In a previous post I mentioned how Benjamin Ady wrote to Chuck Colson’s ministry to point out Chuck’s error regarding Richard Dawkins.
A ministry representative said that they would correct the error in Chuck’s upcoming book. Benjamin replied that he thought they should also correct the error publically. Yesterday he received this from them:
We received your most recent email regarding the misquoting of the Dawkins statement. We agree that it should be corrected publicly and we’d like to thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Our BreakPoint staff members have discussed this and as a result, we will post a correction on the script on the commentary website, and in our daily email tomorrow, we will acknowledge and correct the mistake.
You can see the correction on this page of their site (an asterisk from the relevant part of the commentary links to the correction at the bottom of the page). Today’s Breakpoint e-mail included the following:
Correction: Chuck Colson’s BreakPoint script from October 11, ” A Rational Belief,” contained an inaccuracy. Colson stated that ” Even atheist Richard Dawkins admits that there is a one-in-seven chance that God might exist.” Instead, according to a New York Times Book Review article dated October 22, 2006, “On a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is certitude that God exists and 7 is certitude that God does not exist, Dawkins rates himself a 6: ‘I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, [Dawkins said] and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.’ “
10-31-2007 |
6 Comments »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 |
37 Comments »