It's my own fault. I know that. For quite some time I have been unhappy with the level of discourse here. For some reason which is foggy to me at the moment I had thought it beneficial to respond to the commenters here, and for quite a while back there at the beginning, the interchange was cordial and probing and interesting and pertinent. The intent of the blog was and still should be to address the concepts which Atheists put forth in defense of their rejection of deity and religion. Those concepts include the findings of science and how they relate to nonphysical existence, the attempts to eliminate the mind in favor of the deterministic brain, the actual material evidence for evolution, whether humans have agency or are deluded, what constitutes and qualifies as knowledge, what skepticism actually produces, the principles and discipline of logic and the principle of grounded deductive arguments, and a great many other stimulating (to me) subjects.
It didn't take all that long for the blog to attract those who wanted just one thing: to push their agenda regardless of any argument against the logic of their comments. A few became belligerent and obstructionist, and some of them got booted from commenting here. Some pushed the limit continually and I failed to boot them even in the midst of constant name calling and denigration in virtually every comment. I attempted to demonstrate logic errors and to respond to rational lapses, but that too fell victim to the Ad Hominem attacks. When I should have terminated commenters, I tried to at least contain them.
That I regret.
Along about then I thought it would be good to allow such commenting in order to demonstrate the rational content (lack thereof) in the thought process of these proponents of Atheism, and their inevitable Leftism. But in the course of time that sort of discussion brought down the quality of this blog to what is now an abominable level, with name calling and charges of hate (the new “racism”) in almost every day's fare of comments.
That stops here. I have indulged it for too long. In a sense it was inevitable because I failed to properly police the commenting and to enforce my own rules more stringently. Now I wonder if commenting is even a productive feature to allow here. I’m not sure. But it is tempting to cut it off permanently. Atheists still have their spew spots, a lot of them; they don’t need this one too.
On the other hand I truly miss having actual conversations which contain something more than mere denials, obstructionism and denigrations. I don’t quite know how to regain that. But it will require moderation of comments and commenters, for certain… maybe even require membership, which is an available feature in blogger. I’d not like that, but I have to place control on the level of thought and discourse somehow.
So either this blog will be pulled up from the sewage in which it is now mired, and if it can’t be, then it should be terminated. Yes, the fault is mine. It’s my responsibility to change it.
So for the time being there will be no comments on the blog. You can always email me if you wish, and I might or might not respond.
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