Comments

Overview: I view comment moderation to be somewhat like Caller ID.  If profane or obnoxious people call then I screen them out, much the same way I would ignore boorish co-workers or neighbors who could not be reasoned with.  Why should blogging be any different?  Life’s too short to spend too much time with people who perpetuate non-stop fallacies.  At some point it is pearl holding / dust shaking time.

This is not censorship in the political sense, of course.  Anyone can start their own blog.  If people don’t want to post my comments I don’t boo-hoo over it.  I have only been irritated at two bloggers who distorted my comments.  One deleted some benign comment then claimed I had made racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. statements.  And that guy was a “Christian” pastor, believe it or not!  The other guy was a philosophy professor who got frustrated and literally edited my comments to make them say the opposite of what I had written.  When I pointed out that I had copied and pasted the comments he panicked and deleted the whole post. 

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I thought I would highlight this love note from a recent commenter as an example of why I am moderating comments more in 2009.  In short, I’ve found that my discernment is remarkably accurate in determining when conversations won’t be productive.  God has given me so many things and I need to be a good steward of them all, including my time.

Long time readers know that alternative views are welcomed here provided that they are communicated in an adult manner.  I do hold those who claim to be Christians to a higher standard, and have borrowed Carlotta’s policy on that:

For Believers – An intentionally different standard applies to those who name themselves followers of Christ: persons who claim to be believers in Jesus Christ yet bring manifestly false teaching on basic doctrines of the faith, and/or promote evil acts are not welcomed into discussion here.

I didn’t let this guy’s first comment through because it included pointless insults.  Then he added this second comment, which manages to cram in multiple logical fallacies and insults at the same time its very premise self-destructs.  Sadly, this is pretty common from the pro-materialistic Darwinists.  I expect these whenever I post anything on Intelligent Design or criticizing Darwinian evolution.

You like to delete postings that cut through your web of lies, don’t you?

No more need to prove that people who reject evolution in favour of creationism are among the biggest idiots in the world.

They are completely immune to fact and reason and dishonest to the bone. The scum of all religious believers.

First, he begs the question by stating that I have a “web of lies.”  He should demonstrate that first, but of course he can’t.  At worst, I could be mistaken on some points, but I have not lied about anything.

He has several ad hominem fallacies (attacking the person, not the content of their arguments).   Those are always telling.

He claims I am immune to fact and reason but I welcome anyone to scan my hundreds of posts and come to their own conclusion.  Christianity requires and applauds the use of reason.  Or just consider this post.  I have analyzed his views from various angles but haven’t called him a liar, an idiot or scum and haven’t said he was immune to fact and reason.

But here’s the fun part: If his worldview is true, then none of his comment makes any sense.  It completely self-destructs. 

After all, if he is correct that the universe came from nothing, life came from non-life, Darwinian evolution explains how we got here, etc., then there this process is responsible for my Christian worldview.   Fancy that!  Darwinian evolution led me to “imagine” that I see evidence for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the existence of God and the accuracy of the Bible.  And not just any evidence –  I see cosmological, teleological, moral, logical, historical, archaeological evidence and more (see the apologetics section to the right for more).

As always, his worldview can’t adequately explain the Christian worldview, but the Christian worldview can explain his:

Romans 1:18-20 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

And if his worldview is true, why would dishonesty be a bad thing?  Where is his universal morality coming from?  He obviously thinks there is such a thing as morality and that I should be held accountable to his version of it, but why?

And where does “reason” come into play?  If everything in the universe has a material cause, then why would we think in terms of reason or logic, which are clearly immaterial. 

And he makes the same mistake most Darwinists do: Even if Darwinian evolution were true, it still wouldn’t explain the start of the universe and the origin of life and it wouldn’t explain away God like its proponents want it to.  I don’t think that theistic evolution is supported by the facts, but even if Darwinian evolution were true it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist.

And then there’s the irony of him complaining about me not posting his comment.  If it is a moral flaw on my part not to post his insulting comment on this little blog, I wonder how he reacted to the movie Expelled!  Actually, I don’t wonder, as I’m pretty sure I know his reaction (based on the reaction of all the other Darwinists). 

But of course deleting his comment merely cost him a few keystrokes.  It wasn’t like I damaged his reputation or cost him his job or his tenure.  So is censorship bad or not?  If it is bad to delete a comment on a blog then what much of the scientific and academic community is doing is really, really bad, even by his standards.

So in conclusion, please save us all some time and don’t leave comments like that.