I Try My Very Best to Focus on What's Important and to Be Fair and Balanced With the Arguments.
If there is one thing about me you should know it's this: my aim is to be fair and balanced with my intellectual opponents. Now I know such an aim is probably impossible, but I aim at this anyway. If someone can show where I mischaracterized his or her arguments I'm the first person who wants to know.
What grates on me to no end is people who don't give a damn to do likewise with my arguments. These people, on both sides of the fence, get little more than my distain. I have been known to berate them, ridicule and taunt them. I probably shouldn't do this, but sometimes I cannot resist. That's just who I am. That's what I sometimes do with people who are intellectually dishonest with what I say.
I am first and foremost a freethinker. That's who I am. I left the cookie-cutter mentality of defending the party line when I left the church. Whether you are a skeptic or a Christian if your arguments are lame I will probably point them out. Why? Because I am interested in the truth. If you don't like this then I cannot help you. If I am wrong show me. Unlike many people who debate these issues I am willing to listen. I really am. But you must be respectful; you must not purposely (or ignorantly) mischaracterize my arguments; you must try to be objective with the evidence; and you must show yourself to be willing to think through the issues rather than quoting from proof-texts.
Recently I have been defending the belief that there was an apocalyptic doomsday prophet in the first century named Jesus who was the basis for the Christian cult itself. I could be wrong. If I'm wrong show me. I'm interested in every issue but I can only focus on the important ones. Some of the vitriol coming from the skeptical crowd reminds me of how Christians have divided into separate denominations over and over about mere trifles. I guess we're all just humans after all. We want everyone to agree with us. If someone is out of line we want him to get in line. If that person doesn't do this we tend to write him off as being ignorant, because we tend to think it's because of ignorance he disagrees. This saddens me to no end. I have no solutions to this type of fundamentalist thinking, but it is fundamentalist thinking! It's probably just part of the human condition. We want people to think exactly like us, even on unimportant trifles. And if they don't we write them off, even if we agree with them 90% of the time. Is that stupid or what? There I go myself. *slap* Why can't we at least be smart enough to choose our battles wisely and focus on the majors rather than on the minors? Knowing the difference between them is a mark of an educated person, although not even that seems to be enough.
What grates on me to no end is people who don't give a damn to do likewise with my arguments. These people, on both sides of the fence, get little more than my distain. I have been known to berate them, ridicule and taunt them. I probably shouldn't do this, but sometimes I cannot resist. That's just who I am. That's what I sometimes do with people who are intellectually dishonest with what I say.
I am first and foremost a freethinker. That's who I am. I left the cookie-cutter mentality of defending the party line when I left the church. Whether you are a skeptic or a Christian if your arguments are lame I will probably point them out. Why? Because I am interested in the truth. If you don't like this then I cannot help you. If I am wrong show me. Unlike many people who debate these issues I am willing to listen. I really am. But you must be respectful; you must not purposely (or ignorantly) mischaracterize my arguments; you must try to be objective with the evidence; and you must show yourself to be willing to think through the issues rather than quoting from proof-texts.
Recently I have been defending the belief that there was an apocalyptic doomsday prophet in the first century named Jesus who was the basis for the Christian cult itself. I could be wrong. If I'm wrong show me. I'm interested in every issue but I can only focus on the important ones. Some of the vitriol coming from the skeptical crowd reminds me of how Christians have divided into separate denominations over and over about mere trifles. I guess we're all just humans after all. We want everyone to agree with us. If someone is out of line we want him to get in line. If that person doesn't do this we tend to write him off as being ignorant, because we tend to think it's because of ignorance he disagrees. This saddens me to no end. I have no solutions to this type of fundamentalist thinking, but it is fundamentalist thinking! It's probably just part of the human condition. We want people to think exactly like us, even on unimportant trifles. And if they don't we write them off, even if we agree with them 90% of the time. Is that stupid or what? There I go myself. *slap* Why can't we at least be smart enough to choose our battles wisely and focus on the majors rather than on the minors? Knowing the difference between them is a mark of an educated person, although not even that seems to be enough.