Veil of Fire

Corwin: So... when you can't actually respond directly to my posts, calling me a troll means you win?

Funny, I don't see anyone but you and Kally trying to 'bitchslap' anything in this thread. Everyone else is actually interested in a discussion. You're just interested in personal attacks.

[edit: Why are you so intenet on taking these threads and hijacking them into flame-fests, when everyone else involved has cooled down enough to engage in a reasonable exchange of ideas?]

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: Veil of Fire ]</p>

Mad Kally

Seriously, I think you should wade back into what you call a "flame fest", and READ what the serious posters said. Try ignoring Corwin's posts (and my voodoo dolls etc.) and concentrating on what the others are trying to explain to you.

Corwin

Yup... I'm the bad guy here... I'm obviously a troll for bringing the fact that you've been ignoring inconvienient facts, (such as the information you claimed you were requesting) to people's attention.
Yup. You got me.


Troll.

Veil of Fire

Corwin: So... when you can't actually respond directly to my posts, calling me a troll means you win?

Kally: Done.

Mageth

I'm not a moderator, but in lieu of one:

Corwin:

Some of us were having a "reasonable exchange of ideas" with VoF in this thread specifically because the other threads had largely degraded to flames. IMO, you appear to have come to this thread merely to irritate VoF. I ask you, in reason's name, to desist or leave this thread alone.

Kally:

Two thumbs up on your last post.

VoF:

In the interest of continuing the "reasonable exchange of ideas," I'd suggest you ignore whichever posters (cough cough) you feel are flaming/trolling you if they continue to do so. That's the best way to handle such.

Corwin

Mag... she went back on her meds for about a half hour this morning... then she started endorsing wholesale gullibility again. (And on something as physically devastating as faith healing fer gawdless' sake!)

I'll back out of this.... but she's still wrong.

And she's still a troll.

Jayhawker Soule

What Mageth said.

Secular Pinoy

(edited to rewrite my thoughts)

Hmmm... If you dismiss things out of hand, how come you dismiss skeptical criticism? It seems that you accept fantastic claims pretty easy but balk at skepticism, why is that? I don't think you do not dismiss everything out of hand. You dismiss science and reason, maybe because because of your wiccan background or anti-skeptic bias? No you are not open minded, you are biased against skeptics.

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: Infidel Pariah ]</p>

Kachana

Hello Veil. I am wondering, as you treat all claims equally if there is no evidence to your knowledge one way or the other, how you behave when confronted with the massive amounts of grandiose claims found, for example, in internet pop-up ads, mailshots, e-mail spam, adverts, people on the street etc.

For instance, what do you do when you see a pop-up advert that says something like 'Earn $$$ from home from surfing the internet'? Does your heart start pounding, after all, it does sound like a great deal right? Or do you realise pretty quickly that it's a scam and generalise to other pop-ups of it's ilk?

Personally, I realise that when I see an offer that sounds too good to be true, and is in a medium where I have experienced many scams before, it is likely to be wrong. Is this unreasonable of me? I'm not saying 'it's wrong because it's silly full stop', I'm saying 'it's wrong becase of X Y and Z that I have experienced in the past and which are similar enough to this example for it to be reasonable to make a generalisation to the current instance.

Furthermore, when I do decide to check what I think is a scam/ bogus claim out (e.g. out of boredom/ interest at how they frame it) I am correct in my evaluation. In fact, I can't think of an example where I have though 'I bet this is a scam' and it hasn't been a scam/ bogus claim. Are there good reasons for me to change my ways given my success rate?

Veil of Fire

Infidel Pariah:
Please try to address what I'm ACTUALLY saying as opposed to what you're assuming I'm saying. I'm not dismissing science OR skepticism, I've made no claims of the sort. I'm dismissing appeals to ridicule and special pleading as legitimate support for a claim.

There's material for a whole 'nother rant right there; people addressing what the arguments they think I *should* be making rather than the arguments I'm actually making.

Kachana:
As I've stated repeatedly, that's the only thing I'm looking for here. X Y and Z are debatable, and open up new grounds for discussion.

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: Veil of Fire ]</p>