Day 69 - That makes me an idiot

Around 3:00 this morning I woke up to the sound of very loud feshers returning from a night of drinking. People here seem to enjoy ranting about America when they're drunk. It was somewhat entertaining. Among the memorable lines I heard was "anyone who voted for Bush is such an idiot". It was quite ironic considering the way they were acting. And of course, the war in Iraq and global warming came up.

I resisted the temptation to pop out of my room and give them 21 reasons why they were wrong and explain to them that both major presidential candidates supported the war in Iraq, it was Hussein (not GW Bush) who started this war when he invaded Kuwait in 1990 and later refused to abide by the ceasefire agreement, it was Clinton (not Bush) who first rejected the Kyoto protocol (and had good reasons for doing so), the popular understanding of global warming is based more on media hype and political demagoguery than actual science, and that there are intelligent people on both sides who had good reasons for voting for Bush or not voting for him. But debating drunk freshers about politics probably wouldn't accomplish much, except maybe proving my own stupidity. By the way, would one of you in Oklahoma mind sending me a Bush/Cheney sign or sticker? ;-)

But that wasn't the first reason why I'm an idiot. A couple hours before that, I received this (anonymous of course) comment on an earlier blog entry: "hang on a minute now... you are PRAYING??? and you are worried about people eating cake with their HANDS??? Who's the idiot here, you or them??? Praying?? Christian Union???? Come on, get real...!!!!"

I'm only responding because I think it was left by an English person (based on his other post about the Welsh), and thus represents at least a small minority of opinions here. As much as I would love to have a long intellectual debate with this person, preferably moderated and in front of a large studio audience, I doubt there'd be much point. People who say things like this, almost without exception, have little to no first-hand knowledge of what Christianity actually is, the historical background of the Bible, pre-rabbinic Judaism, or what I personally believe (which differs greatly from the usual caricatures of evangelical Christianity). But I don't think anyone should dismiss them as misinformed idiots. They're (often intelligent) people with a point of view that should be listened to with an open mind and addressed with evidence and sound reasoning, not simply dismissed.

As the readership of this blog is now over 100 per day (and I know I don't have THAT many family members) there's bound to be people who don't agree with the opinions I give here. Please feel free to email me: blog @ matthaugland .com (no spaces). I will reply. And if anyone in the Reading area would like to discuss anything here, I'll be happy to meet you.

And finally, despite my policy of not revealing names on here (I don't think he'd mind in this case), I want to congratulate my brother TJ for his perfect 300 game in the bowling tournament last night! Wow!

posted by Matt @ 9:41 PM