Mark My Words - commentary on news, politics, religion, philosophy, science and social issues

Many should be familiar with the concept of lawyers "dumping" large quantities of paperwork on their opposition in response to requests for documents. The goal is to overwhelm their opponents and delay the discovery of damaging information.

There isn't much difference between that action and those in online forums, who post 100 "contradictions" in the Bible or 89 questions/objections, all at once, and preen that any delay in substantive response to such, is proof that Christianity is based on nothing but story book fairy tales.

Their goal is to intimidate by volume, with an additional affect being the tendency to diminish the chances that people will be able to respond fully, because of the time it would take to refute the entire mass of points raised. All one has to do is think about the effort involved to understand this, responding to 100 questions at just two minutes per question, takes over three hours. A truly substantive response can often take much more than a few minutes. If they really had so much confidence in their information, why not just present each point or argument one at a time for detailed discussion and see how they fare, before unloading everything?

The strutting arrogance displayed, when preceded by such an action, betrays, in actuality, a lack of confidence; a subconcious realization that in removing the intimidation by volume, they may quickly subject themselves to detailed analyisis and critique. This could lead to a continuous demonstration that each point is very flawed, and building to a critical mass, indicate a general lack of authority and credibility on the subject. Best to avoid such demonstrations, though by cheap tactics, is the desire, whether they realize it or not.

Such tricks may impress or disturb the uniformed, but for others, our reaction, to *roll eyes* or *ho-hum* is simply pointing out that such methods say more about the weakness of the opposition, than any lack of evidence for, or weakness to the Christian faith. Perhaps, when we're bored, we may respond in detail for amusement and to teach a lesson. In the meantime, if people want to dump, with such antics being on the same level as a scatological event, they should not be surprised when we simply reply with -- *yawn*.

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Dumb and dumber - only more so
It's your fault I'm not a Christian
The Chinese telephone and oral transmission
The fewer assumptions the better
Blind Faith
Yes, there is a God

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