Originally Posted by Lawlessone777


While you may think I'd agree with you in spirit, Crash, the reality is that you're wrong in this statement. On the internet, or at least in the minds of popular atheists such as Dawkins, Harris, or Hitchens, insulting something is tantamount to providing a positive argument against that thing. Similarly, atheists on these boards who engage in such behaviour genuinely believe deep down that they're providing an articulate rebuttal of Christianity by engaging in such trollish behaviour.

And something that I'm fully willing to admit is that it is perfectly okay for Christians to become upset when someone calls their lord and saviour an "invisible sky daddy" or an "iron age myth". And it is similarly okay for Christians to stand up to those kinds of trolls who engage in this behaviour and confront them on it. Would you insist that a Christian who is being mocked and berrated accept this abuse simply because by defending themself they appear less "christ like" to those they may seek to convert?

This kind of logic has never sat well with me, and when given always seems to me like a rationalization of why Christians shouldn't swing back when someone takes a shot at their chin metaphorically. The kind of insulting and trollish behaviour we see on the net, such as on sites like YT, Memebase, etc, is simply infantile and unacceptable, and Christians have to endure wave after wave of this vulgarity on almost every site we want to go to. I've been to Christian websites that have nothing to do with apologetics that are simply overrun with these trolls.

And for a Christian to actually confront this behaviour and ask for support for the arrogance held by these atheist trolls is not at all out of line, nor do I feel bad at all for engaging in it. I for one would love to see more Christians confronting those atheists who insult, mock, and belittle believers. Just because we're meant to be sheep in faith in Christ, does not mean that we must allow ourselves to be victims of verbal harassment and abuse.

Originally Posted by Lawlessone777

I agree that it should never come to that, and certainly no atheist, or theist should engage in that type of behaviour. However aggression is not universally wrong, this was something I learned through a lot of security and law enforcement experience. If there was a poster who came onto this board and politely asked for evidence of God, and engaged in an irenic debate, like Lehmar for a good example, who I think is atheist? Even if not, still perfectly irenic. If I acted aggressive towards him (her?) I would, in fact, be acting like a jerk.

However I'm trying to paint a picture of what it's like on this side of the fence, Crash, as you don't get nearly as many Christian trolls on your side as we do atheist trolls on ours. Similarly the mindset is different. You see, the new atheist trolls genuinely believe that mockery equates rebuttal, and so when a Christian engages them in debate they simply mock them and their arguments. Once this crowd fools some young, impressionable mind into believing that this mockery equates intellectualism that doesn't need to justify itself cuz it's, like, so intellectual (tm) then the crowd grows, and the sway of peer pressure begins. This is why you see such a massive crowd of atheist trolls swarm certain subjects and YT videos, the numbers are daunting. They all feel that, hey, if this many people are mocking it the movement must have grown from some sort of intellectual justification, right?

Well the crowd has certainly grown, and though many a person knows that they're predicated upon mockery and insult, they're beginning to outnumber rational, reasonable people (theist and atheist) on certain websites. And so eventually there needs to be someone to tell the howling mass of vitriol to shut up and actually bring intellectual debate to the table, and I want to encourage Christians to do just that. I'd very much like other Christians to know that just because Christ said "turn the other cheek" doesn't mean that you should knowingly subject yourself to abuse at the hands of other people who are knowingly exploiting the pacifist message of Jesus to enable this behaviour.

Originally Posted by Lawlessone777

Specifically what I'm referring to, Geneticist, is defensive, not offensive. Certainly for any Christian (or any person for that matter) to engage in negative behaviour towards atheists they are not being very good Christians, especially if that negative behaviour is unprovoked. However, when an atheist is engaging in incredibly vitriolic and vulgar behaviour towards us I'm arguing that we are fully in our right to illuminate this behaviour, for that specific circumstance, in defense of our position.

You see because the "ignore it and it'll go away" thing doesn't work anymore. When you ignore the trolls, they recruit dozens more until the site is simply flooded with them. What I'm talking about specifically is when you respond to an objection brought up by an atheistic troll, and they respond by personally attacking your, or personally attacking God. Examples from this very forum, "Your God is an invisible sky daddy." or "You keep believing in that iron age myth."

Those kinds of comments will garnish a response from me to the tune of, "Those kind of words paint you as an angry, spiteful, person. If you want to debate irenically, great, otherwise your posting is just insulting and childish."

I'm talking about confronting the behaviour, not confronting "atheism" as a whole. There are plenty of non-believers on this site who are fully capable of engaging in the subject without falling into insult, or mockery, and I find it rather depressing that they're outnumbered in some weeks by howling vitriolic trolls.