People get mad when they are banned, just as we have disgruntled former employees, athletes angry when they are ejected from a game, etc. That\u2019s just how it is. But it ain\u2019t my problem. The umpire (or judge) is always unpopular with the ones he disagrees with.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThis was a full-scale, old-fashioned \u201cfeeding frenzy.\u201d This is my term for when virtually everyone in a given online group decides to focus upon attacking and savaging one person with a dissenting view. Anything goes. Any insult is permissible. Nothing is forbidden. Ethics goes straight out the window. Atheists aren\u2019t the only ones who do it. Christians do it all the time, too (as I\u2019ve been decrying and condemning for many years). It\u2019s a general human failing, and one of the most despicable ongoing scandals of online behavior.<\/span><\/p>\nAnd thus we are brought to Example #4,978,109 of notorious \u201cangry atheist\u201d online behavior: a huge problem (at least when Christians<\/em> dare show up). More thoughtful atheists will decry this phenomenon along with me, and I have publicly stated several times that these types do not<\/strong> represent atheism as a whole<\/em>, and that atheists I know in person are not like this.<\/span><\/p>\nBut, that said, it remains a gigantic scandal, and a \u201cPR\u201d problem for the atheist image. It certainly doesn\u2019t make for a very appealing face. Other atheists flat-out deny that it is any<\/em> problem, and\/or say that Christians behave just as badly towards atheists. When Christians do that (and they do, far too often), I roundly condemn it. I<\/em> don\u2019t do it. No one on my blog or Facebook page does it, because I have great people there, and they know I wouldn\u2019t allow it, in any event.<\/span><\/p>\nJonathan MS Pearce<\/strong> <\/span>(as he wrote about<\/a>) is perfectly content\u00a0to allow this sort of disgraceful behavior on his blog, not because he himself loves it, but rather, as a necessary evil, for the sake of the principle and value of free speech (as he sees it). I couldn\u2019t disagree with him more than I do. But to his credit, at least he was one of only two atheists who stood up for me at all during this debacle. He wrote in the same piece:<\/span><\/p>\nWith direct regard to Dave Armstrong, . . . well done to him for coming here and suffering the slings and arrows of atheists\u2019 wrath. It takes a lot of time to read and comment on such extensive and scattered threads as that one, and I commend him for getting involved and defending himself. Goodonya, mate.<\/span><\/p>\nThe only other atheist to do so was \u201cSastra\u201d<\/strong>:<\/span><\/p>\nI once knew [Dave] on a debate listserv many many years ago \u00a0. . .\u00a0That Dave Armstrong was both intelligent and likeable, by the way. WRONG \u2014 but still nice.<\/span><\/p>\nI think Dave is generally an honorable person, . . .<\/span><\/p>\n
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