Recently in Theism & the internet Category

Austin nails it:

Every atheist site that has any sort of community interaction or reader feedback will inevitably attract the attention of internet evangelists -- Christians who are convinced that they will be able to change minds and hearts with a few choice words about Jesus Christ. What's amazing about this is not just the arrogance of those involved, but how consistent the behavior tends to be. It's almost as if they are all following the same plan of attack, the same script, and the same attitudes.

I can't begin to tell you how often I have observed Christians following this plan, step by step, in both the forum and in comments on the main site. I've also seen it occur in Usenet newsgroups and other atheist sites. If atheists are angry, it should be little wonder why -- how could anyone avoid getting at least a little angry when faced with the above behavior year after year on many different sites?

He includes a comment made to one of his earlier posts by a reader named Simon. I suspect Simon is a fellow blogger;

You may feel like a pioneer, on the outskirts of Christendom evangelising the heathens, but we've had so many missionaries here that I doubt you have anything new to offer. You all follow the same steps, perhaps you're taught them at Missionary School, and they seem to be the following:

Step one: Post off topic. Show total disregard for the purpose of the comments section. Better still, post the exact same thing in the comments section of several totally unrelated articles.

Step two: Make sure you give a gloss of politeness to your post.

Step three: Be sure not to actually read anything on the site, just launch your attack. Do not seek answers, and do not question your own position. You already know you're right; either of the above would merely be matching wits with the Devil!

Step four: When you get a response, make sure you point out how puzzled you are that they are not yet totally convinced. Be sure to ask "why so much anger". Point out the character flaws which are surely the cause of their incredulity. Do not engage any of the points raised, do not under any circumstances enter into real dialogue; then repeat your original post as if nothing else has yet been added to the discussion.

Step five: If asked a direct question, ignore it. Accuse everyone else of not answering your questions.

Step six: If they are still not convinced, repeat steps four and five.

Step seven: If anyone calls you up on any of our incoherence, poor reasoning, dishonesty or blatant lies; ignore step two. Be sure to whip yourself up into a self-righteous frenzy, bemoan the fact that all you want is an honest discussion, share opinions. Tell them how much God loves them. Tell them they'll spend an eternity in Hell.

Step eight: Leave, never to be heard from again, shaking the metaphorical dust from your metaphorical sandals as you go.

I think we can all attest to the truth of the above.

Above all else, I appreciate my sense of humor. I'm not sure where it came from, as far as I know it came with the body I was issued at birth. People without a sense of humor are, well, serious. They can't appreciate the wonderful absurdities in life. They don't find jokes funny. They never sing along with Stephen Lynch.

So I'm not surprised that the terminally humorless can't appreciate satire, either. Satire is subtly humorous. It is meant to appear serious, and the funniness of it can only be discerned by those with healthy senses of humor.

How sad to be condemned to a life without a sense of humor. It makes a person turn out like, well, this nut. Now it's entirely possible he's being terrifically sardonic, countering satire with more satire. You decide...I don't think so.

Our Purpose: The Internet was created by the United States of America - a Christian nation [ref. 1, 2, 3] - and should not be used to spread anti-Christian, secular, or non-Christian propaganda and hatespeech. This is our Internet, and we should exercise our position as its owners and as the guardians of civilization to stop its misuse. “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.” - Patrick Henry, American Patriot “Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord [i.e. Jesus Christ] one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names...” - Article VII, US Constitution

For this reason, this website was created to try and stop one of the more vile and dangerous misuses of the Internet: using it to mock Our Lord Jesus Christ, His teachings, and His followers. And one site in particular stands out in need of stoppage: Landover Baptist.

Landover Baptist claims to be a church. Moreover, they claim to be the only church in America that understands the Bible! In fact, neither is true. Landover Baptist is a fraud. A joke. Their true purpose is not to spread the Gospel of our Lord, but to trick people - especially those who have not received the Word and Salvation or have been programmed by secular culture to distrust Christianity - into believing that Christianity is evil and rejecting it.

For this blasphemous atrocity, the Landover Baptist website must be removed from our Internet.
“Woe unto them that call evil good,
and good evil; that put darkness for light,
and light for darkness; that put bitter for
sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
(Isaiah 5:20)

About "Landover Baptist":
Landover Baptist is run by an organization that calls itself - no doubt in gleeful mockery of Our Lord - Americhrist Ltd. Its leader is a shadowy figure named Chris Harper who apparently has a history of anti-Christian bigotry. Although Landover Baptist claims to own vast properties and have thousands of members, in reality it exists only on the Internet and it's membership is quite small.

Their modus operandi is simple: post articles that take good Christian values and twist them - beyond recognition - such that they look arrogant, hateful, or just idiotic. To this they add a continuous mockery of The Lord and Salvation, such as portraying Jesus Christ as the captain of a decadent cruise ship or offering a free cellphone as a reward for those who become saved - demeaning the value of Salvation to that of some material trinket!

Landover Baptist also targets our youth. They regularly do articles about some pop-culture entertainment that has a loyal teen or preteen following (such as the singing group In Sync, who are in fact Christians) that contain intentional lies and slanders designed specifically to cause those youthful and naive fans to consider the authors of the articles to be either idiots or evil or both - and they do this in the appropriated name of our Lord! This predictably causes the fans to come to the site (Landover's followers make sure to notify fans of the atrocity by placing forged announcements on their fansite message boards); view the many inappropriate, hate-filled articles; and come away infected with anti-Christian propaganda.

All of this has the result of replacing, in the minds of hapless non-Christian visitors, the teachings of Our Lord with the false and purposely distasteful teachings of Chris Harper and his band of hatemongers. Those who do not end up rejecting Christianity because of this site will end up accepting evil lies in Christianity's place. Either way, the devil wins.

Furthermore, it is clear that they do not want people to know their true goals. For example, their guestbook is set to asterisk-out words like "joke", "satire", "parody", "anti-christian", and - most tellingly - "Satan" so that any Christian who tries to inform naive visitors of the truth ends up sounding like a foul-mouthed, raving loon. They also filter out "Americhrist", obviously to keep their connections to Atheist militants a secret!

NEWS FLASH! If you had any doubts as to the affiliation of the creator of Landover Baptist check out this link which shows pictures from an Atheist convention that "Reverend" Chris Harper was a key speaker at with other anti-Christian blackguards such as Douglas Adams and Dave "Mephistopheles" Kong!

Take Action:
Our cause is in its infancy and we are still growing. So far we have a membership of over 100 concerned and motivated Christians who are willing to do whatever it takes to shut down Landover, but we still need your help. Please take the time to join our cause and show the world that intolerance and hatred towards Christianity will be met with determined resistance!

If you have any more information that can help us in our cause or wish to join, you may contact OBJECTIVE: Landover Baptist Shutdown at:
jimcarlson@objectiveministries.org

Things we can do:

* Prayer. It is our best weapon against the anti-Christian forces. We must pray not only that the Lord will intervene on behalf of the unsaved who are being damaged by Americhrist Ltd., but also for the souls of those same unsaved. Furthermore, we must pray that Chris Harper and his fellow hatemongers will themselves be saved and cease in their evil actions.
* Contact the webhost of Landover Baptist and inform them of what they are hosting. Clearly they are unaware of the contents of this site, or else it would have been deleted. If the webhost is part of the anti-Christian agenda, then we must contact any other of their service providers - including the phone company, domain name service, etc. - that are unknowingly being used to further hatred and inform them of Americhrist Ltd.'s true intentions.
* Next, we should bring the site to the attention of the makers of Internet filtering and blocking software. Ultimately, Landover Baptist is much more dangerous than any pornography site since it leads people to reject their only hope for salvation!
* Petitions!
* If none of this works, we must inform the authorities of this obvious instance of anti-Christian hate crime, which is illegal in most areas. If it isn't illegal, we must pressure our congressmen to make it so!
* Also, you should inform the pastor of your church so that he may inform the congregation, allowing our grass-roots campaign to grow. Chris Harper and his cowardly supporters are no match for the determined will of good Christians when they join together for a righteous cause!

If you've never checked out Landover Baptist Church, you should. Mr. Carlson (I'm sorry, I just threw up a bit in the back of my throat...this retard and I have the same last name?!? Well that proves there is no god) says no one under 21 should view the site. To hell with that idea, I say. But seriously, you shouldn't visit it with an impaired sense of humor. If you were to believe what you read there wasn't satire, you could suffer the same brain damage that seems to have afflicted Jim.

Wired Science reports;

YouTube has banned a group called the Rational Response Squad after it complained its videos were being taken down due to spurious DMCA requests from creationists.

The takedown followed copyright requests sent by Creation Science Evangelism Ministries, an organization founded by currently-imprisoned tax evader Kent Hovind. The Squad says the clips comprise material that is either public domain, covered by fair use, or entirely self-produced.

This again highlights a central problem with the DMCA, namely that it forces takedowns without any kind of review, and puts the burden on proof on the "defendant" to show that its material is non-infringing. But to ban people for protesting when the process has been used illegitimately is something entirely different. The creationist ministry's own website said that "none of the materials ... are copyrighted, so feel free to copy these and distribute them freely."

It's a shame that someone can be prevented legally from filing frivolous lawsuits but can't be kept from misusing or misapplying legislation like the DCMA. Not that I have any love for the DCMA.