So the local paper does this article about NewSpring and the recent Unleash conference.
Nice article, even in its lack of research.
What then ensues?
The crazies come out of the woodwork and set ablaze the comments section. First off, seriously, if your “voice” or online presence is on the Anderson-Independent Mail’s web site, that pretty much walks hand-in-hand with those 36-year-old males who hold fast to their authority as the leader of an Everquest guild. Seriously, get out of your mom’s basement.
Secondly, why on earth do people that are “too smart to believe” give a crap about what a church is doing? I think I have the answer if you’ll just read on.
Typically the comments cover two areas: those bashing NewSpring and those doing a mediocre job of supporting NewSpring.
I’m blown away by people that pass off faith as “believing without proof” but then turn around and acknowledge or even contribute thoughts and ideas about NewSpring and Perry Noble that they have no basis of proof about. Amazing. You deny faith because it lacks proof, but you feed ignorance with unfounded statements. Lame.
There’s plenty of babble on there about Jim Jones and cult leadership and questions about why NewSpring does this or doesn’t do that. The fact of the matter is, 95% of them don’t care about proof – they simply want to argue. And, that is sad. When your life is no longer about truth, but about the argument.
I’ve said before and I’ll say again, this is the sign of the deterioration of a “good” atheists’ body of work. When the pursuit of truth meets a truth that the seeker doesn’t want to accept, it simply turns to criticism. Shameful. I appreciate the literary offerings and scientific explorations of many non-believers. I think it’s fascinating. But, when your literary offerings become nothing more than ill-will rants about God and Church masqueraded as half-sciences (Richard Dawkins of late and Christopher Hutchins come to mind) then I simply can’t appreciate anything you have to say.
You sound like a whining child.
For the NewSpring detractors, if you really have questions, just come. I promise, on my life, you will not be asked to drink any Kool-Aid (or Flavr-Aid) – we simply don’t serve it there. However, we do have a good little coffee shop in the atrium, and I also assure you it won’t kill you, unless you have a cursed allergy to caffeine (sucks to be you).
The added bonus is that at the end of the day, you’ll no longer have to form your opinions out of ignorance.
Proverbs 10:10 (NIV)
“He who winks maliciously causes grief,
and a chattering fool comes to ruin.“
PS – The cost of the Unleash conference was under $100 per person (hundreds of dollars less than 99% of other conferences across the US) and included a meal…for over 3000 people. Don’t read into that. Perry didn’t break the loaves and fish – we just had Chick Fil-A cater in. Good stuff.
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