What the hell has this thread become?
This thread has been a tangled knot of topics from the very beginning:
- Rob Monster
- Epik
- Massacres of Religious Minorities
- Controversial Politics
- De-Platforming
- Censorship vs Free Speech
- Domain Registrar Responsibilities
- Rob's claim of a fake video
Discussion of those topics led people to inject more material into the conversation and to take long tangents regarding broad topics that go beyond the scandal that started this thread:
- Conspiracy theories
- Rob's personal religious views
- Islam itself
- Christianity itself
- Religion itself
Some of that came from Rob himself. And some of it came from Rob's critics. And some of it came from opinionated people who just want to brawl.
In any online forum, there are anti-muslim, anti-christian, or anti-religious people who crawl out of the shadows. They smell a chance to attack a group of people or a set of ideas that they hate. Especially, if there is already a controversy in which a muslim or christian or religious person appears in an unsympathetic light, these bigoted lurkers realize they can use that individual as a pretext to beat up their target group without much chance of anyone defending the target group.
In my case, when this thread was opened in March, I attempted to focus attention on the core issues . Despite people getting side-tracked, those core issues have been outlined already – mainly during March and April. People who want to see the case – pro or con – for Epik or Rob Monster or De-platforming or Registrar Neutrality can find it here.
But there are cases where I feel obliged to follow a tangent within this NamePros thread. For example, when someone attacks Islam, then I defend Islam:
https://www.namepros.com/threads/wh...k-and-rob-monster.1128748/page-6#post-7159322
And when someone denigrates billions of religious people with a preposterous argument that all Religion = Poison / Cancer / Mental Illness / Plague, then I muster evidence to contradict that intolerant, hateful view.
I detest bigots. And I view it as my ethical responsibility to defend those the bigots are attacking, when the attack occurs in front of my nose and I see nobody else standing up to the bigots.
I would much rather defend a vulnerable group, person, or idea from an attack – even if I disagree with the group, person, or idea ... if that attack goes too far – than join those whose views coincide with mine in attacking the vulnerable. Other people look for an easy victim they can attack with bad arguments because their arguments wouldn't stand up to criticism if they were attacking someone in another context.
@whenpillarsfall is a case in point. Dogmatic intolerance to all religion is actually quite similar to the bigotry aimed at a specific religious group. In extreme cases, such dogmatic intolerance leads to repression, censorship, persecution, and harassment of religious minorities. So, in a sense,
@whenpillarsfall is relevant to this thread, which originated with a massacre aimed at religion. Granted, his intolerance is weak, since he hasn't advocated for violence. But it's the same tendency: Attack people for their ideological identity rather than debate ideas rationally with mutual respect.
@Rob Monster and
@Slanted, I have met both of you at NamesCon and found you guys to be likeable nice people in person.
Thanks. I try to be a nice guy – except to bigots and bullies.
Why are you allowing this thread to polarize people in arguments that have no possible outcome?
How am I polarizing anybody? I'm an atheist defending religion. So clearly I am trying to unify people.
The person I am criticizing is a dogmatic extremist who declares that all Religion = Poison / Plague / Mental Illness. Certainly that opinion is divisive and polarizing, since it denigrates billions of people.
I can't tell if you are using the word "you" to refer to me (singular) or to Rob and me (plural). But it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to bundle Rob and me as a pair. I resigned from Epik in March and don't work for Rob. Also, my beliefs about the world (as a progressive atheist) have nothing to do with Rob's beliefs about the world (as a conservative christian).
Rob's conversations in this NamePros thread don't intersect with my conversations in this NamePros thread. The way these forum threads function, a conversation between Rob and person A will leapfrog a conversation me and person B. They all end up strung together sequentially in a single thread, but that doesn't mean that the people involved in those 2 separate conversations are sharing the same conversation or even reading one another's remarks.
I only defend the ideas that I believe deserve a defense. And I only criticize the ideas that I believe won't be criticized properly without me. Otherwise, I tend not to comment. People of ill will have accused me of supporting ideas merely because I have said nothing. But I'm not obliged to insist the earth is round merely to prove that I don't think it's flat.
Perhaps you see Rob's views about christianity or politics as polarizing. But my views on religion are not; they're quite inclusive. On politics, I could be very polarizing too, if I chose to talk about that scoundrel Trump. But I have mostly refrained from doing so.
Please use the singular "you" for Rob or me (since we are 2 separate, dissimilar people) rather than the plural "you" (as if we were singing a duet).
What is this thread about? Converting people?
No. As a believing christian who necessarily feels a duty to evangelize, naturally Rob is going to preach when people bring up his christianity. That's what christians do.
But, if anything, this thread has been about how to tolerate ideas we disagree with. That is how it began – with an intolerant massacre of a religious minority and an extra-legal campaign of censorship aimed at a domain registrar to cast aside free speech in order to silence bigoted ideas. All of that has been thoroughly discussed already. Now the debate has trailed off so that it's mostly just trolls like
@whenpillarsfall who want to express intolerance toward religion, using Rob as an excuse. So we've come full circle – from anti-muslim bigotry that killed dozens ... back to anti-religious bigotry that uses fact-free generalizations and insults instead of bullets. Human beings are a noxious breed of ape, aren't they?
I see no benefit to posting opinionated controversial things. Just the opposite. But keep going if that makes you sleep better.
I'm just pushing back against intolerance. Nobody else was.