Martyr of the Week: Matt Powell

For some reason, Mr. Powell just cannot let our exchange end without ducking back into the punch one last time. His latest post on it combines incessant whining with precisely the kind of arrogant presumptuousness that he accuses me of:

Ed Brayton from Dispatches from the Culture Wars is a very intelligent person. He debated me fiercely, refused to see any of my points, and had lengthy refutations for every one of my posts. After a certain point, I'd give up, at which point Ed would goad me into another confrontation where he would do the same thing. He tied me up in knots and deflected what I felt were the real issues with sidetracks and tangents. At the end of it, I felt like I'd been wrestling with a pig, with the only result being that we both got really muddy. His supporters on his site were naturally unanimous in declaring his victory and pronouncing me to be deluded, moronic, silly, and uninformed. And I became like the thing I criticized, becoming arrogant myself and making the argument about me, instead of about God, by the end of the discussion. At the end, I just felt vaguely soiled, and not just from all the personal abuse and name-calling I received. I have this vague feeling of having somehow demeaned the name of God, although it's difficult for me to pin down why.

This is not at all an attempt to "goad" you into responding again, you seem compelled to keep this going even after declaring three times that you were done with it. But Matt, if God was demeaned every time someone made silly arguments to support their beliefs about him, he would be lower than a snake by now. If God managed to survive Moses claiming that he told him to commit genocide in his name, he can surely withstand your illogical arguments defending Moses' claim. As far as I am concerned, I debated you fiercely because I think you are wrong and because I think defending a barbaric code of conduct diminishes our ability to build a more humane world. I didn't "refuse" to see any of your points, I simply refuted your points, each one being more ridiculous than the last in defense of the indefensible.

As far as your whining about how unfairly you were treated, this is just another example of the Martyr Pose, which fundamentalist Christians seem inordinately fond of striking. The bottom line is that you made stupid arguments and I called those arguments stupid. I also, as you admit, provided lengthy and detailed explanations for why they were stupid. And for all the arrogance you accused me of, you were the one who offered to "teach" me about the "biblical system of philosophy and morality" in lieu of actually responding to my long and detailed response (that was the 2nd time you said you'd had enough and you were taking your ball and going home). And you're back in this post with the following arrogant nonsense:

According to Scripture, anyone who refuses to see the truth of the Bible is a fool. Therefore, when dealing with unbelievers, you are always on one side or the other of those two verses. How do you know? And how can you avoid both errors? Was I preventing Ed from being wise in his own eyes? If that's the goal, I failed miserably. Or, was I becoming like him? That alternative seems more likely.

This post may earn me the honor of being one of Ed's "Idiots of the Week". But if I suffer shame for Christ, it should be a glory to me. If the worst thing that happens to me is that a guy like that ridicules me, it's a small price to pay.

Yet another curiously popular pose for folks like you, the "I'm suffering for my faith because of people like you, but that is a badge of honor" pose. So Matt, you're not getting the idiot of the week, you're getting the Martyr of the Week. There's a wonderful exchange in the movie The Ref, where Kevin Spacey finally stands up to his mother, who is always striking the poor martyr pose, and says:

You know what I'm going to get you next Christmas, Mom? A big wooden cross, so that every time you feel unappreciated for your sacrifices, you can climb on up and nail yourself to it.

But look on the bright side, Matt. According to your own reasoning, since all suffering is caused directly by God and you've suffered so horrendously from me calling your stupid arguments stupid, I'm only doing God's will.