Raytracting Brian

Maragon posts a comment made by Brian:

Rando I will post this insult as a post on my front page to drill my point home about atheists and for future refrence to you and others that leave comments here a little intro to logic.

What is the point he wishes to drill home?

I want to speak my peace about how most Atheists are rude. [...] I have dealt with Atheists on many different forums and blogs I have never once found one that was not rude [...]

He makes similar points in other comments. In his latest post regarding Rando's comment, he writes:

I was hoping to find my post about Atheists to be wrong but so far I have been proven right. Below you will find a comment that was left I accepted it just to show you why I feel the way I do about Atheists!

I have covered the issue of the misconception of Atheists Disrespecting Respectful Theists, and I pointed that out to him (before he made this post) to think about. I also noted several "friendly" atheist blogs, such as The Amiable Atheist, as she had just covered conversational decency and profanity.

I also offered myself as an example to him in my first comment there, but reread what he writes after having even approved my comment:

I was hoping to find my post about Atheists to be wrong but so far I have been proven right. Below you will find a comment that was left I accepted it just to show you why I feel the way I do about Atheists!

He seems to have an appreciation for logical fallacies (though, I think he misunderstands straw man and ad hominem), which is good. As such, I pointed out the fallacy he is committing by insisting that all atheists are rude/insulting: hasty generalization. That comment is still pending.

But how should we take his above comment? I have pointed out to him as individual cases to the contrary of popular atheist blogs, such as About.com's, Friendly Atheist, and The Atheist Blogger, which are not "rude" or "disrespectful." It makes me wonder if he really wants to be proven wrong? He claims that "so far [he has] been proven right"; how do my comments and the blogs I point out prove him right?

Furthermore, while on the topic about insults and disrespect: why does he insist on capitalizing atheism? What exactly is "Atheism"? I honestly don't know. I have asked him what it is, but it seems to me there are only a few reasons:

1) Disrespect -- similar to how non-Christians might not capitalize "Jesus" to show disrespect.
2) Dishonest -- trying to equate atheism with a religion. Atheism, though, is no more a proper noun than theism.
3) Improper grammar -- it could, simply, be due to poor grammar.
4) Ignorance -- he does not know that atheism is not a movement, philosophy, or religion. This might be the most plausible given his statements that he has never met an atheist who is not rude (unless his definition of rudeness is disagreeing with him).

I have made the comment and am awaiting his reply. On the note about him refusing to participate in discussions on any atheist blogs as he can't trust them to be honest, I have offered this challenge to him, assuming his premises to be true that Christians must be dishonest/post both sides:

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 [Dan the Debunker and Ray Comfort]?

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.

He has recently, though, as Maragon posted, rejected comments. He had equated not posting both side with dishonesty and made the claim that Christians had to be honest and post both sides. If this is the logical argument, does it not follow that he is not a Christian?