Here. I don't know if it's a liberal v. conservative issue at all. I wonder who people who are nasty think they are persuading? I would have thought such people were are just showing everyone what idiots they are.
I still believe in having a free speech zone as far as I possibly can. I'm sensitive to the concern that I might be banning people in a biased manner. I suppose his policy is unbiased as well.
I'm kind of surprised he picked that particular thread as being so offensive. I actually thought it was one of the milder, more mannerly discussions I've seen of late.
ReplyDeleteBill is a comments box fascist. Which is fine it's his blog.
ReplyDeleteStill I Once posted something on his blog about the Trinity & encouraged others to read Frank Sheed on the subject because I said I thought Bill did not really understand the doctrine(& I still think that. He is rubbish on the Trinity. Like Dawkins on the fives ways. It's just bad.).
He just took my comments down. I said nothing hostile or insulting and I wasn't at all aggressive. But he took it down. Another blog commented on it & thought is was a little strange.
I think the man has too thin a skin if you try to suggest to him he might not know what he is talking about.
That & his obvious anti-Catholicism.
Mind you I've praised him & cited him as a brilliant philosopher. His criticisms of New Atheism & Russell' s Tea mishigoss are awesome.
ReplyDeleteBut the man has his flaws.
Victor
ReplyDeleteYou are definitely not Bill and all the better for it. In citing your OP in the OP on his site, I don't think it is the characteristic rudeness which you apparently suffer that is the substance of his bleat. Rather I think he has taken umbrage at being branded and impugned a 'leftist liberal'.
His comment "But they are characteristic. In my experience, to discuss religion with the irreligious and the anti-religious is a sheer waste of time " characterizes the utter frustration he experiences when nobody wishes to engage in 'theo-speak' with him on his terms and in deferential [sacred?] manner. Banning those who he believes are intolerant of religious belief simply underscores the kind of skeptical and investigative scrutiny of both the Christian worldview and it correlative informing narrative that he is unwilling to and incapable of engaging. What he doesn't want to hear or engage in is labeled offensive,
I have to agree with Bob. That particular thread was a mild discussion and orderly discussion. I am disappointed to read that he took down Ben's comment, Ben being perhaps one of the staunchest of believers who wears his heart on his sleeve.
No, I don't think you have much to, learn from Vallicella in this instance. He seems to be just an intolerant conservative right-winger.
>I am disappointed to read that he took down Ben's comment,
ReplyDeleteFull discloser that was a few years ago.
Carry on.
>He seems to be just an intolerant conservative right-winger.
ReplyDeleteHow then do you explain Jerry Coyne? He is hardly a right winger but he has no more has an open combox then Bill does.
Some people don't want to be challenged unless they can control it.
That doesn't mean I would dismiss any argument against Young Earth Creationist Mishigoss by Coyne & like I said Bill is a brilliant philosopher with a knee-jerk anti-Catholic streak & his "arguments" against the Trinity are beyond laughable.
BTW since you brought up politics my offer to trade your awesome Australian Prime Minister for the Commie we have here in America is still open.:-)
Cheers.
As someone who was in the thread Bill was referring to, and whose antics I am 100% sure he would not tolerate on his blog, I will say this.
ReplyDeleteBill lets plenty of people who disagree with him post. Just check the archives to see as much. What he does is strictly police things to keep blogs from going off-topic, or descending into the usual combox warrior stuff. The result is that pretty much every comment Bill lets through sticks to the goddamn topic, which more often than not is not only philosophy, but a particular philosophical question. It's good stuff, if you like philosophy. And if you don't, why are you at his blog anyway?
Coyne, by the way, doesn't do that. He lets any jackass post, so long as that jackass is a Cultist of Gnu member or sympatico - so the comparison doesn't work. Hence, you have that idiot constantly namecalling (Jesus is Jeebus, Polkinghorne is Pokey, etc), but if you call him Coney, his ass clenches up and he hits the 'ban' button faster than you can say 'Dawkins is a has-been.'
Everyone can run their blogs the way they like. I clearly think Victor's way too lenient with who he allows here - I've agitated for bans, to my knowledge, twice before. Of course, in one case it was for a known plagiarist, slanderer, and troll. In the other case, it turned out to be a full-blown sockpuppet. Regardless - Vic's blog, Vic's rules, which is fine by me.
Who got banned from here? Just curious, haven't been around for a while...
ReplyDeleteOnly ones I can recall are one guy you'd not know who ranted about jews and that kilopapa guy/girl who shows up now and then to babble some angry anti-Jesus insult before returning to their life of burger flipping and, ironically, veganism.
ReplyDeleteApropos of Ben's bringing up Jerry Coyne, THIS little gem appeared in today's Real Clear Science. (A website well worth checking out daily, by the way.)
ReplyDelete"Bill is a comments box fascist. Which is fine it's his blog."
ReplyDeleteWell, he's no fascist, but he is a fool -- and he looks *down* on the mere mortals who are not professional philosophers (that being an important aspect of his foolishness).
Still, it is his blog, and if he refuses to understand that blogging is about (at least trying to have a) conversation, and that converstations are not one sided, well, that's certainly within his freedom.
benYachov: "... because I said I thought Bill did not really understand the doctrine(& I still think that. He is rubbish on the Trinity. Like Dawkins on the fives ways. It's just bad.).
ReplyDeleteHe just took my comments down. I said nothing hostile or insulting and I wasn't at all aggressive. But he took it down."
He's cannot abide being shown to be 'bad' on some point. And yes, if one showns him to be in error on his blog -- where he has control over the fate of the post -- he will remove the post ... and may well post an insult directed at the poster.
Ergo: he is a fool. Sure, he may sometimes say interesting things, he may sometimes say things one would do well to contemplate, but he nonetheless is intellectually dishonest: a fool.
Oh-h-h-h-h...
ReplyDeleteRe-reading all the comments in the "How to Avoid God" thread to see if there was anything I had missed, I just realized why Bill Vallicella picked on that particular, rather innocuous discussion on which to direct his opprobrium. It's because it included a dig at him by Ben, to wit: "[Bill] doesn't understand religious theology any better than your average Gnu."
I guess Bill doesn't like negative comments about him, even on other people's websites.
Of course my post was on topic & it refereed to the Trinity and it referred to the premier Catholic explainer of the Trinity (Frank Sheed).
ReplyDeleteBut Bill was only interested in his weird "Trinity means Christians believe Three equals One meme".
Like I said when it comes to the Trinity he is as bad as Dawkins on the five ways.
But that having been said I still cite his refutations of negative atheism and Russell's tea pot mishigoss.
He has his charms but dialogs with us Plebes is not one of them.
Scary I almost agree with He-who-is-one-day-going- to-break-the-dash-key-on-his-computer.*
*Of course I stole that jab from Crude.:-) I only steal from the best.
We're all fools in somebody's eyes. But exchange of ideas has more value than sitting in an ivory tower.
ReplyDelete"exchange of ideas has more value than sitting in an ivory tower"
ReplyDeleteAmen to that, brother! That's why, when I open to the op-eds in my morning paper (yes, I still get a hardcopy delivered to my door!) I always turn to those columnists with whom I am most likely to disagree first. Reading people with whom you pretty much think like can be so-o-o-o boring.
Of course then there is Bill's "Where is this in the Bible? If it's not in the Bible it's of human invention" meme.
ReplyDeleteYeh those are the Reformation doctrines of Sola Scriptura & Perspicuity which are also not taught in the Bible and are thus false by their own standard.
Now I really don't have a Problem with bona-fide Protestant Christians holding those views and coming at me with them. I certainly can defend myself & the Church.
But semi-Deists like Bill or other Atheists who assume this doctrine to either criticize the Bible or Catholic teaching are just being obtuse.
Hense my "Oh your a `Non-Christian' Protestant who holds to Sola Scriptura & Perspicuity? How cute!" shear.
@B. Prokop:
ReplyDelete"I always turn to those columnists with whom I am most likely to disagree first. Reading people with whom you pretty much think like can be so-o-o-o boring."
Curious. For me, it is the exact opposite. Even more; in my experience, it is precisely those that tout "I-read-my-opponents-to-challenge-my-views" that are more close-minded, this being little than a psychological move to justify a thinly veiled but deep-seated obtuse biases.
But then again, my lifelong intellectual hero is Dr. Johnson, who had an unwieldy frame, a face scarred by scrofula, the laughter of a hippopotamus, always left home with a solid stick to defend himself from hoodlums and always argued for victory.
groduiges,
ReplyDeleteTo clarify, I was referring specifically to op-eds in the paper concerning political issues of the day.
"in my experience, it is precisely those that tout "I-read-my-opponents-to-challenge-my-views" that are more close-minded, this being little than a psychological move to justify a thinly veiled but deep-seated obtuse biases."
ReplyDeleteI do exactly the same as Bob. Call it what you will.
Bob,
ReplyDeleteEven more; in my experience, it is precisely those that tout "I-read-my-opponents-to-challenge-my-views" that are more close-minded, this being little than a psychological move to justify a thinly veiled but deep-seated obtuse biases.
Well, there's a difference between touting it and actually doing it. But there is one particular trick I see come up with that: some people who 'read what their opponents say' A) do so by way of reading snippets what their opponents say, in magazines or on sites that are quoting them just to take them apart, and this somehow 'counts', or B) they purposefully seek out the worst representatives of their 'opponents', down to and including 'Angry people on twitter.'
Oops. That was Grod, not Bob. My mistake.
ReplyDeleteNow I can't say I read columnists with whom I disagree in order to "challenge my views" - it's more like there's just more to sink your (mental) teeth into. When I read, say, Eugene Robinson, who pretty much thinks as I do on most everything, I generally don't learn anything new. But if I read George F. Will (who only makes sense when he's talking about baseball), I can actually go away from his column thinking about it. But I can't think of a time he's changed my mind about anything of substance.
ReplyDeleteHowever, when it comes to matters of real importance (and none of this political fluff), then I get the most bang for my buck reading orthodox Christians - although I do devour volumes of material on Hinduism, Daoism, Shintoism, Buddhism, Protestantism, and good old fashioned Paganism. No "echo chamber" here!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletebenYachov: "Scary I almost agree with [He-who-knows-where-to-get-new-keyboards-cheap!-should-he-ever]-break-the-dash-key-on-his-computer[-and-find-that-he-in-house-stockpile-has-been-depleted]."
ReplyDeleteNo doubt, being even approximately in the right about *any* matter is highly disconcerting to you. But, not to worry, you'll soon ... uh, correct, the problem.
Son-of-Confusion: "Of course then there is Bill's "Where is this in the Bible? If it's not in the Bible it's of human invention" meme.
Yeh those are the Reformation doctrines of Sola Scriptura & Perspicuity which are also not taught in the Bible and are thus false by their own standard."
See! Your very next post, and you're back to lying and intellectual dishonesty.
You have been informed that you are misrepresenting (which is to say, strawmanning) the Protestant 'Solas'. You have been explicitly-and-directly informed of the content/meaning of 'Sola Scriptura'; and your response was twofold:
1) Well! If that's all it means, then even *I* affirm 'Sola Scriptura';
2) But that's not what it means, because *I've* never seen *any* anti-Protestant shill for Rah-Rah Catholicism (whose goal is to "demonstrate" how "stupid" those "fundies" are) acknowledge that that is what it means.
Your continual misrepresentation of the Protestant 'Solas' is not an accident. Your continual strawmanning of the Protestant 'Solas' is not due to innocent ignorance. You *will not* know the truth: you are intelectually dishonest, and a liar.
Son-of-Confusion: "Now I really don't have a Problem with bona-fide Protestant Christians holding those views and coming at me with them. I certainly can defend myself & [The One Treu Bureaucracy]."
Bullshit, on both claims.
You could model a combox policy off of Paul Graham's "How to Disagree." For instance, if a disagreement (singular or sustained) doesn't at least measure a DH 4 (counterargument) on the scale, you could just delete the comment. If a commentator's comments regularly measure between a DH 0 (name-calling) and DH 2 (tone trolling), he or she would be banned.
ReplyDeleteHe-who-uses-way-too-many-dashes & as a result sounds like Bahá’u'lláh the Prophet of the Baha'i religion.
ReplyDeleteDude I've heard every version of Sola Scriptura know to man.
From the argument "It's Sola Scriptura not Solo Scriptura" to "If it's not in the Bible it's human tradition" to "If it's not in the Bible but not against the Bible it is good but not binding" etc
It doesn't work regardless & people, Atheist or Protestant who start a sentence with me like "Where does it say Mary is sinless or Where does the Roman Catholic Authority system taught in the Bible" can't finish it without a major eye roll from yours truly.
Of course my point is it makes sense for a religious Protestant to believe & push some form of Sola Scriptura.
It makes no sense if an Atheist or Deist does it.
Finally I find it weird you take such umbrage at me believing the Catholic Faith is the True Faith?
You militancy in general Christian Theism & reject what contradicts it so why am I not allowed to be more specific as to which Christianity is correct?
Weird.........
edit:You are militant in your general Christian Theism & reject what contradicts it so why am I not allowed to be more specific as to which Christianity is correct?
ReplyDeleteDan,
ReplyDeleteInstituting that scale would cut the number of regular commentators here by half.