For Those Who Might Think I Banned DenCol Inadvisedly...
...read what this pious humble believer in Jesus just emailed me:
Hi John,
The fact that you banned me and will not answer my e-mails, proves to me
that you are nothing but a coward....You do not know jack
shit about God, as you freely admit. You are an atheist because of your
ignorance, not because of your knowledge. Your arguments against God are
laughable nonsense. When I come on your site with intimate proof of God,
you can't handle that! You can only handle "intellectual" arguments. My
"testimonies" scared the living shit out of you and you ran for the
hills! You are truly a major league coward. I will talk to you man to
man, face to face, anywhere and any time! Bart Ehrman is not afraid of a
REAL debate, and I respect him for it. You are the other hand, have no
balls whatsoever. Grow up and be a man. I do not mind your being an
atheist, I mind that you are such a pussy about it.
50 comments:
What purpose does this truly accomplish?
I have no way of knowing that DenCol actually wrote this "email" to you, nor do I know that you didn't modify what he wrote (unless he affirms it).
Furthermore, if you truly want to have an open debate where both sides of the aisle respectfully debate one another, does this not run counterproductive to your stated goal?
It seems to me that this attempt to "justify" yourself before the readers is just an inflammatory action that only serves to aggravate as well as "shock and awe" the Christians that peruse your blog into accepting the ban on DenCol.
This is your blog and, therefore, your prerogative to ban anyone you like from commenting. If it was because you didn't approve of his comments, then ban him and say it was because you didn't like them. But don't (and I truly hope this is not the case) come up with some dirt on him to show that he doesn't hold to his own expressed values (he's a hypocrite) and that means he shouldn't be allowed to add to the discussion.
Just my two cents.
It shows the difference between what Christian believers say in public from what they say when they think no one else will read what they write. Shouldn't Christians always be conscious that God is watching them whether in private or in public? I banned him for his one note song, sung repeatedly without actually interacting with arguments to the contrary. His one note song was his personal experience of knowing Jesus. Well, does he really know Jesus as intimately as he claimed? Not in private, it appears.
I have spent many a day with paper tigers like DenCol as a militant fundy. They put on their Rambo-Jesus head band, do some push ups, and think they can take on the world for Jesus...that's after masturbating to porn in front of the computer...hope Jesus didn't see that. I am glad John has banned these stellar christians from wasting blog space. I am sure it's a great waste of time to edit these posts, providing small portion of substantial argument. DenCol, find another habit in front of the keybord. Out.
Readers of my website know that I have some personal problems with John, and he with me, but I'm actually with him on this one. Christians believe that God is constantly monitoring their behavior, and that spreading the "Good Word" is probably the most important and pious social activity that one can engage in. It follows that God would be watching a Christian so engaged at least as closely as he does every other time, and gives at least as much weight to his behavior during such periods as he does during others -- and that a rational true believer would know this. I am befuddled, then, when Christians complain that refrain from pretending that other Christians never behave badly.
John hit the nail on the head: even allowing for the Christian meme that the "saved" are nonetheless imperfect, we can conclude, with at least some confidence, that DenCol would not have behaved as badly as he did to John if the "witness of the Holy Spirit" truly dwelt within him, or even if he truly believed that it did.
How much confidence can we have in that conclusion? Not a lot, and certainly not enough to make a compelling case against metaphysical Christianity, based on this single incident. But when you combine this one incident with all the instances of bad behavior from witnessing Christians . . . well, let's just say I have a sudden hankering to do some Bayesian work. To be continued.
:: sigh ::
Thanks for posting that,I think it's hilarious.
My point was that whether or not he was a hypocritical Christian should have no purpose in whether or not you were justified in banning him. When I first read the post, it simply appeared that you were attempting the character assasination of DenCol. That is what seems like it is counter-productive to your stated desire to have a rational, respectful debate between believers and skeptics.
"It shows the difference between what Christian believers say in public from what they say when they think no one else will read what they write. Shouldn't Christians always be conscious that God is watching them whether in private or in public?"
That has nothing to do with the reason you banned him. Yes, Christians should always live consistently in both public and private. But this bears nothing upon justifying the fact that you banned him from commenting.
Also, let me be clear that I am not condoning what DenCol wrote in that email (if that is what he actually wrote). Because it is things like that, which bring shame upon the name of Jesus Christ.
Mr. Hyde,
what benefit would john get in deliberately faking that email and creating the story?
He would immediately come under fire for being deceptive just as you have more or less accused of doing.
You know theres a few machiavellian christians out there. You guys should police yourselves and be as outspoken against them as you are atheists.
If I could presume to speak on John's behalf, I don't think he posted DenCol's letter for justification purposes -- it's his blog, we're all allowed to post on an "at-will" basis -- but rather for informational purposes. For the sake of informing people about his behavior.
I can see how you could read it as an attempt at character assassination on John's part -- if this were an isolated incident. As another (admittedly small) piece of an accumulating mountain of evidence that such inconsistencies seem to be the rule, or at least an exception significant enough to make one wonder what philosophical import it might had, it's quite within bounds, I feel.
Look,
as far as misbehaving christians goes its in the atheists interest to display it,
but the problem is that it detracts from the dialog so we have to make a value assessment and as moderators, we have decided that it is better to moderate comments, and get rid of the rabble rousing comments, because there is not enough value in them to justify it.
So in reality, we are assessing which is the better value in two potential positives in our favor.
But as Brad Haggard (christian commenter) pointed out in another article, wading through 80 comments gets tedious.
I have made some christian friends on this board, and I value them. christians that add value to the dialog will never be barred.
It is in our best interest to let christians that ADVANCE THE DIALOG to take their best shot, so that we can get ours.
anything else is irrelevant.
Personal experience, in my book, should be dismissed out of hand because it is so unreliable. Until there is some tie-breaking evidence, personal experience of a christian is equal to personal experience of a hindu, muslim, jew, buddhist or some tribal religion.
If you say the tie-breaker is Jesus, then I'll conced Jesus existed, but not that he was the messiah and I'll use Jewish arguments, not that he said he was god because I'll use principles of information quality (specifically such things as data lineage, interpretability, believability and free-of-error) and the text against you, and not that paul got the meaning of the crucifixion right because he apparently was not in a position to know except by divine revelation, and that depends on Jesus being the messiah and God of which is exactly what is in question.
Jesus referenced adam and eve and it has been established that the story of adam and eve do not fit the established knowledge of Human origins and development, as some christians will concede.
So if christians don't believe in adam and eve, but Jesus did, there is rather large problem in Jesus credibility there.
Although I am not condoning on what DenCol wrote, assuming that He truly wrote that one and I have no reason to believe he didn't, but John should have known better as a former Church Minister, that there is what christians call spiritual maturity.
Apparently, DenCol is a young christian for it seems this is the first time he has met vocal christian apostates. When you add this fact to the amount of zealotry young christians posses, things may spiral out of control as it is for this case. This should have not suprised John, for I am sure that at the zenith of his christianity, he would have experienced what DenCol may be feeling right now, although he could have handled it differently to what DenCol has done it.
In my opinion personal testimonies are one of powerful tools to convey the faith. Personally I'd love to know how people came to be christians, what are they experiencing in their daily to daily lives in their faith but most importantly, what is the single most important spiritual experience that confirmed to him/her of the presence of God. It is just that DenCol failed to figure out what type of this site is, psychologically. You cant write these type of testimonies to a site belonging to people who call themselves freethinkers hell-bent on dismissing anything that goes against their trend of thinking and their minds resistive to any piece of information that could somehow validate any form of supernaturals. That's the advice I could offer to DenCol.
"Personal experience ... should be dismessed"? Yet we argue against the existence of 'god' because it is invisible and there is no 'evidence'. In making those claimes, we are essentially demanding to be told the evidence. So we should be willing to listen to it. Once.
Had the subject been able to offer a medically verifiable healing and some consistently reproducible results, then he would have had to have been taken seriously. But he gives one healing and admits he asked for other contact and got none. This seems like evidence that it was a product of his own mind. That his 'jesus'is not really there for him. I always try to get Christians to try to tell me how they 'know' Jesus or 'know' god - and usually it is the same sense of awe that I feel when encountering amazing scenery or a perfect flower and that feeling has been scientifically explained and I tell them that and discount that as evidence. I tell them what part of the brain is making that feeling and that it can be recreated in the lab without 'god'. Sometimes it is that a prayer to heal someone got answered. I ask if other prayers for other healings are consistently answered and they admit no. I then ask if perhaps the healing was not due to medical treatment and they say well it was god working through the doctors and nurses and medicine. So then I can dismiss it, because the doctors and nurses and medicine do not require any additional help and work without god all the time. Or they tell me god talks to them and I ask what about and if it all stuff they agree with or if sometiems it shocks and challenges them. They admit it is all stuff they agree with and so then I can dismiss it as a product of their own mind, because would not a 'real god' have some news for them, some insight they had missed?
So the 'testimony' of personal experience should be listened to and considered just like the reults of a scientific experiment. Was it observable? Was it reproducible, repeatable? Could the cause and effect linkage be clearly established or was coincidence or some other more likely cause at work?
So our christian should have been allowed to give his data. He was, he did. Others should have been allowed 'peer review' to accept or reject his data. That kinda happened. When his data was debunked, he should have dropped it. It was, sorta, but he did not. I would suggest in the future that the subject be asked more details about their god contact, their 'proof', and that it then be analysed as to whether it stands as observable fact. And that the other explanations for the experience be explained to them. That it be debunked to the best of our ability. That should be the end of it. We will either all be converted or their 'proof' of god will be debunked. Then they can be asked to not bring it up again.
You cant write these type of testimonies to a site belonging to people who call themselves freethinkers hell-bent on dismissing anything that goes against their trend of thinking and their minds resistive to any piece of information that could somehow validate any form of supernaturals.I suppose the joke here is that you want us to buy into the idea that personal testimonies of religious experiences "validate the supernatural." They don't, as has been explained before. As the history of similar non-Christian religious conversion experiences should show anyone with even a modicum of skepticism. Either people are likely misinterpreting an internal emotional experience and putting a cultural spin on it, or god is giving different people contradictory messages about the "supernatural" and seems to be messing with us.
What seems to frustrate many people in this area of discourse is that believers of this type seem to hold on to two contradictory ideas simultaneously. First, they freely admit that all human beings are fallible and prone to error - their theology is partly based on the idea that humans are imperfect. But when it comes to their own religious experience and their interpretation of precisely what it means, they cannot possibly be mistaken. Sorry, but there's a huge disconnect there.
They seem, uh... "hell-bent" to refuse to consider any potential non-miraculous causes for the certain something that happened to them. And they have no good answer for other humans who have similar experiences but who consequently adopt completely different supernatural beliefs.
I'm not surprised by Dencolon's email. I've grown to expect that from Christians that get their faith attacked or even questioned. I am a fan of John. I haven't read any of his work yet, but I intend to. I have not seen him debate though. I would love to see it. John if you ever get down to Indianapolis look me up. We'll do lunch my treat
I still stand by my previous statement about free speech - I believe in the open forum. But at the same time, I understand the reason for banning people who are really not contributing to the discussion. I just wish Blogger had a Digg-style comment system, where you could vote up the good comments and vote down the bad ones. It'd make things so much simpler.
From my experience Jeff, Blogger sucks.
Oh and Jeff, I'm all for the first amendment and free speech. It's just that I am never required to hear what someone else wants to say. I have the right to walk away just as I have the right to ban someone since it's my "space" in cyberspace. The government has no right to tell me I have to listen to what he says, you see.
To see what an unfettered discussion might look like if I allowed it, check this out, and please be sure to scroll down. That's an intelligent discussion, isn't it? If I allowed this almost every post would degenerate like that one. The problem is that I don't tolerate stupidity. I want a respectful discussion of the ideas that separate us or none at all.
I appreciate your respectful and intelligent comments. I wish this could be a place for nothing but intelligent comments, but alas, that's not possible. The title of this Blog gets attention, which it's supposed to do, but it also attracts fleas who think they can come here and spew forth a few Bible passages or tell about a personal experience and convert or convict us. That's annoying and unproductive, as you know. We cannot reach those types of people. They must be reached by other educated Christians whom they trust.
Mr. Hyde, I sent that email to Lee to verify that it was sent by DenCol. He sent me another one. Would you also like to read it?
My purpose wasn't to justify why I banned DenCol. I don't have to justify doing this, although he did turn out the way I thought he would. It's to call attention to the fact that this humble believer who argued so sincerely that he has a personal relationship with his buddy Jesus seems not to be as intimate with him as he wanted us to think.
Jason, you too, whenever you're up north of Ft. Wayne.
I've unbanned DenCol if he would like to comment in this thread.
Hi folks,
John was nice enough to allow me to come back. Yes, that was my e-mail. I got offended and I reacted. Does that make what I did right - no. I know that many Christians are offended by such language, but some are not. Anyway, I will try to stick to the rules and wishes of Mr Loftus.
Thanks John.
DenCol, no one is banned forever. Even though some people are banned they try to post anyway. You didn't and that's a good sign. Thanks also for the couple of pleasant emails you sent me in apology.
I would like for you to learn something though, from Professor Dan Lambert. In his class he makes his students think through my arguments. You see, if I have not had your experiences then what value does telling me about them do for me? All I can say is that if I had your experiences then I would believe too. The problem is why doesn't God give me those experiences? God surely knows what it would take to convince me, okay? If he wanted to convince me he could easily do so and it would not depend upon me at all. That I have a stubborn or hard heart does not change anything, for if God appeared to me or sent an angel like we read in the Bible or approached me like the Bible says he did to Moses, Gideon, or Paul then I would believe even if I was not receptive.
So when dealing with our arguments do what Prof. Dan Lambert said : "You cannot use the Bible to try to refute his points or to support your own. You must use logic and critical thinking primarily." And I think he would also say you cannot refute our arguments by referring to personal experiences which we have not had. Try this and we'll be fine.
Cheers.
Hi John,
I agree. I made the same point myself earlier. I compared it to telling a dog a joke. The dog will not laugh because a dog does not have a sense of humor. Likewise, atheists and agnostics do not have a sense of God.
You asked an EXTREMELY important question. Why doesn't God give you those same experiences that I had. To be honest, I do not know. The Calvinists would claim that you are not one of the elect. Romans says that God will have mercy on whom He wil have mercy and harden those He chooses to harden. But then later in Romans it says that he will have mercy on all.
I am one of a group of Christians who are called "Christian Universalists". We believe that Jesus death will be applied to all mankind and that everyone will eventually be restored and reconciled to God. No one will go to any eternal torment in Hell. I have been debating this one issue with other Christians on YouTube for well over a year now on a daily basis.
The Bible also says that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. So I believe that everyone will one day know God, if not in this life, then in the next. Why He chooses to only reveal Himself to some and not all here in this life, I do not know.
@Lee
Just as Jason pointed out in his comment that he has come to expect Christians to behave in a certain manner, I have experienced far too many antheists who are dishonest and would make an email like that up just to "make a point."
However, DenCol has since admitted to writing that email. That still doesn't change my point that the post could easily have been interpreted as counter-productive to this blogs stated purpose.
@John
No, I don't need to see the email. Oh, and I agree with you that Blogger stinks. I am thinking of moving my blog from Blogger because of its limitations.
With some electrodes and some voltage to the brain we could probably reveal god to you.
apparently DenCol is unbanned, judging by recent comments on the latest thread? Why is he unbanned now?
HI DenCol,
Why He chooses to only reveal Himself to some and not all here in this life, I do not know.
you can go ahead and say, we all can see it all ready, we all know it intuitively.
you are special,
and it makes you feel better about yourself. Its an esteem mechanism for you.
At least you have a computer, there are some christians that are living in witch hunting hell in nigeria. And god reveals himself to you?
hogwash.
Hi Lee,
Why do some people make magnificent discoveries like electricity, gravity, flight, etc. Why did they get the revelation, and not someone else before them? Are they special? Why do some people have superior wisdom and insight? Why are some people funnier than others? Does that make them special?
As you saw from my e-mail, I can be a major jerk. Does that make me special also? People all have unique personalities, giftings, insights, discernments, etc. It is God's choice what He gives and to whom. God is no respector of persons. If you want a revelation, then ask Him for one. Maybe He will give you one. It won't hurt to ask Him.
Are you Serious Dencol? Seriously, Discoveries are inevitable. They would have happened anyway and did. Your examples are hilarious. Do you really think that some invisible guy in the sky zaps you with insight and wammo!! you discovered flight. Reality doesn't work that way. It took years if not decades, not too mention lots of failures to come up to perfect these things. You don't live in reality, you live in a caricature of reality.
Hi Jason,
Where do you think the ideas came from? Out of the sky? From nowhere? Are you not fascinated by the internet, worldwide phone communications, TV, etc etc? All this came about over the last 100 years! Yes, it is knowledge from God! It was HIS timing and HIS plan! All knowledge and inspiration comes from Him! ALL OF IT!
Dencol, so all ideas come from him?
All good ideas!
Oh funny, listen to that, all good ideas come from a god. All bad ones come from humans or the evil Satan.
BINGO!
Wow..
You are either just kidding or just plain crazy. I hope you are just kidding.
No, I am just plain crazy. Crazy like a fox.
DenCol, you are crazy, a crazed idiot. You've stated your idiotic position. Now either give us reasons to accept it or move on.
WOW
This only reinforces the idea in my mind that DenCol is a troll. Unfortunately, Poe's law is as powerful as ever, so I really don't know.
Stupidity aside, though, I find it interesting that DenCol says that the Internet and TV are "good" things, even though when they were invented (and even still today), many religious people claimed they were evil tools of Satan. So where's the independent justification for whether inventions/discoveries are "good" or "bad"? Was the splitting of an atom good? It gave us a new form of energy, but it also gave us the atomic bomb. And the printing press has printed the Bible, but it also has printed Hitler's Mein Kampf. So were these things a joint project by God and the devil, or what?
Even good ideas can be used in evil ways. You can use a baseball bat to hit home runs or to knock someone's head off. The latter does not make a baseball bat a bad idea.
Wouldn't it then be much more reasonable to say that it is the person who is good or bad (or the person's action), not the idea of a baseball bat? How is an object or invention inherently good or bad?
Jeff, you are the one who brought up the fact that the internet and TV can be used in bad ways, not me! Yes, it is PEOPLE who do the bad things with good inventions! But that does not make the invention itself a bad idea! Thank you for proving my point.
How does that prove your point? Please explain? Your are side stepping
DenCol: "Where do you think the ideas came from? Out of the sky? From nowhere? Are you not fascinated by the internet, worldwide phone communications, TV, etc etc? All this came about over the last 100 years! Yes, it is knowledge from God! It was HIS timing and HIS plan! All knowledge and inspiration comes from Him! ALL OF IT!"
Jason: "Dencol, so all ideas come from him?"
DenCol: "All good ideas!"
Okay first of all, tell me how I was the first one to bring up the Internet and TV. You mentioned both of them first. Second, I repeat my original question: How can an idea be inherently good or bad? You haven't answered this. Is there some independent justification for determining whether television is good or bad? Or are you just pulling this out of your ass?
Jeff,
Do you have a TV? Why do you have one if it is a bad idea? Why would you pay for a bad idea? The TV brings us news, weather, sports, movies, and many forms of education and entertainment. Is it ALL good? Of course not, But TV is still a good idea.
So yes, all good idea's come from God.
>> JAMES B: I have spent many a day with paper tigers like DenCol as a militant fundy. They put on their Rambo-Jesus head band, do some push ups, and think they can take on the world for Jesus...that's after masturbating to porn in front of the computer...hope Jesus didn't see that.
LOL! Very true James. Plenty of angry, immature Christians rail at the world, thinking God doesn't see them hitting pr0n sites during their down time.
But as a more 'mature' Christian who is given to argumentation and fits of anger and frustration with my ideological opponents, I know how hard it is to maintain civil discourse. It's taken me quite a while to contain myself online (actually, to CHANGE, not just 'CONTAIN').
I still occaisonally bow to ad hominems, snide remarks,and name calling. But I want to ditch that for more civil discourse, for a few reasons.
First, you don't win anyone over by being a self-righteous name calling jerk.
Second, as John tried to tell DenCol, DenCol was totally missing the point of why atheists feel that they can't believe and question faith - while Christians like DenCol want to harp on the stubborness and sinful hearts of unbelievers, most of them have never seriously struggled with the barriers and challenges to faith (even if they say they have). If they had, they would be much more patient with those who have lost faith or lack it.
Third, for those of us who have been in the game a while, we realize that there are plenty of people who want to waste their time in angry heated debates that do nothing. The rest of us want to understand, discuss, come to our own truth, and graciously disagree.
I think DenCol's lack of thought development, and possible immaturity as a Christian, is obvious in his knee jerk and demeaning answers. It was embarassing me as a Christian, but hey, I've done my fair share. DenCol, try this, it is what I am doing to make my commenting better:
1. Always address their *ideas* as wrong or bad, not the *person*
2. Don't attack their *motives* even if you think it is relevant (e.g. 'you are deceived by your desire for gay sex') It might be true, and it may be relevant, but not that often.
3. Try to replace value-judgment adjectives like evil, stupid, idiotic, selfish, and hilarious with ones that you can explain clearly and don't demean, like unreasonable, illogical, or inconsistent. And explain WHY.
4. Try to restate their arguments without making them sound stupid. E.g. don't say 'so you are arguing that man is just a dumb animal?' but say 'it sounds like you are saying that man is no more valuable than an animal'
5. Be patient with them when they misrepresent YOUR arguments, and restate your arguments more clearly, trying to answer what they think you are saying.
And DenCol, keep going for it, just channel your zeal into methods that work, for I am convinced that Jesus is the way and needs more witnesses. As the scriptures say:
2 Peter 1:5-9
giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
REGARDING BANNING IN GENERAL
Some sites don't even allow comments.
Some sites use hard moderation (all posts must pass the moderator)
Some sites (like this one) use soft moderation and banning.
Some sites (like my old site twoorthree.net) use no moderation except for some word banning.
There is a better way though, and John, if you have time, I would recommend that you do this. If you implement one of the third party comment systems like IntenseDebate, Disqus, or coComment (my current favorite, which I will implement on my new site wholereason.com), users can rate comments.
What is cool about this is that you can have low rated comments (e.g. any comment with more than x ratings and an average rating of less than 3) not show up at all on the site, except when visited by the commenter! Now that is nice.
Just saying, there are ways to do comments better.
Also, thanks for not banning me (though I wish you would answer my comments more - I saw your comment on twoorthree.net). Also, sorry for all the self-promotion of my sites.
"Do you have a TV? Why do you have one if it is a bad idea? Why would you pay for a bad idea? The TV brings us news, weather, sports, movies, and many forms of education and entertainment. Is it ALL good? Of course not, But TV is still a good idea."
You still completely miss my point. What is your justification for saying that TV is "good"? What measure of goodness or badness are you using? Is a ceiling fan good? Is a shot glass good? Is a piece of paper good? These are ridiculous questions. How can you assign a value to objects? I think that objects are objects. I think that goodness or badness lies in how they are used. So a TV may be used for good or bad purposes - but it itself is neutral.
"So yes, all good idea's come from God."
And if I were to ask you how you know something is a "good" idea, you would probably say "Oh, because it comes from God", right? If not (and I hope not, since that's obviously circular), what is your independent justification for determining whether an object/idea is good or bad? How do you evaluate that?
i find it no surprise that there are so many theists and believer out there, when there are clearly many (DenCol certainly being one) believers who use such dubious logic and methodology to arrive at their conclusions. The argument above from DenCol uses such poorly thought out points, such unsustainable logic and such self contradictions that i am dumfounded. i urge DenCol to read back all of his posts here to get a good idea of how untenable his position is.
Hi DelCon,
In your email to John, you said you were offended that he was such a pussy. An atheist pussy.
But I wouldn't call someone a pussy atheist if he puts his thoughts into print for all the public to see and respond to at their will, and has a blog where others may reach him, and uses his real name in his book and online.
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