Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Oooooh, Jinx. Bad commenter. No biscuit.


I'm actually a bit surprised that uber-Christian dumbass Jason/"Jinx McHue", just now, left a comment replying to this recent post, in which he wrote ... well, actually, there's no point telling you what he wrote since, based on a Jinx-related policy I established some time ago, I deleted that comment immediately.

For those of you who have been here a while (Hi, Mom!), you already know that, while I'm fairly accommodating in allowing anyone and everyone to leave comments, I draw the line when people start to become annoying jerks. I don't delete comments just people disagree with me. I delete them when people refuse to play by the well-established rules of civilized dialogue and, particularly in Jason's case, if you keep making stupid claims and refuse to acknowledge their refutations before moving on to toss out even more dumb ideas on another topic.

In Jason's case, Jason likes to think of himself as an intimidating example of manly Christian scholarship. In truth, he was thoroughly incapable of responding to even the simplest questions regarding Scripture that were posed on this blog, by myself and others. Instead, he would airily dismiss all questions with an arm-waving, "Oh, you people just don't know anything about Christianity."

In the end, I got annoyed enough that I put a very simple question to Jason: Did he believe in the literal accuracy of the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments? It's a simple question, and rates an equally simple "yes" or "no" answer, which is what I asked for. Not only that, but I made it abundantly clear to Jason that he was not welcome to leave any more comments here on any topic until he answered that question. Quite frankly, I was tired of chasing him around so it was time to put up or shut up.

Jason suddenly vanished and I hadn't heard from him until today, when he was apparently hoping I had forgotten that original restriction. Um, no. It's still there, Jason, and you don't get to say anything here until I get an answer, and that answer must be an unambigous single-word answer. Nothing else is acceptable, capische?

Jason will, of course, whine and blubber about how that mean old CC is "censoring" him and can't handle the pressure of intellectual banter. Hardly. Jason (and everyone else who's been following this) knows full well that, if he wants to regain commenting rights here, all I need is that one-word answer, that's all. Until that happens, Jason, feel free to go drop your steaming, Scriptural turds in someone else's sandbox.

Buh-bye.

AND HE JUST KEEPS COMMENTING. Just deleted yet another of Jason's comments, in which he (not surprisingly) accused me of deleting him because I'm just too much of a coward to take him on. Naturally, he avoided entirely the fact that all he has to do is answer the pending question, and he's back in.

Anyone want to bet he's telling all his friends this story while omitting that salient detail?

6 comments:

MgS said...

Heck, it would be good if he would actually back up his positions with scripture instead of simply asserting it says something.

Unknown said...

I'm an ex fundamentalist Christian. I know exactly why he's refusing a "yes/no" answer. He knows if he says "yes," he'll have to explain (and he can't!) all the contradictions and stupidities (like the biblical fact of a rabbit chewing its cud; or the fact that women aren't allowed to wear jewellery or open their mouths in church). If he says "no," he gets in trouble with all the fundie wingnuts, and by golly, he knows how rabid and blood-thirsty *they* can be.

What he really wants is to "explain away" the bits he just can't grit his teeth and agree are inerrant and absolute (like, you know, the Old Testament God's penchant for genocide, all that multiple marriage -- which God rarely complains about, by the way! -- and stuff like that).

Can't have it both ways. When I finally had to face up to a glaring contradiction in the Bible, all my fundamentalism blew to smithereens.

And most fundamentalists are so terrified of that possibility, that they would prefer to blow the entire world up instead.

So I'm sure you'll never get your "yes/no" answer.

Michael said...

I guess to my mind, when you hang the sign "Comments" on the door, you gotta take the bad that comes in with the good. The only excuse I would consider as grounds for deletion would be a persistent stream of invective, obvious trolling, or equally obvious abuse of other commenters. If it's simply an issue that the question you're asking hasn't been answered to your satisfaction, then maybe there's still something else in the comment that might (slim though the chance may be) actually serve to invite reasonable dialogue.

"Not playing by (my) rules" doesn't cut it with me as fair grounds for deletion. It's your blog, of course. You rightly and fairly control the content of your posts, but simply deleting comments you don't like seems a bit like you're electing to play tennis with the school wall, rather than accept the appearance of an occasional opponent on the other side of the court.

My penny and a half.

The American Anthropologist said...

Michael,

I think the better analogy than playing tennis with the wall, would be playing against a small child who just claims your shots are all out and his shots are all in, regardless of where the ball lands. Shouldn't you just take your ball and go home?

CC said...

phyl:

From your blogger profile, I notice you used to live in Calgary. I have a sneaking suspicion we've met. Drop me an email at the address on my home page.

CC

Simon said...

I don't know if banning Jinx is right or wrong, but it sure is entertaining!

P.S. the american anthropologist is bang on with the kid analogy.