Gurdur

Reaaaally, Galiel, you are making things so unnecesarily complicated.

Here's the facts:
You were given an invitation to a discussion.

1) Instead of simply accepting (or declining) said invitation, you had to go off on an irrelevant rant about the inviter's supposed obscurantism, and you just had to praise yourself in comparison for your own supposed plain-speaking integrity.

*yawn*
2) You then attack said inviter some more, and myself, with coded attacks, all the while while claiming your superiority;

3) then you start whining when I pick you up on this

Wouldn't it all have been so much more effective, non-time-wasting, and rational to have simply accepted or declined ?
An orotund, florid, baroque statement of yours; I guess sermonizing is a hard habit to break.

I shall humbly try in future not to sully you with invitations; obviously my inferior status is too much of an impediment to our social discourse.
I bow humbly again, and retreat, kowtowing.

galiel

Devilnaut, do you believe that ideas stand on their own, or that they should be evaluated primarily based upon the popularity of the person presenting them? Do you approve of the trend in society to turn everything into a contest of personal insults and to focus on personalities to the exclusion of ideas?

Other than piling on yet another ad hom (by telling us that you know my intention is not what I state it is, rather than responding to the substance of my posts) what in your post actually contributes to defusing the flame? Ironically, you are determined to score a point or two by casting aspersions on my sincerity.

I have no desire to engage in any of this. I didn't even respond to Joejoejoe's initial post. Not a word. When he and Gurdur persisted in their invitations, I posted my honest, sincere reaction to the jargon-laden warning that qualified joejoejoe's invitation. I was explaining sincerely why I had not yet responded to their invitation. Honestly, can you say that all the responses to the actual content of my post would have been the same if I was not the poster? Do you think that reinforces your point, or does it point to a problem in public discourse?

There is a trend, most prominently coming from academia, to focus on everyone feeling good and on style vs. substance. It is supposed to be politically incorrect to make anyone uncomfortable--unless one is responding to a perceived offender, in which case all the gloves are off, and people rationalize venting their repressed aggression by pretending to promote tolerance and nonjudgement. Personally, I oppose this trend. I believe that ideas, all ideas, should be heard, and that they should live or die in the free marketplace of ideas, where they can be evaluated seperately from whoever happens to propose them.

IN this particular case, there was a choice of possible responses. One of many options would have been to simply explain the sentence I had commented on and, if such were the case, to reassure that there was no intention to be exclusionary or obscurantist.

Another option was to simply say, "relax, galiel, you misinterpreted the intent. It was probably not a great way of extending an invitation."

In either case, I would have immediately apologized for misunderstanding the post. Such things happen. If you claim to know my intent, you must have followed my 1600+ posts on this board. Note how many times I apologize for a mistake. Compare and contrast to the number of times the most vocal critics admit error. Draw rational conclusions. Do not fall into the logically fallacious trap of assuming that if people are piling on someone that the target must be at fault.

Instead of choosing to find a way to address this issue without blaming me, instead of finding a constructive way to move discussion forward, there was a flurry of ad hom attacks on my sincerity, assuming all sorts of nefarious motives on my part that do not exist (quite ironic, since the main offense I am accused of making is reading into a post something that was not there), and, finally, your post telling me about how I will be ignored by more and more people if I don't change to fit your model of discourse.

Is it really so difficult to understand why I feel the need to defend myself? I have not asked to be liked. I have never tried to prevent someone from refuting an assertion of mine. I have never claimed dogmatically to possess the truth. I have made one simple, consistent request, and I have made it not only or even primarily in reference to my own posts, but mostly in reference to a general tendency in this community: respond to the message, not the messenger.

WIth due respect, by chosing to focus on the style, not content, of my post, and by joining the chorus of people who fail to respond to ideas but instead get caught up in emotional mob behavior, you are contributing to a problem I sincerely believe you are trying to alleviate.

galiel

Wouldn't it all have been so much more effective, non-time-wasting, and rational to have simply either explained the meaning of the jargon, to have stated that no exclusionary intent was intended, or to have ignored my comment altogether?

Devilnaut

Well just chalk my post up to one of your "negative trends in society of doing such and such" or "dark and irrational subcultures that permeate this board" or whatever, if it helps you to avoid dealing with the plain meaning of my words.

Basically Galiel, for all the advice you are giving out on the "proper" way to deal with others (read: the proper way to deal with galiel), you could benefit from realizing that there are plenty of civilized and substance-filled discussions going on all over this IIDB right at this moment. I guess the reason they don't degenerate like this is because of some ill-conceived bias toward you? Please.

LOL right. Because me, a 21 year old student who likes to debate on an internet DB in his spare time, represents a "trend ..coming from acedemia". Uh huh.

I guess Gurdur should've really thought twice and tried actually dealing with the substance of this post by you:



Well said. That makes 9000 of us.


Anyway I won't post in this thread anymore so feel free to return to the substance of it at any point you wish, galiel. I mean, I wouldn't want you to get all wrapped up in the "style" of the criticisms of you and fail to acknowledge the "substance" of the thread at hand.

[ December 14, 2002: Message edited by: Devilnaut ]</p>

Ronin

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."

Submit directly into galiel's patented martyr maker-2002(tm)

dangin

This thread also needs to get on track soon or it will be closed. In the last page and a half I have not read much of anything that is on topic.

Radorth

Heh.

Rad

Radorth

Ah indeed, and it seems 90% the Framers gasped at the idea of a country without the religion of Christ, particularly the one in the Protestant worldview. However we note they were able to distinguish the extraordinary gaps between practicing Christians and charlatans, peaceful religions and violent ones, the words of Christ and the interpretations of men- but such a world-view depends upon more painful thought than typically goes on here.

One can only marvel at intelligence and discernment of the Framers as they condemn religion in one breath, and exalt the teachings of Christ in the next. Sadly, you don't see that here, except for the odd, patronizing bone thrown Jesus' way.

Rad

Yellum Notnef

Here we go again.

Don`t you ever sleep Radorth? It`s only been a few hours since your thread got shut down due to your inability to produce any proof for your claims and here you are starting up again in another thread and finding more things to "marvel" and be "amazed" at.

You got moxie my friend,but it`s just going to get you into trouble again.

Radorth

The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them.(Jefferson, Writings, Vol XIV, P149)