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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 11/06/2007 : 19:58:33 [Permalink]
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bngbuck said:
| I hope you find time occasionally for sleep. |
Sleep.... an often unfamiliar experience for me. Topic for a different conversation though.
| Whom would they be challenging? Many, I think! Do you mean that a well equipped critical thinker cannot possibly raise a response from any of the erudite here? Pardon me, but I see it every day! What am I missing? The implication of your statement is that the only purpose of controversy in the SFN forums is to shoot down the Jeromes of the world! |
Grammar strikes again! A paragraph break setting that last sentence apart on its own may have helped. I blame the late hour of the post! It was meant to convey an actual inquiry, not the rhetorical implication it clearly has, that no one here could be challenged or to only challenge those like jerome. Apologies for the confusion.
Let me see if I can phrase it better. Who would your hypothetical person be challenging? The establishment, so to speak? Or would they equally distribute their challenge to all who engage in the practice of misinformation and/or fallacy?
| Yeah, well I'm becoming surer and surer that the troll-extermination business is an extremely inexact science. |
Yes, there is a subjective element. But be grateful for it, because it allows for each case of suspected trollitis to be individually evaluated.
Oh Dude, come on! Why do you insist on responding? I understand your feeling that winning is not the important thing, it is the only thing, but listen up. There is literally no end possible to this part of this discussion. I see many abstract belief systems taken as "religions" by those that follow the necessary protocol of the system in question. You need to see the word "religion" in a highly specificly defined context. We have both given numerous examples of our particular biases in this regard. It is to no purpose to continue this semantic quibbling endlessly!
I have offered to modify my adamant position (with respect to conversations with you) to this: I see similarities in the general organization of the precepts of the disciplines known as Skepticism and Critical Thinking, to the organization of many of the concept systems collectively known as Religion. Obviously, the precepts and constucts mentioned are starkly different and sometimes directly opposed to each other! You apparently find this emotionally disturbing, offensive and insulting. I can't do anything about that. I am sorry that you do, because anger is a debilitating mind-state. However, I am nonplussed at this point. |
No. Without an agreed upon definition we can't even ask the question you want to answer and debate! We can't even start to discuss the things you claim as similarities unless we are using the same definition, otherwise we will be talking about entirely different things. Imagine the verbose amount of chaos that would surely follow....
Do you wish to engage in a conversation about this beyond the semantics negotiation, or did you just want to trollishly make an inflammatory declaration?
I won't agree to a definition of religion that isn't useful for looking at something and determining if it is, or is not, a religion. The definition must be able to exclude things like my motorcycle club and the set of all motor vehicle operators, which no reasonable person would call religions.
Until we pass this obstacle we can't talk about the similarities you assert.
| Placing the word "dick" in an adjacent sentence to one concerned with "bending to the breaking point" makes it rather painful to answer, but with a little squirming, I'll try! |
At 79 I'm sure you maintain enough flaccidity to remain free from injury. Just don't eat the blue pill!
| I flatly refuse to abandon my right to use the word "Religion" in a broader context than you care to use the word. If you wish to perceive that as a "capture" in your pursuit scenario, you are indeed welcome to do so. Bulldog or not, you're going to have to let go of this one! |
I can't agree to a definition of religion that excludes nothing from being named a religion. Why bother defining a word at all if it means anything you want it to mean at the moment you decide to use it? MARKLAR!
| The intricate confusion of your offering endless word authority definitions of your own special dogmatic terms, and then refusing to accept my choice of definition, |
If I use your selected definition (#7 that you selected previously from the unabridged M-W), then I have to ask you to explain how skepticism includes belief in something without evidence (faith). (which I did, but you declined to respond)
If I use your other definition, then any human activity is a religion. We all use tioletpaper to wipe our asses after defecating, therefore we are all members of the ass-wipe religion!
| I WILL use the the language as I have successfully for more years than you have been alive, and I am quite confident that my readers will continue to understand me well, even when I refer to Skepticism as similar to many Religions. Now stamp your foot and have a tantrum if you must, but I know the end of reason when I see it! If you can persuade more readers with your book than I can with mine, let's continue this contest into the real marketplace! |
Easy buckaroo! I don't want your next infarct on my conscience. And please, you are stressing my irony gland... it can only absorb so much at once before it bursts painfully.
I'm not trying to get you to change how you use language, just to agree to reasonable terms for debate.
Lets try this from a different angle. How about you pick a specific aspect of critical thinking or skepticism, any one that you'd like, and explain specifically how it is similar to religion? I believe I have a firm grasp on how you are choosing to define "religion", so I will likely comprehend your meaning without being confused. Maybe that will open up a route for us to resolve our semantic differences.
| Is the lack of civility that you have referred to related in some way to Valiant Dancer's (and Dave's) allusion to your absence? I have only been in the forum since August, and I am unaware of this history. |
Related? Well, maybe. I decided to take a bit of time off from reading and posting here. I was feeling like I was  all to often. Combine that with the refusal of some people to recognize the obvious (things like the difference between an opinion and an assertion of fact, "I think" vs "I know"), the use of informal fallacy as a debate tactic by alleged skeptics, and there was a prolonged series of ugly threads each one a bit more intense than the previous. Click the word "dumbass" in my sig for a fun example of a semantics argument gone bad.
| If you like single-malt, you should try Yoichi. |
Ok, I'll look that one up the next time I'm near the proper merchant. Thanks.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/06/2007 : 20:14:54 [Permalink]
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bngbuck said:
| Anyway, Dude, I would like to engage you sometime with respect to the well-known Platonic trilogy to which you lightly alluded. I have had a lot of fun in those halls of the mountain king! |
Sure. I get some kind of handicap though, right?
Probably best to give that conversation it's own thread also.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 11/06/2007 : 21:08:45 [Permalink]
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Dude.....
Beautiful! You have not only grown, exponentially!, you have blossomed! During this lesson in patronization, I will attempt to match your new mood of quiet reason and lack of histrionics!
First, having read Kil's commentary and my reply, you fully comprehend that you have possible allies in High Places, if you should choose to accept them; and that all of this may be just a fiendishly clever trap, or net, of some sort or another that it isn't worth your time to try and figure out?
OK, I am pleased that you have grasped What Is Going On!
Next, should these two Magnificent Mavericks, waste their talents on nicking one another, or should we proceed, individually, to the new battlefield of the day and direct our energies towards MAD in Marf's thread and hope for the radioactive fallout to affect her too? Kind of a complicated suicide bombing? Besides, there is some pretty formidable firepower over there already, however it may align!
I pose it as a legitimate question well within D&K's Rules of the Appian Way, and I would like your response before continuing. Personally, I would like to move over next door and ply our respective trades, but you have more vested interest here than I do, what with your patrons and all, and I respect that! So speak up soon, and I probably will agree with you!
Bill (I don't do that for just anybody)
Whoever the hell is Moderating, I am kidding, I am KIDDing!
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/06/2007 : 22:31:06 [Permalink]
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bngbuck said:
| but you have more vested interest here than I do, what with your patrons and all, |
Patrons? I don't think you fully grasp the situation.
There is recent evidence (the published in peer reviewed journals kind) that people are generally not capable of objective criticism and questioning of their preconceived political positions. This forum, last year, could have served as a case study. The bone of contention, as it were, that started off the recent enforcement of civility here finds its roots in an argument from some time back where practitioners of one political belief set refused to apply critical thinking to their claims. When pressed they became agitated and combative, defending those claims with a progressively more outrageous series of fallacious arguments that eventually devolved into base name calling. Sort of a downward spiral since then, across many different topics and threads, ending in the current climate of "be nice or else". (I have no argument with the enforcement of civility, just the lack of honest self assessment by so-called skeptics who demand the same of others)
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 11/07/2007 : 00:41:24 [Permalink]
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Dude.....
I truly had no idea of the true nature of your situation, having only been here a few months and, naturally, being preoccupied with my own priorities. I speak here in utter honesty, no sarcasm or hidden agendas!
I purposely came here to learn all I could from a group I had observed for a short time, for raw data to process into a book that I truly am writing! I chose the UFO/UAP topic after due consideration of various controversial subjects to be treated in my writing, one that I felt would stir substantial response! The response I got was not at all what I expected, but it was even more productive and relevant to my theses than what I had expected.
I tried to work it for all it was worth, nor being aware of any of the Internet bullshit that is incidental to "Forum Boards". To make a long story shorter, I liked what I found; I learned, gathered information - some of which is now immortalized in my deathless prose. I learned to appreciate many of the personalities represented by the funny names here. I long ago extracted the bulk of what I was looking for in raw material to translate into saleable transcription. But I found I was having fun and didn't want to leave!
Now I am in a difficult position. Although 100% of my time is my own, I'm not sure if I have the time for the Forum. I really don't know if I have much, if anything, to contribute to those who are here to learn. I am trained in classical clinical psychology, and have advanced degrees to tout, but I have never practiced my degreed profession. Instead, I have been, largely, a successful businessman and investor. Consequently, I now find myself with a lot of time and too many projects competing for every hour.
It sounds to me from what you said above that you are genuinely passionate about politics. I am also, to the extent that I am involved in the local Democratic Party effort here in Red, Red Idaho! Hopeless! What do you feel you can do to actually do to affect the politics of the state you live in? (I lived in Ocala in 2001-2002)
Is there any practical political effort that can come from this SFN site or any Internet interactive idea exchange medium? Do you know of any members actively involved in Politics with ideas for any form of active participation?
Or is our (ivory tower dwellers) role inescapably one of mere observation and comment? I have money, time, and intelligence! What can I do to help correct the deplorable condition that this country has descended into? Have you ideas? Anyone? |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/07/2007 : 02:16:42 [Permalink]
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bngbuck said:
| Or is our (ivory tower dwellers) role inescapably one of mere observation and comment? I have money, time, and intelligence! What can I do to help correct the deplorable condition that this country has descended into? Have you ideas? Anyone? |
To keep this topic free from any more excessive drift... I started a thread here:
http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9015
... to discuss politics.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Suicide Bombing - AAI
