{"id":3074,"date":"2012-08-02T08:11:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-02T13:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=3074"},"modified":"2017-12-22T17:50:36","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T22:50:36","slug":"another-example-of-christian-arrogance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=3074","title":{"rendered":"Another Example of Christian Arrogance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this week, Gore Videl died. For those who don\u2019t know, he was a giant intellectual and a vocal atheist. I wrote about his death on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/article\/gore-vidal-born-again-atheist\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Examiner<\/a> and some Christian had to chime in on it in the comments section. She writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIt&#8217;s so sad to me to realize the genius of Gore Vidal yet somehow he had such an ignorance about what is heaven and the hereafter. However it will be God&#8217;s grace that will get him into heaven. Wow I bet he is surprised now.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>She is obviously a pretty liberal Christian because she didn\u2019t say that he was being tortured in Hell for all eternity. But still, the arrogance here should be surprising and yet it is so common among religious believers that it really isn\u2019t surprising at all.<\/p>\n<p>Based on no evidence, she is making the claim that she knows the details of the hereafter. Gore Vidal was a very educated individual who liked to learn. Sure it is possible that she does know something about something that he didn\u2019t know, but the fact is that in this case she doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>All the evidence suggests that when we die, that is it. While it is possible that something else happens, those possibilities are unlikely. Even if something does happen after we die (as unlikely as that would be) it is pretty obvious that Heaven and Hell are almost certainly not what happens. Those are ridiculous stories of bronze-age sheep herders.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone can assert any claim they like, but unless they can back up that claim with actual evidence or at the very least a solid argument; no one should take those claims seriously. But when someone claims that their mere assertions are absolute reality with no evidence at all, we should laugh at them. Such assertions and the dogmatism of certainty that accompanies them is the height of arrogance.<\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\" style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Related articles<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image\" style=\"margin: 0px; padding: 0px; overflow: hidden;\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"padding: 0px; background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% transparent; list-style: none outside none; display: block; float: left; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; width: 84px; font-size: 11px; margin: 2px 10px 10px 2px;\"><a style=\"box-shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999999; padding: 2px; display: block; border-radius: 2px 2px 2px 2px; text-decoration: none;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/article\/gore-vidal-born-again-atheist?cid=rss\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px none; display: block; width: 80px; max-width: 100%;\" src=\"http:\/\/i.zemanta.com\/104027307_80_80.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><a style=\"display: block; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 12pt; height: 80px; padding: 5px 2px 0px;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/article\/gore-vidal-born-again-atheist?cid=rss\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Gore Vidal: Born-again atheist<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=e2a5dcd2-9e26-4d48-9264-77b0a5120532\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=3074\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this week, Gore Videl died. For those who don\u2019t know, he was a giant intellectual and a vocal atheist. I wrote about his death on Examiner and some Christian had to chime in on it in the comments section. She writes: \u201cIt&#8217;s so sad to me to realize the genius of Gore Vidal yet [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1039,310,1814,254],"tags":[843,1642,2201,2215,11,2244,2200,2218],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3074"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3074"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3144,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3074\/revisions\/3144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}