Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Anonymously Yours

There seems to be no escape. Even when visiting some of my favorite atheist or non-believer blogs, they are there. It's like they are hidden in the woodwork. There we are having a nice friendly conversation when, all of a sudden, the anonymous Christian runs in waving his/her arms and screeching about something.

There are a lot of people who, for whatever reason, desire to keep their identity obscured while commenting on blogs. It's a free country and, if that's what people want to do, it's an available option on many blogs, including this one. That said, it just amazes me that anonymous is the chosen moniker for so many people arguing from the Christian perspective! Why are these people so afraid of having their beliefs associated with their good name?

Even more curious to me is that many, many Christian blogs don't even allow anonymous comments at all! If a non-believer desires to leave a comment, he or she must have some sort of account somewhere that provides a modicum of a person's virtual identity. So, if you visit their house, you're not allowed in until you announce yourself, yet they have no qualms whatsoever in coming into your house unannounced.

Of course, it can become very confusing when there appears to be more than one anonymous Christian leaving comments. I've run into this problem several times. We non-believers react to a particular pious and self-righteous comment only to see anonymous person #1 claim that there must be a second anonymous person because the comment in question isn't theirs. Of course, no one has any way of knowing if this assertion is indeed true because...well...that's the nature of anonymity.

You know, creating a web identity is not that big of a deal. On blogger, none of your personal information has to be shared publicly. All you need is to have a moniker, maybe an avatar, and all other display information is voluntary. It floors me that so many Christians seem unwilling to put forth so little effort to establish a meager basis of a virtual identity.

What are these people so afraid of? We live in a nation that, much to my chagrin, is still predominantly Christian. Christianity represents the majority opinion. Those of us who are non-believers are in the minority and, if anyone should be afraid of being hunted down or discriminated against, it's us, not them. Yet, most non-believers that I know have virtual identities and many of us, me included, share a good amount of personal information in our profiles.

If you believe your Christian ideals represent the ultimate truth, why are so many of you so frightened to have your name (or even a made-up virtual name) attached to your beliefs?

3 comments:

  1. I read a lot of different types of blogs, and regardless of the topic, I noticed that the meanest comments typically are posted anonymously. That's just the way it is, but it's neither a religious thing or a non-religious thing, cowardice and meanness comes in all stripes. But sometimes it may just be a matter of laziness, they don't want to bother creating an account, or to take the time to sign in. As for myself, I have to say that even though I'm not posting anonymously, there is still an element of anonymity to it, simply due to the fact that I don't display a photograph of myself on my profile page.

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  2. i used to think that christianity was in the minority. what a surprise when i learned differently!

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  3. Well, here's one Christian who's slightly less anonymous, and enjoying your thoughts :-D

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