In my travels through the blogosphere, I’ve met many interesting folks and … surprise, surprise … not all of them are messianics. Of course, considering our particular blend of Judaism and Christianity is a relatively obscure (but growing) one at this moment in time, that’s not surprising.

One such interesting person I’ve met recently is fellow blogger Kat Cooper. She possesses a sharp wit and intellect, a great sense of humor and, despite the rough language she sometimes indulges in, has quite good insights on a wide variety of issues. She is also an atheist.

Now, why would a faith-oriented blogger want to begin a debate with an atheist blogger? Well, Kat can speak for herself over on her site, but my reasons are fairly straight-forward.

First, I think too often in the blogosphere, atheist sites and faith sites stand in their own corners of the ring, tossing rotten tomatoes at each other without ever really speaking to each other. On rare occasions when they do speak directly, it’s a big yelling mess with both sides essentially painting the other as stupid, which doesn’t help either side.

By contrast, Kat and I struck up a friendship on a technical blogging level and already respect each other. Our hope is to engage in an exchange of viewpoints without giving in to useless name-calling. To foster a dialog based in mutual respect. We’ll see how well it works as it unfolds.

As for any personal reasons why I’d want to do this? It’s pretty simple. Anyone entering a journey to be a congregational leader has to expect that he or she will encounter folks who don’t agree. Learning how to communicate and defend the ideals for which a messianic believer stands as a congregational leader is, therefore, an essential skill. Learning how to do so without losing one’s cool or losing respect for the other party is similarly essential, whether the person being disagreed with is a religious Jew, an anti-Semite, a replacement theology Christian, or an anti-faith atheist. If one can’t manage to maintain respect for a person who disagrees, the usefulness of a dialog quickly disappears entirely.

So, for me, it’s a great exercise in apologetics. And for both of us, the posts and comments our two sites exchange will hopefully entertain as well as provide food for further thoughtful debate for both our audiences, diverse as they promise to be. So, both Kat and I are ready. We’ve backed up the figurative transfer tanks and are ready to start exchanging perspectives. Let’s get started with what I hope will become at least a semi-regular feature for both our blogs, the “Open Debate” series.

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I selected the topic for our first exchange, and it’s a timely one. Over on liberal blog syndicate, The Huffington Post, writer Sam Harris last week posted an essay provocatively titled, Science Must Destroy Religion. No matter who you are, atheist or person of faith, it’s worth reading, especially in context of the forthcoming exchange between MessianicMusings.com and MySingleMomLife.com

Opening posts in a debate are always a bit challenging, but let me start by saying that I was a bit disappointed by the incongruity between the title of Harris’ article, and the actual content. The title sounds like a shot across the bow of religion in the cultural war, a call to arms for scientists to actively work to destroy religious faith.

As it turns out, the actual essay isn’t quite as activist as the title would lead one to expect. Instead, Harris wastes a good portion of the opening paragraphs citing the same old tired cliches we’ve all heard before from the atheist community about how religious faith equals ignorance and is the cause of every evil in the world from most wars ever fought to the common cold.

OK, maybe he didn’t blame the common cold on religion. Yet.

Rather than an active cultural war or the burning of churches or anything quite so drastic as the essay’s title might draw to mind, Harris simply makes the proposal that, somehow, scientists and other anti-God “rationalist” thinkers have been “too polite” and need to start fighting the rhetorical war of words between science and religion with all the evidence in their arsenal and thus somehow vanquish religion on an intellectual level.

As we go further in depth in this debate, I will dig into some of the more detailed flaws I see in Harris’ essay, but on the “big picture” scale my basic reaction to this is, “Since when have atheists been holding back anything?”

From the more obvious pop culture incidences, such as comedienne Kathy Griffin’s recent Emmy outburst, to the more substantial clashes, Harris’ view of a “too polite” scientific community holding back out of fear of hurting the feelings of people of faith, I find a flood of evidence that whatever orders of destruction Harris thinks he’s issuing, the ‘rank and file’ atheists are already about the task and Harris is late to the party.

For decades the ACLU has been working hard to take the separation of church and state to its most extreme degree of interpretation. No Ten Commandments in courthouses, no prayer in schools, no Christmas or Hannukah breaks (it must be referred to as a “winter break.”) And anti-faith folks are hard at work to get “under God” removed from the Pledge, “in God we trust” removed from all currency and, in all likelihood, getting “God” out of “God Bless America” as well. Doesn’t sound like a docile crowd to me. Now, if we could ever convince the atheist crowd to join up with folks of faith in an effort to get any mention of divinity removed from public expressions of the phrase, “Damn it!” we might find a common cause at last!

So yes, I question the accuracy of Harris’ perception of the atheist community as too polite and docile. They seem sufficiently activist to me, and have accomplished quite a bit of cultural change over the last 50 years or so that works to their advantage rather than to the advantage of folks of faith. Personally, I’m less interested in defeating “the other side” than I am trying to increase mutual respect of individuals on both sides of the fence toward one another.

I also take issue with his concept that religion is, by nature, anti-science and vice-versa. I could argue that much of science has been established by men and women of one religious faith or another. But that’s a far more detailed can of worms and I’ll come back to it another time.

Tag, Kat! You’re it!

Tags: atheism, faith, Kat Cooper, MySingleMomLife.com, religion, Sam Harris, Science, TheHuffingtonPost.com