The Limitations of Twitter for Theological Debate!

I should know better.  I really should.  Yet I went ahead anyway!

For a couple of years now I have had a Twitter account.  I use it for personal communication and to post the odd bit of simple theological reflection, social commentary and quotations from the Bible.  I have had positive responses, quite a few shares and have a reasonable number of followers.

A couple of day I got into a Twitter conversation with a couple of disciples of Richard Dawkins, new atheists who are not merely content in believing that God doesn't exist but feel the need to try and convince everybody else that God doesn't exist: people who respond quite aggressively to the things Christians post on Twitter.  As Christians we are commanded by Jesus to tell others of our faith.  I'm not quite sure why atheists feel the need to try and convert people of faith to their belief system - and it is a belief system, make no mistake.  It takes just as much faith to believe that God does not exist as to believe that God does exist, since God's existence cannot be categorically proved or disproved.

Anyway, the limitations of Twitter became clear when I was challenged to provide documentary evidence of Jesus outside of the Christian scriptures, particularly of his miracle working.  There is such evidence, as it happens, but trying to detail and explain it in 140 characters is difficult, if not impossible.  There are subtleties that just cannot be fitted into a short, pithy post.

For example, how do you into the details of all the documentation in 140 characters?  How do you explain that we have copies of the New Testament documents that are far earlier than sources of other ancient documents that are accepted without question?  How do you go into the evidence from Josephus and extract the original writing from the later Christian additions?

Incidentally when I mentioned the Jewish Talmud, which does indeed reference Jesus as working miracles, though attributing them to the powers of sorcery, there was no direct response from the new atheists.  The Talmud was composed very close to the life of Jesus.  Again, how do you get all this into 140 characters?

The answer to these questions is you can't.  It is very easy for the atheists to get their point across in 140 characters because, by and large, they use shallow ridicule and cheap point scoring rather than serious engagement with historical and documentary sources, such as "how much faith are you using up by not accepting the existence of Allah, Thor or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?" (this in response to my suggestion that believing God does not exist is also an act of faith); or how about "the scientific method doesn't deal with faith.  I have been presented with zero evidence, therefore atheist" (in response to my point that for God to be worthy of the designation he is, by definition, beyond absolute scientific proof).

As a Minister I am always happy to discuss my faith with people, but I shall no longer be entering into debates on Twitter with new atheists because the limitations of Twitter do not allow such debate, at least not for me.

Lesson learned!