Meerkat Prompts: The ‘Archaeologist’ Saga, P2
Following on from this post, I thought it would be clearer to provide a second post relating the saga of my discussions with Mr David Thiessen of Theology Archaeology. In his post ‘Tilting the Playing Field‘, he makes several statements of not only a dishonest nature, but an outrageous one as well.
‘Tilting the Playing Field’ is one gigantic misrepresentation of my comments policy page. in that page, I state:
‘Here, in matters relating to scientific and theological debates, religious texts are not admissible as scientific documents. I am not interested in whether or not the Bible says the earth is a few thousand years old. Here, I follow the evidence, which supports the universe being billions of years old, and supports evolution. Do not ‘come at me’ to disprove these positions with anything less than rigorous scientific analysis. Quotes from religious texts will not cut it.’
Mr Thiessen somehow managed to spin this into an extremely long-winded diatribe, and within his lengthy rant, he produced this fascinating nugget:
This type of position about banning religious documents from scientific discussions goes against the principles of discussion. It is nothing but excluding a set of information that violates the inclusive nature of those who hold to leftist, liberal, and democrat ideologies.
If one wants to be considered inclusive, one needs to include religious documents and points of view in the discussion. If they don’t they violate their proclaimed inclusive approach to life and render any discussion useless because it excludes vital information pertaining to the topic at hand.
It is deeply ironic for Mr Thiessen to complain that I am going against the principles of discussion. Consider his own site rules:
On this forum the Bible is accepted as a credible source and is considered truthful in all areas it touches upon.
People are free to reference other religion’s religious writings but at no time expect them to be accepted as equal to the Bible, infallible, true, or anything else that is attributed to the Bible.
Emphasis mine. If I were to bring up scientific references on Mr Thiessen’s site, he would instantly reject them. He has made it very clear that his literal interpretation of the Bible is the only acceptable narrative for creation, and that the Bible overrides science in all things, regardless of what evidence is presented. He has, in effect, banned science from scientific discussions. He also speaks of me barring religion from scientific discussions, but he would instantly reject anything that suggested a different religion held a better creation narrative. In past debates, Mr Thiessen has edited comments that presented evidence and information that contradicted his opinions. If he wishes to complain about a lack of inclusion, he could consider starting with his own house, before throwing stones.
This brings me to the next two paragraphs:
We see this in his other ‘stands’ on other topics. Unless you agree with his views on racism, transgenderism, sexism, and LGBTQ topics, you will be banned from discussing anything with him. Who cares to comment on his website when you have to walk in lockstep with his point of view… something the Nazis and other totalitarian governments applied to their countries.
No discussion is possible when the rules for engagement only favor the author’s point of view. If that is the only view to be discussed why bother writing anything at all? You will just be filled with stress and tension never knowing when he will pull access.
Look up the Poisoning of the Well Fallacy. The site Logically Fallacious defines poisoning of the well as ‘to commit a preemptive ad hominem (abusive) attack against an opponent. That is, to prime the audience with adverse information about the opponent from the start, in an attempt to make your claim more acceptable or discount the credibility of your opponent’s claim.’
Mr Thiessen’s words certainly fit this fallacy. They are also (yet again) a demonstration of his hypocrisy. Not only have I accepted disagreeable comments from people who’s political and social positions I greatly disagree with, I have at times been willing to hold lengthy discussions with people who sent me torrents of abuse. I have also removed any prior blocks or bans since relaunching Meerkat Musings. Unless given a reason to do otherwise, I am reluctant to use the block button. To resort to it is to acknowledge a failure on my part, for clearly things have broken down too much under my watch, and on my turf, for which I have to accept a measure of responsibility.
The best response I can give to Mr Thiessen’s rather absurd claim is to try participating here for yourself.
Meanwhile, Mr Thiessen operates with a pretty draconian comments policy of his own. At one stage, he got so upset by people not agreeing with him that he banned comments completely. He has since relaxed this stance, but on his rules page Mr Thiessen openly admits he reserves the right to edit comments that do not fit his view on common sense (merely code for ‘does not agree with me’). For him to assert I have a Nazi-esque comments policy, especially in light of his own, is as ironic as it is offensive.
After a few days, Mr Thiessen responded to part one, with the typically twisted reasoning that I have come to expect from him:
Whenever people post replies to our content we point out facts why they decide to ignore our content. MM is no different and he uses a weird excuse to do it this time:
…has asked questions of ‘MM’, but since MM is a fantasy construct of his mind, I will not be answering them. Should he grow a spine and ask his questions of me, I will consider addressing them. Any future direct engagement with … is also contingent upon this request. We shall see what he is prepared to do.
Just a dumb reason to avoid confronting serious questions about his content. No, we are not going to do anything more. The questions are there for him to consider and we do not need a published response.
The questions we asked were for him to ask and answer himself thus the weird demand in the quote will be ignored. And using MM is not a fantasy construct or an insult, but just a way to shorten our typing time. We looked through both of their sites once again and we have not changed our minds about not addressing anything they write.
This is nothing more than Mr Thiessen admitting one of the following. He is acknowledging he is either A: lazy (he cannot be bothered to type out my name, rather shameful for a so-called professional writer), B: cowardly (avoiding accountability for his actions is virtually a pastime for Mr Thiessen), C: unprofessional (Mr Thiessen claims his posts are written as intellectual exercises, as teaching material, yet he fails to follow proper conduct on these matters), or D: some combination of the above. If he truly believes he is a professional writer, he will address his questions to me, and not his fantasy construct of me. Another intriguing little moment is that Mr Thiessen removed mention of his own name when he quoted me (he therefore yet again misquoted through omission). Is he ashamed to place his own name against his own words? He does this again, in another post, and in this post, he outright admits to operating with a hypocritical stance where rules are concerned.
It also deeply ironic that he claims to not be addressing what Bruce and I write, considering how many posts of his purport to do so (though in truth, he addresses only what he imagines and fantasises about).
As with prior posts, I have archived his latest work, lest he seek to quietly change it later.
As with Part One of this saga, it is anybody’s guess as to how Mr Thiessen will respond. Will he heed the observations and critiques of others, or continue to presume he is correct in all things?
