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Uncommon Descent: Contest Question 7: Foul anonymous Darwinist blogger exposed. Why so foul?

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The guy had successfully hidden his identity for about five years, while posting all kinds of sexually charged abuse to the Internet about many people, including me. But now we know.

But Wendy Sullivan, the Girl on the Right, has officially found out who the mysterious Canadian Cynic is. Here is stuff he has said about me. He is Robert PJ Day. Small business owner. Computer genius. Well-read book nerd. Anti-creationist debater

A Linux genius, apparently. [Foul language warning re his posts and any reports on them. ]

Here is part of what Sullivan said, once she traced him:

Outing bloggers isn’t usually my thing. I don’t see a point to it. But when you repeatedly abuse and demean people because they do not march in lockstep with you, I’m sorry but you deserve it. I am not a cunt, Robert. Nor a douchebag. Neither is Kathy Shaidle, Kate, Connie Fournier, Sandy Crux, Suzanne Fortin or anyone else on the web you don’t like.

I am not above strong language and hyperbole, Robert, but I am not beneath you. You are not special. I do not dispute that you are extremely smart and well-versed in your subjects of choice. But referring to to those you feel superior to as “cunts”, “wankers”, “douchebags”, “assholes” and more doesn’t make you sound brilliant at all. It makes you sound sad and lonely. It also makes you seem very cowardly, because I know you would never call me a cunt to my face. You would never wander into downtown Toronto and meet with half the people you have insulted – on a one-to-one or at a party – and insult them the way you do behind your chosen alias.

Perhaps not. The thing I know from covering the intelligent design controversy is that a number of people like Cynic give themselves the right to pour obscene contempt and abuse at the public. Obviously, those people are frightened of something.

What would your mother say, Robert, if she knew that you referred to a woman older than she probably is as a douchebag? ( I assume that your mother is still with us. If not, I apologize, one orphan to the next. ) Is that how she raised you?

He had decided to raise the abuse level last night for me, presumably in response to being outed. The Centre for Inquiry is sponsoring it. Did those people really sit there and listen?

Can you be good without God? I’d never necessarily maintained that, but now I am beginning to wonder.

Apparently, Day proclaimed himself to be “coming out in public” at that venue. But only because bloggers outed him first.

Sullivan tells me his recent posts have featured greatly toned down language. It figures.

Some people have morality. Others rely on avoiding exposure.

Okay, now the Contest Question: Why do so many of Darwinists spout so much filth, hostility, and aimless detraction?

The winner will receive a free copy of Expelled Here are the contest rules.

Note: Entries that merely claim it isn’t happening will not be judged. Too many people here know otherwise.

Comments
[psychoanalytic soapbox ON] Speaking as a software engineer (he he), my first impression is that Mr. Day is probably autistic, with all the complex psychological baggage that it entails. Secondly, as with many vocal militant atheists (PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, etc.), he probably suffered some type of parental abuse as a child (poor baby). His antics are just his way of retaliating against those who subconsciously remind him of either his father or mother or both (poor baby). [psychoanalytic soapbox OFF] At least PZ Myers is not afraid to use his own name. One has to give him credit for that. It does not bother me that much when people use foul language, as long as they got enough cojones to face the music when their time comes.Mapou
July 4, 2009
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Sounds like Canadian Cynic just needs someone to love, or to love him, probably both.Clive Hayden
July 4, 2009
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My Mommy taught me the difference between the appropriateness of healthy debate and the stench of personal attacks. I remain surprised at the bitterness of the opposition - but suppose I should wise up. Anonymous blogging breeds vileness because there is no accountability. It is indisputable evidence of man’s fallen nature.Baylor Bear
July 4, 2009
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My Mommy taught me the difference between the appropriateness of healthy debate and the stench of personal attacks. I remain surprised at the bitterness of the opposition - but suppose I should wise up. Anonymous blogging breeds vileness because their is no accountability. It is indisputable evidence of man’s fallen nature.Baylor Bear
July 4, 2009
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Comment #4, "EndoplasmicMessenger," is absolutely right. This is not a question of freedom of speech but of civility and decorum. It seems ironic to me that for all of those who would tout the wisdom of Darwin most loudly, an unfortunate few decide to comport themselves in ways Darwin himself would have found utterly repugnant. While Darwin had many faults and problems (not the least of which was his theory), he was an eminently civil man.Flannery
July 4, 2009
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mereologist, Seconded. Please define "good" or what you perceive as goodness.HouseStreetRoom
July 4, 2009
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mereologist--So, can we be good without believing in God? What do you mean by "good?"tribune7
July 4, 2009
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As an aside if you know the guy's small business location just get a bunch of people over there picketing, thereby letting people know exactly what type of person runs the place.Joseph
July 4, 2009
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Seversky, what would anger you enough that you would call another woman a "cunt"? And, for the record, not all Christians or religions teach the doctrine of hellfire. Falling back on this tired excuse is getting ridiculous.Barb
July 4, 2009
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Darwinists, like Paleyists, are just human beings with all the faults and weakness of our species including, unfortunately, incivility. Personally, I would not use such language unless I were extremely angry but for others it is more routine. Perhaps Canadian Cynic was so angered by something the targets of his ire had done or said that he felt such language was an appropriate expression of the strength of his feelings. We are not told. As for bullying,it is not evolution which threatens non-believers with hell-fire and eternal damnation for not toeing the line.Seversky
July 4, 2009
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Well, I'd never heard of this "Canadian Cynic" guy. I guess we know who the real "douchebag" is now! In this particular case, I suppose anonymity had something to do with the vile tone of his blog, in view of the fact that he's toned things down a bit. What I don't get is, we see the exact same thing at pretty much every scienceblog, even though many of those people are professional scientists operating under their own names! WTF?!? And don't even get me started on Christopher Hitchens!! LOL Those Darwinists sure know how to pick 'em!herb
July 4, 2009
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(Note:) Wendy Sullivan and I are free speech bloggers. We have never maintained that he did not have the right to say those things. But he was an avatar for five years, so no one even knew where it was coming from. That is a different issue, because it conveniently spared him the resulting embarrassment. No longer.O'Leary
July 4, 2009
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"Why do so many of Darwinists spout so much filth, hostility, and aimless detraction?" Either they are not aware of the rules of formal debate, which prohibit baseless, illogical statements such as ad hominems or they simply don't have anything intelligent to say. If the evidence for evolution were truly irrefutable, there would not be an Intelligent Design movement. "Irrefutable" means "impossible to refute or disprove". However, this is not the case. The Japanese emperor Hirohito was revered as a god in his homeland. The defeat of the Japanese after World War II caused many to question their devotion to a god who was proven to be only a man. It is no different with those who actively (and, occasionlly, rudely) promote Darwinian evolution.Barb
July 4, 2009
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Why do so many of Darwinists spout so much filth, hostility, and aimless detraction?
Because that is all they have. It goes something like this: 1- If you have the facts on your side pound the facts. 2- If you have the law on your side pound the law. 3- If you have neither then pound the table. Evolutionists are cry-baby table-pounders- 1- The facts do not help them 2- Laws, natural or otherwise, don't help them 3- Red herrings, strawman arguments and personal attacks appear to work so they go with what they think works. It's trial and error- whatever keeps their faith as the paradigm they stay with it. Evos are bullies and there is still only one way to deal with bullies- punch them squarely in the nose.Joseph
July 4, 2009
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Seversky, The question is not about the lack of freedom. It is about the lack of civility.EndoplasmicMessenger
July 4, 2009
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That people will write and say things that others find offensive is part of the price we pay for free speech in a free society. It is the same freedom that allows us to express our condemnation of what we find offensive in equally forceful terms.Seversky
July 4, 2009
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Denyse O'Leary asks:
Can you be good without God?
Denyse, I think a better question is "Can you be good without believing in God?" After all, God either exists or he doesn't. It's a fixed truth for all of us, and not something we have any prospect of changing. So, can we be good without believing in God? The answer is obviously yes. To answer "no" would be to claim that every atheist is evil, with no exceptions, which is clearly false. As for whether faith improves morality in general, consider the following passage from William Lobdell's book Losing My Religion:
It was discouragingly easy -- though incredibly surprising -- to find out that Christians, as a group, acted no differently than anyone else, including atheists. Sometimes they performed a little better; other times a little worse. But the Body of Christ didn't stand out as morally superior. Some of my data came from secular institutions such as the Pew Research Center and the Gallup Poll, but the most devastating information was collected by the Barna Group, a respected research company run by an evangelical Christian worried about the health of Christianity in America. For years, George Barna has studied more than 70 moral behaviors of believers and unbelievers. His conclusion: the faith of Christians has grown fat and flabby. He contends that statistically, the difference between behaviors of Christians and others has been erased. According to his data and other studies, Christians divorce at about the same rate or even at a slightly higher rate than atheists. White evangelical Christians are more racist than others. Evangelicals take antidepressants at about the same rate (7 percent) as others. Non-Christians are more likely to give money to a homeless or poor person in any given year (34 percent) than are born-again Christians (24 percent). Born-again Christians are taught to give 10 percent of their money to the church or charity, but 95 percent of them decline to do so. The percentage of Christian youth infected with sexually transmitted diseases is virtually the same as the rate among their non-Christian counterparts. Ronald J. Sider, a professor at Palmer Theological Seminary and an evangelical, covers a lot of these statistics and more in his 2007 book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience. "Whether the issue is divorce, materialism, sexual promiscuity, racism, physical abuse in marriage, or neglect of a biblical worldview, the polling data point to widespread, blatant disobedience of clear biblical moral demands on the part of people who are allegedly are evangelical, born-again Christians," Sider writes. "The statistics are devastating." ...And I already knew that the majority of Catholics ignored some of the church's basic teachings. A recent poll co-sponsored by the National Catholic Reporter found that the majority of America Catholics believed they did not have to obey church doctrine on abortion, birth control, divorce, remarriage or weekly attendance at Mass to be "good Catholics". Catholic women have about the same rate of abortion as the rest of society, according to a 2002 study by Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. And 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women have used a modern method of contraception, according to a 2002 national survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I just couldn't find any evidence within Protestantism or Catholicism that the actions of Christians, in general, showed that they took their faith seriously or that their religion made them morally or ethically better than even atheists. Losing My Religion, pp. 204-207
mereologist
July 4, 2009
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A sense of spiritual futility, betrayal and isolation, coupled with a thick sense of intellectual superiority, can make even basically good people act out in inappropriate ways.William J. Murray
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