Lies and the lying liars who accuse others of them: A defense of Ergun Caner.

alvin­ists with some time to kill, and a base­ment, can wreak strange hav­oc on ordered soci­ety. Oft it is hard to know whether they do this by design or by tic; whether they need to be arrest­ed for delin­quen­cy, or put on L‑DOPA. I have my opin­ion, but you must be left to decide for your­self, dear read­er.

A cou­ple of caveats will be in order from the out­set. The rea­son they will be in order is because they will be ignored, or denied, even after I’ve giv­en them.  These next few para­graphs may even be skipped over alto­geth­er, as though they were writ­ten in a strange and antique lan­guage not yet deci­phered by even the best cryp­tog­ra­phers. Hav­ing them on the record, for those who hath eyes to read, will give me the oppor­tu­ni­ty, should the time come, to point out fol­ly that has no excuse. (If it had not hap­pened before—I call to wit­ness exhibits A, B, and C—I would not be say­ing it now.)

First, it is not my inten­tion in this post to defend Ergun Caner against every accu­sa­tion of lying that has been made against him.  I address myself only to one par­tic­u­lar accusation—specifically, here and here—by our old friend Mr. X, who weird­ly calls him­self “Tur­ret­inFan.”

An anal­o­gy may help. The one time I had jury duty, the accused stood tri­al for drug pos­ses­sion and resist­ing arrest. We found him guilty of resist­ing arrest and not guilty of drug pos­ses­sion. After­ward, the judge informed we of the jury that, dur­ing the tri­al, he had cau­tioned the pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney that she was not to men­tion that the accused had pri­or con­vic­tions for drug pos­ses­sion. To do so would have biased us against him; and we were to con­sid­er only the mer­its or demer­its of the charge before us. We were pass­ing no judg­ment against oth­er actions the accused may or may not have com­mit­ted.

Sec­ond, I would hope that the read­er will rec­og­nize the allu­sion in my title, and that it is intend­ed only for the joke of call­ing that ear­li­er title to mind in con­text with the accu­sa­tions against Ergun Caner, as well as the loose propen­si­ty some peo­ple have of throw­ing the word “lie” around when all that is real­ly involved is a dif­fer­ent inter­pre­ta­tion of the facts. I do not myself make an accu­sa­tion of lying against any­one.  I accuse my oppo­nents only of being fools—the kind described in Prov. 26:11 and 2 Pet. 2:22. What­ev­er else they are or aren’t is their own busi­ness.

In this arti­cle, I want to look at some of the tac­tics that are fre­quent­ly employed by Inter­net Calvin­ists. In some cas­es, as in the first, those tac­tics are sub­tle and seem­ing­ly eru­dite, but involve a great deal of sleight-of-hand. In oth­er cas­es, as in the sec­ond, the mask is off and the tac­tics take the form of sud­den Twit­ter rant and vio­lent­ly shov­ing words into some­one else’s mouth. Both deserve to be exposed—with rea­son but with firm­ness, call­ing truth by truth’s name.

WORDS ARE MADE TO BEND

When one takes the time to exam­ine Mr. X’s accu­sa­tion of dis­hon­esty on the part of Dr. Caner—specifically, that he lied about the num­ber of debates he has engaged in—one quick­ly finds that, at the heart of the accu­sa­tion, rests a ques­tion of def­i­n­i­tions. As quot­ed by Mr. X him­self, in his arti­cle at Alpha & Omega Sophistries, here is Dr. Nor­man Geisler’s defense of Dr. Caner. Read and note.

“The Charge that Caner False­ly Claims that he has had more than Six­ty Debates with Mus­lims.—Crit­ics chal­lenge this state­ment and claim it is an inten­tion­al embell­ish­ment.  But they mis­tak­en­ly assume that all debates are for­mal. Caner lists many for­mal debates in the last ten years or so.  But he has also engaged in mul­ti­ple infor­mal debates as well.  There is no evi­dence to deny his claim. Indeed, giv­en his numer­ous encoun­ters with Mus­lims, it is rea­son­able to assume there were at least six­ty.

Now, is this only Dr. Geisler’s claim after the fact—a cov­er sto­ry quick­ly devised once Dr. Caner’s disin­gen­u­ous­ness had been exposed before the very eye of aston­ished mankind? Hard­ly.  For as long ago as 2010, in the arti­cle on his own Web site, Mr. X quotes Dr. Caner him­self, thus:

I will get e‑mails … through the web­site and they will say, “Where are your debates?” And my debates are all here, they’re all free. And here are some of the rules that go with it. Even though I’ve done ’em for 20 years, I don’t believe debate is only for­mal. As a mat­ter of fact, I believe you are severe­ly lim­it­ing your­self if the only expo­sure you have to oth­er world reli­gions is through for­mal debate. I believe the most effec­tive means of shar­ing the truth of Jesus Christ the exclu­sive nature of sal­va­tion through Christ can only be found through con­ver­sa­tion. … I became dis­sat­is­fied with for­mal debate and quite frankly dis­gust­ed with some of the prac­ti­tion­ers in that pas­sive-aggres­sive meth­ods of shak­ing their head and mak­ing nois­es, embar­rass­ing them­selves by act­ing petu­lant. And so, like I said, about five, six years ago, I became con­vinced that there had to be anoth­er way. What we’ve done is we’ve estab­lished 3D, which stands for debate, dia­log, and dis­cus­sion, where [Now, pay atten­tion here to what Dr. Caner describes as an exam­ple of “debate” under this def­i­n­i­tion.] we sit around the table and I inter­view, for instance in this first sea­son a Uni­tar­i­an Uni­ver­sal­ist, a Druid, etc. and it’s free form. I even tell them ahead of time, “I will nev­er pro­voke you. I can­not ask you trick ques­tions and this isn’t the Jer­ry Springer show. In oth­er words there’s not going to be a moment where you have to lurch out of your chair to defend your­self.

Now, what I have next to me—on my very desk, dear reader—is a copy of the Amer­i­can Her­itage Dic­tio­nary (paper­back edi­tion of 2004).  I took care to con­sult this valu­able resource, to see whether Dr. Caner and Dr. Geisler had been play­ing fast-and-loose with the word “debate.” And what I dis­cov­ered was that the def­i­n­i­tion sup­plied by those two wor­thy schol­ars was—wait for it—the very same! as def­i­n­i­tion #2. In AHD’s own words, to debate is (take notes, Mr. X) “to dis­cuss oppos­ing points.” In fact, he who con­sults the AHD will have to con­tin­ue all the way to the very last def­i­n­i­tion to find Mr. X’s exclu­sive, sin­gu­lar under­stand­ing of the word: “A for­mal con­test of argu­men­ta­tion in which two oppos­ing teams defend and attack a giv­en propo­si­tion.”  So there you are, dear read­er. Far from Dr. Caner and Dr. Geisler play­ing fast-and-loose with the word, Mr. X is play­ing slow-and-tight. For Mr. X, it is as though the word “debate” is a strait gate and a nar­row way.

Observe how Mr. X insists on treat­ing his one among sev­er­al pos­si­ble usages as though it were nor­ma­tive:

This dis­cus­sion helps to high­light that Dr. Caner is aware of the fact that these inter­views are not for­mal debates.  While he might like to call them “3D,” he seems to be aware that there is no “debat­ing” going on in the con­ven­tion­al sense of the term.

Now, I checked, and rechecked, and rechecked again, and checked a fourth time for good mea­sure; and I invite you to check any dic­tio­nary of your choos­ing. I find noth­ing which would lead me to con­clude that Mr. X’s def­i­n­i­tion is “con­ven­tion­al” while the oth­ers are “uncon­ven­tion­al.” There is noth­ing in the dic­tio­nary to indi­cate that those who use the word in this sense are using it in the nor­mal sense, where­as those who use it in that sense are devi­ous obscu­ran­tists who have to be watched with a close eye by the blog­ging com­mu­ni­ty and apolo­get­ics police. It would seem, from a glance at the dic­tio­nary, that Mr. X’s def­i­n­i­tion is but one among equals. 

How­beit, Mr. X goeth on to ’plain that the debates Dr. Caner list­ed on iTunes® were not “for­mal.” He remains undaunt­ed by the fact that he has just quot­ed Dr. Caner as say­ing that he nev­er meant for­mal debates in the first place. If in King Lear Lear hath cause to ’plain, in the blo­goso­phere Mr. X hath wont to ’plain. Saith Mr. X:

From what I could tell, in every case the for­mat was rough­ly the same:  the vis­i­tor was inter­viewed with a series of ques­tions designed to learn more about the reli­gion.  Some­times the ques­tions are point­ed ques­tions.  Some­times there are ques­tions back to Dr. Caner. How­ev­er, the inter­views appear to be most­ly designed to inform the stu­dents about the reli­gious group whose rep­re­sen­ta­tive was inter­viewed.

Isn’t that the very way Dr. Caner described them in the first place?  He said: “[W]e sit around the table and I inter­view, for instance in this first sea­son a Uni­tar­i­an Uni­ver­sal­ist, a Druid, etc. and it’s free form.” Where’s the incon­sis­ten­cy?

“There does­n’t seem to be any argu­ment,” Mr. X cries, “which would seem to be a nec­es­sary com­po­nent of debate.”

In oth­er words, Mr. X has spilled a lot of vir­tu­al ink in order to prove that the debates Dr. Caner lists were debates in the sense that Dr. Caner says he uses the word. How deceit­ful! What Dr. Caner should have done is to say, “I don’t believe debate is only for­mal,” and then gone on to list only for­mal debates and include only for­mal debates among his total num­bers.

But in fact, what Mr. X has done in his post is to (1) quote Dr. Caner to the effect that he uses the word “debate” under sense a; (2) note that the debates Dr. Caner has done are con­sis­tent with sense a;  (3) claim, with­out any war­rant from the dic­tio­nary, that sense b is the “con­ven­tion­al” sense of the word “debate”; (4) accuse Dr. Caner of duplic­i­ty for not hav­ing done the kind of debates that he nev­er claimed to have done in the first place. 

That, dear read­er, is called sleight-of-hand.

TWISTED TRUTH AND HALF THE NEWS

Of course, the astute read­er might be ask­ing at this point, What does it mat­ter how many debates Dr. Caner has done, or what kind? For essen­tial­ly this is a dis­pute over usages of words. Why does­n’t Mr. X accuse the dic­tio­nary peo­ple of lying?  Why all this pitch and moment to accuse Dr. Caner of every evil that men do under the sun because he remains con­sis­tent with the dic­tio­nary?

That is an apt ques­tion.  I asked it myself; and I asked it in that very venue for all right rea­son, Twit­ter.  (Those who have been read­ing my lat­est blog posts will know my opin­ion of the state of ratio­nal dis­course on Twit­ter.)

https://twitter.com/ScottEricAlt/statuses/380780359857610752

That was on Sep­tem­ber 19. A full six days lat­er, on Sep­tem­ber 25, some­one by the name of J.D. Hall, who runs this Web site and describes him­self in his Twit­ter pro­file as a “planter,” inter­ject­ed him­self.  Now I don’t know any­thing about Mr. J.D.  Hall, “planter,” beyond the exchange that he and I had on Twit­ter.  Apart from our exchange, he might be the gen­tlest soul this side of Pur­ga­to­ry. Per­haps he is straight-faced and ratio­nal except when the sub­ject turns to Ergun Caner or Catholi­cism, at which point he is beset by seizures like Kramer suf­fered when­ev­er he heard Mary Hart’s voice. Per­haps these sub­jects are his full moon.  I don’t know; all I know, and all I can judge by, is our exchange on Twit­ter. It began thus:

@ScottEricAlt You call habit­u­al­ly lying “triv­ial.” Shame on you. #DOWNGRADE Preach­ing repen­tance requires…repentance.

— Protes­tia (@Protestia) Sep­tem­ber 25, 2013

Notwith­stand­ing this lit­tle impre­ca­to­ry psalm, can any­one please tell me where in my orig­i­nal tweet I men­tioned lying?  Point the word out to me if you can. I don’t find it. And since I don’t find it—and you won’t either, look as hard as you will, but don’t waste too much of your day—I can only con­clude that Mr. J.D. Hall, “planter,” is plant­i­ng words in my mouth.  I noti­fied him of such.

@Pul­pi­tAnd­Pen No I did not. I said how many debates ergun­caner has done is a triv­ial sub­ject. Sor­ry to dis­ap­point you.

– Scott Eric Alt (@ScottEricAlt) Sep­tem­ber 25, 2013>/a>

Thus hav­ing been set aright as to my mean­ing, the uncor­rectable Mr. J.D. Hall, “planter,” pro­ceed­ed to accuse me—oh, the irony—of hav­ing poor read­ing com­pre­hen­sion skills.

@scot­ter­i­calt Is that the point of Dr. White’s arti­cle you linked, num­ber of debates? Or the num­ber of LIES? #read­ing­com­pre­hen­sion

– JD Hall (@PulpitAndPen) Sep­tem­ber 25, 2013>/a>

I actu­al­ly do know a lit­tle bit about “read­ing com­pre­hen­sion,” and would set my scores, on the most advanced test known to man, against his on any day at all.  Thus let me school Mr. J.D. Hall, “planter,” on a key point that seems to have sailed over his head into an ether unreach­able by him:  The fact that “Ergun Caner’s lies” is Tur­ret­inFan’s point (not Dr.* White’s; Mr. J.D. Hall, “planter,” could­n’t even get the author right, and he’s lec­tur­ing me about read­ing com­pre­hen­sion) does not mean that it needs to be mine.  I can look at a piece of writ­ing and derive my own points and con­clu­sions, which need not nec­es­sar­i­ly be the author’s. That is what is known as inter­act­ing with the text, and con­sti­tutes a very sophis­ti­cat­ed form of active read­ing.

Undaunt­ed as Mr. X, Mr. J.D. Hall, “planter,” was not done.

@scot­ter­i­calt the sub­stance was not about ergun­caner’s # of debates, but his lies about the # of debates. You are min­i­mal­iz­ing his sin./p>

– JD Hall (@PulpitAndPen) Sep­tem­ber 25, 2013>/a>

Actu­al­ly, the word this Man of Let­ters is look­ing for is “min­i­miz­ing.”  And the “sub­stance” of Mr. X’s arti­cle may have been Dr. Caner’s “lies,” but that was not the sub­stance of my tweet.  Mr. J.D. Hall, “planter,” seems intent on con­fus­ing the two.

There is a more impor­tant point to be made here, though:  I can hard­ly “min­i­mize” a sin I dis­pute occurred in the first place. Nowhere did I once state that I accept­ed the premise that Dr. Caner “sinned” when talk­ing about the debates he has done.  Mr. J.D. Hall, “planter,” sim­ply assumes it.  One hash­tag: #read­ing­com­pre­hen­sion.

But Mr. J.D. Hall, “planter,” was not done, and felt oblig­ed to end with the fol­low­ing Chris­t­ian vol­ley:

@scot­ter­i­calt But then again, you think your sin is paid for by a trea­sury of mer­it, so defend­ing a heretic kin­da makes sense now.>

– JD Hall (@PulpitAndPen) Sep­tem­ber 25, 2013>/a>

I am lost—perhaps you are too, dear reader—what the fact that I am Catholic has to do with the pre­ced­ing dis­cus­sion.  My defense of Dr. Caner, such as it was at the moment, had noth­ing to do with my Catholi­cism, or with any doc­trine of the Church.  Dr. Geisler has defend­ed Dr. Caner, but last I checked he’s not Catholic. Nei­ther is Dr. Caner Catholic, to my knowl­edge. What does it mean to say, in effect, “You only defend Dr. Caner because you’re Catholic and heretics stick togeth­er”?

Twit­ter is not the venue for the rea­soned exchange of ideas; if any­thing, the oppo­site is the case.  That is why I’ve stopped engag­ing in back-and-forth barbs on Twit­ter. Emo­tive fol­ly runs wild, and Inter­net Calvin­ism on that pus­tule of a site is like­wise in need of a strong dose of sul­fa.  But let not your heart be trou­bled, dear read­er.  That’s the rea­son I am here, and why I respond on my blog, where I can rea­son out a thought and pon­der evi­dence; and not on Twit­ter, where I am lim­it­ed to a 150-char­ac­ter one-lin­er.  I think in para­graphs; I con­sid­er and I weigh. Here is where I do it.

 

Update. J.D. Hall, to his cred­it, has had a change of heart about his approach to Dr. Caner. The arti­cle in Chris­t­ian Post goes on to say that the same can not be said for Dr.* White. See also this post by Peter Lump­kins.