to CARM atheists
It did my heart good to find people actually beginning to refer to "New Atheism" (Dawkametnalism) as "fascist." I hope the reader doesn't think of this as self indulgent but after 12 years of posting CARM I need to take some personal time and vent. I'll be back to sound intellectual analysis about topics of theological interest next time.
I've split the sheets with CARM, now to take a couple of thousand showers. Three of us Christians who just packed up and left. I can't really say what the last straw was, it really wasn't even anything they said. It had to do with the Steffanelli (American Atheist) call for "erradication" of Christian fundamentalism. I realized once again (this has come to be before--this time it was driven home) Martin Luther King never sat down with the KKK. No civil rights leaders ever proposed dialogue with those who conducted lynchings. Why" It would be ridiculous, there's nothing to be gained. When I first began doing Atheist Watch no one even dared to suggest that new atheist was fascist that was the forbidden thing to even think. I merely suggested a "mild similarity in certain ways" and Hermit when ape.
I had been posting on CARM since 1998. I had a short Hietus of one year when I first began writing my book, the eternally being written book that never comes out. Twelve years of not being listened to, atheist echo chamber, people who don't have the educational background to completely much of what I'm saying, and have no good will to listen to it. Treating with absolute suspicion every single thing I say. Yet something in me would not let me leave. I had to win, I had to show them. I couldn't abandon the field to them. Yet, after 2004 decent discussions where very rare. No one ever seemed to understand what I was saying.
In the first few years I was the wunderkit of CARM> I burst on the scene with them arguing about evolution and biblical prophesy and still trying the old "Jesus loves you and has a plan for your life" which seems to have been totally forgotten by the chruch. I started talking about the things I'd spent decades studying at a high level of academic interest. Kierkegaard and Tillich and the fruit of a top seminary education. The atheist were impressed, I made friends with them. It's hard to believe after a decade of being treated like shit over there but there was actually a time when the atheists said things on the raking board like "Meta is the Christians big gun." "We disagree with his conclusions but we love passion and his intellect." "this guy is the best they have, go straight to him for battle because his arguments are the acid test." I guess it was flattering and ego boosting. I made friends with several of them. Their smartest guy, Tiny Thinker, became a Christian, over a long slow process that unfolded for the whole decade of the 0's. I finished the decade with them saying things like "no one likes you. You have no supporters. No one here thinks you have anything to say." "your ideas are crazy, no one would believe the things you say, they are just nuts."
Same me. In fact my arguments got better. The things I argue now are tightly honed over a decade of trying to impress people like HRG and Spacemoneky. HRG is brilliant, although a game playing. totally unconcerned with truth, and totally wasting his talent because he's grown lazy and Narrow minded form constant praise. Spacemonkey is very intelligent and knows modal logic better than I do. For the last couple of years he was their ringer they would call him in anytime I would make a God argument. They got to the point where they couldn't even try to argue with me. They would call him in immediately. He has his blind spots but he's a pretty good guy, and he knows modal logic really well. He restructured and argument for me it's so good I still use his version. He was a rare person to still be willing to discuss intellectual issues and not just resort to slogans the way the others do, and yet even then he fulfilled a place on the ideological team by occupying me with complex argument. As a result of all of this my argument were developed. They are much stronger and much better argued than ever before yet the atheists are telling me they are pure crap. "no one believes anything you say." "You are ideas are so crazy." I heard this every single day for 12 years.
Before 2004 it was bad but it wasn't so bad. 2004 was definitely the dividing mark. That's right before "new atheism" began to really pur it on. That's a couple of years before their major publications came out (God Delusion by Dawkins, and Breaking the Spell by Dennett both 2006). I think it was 2004 because I remember observing how bad it was getting and yet it seems like I had a lot more time i the house at that point.I had the computer that was stolen when I was thinking, I was involved in ECA more, and it was some time before we lost the house (which was in summer 2006). If there was a specific thing that connected it for me I can't recall but who cares? Atheits were always mocking. flippant and arrogant. Suddenly around the time of 2004 they became far ore so, and also illiterate. They didn't know any writers they didn't know about books were, they had no concepts of anything but scinece (which most of them don't know well) and computers. That's when they began actively rejecting logic. Before they would say "O no we are into reason, we love logic it's Christians that don't use logic." Then I would make my God arguments, beat hell out of their arguemnts, and they would have nothing to say he would retrench into slogans, such well some day science come to our aid and prove we don't need God (faith, hope). Then they started saying "logic is not a valid way to know the world. We need empirical scinece. Now they just say "logic sux." Some of them actually crusade against logic likes it's some foreign element that science seeks to eradicate (they are into eradicating things).
Suddenly they were super hostile. Whereas before they made, even though now and then one would come along who was a real hot head idiot, illiterate but extremely arrogant, obviously thought he knew it all, hated religion so deeply it's obvious he couldn't hide. Suddenly that kind became common place, almost over night it seemed. Most of them are like that now. It was also around 2004 that I began to notice the echo chamber and the ridicule gauntlet. Those were not employed when I was first starting on CARM. The echo chamber began where they just repeat the same slogans and reinforce and pat each other on the back for having the courage to spit back to brain washing to those who will accept without criticism. They used to ask "where was I brain washed" when I started telling them they stopped asking. Those echo chambers are part of the brain washing. That's indoctrination works. Keep constatnltly hearing the slogans until the spit them back word for word like little machines.
The ridicule gauntlet is the same as the echo chamber except they are not repeating slogans they are attacking the apologist. They do this by saying little one liners that show they haven't listened to what you say, they don' t care what you said, you are an idiot, you are going to be ridiculed and belittled for daring to speak up and have your own mind. They always begin with little seemingly nothing remarks that make you think "my argument didn't mean anything to him." Remarks lie 'O ho hum how many times have I heard that one!" They say that the most original and brilliant things they clearly don't understand. The one by one they reinforce the original sense by additional remarks. until you are fighting like 30 people all whom act like they think you are an idiot. It doesnt' matter how good the things you say are their aim is not to find truth it's not to get to the bottom of the issue, it's to hurt a theist. Of cousre their comments grow from "ho hum" to "no one supports your crazy ideas."
what they get out of hurting theists is a sense of being big strong men. This is really born out by the studies that show atheism is liked to low self esteem. We know bullies have low self esteem and their bullying is the need to put themselves up above others. So that's what they atheist is playing at and the bully rush they get form destroying the ego of a theist is what makes them feel worth something. The low self esteem part is well documented. (more here). I'm extrapolating form that to apply to atheist their mocking and ridiculing but I think it's a good fit. You hadle the ridicule gauntlet by using the opportunity in the beginning to down load tons of text. One thing that shuts them up even now is a load of text. They may say you are cutting and pasting (they said that about me even though the stuff was from my site and usually written and researched by me). Often they will say "O you did not put that site up." Of course they have made the dyslexia a major thing. Some even asserting that my bad spelling is not dyslexia I'm one case of someone who is really stupid. If you can say "I researched it" you can shut them up because after two or three down loadings of text (and you work it into the coherent framework of the argument) they see they are not stopping you and you are making them look stupid they will shut up. Then someone else will argue about the text you are putting down, that's ok that's what you want.
One of the first tactics they began to use was turning the attack from the message to the person. So once I became the object of attack then they began the mythology of Metacrock. Fist they tried that I really went to graduate school. They began just asserting it as a like until it got to a point where they were saying it indiscriminately as something proved and taken for granted. It was lapidary become "common knowledge" that I lied about going to gradate school. They had no more concern for truth than the man in the moon. That's born out by the fact that several times I put up the phone number of the dempartmental secretary who knew me real well and ask her to tell anyone who called asking about me that I was in deep a Ph.D. student there. Not one of htem called. They called me a liar they said I made up that I went to graduate school, when push came to shove they were not willing to even find out if it was true.
Then I came to John Loftus aid. Loftus is an atheist author who published his own books and finally got a contract with a real publisher. We had sort of become friends. He as a former student of William Lane Craig. Chrsitians were calling him a liar. In fact the CADRE did prove he fudged on some documents and made a mistake or two in what they meant. I don't think he purposely fabricated it. I think he trusted a secondary source that wasn't' as good as he thought. I've done that myself. So stepped in and ask the Christian's to lay off him. I found out by contacting Craig that he was a student of Craig's at one time and a good one. So I said "he was and stop calling him a liar." so I told me he could do the same for me. He called my endearment secretary and found out about my Ph.D. candidacy and I was a teaching assistant and so on. I began telling the carm atheists "ask John Loftus." They never did. Not a one of them ever did to this day. They did stop the lie that I didn't go graduate school. now they say "You went but you didn't get your degree so you don't have the knowledge."
There is no end to their mendacity. They don't care about truth. They are not scholarly they are not intellectual, some are of course, not most of them. They don't give a rat's ass about truth.
Then they started the myth of Meanie Metacorck. I am not lying about my education but I'm insulting people! OOoooo. that's bad hu? after all the shit they dumped on me they dare talk about how I"m a meanie what fools! they are liars and their native language is the lie. The way that plays out is obvious. People mock and riducle and lie about me and make fun of my spelling so I am angered and strike back with insults Atheists re blind and narrow minded so they don't even think about asking what the guy did to piss me off. They just look at what I'm doing because that's all that matters. When when I treid to cultural insulting and even some of them were saying "O I see how you've changed, I see a real difference," others of them when stuck for an argument would lunch off on a diatribe about how bad I am. It got so that ever single one of them was attack me as a perosn. It even go so bad I couldn't make them see "that is a personal attack it's not about the issues." They got it so clearly intertwined that they could nto see that saying I am bad is not the same as saying God is not the ground of being or whatever the issue was. they would go this a legitimate part of argument because are are so bad. I would say "I am defending myself against your attacks." Thy thing they did would be miles and miles beyond a thousand insults under the bridge and they wouldn't care about it anyway. Often they would be right next to each other. An atheist would come on totally unprovoked and say "you are stupid, your stuff is no one good one takes you seriously becuase you are ideas are crazy." I would lash back then a dozen of them would go "you are so insulting! you are so bad." I would be left going "didn't' you see how he attacked me first?" But hey, I'm already labeled as meanie so that's ok, even when people were saying "I see you are trying to change, they are still saying "but we was insulting all those other times so he still is."
Hermit is going to send in comment saying 'you know you are that way, you know aer you need to jut admit it you are as bad as they are you do the same things. HE might as well not bother because I wont post them. I've set still for empty bull shit criticism and personal attacks long enough. It's not my Christian duty to be a punching bag. This whole little personal thing has played out because they don't care about truth. The intellectual side got the point where they wouldn't' debate me. eight times I put up the debate the guy would start then not come back. over and overa gain becasue I trounced them so many times.
I don't even want to go into this last one. Loud mouth arrogant guy cheated basically. whined his way into having every advantage and blunting the effect of debate before hand so that it would be meaningless to win anyway. I even let him have an atheist judge. Although the judge's job was not say who won (I made that clear up front) he did say it, and then all were dancing around going "O you lost you lost you have to accept that." it's totally that I didn't lose. Look I know how to lose debates. I spent six years in debate highschool and college going to tournaments every weekend and I only won 70% of them. So I lost 30%. I certainly know I can lose debates. I didn't lose that one! In the final analysis they are right to say that debate is meaningless because they make it meaningless. when tehy lose it's meaningless and when someone through cheating says they win they take it as totally confirmation that they are always right.
The bottom line on that is the agreement we had for no insults. The first insult either on the boards or in the debate loses by default. I said up front If you say My scholarship is bad again I will consider that a violation. He sai that in his second speech. So he lost by default. Of cousre they all tried to cloud the issue and refuse to accept it.
I remember the last straw was at the same time I was dealing with the call for eradication I realized that they weren't reading my post. I put it up there and they were making arguments that I clearly blocked out in the op. They were saying like it was really cleaver of them "didn't you know that he explained "eradication" just means their ideas?" I did include that statement and I answered it. So obviously they weren't even reading it. I just thought why put up with any more of their bull shit? They had even started saying I was a fundie, try to correct them they say there's no difference in liberal and fundie (of course that means they don't know the difference). About six in a row said I'm a creationist. they never listed to my answer.
why talk to people who wont listen?
Nothing left to be aid here except Adios CARM atheits.
