Pseudo Intellectualism

I just finished viewing a magnificent video taken using the Hubble telescope that demonstrates the vastness of the Universe in which we live. Only to read the comments of a series of self-declared intellectual nincompoops ridicule a fellow who saw in it the magnificence of God and his amazement that God would take note of him. 

One man looks at the video and sees the beautiful planned product of the mighty hand of God and other sees nothing more that the beautiful product of a randomly self-created Universe. One man sees in that vastness the value God places on man the crown of God's creation and another looking at the same wondrous sight the insignificance of mankind. 

I was content to sit idly by and listen while each of these groups of people expressed their view points and the arguments that bolstered them. But as I read through these comments where they each expressed their wonder I soon began to detect a pattern where the later began to ridicule and deride the man of faith's religion and what in their view was his inferior intellectual capacity.  

Up until this point it had been a fascinating discussion and one that I knew would never reach a place of consensus between the two view points.  I probably should have realized that at some point frustration over that fact would lead to someone forfeiting the intellectual and/or moral high ground. It could have gone either way but it didn't. It was the intellectual elitist who abandoned his argument and struck a sarcastic pose.  Instead of debate we are now involved in name calling and belittling those who see the Universe as the handiwork of a intelligent design and the designer as God.  

I'm certain they thought they were bring cute and witty. However, these attacks by some obnoxious pseudo intellectual elitists only served to divert my attention from the wonder of  the Universe as revealed in the Hubble video regardless of how that wonder came to be. Now my attention is focused on not their arguments but their attitudes. I now realized that no matter how big, wonderful and grand this Universe in which we live is found to be it is but the size of a single atom in comparison to the Ego of the pseudo intellectual. 

So my takeaway from this is the need for an intellectual attitude adjustment. First, the validity of this man's choice for how everything came to be is not their call to make any more than their rejection of that view is his call. In some strange twist of fate their ridicule of him and his faith supposition undermined their own faith supposition. You see. if his view of causation and what it entails is ridiculous then what does that say about their own indemonstrable view. Neither view can be demonstrated as true . . . possible maybe but absolute . . . never. One begins with the supposition that "In the beginning God created" and the other "In the beginning it just happened. 

I am happy to discuss religion, science, politics with anyone interested in an honest conversation. However, when the tone turns to ridicule of argument or person I am done. You see, the pseudo intellectual reveals his falseness when he begins to ridicule. The Reductio ad absurdum is a fallacy in which ridicule or mockery is substituted for evidence in an "argument.  Ridicule is the first and last argument of a fool and no one wants to endure the folly of a fool.  

I think it was Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz  who said to his students that a strategy for successfully defending a case is, " If the facts are on your side, pound the facts into the table. If the law is on your side, pound the law into the table. If neither the facts nor the law are on your side, pound the table." In the discussion of the origin of the Universe ridicule and mockery is the equivalent of the intellectually elite pounding the table.