Has anyone ever publicly asked you a question about your beliefs and then prevented you from giving your answer? That was my experience recently in the comments of a blog post by Natalie Jost.

Her post started out saying that non-Christians don't believe in God simply because [t]hey think it’s too hard or no fun, or they tried it once and didn’t like it, etc. and saying that Christians should vocally insist that their way is the right way and everyone else is plain wrong.

Obviously, this is hugely insulting to someone like me who has really worked to explore religion, tried to make contact with God, and eventually, through years of struggling with the idea, came to the point where I would simply be lying to myself if I pretended to believe it was all true. This isn't a choice for me. I can't choose to believe that there is a god any more than I can choose to believe that the world is flat or that the Earth is the center of the solar system. I could pretend like it is, but to me, that would simply be lying. It really is not a choice. And to insult me for something that I'm unable to change is no better than racism. From my point of view, that is what she is promoting.

But I didn't attack her for her utter insensitivity. I tried to be as courteous as I could, simply stating my point of view and offer an alternative that I believed we might both be able to agree on.

Her response was relatively courteous, although she didn't really directly address a single thing I said. Mark Epstein then claimed that history has shown humans to be unethical by nature (a very poor generalization, if you ask me), he claimed that Christianity is the only religion in the world that says it is right and all other religions are wrong (which isn't true at all), and that my beliefs are no less religious than Christianity and require no less a leap of faith. He was making assumptions about my beliefs that weren't even close to true. Natalie Jost repeated that last claim and emphasizes how right the claim was.

Everyone seemed to be making false claims about what my beliefs were, so I had to clarify and explain the reasoning behind my beliefs, answering every question that was brought up and fully covering every relevant topic they were querying. I spent over an hour writing another comment, which amounted to over a page on my screen and covered everything from my personal experience with Christianity, what made me turn away from it, what I currently believe in (I never claimed to be certain about the nonexistence of a god, I just claimed that I don't believe in a god in the same sense that I don't believe it will rain chocolate tomorrow), the various ways the Bible has been changed over time by humans who did it admittedly for political reasons and not due to divine inspiration, and the whole origin of ethics and how they can be deduced logically. I was very proud of the comment, as I believed it was worded in a very straight-forward, logical, and eye-opening yet respectful way.

So I had a shock of horror when I came back and saw that she had deleted the entire post after the second sentence. She claimed that I was insulting her by calling her a fool. First of all, I never called her a fool. I never meant to imply that anyone was a fool. I said First off, anyone who takes the Bible as the literal Word of God either isn’t familiar with its history or is fooling him/herself. which was admittedly bad wording but was quickly explained just a couple of sentences later. I should have said contradicting rather than fooling, as that was the point I was trying to get across. I explained exactly how there is a contradiction in believing that the Bible in its present form is word-for-word accurate to the message of God, if there was such a thing, since the Bible was significantly alterred by humans at certain points in history. I provided the details of those alterations, including several clear examples.

But she seriously didn't read past that one sentence. It seems she was so quick to dismiss any argument from anyone who didn't share her viewpoint and wouldn't even hear me out once. Strangely, she deleted the entire post except for the part that she claimed violated the comment rules.

I was really ticked off at this point. Not only has she been insulting my beliefs from the start, but she now silenced me and kept with her false assumptions about me. She asked me to try again. Did she seriously expect me to spend all of that time writing the entire comment again when I knew there was a strong chance she would just delete it again on some word that she didn't care for? But still, I knew that someone reading through the comments would get a negative impression of me due to the false claims about my beliefs and lack of a response on my part, so I had to try to clarify the situation. I explained briefly what I meant by fooling and why she misunderstood what I said. Heck, I even apologized to her for accidentally insulting her with my poor wording. After posting, I immediately went back to point out that I felt quite insulted by her action and tried to get her to understand my feelings about the situation, still in as calm and courteous a voice as I could.

Of course, she ignored my explanation. If someone was to say A+B=C, therefore B-C=A and I said that either the person didn't follow the logic correctly or is fooling himself, she would say that I'm being insulting. I'm sorry, is there some happy third option I'm not covering? She then went on to act like I said relying on the Bible is foolish (I specifically said I was only referring to the literal word-for-word text of the Bible, which has changed over time) and said that I'm not being courteous.

She then added that I've walked into her home and started acting rude. No, wrong, you invited me into your home, spread false information about me, cut me off when I tried to explain myself, and straight out insulted me, all while I tried to be as courteous as I could and even apologized more than once for the one poor choice of wording.

So I tried one last time to very briefly cover the basic information that my deleted post contained. She wanted it to be brief, so I made it relatively brief, which unfortunately meant cutting out a lot of the reasoning (sorry, but the entire foundation of my moral beliefs can't be summed up in something as simple as it's in the Bible).

I didn't expect much of a response from her, and I got even less. She didn't even attempt to address what I said, instead brushing it aside with Oh, jeez and muttering something off-topic. I made one last reply basically saying that she should think about how she's insulting people before claiming that someone is insulting her, but she just deleted the comment.

So that's that. More hateful treatment from a good Christian, fluffed up in ignorant Bible-thumping. I'm not even sure why I try to be courteous to people who are so predisposed to throwing out everything you have to say without discussion and making you out to be the bad guy. I know I would never stoop to the level she did on this weblog, deleting comments without reading them and asking the posters to rewrite them, making uninformed assumptions about people without giving them a real chance to defend themselves, etc. It's just wrong, and if she believes this is what her religion tells her to do, I want no part in her religion. I believe in ethical standards.

I am sorry to see such treatment by a 'good' Christian, but it is all too typical. You must understand that 'believers' must maintain their belief structures rigorously or their world falls apart. You might check out "Pan-Critical Rationalism" as a philosophy.

As for the Christian vs Atheist battle, did you mention in your argument anything about the ratio of 'believers' vs 'atheists' in prison? Atheists make up some miniscule percentage of the inmate population. So much for atheists' lack of ethical behavior.

Wow, thanks for the exposure. I'm not sure how many people read this, but it's good to see my name out there anyway. I am sorry you were offended, and I hope you can come to understand blogs and blogging, and the right for everyone to have their own personal space where they don't have to coddle every other belief out there.

That looks like what you do here, so keep at it. You have your right to your space. I only asked that you respect my space, which you couldn't because your voice being heard was more important to you.

That's the beauty of having your own blog - you can write whatever you want! Blessings in your quest for a podium and prayer for your heart to grow bigger than your mind that seems ready to burst. :)

What I do on this blog certainly isn't akin to what you did on yours. The comment I posted on your blog was less inflammatory than what you just posted here, yet you felt the need to erase most of what I said and leave only the part which sounds inflammatory when taken out of context without the immediately following clarification -- that I was referring to a simple logical contradiction.

If you don't want to allow for free discussion in the comments of your blog, that's your prerogative. It's your website and you have every right to toss out any discussion that doesn't agree with your point of view. I personally believe that free and open discussion is a good thing, but you can run your site however you see fit. What I have a problem with is when you turn around and act like it's me who is being closed-minded. I'm not the one who is misrepresenting people's beliefs without giving them a chance to respond. I'm not the one who is deleting all of the rational discussion in visitors' comments because one line taken out of context can be interpretted as an insult, and then leaving the supposedly insulting line in the post anyway.

If you believe you were justified in deleting my posts, then I am equally justified -- if not moreso -- in deleting your comment above. After all, while at most you could argue that I was insulting a hypothetical person who believes two clearly contradictory claims (as I may call someone foolish who literally believes that 2+2=5), you have directly and specifically insulted me. But I do not censor comments here based on whether or not I agree with them.

I think it is you who is misunderstanding the true value of blogs: freedom of speech. I believe that as long as I have a form to post public comments and while I don't provide a clear indicator that comments will be censored based on point of view (as the natural expectation of the readers is that public discussion forums are not censored in that way), everyone has a right to say his or her part on my site. Again, you don't have to be as open as I am, but I do ask that you don't hold double standards and act like I'm the one being closed-minded.

If you still believe that my actions have somehow indicated closed-mindedness beyond your own, please explain. Comments here are always open.