Norman is being amusing again

     "Here are more examples of obnoxious christians misbehaving like juvenile delinquents that are deperate for attention. When christians get called on their petty tricks, they play the victim card. Agonizing"
     Believe it or not, I have met several christians that were decent people. Norman isn't one of them. But broad-brushing like in the above quote is a bad idea.
     Norman strangely complains about bad manners. I have yet to see him exhibit anything but bad manners. It might behoove him to examine himself. But I digress.
     Religious people have had an irreational hatred and mistrust for atheists for centuries. Unfortunately far too many people think it is impossible to act in a moral fashion without imagining someone watching your every move. On the plus side, this attitude has waned somewhat. But, we still have people like Norman who cherry-pick in an effort to justify their hatred.
     Norman is also complaining about "atheists" giving christian movies "unwarranted bad reviews." I rather doubt this. Don't get me wrong. There really have been some good christian movies. But, in my experience, most movies that are set up to be specificly christian are too concerned with getting the christian message out to bother with such trivialities as telling a compelling story. What Norman is dealing with is probably that the movies in question got several good reviews from the producers and their friends (or some other die-hard christians.) But when the general public saw it and found that it wasn't very good as a movie, they rated it down.

Norman is still holding the Idiot Ball.

     Now, I personally believe that large-scale evolution is held as a sacred belief and has not been subjected to the same scrutiny that most science is. But, even so, Norman is being ridiculous. He is complaining that "evolutionists" are effectively applying a banhammer to anyone who disagrees with them. His objection would have merit; but, as Alex points out on his blog, Norman is wielding a banhammer on anyone who dares voice dissent against him.

Alex is considering comment moderation for his blog.

     Well, as he says, he already moderates it while he sleeps. But he is considering leaving moderation up all the time. I hope he doesn't do that. Oh, I understand why he is considering it. His blog has currently attracted quite a few trolls. But, as near as I can determine, internet trolls seek to disrupt communications wherever they go. Alex would be handing them a victory.
Now, I have had some trouble with trolls in the past (most notably Norman, but even then Alex has run into more of his personalities.) But I have never had the level of difficulty that Alex has. I think there is a simple reason for this. My blog is just not that popular (*sniff). If you write a popular blog, you're going to have trolls.
     I suppose, though, one trick to preventing such a situation is to learn to identify trolls quickly. I have some guidelines.
     Someone who uses multiple accounts to post on the same blog is probably a troll, and the more accounts, the more likely. Please note that I am not talking about someone who has one account with each of several servers. That can just be someone who browses blogs on different servers and keeps an account (preferably with the same name, but sometimes it is taken) to comment on various subjects of interest.
     Someone who says "all atheists are irrational" (or, for that matter, "all christians are irrational," "all muslims are irrational," or the like) is almost certainly a troll. I do not assume that you are stupid or irrational for disagreeing with me. It only means that you are wrong. (;-P) Very intelligent, very rational people still hold on to some wrong beliefs throughout their lifetime. Gratuitious insults are the way of the troll.
     Another identifier is that trolls will often come on to a blog and accuse someone who has been commenting on that blog for quite a while of "following and harrassing them."
     I am sure there are other identifying characteristics. But those are the ones that come to my mind right now.

It looks like Obama will win again in the next election.

     It looks like Obama will win again in the next election. I say this, not because I think he's a great president (he's not) but because the Republican field looks more like a circus side show than a set of candidates. Maybe if someone actually came up with, say, a platform beyond "we want Obama to be a one-term president" they might actually have a chance. But these candidates don't look serious. I think the Republican party has simply decided it is not worth it to make the attempt this year and is just putting on a farce.

Hezekiah has managed to get some of his comments deleted at Alex's blog.

     This takes some doing. Based on the response I see, he chose to post some particularly offensive lies about somebody. I do note that this (Hezekiah) is the same guy who posted to several sites that I have already been at and accused me of "following [him] around." The only thing of his that I followed was a link to his blog. I already posted about what I thought. Anyplace else he finds me, I was there first.

Hezekiah claims to "prove" that atheism is inconsistent.

     He fails, of course. He adds his own premise, not accepted by atheists, to achieve a contradiction. This is the same tactic that Sye Tenb uses. Thankfully, I haven't seen him around in a while. Atheists believe that no gods exist. As a result, they do not believe a claim of "god is life." Life is evident. Whatever god you have in mind is not.