Gregory Clark’s Oct. 10 column, “Ridiculous, repugnant ideas don’t deserve respect,” responding to Holly Richardson’s op-ed, “We can know God’s will and see his hand,” rang seriously off-key to me. He either misread and misconstrued her main points, or at the least pursued a narrow, contorted interpretation.
Mostly it appeared a straw-man argument, bolstered by other basic logical fallacies (i.e. a real God wouldn’t allow such-and-such, so belief in God’s existence deserves derision), to justify rudeness.
The chief straw man Clark creates and attacks goes something like this: “Many religions have false, irrational, sometimes ridiculous or harmful beliefs, practices and historical incidents (cherry-picked and presented in disingenuous manner in my estimation); therefore, contrary to Richardson’s remarks, we should not respect such beliefs and their adherents.