hello? is this thing on?
No, I’m saying that Xianity is an elaborate tricked-out version of Neanderthal-style superstition. You’re right, unevolved humans had their superstitious
systems of belief. I think we’ve evolved beyond that.
I think everyone has the inside track on what HE or SHE thinks of religion. If you make up your own mind, that’s good enough for me, though I reserve the right to disagree or even challenge you on those beliefs you volunteer to voice on a public messageboard. Sorry if this is out of keeping with your vision of my rights.
The argument that I’m outvoted, so I should bow to the will of the majority, even the vast majority, is one I find particularly unsustainable. Most people are sheep, more so the further back you go in recorded history.
If I had offered anything quite so strained as my interpretation of any given Biblical passage, the dear departed would have been all over my ass for “making thing up out of whole cloth.” That’s not to say you may not be right about what was going on in Badchad’s mind – but it’s far from the construction much of anyone else around here would place on it, IMO at least.
I’d like to believe that the mods. are guided by principles of fairness and equitability on these issues. Unfortunately, they are human, and subject to emotional reactions. Tom has been extraordinarily candid about how he goes to great lengths not to allow his personal reaction to guide his moderating judgment – in fact, in the opinion of many leaning too far the other way in an effort to correct for his own bias. It’s been my experience that the staff here are very lenient towards offenses, especially those clearly due to responding in anger.
My approach, after I discovered he was not “just another sophomore-atheist dipwad,” was simply not to respond to BC’s nasty zingers and misrepresentations of my position – until it came to the point where I seemingly could not post in GD or the Pit without his showing up to indulge in a bit of character assassination. I don’t think it’s right in either your or my case, and I’m glad you found the fortitude and patience to endure.
Firstly, I think the suspension was well-merited. Neither Polycarp nor any other Doper should have to put up with that kind of crap, which does indeed amount to cyber-stalking. It would have been disgraceful had Polycarp been forced out of the forums by such unchecked behaviour.
Secondly, my thanks to CarnalK for putting in context the cunt reply. The context did make all the difference in this instance, and although, given Badchad’s general boorishness, it made no odds to the outcome, it would have been unjust to let the out-of-context implication stand.
Why should any poster be allowed to follow another around just to screw with him?
B.S.
If Ghandi admitted doing that to Churchill, Richard Dawkins admitted doing that to Benedict, Wellington admitted doing that to Napoleon or Justin admitted doing it to Britney, they should be suspended – and if they keep it up banned - it simply doesn’t matter, at all, what thier relative positions are.
You are aware, I hope, that if Ghandi had actually stalked Churchill, he would, indeed, have been jailed (although he might have considered it an acceptable risk as part of his civil disobedience). Similarly in the situation of Justin and Britney, actual stalking is against the law. Welly, represented a nation at war against Napoleon–stalking was his job.
I’m sure I’ve been whoooshed, but I found your post just a bit odd.
Wow, that’s
Wow, that’s quite a lapse on my part, especially since I’ve enjoyed needling you about that on occasion.
I think too much holiday pie has affected my memory.
Am I the only one who saw the “Christ is a cunt” statement as an extremely obvious attempt to get a rise out of people?
Give me a break. While badchad may have decided to call that interpretation “strained” that’s because he likes to be jerky, what’s your fucking excuse?
Well, I used to think the gratuitous expletive “Jesus H. Christ on a Stick” extremely offensive to many Christians, but then you yourself disagreed with that view.
Actually I get a rise every time cunt is expressed.
No. It got a lot of attention. For the record, however, when it was brought up among the staff, we tended to regard it as a (typically for its author) crude continuation of the yojimbo conversation that, while certainly looking to make a loud point, was not merely a gratuitous ploy for attention.
Had that been the title of a thread in MPSIMS, it would have looked much like trolling, but as a throw away line in the context is was posted, it was simply an emphatic display of his lack of respect for certain opinions.
Not so much.
Anytime, douchebag. And it didn’t cost you a penny 
Yes, I’ve been wondering that myself. Trolls and jerks are a dime a dozen and Chad’s behavior isn’t that unusual, but how he got his little fan club is beyond me. I keep hearing from prr and Red Fury about his “logic” but I’ve never seen BC actually formulate an original logical argument. His points seem to be:
The Bible contains weird and disturbing things.
“Liberal” (i.e. non-fundamentalist) Christians cherry pick the Bible for the good things.
Belief in God is unscientific.
That’s it. All of these points are things cheerfully admitted to by most of the board’s Christians. How they give BadChad any sort of victory has yet to be explained. The arguments go something like this:
BadChad: two and two make four!
Board Christian (Jew, theist, sympathetic atheist): Well, yes, most of us realize that…
BadChad: Ha! I win the internet, you cunt!
Compare him to Diogenes the Cynic, who can formulate a truly devastating logical argument, as he is doing in the 'free will" thread in GD. You may not agree with DtC, but there’s some meat there.
Trolls don’t have to be insincere. You can be a troll and believe in your message. What makes you a troll is that you frame your argument in a way that the discussion is about you, rather than the ostensible subject: religion, politics, whatever. BadChad did this in spades. All his threads became about him.
I realize that I look like I’m attacking someone who can’t defend himself, which isn’t cool. But I’m not really that pissed at Chad since he got what he had coming. I’m just astonished that he has a fan club. He’s simply an asshole and he’s not that smart. (Simply being an atheist doen’t make you intelligent.)
Whereas I get a rise everytime cunt is exposed. Different strokes …
This is so easy. Let’s have a cut and dry, clear policy about stalking on the boards. Can’t imagine we’d need more than that in this specific case.
And you know, that was wrong that what happened to you flew under the radar, for lack of more information. But here’s my questions to you; 1.) Did you report every post (that screamed of stalking) to a moderator? If I was intentionally being harassed to the point that I could no longer enjoy myself here, that’s what I’d do. 2.) Did this member follow you outside of these sports/race debates? Show up there and absolutely NOwhere else? Which it appears badchad does.
If I remember correctly, we had a sorta similar situation not too terribly long ago. We had someone (Aldebaran – who obviously wasn’t much beloved among the SDMB denizens) being, I think, not more than a bit goaded, played-on over his user name and kinda stalked some (who did it though, I can’t recall). Anyway, the more popular of the two (not Alde) was reprimanded and told to change their ways. How is that not the same as this? No matter who you’re talking about or what their views, it comes across as pretty much standard issue to me.
Gah, in ‘real life’ when you have the so-called right to freedom of speech, you can find yourself in a whole shit load of trouble when you choose not to bend to the overt civil rules of society. You can be as anti-social as you can get away with, but usually there are limits, which are often upheld.
That’s easy? I dunno about you, but I’ve witnessed arguments that involved battling dictionary cites and micrometric analysis all so one (or both) parties can find some hairsplitting rationalization to claim that they were in the right all along. Further, I’ve seen cases where a mod says “knock it off” and the person warned responds with virtual backflips in arguing that no transgression took place, followed by passive-aggressive attempts to carry on as before (“I honestly don’t know if the Great White Mod will consider this over the line and I’ll retract it if it is, but your last statement is exactly what I might expect from someone who is the product of a drunken incestuous brother/sister coupling in which in addition to conception taking place, he gave her syphilis and she gave him gonorrhea, not that I’m actually saying you are the product of diseased drunken incest, just that if that statement had come from someone who was, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised”).
Any well-defined policy simply invites increasingly imaginative and time-wasting attempts to circumvent it. “Don’t be a jerk” covers all nicely.
But Bryan, in the circumstances that have outlined this kind of stalking, I do see it as simple. Two prongs addressed, actually. The first being amazingly showing up just where the other so happens to be. For example, I hardly ever go into MPSIMs, so if all of a sudden I was in there constantly because that’s where whoever (pick a name out of the air) hangs out and I only posts where they did, then I’d think that’s pretty obvious. Secondly, when you post on absolutely NOTHING else in conjunction with the above, I’d believe that, in my humble opinion, results in your basic message board stalking.