The Slander-Psychology Challenge to James Patrick Holding

It is my contention that James Patrick Holding, infamous for highly charged inflammatory insults against anybody who disagrees with him, has never bothered to consider the psychological forces put in play in his follower's minds as they eagerly watch him lambaste and verbally abuse atheists and other bible critics.

It is my contention that these psychological forces motivate himself and his followers to no less degree than they do in any other context (i.e., atheist insulting a Christian in an atheist forum, comedian insulting somebody during non-religious stand-up routine, etc).

In other words, it is my contention that the reasons Holding's small band of cash donors find him so entertaining and edifying for insulting critics, is for reasons no less purely naturalistic than when atheists find their group leader so edifying and entertaining when he or she insults critics of atheism.

Which, if true, leads necessarily to the conclusion that there is not the slightest shred of evidence that the "edification" they feel when watching him in action, has any more "Holy Spirit" to it, than the same feelings experienced by atheists who similarly laugh and bond while watching their group leader verbally slash away at critics of atheism.

So that if I am right, that one trait that Holding has worked so hard to hone and perfect, is a trait that can be fully explained in purely naturalistic terms.  Adding "But Jesus insulted the Pharisees too!" doesn't import the least bit of spirituality back into this purely naturalistic phenomena.

With that said, I challenge Holding to write an article listing what mental health professionals say in academic and popular sources, about the purely naturalistic motives people have to either insult others, or to watch their leader insult others.  That is, for what reasons are certain people attracted to that style of communication that constantly belittles one's critics?

When he lists those motives, he should then provide argument for why he believes the theory "this is God in me, causing me to be bold in the Spirit" explains better these traits when found in Christians, than does any non-Christian theory.

I'll start him off so that he doesn't conveniently misunderstand his assigned homework:

First, common sense says Mr. Holding is not god.  Therefore, it is far from certain that when Holding tell the world why he is motivated to belittle his critics, he is telling the truth.  WE have to decide whether his self-serving explanation is true, or if his reasons for insulting his critics are more sinful than this.

Second, common sense says a person can be motivated by anger to insult another.  Holding would be wise to avoid saying yes, he sometimes insults in anger.  He is totally apathetic toward the divine inspiration of the bible, and with such a powerful non-Christian trait about him, it could be argued that the reason he gets angry at critics of Christianity is for no no more significant reason than one professional historian would start talking shit toward another professional historian as they disagree on what happened in the remote past.  The way anger manifests itself when people debate matters that have no definitive resolution anyway, like economics, legal policy, war, constitutional rights, etc, etc.  While anger could possibly ultimately be from the Holy Spirit, Holding will never show evidence that the divine explanation is any better than the naturalistic one.

Third, common sense says a person can be motivated by a selfish desire to dominate others, to insult somebody.  We see that everyday when somebody says "shut the fuck up you fucking fool", and the followers laugh.  So while desire to dominate others could possibly be from the Holy Spirit, Holding will never show evidence that the divine explanation is any better than the naturalistic one.

Fourth, "An insult can thus be interpreted as an attempt to reduce the social status of the recipient and raise the relative status of the insulter." And to this Holding would readily agree, and this is where his case starts to fall apart: Why do you wish to reduce the social status of the insult-recipient, Holding?  Are you afraid that your having allegedly "won" some argument on the merits won't be quite enough to persuade your highly intelligent admirers that your defense really did succeed?  If you trust that these smart people can recognize when you've really won or lost some debate with a critic, then what further benefit are you trying to confer on them by using insult to reduce the social status of said critic? 

Fifth, we cannot discount the possibility that the desire to insult could also chiefly arise from sheer immaturity.  Kids do nothing else better than nag and poke fun at each other, and given that most kids do this without regard to religion, there's a solid argument here that some type of bonding is achieved in the group if they watch with enthusiasm as their leader excoriates somebody who criticized the group or their beliefs, or who otherwise doesn't fit in.  Unfortunately for Holding, he cannot persuasively argue that this theory of insult-motive is unlikely for either himself or his admiring followers.  Insults do indeed usually achieve the benefit of having the group bond just a bit more against the insulted person, and since this happens naturalistically, it will likely aways be a more probable explanation than "I am bold because of the Holy Spirit".

Sixth, we cannot deny that most mature civilized adults counsel us to resolve our differences with each other without shouting matches and insults.  This is a pattern across various demographics of adults in the modern civilized world, both Christian and non-Christians, so we have to take seriously the possibility that, at least for purposes of trying to resolve disagreements about "truth", that part of humanity who are most likely to get it right (the mature), counsel against vitriolic barbs most likely because this type of communication proves to more stifle, than promote,  the prospect of resolving disagreement.  If that is the case, we have to seriously consider that those people who characteristically insult and demean their critics, are either doing this for purely entertainment purposes, or really are more interested in strifling truth, or a combination of both, but the point is that vitriolic insulting certainly does nothing to help one win an argument on the merits.  So the person doing this type of insulting is therefore seeking little more than for his followers to applaud him.

Seventh, some studies indicate that we insult other according to our culture:

Germans, Americans and Italians were especially drawn to anal terms of abuse, such as variations on “asshole”, whereas Spaniards preferred to query the offender’s intelligence. British and Dutch participants leaned towards genital terminology, and Norwegians specialised in satanic expressions. Animal terms and sexual inadequacies and abnormalities were also common.

Since Holding could not make clearer his preference for homosexual and anal references, he must face the daunting prospect that the reason he personally prefers such language has absolutely nothing to do with "God" and everything to do with him being exactly like millions of other Americans, only to a more extreme degree since most heterosexual men don't use homoerotic language nearly as repetitiously as Holding.

That should be enough to get Holding to start working on his assigned homework, the way he "assigned homework" to G.A. Wells and others.

If Holding and his ilk seriously wish to be "godly", how much effort have they put into making sure their sinful lust to insult others is suppressed, so that when they insult others, this is more than likely the Holy Spirit speaking through them?

Or did I forget that Holding and his followers view Christianity is nothing more than an intellectual game?