Here at Dangerous Intersection, I recently instituted a new wrinkle to the commenting policy. The new policy prohibits comments to the extent that they constitute “preaching.”
It goes against my grain to censor. I want conversations at the site to be vigorous and from the heart, even when they get contentious and unwieldy. Equally, however, I want conversations to be substantive. Our recent experience with a commentor named “Erik B” convinced me that allowing preaching is counterproductive to the free and vigorous exchange of ideas. For starters, here’s the new policy with regard to preaching:
Additional note on “preaching“: As used at this site, “preaching” is an attempt to announce what “God” thinks or what “God” wants, as though there is no legitimate alternative viewpoint as to what God “thinks” or “wants.” At DI, we have no objection to any person expressing what that person believes, himself or herself. And, admittedly, his or her comments might well be motivated by that person’s religious beliefs; it is no cause for editing that one’s own beliefs are motivated by religious beliefs. Expressing what one believes is not “preaching.” Directly indicating what “God” thinks or wants, however, is preaching. In our experience, preaching invites an endless and unproductive back and forth sharply focused on the authenticity of such claims: entirely predictable debates of whether “God” really thinks or desires “X.” Presenting one’s own religious views as incontestable facts is preaching. Discussion that is starkly presented as “God’s” opinion, or any quotation to any passages from any religion’s Sacred Literature, to the extent that those passages are intended to be unquestionable on any ground, are subject to pruning pursuant to this commenting guideline regarding “preaching.
What is it about preaching that stifles the free and vigorous exchange of ideas? I tried to capture this problem in the above definition. When a person makes a claim about what God “wants” or what God “commands,” it is a claim that goes beyond that person’s opinion. I’ll give two illustrations: I have never had a problem with anyone posting a comment such as this: “I am a believer in God. It is my belief that God requires X. Is my belief that those people who don’t do X will go to hell.” Now compare that to this version: “God requires X. Any of you who don’t do X will go to hell.”
In the second example, the person posting the comment is claiming to speak for God. Further, that person is trying to endow himself or herself with infallibility by speaking for God. Anyone contesting what “God” commands is, by definition, incorrect, immoral and delusional. Compare the second example to the first example, where the person writing the comment is clearly stating his or her personal beliefs. The first example is not preaching, whereas the second example is preaching.
Preaching causes great heat and little light. When a person preaches, it asserts as absolute truth numerous things that are, in reality, highly contested. For instance, is there really a God? Does the God really require X? How is it that this particular person making the comment is an authorized spokesman of this “God”? Every time I see preaching, I am dismayed because if I don’t answer such a comment, this will imply that I agree with all of these implications. On the other hand, to respond to such a comment fully and properly will require revisiting numerous topics of numerous posts that have examined these issues. I don’t want to keep doing the same work over and over.
Having a comment policy that prohibits “preaching” makes me feel awkward. I wish it weren’t necessary. On the other hand, I do think that anyone who wants to convey an idea can do it without “preaching.” I’m sure that Erik doesn’t see it this way. He has clearly expressed that he feels censored and that I ran him off the site. He feels that if he is prohibited from speaking as God’s infallible agent, he has nothing much to say. He has accused me of censorship, even though I only deleted portions of a few of his comments (though I warned him about 10 times), and I allowed anything that did not constitute “preaching” to be published.
Another thing that became obvious to many of the authors at Dangerous Intersection over the past week or two (I’ve corresponded with several of them via e-mail) is that a fundamentalist who is allowed to get away with preaching gains undue confidence and tends to ignore sincere and basic challenges to their explicit and implicit claims regarding that which God allegedly wills. I found this aspect of Erik B’s comments to be especially frustrating. Mark Tiedemann spelled out the two conflicting genealogies found in the Gospels, yet Erik refused to acknowledge the obvious conflicts. I challenged Erik to explain how he could be so certain that a word commonly translated to read as “fear” in the Bible could actually mean something other than “fear.” Numerous other factual challenges were made to Erik, but he ignored these challenges. Instead, he changed the topic, usually back to preaching.
I’d be interested in anyone else’s opinion about how to handle this sort of situation. When I founded this blog, I wanted it to be a place where anyone could feel free to contribute his or her ideas. For that reason, the commenting policy has been extremely liberal. I am the one who approves the comments, and I can tell you that (other than spam comments), I’ve only prohibited a few comments over the past two years (and there have been more than 10,000 comments approved). The comments I did not approve constituted clear personal attacks. This discussion comes full circle: it seems to me that preaching constitutes a personal attack. Preaching is a way of saying “I am right because I speak for God and you have no right to challenge what I am saying because I’m God and you are not God. Your choice is to shut up or to violate the will of God.”
That’s how I see it, and that’s why I instituted this policy. If anyone has other ideas about how to handle the situation, let me know.
One last observation. I have to wonder whether the founding fathers had these sorts of problems in mind when they enacted the First Amendment’s Separation Clause (which is one of five basic freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment). Perhaps they too saw that when preaching was allowed from a person who was supposed to be a mouthpiece of government, that it caused great commotion and distress for the exact reasons that we just saw here at this site. Perhaps the founding fathers also knew that allowing government officials to preach would destroy any chance to have a meaningful dialogue among the citizens and their leaders.
All well and good for you but, to state that theists "suffer from a mental delusion" is to make yourself like that "Savage" village idiot I've heard you decry.
So, likewise I suggest charitable restraint by those which do not believe, and that they also refrain from acting as though their own pronouncements are from "god!"
I don't care what you do or don't believe about God but, intolerance is why this bloody planet suffers so much more than it should.
Be just, do good.
I agree with your argument.
Methinks preaching is the result of refusing to accept responsibility for your own opinions. It can also be an attempt at hiding your frustration with your inability to come up with any opinions of your own.
Preaching is cloaking one's own void with empty pretenses.
Of course preaching can be highly rewarding financially.
My anti-spam word this time round is: "humble". Somehow it suits the subject ;-).
Don't beat yourself up too much about this Erich. You were patient and fair in my opinion.
EB definitely crossed the line many times, was warned and was unapologetic about it. In fact, I think he may have been a little surprised and confused. His delusional certainty was so absolute that I don't think he really understood what you were saying to him.
He was definitely the most unwavering contributor to DI that I have seen so far. So much so that at times I thought that he was a fake, toying with us to get a rise. As I said to him at one time, "No one this smart could be this stupid." (I probably should have said "stubborn") Never once his many long posts did he ever say, "I see your point." That, to me, is the mark of a true intellectual, no matter how certain s/he is about an argument.
EB was fascinating to me as a filmmaker, but ultimately yielded little but frustration for all involved. It doesn't have to be that way. Just compare any of the posts of Vesperiant to the posts of EB to see what I mean.
Tim: I confess that there is often an elephant in the room when I write about religious claim made by many types of Believers. That elephant is my assumption that many of those claims simply aren't true. Ergo, that many believers are not seeing the world properly (i.e., the way I see it). You have starkly characterized my view as one where those with many religious claims are "delusional." I realize that it really can't be pleasant for Believers to hear from the viewpoint. On the other hand, this issue of whether some of us are perceiving and understanding the world accurately just has to be fair game. That is one of the reasons I created this blog, to explore that issue.
For example, many Catholics claim that a virgin had a baby or that a man walked on the water or that a basket of fish and loaves fed thousands. These are called "miracles" for a reason. No credible person I know has ever witnessed anything comparable. Therefore, when someone claims that such things are literally true, we hit a fork in the road. Either one of us is failing to appreciate reality OR there are TWO realities. I invoke Occam's Razor at that point and assume that there is one reality that we are seeing differently. Why, then, would someone make claims that even they themselves declare to be miracles?
I find this issue to be fascinating. It invokes many aspects of cognitive science, in my opinion, though I know that for many believers these things are unquestionably true and beyond the realm of science.
So, yes, I know that I am invoking the god of Occam's razor and the god of a naturalistic world view. You raise a good point that people like me are thus "preaching," from the viewpoint of those folks who declare miracles to be self-evidence religious truths that are beyond the reach of science.
But "preach" I will, because the naturalistic world view is invoked even by the most fundamentalist believers, except when they get into their religious mode of thinking. The naturalistic world view makes airplanes that really fly and diagnostic medical tools that really detect dangerous tumors. Not that you are a fundamentalist (I've known you since high school–you are an unapologetic Roman Catholic) but I know that you also revel in many of the successes of science. A naturalistic world view is something that all of us have in common, to some degree. Admittedly, I push science as hard as it will go, much further than many Believers. Not that science has all of the answers, even for me. What do I do when science won't get me the knowledge and understanding that I desire? I say "I don't know."
Maybe it's unfair, from the perspective of a Believer that I "preach" from my naturalistic perch. To those who believe in truths that transcend the natural world, it must seem that I'm preaching. But what is the alternative? Once we declare that rigorous, skeptical, scientific thinking is just another form of religion and that those who base their thinking on it are "preaching," what is a viable alternative to solve this "problem?"
The only alternatives I can think of are un-anchored, vague forms of subjectivism, where things are right because people are SURE they are right. At that point, let the cacophony begin. There will be preaching from 1,000 directions and I can guarantee you that any thoughtful readers who visit this website will promptly remove this site from their Favorites.
In my view, subjective certainty is no substitute for disciplined self-critical thinking. Feelings don't prove or disprove facts. I'll have a lot more to say about this conflation soon, as I am almost finished digesting a terrific new book on this topic by Robert Burton, MD: On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not (2008).
Erich, has your skepticism about religion and god been a help or a hindrance in your career?
Mike: Great question. You know how to ask simple questions that push good conversations.
I'll answer simply for now, but I do want to think about this further and write more later.
I am an attorney, which causes me to interact daily with witnesses, clients, judges and other attorneys. Does skepticism or religion come up in these conversations? Almost never. In doing my legal work, I would find it distracting to get into meaning-of-life conversations. I just try to do the work that is in front of me. Admittedly, I'm sometimes highly skeptical of many claims made by people with whom I interact. That's the nature of legal advocacy. Clients, witnesses and opposing attorneys need to earn their trust (and I need to earn their trust). In that sense, skepticism permeates my day.
On the other hand, I've developed numerous treasured relationships along the way (I've been a lawyer for more than 25 years), and whenever acquaintances start turning into friends, deep topics tend to come to the fore. Most people who know me well know that I am a skeptic. That includes everyone with whom I have daily contact. That includes everyone I call a friend. Many of those people are followers of a religion, and many of them believe in God but don't belong to any religion.
But, again, I don't push any agenda during the work day. I do it here at DI at night, but not during the day, unless someone might want to raise a meaning of life issue over lunch.
Has it hindered my career? I hope not, but I don't know for sure. Perhaps a judge has logged onto this site and been offended about what he or she has read. They might see that I don't believe in the sort of God that is offered by any traditional religion (though do I believe in Einstein's version of God). I would hope, though that a judge reading posts at this site could see that I am sincere in raising what appear to be compelling questions. I would hope that judges offended by something they might see here wouldn't take it out on any of my clients. That's a risk, right? But there is potential upside. Maybe a judge who reads my writings might be intrigued and become more engaged with these issues. I assume I'll never know whether this blog has helped or hurt my career in this sense. I do assume that somewhere along the line a judge will stumble across this site, because we get 60,000 unique visitors every month.
Has writing for the blog helped or hurt my career? Well, this is time-consuming work to write posts, so writing blog posts does take away time that I could be spending trying to take on more cases. But writing at this site has also helped me focus my views on a variety of topics that have varying degrees of relevance to the practice of law. If nothing else, writing is good mental exercise (or at least, it CAN be).
To bring this full circle, I consciously restrain myself from "preaching" what I believe about skepticism during the workday, though my thought-process is always permeated with the sorts of ideas about which I write.
I'll have to think about your question some more . . .
Please clarify the new "comments" policy:
As I have previously commented, I worship a pet rock (which was broken off long ago from a sacred stone). Will I be permitted to enter comments as to the beliefs of my rock, and as to what will happen to persons who do not worship the same rock (or at least revere a rock that was broken off from the same sacred stone)?
Thank you for your prompt consideration of this matter.
As I understand the policy:
🙂 State what you believe
🙁 State what your deity believes, wants, or requires
🙂 State what you believe your deity believes, wants, or desires
🙁 State what in your chosen sacred text is absolute, undeniable truth
🙂 State what and why you believe what is written is absolute truth
Am I on the right track?
Huh?: The following type of comment will be considered preaching: "My omniscient and omnipotent pet rock commands that all of you listen to rock-and-roll daily and that you tread lightly on gravel."
You are free to tell us that you have various beliefs about your rock, though, and you may freely describe such beliefs. For instance, this would be OK: "I believe that my pet rock can see each of you whenever you are getting dressed."
If you said such a thing, though, you might get a lot of panicked comment responses from people who became afraid to get dressed because of your voyeur rock. I would expect you to step up and responsibly deal with any such concerns caused by your comment.
Dan: Those emoticons look like little Sun-Gods engaged in preaching. I'm thus tempted to delete your comment, even though they speak wisely.
Erich, I am surprised that you've never encountered a single case in which religion payed a prominent role, such as the one that I was recently involved in, in which the right to sacrifice live animals came into play. I would have loved to have seen how you would have handled that!
You say that it "…is time-consuming work to write posts, so writing blog posts does take away time that I could be spending trying to take on more cases. " I don't think it's wasted time at all! I'm a firm believer in the power of the subconscious mind. I think that often…not always, but often…by taking time away from a problem and occupying the mind in a different way we arrive at creative solutions the conscious mind would have never produced. I know that is true in my video work and I suspect it might be true for you as well.
FORMAL NOTICE TO ALL HEATHENS:
I BELIEVE that my omniscient and omnipotent pet rock commands that all of you listen to rock-and-roll daily and that you tread lightly on gravel.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
(I admit I do anticipate pet rock heaven will be a lonely place, but I will be there.)
[Admin: This is the first official warning to Huh? that this comment violates the DI policy against "preaching."]
Erich, you have worked hard to create a forum for discussion here. This is your labor of love, a space you have created. You should be able to establish the setpoint between openness to all and preventing one guest from dominating the conversation and poisoning the atmosphere for other guests. Erik was a rude, dominating blowhard with almost no self awareness. His extreme self-righteousness made it virtually impossible to explain to him how his behavior looked to others. He was criticized for this by commenters all across the spectrum of opinion and belief.
After a certain point, those of us who continued to engage Erik knew what was coming. In one sense, he is invulnerable, protected by his self-righteous belief system. That becomes frustrating when he just won't acknowledge direct hits. ("But your arm's off!" '-Tis but a scratch!") In another sense, he is tragically imprisoned within that same world view.
After a certain point, I read his posts for the style rather than the substance of what he was saying. His comments started me thinking about how extreme fundamentalism shades into totalitarianism. Erik's comments kept to a strict repertoire of set phrases mixed with Bible verses, just as all public speech in a totalitarian country follows a narrow set of verbal templates mixed with quotes from approved works, out of fear of deviating from the Party line. So it became a game to get him to abandon his ideological language and answer simply, in his own words. When I circled back to the Midianite massacre, it was with some idea of exploring Orwell's idea of corruption of language, of stilted language as defense against having to face the implications of one's ideas. Notice that when I invited him to think about what the Midianite massacre must have looked, sounded, and smelled like, he accused me of making the guilty look innocent. In his mind, I was making things up when all I was doing was inviting him to leave the abstractions and think in concrete terms. Similarly, repeating the phrase "liquidation of reactionary elements" is a way not to think about starving and executing thousands of people. So, I was a bit frustrated when you put an end to my experiment. Probably I wouldn't have gotten through anyway, going on past experience.
Bottom line: a policy against preaching will be construed as censorship to those who can't open their mouth without preaching. I think it might also reinforce the belief that we're somehow afraid of the message, when we're just annoyed by the messenger.
There are many people who believe truth is unitary, many more who believe that their perception of "the way things are' is a perfect fit for the way things actually are. We differ in our willingness to have the cognitive rug pulled out from under us. I hate being "wrong" as much as anyone, but I like it when someone forces me to see something new, or anew.
Those who think they know everything are very annoying to those who do. 🙂
If your rock is your pet, then you are its master. If your pet rock is your deity, and you are its master, then how can you be its servant?
Never mind; stupid question. I have two pet dogs. I totally understand how one can be both master and servant to one's pets.
On a lot of blogs, I think, Erik B's comments would have been swiftly and silently removed without any explicit reasoning. Many high-traffic blogs that I've encountered seem to approve comments on a very secretive and/or intuitive basis. While your policy against preaching, at first blush, may sound unusual, I consider it an appropriate and fair solution to a vexing problem. Thanks as always for keeping the blog's inner-workings out in the open.
Erich – As the keeper of this blog, it is up to you to do what you need to do to keep trolls from getting control. EB was a troll dressed in the cloak of religion. I had one of those on my blog once and I finally closed the comments on the particular post he had a problem with. After I shut him off, he started his own blog and ranted for one or two posts. Apparently that was enough for him to get whatever was bugging him off of his chest because he didn't bother me again, nor did he continue with his blog. If EB wants to rant, he can get his own blog and shout into the vast internet world and see if anyone wants to listen.
Good luck!
Mary, Erika, Vicki, Dan, Mike, Planeten and Edgar (and Huh?): Thank you for your feedback and encouragement on this sensitive topic. I don't know exactly how other bloggers manage this sort of issue (I don't know whether others carve out a "preaching" category), but it seems like this approach will address this problem.
I do want fundamentalists (and anyone else) to feel free to comment at this site, but they need to take off their God masks and tell me what they themselves think.
Faith is a belief in the absence of proof. You claim that faith is delusional where it invokes "god."
Do you have faith that your daughters love you?
Do you have faith that your wife loves you?
Do you have faith that there is any good in a world where there is so much evil?
Delusional is as you decide. Perhaps the DSM-IV can help:
http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/106586014-…
Once you arrogate to yourself the power to declare another "delusional," you take away something essential to their humanity and treat them as something less than yourself, and by extension, something less than human.
I am not qualified to comment upon the humanity of a person because they do not believe in God as I do believe in God.
When you comment upon deists as "delusional," you are preaching. Rationalize it as you will as the creator but, you do deny theists part of their humanity, and as one of those which believes in God in the absence of proof, I am hurt by your actions.
You have never hurt me before in the some 38 years we have known one another. I do not see this commentary upon my actions as supporting me to be a better "Tim" as I do most of our interactions and I charitably request you to stop it.
Tim, I have faith that my daughter loves me. But my daughter is visible. Her existence is provable and God's is not. I can talk to her and she will talk back. The way she speaks to me will give me some concrete feedback as to the state of her feelings towards me. I think you're analogy falls short.
However, I will agree with you that "delusional" is too judgmental . I amend my statement and say that deists are "illusional".
Weird, this is the second time in as many days that I find myself quoting a book I read many years ago, but in Freud's "Future of a Illusion" he describes religion as an illusion, explaining that illusions are hopes that are the "fulfillments of the oldest, strongest, and most urgent wishes of mankind".
However, he adds, "Illusions need not necessarily be false."
Spoken like a true agnostic!
BTW, Tim, I didn't accuse all Believers of being "delusion." You need to reread the post. I said that when people "preach," they tend to set themselves up to be aligned with God himself such that anyone DISAGREEING with them is per se incorrect (and delusional). After all, what else would you call someone who disagrees with the creator of the universe?
On the other hand, I'm not suggesting that literalist Believers are correct and I am incorrect when they say (and I doubt) that they are hearing God voice actually speaking to them when they pray or that the earth is only 6,000 years old.
Erich, it was in a post that you made about 6-10 months ago. I commented upon the "delusional" remark at the time, on line and personally to you. You didn't say it here but, it has been said. When all else calms down, I'll look it up.
I think it is good to have the rules in case you need them. EriK is/was brave to post, if he actually believed all that he claimed to. Many of the most devout might think that even engaging in discussion of certain topics (such as bible fallacy) would be seen as an act of sin by their god.
(anti-spam word, empathy)
Actually EB has his own blog, and I took a look at it. Curiously, it seems that he receives few,if any, comments on his articles, and in an article on the movie "Expelled" which had 3 comments, the first by Erik himself, the second by Erik explaining that he had removed a comment because it was propaganda for those that wanted to coverup the movie and a third post from someone who agreed with him.
BTW, I just took a peek at EB's blog and he has added a new post, obviously inspired by many comments here at DI. He attributes the edited comments taken from DI to "an anonymous commentor". It is an interesting read, if you know what actually transpired, as it exposes EB egotistical view. I would post the url to his site, but that might encourage others to go feed the troll under his own bridge. He is easy enough to find if that is what you want.
When Erik Brewer first slammed into this blog with his wordy and predictable comments, the near total lack of critical thought in his comments had me believing him to be not a person but a program, a keyword driven responder such as "Eliza" or "Racter". I was surprised to find that he was a real person.
As for a no preach policy, I think EB's real offense is harping, not preaching. I think getting a sample of the mental processes of a real live fundie an interesting experience, but once EB had established his stance, rather than add any valuable insight to the discussions, he kept repeating the same thing over and over and over…. ad nauseum.
Not what I was mentioning before but, what I found.
http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/01/19/50-at…
Erich:
I think the bottom line here is that as a blog admin, you have no requirement or responsibility to provide 'free speech' or anything resembling a democracy to those who choose to comment here. A person's blog simply isn't a democracy and commenters have whatever rights the blog admin chooses to give them (see Ray Comfort's site for a great example of actual comment censorship).
It's clear to me that, far from being religious persecution, this new DI comment policy was instituted because of ONE particularly determined troll named Mr Brewer, who, after its inception, repeatedly & knowingly breached it in an impotent & pointless act of defiance (and who no doubt now cries persecution and claims martyrdom – however, he should realise it's not persecution when you're actually in the wrong. Just because everyone's against you it doesn't mean you're Galileo). I'm sure if Mr Brewer continued posting on-topic comments (in his inimitably condescending fashion) but without constantly claiming to know what God thinks/wants/hates/loves et cetera ad nauseam, we all would have been fine with that. However, he made a free & conscious choice not to do so and kept the preachometer turned to 11. He experienced the consequences of his actions and seems to have flounced off to sulk, which is no great loss in my humble opinion.
I've had many rewarding and interesting exchanges with religious people of all shapes and colours, but the absolutists & extremists of this world, whatever their religion, simply can't comprehend an opposing point of view (or even properly acknowledge its existence; eg the fallacies "atheism is a religion" or "you worship science") and as such it's pointless to engage them. Religious moderates/non-religious people/anyone who can disagree but still express themselves maturely are better off without them.
The comment policy disadvantages noone except those who refuse to participate in adult, respectful exchanges of ideas!