That ID blog, Uncommon Descent, had a slight shakeup in their management recently. If you had the faint idealistic hope that their comment policy might have become a bit less intolerant, forget it: they’re still deleting dissent.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
There seems to be something about True BelieversTM, that makes them incapable of handling dissent from their loony ideas. They must be afraid of facts and evidence, or something of that sort.
The amount of useful, educational posts disappeared from UD is probably triple the amount of useless crap they generate– thus proving their assertion that no new useful information is ever added, only deleted.
The echo chamber has not changed; I’ve never had a post last very long there and been banned for various lengths of time about a half-dozen times (hence I have my “I’m with the Banned” icon around my office. The ban was not for trolling or sockpuppetry (I use a different handle there) or for any reasons folks like PZ ban a few. It was a ban each time for doing the usual: pointing out how science works and the need for evidence and not just bloviating. The whole place is like a LOL meme at times.
nerd, Of Course they are afraid of reality! The universe is a warzone, and spies from Satan are spreading thier lies everywhere! And NO, i’m not being ironic, i don’t have to be, they take this shit literally!
I went to a private school for a while, so i have the inside scoop. Unsurprisingly, i find it difficult to manage real classes except for English; my English teacher, by the by, had made an anti-theist publication some time in the past, and was not excactly Thrilled by the Status quo at that den of dimwits. I eventually felt it needed to be done – that some intellectual thought needed to be brought in to spur change. I am still talking to other people that still go there and am trying to continue the influx of sanity into the asylum. All in vain, perhaps, but nonetheless, a worthy waste of effort that makes me feel that i’m contributing in some way.
Since many Christians confuse disagreement with censorship, they probably frame it as getting rid of those who are trying to shut down their truth-seeking. And, since words like “silly” and phrases like “destroyed (Behe’s) thesis” were used, they can also justify this by claiming there was unprofessional and militant language being used, which stifles debate. They need not tolerate intolerance.
Never underestimate the creative ability of spinmasters. Faith is spin practice.
For those of you interested in this type of debate, I have a new blog where I will be discussing this topic quite a bit:
http://diagenesis.blogspot.com/
Thanks
If you’d called this No alarms and no surprises you would have won the internet.
poll: “Should the motto “In God We Trust” be removed from U.S. currency?”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10103521/
go to it!
I would not allow illogical bigots like you to comment on my blog either, pz, since its a disservice to smarter readers. Stop crying.
Describing the Uncommon Descenters as Paranoid Androids would be spot on as well, and have them Climbing Up the Walls, if we’re Lucky…
Dissent on the blogs is Expelled, oh the irony of it all.
Looks like someone’s e-peen is too small to post a link to their blog.
Ben the pissant, blathered:
I hope you don’t consider yourself a ‘smarter reader’, Ben – since you obviously can’t tell the difference between it’s and its.
Epic fail, douchebag.
Can we really expect something decent from people who make children look mature?
Hahaha sorry Kel, didnt realize u had a blog and used that name, ill use Kelreth from now on
It’s all good, I used to distinguish our posts by the absence of a link in your name.
This is also a common tactic of Christian mook Michael Heath over at his blog.
Thanks for posting this PZ!
Sastra wrote :
This only works one way,however.If you diagree with them and voice that disagreement,its censorship,or militant,or any of those….But they in return feel they have at any point in time a god-given right to comment,disagree,and censor anything that might be dissenting in the slightest from their own viewpoint.
Just like 3 year old children.
Since I just commented elsewhere on this Rooke fellow,nice case in point how he feels he has every right to comment here and advertise his blog,while shutting down the comments on that blog.
The cognitive dissonance is just breathtaking.
I think we’re Fitter (and) Happier because he didn’t, though.
hence I have my “I’m with the Banned” icon around my office
Oh, fuck me. I’ve gotten my tags reversed. Gah. You smart folks can figure it out, I’m sure. Html and and booze don’t mix.
Sorry.
I suppose I would feel Let Down if I expected anything different from them.
What else would you expect from those pompous Airbags? What a bunch of Creeps.
The Karma Police will get them, and if we are Lucky then they’ll stop Electioneering.
That was bad
OT: possummoma has written an article about a disturbing news item on the KKK – a news item that stresses purported KKK links to ‘atheist skin head groups and Nazis’:
http://possummomma.blogspot.com/2008/11/random-observations.html
Athiests, Nazis, and Skin heads… Ummm, KKK guys would get slaughtered. Skin heads are a subset of Neo-nazis. KKK guys hate thier ideology and would never rabble with Athiests. I also find it incredable that skin heads would be athiests, as even Hitler was a fundie or portrayed/pandered to fundies sufficiently well. Personally, i think Hitler’s religious persuasions left him long before he stepped up to become Chancellor.
He used religion as a political tool, just like most politicians, principally Republicans. Regardless of beliefs held, it was just a tactic to rally support of thier psychopathic goals. But Mein Kampf may Be more than an extended propoganda peice. in which case, religion was strong and integral to his political ends. Actually, i want to know more about the connection from Hitler to the bizarre cultist crap that occured within the SS.
Uncommon Descent, where Dissent is Uncommon.
@ aarrgghh #8
Yes, I voted in that poll.
Currently, only 18% are in favor of removal. Come on Pharyngulites, let’s crash this.
i’ll tell MorsecOde and i will vote on it too. “In God we trust” was just Added to our money not more than 50 years ago, silver certificates do not have this phrase on them. It really is silly, because our God as Americans IS money lol. “In ME we trust” should be the words lol.
“Historical significance” my ass! “Patriotic significance” only refers to the dumbass Palin supporters, the “real americans.” The wording on this poll makes it deserving of being crashed!
Teleprompter @ #29:
“Currently, only 18% are in favor of removal. Come on Pharyngulites, let’s crash this.”
Yeah, we only need about 5.6 million “yes” votes to make it 50/50, as of this writing.
Sorry to be a downer, but it says “8708927 responses” right now, and if I’m not mistaken, PZ’s minions tend to number in the thousands.
I sympathize with AIGBusted. I have Bill Perron ranting on my blog and I’m, like, not even famous. :-/
Almost every Christian blog I’ve tried to comment on has one form of censorship or other. While there may simply be an element of them copying eachother, thinking that’s the done thing, what is bizarre is the reasoning and attitudes behind it.
Several have this thing of insisting on “real names”, but reading their “policy” closer reveals that really they are just putting up an excuse to justify deleting what they don’t like. An irony to me is that it should be what is said that matters, not who said what, and the “real name” thing misses that.
I once tried to point out to a Catholic priest an issue with his blog post. Turns out he had this quite disingenuous policy of allowing all “for” posts instantly without comment, but withholding any negatives “until he had an opportunity to correct them”. (That’s right: “correct” them.) He claimed to be “protecting” is “innocent” flock! He also had a nasty habit of attributing to posters in considered “negative”, things that they didn’t say or imply. There went any notion I had of priests being better than the “common man”!
(About that survey, looking at the large number of votes in a short time, I wonder if a robot has been hitting it-?)
Pity some people never learn the difference between “reasoned dissent” and acting like a malicious child with anger issues and other psychological problems…
Godbot drone @ 35,
Im sure the thought of not “deleting dissent” must seem frightening and unfamiliar to you.
Just ignore Goldy, it got out of the dungeon. It is pointless to communicate with it. It does not even provide comedy like Teno or The Rookie does. It just is and it is unchanging.
Janine,
this place is turning into some “Resident Evil” game in recent times…
There are always new trolls to play with. But this troll has been doing it a long time and it is unchanging. I ran into Goldy four years ago at a different site. I am sure most of the regulars have ran into this idiot at some point. The tone that it shows in those two sentences never changes. And it is pointless to play with it. Just think of it as the stuff you find at the end of Time Bandits.
//Just think of it as the stuff you find at the end of Time Bandits. //
It’s evil !!!
Thanks,that made me LOL
#39:
I don’t know about that. Don’t zombies usually WANT brains?
Obviously, one shouldn’t get Optimistic about them changing. Keep the Knives Out though and don’t Go To Sleep, their ignorance can spread like Myxomatosis.
Idioteque!
I just had a look at the ID site and the critical comment now seems to be back on – but accompanied by a reply from an ID’er.
I guess they didn’t want the criticism on their site to be ‘unsupervised’ in case one of their flock was influenced by it!
44: Very much the same approach as the Catholic priest I referred earlier to took.
It is fairly common for progressive/liberal/leftist blogs and forums to ban dissenting comments. The Liberal Politics forum on about.com and the denialism blog come to mind as examples. I don’t particularly mind if some places are blocked off for private love fests, because there are plenty of open forums available. However, the hypocrisy is sometimes rather obvious.
spgreenlaw, #22
I see the problem here, you add the booze to the html, not the html to the booze.
The moderator of the Science & Origins forum at forums.crosswalk.org recently posted the following notice:
“I just wanted to let you know that links to websites that are anti-Christians are not allowed on our website. From now any posts that link to talkorgins.org or similar websites will be removed or edited.”
Since when is talkorigins.org an anti-Christian website? (“talkorgins.org” is evidently a typo for talkorigins.org.) Pharyngula I could see, but talkorigins? I guess links to sciencemag.org, nature.com, etc. are also banned, since they are just as “anti-Christian.”
The Talkorigins Index of Creationist Claims goes out of its way to reassure people that evolution and Christianity are perfectly compatible. And so they are, I’d say, for a sufficiently circumscribed definition of Christianity. Looks like the moderator of the crosswalk.org forum isn’t so willing to toe the NOMA line.
But hey, maybe he’s just a Kid, A fervent youth whose zeal has not yet been tempered by experience.
someone should just mirror their site and then anyone who wanted to post could go to the mirror site where the replies wouldn’t be deleted.
maybe PZ has a flying monkey minion he can hand that task off to.
It’s not so much a management shake-up as the turning-over of the compost heap of rotten ideas.
i had a question in regards to talkorigins. Why is it that the index hasn’t been updated in like 2 years? Or am i wrong?
How many arguments have been presented by Creationists in the last two years?
yes, but can’t they at least make up face claims and then refute them? The information can be 10 years out of date and still pwn IDiots and creotards, but it is the principle of the thing… After all, none of the archeology claims/rebuttals are there, and That is where the gold is.
Re talkorigins.org: A senior manager of the Crosswalk Forums wrote to me that “after reviewing the site it is my conclusion that it has content that advocates in a sustained and forceful manner that the Bible is not God’s Word and is thus anti-Christian. Therefore, it is a violation of our Terms of Service to link to this site.”
I don’t believe that talkorigins.org says or implies anywhere that the Bible is not God’s Word; doing so would contradict the site’s policy of neutrality with respect to religious belief except when it comes to questions of scientific fact. Apparently the Crosswalk manager means that talk.origins forcefully denies the literal truth of Genesis 1-2 and is therefore “anti-Christian.” Of course this will be news to millions of people who consider themselves Christian.
Naturally, the manager added that “this decision is final and is not open to further discussion or debate.”