Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, continues to passive-aggressively respond to my posts, often refusing to mention my name or link to my writing. In a post titled Why Noah’s Ark Will Not be Found, Thiessen wrote:
People want evidence
This is what the modern world has turned into. Due to the rise in scientific influence and its demand for physical evidence, everyday people want to see evidence before they accept a premise as true.
The demand for evidence has overwhelmed the population elbowing the requirement for faith to the sidelines. It used to be that people believed the Bible without the need of any evidence.
That is not blind faith but acknowledging the fact that without faith one cannot please God. Also, it is an act of obedience as faith has always been the requirement for salvation and other biblical topics.
However, when science was placed as an authority the demand for real physical evidence rose and people stopped obeying God and wanted to see more and more physical evidence.
….
While we have so much evidence for Noah’s flood, it still takes faith to believe the biblical record. We do not know how Noah and his sons built such a large ship, how they weathered the storm, and much more. Everything about the flood has to be taken by faith.
Except for the lesson that God provided through this biblical event. Instead of searching for the ark, people should be learning what disobedience is going to cost them.
According to Thiessen, people used to “believe the Bible without the need of any evidence.” He provides no evidence or study for his claim, but I will accept his claim for the sake of argument. While there was likely a time when believers generally put their faith in the Bible and rarely, if ever, questioned its claims, thanks to the scientific method and the proliferation of evidence on the Internet that challenges faith claims, Christians are more likely to question and doubt what they hear from the pulpit. Thiessen, of course, will attribute this to Satan. After all, it was Lucifer (Actually a talking snake. The Bible never says the snake was the Devil.) who said to Adam and Eve, “Yea hath God said”? The answer to the snake’s question, of course, is “no.”
We teach our children not to trust people just because of what they say or their position of authority. Smart parents teach their children to be skeptical of all claims, including those uttered by authority figures. If a teacher, preacher, policeman, or other authority makes a claim, they should, at the very least, justify their claim. Every claim should stand on its own two feet. We should remain skeptical until hearing sufficient evidence to justify a claim.
However, when it comes to Evangelical Christianity, people are expected to check their brains at the door. Faith, not reason, is the standard of judgment. If a teaching or belief sounds irrational, just have faith. If a pastor’s preaching seems to run contrary to what we know to be true, just have faith. No matter how crazy a belief sounds, just have faith.
Thiessen says “We have so much evidence for Noah’s flood,” — a claim that is categorically false — but turns right around and says “It still takes faith to believe the biblical record.” Here’s the thing, if we have evidence, we don’t need faith. Faith is what people exercise when they don’t have a good reason to believe. Show me, I will believe, and then I won’t need faith.
Faith is never a good way to determine whether something is true. Faith allows people to believe all sorts of crazy things, including the supernatural claims of the Bible and Donald Trump’s claim that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. Thiessen would have us believe everything in the Bible by faith, even without an evidentiary reason to do so. Only in religion do we ask people to place faith over reason, skepticism, and rational inquiry. Imagine a scientist presenting a paper without evidence for his claims. “Brethren, I ask you to take my word for it that eating three Snickers bars a day cures fibromyalgia.” Why, this scientist would be laughed out of the room. His fellow scientists would demand empirical evidence for his claims, and even then, they would likely retest his claims before accepting them as true.
Thiessen wants us to just close our eyes and wish upon a star. Any and every absurd claim can be believed if people will just have faith. But that’s not how the world works in 2024. It’s not 1100 CE anymore. We now live in a scientific era where people are expected to provide evidence for their claims — including preachers, evangelists, missionaries, and Sunday school teachers. If credible evidence cannot be provided, moderns will not believe.
Thiessen longs for a day when people just took his word for it. I am sure it grates on him that he is no longer viewed as an authority on the Bible; and that people rightly challenge his bald assertions. If Thiessen wants us to believe, all he has to do is provide evidence for his claims. Not quote Bible verses or appeal to hermeneutic sleight of hand, but actual evidence. I remain ready and willing to believe. All it would take to convert me is to provide sufficient evidence for the existence of the Christian deity and the central claims of Christianity. So far, this evidence has not been forthcoming.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Connect with me on social media:
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
The real irony is that Tee is less knowledgeable of the bible than most informed atheists, and certainly than any properly educated seminary student in a decent place of education. He knows what the bible says but he doesn’t understand it. Bart Ehrman has a lot of material on this point.
I concur. His theology is often heterodox or heretical. He seems to lack a basic understanding of basic Christian theology. This is odd since he allegedly has 6-7 years of Evangelical theological education and a lifetime of studying the Bible. He recently wrote a series of post on Charles Finney’s theology. It was a train wreck of a series, to say the least. I know Finney’s Arminian theology inside and out. Tee overlooked several key Finney beliefs such as perfect love and sinless perfection — both teachings Tee should have considered heretical.
Sadly, Evangelical preachers can get through college/seminary without learning much. This isn’t the norm, but many graduates are deficient in understanding Christian theology.
Thiessen’s response:
https://theologyarchaeology.wordpress.com/2024/09/12/some-people-just-love-to-complain/
🤣🤣🤣🤣
The sign in front of a church in my town currently reads “Faith is believing in something that common sense tells you not to.” I couldn’t believe when I read this and had to drive around again to make sure I had read it correctly. How is the argument that you need to throw out common sense in any way convincing? At least this church concedes it has nothing else to fall back on. If ignoring common sense is the guideline for your life you are in for a world of hurt.
Believing in things without evidence is what has brought us to having a presidential candidate saying during the debate that Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets. I was talking with some of my European colleagues yesterday, and they were laughing and asking why are people so gullible. They asked how are the polls so close when it’s so obvious Trump is a moron?
Yet again, painful drivel from Tee. He’s struggling to make a coherent point. On the one hand he dismisses evidence as being unimportant in comparison to faith, but then he complains that you can’t provide evidence to demonstrate the non existence of Jesus or of God! The guy really is a moron. My evidence for the non existence of these fictional entities (though probably Jesus did once exist) is the fact that people like Tee can’t provide evidence in support of their claim. I don’t have to provide any evidence; the burden is entirely his. He deflects when he says God doesn’t owe us any duty to demonstrate his existence, because your article did nothing more than lay out an example of what would convince you. If God doesn’t want to engage with you then that’s his/its right but then you are perfectly reasonable in saying you doubt God’s existence as a result.
As for Gary Habermas! Please!!
I sort of feel sorry for this guy. As I did for a lot of the kids I grew up with. Our little town had a lot of churches (that’s really the only social organization that was available for kids) and some churches were more strict than others. One of my friends had to wear dresses with nylons and nice shoes ALL the time, even when it was 12 degrees and the sidewalks were icy. Another friend wasn’t allowed to participate in any class parties or celebrations of any sort. The friend in the dresses wasn’t allowed to listen to music unless it was religious. Point being that they were very limited in their world view. So many things to see and do and learn were not available to them. Their growth was deliberately stunted through the general application of blind faith and crazy interpretations of their various patriarchal figures. I wasn’t able to do quite a few things either. My patriarchal figure was not only a misogynist, but mentally ill. Fun times.
Thiessen, for all his assholishness and cruelty, is afraid to look beyond the end of his own nose. He’s stunted. So yeah, he’s a dick, and probably a waste of oxygen, but how sad to miss out on a real life.
AMI, it’s the very meaning of Tee’s life.. Bible thumping is his life so he is fully invested in it. Having a conflict of interest in the subject, he is not a credible witness about it. Even his insistance on his sincerity has no probabtive value because his career depends on, at least, the appearance he sincerely believes.
“Instead of searching for the ark, people should be learning what disobedience is going to cost them.”
I think that’s called gaslighting.