After reading Lance Sacknoff’s “Learn Bible before judging religion,” I became enraged. My anger was not brought on by the ideas that Mr. Sacknoff held; I share similar thoughts. I became enraged by his sheer lack of a logical argument and his overall tone in the piece. Mr. Sacknoff’s article, at least to me, appeared to attempt to show Mr. Clarke’s opinion as flawed. However, Mr. Sacknoff grossly failed to do so. In order to show that a person’s stance on a subject is flawed, you must do one of two things 1. You must discredit your opponent. This shows that their foundation is flawed and the rest of their arguments will quickly crumble. 2. You must discredit your opponent’s ideas individually. If you can do that, then they no longer have an argument to hold on to.

While I may or may not agree with either Mr. Clarke or Mr. Sacknoff, Mr Clarke put forth the more convincing article and because of this I come to his defense. To defend Mr. Clarke’s viewpoint I could pick apart each of Mr. Sacknoff’s stances. However, I do not think I have enough space to do so. So instead I will discredit him in three separate ways.

First, Mr. Sacknoff found he had difficulty deciphering which “God” Mr. Clarke was referencing. This shows that Mr. Sacknoff lacks the logical capacity to make a decision with any convincing amount of certainty and thusly shows that he lacks the logical capacity to make a convincing argument. If someone is talking about Easter, and Easter is celebrated by Christians, then logically it will be the Christian God that would be brought up, if brought up at all.

Secondly, Mr. Sacknoff contradicted himself when he attacked Mr. Clarke for “interpret[ing] the word of his omnipotent God.” Mr. Sacknoff then proceeds to quote Bible verses and interpret them himself! This shows that Mr. Sacknoff can not hold a strong foundation for his own ideas because he has now made himself a hypocrite, and nobody likes a hypocrite.

Finally, Mr. Sacknoff lacks basic knowledge and ability to differentiate between two people. I am of course referring to paragraphs 9 and 10, where he quotes a line from Moses and then proceeds to proclaim that “Jesus says you need to be executed!” It is sad that a person can not distinguish between completely different men who lived a great number of years apart.

After reading Mr. Sacknoff’s opinion, I tried to imagine it as a joke or even in a sarcastic tone. But I fail to see how anyone who claims to be educated, intellectual, open-minded, accepting or virtuous could hold such a flawed and poor opinion.

To Mr. Clarke: Though I doubt that you would need any assistance in dismantling Mr. Sacknoff in a public debate, I humbly offer you my help regardless.

To Mr. Sacknoff: Maybe a public debate would not be such a good idea for you. With you being a graduate student in English, I think that you are best suited for correcting other people’s grammatical errors, not their philosophical ideas. So please, next time, stick to what you know.