General Discussion Of Moderation Procedures 9.0

This thread replaces this one.(Version 8)The following are the 7 previous "General discussion on moderation procedures" topics, from earliest to most recent:
Change in Moderation?
General discussion of moderation procedures
General discussion of moderation procedures: The Sequel
General discussion of moderation procedures: The Consecution
General discussion of moderation procedures: The Consequtive Consecution
General discussion of moderation procedures: The Consequtive Consecution Sequel
General discussion of moderation procedures - Part 7Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Arachnophilia recently received a POTM (Message 16) for a post which, as he notes himself, was probably a violation of the Forum Guidelines. But if one reads the thread (IFOlogy: Solving the UFO-Alien mystery) one sees that Origen, the thread's originator and the recipient of Arachnophilia's criticism, is a fervent Christian who believes that UFO's are evidence of the Holiness of the Bible. He not only believes this but can prove it, which he is doing in a book, of which chapter one is now complete. He claims to have sent the chapter to Asgara, and if that's the case I wish she would post it on-line.An analysis of the thread, which would be an analysis of a deluded and fanatical mind, would be extremely interesting, and if some want to take up space here doing that then that is fine, but I lack the time. I will mention one reaction I had (of many), which was when Origen described his pastor and his wife reading his manuscript and saying that they found merit in it. In my own mind I see the pastor and his wife nodding earnestly as they usher Origen out of the house, then barring the door.That Origen has some odd ideas is not the true issue, though. What's at issue is how he approached discussion, which was to make declaration after declaration without ever once offering any supporting evidence. He knows the difference between God and Devil through their works, he claims that evolution has been promoted through political machinations, and he dismissed all those who challenged him variously as Marxists, trolls, propagandists, witches and atheists, and I'm sure we can all figure out for ourselves which category we fall into.A reading of the thread reveals that the EvC Forum membership understood that Origen was a pure loon from the beginning, and little attempt was made to engage him in serious discussion. Refusal to engage someone in serious discussion is not something we normally endorse here at EvC, but it is appropriate in this case because Origen clearly demonstrated from the beginning that he had no clue about how to support an idea with argument and evidence. Attempting to get him to seriously engage the discussion in a productive manner would only have resulted in frustration, and most likely the same outcome, Origen leaving in a huff.I expect I'm spitting in the wind, but I'd like to once again urge the Christian/creationist segment of our membership to police yourselves. Sidewalk babblers bring no credit upon the creationist viewpoint. It's bad enough that the creationist tent is so huge it includes both young and old earth scenarios, but must you also allow loons and kooks? Is creationist science so incapable of judging scientific merit that it permits approaches like Origen's, thereby leaving the ideas of mainstream science as the only things it rejects?The next time someone like Origen comes here with nothing but unsupported declarations and insults, I'd like to see a more aggressive challenge mounted from the creationist side of the fence.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Does that include me Boss, or Spidey or Phat or Trixie or Anglagard or you or others here who believe in a Creator?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Hi Jar,Diverting threads from their topics and onto a discussion of word definitions was precisely the concern I mentioned in the Why I call myself a Conservative, Republican, Christian Creationist Evolutionist thread. Please keep the discussion of word definitions contained in threads like that one that are intended for that purpose. Outside of such threads we'll be using the widely accepted definitions of words like "creationist", and when people intend a different definition then it is incumbent upon them to make this clear.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

I just noticed more evidence of Origen's problematic approach to discussion. Please see his thread proposal at Compound Interest. It's all evidence of his inability to accept constructive feedback, and the icing on the cake is when he concludes that Phat is an atheist.I guess my point to creationists is that these types of people are not your allies. They may be anti-evolution and and they may believe in God and Jesus and the Holiness of the Bible, but their behavior is not only irrational but anti-Christian. It seems that it would be in creationists' own self interest to police their own ranks and make it clear that such people do not speak for them. The statement "I'm against evolution" should not be a free pass to argue for the creationist point of view.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Origen seems no worse than the evos here, frankly. Did he get angry and fail to address the issues raised, sure? Par for the course for the evos here, imho.But I get the sense his anger was not that he hadn't written the first chapter of his book and couldn't produce it, but that he felt misled into thinking he was dealing with people with an open mind. Your denigration of the guy as deluded is ample evidence he is correct. I don't know what he has written, but he wouldn't be the first person to note the term "the prince of the power of the air" and refer to fighting between Michael and the prince of Persia, etc,....as evidence that some UFOs could relate to angels (including fallen ones).Personally, I find the skepticism among the typical evo towards UFOs being real, in the sense of possible alien craft, to be unreasonable. There is a ton of evidence, from rader picking up UFOs and chasing after them with jets in the 50s to more recent observations. Some of it can be explained, but pilots seeing and chasing alien craft repeatedly while they were picked up on radar, well, I think only someone willingly close-minded is dismissive of that.Could angelic activity also be involved in some UFOs? Yep.Probably not the crafts picked up on radar and chased off by jets though.

Origen keeps telling me that he has sent me something, but I have yet to see anything. This "chapter" seemingly was written in an email inbox. He has no access to word he says.

Hi Randman,I've left you with permissions in some forums as a convenience and a courtesy for you, but you can lose those too if you do not follow the Forum Guidelines. Please stay on topic, respond to what has actually been said (quoting what you're responding to would help you do this), and support your rebuttals with arguments and evidence. This isn't the Showcase forum, so you cannot use every message you respond to as an opportunity to visit all your hot-button topics.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

i think it's a bad idea to write off people with extreme ideas, out of hand, and call them loons. you're absolutely right that it's not the ideas, but the attitude. we've all heard crazier ideas here, and ufo's in the bible are not exactly a new claim. (in fact, i'd love to see a decent discussion of chariots of the gods and those famous ezekiel wheels) i think i might actually have to take exception to this. my (nominated) words were partly inspired because i did attempt to engage him a serious discussion, in one of his earlier threads. when i tried to open the gates of a biblical discussion regarding assumption and interpretation, he went first for the ad hominems. not that i was particularly bothered by this; i have a very thick skin (some would say a carapace) for that sort of thing, especially when the criticism was so obviously backwards. the thread was closed because it was clear to the moderators that he was not interested in debating the topic, from his response. i forget who in particular closed it, and this is not a critique on that moderator. but i had half a heart to ask for it to be opened again. the only reason i did not was because it was also apallingly clear to me that he did not want to discuss or debate. creationism is an idea that neccessitates a person ignore a fair percentage of mainstream science, methodological naturalism, and so forth. it's not a coincidence that there is larger degree of overlap between kooks and creationists than between kooks and the general population. in some respects, creationists are kooks because they reject conventional science and rationality in favor of a minority understanding of religion. i don't intend to be derogatory -- at one point galileo was a kook too. being unusual or rejecting the standards of the times has little bearing on whether the argument is true or not.but creationists and other less-popular forms of kooks are in a sense allies because "the enemy of mine enemy is my friend." yes. if creationism were good at judging scientific merit, it wouldn't exist. creationism is simply not a scientific approach. it is an approach based on faith. testing faith is the devil's job. the thing that you have to remember is that creationism is not an organized sect, but a myriad tiny independent groups that all hold the same loose set of beliefs, and each tends to view everyone else at outsiders, especially if the beliefs of behaviors of others are markedly different. so are far more exclusionary than others (see the 1611kjv crowd).the primary moderator i saw interacting with origen was phat. phat is a creationist, and a fundamentalist christian. but he is part of the establishment here, has been known to express his doubts or side with science, and generally acts in a civil manner. somehow, this has gotten him exiled from the creationist community. creationists see things very much as "us and them." and phat is a "them" because he does not stand up and preach in every post, or because he is not a martyr, or because behaves civilly and not like a guerilla. but mostly because he is a moderator, and does not tolerate the kind of lunacy all-too-often associated with our creationist members, and because he actually demands reasoned behaviour in others. he does not simply wave them through, and pat them on the back, and tell them to keep up the good fight. so he is no longer part of the old boy's club, it seems.i think phat is the prime example of why your suggestion will not work. it's not because creationists can't make good moderators. it's that when they do, they are no longer creationists. they are part of the evil evolutionist conspiracy designed to keep creationists down.

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the athiests are enraged because of their inability to refute?oh, wait, that's ray. sorry. perhaps. let's not run the crazies out of town, shall we guys? lets let their arguments stand or fall strictly on the merit of those arguments, and not how outrageous they sound.i'm actually kind of sad origen left. i for one was moderately interested in what he had to say. i don't think any of it was correct, but it was just a little disappointing to see his reaction to criticism. instead of defending his ideas (this is a debate, folks) he got angry, claimed martyrdom, and left.randman, the problem i see, and the reason i wrote those responses to him (re: bye) is that he seems to have misunderstood what the name of the game is. he mistook impassioned criticism for closed minds and conspiracy, instead of the vigorous testing of ideas it ideally was. maybe some were out to get him, but he read this in everything. my posts, harsh as they may have sounded, were essentially pleas to get him to actually contribute something worthwhile instead of whining and playing martyr.

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Well said. Some of the things you say are things I have said myself, one of them just five minutes ago when replying to TheMystic. I have often thought this myself. I fear it is true and hope that it isn't. If true then it means that rational dialogue between the two sides will never truly be possible. There will always be the occasional example of changing sides, but for the most part the best each side can hope for is to persuade the undecided. But if it is somehow possible to forge a bridge of understanding between science and conservative religion, and I think it premature to say it's not, then the search for that bridge that we perform every day at websites like this one is worthwhile because of the potential rewards.But getting back to Origen, I called him a loon not because of his idea relating UFO's to the Holiness of the Bible, but because after introducing the idea he somehow thought that what he was doing subsequently was advancing the idea. Whether or not someone believes in UFO's, if they're rational then Origen's approach to discussion should seem simply loony. No facts. No argument. No rebuttal. Just declarations and insults. Why isn't there a creationist brigade out there saying, "Hey, come on, that's no way to make your point. That's no way to make any point."On average I'm sure the children and the programs in public schools in the Bible belt are roughly equal to anywhere else in the country. I don't believe there's any intellectual deficit in the Bible belt or anywhere else creationists happen to spring from. People who happen to be creationists run schools and colleges and businesses, are managers, accountants and lawyers, and I'm sure they all think pretty well and that they would all easily recognize the obvious deficiencies in Origen's approach. Where are they and why aren't they doing something about their idiots posting idiocy?

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

*performs a brief tap-dance, and bows with arms open, leaning to one side.*tada.the truth of this statement, like everything else you or i have said, depends entirely on the creationists. it's not a conspiracy that we have no creationist admins here, or not even very many creationist members here. it's because they either chicken out (and become martyrs) or succeed and become excluded.if you exclude people, especially based on factors that have nothing to do with your defining belief, you're only going to limit your numbers. this is a truism, and it should be obvious. while most of the problem is really creationist attendance, acceptance of moderators who are creationists is the acid test. so far, i think they fail. yes, it doesn't help anyone's arguments. it was the behaviour, as you say, not the ideas. why are we so bad at getting creationists who can actually behave themselves? this is a real problem. they've got to exist, right? i've also noticed a lot of people in pyramid schemes. i think that as a point of observation and statistics, it's important to note that poorly educated people are more susceptible to certain kinds of religions. not to say that all fundamentalists are stupid, or that fundamentalism causes stupidity, but it seems easier for cranks and loons and people who are already out of touch with rationality to find a place in fundamentalism than highly skeptical people. evidently, they don't see it as idiocy.and exclude the people who do.Edited by arachnophilia, : typo

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I would like to interject these observations into this exchange. I believe you are correct in your evil assessment of their perception.
I think however that you are missing a simple fact. It is not creationism they defend. It is what creationism represents to them that is accosted. Science sees only details and facts and this forum demands this in an adversarial environment. They do not percieve science as uplifting. Science comes from an inhuman place of fact. They are coming from a very emotionally charged place of belief. It is uplifting for them. there is nothing uplifting about this sight to them. What does it have to offer in their eyes? Facts which are meaningless, offered in an adversarial environment by people who argue the existance of belief itself? The place where they come from can offer inner peace. They get that. But not here. One need not fear. It is true. Rational dialogue is an interesting theory. This would be possible if the premiss were understood. Science is detail fixated. Creationism is a meaningless detail in the big picture. Examining it's merrit from a scientific standpoint offers nothing of value to them. Harping upon it and encouraging debate over it will not achieve anything. I am curious what one might see as the potential rewards from this sights perspective. Any creationist believes the story not because it's true. They believe in it because of what it represents, which is true to them. This sight
is not about the truth they seek. It is about it's own agenda. Apples and oranges.
Creationism is not the issue. It is the vehicle or tool. This sight to me is all about a notion of being blinded by belief. Many come to this sight and percieve people blinded by science to belief. Both sides wish to open each others eyes but to very different things by nature.
I see both as worthy pursuits. This sight, to me, as a whole, does not. It favors and promotes only one by nature of it's foundations.
A moderator can not interject belief or their faith in it. Therefore they will allways apear to reject it. In that sense this sight will forever be closed unto itself. A recognition of the truth of both points of view is needed. This is near impossible to achieve in an adversarial environment.
In a place of worship the views held here would hold no water. They would be out of their element and meaningless. The same holds true of them coming to this house of worship if you will.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : The middle quote had been attributed to "AdminPhat". I have changed that to the correct "Admin".

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I don't believe there's any intellectual deficit in the Bible belt or anywhere else creationists happen to spring from. People who happen to be creationists run schools and colleges and businesses, are managers, accountants and lawyers, and I'm sure they all think pretty well and that they would all easily recognize the obvious deficiencies in Origen's approach. Where are they and why aren't they doing something about their idiots posting idiocy?

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But according to a recent Harris Poll...So, non-college educated people who live in a part of the country known for less-than-great public schools as well as strong Fundamentalist Christian religious influence tend to be Creationists.Lack of education seems to be a factor.

One possible conclusion you haven`t canvassed, Percy, (AFAICR) in your determination to attract a better class of creationist, is that they have lurked here for a while, shook their heads at the very tolerance shown to loons, and moved on.If any poster has to run the gauntlet of deluded individuals who spout whatever nonsense erupts in their minds sans reason or at least the semblance of ordered thinking, I can understand their reluctance to lay out their world-view.Then, we have a repetition of the same dumb-ass, straw-man posturings as peddled by the mainline Creo sites and hardly ever get a new approach, a new challenge to the EvC board.
Some (including yourself) have tried the Devil`s Advocate stance, but usually run out of puff after the position gets increasingly ridiculous.It`s probably anti-democratic, but I think we might have to set up a two-tier, invitation only, system, whereby selected members can discuss at depth and at length, without the interruptions from the loon squad. Showcase has no real standards, one-on-one in the Great Debate is too limiting, possibly an award to enter the upper forum decided by a vote of members might work. Otherwise, you will have to be the judge of who brings quality debate to the Upper House/Senate. This might work better than the POTM nomination.