One Christian's Moral Moderation

One Christian, after being asked by an atheist to have a discussion at the atheist's blog, supposedly writes:

I know most my comments there will be blocked thats why I would rather do it here I have to be honest and I will be but I know how atheists are with stuff like they they have no reason to be honest. So you see its best done here I have my morals and I must be honest and post both sides.

This brings up an interesting question for him. I will pose it here on my blog, as the one comment I have made on his site has yet to get through moderation.

From your comment we are to suppose that Christians posting on atheist sites is futile as atheists don't have any morals and therefore have no reason to be honest. You haven't claimed that atheists can't be honest, you have merely claimed that atheists don't have to be honest as they have no reason.

Further, from your comment, we are to suppose that Christians must be honest. Therefore, it is not futile for atheists to post on Christian blogs, or at least your Christian blog, as Christians must be honest and post both sides.

Here's a problem for you, though. We have documented evidence of Ray being dishonest with his blog. He unscrupulously edits, he prevents certain dissenting comments from going through, he makes posts and then deletes them, etc. Clearly, being a Christian doesn't mean he must be honest and post both sides.

And surely, we know of other Christians who have been dishonest. Just in personal experience, I recently started commenting over at Debunking Atheists and the author, Dan, continually deleted my comments after he responded to them so that only his side was seen and not mine. (If you're curious of what the last comment in the image to the left is: I asked why he was continually deleting my comments, and he responded: Because I can...)

So, then, we aren't to expect you to be any more honest than atheists in posting both sides just because you're a Christian.

I'll get the standard Christian response to this out of the way:

They weren't true Christians.
Yes, the No True Scotsman fallacy. Let's go ahead and accept it, though. They weren't true Christians... they were false Christians.

Dan and Ray both, though, claim to be true Christians and also call other Christians (such as Catholics) not true Christians. So, even though they claimed to be true Christians -- so that they had to be honest -- they were, presumably, not true Christians and were therefore not honest.

This doesn't resolve the trust problem with you, though, anonymous Christian blogger. You, presumably, also claim to be a true Christian and therefore you must be honest (as you claim). But if they weren't true Christians, although they claimed to be, how do I know that you are a true Christian? Are you anymore believable than they?


So, again, why should I trust you to be honest in your moderation just because you claim to be a true Christian who cannot be dishonest? For all I know you are a dishonest, immoral, rude atheist claiming to be a true Christian.

I am unconvinced of your incontrovertible honesty. Perhaps a step forward would be to do as I, a dishonest and amoral atheist, and turn moderation off and make a policy not to delete comments to earn some sort of credibility -- just like in the real world.