Ron Patterson here with a word or two on contradictions and the fundamentalist mind.
Skeptics, on this network and elsewhere, have pointed out hundreds of biblical contradictions and have been amazed at how fundamentalists could not, or would not, acknowledge a single one of them. After giving both a lot of thought and reading to this matter, I think that I can shed a little light on the subject.
It is not just biblical contradictions that many fundamentalists cannot acknowledge, but any contradiction dealing with their religion. While reading "The Creationists Movement in Modern America" (Eve and Harrold, 1990, page 167), I came across the following passage, pertaining to students who were taught both creation AND evolution in school.
"One unhappy effect of the two-model approach was found by Jones (1987). Among students in her study, instruction in creation was associated statistically with poorer thinking skills. Specifically, students with secondary school instruction in creationism were found to be more likely to accept mutually contradictory aspects of evolutionary theory and creationism as BOTH true, despite the logical impossibility. In this case, two-model instruction, far from increasing the effectiveness of science education as creationists often claim, led some students to end up with Orwellian doublethink, simultaneously holding two contradictory views."
To understand how the fundamentalist can believe two contradictory statements at the same time, one must understand their total and unabashed dependence on authority. The vast majority of fundamentalists are well aware of the many contradictions in the Bible. They believe however, that they are only "apparent" contradictions. They also realize that these "apparent" contradictions are well beyond their own ability to harmonize. Nevertheless, they believe, somewhere there is a great authority who can somehow explain away all these "apparent" contradictions.
If we could ever find these great authorities or scholars, we would find that they also rely on the appeal to authority to help explain the unexplainable. No less an authority than Billy Graham has his own authorities.
"Why do I believe in the Devil? For three reasons: Because the Bible plainly says he exist. Because I see his work everywhere. Because great scholars have recognized his existence." Billy Graham, "This Week", March 2, 1958.
When all else fails, when the fundamentalist is confronted with a contradiction so absurd that no "earthly" authority can possibility explain it, he can still appeal to that great authority in the sky. In more than one debate with Church of Christ preacher Thomas Thrasher, I have tried to get him to explain the justice of killing little children for the crimes of their fathers. God killed David's baby because of what David did. He also killed 70,000 of David's men because David took a God inspired head count. I also asked him to explain the punishment of the innocent, (Jesus) as payment for the sins of the guilty, (man). These things seemed to me to be the epitome of injustice. He continually refused give any explination at all but when trapped in the question and answer session after one of the debates, he replied that if we could only think on God's level, we would see the justice in it all.
Of course, we all depend on the appeal to authority to some extent in our everyday lives. We depend on the authority of the doctor to tell us what ails our bodies and on the authority of the auto mechanic to tell us what ails our car. S. Morris Engle, in his excellent book on logical fallacies, "With Good Reason" (1982 page 187), put it this way: "Appeals to authority are often valid, as when we tell someone to use a certain medicine because the doctor has prescribed it. But appeals to authority can be fallacious, as when we cite those who have no special competence regarding the matter at hand. The FALLACY OF APPEAL TO AUTHORITY, therefore, is an argument that attempts to overawe an opponent into accepting a conclusion by playing on his or her reluctance to challenge famous people, time honored customs, or widely held beliefs. The fallacy appeals, at base, to our feelings of modesty, to our sense that others know better than we do."
The fallacy of appeal to authority is at its lowest ebb however, when one uses it on ones self, that is, when one uses it as excuse for not engaging in critical and logical thinking.
Perhaps I am being too harsh, perhaps that is the best some people can do. Perhaps old Schopenhauer had it right when he said: "The majority of men...are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and...are not accessible to reason, but only to authority."
Arthur Schopenhauer:
Supplements to the World as Will and Idea.
Ron Patterson