It seems UK atheists like Rosa Rubicondior are not the only ones who spend too much time at Prison Planet. American atheist Jnani joined Rosa Rubicondior in her efforts to use Twitter to expose the great conspiracy against atheists at Choosing Hats – https://twitter.com/#!/freethought4you/status/149248483218554881/photo/1.
Unfortunately he either did not read or did not understand what Rosa actually wrote before joining in on the protest. He writes, “Here is more proof that Choosing Hats selectively filters comments on its blog just like Rosa Rubicondior claims.” But Rosa Rubicondior did not make the claim Jnani attributes to her. Rosa accused us of “routinely deleting answers” from atheists so that we can claim that they are not posting any. Her claim was easily proven false here https://choosinghats.org/2011/12/a-brief-response-to-atheist-rosa-rubicondiors-conspiracy-theory and here https://choosinghats.org/2011/12/rosa-rubicondior-unsuccessfully-tries-to-save-face. Not only do we not claim that there are no comments from atheists, we claim the opposite and point them out in the two aforementioned posts. Not only do we not routinely delete atheist comments, we post them for all to see on our site in the two aforementioned posts. Rosa is just a conspiracy nut.
But apparently Jnani was impressed with Rosa’s theory. He claims that he has “more proof,” meaning that he accepts Rosa’s blatant lies despite their having been thoroughly rebutted. There are hundreds of atheist comments on this site, full length posts dedicated to atheists, a number of debates, and Rosa’s comment that has appeared on the site for months. Even Jnani has comments on our site – https://choosinghats.org/2011/10/fundamentalist-atheism-and-the-refusal-to-answer/#comment-2804 Rather than addressing any of this overwhelming evidence against the conspiracy theory in question, Jnani turns a blind eye to it and lodges his own embarrassing complaint quoted above. He claims we selectively filter our comments. Not only does this not mesh with Rosa’s absurd claim that we routinely delete atheist comments and say they never posted any, but it does not fit with all of the facts provided above concerning atheist activity on Choosing Hats. Why on earth would Jnani want to join a fundamentalist atheist like Rosa in promoting a half-baked conspiracy theory?
First, Jnani’s selective filtering conspiracy theory stems from his selective hearing. He not only ignores the mountain of evidence showing that Rosa is lying; he ignores the comment policy on Choosing Hats – https://choosinghats.org/site-rules. According to the site rules, the blog’s purpose, “is not to provide a preaching platform for non-Christian faiths, nor is its purpose to offer non-Christian faiths an equal say, or equal time.” More importantly, “Comments are moderated, and any and all will be passed through as we have the time to do so, whether for the purpose of asking questions, agreeing with a post, or disagreeing (i.e. debating).” Now if Jnani’s “selective filtering” refers to comment moderation, then we are guilty as charged, but it is hardly some great secret that we have comment moderation turned on, much less something for us to be ashamed about. It’s written pretty clearly in the portion of the site rules I just quoted, but it is not surprising that Jnani might selectively filter this information out like he did the lengthy rebuttal of Rosa’s ridiculous theory. Note also that the portion of the site rules just quoted makes it clear that comments are dealt with as we have the time to do so. Posting comments “is a privilege and not a right,” as they say, regardless of the misguided atheist sense of entitlement.
Second, Jnani submitted a comment last week that has not been posted to the site yet:
“The whole point is that there is no ought, purpose, or meaning in the unbelieving worldview.”
Sure there is. “ought, purpose, or meaning” all imply subjectivity. There are no issues with these things in a naturalist worldview since there is subjective conscious beings.
“It is because of random interactions”
This is just flat wrong as there is nothing *random* in a naturalistic worldview (I’m sure some will disagree). It seems to me that the Christian worldview is the one with the problem of randomness since god cannot be caused to do anything everything god does would be random including creating this universe.
Note that Jnani does not ask any questions. He does not provide any arguments. He just gainsays what was asserted in the post. So in response to Jnani’s comment I can just say, “Nope, there is not any ought, purpose, or meaning in the unbelieving worldview, and there are issues with these things in a naturalist worldview despite the alleged existence of subjective (whatever that is supposed to mean) conscious beings.” I might continue, “It is not flat wrong, but rather it is right, to say that there is randomness in a naturalistic worldview, and the Christian worldview does not have anything like a ‘problem of randomness,’ since God does everything in accord with His immutable nature.” I agree with what Paul Manata said to Jnani, “You state these things so matter-of-factly, as if reasonable and well-informed people do not disagree with you…” when he ran over Jnani in the comments that start here – http://fortheloveofreason.blogspot.com/2011/10/dusman-on-circularity-on-dusman-part-ii.html?showComment=1320366847499#c3761330359910065866. (As a side note, it is interesting to see how atheists and agnostics band together against Christians even when their views on such fundamental matters as logic and determinism are so violently opposed to one another.) Jnani falsely thinks that determinism solves the problem of induction. In his mind, he is so clever in proposing determinism in response to our skeptical concerns that we had to “filter” his comment. Of course, other atheists who have visited the site and did not have their comments immediately go through also thought that they had said something so profound that we had to hide it. They make an incredible leap and contend that moderated comments mean that Christians are afraid a flaw in their worldview might get exposed. Yeah, hundreds of other comments from atheists have been posted to the site, but your comment was so powerful that those nasty Christians had no choice but to delete it. Of course it might also be the case that we just did not think your comment was significant enough to respond to right now in the midst of the other things we have on our plates, but a significant number of atheists are far too arrogant to ever consider that possibility. They would rather Occupy Choosing Hats Twitter and help Rosa hand out tracts about The Great Atheist Comment Conspiracy.
In conclusion I offer some more of Manata’s observations directed toward Jnani here – http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2011/10/rhology-on-fundamentally-flawed-podcast.html#973649234020456175:
You’re trying to pick a fight. You’re trying to rile the Christians up and imply that they can’t deal with your awesomeness and so have to mess with lightweights like Baird. I have no time for schoolyard bullying. I always socked them in their jaw and got in trouble, and it never works out right. In any case, your “seemings” was an illogical leap. How in the world you get from “They’re dealing with Baird and not me, I’m more important and smart!” to “this seems to point to a weakness in the Christian worldview” simply doesn’t follow. How on earth the behavior of less than a half-dozen commenters on one Christian blog among thousands in who they choose to spend their time wrangling with shows you that *the worldview* is weak is beyond me. So, add that to your itching for a bar brawl, and I count myself out.
Spot-on.
Comments
9 responses to ““It’s a Conspiracy!” – Freethinking Jnani Joins Truther Rosa Rubicondior”
Of course it might also be the case that we just did not think your comment was significant enough to respond to right now in the midst of the other things we have on our plates, but a significant number of atheists are far too arrogant to ever consider that possibility.
There is an underlying, unstated assumption here that I think is worthy of note, and should, perhaps, be spelled out more clearly in your FAQ: That you post comments when you have time/interest in responding to them, and not until.
This is not, I believe, the way most people expect commenting/comment moderation to work; the standards I have seen elsewhere tend to be of the “Presume post unless there is a reason otherwise” rather than “Do not post until a response is available.”
If you were to make this clearer, it might ease people’s minds. I know, for example, I have had a comment sitting in moderation for 11 days, which I believe to be engaged with the point, polite, etc. That it has not appeared I (until today) ascribed to “The moderator for this post is way too busy to get to what I said and make sure it’s not patently offensive/etc.”
Then I saw two further posts on the same thread, and this post here. I don’t think we have a conspiracy; I think what we have is a misunderstanding of premises regarding moderation and posting policies.
(Please note I’m not saying you need to *change* your approach — I’m just saying that documenting it might reduce the chances of misunderstandings.)
I find it very interesting that you have the time to create a whole post about the petty issue of your comment practices and how atheists have such a problem with it yet you do not have the time to click the approve button on the comment its self. As for the difference between deleting comments and selectively filtering them, I see very little difference when comment moderation is on. Why would a moderator need to delete a comment they can just not approve in the first place? As you pointed out, I more accurately described the situation by using the phrase “selectively filter” so as to clarify that I was not making an accusation that was untrue. I admit that my use of the phrase “more proof” may have been ill advised but still not entirely inaccurate when compared to the screen shot that was actually shown of Rosas comment *awaiting moderation*.
The comment of mine in question did not violate any of your comment policy and was a response to another comment made on the post (not the post itself as you indicate). The excuse given by a CH moderator is that time was not available to approve the comment. This is obviously false since time seems to be quite available as indicated by this post alone and my original comment is still awaiting moderation. Anyway, I feel this is all quite petty as I have already indicated even before you wrote this post. Of course you did not point this fact out and instead tried to make it look like I believe there is some conspiracy.
“Note that Jnani does not ask any questions. He does not provide any arguments. He just gainsays what was asserted in the post. So in response to Jnani’s comment I can just say, “Nope, there is not any ought, purpose, or meaning in the unbelieving worldview, and there are issues with these things in a naturalist worldview despite the alleged existence of subjective (whatever that is supposed to mean) conscious beings.” I might continue, “It is not flat wrong, but rather it is right, to say that there is randomness in a naturalistic worldview, and the Christian worldview does not have anything like a ‘problem of randomness,’ since God does everything in accord with His immutable nature.””
Not all comments need ask a question or outline an argument, as evidence by the comment I was replying to. My comment was making a correction to what I believe was a gross overgeneralization made by another commenter. You may disagree with me but to create a whole post about some petty issue of comment moderation and then just “gainsay” the comment in question seems a bit odd. If you disagree with my comment the appropriate place would have been to just respond to it where it was.
“I agree with what Paul Manata said to Jnani, “You state these things so matter-of-factly, as if reasonable and well-informed people do not disagree with you…” “
As pointed out to Paul, I do say some things so matter-of-factly. It’s called taking a position. If it is a problem to take a position on something then I guess we all have problems.
We all know you have issues with how my WV deals with things like induction but your sneaking in: “Jnani falsely thinks that determinism solves the problem of induction” is quite funny, as my comment in question does not address POI. In fact if I remember correctly, we had quite a long conversation about the very topic of POI a while back. I also remember we were supposed to have a public skype discussion/debate on the matter and you backed out. When you decide to get over the petty issues and deal with something of substance, the offer is still open.
Thanks,
Jnani
My response is here – https://choosinghats.org/2012/01/one-more-petty-post
For what it’s worth, I’ve had interactions at length via the comments and I’m an atheist. =]
Steven,
Although I can understand the potential for frustration by comments being held in the moderation queue until a response is ready to be made, there is a certain logic to doing it that way. For one thing, it is not so unlike email, where you send your comment to the person and do not receive a reply until they are able to respond (the difference being, of course, that the exchange is publicly viewable). But approving a comment when you are not yet able to respond can often result in experiences like I had (at least when you are dealing with atheists). Over the holiday season I was very busy with other things, but I was able to approve the atheist’s comments from my smartphone. When he saw his comment there but no response from me, his reaction was basically, “Does your silence mean I won the argument?” So I can definitely see the logic behind holding a comment back until a response is ready to be made, especially when you consider that it’s not unlike an email discussion.
For one thing, it is not so unlike email, where you send your comment to the person and do not receive a reply until they are able to respond (the difference being, of course, that the exchange is publicly viewable).
Indeed; which can create the impression you later cite, of “Does your silence mean I won?” save in the other direction. 😉
More importantly, however, the way this particular site’s blogging software is set up, it is (as far as I can tell) impossible to know if a comment you made N days ago was responded to, unless you happen to catch the response in the short list of “most recent comments”. In an email discussion, the email will show up in my inbox, and I will, automatically, notice it. In a discussion on a blog without notification, that is not true.
I have a comment in dialogue from …over three weeks ago, in a thread that has other comments in it, and I either have to keep that tab open, remembering to check on it every so often, or abandon the discussion altogether, thus presenting, again, the “if I don’t respond, does that mean I’ve admitted defeat” problem.
It’s also especially frustrating when one is trying to be polite and engage in dialogue, to see one’s posts lingering with not only no response, but no acknowledgement.
Steven,
I should recommend that you get yourself a news reader. Google Reader is an excellent tool (and what I happen to use). I make this recommendation in response to your lament that comments, and responses to them, are not delivered to you the way email is—because in fact they can be. My comment to you, and your response to it, were both delivered to me in much the same way that email is. If you scroll up and look at the site navigation bar on the right-hand side, near the bottom under META you will see two links that you can subscribe to in your news reader: “Entries RSS” and “Comments RSS.” (Each should be self-explanatory.)
If you get a news reader and subscribe to the Comments RSS feed, you can stop refreshing that browser tab and go ahead and close it. If and when a response to you is made, it will be delivered to your news reader—assuming the person you wrote to has not abandoned the discussion, which he may have.
You really have abandoned any pretense of personal integrity and veracity haven’t you.
How did you know that truth, integrity and intellectual honesty were never going to work for you?
1. Nope.
2. I didn’t. I think you meant to say “I.”
You’re six months late. Comments are now closed.