Don't think the worst of people

In the last couple weeks a few of my posts have generated a fair amount of interest from atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and even a few wiccans. I have been delighted at the exchanges. Unfortunately, it would appear that the Christian Post website crashed on Tuesday. When the dust had cleared more than a day later, all of the comments on my posts after May 8 had disappeared. This led to a minor backlash among some of those who had of late entered the conversation. This is the comment of one individual who posted afterward:

"I notice all of the previous comments have been deleted. It's a bit disingenuous to write an article about atheism then delete the responses from actual atheists. It's unfortunate that the Christian Post is more interested in its insular, uninformed view of atheists than actually having a dialogue with them.

"It also suggests that you have very little confidence in the strength of your ideas. If you really thought your ideas had merit, you would allow contrary opinions to be posted alongside them.

"No dissent allowed? Very typical of the church, and a reason why its influence is dwindling."

Like a number of other responses, there is here an apparent trigger reaction to interpret an unfortunate situation in the worst possible light (e.g. as arising from malicious intent). It should be noted that nobody contacted me personally (though my email is readily available) to enquire as to whether I had deleted all the responses and if so why. Rather, people assumed the worst.

Frankly it is a rather bizarre conclusion to draw. After all, anybody can see that every single comment is gone, not just the atheist or skeptic ones. A little intelligent design theorizing might be helpful here. If only the viewpoints of a particular group were deleted then the conclusion of a conspiratorial intention would be warranted (complexity and specification = intelligent design). But there was no specification here since all comments were lost.

Those atheists who take umbrage at the loss of their comments are like neighbor A borrowing neighbor B's lawnmower. And then when a fire burns down neighbor A's garage, B accuses A of intentionally burning down the garage just to destroy the lawn mower. It makes no sense.

So a plea to you all: when something like this occurs, think clearly and objectively rather than leaping to conclusions in keeping with your prejudices (e.g. all Christians are ideologues who oppress, censor, and don't care about the truth), and defer your judgment until all the evidence is in.