Intellectual Honesty? Uh, no.

I ran across a post by some Xanga-ite at my school that just ripped into conservative Christianity and the Bible Belt culture. Except he didn't actually rip into it--he just ranted and raved, using plenty of strong language but virtually no substance. I plan to keep track of his posts for a while to see if the tripe I encountered is standard, or if he just needed to get out a heated rant. My dad responded to it in the comments section, and he was extremely polite and offered genuine, constructive criticism. The Xanga-ite emailed him back and explained that it was a rant post, not intending to advance an intellectual argument. Fine, but wherever it is, your real argument had better come, because you can't simply level the kinds of vague charges against a very large group of people without support and get away with it. I think what bugged me the most was the short, dismissive comment immediately after my dad's by some guy in Kentucky:

"another baby boomer over-reacting without grounds to do so"

Of course, I had to comment on his comment:

Another immature commenter who would rather dismiss a reasonable criticism than actually engage in an intellectual discussion...

Assuming my first impression of this guy (and his commenter) is right--which it may not be; I'll be watching--it's people like him who claim to have something worthwhile to say about Christianity but actually sabotage those of us who genuinely attempt meaningful discussion.

Once again, let me reiterate: I'm not making any conclusions about this guy yet, just about my first impression.