Laughing at fundamentalists? Lessons from John Loftus and Keith
Parsons  Posted on 06/10/13 77 Comments  The title of John
Loftus’ article says it all: “Professor Keith Parsons Advocates
Ridicule.” Well, okay it doesn’t exactly say it all. You have to
read the article to find that Loftus agrees with Parsons.
Fundamentalists should be ridiculed. However, Loftus adds “Keep
in mind we don’t advocate this as the only response.” Why even
bother adding that? That’s like saying “Illegal immigrants
should be beaten. But keep in mind we don’t advocate this as the
only response.” Gee, isn’t that thoughtful.  So we ought to
laugh at and ridicule fundamentalists. But then what is a
fundamentalist, exactly? In a delightful philosophical
reflection on the way the term functions in common
parlance, Alvin Plantinga concludes:  “The full meaning of the
term, therefore (in this use), can be given by something like
‘stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are considerably to
the right of mine.’” (Warranted Christian Belief,