As the replacement Moderation page has developed the old bug so that permalinks no longer navigate to the appropriate comment, so here is yet another page for continuing discussion on moderating issues. The Rules can be found there so anyone with an issue should check that they are familiar with them.
The Skeptical Zone
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken."
OK, Erik, in your view, have you addressed these three questions?
Patrick,
Here’s one. realize that you have proven decisively that erik is a coward and a weasel, declare victory and watch some hoops. You’re just chest-thumping at this point and Erik will never admit that he’s been weaseling in your lifetime.
He has, however admitted that he refuses to answer your questions (as you intended them to be understood). Enough already. it’s just bullying at this point. you’re channelling keiths.
walto,
The problem with that approach is that it teaches Erik and others like him that there are no consequences to flouting the goals of this site specifically and the rules of rational discourse generally.
I don’t want to encourage that kind of behavior here.
oh please. you’re just bullying at this point. Spare everyone the self-sanctification of ugly behavior.
walto,
Bullying? I’m typing on a laptop. I’m pointing out what I consider to be unacceptable behavior.
The ugly behavior here is Erik’s (and his defender Gregory’s). How do you propose to prevent it? Given the current rules, the only option I see is to point out his failure to participate in good faith whenever he raises his head. Until he begins to participate honestly or retracts his claim he shouldn’t get a free pass.
Ignoring this gets you more of it.
since erik hasn’t responded, i’ll report that he has asserted at least a dozen times now that it’s his view that he HAS answered Patriick’s queestions several times. I mean. he actually hasn’t, adn has once admitted that he refuses, but mostly he’s repeated that he has.
the whole thing is too ridiculous. patrick is right and Erik is wrong. does that giive Patrick the right tobully erik until he gets an admission?
Yes.
To the date I answered – depends on the layer of the text we are considering. And that the text is multi-layered is the traditional interpretation. To “global” I have answered that if Noah was a historical Jew, then the flood was not global – that’s the traditional Jewish interpretation. To the last question, the answer is no.
My latest post with the answers is here http://theskepticalzone.fr/the-varieties-of-religious-language/comment-page-34/#comment-94200
There have been many posts with long, variously phrased, much less annoyed, answers before that. So Patrick is obviously not trying to understand my claim and he is not hearing the answers. He is just bullying.
Erik,
No, you have not. You have never answered these three simple questions to explain exactly what you mean by your claim. If you honestly think that you have, please provide the answers in the extra space I’m providing here. The answers should be quite short, so they should easily fit.
1) When did the flood you claim happened occur?
2) Was the flood global? That is, did it cover all the planet simultaneously as described in the Bible?
3) Immediately after the flood were there only eight people alive on the entire planet?
Let’s put this to bed now so we can discuss the evidence for your claim.
Erik,
Yes, he’s bullying and you’re weaseling. it’s been a grotesque show.
Erik,
I am doing you the courtesy of trying to understand your claim. Answer the questions and we can move on.
walto,
It is my sincere hope that you never encounter a real bully. It’s nice that you can think that asking questions qualifies.
Erik,
That’s the very comment where you explicitly refused to answer my questions about your specific claim:
You know full well that I’m talking about your claim about a supposedly historical event. My questions are in that specific context. Please answer them or retract your claim.
Lizzie, you’ve sadly got a fanatic on your hands as your ‘admin.’ It grows more evident by the day of his fanaticism. Patrick has been verbally assaulting and mocking Erik, while obviously he simply doesn’t understand that he has been answered several times already.
Patrick wants to face merely ‘literalism’. And since Erik is not a ‘literalist’ – which has been shown several times, yet which Patrick doesn’t seem capable of understanding how that’s possible – the conversation cannot progress. But Patrick, atheist that he is, will not stop “until HELL freezes over” to try to prove his point, like an asshole, against his ‘enemy.’
This ‘Patrick’ admin of yours, Lizzie, comes across as an ignorant angry, anti-theist, atheist imbecile. But sure, his fellow atheists here may wish to call him genuine or ‘heroic’ in ‘skeptic’ defense. So, that’s on you! 😉
and it’s my sincere hope that one day you’ll come to understand that there are several forms of bullying, including by speech.
Gregory,
and, right on cue, in rides nitwit.
Gregory,
You’ve made this nonsensical claim several times. Here is what Erik claimed:
That’s clearly a claim about a supposedly historical event. I don’t care if Erik is a literalist or not. In fact, I’ve been asking him those questions to find out exactly what it is that he is asserting really happened.
If Erik doesn’t mean that the biblical flood was an historical event, he can simply answer my first question, “When did the flood you claim happened occur?”, with “Never. It was not an historical event.” Despite the ease with which he could lay this to rest, he remains coy.
Erik hasn’t answered my question either. (It is the same as Patrick’s Q#3).
I’ll cross-post my comment from Noyau, as I don’t think it rule-breaks, and the conversation has moved here…
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Agreed. I might have some sympathy for Erik and the quandary he finds himself in if he had stuck with a simple, if somewhat cowardly, “That’s just the way I read it.” position. But he didn’t. He compounded his evasion by oscillating between an insistence that extra-textual evidence was off-topic and writing
then making always-vague allusions to ice ages, mammoths and fossils in the Himalayas as supporting his position.
I just want to know, given the claims Erik has made and the allusions he has made to supporting evidence, whether he believes that there has ever been a flood that left only eight human survivors. I’ll admit that I am somewhat curious as to whether he also believes that there was ever a time when humanity consisted on one man and one woman, who had a conversation with a walking talking serpent. However, since he as made no claim in that regard, that issue is off-topic.
=========================================
Are you totally stupid, Patrick? Do you actually think I or anyone else who reads this God-forsaken atheist haven blog, hasn’t already read that single statement by Erik that you have repeated ad nauseam? Come clean. Do you?
And so you actually feel that you need to repeat your ‘already read’ question again and again and again and again (SPAM) as if people haven’t heard it already? C’mon are you in grade 1? HAS NOT, HAS TOO, HAS NOT, HAS TOO!
He has already answered that he doesn’t *KNOW* specifically the ‘history’. But this isn’t enough for your literal-mindedness.
I’m reminded of this, but Patrick is clearly too idiotic to understand pretty much any criticism of his fanaticism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M-vnmejwXo
pull the plug on thiis, lizzie.
walto,
The only way to pull this plug is to tell Patrick to simply SHUT UP!
Always happy to answer questions directed to me. The post you re-post here was your exchange with hotshoe, not to me.
Yes, there has been a flood that left only eight survivors. There have probably been hundreds of such floods. But a global one with eight survivors? Not according to the traditional Jewish exegesis of Genesis.
You have not really been reading my answers. You still come across as militant atheist, nothing less than that.
I have done so repeatedly. He doesn’t listen to me any more than you do.
@Elizabeth
Does this sound like coming from someone trying to understand the other person’s position? Does it sound like being sincerely interested in the varieties of religious language?
Gregory,
I repeat it because you don’t seem to understand that it is a claim about reality, not about exegesis. That is the claim I am trying to understand.
Gregory,
Alternatively, Erik could simply answer my questions directly.
Erik,
This is an example of your weaseling. Neither DNA_Jock nor I are asking about exegesis. The questions are about what you mean by your specific claim. What, exactly, are you claiming happened in reality?
Erik,
Whether you are a literalist or not is not pertinent to the claim you made about historical reality. That is the claim I am trying to get you to explain. That’s what I’m still interested in understanding.
walto,
Here’s my last comment for the evening. You can take credit for that if you like. I must say that I find it interesting that wanting to hold people to a high standard makes me the bad guy. That’s fine, I’ve been called worse and, ultimately, this is just pixels on a screen.
I do want to emphasize one thing. My interest in Erik’s claim is genuine. I find it fascinating that anyone in this day and age could possibly take a story like the biblical flood literally. I’d still very much like to understand exactly what he is asserting happened in reality because then we can get to the interesting part of why he holds that view and what evidence he has for his claim.
Is this going to happen? Probably not, but it’s my preferred outcome.
What is not acceptable, to me, is people participating here being allowed to flout the goals of the site with impunity. When someone makes a claim they should be prepared to explain and support it or retract it. If we’re going to have rules, they should be designed to achieve the goal of open, honest, rational discussion. The behaviors I’m calling out do not align with that goal.
Well, that’s rather obviously false, Erik. See, for example, below…
No Erik, you continue to be non-responsive: I have always been asking about YOUR beliefs regarding the history of this planet. The question has always been : do you believe that there has ever been a flood that left only eight human survivors on the entire planet. Remember– its the same as Patrick’s question #3.
But your continued evasion is noted.
walto,
And I pretty much agree with how walto sees this episode.
Heh. I see what you did there. 🙂
Neil,
That’s not surprising, coming from someone who lodges hysterical charges of “harassment” against opponents who are merely disagreeing with him and giving their reasons.
🙂 🙂 🙂
Oh for fucks sake.
That is such revolting bullshit that it makes me sorry I already ate – I might lose my dinner.
A flood “that left only eight survivors” is completely meaningless unless it’s global (or nearly global); in any other local context the “eight survivors” could be every member of the only family in the village who got their knees wet — all lived, none drowned — while everyone else stood around and clapped and cheered with dry feet from slightly higher ground. Which, as you say, describes hundreds of floods (well, probably hundreds of thousands in human history) but is hardly worthy of being handed down as legend/folktale/scripture/Jewish origin myth.
I mean, unless you’re just making up shit for the hell of it, you’re the one who supposedly thinks this tale is an important (multi-layered!!) part of your holy scripture. And now you want to strip all the significance out of it, by making it a benign little bathtub overflow that happens hundreds (thousands) of times in history, none of any particular spiritual importance, though.
You really haven’t thought this through, have you.
Well, suit yourself. You always do.
hotshoe does her own version of an Erik-style evasion.
Folks, if you want to make claims, fine — but be prepared to support them.
Fortunately for all, you had the sense not to ask me 700 times.
Although I guess that might change …
hotshoe,
Instead of pulling an Erik, why didn’t you simply either support or retract your claim?
Because I don’t fucking choose to, and your conflating me with Erik won’t influence me one bit.
Suck it, keiths.
Don’t be a hypocrite, hotshoe.
Like Erik, you made a claim. You were asked to support it or retract it. Like Erik, you refused, again and again.
Suck it, keiths.
hotshoe:
As I mentioned in the New Atheist thread, it’s quite telling when the voluble hotshoe is reduced to one-line (non)responses.
Suck it, keiths.
For those playing along at home, that’s 3.
Anyone wanna bet on 700?
Over? Under?
Take a careful look at yourself, hotshoe.
Suck it, keiths.
That’s 4.
Slowly heading for 700.
Correct. You have now repeated your infantile response — “Suck it, keiths” — four times.
Christ, let’s hope not. Learn to cut your losses, hotshoe.
Suck it, keiths.
OK, I am “pulling the plug” on this. If participants want to continue the argument about Erik’s three questions, they can take it to Noyau. Only posts specifically about moderating the discussion should be posted here. Any others will be moved to Guano.
Here is my take:
I understand that the assumption that some one is “posting in good faith” cannot be sustained if you are under the genuine conviction that the other person isn’t. However, I have been around contentious internet discussions long enough to know that sometimes what looks like a straight question from the questioner’s point of view does not look like a straight question from the questionee’s point of view. I’m not saying that is the case here; I’m not saying that Patrick’s questions aren’t straight. But I’ve been faced with questions such as “do you, or do you not, believe in absolute morality?” often enough, and accused of bad faith when I try to deconstruct the question to know that one can genuinely disagree with the question.
I suggest that if people do not get a straight answer to what they think is a straight question, and cannot continue with the assumption of good faith that they simply terminate the discussion.
They are at liberty to say why, as long as it is not an accusation of bad faith.
Because apart from obvious trolls, I don’t think most people do post in bad faith. People who don’t give straight answers aren’t usually being evasive, it’s that they think the other person has missed the point And as one of they founding principles of this site was to provide a space where people could find common ground, I’m sticking to the rules as they stand. The rules do not apply to Noyau, however. That’s why it’s there.
And Gregory: while Patrick and I may disagree on what the rules should be, I have no reason to think he is not able to perform his job as admin according to the rules as we currently have them.
I am entirely happy with my three admins, and the fact that we disagree on occasions increases my appreciation of them, not the other way round.
But, just to be clear, you are NOT saying that I am in a similar position right now?
But, just to be clear, you do NOT think that Patrick deserves a public admonishment for his behaviour, addressed to him by name?
Patrick, Neil Rickert,… Who is the third one? Alan Fox?