Chuckle. It’s interesting that you say that, because he has addressed a lot of threads to creationists in the past. He pitted me once for calling him on starting three creationist / intelligent design threads in three days, and I am decidedly not a creationist or an ID’er. His MO is either trying to bait someone on this board (Prove that the earth is 6,000 years old, for an example) or starting a thread that is simply a play by play of him sending e-mails baiting some Creationist web site.
The problem is that he is very close to a troll. He starts a thread- which 99% of the time attacks Christianity (rarely does he admit or see that pretty well all organized religion is full of paradoxs, intolerance, and general BS- as Siege noted). He doesn’t give his view, but attacks those that do give their view- unless they do a “dittohead”.
Many of his "Great debates’ are really PIT rants about Christianity placed into GD. There is no real debate at all… as Guinastasia pointed out.
As Libertarian and Monkey also mentioned- his OP’s are tiresome “one notes”. There are VERY few Fundamentalists here- and Ben- you’re NOT going to “convert” them to your faith of “rabid anti-christianism”. I don’t say “atheism” as Ben rarely seems to attack Religion or Faith as a whole- just Christianity, and especially Fundamentalist Christianity. Sure, those guys are a few bricks short of a load- but I think that the Radical Muslims are WAY more crazy and dangerous.
But maybe that’s his plan. After all, if he attacked Judaism or Buddism like that- dudes here would rightly call him intolerant and bigoted.
He also calls others who disagree with him “trolls” in blatant disregard for the rules, and also tosses around other personal attacks such as “weasel” “liar”, etc. (and yes, we know that calling a POST a “Lie” is OK, or saying that someone is 'weaseling" in a reply is alright- but he calls POSTERS those things.) I can’t figure out why the Mods in GD let him get away with it. If it was anyone else, they’d have been Banned years ago.
What really saddens me is that I think I may have given up on Ben. He is very intelligent and I had a few very good debates with him regarding biology. But, damnit, he won’t stop this shit.
In the off chance you are reading this, Ben, I want you to know that I am Beeblebrox. I changed my name a few months ago. (I just got tired of it). I lit into you when you pitted me for calling you “Ben Quixoite” in GD. It didn’t escape my notice that you left the board for six months after our altercation. I hope that you don’t repeat that absense, but can’t you see why I said what I did, now? Your OPs are straw men. You are still tilting at windmills.
You are a very smart guy, and it saddens me that you are so hung up on fundamentalist Christianity and Creationism. It seems to be an obsession with you. You do have much to offer the board, but you have to guard against yourself. Your baiting threads do not serve you.
For my own purposes, I’ve got a couple of terms along those lines:
Evangelical Atheists — Want everybody to be atheists also. Work for conversion the same way Evangelical Christians do. Spread the “good news,” except in this case the good news is that there’s no God and we don’t have to waste our time on all that superstitious nonsense any more.
Activist Atheists — Don’t try to convert people to atheism, but they do work to carve out a place in the world for themselves. These are the guys who want “under God” out of the Pledge and “In God We Trust” off our money.
Closet Atheists — Don’t ask, don’t tell.
I’m number three. I sympathize with number two, but I don’t want to be attacked with the Jesus Hammer, so I keep my mouth shut (except on these boards, where I enjoy relative anonymity and can express myself freely without fear of real-life reprisal from Bible Bigots).
I hold no truck with those in the first category.
And sadly, I think Ben’s a number one. I wish he weren’t, because he’s smart and well-spoken, and he does excellent work smacking down the obnoxiously ignorant fundie-loon types who occasionally wander through here. But he’s so aggressive about his evangelizing that I think he turns off more people than he convinces.
I must take issue with the OP. Big, complex, amorphous phenomenon such as a religion, ideology or general stance have to be broken down into parts if they are to be understood.
An entirely valid method of attempting to understand a world view is to address small questions at it in the hopes of shedding light on larger questions.
Now, Ben has asked some tough questions in both of his OPs. But I think they are fair ones (although the “even if it means setting aside JC as a fetter” bit might have been softened a little in the commentary).
------ Any religion has inconsistencies and things that could be nitpicked.
Right, but I don’t think Ben is picking nits. His comments seem pretty central to the faith in question.
----- Could you please tell me why you’re doing this, back off, or both?
A fair question, I concede. (Possibly a difficult one as well, but hey turnaround is fair play. )
It could be me, but I’ve found that you have less of an uproar if someone is being vague or rude and it’s directed against ‘fundies’ than you would if the same thing was directed against ‘homo’s’ And I use those terms to direct you to a thread in GD at this time to show my point where I have yet to get a link to an op to prove their case, and that would never happen in any other GD thread. Ben seems to bait, and I believe my one and only pitting was because of a question Ben asked about what Christians believed about hell, then pitted me when I answered. That was my first encounter, and I have seen little change since.
I think I have figured it out. I get irritated when many of Ben’s GD threads seem to have no “debate” to them at all. But I have had an epiphany. He is “witnessing”. No- really- think about it.
Great question. I admit, it’s vague. I should have said there is less of an uproar, not you have less of an uproar, but I’d request you to look at the thread in question, and tell me if that is the GD standard that you are promoting. Also I’m not trying to hijack this, only show that it’s not accurate to say all threads that people post in GD that don’t hold water get called out, as there seems to be hot topics that bend the rules a bit, as well as other topics many will turn a blind eye to, from what I’ve observed.
Cervaise- well, I’d agree- but Ben seems mostly to attack Christianity, not faith or even organized religion as a whole. Note the latest thread were it COULD be read as if he is promoting Buddism over Christianity. Certainly he does fit into that category, but I’d include a subset “anti-XXXXX bigots” where it is clear the person has a deep hatred for that faith, on top of being an Atheist.
Svt4him has a point- and so does Guinastasia. Not that this is “anti-Christian” by any means, but that if you start a thread that attacks “rednecks” or “fundies” you’ll only get a small amount of flack, whereas if you attack “niggers” or “towelheads”- you’ll get roasted, toasted & perhaps even Banned. It seems to be the prevailing assumption that if a certain race or religion is in the majority- then one can’t be bigoted by hating or attacking it. Thus, Svt4him is wrong in that this is certainly not “anti-white” either- just that being hate filled against a non-minority is not usually seen as being bigoted. I strongly disagree. If your hatred or discrimination is of an entire race, ethnicity or religion- it matters not that there are a whole lot of them- that is still being bigoted.
And why would I do this. My whole point was Ben seems to bait. The argument was presented that if it was bait, or not a great debate, then the teaming millions would not stand for it. I said this is untrue, and provided an example that is real and current. So what exactly have I posted that requires another thread?
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