Stupidest Post on the Internet: Entry 1

Ellis Washington at World Net Daily

Blocked Comments

The below is a comment I was unable to post on Butterfly and Wheels, presumably b/c I'm at a cafe and this IP has been used by spammers. So, for convenience, I'm pasting it here.

I'm assuming that my apparent ban at the Intersection does not have a similarly innocuous explanation. Does this mean I'm biased?

It seems that I was banned from the Intersection, presumably for this comment.


At least I have the comfort of sharing that distinction with OB.


I'm also glad they linked to the post that led them to ban OB. Scanning through the comments, one can only be astounded that M&K feel that OB's criticisms justify banning. M&K are worse off than I thought.

Here are the sort of vicious comments from me that Mooney will no longer be subjected to:

Teaching Special Relativity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7vpw4AH8QQ

Carroll

Are Christian terrorists Christian?

An open letter to Andrew Sullivan in response to this claim:

Surely we can all assent to the notion that a Christian militia of the type now accused of planning domestic terrorism is not Christian. This is why I call them Christianist. Anyone planning to murder innocents by way of IEDs cannot plausibly call himself or herself a follower of Jesus of Nazareth.

I'm not so sure. Can we also surely assent to the notion that an army that invades Iraq or Afghanistan is not Christian? Are you saying that all followers of Jesus need to "turn the other cheek" and be total pacifists?

Just to be clear, I think these militia folks are totally crazy and immoral. And I do appreciate your term "Christianist."

But it seems that main reason that you expect everyone to agree that these aren't *real* Christians is because we all accept two claims.

1. 1. The police are not a legitimate military target in a legitimate military struggle; they are "innocents" as you say.
   


2. 2. A person who can "plausibly call himself or herself a follower of Jesus of Nazareth" would not attack innocents.

Now, the crazies would presumably accept Point 2 (allowing for some "collateral damage" as we do in wars); their disagreement lies with Point 1. However, this seems irrelevant to their status as Christians. That is, the teachings of Jesus don't tell us that Michigan police officers are innocents. So we need to point to something besides their delusions here to argue that they're not *real* Christians, if we're going to allow that the pilots of drones killing al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan do get to be "True Christians" (TM).

It seems like you want us to accept the claim that no *real* Christian would engage in such horrible plots, because *real* Christians are (by definition?) not evil. This sounds like a perfect example of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

(For the record, I do of course agree with Sullivan's second point that "every single one of these terror suspects is innocent until proven guilty, and shouldn't be seized as enemy combatants and tortured until they confess.")

Craziness at FOXNews

I'm starting to develop an extremely unhealthy habit.

I've been reading comments at FOXNews.com. And the craziness and mind-numbing stupidity there is truly stupefying.

On the article discussing the threats on Democrats in the the wake of passing health care reform, you've got half of the commenters claiming that the threats are are a Democratic hoax:

Thermodynamics and Life

Wilkins

Carroll

PZ

What sort of person is Ric Spratlin?

Hmm. I wonder if Mr. Spratlin prefers the term "Ric Spratlin" or "Joseph R. Spratlin" in his search results.