Frostman
Posts: 29
Joined: Nov. 2007
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| Quote (Guts @ Nov. 27 2007, 17:16) | | This, unfortunately, gave the impression that comments were just being deleted, which is against TT policy. |
What? The comments were deleted, against TT policy --- not "gave the impression that comments were just being deleted". They were not saved. They are not there now. They are gone. | Quote (Guts @ Nov. 27 2007, 17:16) | | I am more than willing to have Frostman back if he truly respects understands the purpose of the memory hole, and why it exists, and respects the decisions of TT bloggers. |
Why on earth would you direct these statements toward me? By deleting comments permanently, you have shown that you do not truly respect and understand the purpose of the memory hole. Not me. You are the one who violated TT policy. Not me.
In reference to the previous analogy, it turns out the man behind the curtain was Guts, not Bradford. To Guts' credit, he wrote a contrite apology to me privately in email, acknowledging that he made a serious mistake. His private apology was nothing like the equivocal one he gave here, however.
The obvious question I asked him was, Why didn't he make an apology on TT? As a direct consequence of his mistakes, the TT members had a false impression of what happened. My conduct was entirely rational, yet since my posts were deleted, there was no record of my defense. Guts had already apologized to me privately for this. Most TT members do not frequent this thread here on antievolution.org. Why didn't Guts come clean to the readers of TT?
You won't believe what came next. Guts agreed to make such an apology --- but only on the condition that I renounce an opinion which I expressed on the TT thread! It sounds unbelievable, I know. Not only is Guts unwilling to do the right thing, but he commits extortion on top of it.
Guts wanted me to disavow my position that the Davies quote was out of context (bold mine): | Quote (Paul Davies @ NYT) | | In other words, the laws should have an explanation from within the universe and not involve appealing to an external agency. The specifics of that explanation are a matter for future research. But until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus. |
After many tries, Guts was unable to understand that, in regard to atheism or "anti-theism", using only the last (non-bolded) sentence without the previous two is inappropriate. Davies is no theist, as is well known, and as the first two sentences above suggest. Quoting only the last sentence misrepresents Davies' position.
Guts did not agree. Which is fine. We are free to disagree, and we are free to debate the issue further if we so choose. Or so I thought.
As it turns out, Bradford was incredibly offended by my suggestion that the quote was out of context. Indeed, the first permanent deletion was done by Bradford (the post was not "saved" to be later inserted in the memory hole). Incidentally, it should be noted that Bradford was the first one to violate the TT deletion policy, and that action is what precipitated these events. Guts was backing up Bradford the whole way. Guts was also expressing outrage at the very idea of an out of context quote.
The interesting part is that my opinion of the quote is irrelevant. I repeatedly made clear that all I wanted was for Guts to do the right thing --- to explain the situation to the readers of TT, as he at least tried to do here. But Guts kept dodging, instead wanting to talk about the Davies quote and how my opinion is unacceptable. He would only admit his mistakes on TT if I renounced my position.
Guts then took the desperate position that it doesn't matter where he makes the apology. The following is the final unanswered email I sent to Guts:
TT readers have not been informed of what truly occurred. Some TT readers may also read AE, but many do not. The honest course of action is to tell them.
Your opinion of me and my position are unrelated to the ethical obligation in front of you. You require nothing from me in order to fulfill that obligation.
You know what the right thing to do is. Yet you will not do it.
Sincerely,
Frostman
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