Mistakes Were Made By Me: Errata and Apologies
*Sorry for the length but I didn’t want to hide my errors behind a ‘read more’ link
A lot can and has changed in the past year and as my recent post about the Horsemen would suggest I probably wouldn’t post some videos and quotes by them today. However changing one’s mind as the evidence comes in isn’t an error unless you made a premature or incorrect declaration before you gathered that evidence. which I have on multiple occasions so the following is a short list of mistakes I’ve made in the past year.
The Wiki Islam Fiasco
I pointed out Wiki Islam as a potential resource then I later retracted that semi-endorsement because I noticed some material on their site I thought indicated heavy bias against Islam. There was, among other things, a subsection on the “Lying in Islam” page with quotes from Hitler and Goebbels on lying and a post in which one scholar was used to present a controversial topic on all sides. I didn’t realize then how hard it might be to monitor the content of a small wiki and after being contacted by a representative of the site I pointed out the offending material and he immediately agreed that the Hitler material was offensive and removed it. However by the time I followed up again to further explain the other problems much had changed on the site and the other articles were no longer present. Honestly he was one of the nicest people I’ve had an exchange with and though I’m unsure if I would outright endorse the site, I certainly wouldn’t condemn it today. I should have communicated with them before making the damning statements and for that I apologize.
That Video I Promised
I promised an off-topic video upon reaching a certain number of followers but it never materialized. I recorded it but I couldn’t edit it precisely for reasons I couldn’t uncover and after trying several different remedies I eventually gave up but I never explained why the video didn’t go up despite multiple anonymous inquiries about it. A rain check should be cashed when I pick up a new computer.
Counter-Apologetics
This isn’t truly a mistake but I have repeatedly updated and manipulated nearly every argument I’ve made on that page with some being altered heavily. Not that I buy any of the standard arguments or that my initial rebuttals were really wanting but I tried to improve in my presentation and in the process some posts have changed so much that to someone who saved my initial post it may look like I’ve changed my position but just refused to acknowledge it.
The Ethics of Discourse
I have, to put it nicely, lost my patience several times and generally didn’t respond well to criticism early on. Most notably only a few weeks into this blog I posted something from Reddit, the picture Atheist’s Concerns, which soon became quite popular here but didn’t link the source at the time of the post because of a Tumblr was experiencing some difficulties at that moment. Clearly I should have mentioned where it was from but I didn’t because I hardly thought it mattered as I would have the source up, probably within minutes, when the problem was gone but when I forgot to do so and was later sent a question pointing out that it wasn’t sourced I attacked the messenger and for that I sincerely apologize.
I’m sure there are more issues that are being left out but these are the only ones I can recall without outside prodding (which I still encourage). Finally this is the part where I’m tempted to claim these errata posts will come more frequently but seeing as I don’t plan on making errors, I’ll just say I’ll be more conscious of correcting errors more promptly.
