After reading about the inaccuracy of Chuck Colson’s “1 in 7″ comment here, Benjamin Ady (co-host of our Justice and Compassion blog) started an e-mail dialog with Chuck Colson’s ministry about it. First he asked about the source of Chuck’s comment. This is his follow-up letter in which he describes the problem with the comment in detail:
it seems very clear to me (and I’m only and undergrad college student–don’t have *that* much education) that Chuck’s statement materially misrepresents what the Times Article said: “Dawkins said that on a scale of 1 to 7, 1 being certain God exists, 7, being certain that God doesn’t exist, Dawkins ranks himself as a 6.”. This statement from Dawkins clearly means something very different from what Chuck claimed: “Dawkins admitted that there is a 1 in 7 chance God exists”
Secondly, and much worse, it seems to me that Chuck is misrepresenting his intellectual opponent–Richard Dawkins, who is actually known to have said on multiple occasions, and in his book, that the probability that God exists is vanishingly small. While from an insider’s perspective this might seem fairly unimportant, from an outsider’s perspective, it looks pretty shocking.
Wouldn’t it be better if we Christians, and our apologists, were known for taking the utmost precautions to *properly* quote and represent the ideas of those we disagree with, in order to more effectively and honestly argue against those ideas? Seems like maybe Chuck failed to do his homework. This is sad to me because it seems to me that it is certainly possible for Christians to have an informed, and even constructive dialogue with atheists. Misquoting a well known atheist leader and spokesperson is hardly a way to facilitate such a dialogue.
I have atheist friends who have used this recent misquotation by Chuck to say to me “See–your side isn’t even interested enough in even talking to us to take the time to quote our leaders properly.” I think this is a bit sad.
I think my atheist friends would be beyond impressed if Chuck were to take the time to correct his misquotation on the same web site where he made it ( breakpoint.org?). I think such a bold and humble attitude would demonstrate to them that Chuck, and further that Christians in general, *are* interested in genuine dialog in the marketplace of ideas, and that we correct our mistakes when we realize we’ve made them.
Would love to hear your further feedback.
Thankyou.
Benjamin
10-29-2007 |
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