Jagella

I’ve only been posting and replying to posts here at the Infidels forum for a few days, and so far it seems refreshingly different. I can critique the Bible, Christianity, and religion in general in a much freer fashion than in the past without fear of censorship. Why the chip on my shoulder, you may ask?

Some of my first negative experiences occurred in the forums at http://CARM.org. As many of you might know, CARM.org is an “apologetics ministry�? run by Christians. I made no secret that I was an atheist, and I posted some scathing critiques of Christians and their religion. Needless to say, my days were numbered there, and in addition to my posts being censored, my membership was revoked. What crime did I commit? I complained in a post about my being censored, and I was immediately warned that I was not allowed to criticize the administration of that forum. I read the rules and sure enough, they prohibit criticism of the administrators! Evidently they expected criticism. In any case, I posted that I had told Christians the truth, and they couldn’t take it which resulted in my expulsion. Ironically, my expulsion proved the very post that got me kicked out.

Another Christian forum I dealt with was one called “Time Bombers.�? Again, I had my share of troubles, and I constantly was the target of ad-hominem attacks as well as straw-man arguments. Those Christians there just hated me and for no other reason than that I told them the truth about their religion. Oddly, I was never ejected from Time Bombers, but I decided to leave as a result of technical issues.

After leaving Time Bombers, I found another site entitled “Challenging Atheism.�? http://challenging-atheism.com/ On the home page, one can read the claim: “The primary purpose of this site is to encourage visitors to join in at the discussion board for intense debate!�? Take it from me—the biggest challenge an atheist faces in that forum is to say what he feels he needs to say without being censored. If one makes Christians look too bad, then one may very well be silenced. I was. And as for the “intense debate,�? I can tell you that if the debate gets too intense for the moderators there, they will shut down your posts PDQ. In fact, “Larry,�? one of the moderators, disallowed my criticizing the Bible! His purpose in doing so was that the forum in which I was posting such critiques was a “Bible Free Zone.�? Although my posts were very relevant to the debate I was engaged in, a debate about morality I was having with another moderator, I was told I could not mention the Bible! Censorship reared its ugly head again.

In conclusion, I can only see such actions as these as intellectual dishonesty. Many Christians greatly fear that their beliefs are wrong, and when confronted with proof that their beliefs are in fact false, their only recourse is to silence the doubter. It’s a cheap way to cling to such beliefs, but it’s apparently all they have. It just makes me glad that I can honestly recognize the truth whether it pleases me or not. After all, what good will believing a lie do you in the end?

KidFury

Dude if you want to post on an Christian forum go to www.apologetics.com. I have been posting there for quite awhile and I have never ever been the subject of any censorhip or banning.

I also have to admit that I am sometimes really rude to them so It's not like I was pussyfooting...

Plognark

Well, having a logically and rationally definsible world view means that most of us aren't particularly touchy about many topics.

No need for censorship or to outlaw criticism when you can easily show someone, logically, why they're off base

Nice, ain't it? :thumbs:

Jagella

It's good to hear that you don't hold back. I'm not completely sure why my posts meet with such outrage. I make a conscious effort to be fair and diplomatic. My guess is that it's the content of my posts that gets Christians riled up. The facts I present are evidently very disconcerting to the believer. For example, at Challenging Atheism, I posted a passage from 1 Samuel that portrays the Israelites as killing babies. It was then that the moderators started shouting: "This is a Bible free zone!" They were perhaps ashamed about what their "good book" had to say.

Jagella

Plognark

If any system needs censorship and information control, methinks it's a sign of it being deeply flawed.

Boro Nut

Yeah. You can say "Piss Off Atheists! You sad losers" and nobody bats an eyelid anymore. It's really getting me down.

Boro Nut

Erm... in reply to competely the wrong post. Time for bed I think.

jdlongmire

I remember you from there! :wave:

It is a good site. I encourage anyone from this site to go there debate/discuss. You will find it challenging.

JD


from their homepage:

Top Atheist Becomes Theist - 12/9/04
81 years old Antony Flew is a legendary British philosopher and atheist who has been an icon and champion for unbelievers for decades. His change of mind is significant news, not only about his personal journey, but also about the persuasive power of the arguments modern theists have been using to challenge atheistic naturalism. See an interview transcript hosted by Biola University.

ApostateAbe

I just noticed something at carm.org that can induce a good five minutes of head-banging. It is the "Cut and Paste information" section. I kid you not.

http://www.carm.org/cut.htm

PinkPanther_04

Some of that stuff is hilarious. There was something in there about atheists not being able to argue rationally without borrowing from the Christian worldview. :rolling: I almost fell out of my chair!

HelenM

Jagella, on CA you posted Bible verses on a forum clearly labelled as a Bible-free zone and the admins intervened. Do you really think it's "intellectually dishonest" of the admins to enforce their clearly stated rules? If you want to argue that that particular CA forum shouldn't be a Bible-free zone, then CA is the place to raise the issue, not IIDB.

If you do at IIDB what you did at CA and decide to ignore clearly posted rules because you think they're unreasonable, you'll find the IIDB mods react similarly to the CA admins. You'll be warned and your posts will be edited. The mods here won't excuse rule-breaking just because you're an atheist on an atheist board. And if you ignore the warnings and keep breaking the rules, you'll eventually be banned. That's how all moderated forums are.

Andrew, I don't agree that the moderators here treat theists differently from non-theists. I also see no clear evidence that the mods here have ever tried to suppress discussion of any topic.

Helen