Thursday, October 15, 2015

David Wood, Continued


In a recent post, I spoke about David Wood's phony conversion story, which had appeared in Shadow To Light.  I made a comment over there, which generated some discussion.  It was probably some of the most interesting discussion that has occurred in that blog in quite some time, because most of the people there simply echo the thoughts of the poster.  But in this case, there was someone presenting an opposing point of view for a change.

To be sure, I was met with hostility from some, but others seemed to be interested in having a conversation about morality from a naturalist perspective.  I was in the middle of this when Mikey, the blog's owner, decided to ban me.  Of course, he had a perfectly good reason to ban me, I suppose: I told him that he made a statement that wasn't true, and I had said this was dishonest in my first comment there (and what he said absolutely was untrue: "When someone becomes an atheist, what sets the stage i[s] the following intuitive insight: There is something very wrong with them; they need to be stopped.").  So much for our conversation about morality. 

Let me say a few things about Mikey and his blog.  If you go to the home page and look at the posts there, you will see that the whole blog is focused almost exclusively on bashing atheists, especially New Atheists (or 'gnus')  That's fine, as far as I'm concerned.  I do my share of bashing, too.  I have written about another of his posts here.  He has every right to express his opinions, and when he lies (as he often does), or when he smears people or defames them, I believe it is my right to call him out on those things.  That's free speech in action.

But Mikey seems to be very thin-skinned.  He apparently can't stand hearing anyone say something about him that is any less friendly than "Great post, Mike! You really nailed that one."  In his blog, you can smear people all day long, provided they're atheists, but don't say anything negative about little Mikey.  He told me, "you pop up on this blog and immediately begin to smear others and myself", (others being David Wood).  And he said "You can now add this blog to the list where your opinions are no longer welcome" (the"list" being Victor's blog).

Now, I don't want to sound like I'm upset about this.  As far as I'm concerned, it's a badge of honor.  Mikey can have his little echo chamber and go on bashing atheists.  It gives me something to write about.  But at least one person there seems to want to continue the conversation we were having.  So let me say to FZM (and anyone else there), you are welcome here, and I would be happy to pick up where we left off.  I promise that I am nowhere near as thin-skinned as Mikey, so go ahead and let me know what you think.  All I ask is that you remain civil.

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for introducing me to Shadow to Light. Looks like a great site, which I'll have to add to my bookmarks.

    By the way, I can see why they banned you. Your very first posting accused people of being liars and sociopaths. In fact, your very first sentence was crude and insulting. And your "contributions" only went downhill from there.

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    1. That's nice, coming from you. I'm sure you agree completely with all the others there who seem to have no problem with saying all manner of nasty things about atheists. You'll fit in well, I'm sure.

      Sometimes I wonder, though, if you even read what I write. Most of it goes right past you. This is the third post where I have linked to Shadow To Light.

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    2. Saw the links before, but never bothered to check the site out until now. I'm impressed by what I see there. I've added it to my "Favorites" list.

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  2. Yet another atheist converting to Christianity. I fail to see why in the face of so much evidence (of which you claim to be so fond), you continue to deny that these things happen. You do realize that it's a sign of insanity when you think everyone except you is a liar?

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    1. I'm glad you brought that up. If you compare this story with David Wood's, you can see the very striking difference between them. Noble doesn't make wild claims about how atheism turned her into an evil beast like Wood does. There is nothing about what she says that strikes me as untruthful, although I disagree with the things she believes. I don't deny that conversions happen, and I don't deny that people really believe all that religious stuff that defies logic and reason.

      Wood, on the other hand, is preaching to a choir of fellow believers, and trying to convince them that atheism is this horrendous thing that destroys people and makes them evil. Anyone who knows what it's like to be an atheist knows that he is lying. He may well have been this wicked person that he describes, but the lie is that atheism was at fault. I know better. If he really was that wicked, it was because of a mental illness. This is what I tried to explain to Mikey's crowd, but they only kept asking me to produce evidence that he didn't actually attack his father. They aren't interested in hearing anything that upsets their little apple cart. ATHEISTS - BAD! That's all that registers with their little pea brains.

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