Rosa never replied: I challenge you to a debate. sacerdotvs.blogspot.com@rosarubicondior#Liar4Jesus#Atheism#atheistrollcall#Atheist#won
— Sacerdotus (@Sacerdotus) August 19, 2012
Rosa#afraid to debate I challenge youto a debate sacerdotvs.blogspot.com@rosarubicondior#Liar4Jesus#Atheism#atheistrollcall#Atheist#won
— Sacerdotus (@Sacerdotus) August 19, 2012
Rosa defeated, never replied to: I challenge you to a debate sacerdotvs.blogspot.com@rosarubicondior#Atheism#atheistrollcall#Atheist#won— Sacerdotus (@Sacerdotus) August 19, 2012
Why is Rosa afraid to#debate me? No intellectual confidence sacerdotvs.blogspot.com@rosarubicondior#Atheism#atheistrollcall#Atheist#won
— Sacerdotus (@Sacerdotus) August 19, 2012
Rosa? Come out the rabbit hole.Let's debate sacerdotvs.blogspot.com@rosarubicondior#Atheism#atheistrollcall#Atheist#won
— Sacerdotus (@Sacerdotus) August 19, 2012
The vocal#Atheist Rosa becomes silent. Afraid 2#debate me sacerdotvs.blogspot.com@rosarubicondior#Atheism#atheistrollcall#Atheist#won
— Sacerdotus (@Sacerdotus) August 19, 2012
Did Rosa evolve into a scurdy cat?#afraid 2#debateme sacerdotvs.blogspot.com@rosarubicondior#Atheism#atheistrollcall#Atheist#won
— Sacerdotus (@Sacerdotus) August 19, 2012
Why is the "mighty"#Atheist Rosa afraid 2#debate me? sacerdotvs.blogspot.com@rosarubicondior#Atheism#atheistrollcall#Atheist#won
— Sacerdotus (@Sacerdotus) August 19, 2012
It's never a pretty sight to watch a fundamentalist in melt-down, hilarious though it might be, and I don't normally carry over spats in Twitter into this blog, but this one is too good to pass up.
Of course, you can't draw a general conclusion from a specific example, but this illustrates what can happen when religious (in this case Catholic Christian) fanaticism crossed the boundary between a sincere attempt to convince people of the truth of a firmly-held superstitious belief, and a blatantly dishonest attempt to fool people, having run out of ideas for doing it honestly and with integrity but lacking the moral courage to admit to not having any evidence to use when asked for some.
It also illustrates rather nicely I think, the point I made in an earlier blog - If Creationism Is Science, Why Do They Need Tactics? - to which no creationist has yet been able to produce a coherent reply.
It also illustrates the parasitic viral nature of the religion meme in one of its more pathological manifestations.
These tweets on the right were posted by a fundamentalist who claims to be a trainee Catholic priest but who already has a reputation for dishonesty and is something of a figure of fun in the community of people who follow and post to the
The first thing to notice is the the link @Sacerdotus includes (sacerdotvs.blogspot.com) does not link to any such challenge, nor is there any reference to one on the site it links to. It is merely a link to his blog.
@Sacerdotus has access to my blog (Rosa Rubicondior) and regularly posts comments but has never seen fit to post his 'challenge' there, nor have I ever received a challenge to him via email. I have never seen a Twitter tweet referencing this 'challenge', although, as @Sacerdustus knows, I had blocked him several months ago having tired of his infantile and dishonest 'debating' tactics there and in accord with the policy I state in my Twitter bio, and only unblocked him yesterday, so maybe @Sacerdotus chose to hide his 'challenge' by tweeting to me when he knew I wouldn't receive it.
But perhaps I am crediting @Sacerdotus with too much intelligence in assuming he would know that to issue a challenge, one needs to communicate that challenge to the person you are challenging, but, even for a trainee Catholic priest it seems unlikely that he would really be that stupid.
Which just leaves us with one realistic explanation: @Sacerdotus is lying again, and hoping again to trick people with deception because he knows that truth and honesty won't work.
And this of course illustrates what Francis Collins, himself a Catholic Christian, means when he says in The Language of God "Young Earth Creationism has reached a point of intellectual bankruptcy, both in its science and in its theology. Its persistence is thus one of the great puzzles and great tragedies of our time". I would also add moral bankruptcy to that charge but then that is to be expected of those who have abdicated personal responsibility in favour of obedience to the diktat of a character in a book, who then provides a convenient scapegoat in the 'God Sez!' excuse.
@Sacerdotus' abandonment of even a pretence of honesty and integrity and his descent into the playground tactics illustrated above in lieu of evidence, reason and logic in civilised debate, shows how religion can pervert the human mind and turn it to it's own purpose at the expense of personal integrity and dignity, just as a virus perverts the host it infects and uses it for the benefit of the virus at the expense of the host.
One wonders just what else sufferers from this psychotic delusion are capable of perpetrating on mankind if they ever regained the power they once held over us in the appropriately-called 'Dark Ages', if this is the sort of response you get to a polite request to validate an assertion or provide supporting evidence for a claim of fact.
Further reading: It Could Never Happen To Us - Zombies Controlled By A Parasite.
[Update]: To see how this subsequently developed and how @Sacerdotus, who turned out to be Manuel de Dios Agosto who was expelled from St Joseph's Seminary, NY because of his behaviour there, and who now spends his days trolling the Internet harassing, abusing and intimidating people, including threatening them with violence, under a variety of guises, see:
- Debate: Is There Scientific Evidence Only For The Christian God? in which I called Manuel's bluff and offered him the debate he claims he wanted. His subsequent panic and hysterical breakdown can be enjoyed as it unfolds.
- God's Inerrant Omniscience Revisited in which Manuel is invited to answer a coupe of simple questions concerning basic tenets of Christian theology and his hilariously inept attempts to disguise his embarrassment again.
- What To Do With A Spent Loon? in which I polled the Twitter community on how best to treat Manuel now his ineptitude and infantile personality had been exposed to ridicule. Comments plainly show his well-earned reputation.
- Sacerdotus - The Fraud Exposed in which Twitter user @Yhwh_TheLord exposed Manuel and proved he was the same Manuel de Dios Agosto who attended Grace H Dodge school and was subsequently admitted to Catholic seminary prior to 2003. Also shows how several Twitter accounts are Manuel in different guises.
- Manny's Many Twitter Accounts which list the known Twitter accounts which are or have been used by Manuel to harrass, abuse, intimmidate and threaten other Twitter users. Many of these are still suspended. At least one Twitter user has reported filing a complaint of stalking and harassment against Manuel de Dios Agosto with NYPD.
- How Manuel abuses and intimidates user of blogger by pretending to be other Twitter users or officials of various organizations. It's wise to check comments for this attempted deception before releasing them, if you allow anonymous comments on your blog.