You're Supposed to Eat Soup with a Fork

    In most cases, if someone told me to eat my soup with a fork, I would ignore the comment. Maybe they like to eat their soup with a fork, I think, knowing that this is clearly not the best way to eat it, given that I can prove that spoons are the better way; they were invented for this reason. Putting the epistemology of spoons aside, I could also lean on my lived experience, which has proven the facts of the spoons' claims. Combining that with literally thousands of hours of using and studying spoons, it would be foolish to suddenly switch to forks when (clearly) the other person is confused, wrong, or has simply selected a preference that they are entitled to, but by no means should suggest it is of equal validity as the spoon.

    What I'm getting at is that it's very clear spoons are made for eating soup, so surely no one in their right mind would switch over to using forks... right?

    The key is being in your "right mind," of which I find most people these days are not. That is most evident in a situation like this: You, being someone who's learned, experienced, and honestly wanting the best for someone's soup-eating, would be able to easily explain, demonstrate, and justify why they should eat with spoons, whereas the other person is going to have a far harder time explaining the nuance of forking. Not only that, but what you don't understand is that this person has been indoctrinated from birth (or even after) to believe that eating with a fork is the only way to eat soup, and that anyone who doesn't eat with a fork isn't really eating the whole soup. You see, they've "always believed" that soup should be eaten with a fork, and therefore, it is you, the "dumb Spoon-e-stant," who is actually in the wrong. At this point, it would be wise and easy to simply look down at your spoon (far more full of soup than the fork would ever be), wink at their ignorance, and move on with your delicious meal. Who cares, you might think. They're projecting, and the odds of my being able to bridge the knowledge gap are slim to none. I'm going to just keep eating my soup, unbothered, and go about my day like nothing happened.

    But then you remember that it's your job to explain that eating soup with a fork is ludicrous, not only because it is completely absurd, but because if they continue at this rate, not only will they never experience the true glory of the soup (because they consistently diminish their eating experience), but they will eventually die from malnutrition. So, you put down the spoon, lock in, and get ready to explore why this person is so avidly convinced of this clear nincompoopery.

    See, the hard part is that even though you know that this person is bordering on complete lunacy, you cannot say that they are doing such things. You, (having the greater knowledge and therefore the heavier responsibility), are held to a higher standard and must function with absolute peace, conviction, and kindness. This is, of course, easier said than done when you start to realize how this lifestyle they've chosen has changed their behavior (they're really, really hangry). Not only that, but they are blindly loyal to a group of soup eaters who use forks, 1.7 billion strong. Now, basing your beliefs on a popular opinion has historically never been a good idea, but by golly, the fork-o-lics do it. This is just one of the epistemic reasons they cling to their eating habits, and, in all honesty, it's one of the best ones (to them). But then, just as you think you're starting to get somewhere, their handy-dandy ult pops in: Insulting. The rhetorical polemic comes in full swing, usually in a manipulative method: From gaslighting to framing you as an idiot or dishonest, they attack your character rather than the substance of your argument.

    And the hardest part? You can't say it back! If you do, you'll lose the whole argument on grounds of them getting their feelings hurt, even though, since you've been talking to them, they have done nothing but pompously talk down to you as though you are the fool, all while hurling their favorite slur or curse word at you. And you think to yourself, Man... this guy is saying exactly what I'm thinking, only I'm thinking it about him.

    You keep the self-control, doing your best to remember the goal: I want this person to have a better soup-eating experience. This is for them, after all. I am very much content with the notion that I am in the right. Jesus is holding me accountable for my behavior, and I need to behave. Still, no matter how many facts you show, logical inconsistencies you expose, lies you refute, and patience you tirelessly labor, nothing changes -- they don't hear any of it.

    Then, the cavalry arrives, all stroking each other's egos while repeating the same copy-and-paste talking points they learned in their fork-o-lic coloring books. It's an echo chamber, and if you don't know what that is, in a natural sense, it's an enclosed space where sound reverberates, meaning that whatever sound you make is bound to come back exactly the same, slowly but surely losing volume over time. The reason why this term was then adopted to describe online forums, social clusters, and all kinds of varying cliques and cults is that, analogously, it fits the bill: It's an environment in which a person encounters only beliefs or opinions that coincide with their own, so that their existing views are reinforced, and alternative ideas are not considered.

    As a Christian, one of the many things I pride myself on is being open to other points of view. As long as the other individual can logically, honestly, respectfully, and reasonably justify their belief, I'm willing to hear them out and engage in the conversation. In most cases, I've had fruitful discussions with people who are diametrically opposed to my worldview. I've even changed some people's minds. I cannot say I've had the same experience with people who eat their soup with a fork.

    To avoid being called a hypocrite, I want to explain that I'm not necessarily against echo chambers, just the notion that tends to accompany them by their definition. There's nothing wrong with coming to a logical and reasonable conclusion about what you believe and (after hundreds or even thousands of hours of study and experience) deciding that you are comfortable staying there and in the group that believes the same way as you.

    We're communal creatures; that's normal.

    I'm not saying we have to always be open to being wrong in the sense that we admit we can't definitively prove that we are right, but that, at a certain point, people will believe that there is nothing that could change their mind on something, and reasonably so. The evidence is clear; the reasoning is solid; their worldview offers the best reconciliation with reality. In other words, we get comfortable with the notion that we are lifelong students who can always learn, but cannot simply ignore evidence in an attempt to seem intellectually honest, because that (ironically) is intellectually dishonest and fallacious. We should learn other people's positions and carry them out to their most logical conclusion; that way, we can see whether or not we've been deceived or (more accurately) be more reinforced in what we believe, as their view did not survive testing.

    The same can be said for myself, who, after honestly engaging with the premise of eating with a fork (though I always found it absurd), further examined their fork-a-stolic succession, their traditions, texts, and fork-o-getics for their fork-dom. After that, I would go back to the Book of Spoons and find that forks were a later invention and that there is no evidence that early soup eaters even mentioned forks. It was almost as though they didn't actually exist and were made up for ulterior motives. To someone who is educated, this is clearly, not lining up, but that's the tragedy of it: It only seems clear to you, the one who knows that the Book of Spoons (which they have renamed the Fork-a-chism of the Fork-ish Soup-eaters, claiming that the reason you eat with forks is that you don't have the complete Book of Spoons, but theirs does, and that's why you must use forks), is perfect and complete for every good soup.

    You see, it's one thing to know this and try to reasonably contend for the soup with one person, but it's another when you're now being ganged up on -- ratio'd by the fork eaters' favorite fork-ologist. All the while the insults increase, the points keep getting missed. The logical fallacies stack one on top of the other, all the while they find themselves a genius in their own mind. All you can do is watch as they top it all with "reducto ad ab-syrup-um, then gulp it all down, their smiles wide, pancakes mushing out of their teeth as they gnash and chew with piggish delight.

    When did we even start eating pancakes? I think. I thought we were eating soup?

    But you see, they shifted the goalpost from soup a long time ago. They couldn't actually make an argument on soup, so now we're talking about pancakes, which (conveniently) you can eat with forks and not with spoons. As you can see, it works perfectly, as it "always" has. In fact, now they're trying to gaslight you into believing that we've always been eating pancakes, and there was never really any soup.

    This is among the most deplorable behaviors I have ever experienced. In all honesty, I don't know how we got to this point as a society. It's one thing to believe, eat, and eventually poop out what you want, but it's another to serve that poop on a platter and call it pancakes. Oh, what, you thought they were real pancakes? No, it was digested feces that they defecated onto their china, as every other person who eats with forks has done before them. After they did, they tried to convince you that it was always pancakes, and for a second, you almost bought it: You almost ate the poopy pan pie. They made it look pretty, tasty, and even exactly like a pancake... but it was never really the real deal.

    This goes on and on, and as grotesque as the analogy might be, that's how it feels. It feels particularly worse when, after honestly engaging and trying to do your own part in sharing actual soup with people and explaining why eating it with a spoon is proper, your character begins to get attacked. They will lie, manipulate, strawman, bear false witness, and as the cherry on top of the poopy pies, say that you are the one who is doing all these things. No, it doesn't matter that you've sunk 200+ hours into their fork-dom just to properly summarize their point of view, or heard every fork-ologist try to explain their views so that you can understand how they think. Nope! None of that matters. What matters is that their favorite fork-ologist said something they liked, and you were simply the donkey they decided to pin the tail on that day.

    This is actually the inspiration for this post: Yesterday was the most recent attack on my character—an ad hominem attack—so dishonestly presented by a fork-o-lic fork-ologist. I've never really liked his work, but days like yesterday reminded me why I have actually grown to detest it the more I've had the disservice of knowing him. You see, he accused me of bearing false witness while simultaneously ignoring 99% of the witness I was giving. Then, in the comments, everyone not only agreed but attacked my character further. "He's dishonest," "He has horrible arguments," "He can't rhetorically articulate anything." There was even one post where this same fork-o-lic fork-ologist put one of my meme posts over the sound of Kamala Harris' audio (speaking gibberish) and claimed this is what I sound like, to which his comment section happily agreed.

    Grown man/men by the way.

    There's nothing that screams "my beliefs are so weak and pathetic that I have to attack your intelligence and character to justify them" quite like an ad hominem attack. But even so, one thing that grinds my gears is when someone claims that I am bearing false witness while simultaneously bearing false witness. This is a common argumentative strategy called "poisoning the well," which essentially gets the audience to question the opponent's motives rather than their argument. It's rhetorically powerful, but it's argumentatively weak. When you open your argument with a claim that I am doing this while ignoring the fact that you're critiquing one video in a multi-part series (of which refuted his preceding arguments in his video in full), and then build your entire argument off of a strawman of what I actually believe and was arguing, it can be nothing more than complete and utter ineptitude.

    And yet, his audience ate it up.

    The "it" was me. They chewed me up, spit me out, and all the while congratulated him for his pitiful work. And you know, it's not that I can't take criticism: If I'm wrong about something, I want to know. It's when you attack my character and essentially launch a slander campaign against me that really gets under my skin. More so, the fork-o-lics think that this kind of behavior is okay. To claim that someone is bearing false witness, you have to prove willful deception and wrongful intent. The burden of proof for the claim lies with the individual, and, unfortunately for this fork-ologist, simplification or segmentation does not qualify as false witness. The evidence actually points to the contrary in the form of a 20+ part series. 

    Two, actually.

    So, false witness in this scenario would better be defined as taking one part of a multi-part series and claiming that this person was willfully withholding information to make your case seem smart, while accusing them of the exact same thing.

    The hypocrisy and projection are astounding.

    I think at this point it's pretty clear that I'm venting, and honestly, I don't think that doing it anymore would be productive. The point is, I'm discouraged. It's not a pleasant feeling to be slandered for trying to help people out. It's an even more unpleasant feeling to know that Jesus fully expects us to hold our posture, be loving, and ultimately remember the goal of getting them to him, but man, if it isn't challenging. The worst of it is that this is nothing new. I experience this pretty much every day, on average, from sunup to sundown via dozens of separate minds all parroting the same copy-and-paste arguments, insults, and general meme-ry (not even joking. Some of these people will just post a meme making fun of you, and that's their argument. The crazy part? It works.) The only thing that gives me some assurance is that I know I have peace with God (Romans 5:1-2), and that at the end of it all, I'll go home to be with Him, knowing I tried my best, even if I am constantly in a state of grief.

    I know it might sound kind of childish, but these things get to me. They hurt my feelings, and for someone who is currently struggling (deeply) with some of the worst circumstances and thoughts that I've ever had (capable of toppling even a strong man), I really don't need some middle-aged dude attacking me for something that I'm not, so he can get followers and likes (presumptively). 

    It's crazy how people talk to you as though you're not made in the image of God (they have no respect) and go out of their way to make you feel small, stupid, and generally just downright bad. I'm not a stranger to this. I know how easy it can be to talk so harshly to someone because they're nothing but a little icon next to a username, but it doesn't change the fact that behind that ambiguity is someone Jesus died for.

    I was watching a Gavin Ortlund video, and he made the comment on the disagreements ongoing between the spoon-e-stants and the fork-o-lics online (to the best of my remembrance): "The rhetorical polemic is just awful on both sides. Do you not fear God?" That stuck with me. From that point forward, when I've wanted to match someone's energy, be mean, or even just let out all this pent-up aggression that's been building lately (not related to them), I think: "Do you not fear God?" We should have a humble reverence for God in our walk with Him (Hebrews 12:28-29). I think we forget, sometimes, that those "idiots" who are eating their soup with their forks may be wrong, but making them know that in the most brutal and unloving way possible is also wrong and worthy of judgment.

    The nuance is that calling someone a fool is merited at times (Matthew 23:17), especially when it's not an ad hominem but a legitimate description for someone ignorant and blind (which is the type of person we're discussing). Still, the key is to make sure we don't fall into the other category, which puts us in danger of hellfire (Matthew 5:22). We shouldn't be hateful about it, despite how much they sling our way. Anyone who has hatred in their heart is not of God, and that's why Jesus warns us of such things. So I think these things in my head (and write them only to show that these are my honest thoughts), while trying to remember the tragedy of it all: These fork-o-lics are the blind leading the blind:

[10] And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: [11] it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” [12] Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” [13] He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. [14] Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” [15] But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.” [16] And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? [17] Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? [18] But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. [19] For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. [20] These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

-- Matthew 15:10–20 (ESV)

     GotQuestions has a great elaboration on this passage. I'll let them stick the landing:

"The tendency to elevate human interpretation of Scripture and tradition to a place of equal authority with God’s Word is a blindness that has afflicted people of every generation. The inclination Jesus confronted in the Pharisees is no different from the legalistic traditions and unwritten rules that many churches, denominations, spiritual leaders, and individual believers try to enforce today. When we allow human rules and regulations to take priority over God’s laws, we lead people astray from 'the simplicity that is in Christ' (2 Corinthians 11:3, NKJV). If we become blind leaders of the blind, we heap God’s judgment on ourselves: 'Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to' (Matthew 23:13; see also Matthew 18:6). We must be careful not to let arrogance and denial blind us to our spiritual condition. We must make sure that our vision is clear enough to guide others in their spiritual walk. Likewise, we do well to choose our leaders wisely, being careful not to follow blind guides who will lead us away from the straight and narrow path of God’s Word."

-- GotQuestions.org, https://www.gotquestions.org/blind-leading-the-blind.html.

    There is wisdom to letting people go to their blindness. God exemplifies that (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12). People will go where their itching ears want them to go (2 Timothy 4:3-4), and we can't stop them, even if we really want to. We all have to make our own choices. I just wish they wouldn't be so deplorable about it.

    So, here we are, back where we started: Eating soup. And as I dip my spoon back into my bright red liquid, slightly colder, now, after having taken the time to harshly deal with this fork supremacist, I sip and try to block out the noise; the bickering, insults, logical errors, inconsistent epistemology, and whatever else they might throw at you to get you to "submit to Fork." Eventually, they'll stop trying. Eventually, they leave you alone. And then, they go, and there's peace for a little while, only for the next one to sit down and say:

    "Ugh, you dumb Spoon-e-stant. Don't you know you're supposed to eat soup with a fork?"