Monday, August 27, 2007

Conservapedia

It may be that you have heard of Conservapedia, the conservative alternative to wikipedia. I thought it sounded like a good thing, and I wrote a couple of articles for it. For instance, I wrote the first half of the "Christianity" article - from the top of the page through the Jesus sub-head. I also began work on the "Salvation". I was attempting to cover all of the major theories of how we are saved, including a discursive on soteriological conflits within conservative Protestantism (e.g. Calvinism vs. Arminianism).

I went back to the site on Saturday night to continue work on the article when I saw that one of the Sysops deleted everthing I wrote, put in something that is very similar to the Four Spiritual Laws, which is a good example of St. Anselm's satisfaction theory. I don't mind being radically edited. (Being a wiki contributer is not for the thin-skinned) No, what galled me, I mean totally fried me, was that my user account was blocked!!!! Think about this: I am the most conservative man in Santa Clara County and I was banished from Conservapedia. (Credentials: I was in the room when Reagan made his Evil Empire speech, raised money for the Contras, never voted for a pro-abort or a Democrat, and got all my friends who were 18 to register as Republicans when I was still to young to vote.)

I wrote to the Sysop who blocked me but heard nothing. On Sunday night I wrote to the chief Sysop. I still haven't heard anything. It seems that my tribe has rejected me.

(In case you are wondering, Orthodox Christians adhere to a version of what is known to Westerners as the Christus Victor theory of salvation.)

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Update: I've been reinstated but the sysops will not let anyone alter the Salvation article, even though, as I've pointed out to them, some very heavy hitting conservatives such as Justice Antonin Scalia, Paul Wyrich, and Bill Buckly disagree with the the conservapedia sysops' explanation of salvation.

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