I have a charlatan troll poisoning my Facebook profile (I'm still in the process of setting up a proper blog, I'm using FB to test the ground for some ideas). Since this person in particular annoys the hell out of me, I thought about asking for some help around here to elaborate a rational response to his arguments, instead of letting my emotions carry my case into verbal warfare. Plus, he's using ad-hominem's like they are free, and we know how those work (he's a lawyer, so no surprise there, I guess... )

For clarification, the reason he gets on my nerves is that apparently I can't even post a news article (without any comment on my part) about muslims distributing leaflet calling for all gay people to be hanged, without this person instantly commenting about how islam allowed the flourishing of science during the middle ages. (Granted, that did occur to a certain extent, but his argument points to moral relativism: 'we shouldn't speak against Islam'). So he's effectively telling me to shut-up each time I post something.

Now, obviously I could block him, or I could tell him go fuck himself, but since I'm planning on writing a blog, I'd like to have some strategy to deal with this kind of people. What I'm asking, then, basically, is for tips and hints about how to deal with these situations, based on the experience you may have in posting things that might be 'controversial' to a general audience. Acting like a tyrant and blocking him seems to me a self-defeating strategy in the long-term. I obviously have 'debated' with him and he keeps repeating his argument that I'm a fanatic because I don't agree with him. Ad-hominem for the win. So it's not that I lack arguments to support my views, the problem is that his repeating this argument each time I post something does work on the audience, and I'd prefer not to have a debate about whether I'm a fanatic each time I want to post something.

So for example, I shared a blog post from someone else titled 'Why we must talk against religion', which consists of just a single paragraph translated from Dawkins' Message Of Support to youngfreethought.net. This is the whole paragraph:

It is all too easy for debates about the role of religion to become inward-looking and academic, but it really does matter. Every day, all across the world, millions of our fellow humans are diminished by religion: religion that may force them to mutilate their children, cover their hair or faces, stay silent when they have so much more to say than those who suppress them, surrender control over their reproduction, donate money they cannot afford, obey and submit to their inferiors, deny reality, forgo education, close their minds, reject proper medical care, suffer needlessly, be burdened by pointless guilt, and live with the spectre of eternal torment. Every day, religion works to recruit more victims, among the young, the sick, the poor and dispossessed, the old: anyone who is weak and vulnerable is a legitimate target in religion’s eyes.

I'm obviously aware of critics of Dawkins' alleged 'strident' style, etc., and I don't necessarily agree with the 'moral' justification for uttering anti-religious propositions. Either way, the argument I want to respond to says nothing about Dawkins, but about anyone that 'speaks against religion'.

His argument is this:

But to speak "against" something is to adopt exactly the way all the fanatics have taken when they embraced their "new faith" .... Better just speak up for what each considers to be true or sensible, instead of being inquisitors of non-religion and end up pairing with them unintentionally.

What would you respond to this on your public blog, newspaper column, or web-site? Or how would you manage the situation when this kind of people start to clog your site? Or am I just a moron not to block him? How would this work on a public blog?

Thanks!

You can't stop the atheist inquisition!


Seriously If you're putting together a blog you need to get used to this sort of thing. This type of troll usually goes away if they are in the minority opinion in the comments and largely ignored. There are exceptions. I would let him continue to make a fool of himself.

Ask if it's his opinion that, while people are being killed by fanatics, everyone else should stand by and mind their own business.

You can always ban/block him later if he gets too out of hand.

Muslims did some good research 500 years ago - therefore what?

They should be allowed to hang anyone they like?

They should be allowed to threaten anyone they like with death?

They should not be criticized for anything they do?

They should be allowed to harass anyone they like?

The reason formulating a response is hard here, is because your opponent in this case hasn't offered a clear counter-argument. The easiest way to deal with this is to keep asking him questions until you are clear of his stance, and when you do he will have a moronic stance that is easy to tear apart.

Another angle to take is to make a comparison. "The US Government did some good research 100 years ago, therefore they should be allowed to hang anyone they like".

Also, I know what you mean with the ad-homs. It is the only argument used by right-wing conservatives. "Oh, of course you would make that comparison, you're an atheist and want us all to live like the soviet union". I just throw an ad-hom back and post a link to a logical fallacy website, ie:

"Of course you would say that? You're a christian and the bible says all non-believers should be killed... See where this logic takes us, read this and educate yourself: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacie ... minem.html"

Some atheists are inquisitors and fanatics and intolerant and ignorant and assholes and myopic and liars and deluded and everything else--positive and negative--that all humans are.

If you think you are going to change minds.....well......that's being deluded.
Don't be that.

Thanks all for the great suggestions (+ moral support, if I gauged it right )
I've had some experience in managing an IRC network with plenty of dramas all over the place, but close to no experience in 'internet publishing'.
My two cents on how this situation turned out: I let him continue to clog (close to) every post I made, repeating his argument all over the place (the same argument over and over), and then I called him out on it and asked politely if he would please refrain from reiterating it, since we had already debated about it some time ago and I had gave him my opinion about it. Seems to have worked out ok, hopefully he even isn't resented and has understood.

Cheers!

Nice work. Yea, I generally like to close those things off quickly. If it gets really bad: "You nonsense is clogging up my facebook notifications, I'll continue to discuss this with you in email, or else just let it go or take these comments to your own wall".

stalidon wrote:I have a charlatan troll poisoning my Facebook profile (I'm still in the process of setting up a proper blog, I'm using FB to test the ground for some ideas). Since this person in particular annoys the hell out of me, I thought about asking for some help around here to elaborate a rational response to his arguments, instead of letting my emotions carry my case into verbal warfare. Plus, he's using ad-hominem's like they are free, and we know how those work (he's a lawyer, so no surprise there, I guess... :yuk:)

Just FYI I stopped reading after this paragraph (it moved me to respond so much).

1) Are you considering starting a blog about the achievements of atheism? If so, it seems for a non-stamp collecter, you spend entirely too much time talking about your non-hobby. The title of this thread somehow seems fitting when taking into account what I perceive to be your ultimate goal, starting an atheist blog. It's one thing to hold strong views and opinions on a subject and to openly express those views; it's an entirely different thing to try to argue with someone that you don't zealously advocate for those views while simultaneously trying to start a blog proporting them.

2) In bold is a clear and blatant ad-hominem attack on the "troll", and on lawyers in general, in the very sentence where you are admonishing ad-hominem attacks. Unless you were trying to be ironic, which isn't made explicit, I cannot take anything said after the opening paragraph seriously, because the entire thing (opening paragraph) smacks of hypocrisy.

From the length of your op I would assume you think you are being sincere, although from the tone of the very first paragraph, it seems you are not.

I suggest starting the blog if you want to. Who cares what other people think? If you want to get under this "troll's" skin, just call him an idiot. If he is intelligent then he probably has a reason for making his claims, if he isn't then you rationalizing with him using logical counter argument won't make a spit of difference to him.

If you are unable to grasp this fact and need help coming up with arguments to counter him, then maybe it's time for you to take a second look at his arguments.

Just a thought.

1) You may as well say people who set up '9/11 hoax' debunking blogs are spending "too much time" talking about an event which never happened. What a load of absolute bullshit. Bad ideas exist to be destroyed, people who set up these blogs are doing the world a good service.

2) Obviously it is an ad-hom, it is an insult, not a formal argument.........

Who said anything about an atheist blog anyway? You just made that up. It could be a secularist, skeptic, philosophical blog for all you know.

Not to mention we could use this exact logic against you here. "Why are you on here writing paragraph after paragraph about blogs you think shouldn't be set up, maybe you should take a look at your own arguments ect......"

Ihavenofingerprints wrote:1) You may as well say people who set up 9/11 hoax debunking blogs are spending "too much time" talking about an event which never happened. What a load of absolute bullshit. Bad ideas exist to be destroyed, people who set up these blogs are doing the world a good service.

Please, by all means, set up a blog debunking 9/11 conspiraccy's if you like... Have fun.

2) Obviously it is an ad-hom, it is an insult, not a formal argument.........

Who said anything about an atheist blog anyway? You just made that up. It could be a secularist, skeptic, philosophical blog for all you know.

I said I perceived that was his goal, I never claimed that it was. I know it could be secularist or something else; I stated it seemed to me that it wasn't.

Not to mention we could use this exact logic against you here. "Why are you on here writing paragraph after paragraph about blogs you think shouldn't be set up, maybe you should take a look at your own arguments ect......"

1) I said he should set it up if he wants to, and I never said I didn't think the blog should be set up.

2) This is not a blog, nor my blog. This is a forum. It exists specifically for people to express their views.

3) This part of your response makes no sense. I have never claimed I am not zealously advocating for my views, which I from time to time do. But I haven't gone so far as to set up my own blog to express my views, so if you want to consider me fanatical for expressing my views on a site designed for people to express their views, what does that make someone who starts their own blog? Uber-fanatical?

4) I didn't make an argument. I made suggestions and offered insight. There is simply nothing for me to look at...

5) No need to be defensive. I did not make a claim. There is nothing to defend. I didn't ask a question which would have prompted you to respond, so obviously you took offense or at least disagreed with something you implicitly gleaned from my post. It was not there. I did not intend my response to be provocative in the least.

Stop playing the victim card, you said:

If so, it seems for a non-stamp collecter, you spend entirely too much time talking about your non-hobby.

And then assume the blog he is going to set up is an atheist one. Giving the impression that, setting up his blog would be a waste of time.

That isn't supporting his free choice to set up a blog, it is trying to discourage it. No one gained anything from this insight of yours.

I knew that piece of irony about lawyers would set-off some alarms...
All I'm stating there is that 'I guess' it's not a surprise that *he* as a lawyer has a professional bias in discourse toward using ad-homs as a rethorical device. After all, ad-homs are a frequent device a lawyer needs to use, and it works. I didn't mean it as a moral statement: all I mean when I say 'ad-hom' is that the reasoning which uses it is suspect of being flawed. I did mention ad-homs, however, as a clarification on why he affected me 'so much', since (I'll admit) I don't have much experience on keeping it cool while I perceive someone chastising me.

I wont go into why I'm setting up a personal blog, because that seems off topic. I also didn't lack any arguments to offer him about why I don't perceive myself as being a fanatical inquisitor, and we had debated this very issue on a debate that ensued on a post he made titled 'Science is a religion, with its own priests, apologists, etc.', in which he accused each of the ones that said his argument was false (including me) of being fanatical inquisitors.

The point of my post was asking for input into how to manage this kind of situations, where after extensively debating an issue with someone, he comes to push&repeat his position again and again each time one posts something, even if it has nothing to do with the original debate.

Some atheists are indeed religious inquisitors and fanatics; others are highly tolerant of opposing views. Some breed fighting dogs; others devote their lives to helping non-human animals. Some eat meat; others are vegan. Some are intelligent; others less so. Some enjoy Masterchef, others do not. Some are gamers.... but I hope my point is clear.

The only thing atheists have in common is a lack of belief in a deity. Any attempt to suggest otherwise is disingenuous.

Blip wrote:Some atheists are indeed religious inquisitors and fanatics; others are highly tolerant of opposing views. Some breed fighting dogs; others devote their lives to helping non-human animals. Some eat meat; others are vegan. Some are intelligent; others less so. Some enjoy Masterchef, others do not. Some are gamers.... but I hope my point is clear.

The only thing atheists have in common is a lack of belief in a deity. Any attempt to suggest otherwise is disingenuous.

That's, by the way, part of the reason I posted this in the Philosophy section. I tend to disregard people that argue their atheism from an emotional stance. The question itself, 'are atheists dogmatic' is a valid and interesting philosophical question, or at least something that might kick-start one, and a question that anyone that wants to be rational should ask about himself, frequently.

The same people generally post all over the forum so the nontheism section wouldn't be a bad place for this thread

Touché