Roger Pearse

I suggest: Just shut up and watch the women's beach volleyball. Like all the other bored married men...

It's really tedious, actually, Stephan. No offence, but it is. I skip every post in which you drag that in.

Roger Pearse

This is what the ignore-list is for. Put on it everyone whose posts annoy you, as soon as they annoy you. Life is too short to go around being annoyed.

Don't do that. Your posts are welcome, at least as far as I am concerned.

I'm not a fan of an "elite" sub-group either; let's not do that. Note how few posts most of those nominated actually make, which would rapidly kill the sub-group. I prefer to dip in and dip out, and I suspect the same is true of most of those listed.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

stephan huller

fine. i will make reference to my dog Lucy instead. I was just worried that i might get banned for comparing the intelligence of people here to my dog

DCHindley

Toto,

I was thinking that besides having rules about what not to do, we should have suggestions on how to further real dialogue and how to research for yourself subjects that come up in a thread.

I mean if someone else presents data and draws a conclusion that you don't agree with, how do you proceed?

a) Blurt out in all caps that the poster is an idiot or it never happened so discussion is futile. If the discussion dares to continue, stop up your ears and say LA LA LA LA real loud (in irrelevant posts, of course). Be sure to assert that you know the other parties' positions better than they do and call them morons for not seeing your own POV as obvious.

b) Immediately turn it into an apologetics driven debate between Historical Jesus and Mythical Jesus factions, and/or one of the preceding against Christians, Jews, Muslims, Mormons, etc. Battle and gore is more exciting than boring discussions!

c) Cite (oh hell, just paraphrase out of context) some popular authority's "better" solution, with absolutely no details to support your statement. "If Carrier says it, I believe it and that settles it" and so on.

d) Sit back, take a deep breath, and organize your thoughts. Draw on your own private research or study, then clearly identify why the conclusion is wrong, look up the actual sources where immediately available, and then post your reasoning and data to the contrary. Then carry on a dialogue to communicate to each other what issues you find with the data (word choices, grammar, alternate readings, etc) or that the other participant's selection of data is causing him/her to draw an unsupportable conclusion. Explain, if necessary, how other data not considered would make another conclusion more likely. Be sure to assume that both you and the other member are reasonable people who can change their minds if exposure of new evidence requires it.

FWIW, I am just an average guy. I don't make big money. I don't have a lot of free time, but make time if a subject truly interests me.

DCH

Chili

Gentle spin.

Cheerful Charlie

Sounds good, especially #2

Cheerful Charlie

Robert Tulip

Having encountered Roger Pearse from time to time over the years, I know he is mostly a scholar and a gentleman, but I have to disagree with his assessment of Acharya S as a crank. I think Acharya is brilliant, pioneering a new paradigm in theology. However, she sometimes struggles to articulate the philosophy behind her scholarship in the face of blank incomprehension by people who have deeply internalised some conventional presuppositions about religion.

Roger helps to illustrate the problem with his discussion about ignoring people, seemingly at the drop of a hat, and welcoming apologists. Acharya does not welcome apologists, she utterly disagrees with them. When they are courteous and honest she engages them in dialogue. But apologists have often learnt many pulpit tricks about how to convince an audience with the devoted fervour of an evangelist, and can preach more like barristers than scholars (not that Roger does that). Such methods are not conducive to mutual learning.

So while I am pleased that Roger calls for the toleration of some that he apparently deems to be irredeemably deluded, he certainly does not have the last word.

On a related matter, I do not think the emotional release gained by making vitriolic comments is ever worth the damage it does to reputation among those who follow the discussion superficially. People skimming a debate can often see the vitriol and miss the content, and they will think the worse of a person who is intemperate. If you write out a vitriolic post, sleep on it and then consider using the report button rather than the post button to get it off your chest.
I disagree with MountainMan's Constantine conspiracy theory, but his input on the therapeuts and Philo in the current thread on that topic has been sound, whereas others have been less evidence based. I haven't seen any false statements by MountainMan in the thread on majesty. Perhaps his sabbatical has changed his approach - I would not know, being a new member. But nor would Roger know, given his vigorous use of the powerful ignore facility. So a few grains of salt might help flavour Roger Pearse's critique of MountainMan.Noted!Does that mean you class yourself as an apologist Roger?

Traditionally, 'apologist' was a morally neutral or even positive term, but these days on internet forums like this one it gets associated with creationism and other genuinely cranky supernatural ideas.

Apologists are often wont to cast baseless nasturtiums against people with new ideas. Apologists for traditional religion dominate discussion of religion in the mainstream media, except for the limited Dawkins critique, since mythicist views are popularly regarded with derision. But with the zeitgeist changing, internet discussions are the place for pioneers, and the inability of apologists to present coherent arguments here is a sign of the times. And yes, I did mean aspersions. Mighty generous of you sir, please accept my deference and obsequity (or should that be deferents and obliquity?) I was interested to find in recently reading a fine book titled Ancient Astronomy from Babylonia to Copernicus that the crank is a technical term in the Ptolemaic cosmology. For the Moon, Ptolemy began with Hipparchus' epicycle-on-deferent, then added a device that historians of astronomy refer to as a "crank mechanism" (source) Mystic chiliasms certainly dampen discussion when the dialogue goes nowhere. I hope the mods can come up with something short of Roger's solution.

thief of fire

I think that is worth trying as an experiment.

I also think it is worth trying as an experiment, 5 posts per user per day. Someone else suggested this earlier in the thread.
If we find this helps the quality of the forum then it has been worthwhile, if not we haven't lost anything.

Lets check the results of our hypotheses by testing them.

outhouse

Quanitity and quality will not be assured.

Sheshbazzar

Thank you Zindiiq. As I said above, it is the writer who writes what he writes, and the composer that composes what is composed.

I did NOT, and do NOT wish for my composition to be understood as being the Hebrew equivalent of the English word or usage "horseshit", as I carefully explained in my initial post on the subject. (the sentiment is entirely secondary to the sense of the words, although it naturally follows.)
שקר הסוס לתשועה And as you may discern, I quite agree.

'domen h'sooce'- "The horse is shit.", if that is the way you wish to read it, is also fine with me, as being so read you are confirming that it is NOT a translation of, nor the equivalent of the English ejaculatory expression "horseshit", and as I pointed out in post #97 I never employ the word 'horseshit' in my posts.

So I thank you Zindiiq, for with your technical information you are in fact confirming my claim that the English ejaculatory expression "horseshit" is NOT a proper understanding of either הסוס דמן (h'sooce domen) OR דמן הסוס (domen h'sooce) and if I am translating these terms to English, I am in fact NOT saying 'horseshit!'
Which was the point of my initial explanation of my usage, that I was neither being uncivil, swearing, or "having an episode of Tourette's Syndrome" when I employed the words 'horse shit' as being an English translation of these Scriptural Hebrew terms.
(I have used the transliteration 'sooce' because that is the spelling that most reference materials that the participants on this forum have access to, will give as being the English transliteration of the Hebrew word for 'horse' סוס = 'sooce'. I have never before seen a double 'uu' employed.)

I have thoughts drawn form the Hebrew text that I wish to convey, but am constrained by language to having to express them here in familiar English words. In this case I have for years been attempting to draw attention to these two Hebrew terms and how they are employed within Scriptural poetry and prophecy and what it is that they serve as metaphors for. That is why they have appeared so frequently in my posts, not as is so often ignorantly assumed by some that it is simply because I suffer from a bad case of 'potty mouth'.


But here is an opportunity for you Zindiiq to display your knowledge of Hebrew by explaining to those who are not familiar with Hebrew, what the difference in sense is between the word דמן 'domen' and the more common 'dung' גל and פרש and we might as well include דביונים and חרייונים being that they are all types of ....ummm.... what circumlocution shall we use?

Pehaps I should just always use Hebrew for the expression and let readers either remain ignorant of what I write, or seek out the sense of the words on their own.