== Larry Sanger censors jesus historicity discussion on citizendium ==

I wrote a small piece on the Jesus:Talk page (note that Matt gets this
incorrectly as the Historical Jesus page) that Matt first censors.  Then 
Larry steps in and says he 100% agrees that my post was "flame bait" and 
not "professional".  Larry fancies himself a philosopher.  Right...

== On Fri, Jun 15, 2007 at 01:12:57PM -0500, D. Matt Innis wrote == 

Hello Seth,

I have removed your comment on the Historical Jesus talk page as being
unnecessarily inflammatory.  Please consider this a warning.  The comment
was: 

=== Should stick to non-Delusional writing ===

We should split this article into two:

"Jesus" and "Conjectures and Delusions about 'Jesus'"
 
The first one should have all the established contemporary accounts of
"Jesus", by that, I mean it will have none.

In the second article you can put your religious opinions in.
Encyclopedias are supposed to contain knowledge.  The fact is that we have
no knowledge about any non-obvious-forgery contemporary accounts of a
so-called "Jesus". 

The first article might have a short paragraph summarizing what we
actually do know.

"Jesus is one element of a set of mythical figures referred to in many
religions that acted as a literary device for the widespread use of
hallucinogenic compounds and behaviors in Roman culture of mystery
religions.  Similar mythical figures include (but are not limited to)
Krishna, Dionysus, Bacchus, Osiris, Ishtar, and Mithra.  Gradually, each
name acquired increasing memetic distinctions after an initial period of
syncretism combining aspects of formerly local-based, centuries-old oral
histories during primarily first and second centuries.  Through support of
the Roman Emperor in the fourth century, the Jesus myth eventually became
the institutional mystery delusion of the Roman Empire." 

Citizendium has no place for delusions in the main articles.

[[User:Seth Alan Woolley|Seth Alan Woolley]] 11:19, 15 June 2007 (CDT)

In my opinion, this comment was considered 'flame bait'.  Please see: 


http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Professionalism#How_to_respond_to_unprofessional_behavior.2C_and_templates_the_Constabulary_uses


Respectfully

Matt Innis
Constable

== I reply to Matt ==

Eh, what?

I consider your behavior as a warning upon free expression of plain-spoken
language.

How do I express a valid statement that mass delusions lead to conjectures
that work themselves into the Encyclopedia?

If you have suggestions for how I should change the wording without being
censored, please let me know. 

Should I use "unsubstantiated assertion" instead?  It's not quite accurate.
No matter how absurd the religion, only one person in twelve breaks away
from the religion indoctrinated into them by their parents.  This can only
be characterized as parent-child delusion transmission. 

Remember, not all delusions are had by mental illness -- many can be had by
simple mental errors, or early childhood meme transmission
(childhood indoctrination).  If you're offended by such terms, it's not my
problem: reality's tough and learn to cope. 

Seth

== Matt defends himself ==

On Fri, Jun 15, 2007 at 08:22PM -0500, D. Matt Innis wrote:

Hi Seth,
 
Sorry to have to meet you like this, but you did start out on the tough
pages.  Please understand that it is not my purpose to evaluate the content
of your post.  Even if you substituted the word Zeus for Jesus, my opinion
would be the same concerning your behavior.  Perhaps if you had quoted a
source that used the word 'delusions', your point could be made without
attributing it to you.  Unfortunately, as written, it looks as though this
was your non-neutral opinion meant to inflame an emotional response from
others.  Sorry if that is not the way that you meant it, but I would still
have to remove it as written.   Please keep in mind that you are free to
express yourself as long as you remember: 
 
No flame bait
treat others civilly
no complaining on the wiki about others or their work
 
These are all covered in the links that I provided for you.  
 
We also allow editors decision making powers to avoid edit warring and
never-ending feuds over content.  Authors are asked to respect the editors
decisions.  Note that editors are only editors in their respective fields,
otherwise they are authors. 
 
Our hopes are that these factors, along with the concept of neutrality and
the production of an approved version, will lead to our goal of a free high
quality online resource.  Since you signed the Statement of Fundamental
Policies, I assume these are your goals as well.  
 
I have cc'd the Chief Constable or Editor in Chief and welcome any comments
concerning my decision.

 
Matt Innis
Citizendium Constable

== Larry Sanger, editor in chief replies ==

On Fri, Jun 15, 2007 at 08:40:51PM -0400, Larry Sanger wrote:
Matt, I support your decision 100%.
 
Seth, we have standards of professionalism that constrain what people can
say, in just the same way that moderated mailing lists sometimes have such
standards.  If you're not comfortable with this, then you never should have
indicated your support of the Statement of Fundamental Policies in the first
place.  It's social contract: you are free to reject the contract, but then
we are free to reject your participation.
 
Larry Sanger

== I reply to Larry ==

Looking over the professionalism page, I note the section dealing with
what I was accused of:

    Note, mere criticism of a position or a forceful reply does not 
    necessarily qualify as disrespectful; objectionable language has an 
    implication of personal criticism, or can be reasonably taken to 
    have such an implication.

I respect people, not ideas.  I don't disrespect people because they 
follow the path their genes laid out for them, which is to accept 
uncritically guidance from their parents and authorities, at an early 
age.

Censoring me for mere atheism is a disrespectful act.  My clearly stated 
point was that articles on a physical entity should not contain 
assertions without substance, based on faith statements.  I pointed out 
that discussion of conjectures should be segmented and labelled clearly 
as statements of faith, just as we do in math.  (More on this later.)

Dawkins, in his recent book "The God Delusion" (using that word again!) 
points out that there are no experts on Jesus, only experts on their own 
articles of faith.  So how do we even have an article on Jesus, is that 
not anathema to the whole point of Citizendium?

Or perhaps I should do as Matt suggests and do quote dropping so it's 
not "coming from me" (what does that have to do with _any_ of the rules?  
I thought they were to protect "going to a person" (ad hominem)?)

Robert Green Ingersoll in 1879 in his essay on "Some Mistakes of Moses" 
noted that,

    Science has nothing in common with religion. Facts and 
    miracles never did, and never will agree. They are not in the 
    least related. They are deadly foes. What has religion to do 
    with facts?  Nothing. Can there be Methodist mathematics, 
    Catholic astronomy, Presbyterian geology, Baptist biology, or 
    Episcopal botany? Why, then, should a sectarian college exist? 
    Only that which somebody knows should be taught in our schools. 
    We should not collect taxes to pay people for guessing. The 
    common school is the bread of life for the people, and it 
    should not be touched by the withering hand of superstition.

His point was about schools, but at his time he didn't know that the 
future of schools would be online education.  The Jesus article should 
not be sectarian, so no, I'm not the only Voice of Reason.  But he 
called it superstition!  That's a personal attack on anybody who 
believes it!

No, it's not.  Mature your intellect and it's plainly obvious that he 
didn't personally attack anybody just as I never personally attacked.

Perhaps I should quote somebody like Friedrich Nietzsche, who said, "[A] 
certain false psychology, a certain kind of fantasy in interpreting 
motives and experiences, is the necessary prerequisite for becoming a 
Christian and experiencing the need for redemption. With the insight 
into this aberration of reason and imagination, one ceases to be a 
Christian."  Friedreich's term is "false psychology", but my term, like 
Dawkins' is "delusion".  They mean the same thing and one is no more 
inflaming than another.  Maybe Robert Persig (of "Zen and the Art of 
Motorcycle Maintenance" fame) said it most eloquently that, "When one 
person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity.  When many people 
suffer from a delusion it is called Religion."

If we outlaw terms like "delusion" from the public discourse of 
education when referring to religion, it only validates Bertrand 
Russell's feelings on education:

    If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will
    support it by argument, rather then by persecution, and will 
    abandon it if the argument goes against you.  But if your belief 
    is based on faith, you will realize that argument is useless 
    and will therefore result to force either in the form of 
    persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the 
    young in what is called "education".

Is this the "education" you seek for the world, one moderated by 
delusion?

If that's it, then congratulations in your misosophy.

Now, back to the so-called policies of Citizendium: the NPOV aspect is 
clear:

    If we are to represent the dispute fairly, we should (in most if 
    not all cases) present various competing views in proportion to 
    their representation among experts on the subject, or among the 
    concerned parties. None of this, however, is to say that 
    minority views cannot receive as much attention as we can 
    possibly give them on pages specifically devoted to those 
    views. But even on such pages, though the content of a view is 
    spelled out possibly in great detail, we still make sure that 
    the view is not represented as the truth.

Since there are no "experts on Jesus", only assertions, there are only 
"concerned parties".  YOUR OWN RULES stipulate that discussion of 
assertions of truth rather than laying out of direct facts goes on their 
own subpages, not sprinkled throughout the main article, which by virtue 
of the complete lack of evidence for existence requires it be heeded.  
In the topic of Christianity, discuss these various beliefs, but an 
article on Jesus must never represent this:

"We may be reasonably confident that he was baptized by John the Baptist 
in the AD 20's, and crucified at the command of Roman governor Pontius 
Pilate during the late 20's or early 30's AD."

We actually have no contemporary evidence for this, 

                    NONE,        ZILCH,        NADA.

And due to the well-documented Christological transition from Essene 
Messianism to Greek Gnostic Poetry to Paul's non-human Roman-influenced 
savior to the non-contemporary descriptions STOLEN FROM OTHER RELIGIONS 
of a human Jesus in the synoptics, we have no basis for being 
"reasonably certain" of those stories, which are even accepted as 
pseudoepigraphical in authorship if not in content!  In fact, the 
earliest manuscript "shard" comes not from the synoptics, but from the 
gospel of John, which so-called scholars like to date later than the 
synoptics! (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_Library_Papyrus_P52 
).

For such an important set of events, we can't even get within a hundred 
years of the supposed events!  And yet there's "reasonable confidence".

Bull shit.  Particularly in this case, since there's literally (no pun 
intended) no contemporary evidence for the historicity of Jesus, we are 
obligated to give it as much space in the main article as it has 
evidence avaialble: none.  Again, put the assertions without evidence 
and the articles of faith on sub-pages, not the main article.  
Historicity must be front-and-center in the article or we will only 
be acting to mislead.

You're obligated by your own processes to overturn your recent bout of 
groupthink and restore my post to its rightful contribution to the Talk 
page -- THE TALK PAGE.  It's not even intended to plaster the page over 
-- it's an opening of a discussion that needs to be had.  If opening a 
controversial topic is "flame bait", then so be it: banish my words from 
your clique.  It's all up to you, the self-proclaimed "constables" of 
knowledge, the thought police by a more, eh, "professional" name.

And, since I'm implored, I thought I'd end with a question from Carl 
Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World: Science as a candle in the dark":

    If we're capable of conjuring up terrifying monsters in 
    childhood, why shouldn't some of us, at least on occasion,
    be able to fantasize something similar, something truly 
    horrifying, a shared delusion, as adults?

Seth