Recently, David Thiessen of Theology Archaeology (who remains too cowardly and too afraid to use my real name, or link to my site, because he is afraid of accountability, I wonder if I should resume using his real details, instead of remaining complicit in his deceit?), wrote an angry post, where he took aim at a post of mine here at Meerkat Musings, but also at the landing page of the Coalition of the Brave. In his anger, he accused me of being complicit in sending people to Hell, and his post was obviously typed up in a hurry, but alas, David did not stop to think about what he was writing, and he did not think about what he was addressing.

You see, he framed his post from the belief that I was attacking Christianity. My post here at Meerkat Musings does not reference Christianity at all, yet Thiessen suggests a strawman argument, based off this paragraph:

I wanted to tackle the idea that if a theory or explanation is not one-hundred perfect, it should be rejected.

This is a strawman argument where the author creates an argument that has nothing to do with the reality of the situation. No one has ever said that the theory or explanation has to be 100% perfect. No Christian we know demands perfection from any scientist or scholar.

I did not reference Christianity, nor Christians, nor indeed religion at all in my post, so this is in itself a strawman.

What we have demanded is that they tell the truth and get to the truth. Thjeories and explanations may touch on the truth but almost always veer away from it when authored by unbelievers.

We have seen this take place on a number of occasions where the scientist or archaeologist are on the right track, following the evidence correctly, then make a sudden right turn to a false idea.

We are not asking anyone to be perfect or have perfect ideas, we just ask them to stick to the truth. The theories, hypothesis, and conclusions offered by secular researchers may be THEIR best explanation but it is not the truth.

On the contrary, by demanding that researchers hold to the ‘truth’ (as David sees it), he is demanding that theories be 100% behind the literal interpretation of the Bible. He demands that researchers ignore evidence in favour of a Biblical explanation. The truth is, if the evidence does not point to a Biblical answer for something, then it mean the Biblical explanation is probably wrong. It is exceedingly arrogant to assume the best explanation that fits the facts should take second place to what he regards as the truth.

You see, David approaches research and science backwards. He has his conclusion, and he demands that all the evidence should suit his conclusion, and if it doesn’t, it is in error, or dishonest, or the result of evil secular science. No good researcher would take their conclusion as the starting point. They would draw conclusions from available evidence and information. His hysterical whining and his strange remarks will not sway me from following evidence. Maybe if he started to conduct himself in a grown-up manner, and drop his rhetoric, he would get a bit more respect.

UPDATE 11/6/24: David has written up yet another post on this subject, asking ‘MM’ questions. I don’t know who MM is, since that isn’t my name, or anything even close to my name, so I guess we’ll all have to wait and see if MM answers. In the meantime, I guess we’ll have to wait and see if David can muster up the honour and courage to ask me any questions…