Indifference/ The Most Effective Response to Irrationality

Phoenix,

I certainly did not feel you were comparing the religiously fanataical (or anyone else for that matter) to a kindergarten class. Actually, I liked your analogy.

Setanta- No, I am comparing one group of people who come from a totally different conceptual framework from another. OK, let's not discuss kindergartners. Instead, substitute two groups of people who have been socialized in totally different cultures.

I think that you know very well what I mean. I am convinced that you are simply attempting to be as obstreperous as possible!

How do you make liver & leeks? Take a leek and put it in a pot....................I'm sorry, just could not control myself!

Touche!

Liver and leeks are both high in iron, so there, you girl . . .

Time Out
Time Out for a Herbed Calf Liver w/ Carmelized Leeks Recipe.

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup fine plain bread crumbs
2 tsp. Johnny Ciao's BarBQ Blues (or 1 tsp. paprika and 1 tsp. chile powder)
1 pound calf liver
4 Tbsp. COLAVITA EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL
1 Tbsp. butter
2 leeks, chopped
1/2 cup vegetable stock or broth
1 Tbsp. sherry vinegar
1 Tbsp. light brown sugar

Preparation:

Cobine flour, bread crumbs and Johnny Ciao's BarBQ Blues in a shallow bowl. Coat each piece of liver with flour mixture. Heat 3 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add liver and cook until browned on both sides, turning. Remove from skillet. In another skillet, heat butter and remaining tablespoon olive oil over medium heat until butter melts. Add leeks and vegetable stock or broth. Cook, covered, 10 minutes or until leeks soften. Uncover and boil until liquid is reduced by half. Reduce heat, add vinegar and brown sugar and stir until carmelized, about 5 minutes. Add liver to leeks and cook 3 minutes on each side. Transfer to plates and top with leeks and sauce. Makes 4 servings

Intrepid- Actually, I am in an extremely pissy mood today, and I am liable to take it out on anybody who comes near me!

I can only hope (and pray) that your day gets better. :-)

Phoenix


Why don't you drive over to my son's home and help him pack until you are over your snit? In the meantime, make some liver and leeks to fill your tummy.

BBB :wink:

Re: Phoenix


Actually, the advice that I got from my mother was when I was in a mood like this, to scrub a floor, hard! The endorphins flowed, your mood became better, and the floor got clean. Win-win all around!

Re: Indifference


I want to endorse the concept of A2K that Nimh has rather eloquenty given us here. He generally gives us a good example of this in his own posts, which, even when I disagree with his conclusions or point of view, are almost always informative and thought-provoking.. I try to adhere to this standard myself, though I often fail. "Vigorous debate" may well be a good way in which to exercise one's critical faculties, however, it doesn't require invective and expressions of scorn and contempt for others in the dialogue, particularly those involving whole classes of people.

There is lots of sectarian foolishness in religion, and few things seem more odd and incongruous than the rituals and routines of the other person's religion, particularly to the irreligious. However there is something in our human nature that is unfulfilled by the rational and material world about us, and, whether through art or mysticism , meditation, or religion, most people try to grapple with it. Moreover I have repeatedly observed that in circumstances of great stress - when the foundations of an otherwise secure life are shaken - people tune into this aspect of life with renewed focus. I believe that denying this and attempting to replace it with the cant of contemporary "correct thought" is at best an illusion and at worst merely a more pedestrian version of what it purports to scorn and replace.

With this in mind I believe that the all-too-frequend expressions of scorn and contempt for religion and the religious here should be replaced with a degree of restraint. Disagreement over issues - even important ones - does not require sneering and contempt. In any school of thought or belief - even wholly secular ones - there are elements that do merit scorn and contempt. However, it is generally the mark of a wise observer to dfiscriminate between these elements and the rest. The alternative is mere prejudice and intolerance - and that excites only renewed opposition, never persuasion..

Your post inferentially introduces your own bete noir, an alleged secular humanist plot.

You also posit, in an overly verbose manner, the old "there are no atheists in foxholes" canard. I have been under fire, and it did not make me long for the Brothers and Sisters of Charity, the Baltimore Catechism, or any of the mumbo-jumbo which was foisted onto me in my youth. It did not convince me that there were a diety and that if i wished really, really hard, he would save my sorry @ss. It did convince me of the efficacy of steel pot helmets and flak jackets. I knew quite a few young men, who, from a similar experience, became more sceptical of the claims of the devout, rather than less so.

It seems everyone brings their pet thesis to this discussion, no?

I'm skeptical about that. :wink:

I made no reference - or even inference - to a "plot" of any kind. You are picking for nits. Further, I wasn't merely referring to the stress of combat. I don't know what was your experience "under fire" , but the reference to a canard does not ring true, at least in my experience. Even if you rose above the norms I have seen, I don't believe that confounds my basic proposition.

I guess I am a bit verbose. However I found it odd that you - of all here - could notice.

ninh and georgeob1,

Both good posts and food for thought.

Ahem ... ... quite right.

Thank you..

Re: Phoenix

True...! I once cleaned my balcony floor like that ... I still remember ... actually kept up a (tense) conversation and in the meantime just kept on scrubbing ... kept on scrubbing ... until the whole balcony was clean again.

We didnt resolve our conversation that day ... but it did a hell of a job on restraining my reactions ... plus, at least A. was glad that the balcony was clean again (it had been - become - an awful place)

Although I realise I'm risking the brownie points I just earnt with my earlier post (humble thanks to georgeob1 for his praise, as I myself tend to think that I fail to keep to the standard he sets) - there was another post I wrote this afternoon, that wouldnt post, because right then, the site went offline ...

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Boom said, basically (dont feel like looking it up): if someone wants a "pray for our troops" thread, why not just leave 'em at it? Referring to Steve's "fight fire with fire" post, she asked, what is the "fire" in such a thing that so acutely needs immediate firing back on? In response,


This is irrelevant. Momma Angel offending, in your view, in various threads, in itself isn't a reason to fire back into any thread of hers. Respond to the argument, not the person making it, is what you have been saying; ergo, it is where and when Momma specifically offends that one should react, and not somewhere else.

So the question (still) is, is starting a "lets pray for our troops" thread in itself one of those offending things, an example of "fire" that needs to be fought by fire?


True, but irrelevant; what's it to you? Like me, you don't believe in their scriptural injunctions anyway, so why should it bother you that she offends them?


OK, this appears to be your main argument. That the prayer thread is a front, and that in reality she is abusing A2K as a recruitment tool.

Personally, I dont believe a word of that. I've not once seen Momma encourage people to join her organisation, or approach people about it. If she does so by PM, the receivers can (and surely, would) complain and that would be enough in itself to trigger moderator action, but there's no sign of that happening. If she "uses email", as you suspect/assume, the only "use" in question, considering that she doesn't actually, as far as I know, actively approach members in threads, is that people could spontaneously contact her, if they want to, about something she wrote. That is no different from any of us others who put forward certain views or perspectives. So it's not a question of one of those explicit recruitment / advertisement moves that are forbidden in the TOS.

Instead, then, breaking it down, I understand your gripe to be that Momma Angel is overly active in expressing and propagating her views / beliefs / opinions, in as many threads as she can handle, which you interpret as a recruitment strategism. But it is no different from what many of the Politics buffs do here or have done. Theres been no end to the posters who have expressed, pleaded and defended their personal political agenda here on A2K as much as they liked. It is an open forum, after all, where people can express and push for their political views.

It can be annoying, for sure. We talked of Swolf, yesterday, who would turn any thread into a defence of the victimised Serbs. Cjhsa will never stop starting threads propagating gun rights. BBB will post an unending flow of articles that support / push her leftist critique of the Bush administration. If none of that is considered a devious attempt to abuse the page ranking of A2K for recruiting afficionados, why is this different? (And A2K isnt exactly the heart of the universe either, if that were the purpose she'd have chosen a better venue no?)

True; we are of course also free to express our annoyance at such one-track mind threads, whether cjhsa's on guns or gunga's on evolution. But that brings us back to the initial question above: even if that is true for Momma's threads in general, what exactly is so unbearable about a prayer thread? What would be so unbearable about just letting them to it? And if public prayer is an eyesore to one, like to dlowan, then why give it more oxygen by pushing the thread into an attention-grabbing 30-page monster?

This touches on a more general bafflement of mine. Ever so often, someone in Politics or Debate or Religion will post a thread and say it is addressed to a specific target-group: conservatives, liberals, Christians, midgetthrowers. The thread will then instantly be swamped by posters railing that that's not possible, the forum is free for all, you cant stop us from posting, its allowed! Well, yes, sure it's allowed - we know that - but why would you? That's the part I don't get. What's so terrible about leaving them to it?

In other forums it does work. The Humour forum, for example, will sport some sick jokes. Sure, there's always someone who comes in to express his (or more often, her) indignation, but they are always curtly told to skip it if they dont like it, and then the jokes go on - and there, such "intruders" rarely post more than once or twice. Leave be what is not to your taste - I know you dont have to - it may not say in the TOS that you're obliged to - but why wouldn't you?

That's really the part that's always baffled me.

Horsiepoop--you have been singing that one note tune here for years, and in fact, once started a thread on that very topic.





And i referred to that as the old "there are no atheists in foxholes" canard. It does not matter that the venue for one's circumstances of great stress are transferred from a military to a civil setting--i deny your basic proposition.



I was simply referring to your feeble attempt to camouflage your two canards--the "secular humanist plot" canard and the "no atheists in foxholes" canard. You offer anectdotal evidence only, which is why i responded in like kind. Your message is transparent . . . so, to repeat myself, it seems everyone brings their pet thesis to this discussion, no?

And I'd think that the one point that my post above should successfully get across is that when it comes to verbosity, nobody can beat me. I'm the King (of it).

nimh- Thank you. That was a wonderfully insightful post.