I've closed the comment boxes, because I don't have time to deal with the ravings of various nutbars who want to proselytize for their respective views on my board. Evidently, I hit too close to home by pointing out just how absurd is the account of history that some people will allow themselves to believe in order to justify their negative judgment about Catholics. No surprise then that the most mindlessly negative reaction came from the guy on the Internet with the most deranged concept of history: Alexander/ct/Christian/Sigmund Jung/the guy who is completely unwilling to admit who he actually is (showing how much faith he has in the viability of his own beliefs). I learned recently that he is also in KJV-onlyist, so it appears that believing something ridiculous in one area tends to spread to other areas as well. At any rate, I don't have time to deal with people who believe in the myth about Protestantism having "liberated" Scripture from the "tyrannical" Catholic Church. There is absolutely no purpose in me talking to such people, any more than there is a purpose in me talking to believers in any other sort of untenable wackiness. In fact, Darth Cbnrc recently provided a citation to a great quote by John Derbyshire that summarizes my feelings on the subject. Referring to a subject (intelligent design*) that he didn't see any point in discussing anymore, he noted:
Same applies, btw, to emails about flying saucers, Martian canals, the hollow earth, Atlantis, telepathy, dianetics, unicorns, phrenology, astrology, orgonomy, alien abductions, Bridey Murphy, the location of Noah's ark, the fate of the Marie Celeste's crew, and whether or not the bishops of the Church of England should open Joanna Southcott's box. I do not wish to know any more than I currently know about any of these topics. If you believe in one, many, or all of them, I'm fine with it, and wish you joy of your belief -- just don't try to enlist me.
Since dealing with historical reality (as I try to do on my blog) tends to bring kooks out by the boatload and since this blog is not my primary job, Derbyshire's policy seems quite reasonable for me as well. I have no desire to be a platform for random goofballs, and they can't seem to avoid piping up, so I'll just shut it down myself. Anyone whose opinion I actually care to have will email me, and as for the rest, I'll have federal anti-spam laws on my side if someone keeps slinging this muck in my direction. :-)
* Edit -- For the record, I entirely agree with him that intelligent design is not a scientific theory, unless you drastically revise the definition of experimental science (which is essentially philosophy-independent, making it ridiculous to revise the definition). Rather than trying to sell people in ID being a sicentific theory, people ought to be focusing on why only scientific theories are being taught as "true."
