Toto

I want to thank everyone who refrained from posting on this thread while things settled down. (Or while I settled down.)

I am not closing the thread, but I would encourage anyone with any issues that still need to be discussed to start a new thread with a more specific theme than "problems with Radorth". Please try to make your comments factual, and avoid emotional triggers, baiting, excessive ridicule, sexual innuendo, etc., that would tend to turn the thread into a fiasco such as happened here.

I know that there are people who feel that Radorth has been deceptive and the record must be set straight, but this can be done with lower intensity, and will be more effective that way.

In the future, I will be more pro-active in deleting inflammatory off-topic posts and/or advising parties to tone down the rhetoric. I believe in free speech, but there seems to be no other way.

ybnormal

Thanks Toto. That's everything I needed to hear.

Buffman

Oh, shucks!

I was just ready to shift out of 1st gear and into 2nd, and begin to enjoy myself. But you are correct. Most of this verbal garbage has nothing to do with meaningful C-SS issues. Besides, most of the sand has already been scattered outside the box and it is way past time to go home from the playground.

Nice job under less than positive circumstances, Toto.

Gurdur

Actually, yes; kudos to Toto and Buffman.

DMB

Up to now, I have successfully managed to avoid Radorth. But a few days ago I started this topic on a serious matter that falls both within CSS and secular activism, and Radorth then tried to derail it in a fatuous manner.

I am very glad that Toto stepped in as she did to put a stop to this nonsense. But it does show up Radorth's trollish tendencies. If he wants to post jokes, he should do so in the appropriate forum.

schu

Having read through a great part of this thread, I'm convinced Rad's tactics are a standard xian technique. The debate is the thing. Just having a debate puts you on an equal footing with the skeptic. The better a skeptical position is defended, the better the xian looks when he stays in the debate. He will be defended at some level by all believers of his particular persuasion no matter how irrational his arguments. Just being there gets him martyr points.

There is a good article in "Free Inquiry", winter 2002/03 by Richard Dawkins. Dawkins states that he learned from Stephen Jay Gould not to debate Creationists. "Creationists don't need to win debates with evolutionists. It is sufficient for them that the debate happens at all."

Dawkins says that he sometimes declines debates with creationists by "pleading a prior engagement: an important forthcoming debate against the Flat Earth Society".

Radorth

Blah blah blah.

If I wanted to hijack a thread, you would know it. More Rad slander and baiting here. Nice try though.

Rad

Radorth

What's sad about the above waste of human time and effort is that few people grasped my motive for debating in this Infidel's Inquisition.

All I wished to show was that skeptics, in general, are no more honest, sensitive, tolerant or less preachy than the average Christian. We are all frail human beings, with our own agendas and biases. We all make rules for others we cannot follow ourselves. We tend to see in others those problems which we wish to justify in ourselves.

Anyone who rereads my posts will see this motive is more likely than all the other presumptious nonsense attributed to me by mind readers.

If we ever learn these things, our debates will become more fruitful and useful, and I think, even bitter rivals would become friends. I admit my style is abrasive at times, but that is not some proof of unrighteousness. Job is for me a model of righteousness and straightforward talk, though I do not claim his standing with God. In any case, an abrasive style is not proof of the motives I've been accused of.

And anyway, "mom" is working with me.

Right mom?


Rad