I often discuss censorship on Twitter and blogs (see here). A Christian following Jesus’ example lives in peace. A Christian following Paul’s example uses reason and evidence. A Christian fully prepared to defend his faith has no use for ideological censorship.^[1]

You might expect that—as a Christian who frequents the blogs of atheists and agnostics—I would experience many bans. No, my first has come from the anonymous Christian apologist Wintery Knight for comments on an article where he—ironically—calls his opponents snowflakes.^[2][3] He also banned Lexet Blog, who is listed in my blogroll. After deleting our posts, he posted these responses:

What, exactly, generated these claims? Are we indeed ruled by our feelings and ignorant of history? Here is Lexet’s original comment…

…and my response:

In a later comment (which WK deleted and never published), I defended this claim again. It was the comment that apparently crossed the line. After posting it, WK deleted most of the comment threads, posted his two responses, and sent out emails informing us of the ban.^[4]

In 1953, the United States successfully orchestrated a coup in Iran under the code name Operation Ajax. It was the first time the United States had overthrown a foreign government during a time of peace.^[5] In 2013, the U.S. formally acknowledged its role when it declassified documents that proved its planning and execution. This included the use of bribes and propaganda.^[6] The government set up and backed by the United States ruled until it was overthrown during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. So, history does show that “America literally started this conflict during the Cold War. We are not the good guys”.

Wikipedia defines snowflake as someone who has…

“…an inflated sense of uniqueness, an unwarranted sense of entitlement, or are overly-emotional, easily offended, and unable to deal with opposing opinions.”

In resorting to censorship to cover up inconvenient historical data, WK proves unable to deal with opposing opinions.^[3] As for the rest? You can make up your own mind and decide for yourself.

NOTE: Wintery Knight has been removed from my blogroll. Feel free to read his work, but his aggressive censorship is incompatible with my active promotion of his site until such time as his policy changes.

References

^[1] Bible Gateway. 1 Peter 3:15-16: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” (NIV)

^[2] Wintery Knight (2019) “Are snowflakes and liberarians right to worry that killing Iranian terrorists will start a war?“.

^[3] A simple google search for “Wintery Knight” shows that he has a history of censorship. You can see it with theologian Randal Rauser, philosopher Stephen Law, and philosopher and theologian James Bishop.

^[4] After noticing the deletion of the comment threads, I saved the webpage from a previously opened browser tab. I also had the original comments in my RSS reader.

^[5] Gasiorowski, Mark J (August 1987). “The 1953 Coup D’etat in Iran The 1953 Coup D’etat in Iran”. International Journal of Middle East Studies. 19 (3): 261–86. (link)

^[6]  Wikipedia contributors. (2020, January 6). 1953 Iranian coup d’état. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:24, January 7, 2020. (link)