Discussion or Debate? How to Tell the Difference

Yes, this thread is avery unsubtle attack on Frank. And I strongly suspect that it is also about me.

Phoenix is aping the complaints that agnostics are allowed to use the religion forum at all. See the other threads where Christians complain about this.

Phoenix is also angry at me for pointing out her ad hominems in another thread.

And Phoenix's solution is to start new threads that purport to be general while just about everyone can see that she's singling out members to discuss.

About as untoward as I've seen Phoenix get. Not as untoward as I get.

Edited to be less low.

LOL - this one did go some odd places: "Christian ideas - any answers welcome!" and turned into a bunfight - but it WAS about christian ideas - and peppery persons - the new thread, "CHRISTIAN IDEAS REVISITED" - seems to me to be working fine. A couple of folk did make a visit to comment that they don't have much time for christianity - but I fail to see that this was a problem in this thread.

This one " How many Buddhists are there here?" seems fine -except for a little silliness (big blush) which the thread originator seems to have taken in stride. Again I a mdrawing a blank.

Looking forward to hearing what you are concerned about in these threads, Phoenix.

Actually Craven, I wasn't thinking about you, or anyone else in particular at all at all when I was writing this thread. I was really thinking in general, about how the election is heating up, how there are many religious issues involved, and how we have recently added a number of members who are more religiously oriented than many of us.

What I was attempting to do, was to point out that there are ways to disagree, and have productive discussions without becoming nastily aggressive, abrasive or overly confrontive.

I did indicate that I felt that there WERE certain discussions where people were sharing the tenets of their faiths, and that I felt that becoming confrontational in that kind of thread served no useful purpose. I never said that non-believers should not join these discussions.......the threads are open to all.

Is that what you consider "low"?

Re: Discussion or Debate? How to Tell the Difference



???????????? This appears to suggest otherwise, Phoenix.

Phoenix, it's hard to take that in the way you are suggesting.

When you say "I become very angry when a member breaks into a thread, and aggressively challenges the member's beliefs" who are you expressing anger about?

I can appreciate that there certainly are dicussions in which positive confirmation is preferred to dissent. I'll open the debate room this weekend and you illustrate why this is needed. A place where people can decide how their conversation will progress.

But do you see why I don't think this thread in which anger at unspecified persons is expressed is one of them?

It's hard to edit oneself of all anger all the time; even the nice honeyed folk have passive aggressive driftings. Clear antagonistic counterpoints are stimulating if they aren't adhoms. It is true that people come to a2k from extremely varied backgrounds and many are not used to the levels of well defended disagreements with elaborate tangents that can happen here. I wasn't, but I love it and am learning a lot. (I'm not against tangents, I learn from them too.) I think people get used to and start to thrive on discussion, including some that is fairly confrontational.

Sometimes I get annoyed by some personal verbal fistfights that spasm in an otherwise progressing thread, but not enough to complain about it. I'd complain on the thread if it got too much.

LOL! "Spasm" is a great word. You can always scroll past 'em...usually, unless the spasms are full of ideas, not insults, they are of interest only to the combatants - and they are of GREAT interest to one if one is a spasmer!

I agree, Osso, it can be good for someone to comment re the fights if they get really nasty, and for others to post in a non-fighty way, since this encourages new folk not to be worried by them - if they are...

Mind you, some of the great gladiatorial contests here have been places where I learned more than I would have any other way.

I agree, Dlowan. Verbal tennis championships, but sometimes more complex than singles or doubles matches...
a virtual thicket of interesting participation.

Heehee - I love participating in them, sometimes - but I lack the killer edge, generally...and prolly the brains and erudition...phew!

Well, does anyone here want to be my valentine?

<sticks finger down throat and pukes>

My funny valentine
Sweet comic valentine
You make me smile with my heart
Your looks are laughable
Unphotographable
Yet you're my favourite work of art

Is your figure less than greek
Is your mouth a little weak
When you open it to speak
Are you smart?

But don't change a hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little valentine stay
Each day is valentine's day

Is your figure less than greek
Is your mouth a little weak
When you open it to speak
Are you smart?

But don't you change one hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little valentine stay
Each day is valentine's day.


sure it is....goodnight from Florida.

Well, i weighed in more or less agreeing with Phoenix, to the extent that if those who share a belief are discussing the tenets of their faith, i rather feel that i don't belong in that discussion. But i also said that is someone is trying to fob off a religious screed, then i will ridicule them--by which i mean usually to make jokes at the expense of their crackpot theory, and sometimes call them on their self-righteousness. But i'm beginning to wonder now. I am reading the threads Phoenix has linked, and in the first one, Bib's "What Religious Books Do You Read?", i see nothing until you get to the end. So, i too begin to wonder if this is a thread about Frank. In that first linked thread, although Frank is his usual charmless, boorish self in disagreeing with "Kid," it is hardly the worst of Frank, and, basically, he is simply disagreeing with that poster's ideas--i didn't see any ad hominems. He has used, i have used, many here have used ad hominems when the heat gets turned up, and, by and large, i don't see that anything he wrote was offensive, except perhaps for the tone--and that's something people simply have to learn to live with in life. All of us can be, and likely have been boorish in these fora, so i see no reason to put that thread in a list of threads in which any sort of line has been crossed. I intend to look at all of the others, and i intend to read them, as i did that one. That was an example of a thread which i avoided, as having nothing to contribute, and having seen no loopy contentions which merited comment or ridicule. I see nothing wrong in that thread.

Off to read the others.

I can't for life of me see why the second thread is listed--apart from a rather rare discussion of cargo cults (which might have benefitted from a "how-to" discussion about aircraft totem construction), it just seemed that everyone dropped by to pointedly not take seriously a thread which might have been intended to start a brawl--but if it did, it failed. I fail to see how the second thread listed is relevant to this discussion.

Now i'm lost altogether--Phoneix, are these supposed to be examples of threads in which whatever "bad" things you object to didn't happen? Husker's favorite scriptural passages threads doesn't seem to me to have any offensive exchanges in it. A couple of disagreements, and those rather mild.

Now we've got a buddhism thread? This is making no sense to me. There wasn't a breath of controversy in that .

Yeah, now you've lost me altogether. What are those? Threads in which everyone behaved as you would have them behave? I've seen a good deal of "heat and light" in religious threads which made for true hot times in the old town tonight, and those don't come close.

Then we get to the last one. Frank and i have a protacted exchange of nastiness. Of all of the threads which Phoenix listed there, the last is the only one with anything remotely unpleasant going on. All in all, i found the threads listed to have been rather innocuous, and the last thread really doesn't apply, as neither Frank nor i are religious, so that hardly suggests that either the religious or the irreligious got mugged one by the other in that one. I do have to say that, given the examples, one is justified in asking whether or not this all about Frank or Craven. I feel obliged to say that although i agreed with the idea Phoenix had expressed at the start of this thread, i don't see the point of the links provided, and strongly suspect that she and i don't have the same things in mind.

I'll simply state that, absent ugly religious ranting, i will continue to have a policy of not commenting in religious threads which concern themselves with an exchange of ideas on the tenets of any belief. I see nothing worthy of censure in any of the threads offered, and do mightily wonder what the point was supposed to be, now that it appears that it wasn't what i thought it was.

BTW, i've not seen any threads in which the religious suggest that atheists or agnostics ought to be excluded, and rather regret that, inasmuch as i would consider that the black flag had been raised, no quarter would be given, and i could unload both barrels. Too bad, i would have enjoyed that!

LOL! I believe you WILL see that - at least implied - on a thread - wait, lemme see if I can find it...

here it be:

Gets kinda interesting....but I thought you were there, Setanta?

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=559972&highlight=#559972

Ah well, that was a pretty mild example, then. I found the thread amusing, and gave my usual contribution of meaningless frivolities. As for the exchange about PM's, that left me completely mystified, and not a little disinterested, so i eventually wandered off. If that, and the other alluded to which i have also visited, are the worst of the lot, we are difinitely dealing with tempestuous teapots here.

One person's teapot is another's crucible. But - I think we need to have a meta and relaxed view of teapots and crucibles here, otherwise we would be tempest toss'd indeed, and our bark quite lost.

LOL - speaking of metaphors, I canna resist following with this one - one person's bark is another's bite...

Goddess help the Mods....

I'm reminded of a song "I'm a little teapot" LOL

Barque, barque yerself, bunny . . .

Since 1970, i've more or less taken nothing terribly seriously unless someone were shooting at me . . . apart from matters of the heart, there are few things which merit too much seriousness which do not endanger one's life. Certainly nothing here. I only consider this topic to be of any significance because one would enjoy one's experience here if there were not an overabundance of unnecessary unpleasantness--but other than violations of the TOS, i really can have no principled oppostion to what others post.