Posted on 12/11/2009 8:50:14 PM PST by Phileleutherus Franciscus
Too bad I got zapped. I was going to post this last night, but thought calmer heads would prevail. Guess I was wrong.
What has become of the FreeRepublic I joined so long ago?
Years ago, when this forum was young and gaining membership, the dedication to conservative principles was the theme that attracted many who were looking for an outlet to voice matters of political opinion in light of the Lewinsky Scandal. It was my primary reason for signing up. It gave me solace when I was racked in pain with a broken neck and back from an accident. It has been a place where returning the kindness shown to me has been easy, and rewarding. It has been a place to share the horror of 9/11, and the tears of the nation, the celebration of birth, and the tragedy of death and loss.
It has become a home of sorts, where I can share my experiences, and laugh at some of the wit and humor of so many valuable people. I have laughed with you, and cried for you and with you.
But that has all changed.
Through the years I have seen people come and go and be purged for political views that became, not one of debate, but one of demeaning personal attacks on those who did not agree with them politically. Once again, that has reared its ugly head here at FR and in the form of religious beliefs.
Recently, there has been a new creeping fascism by a small group of Creation Science believers into FR. These few individuals would have you believe that the Earth is 6000 years old, there is no other belief other than Jesus Christ, a great flood killed everyone and everything, leaving only a few survivors on a boat, which make little sense, and that any other opinion that does not agree with them either makes you either a ‘liberal’, an atheist, not worthy of posting here at FR, and not a ‘true’ conservative. They would have you believe the Theory of Evolution is the cause of every human disaster since the time of the printing of Origin of the Species and that all science is a lie. The threads promulgated by these very few proclaim the fact they are ‘right’, while anyone disagreeing or choosing to debate them are ‘wrong’. Some of these individuals have promoted bigotry and personal attacks, which would have gotten any other individual here banned.
Yet, under the protection of the owner of the site, these very few have had the audacity to instill their beliefs into the core of what was once a great conservative site, and is now one that determines your conservatism by your acceptability of Creation Science. It has now become a site that determines your conservatism based on rejection of Mormonism, the Roman Catholic faith, atheism, on any religious belief but their own, and not on conservative values that have nothing to do with religious beliefs, but on what is best for the country and what we revere as America.
This is the worst kind of fanaticism as it pits a particular religious belief against an individuals ability to think. Something that has developed over millions of years, from the use of rudimentary tools to the complexities we enjoy today, an individual’s ability to think sets us apart from most of the other animals. And we are still in the adolescence of that developing technology and intelligence. Look how far we have come from the written word to the printing press to the Internet.
This kind of fanaticism was used by Hitler against the Jews and just about every other race and culture, by the Italians against the African Continent, and by the Japanese against the Chinese. It was used by the Catholic Church in Spain as a weapon to force those not of the Catholic faith underground or tortured to death for heresy. It was part of the Crusades and the slaughter of millions of both Muslims and Christians. A struggle that continues even today, although it pits radical self-serving Islam against the free-thinking individual of any religious belief, basic human freedoms, and forces each of us to stand up to that type of extremism.
There are many religions in this world, and many beliefs in a different ‘god’. History is replete with various religious beliefs that either evolved or were discarded. Even those who do not adhere to the Christian belief should be free to choose what and how they think, and not be condemned by the few who see nothing but their way and dismiss their conservative values. This type of religious fanaticism degrades this forum to the very thing that the DUmmies expect from FR, intolerance of others.
Science is the quest for knowledge. That quest requires that each individual take a look at data and information and make a valued opinion. Science is not perfect, nor has it claimed to have all the answers, otherwise, cancer would be cured tomorrow, food would be grown enough to feed the world, and disease would be eliminated. But that is not the case. It is that quest that has sent us in directions to search for who we are, and where we came from. If the science leads us to god, or whatever deity that created the universe, then so be it, but to dismiss it is to ignore the progress of generations, and reinforces an ignorance that only education can alleviate. By using one book as the sole source to how everything has come to where it is now, is ignorance on the highest level. And to use that belief as a ruler to measure your worthiness as a conservative is beyond the pale.
I will miss the valuable wealth of knowledge of the gun-owners here. I will miss the total dedication to the memory of our brave fallen heroes, and the devotion to our military around the world. I will miss the realistic social and fiscal conservative values I found here that reinforces my own political views.
I will not miss the tolerated religious bigotry, the insulting, uneducated, demeaning tripe that passes for knowledge by those few who would dictate to the rest.
Yes, Jim, it is your site to do with as you please, but to allow the few to demean and dictate to the many what beliefs are acceptable and ‘conservative’, and with your blessing, is intolerable to me and probably many, many other conservatives here. It shows that the intolerance the left accuses conservatives of being does live on FreeRepublic. Maybe this kind of self purging is what you wanted allowing the sort of tripe we have seen lately. It serves conservatism very little and demeans everything you started this site to be.
I will continue to fight for conservative causes, pro-life causes, pro-gun legislation, and real conservative candidates to help us get this country of ours back to where it should be. It just won’t be here, where my beliefs in that conservatism will be questioned because my religious beliefs are not coincidental with the owner.
I pray for our country and those who fight for her, in whatever capacity they can.
Please remove my name from all ping lists.
Goodbye and good luck.
Pass on to PS to please not let the door hit him in the rear on the way out.
Thank you.
Your attitude is shared by Rush Limbaugh which is one more reason his show is so successful.
LOL. Nope, no problem so long as your faith is strong and you have plenty of ammo.
I know not to read those threads because I have tried. Yes, they sound nuts.
Let's see. You have two guys who are obviously out of step with the majority on the forum, including the forum OWNER.
Knowing this fact, they nevertheless go onto threads they disagree with, taking potshots, calling people names, generally TRYING to stir up flamewars. And then they complain about it?
And then, to top it off, they want to whine about "religious bigotry" because people have the nerve to actually engage in religious debates? Sorry to break it to you guys, but in a free society, on a free forum, especially one called Free Republic, people are going to debate about things you don't like or couldn't care less about. Get over it. There's a simple way for you to avoid it, which is called "not participating in those threads."
The answer is NOT to have one of your buddies post some ill-thought out flounce explaining to everyone else why you're just too durn smart and tolerant and special to exist on this forum with the rest of us.
You'd think that after having been on FR for "so long" (but frankly, I don't care HOW long someone has been on FR, if they think that their seniority gives them the right to be an ass, think again), Pistolshot would know better by now.
So please, Pistolshot and wacka, don't let the door hit you in the rears on the way out.
......And a few years ago a group of evolutionists tried to force FR over to their way of thinking and they soon found themselves on the outs.
FR is a pro-God, pro-Creator, pro-Life, pro-Liberty site.
And now we have yet another group of Darwinists trying to have their Darwinist way with us. Well, as I've said before what doesn't kill us will only make us stronger.
Darwin Central has again declared war on FR. They have ping lists and email lists and will try to pull away as many FReepers as they possibly can. So be it. Those who would rather go with Darwin, please go. I sure as hell won't try to stop you.
FR will remain a pro-God, pro-Life, pro-Liberty, pro-Creator conservative site.....
......And a few years ago a group of evolutionists tried to force
FR over to their way of thinking and they soon found themselves on the outs.
It's the forcing of your opinion on others through rude and boorish behavior that gets you zotted. Not your beliefs in themselves. This needs to be well understood and repeated often.
No one grabbed you by your hand and forced you to click on any of the crevo threads, now did they Pistolshot?
There are, at any given time, hundreds of threads discussing hundreds of different topics here on FR - don’t like any of them, don’t CLICK on them. Pretty simple, eh? There are a lot of topics on FR that inflame the passions of our members, and in a way, that’s part of the beauty of our forum.
I don’t mourn those who give up on FR simply because they don’t like the tone of a particular type of thread. It strikes me as a from of intolerance in itself.
Therein lies the key.
Typically, the evos on this thread cannot tolerate a creation/ID post going up. Their typical methodology is to initiate a keyword spam, followed by going onto the thread and trying to stir up a flame war, while largely ignoring the original subject of the thread itself.
I have NOT seen this take place on the (granted, less prevalent, thanks to GGG) pro-evolution posts that go up) from the creationist/ID side.
I've had a few good discussions with evos over the years, mostly with that small subset of evos who are actually intelligent enough to conduct a scientific conversation that doesn't involve asking if Noah rode a brontosaurus. However, the fault lies mostly with the evos who are, indeed, trying to to force their opinions by disrupting discussion of opposing viewpoints.
Based on seeing the threads go by on the Latest Posts page I'd tend to agree. They are very aggressive and hostile. That is not FRiendly.
If Jim decided that their verbal thuggery had reached the point that they needed to be bounced then it's his site and I also agree with him for what that matters. Debate is GREAT! Eye-scratching cat fights make me depressed. We're supposed to all be Conservatives here and if not you get the zot. The shallow name-calling "religious" wars are, well, very off-putting to say the least.
Long Live Free Republic. Someone needs to keep the peace. JimRob does.
I think one of the things most objected to by the evos, is that quite a few of the cres make very little effort to gain a proper understanding of scientific terms and concepts relevant to understanding what evolution *does* claim. And apparently persist in their errors even after being told repeatedly that they are making elementary errors, or engaging in strawmen.
It can be *enormously* trying to try to debate, or to teach people, who don't want to learn.
And so people who approach the dispute from a higher level of learning, or more respect for intellectualism, are flamed less, and treated with more (though sometimes grudging) respect by the evos.
Still don't understand why Patrick Henry's homepage got removed several times, though.
Cheers!
I would tend to agree. I had scaled back my FR involvement in recent months until just recently because it seemed like the jerks were starting to take over the place, and I was being sucked into flame wars that I didn't really want to be in, but had acquired a "stake" in because of defending somebody who was the object of unwarranted attacks. Not just the evos either, mind you. There seems to be a certain subset of FReeper on here who can't handle it when people disagree with them - it immediately becomes personal.
Oh and one other thing - I've seen little in the way of actual religious "bigotry" on here. I've seen a lot of religious debates, sometimes heated, but I don't qualify the mere act of disagreeing with someone else's religion as "bigotry," as some on here seem to. In fact, I'm just the opposite - I've been meaning to write an essay, never gotten around to it yet, as to why religious debate is GOOD for a pluralistic society. Quite the opposite of the "don't talk about it because people might get offended and think you're a bigot!" mentality.
True enough. In general, it's always a wise idea to know what you're talking about before getting into a debate about it, and not just on crevo threads.
It would help, too, if the evos would make an effort to actually understand what creationist arguments are, too. Both sides perhaps need some primers. I would suggest they all sit down and read Del Ratzsch's book "The Battle of Beginnings," which deals more with what both sides believe, rather than arguing the science itself. The author would be considered an IDer today, who used to be a Darwinist, hence he knows both sides.
I know outright atheists who claim not to believe in evolution, in other words, atheism is sufficiently stupid without subscribing to any other brain-dead doctrines...
I think we're on the same page here. The personal antagonism here on many topics has increased in the past couple months (but didn't start then, of course.)
Jim Robinson knows what he's doing and the false arguments about his "purity purges" are just part of the shallow noise-generating rudeness.
I see lots and lots of different opinions every single day here. There is *never* a problem unless they are moonbattery or abusive. Period.
And one of the reasons I'm here, on the single most decent public forum on the web IMO, is *exactly* because decent, conservative adults can talk about serious and silly things without the raucus,mind-numbingly crass nonsense you see on other sites.
It's not much but I make monthly contributions and as a contributing member I think Jim maintains a good balance between free thought and focused objectives in a FRiendly forum. If he occasionally bounces disruptive factions then so be it. Every respectable establishment in the world does that.
There. That's my opinion for what it's worth. :0)
ZOT!
Hi Quiz.. good post
Perhaps the author of the excerpt would like to comment upon your interpretation of his post; evidentally it would be interesting to many freepers to see if he concurs with you in your interpretation of his words.
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