplin' Dumbash doesn't know what faith actually is.

He also has Dunning's Syndrome in spades. Having seen that he offers such looniness as that the Sadducees were not monotheists, I can only laugh at his claim that he is someone "who became critical of the Bible because of exposure to the specialized knowledge and training he says are needed to understand it thoroughly." Oh really? This from someone who thinks Strobel and Geisler are the end-all of apologetics? This from someone who has yet to use a single scholarly source in a reply to me? This from someone who addresses a mere paragraph out of pages and made a beeline for my "nutshell" page? This from someone so dense he can't even tell Glenn Miller's work from my own?

Please.

Yes, it is true that "much of the scholarly criticism of the Bible has come from those who, unlike the Church or the public in general, do indeed have the academic background needed to approach the Bible knowledgeably and analytically." However, answers to that criticism is also available from people with just as much (if not more) academic background. I'm not talking Strobel here, but names like Witherington, Wright, Blomberg, and Eddy, which would be too far above Dumplin's head to understand and was probably considered "of the devil" where he went to Bible college. (You can tell this sort of mindset is present when Dumplin' says idiotic stuff like, In theory, Protestant Christians (at least) are supposed to hold the Bible as the sole source of authority for Christian faith and practice. In theory, the individual Christian is supposed to be able to read the Bible and say, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." In theory, the individual Christian is not supposed to need a specialized (priestly?) class of men to read the Bible for him and to declare to him what it "really means." That's nice, dear. Take that "theory" and stick it where the sun don't shine, thanks. It's nonsense. Save that it may be true, to the extent that Christians are supposed to be disciples who seek out the knowledge they need to know what the text really means.

Yes, Dumplin' is right to say (as I did) that Christians often are "merely importing their own opinions into what they see as the meaning of the texts, and thus investing their opinions with the weight of divine authority (so-called)." And he is not any better than that as a Skeptic. Despite him, I also think it is a serious problem for Christians, not just for critics (as he'd know if he read more than single paragraphs of what I have written from a few selected articles). And if Dumpy thinks I have got any of it wrong, he needs to show it with some credible scholarship -- which, given his "Sadducees were polytheists" rot, I don't expect any time soon; nor given this:

In fact, Holding is quite plainly wrong in asserting that critics of the Bible need to acquire some impossibly difficult list of academic credentials in order to falsify Scripture’s claims to divine infallibility. You do not need a post-PhD mastery of the mathematics of quantum physics to know that the equation 2+2=17? does not add up. Nor do you need advanced degrees in linguistics, psychology, archeology, philosophy, and wood shop, to know that there are problems with a story that contradicts both itself and the real world.

What does he mean by this? Alas, his example is nothing but his old "bwaaahhhh, God doesn't show up in the real world to kiss my hiney" whinefest. He's actually dumb enough to suggest that ideally, the truth of the Bible "could be confirmed by simply asking God." Um, 'scuse me, Dumpy....that's Mormonism, not Christianity -- save maybe in those pedantic post-modern and word-faith forms.

Fundy Dumpy ends by whining, Never mind the appeals to the wisdom of men. Simple common sense–and the ability to distinguish between reality and wishful thinking–is all that is required. Well, that he thinks his "common sense" is up to the task speaks for itself in terms of Dumpy as yet another who is "incompetent and unaware of it."