Wednesday 29 January 2014

Upcoming Events: Jan/Feb 2014

By request, a list of some upcoming events of interest; feel free to mention more in the comments, and I'll add discussion pages for any of them on request or at my own whim.

Jan 31 - Feb 2: FTBConscience2 (free online conference; long list of speakers including Richard Carrier and Chana Messinger, both of whom contributed atheist articles to SN)

Feb 4: Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham debate

Feb 21: Carroll v. Craig debate

Estranged Notions: Is God Pro-Life or Pro-Death?

Today's post:

Is God Pro-Life or Pro-Death?

Saturday 25 January 2014

The Moderation Actions Thread

Moderation actions (other than those done with the permission of affected users) will be recorded here.

NOTE: This thread is for actions taken here on this site; to discuss events on the Strange Notions site, go to The "Strange Notions" Débâcle.

Estranged Notions: Did Jesus Exist? An Alternate Approach

This is an older post (about 6 months) from SN, which I didn't comment on at the time since it was just after epeeist's banning:

Did Jesus Exist? An Alternate Approach

Friday 24 January 2014

Estranged Notions: The Road from Atheism: Dr. Edward Feser’s Conversion (Part 2 of 3)

Today's post is just the next part of the series:

The Road from Atheism: Dr. Edward Feser’s Conversion (Part 2 of 3)

The Geocentrism Thread

So this is the place to argue about geocentrism and related topics.

Please do not mention the topic in any other post, even indirectly; this will be enforced by moderation or banning if need be.

Special Notice: This thread will be closed to commenting forever once the geocentrist posters have made 200 comments in it. This is for two reasons: one, to discourage pointlessly repetitive comments; and two, because by that time it will have degenerated into circularity.

Thursday 23 January 2014

Estranged Notions: Faith, Reason, and God: A Socratic Dialogue

Another recent pre-purge article:

Faith, Reason, and God: A Socratic Dialogue

Estranged Notions: How Contemporary Physics Points to God

Another recent article from before the purge:

How Contemporary Physics Points to God

I didn't comment on this one, but there were more than a hundred comments deleted.

Estranged Notions: Does the Catholic Church Hate Women?

The post immediately before the carnage was this one:

Does the Catholic Church Hate Women?

Almost half the comments on that post were deleted (note that the Disqus "this comment was deleted" only shows up where the deleted comment had responses - deleted comments without responses just don't show up at all).

(Notably, one of the banned commenters was on the Catholic side, but accounted for only three posts, all of them absurd ad-hominem screeds.)

Wednesday 22 January 2014

Estranged Notions: The Opening of the Scientific Mind

The post that, apparently, was where the carnage started:

The Opening of the Scientific Mind

This article was the latest of many attempts by the Catholic contributors to argue for pre-defined limits on science (a common demand from theists, as though without a proper fence, the ravening science-beast will trample over their territory).

I will repost here some of my more substantive comments, but they are mostly responses to other commenters rather than the article itself.

Estranged Notions: The Road from Atheism: Dr. Edward Feser’s Conversion (Part 1 of 3)

Today's article at Strange Notions is part 1 of a conversion story from philosopher (and notorious blowhard and quote-miner) Ed Feser:

The Road from Atheism: Dr. Edward Feser’s Conversion (Part 1 of 3)

The "Strange Notions" débâcle

So this here is a place to discuss the goings-on at Strange Notions; I've disqus-ified the comments for convenience.

If you're coming here from Strange Notions to continue a specific discussion, please find the "Estranged Notions" post corresponding to the one you were commenting on, and discuss there. If you've had comments deleted from SN then you can likewise repost those on the corresponding pages.

If the corresponding post isn't up yet or you have anything else to ask, do it on this post. General discussion about the incident, moderation policy, and so on can also be done here (if the comment count goes high enough I'll start another open thread).